"God's Country: A Short History" by Ralph Barton

The New Yorker panned this book, but it sounded so interesting that I couldn't resist finding a copy: "God's Country: A Short History" by Ralph Barton, published in 1929. As you can see by the tag list for this post, it contains elements of pretty much everything I talk about in this blog.

Barton was a popular '20s cartoonist and caricaturist, and he seemed to be trying to establish himself as a writer before his manic-depression prompted his suicide in 1931. I'm not surprised that he killed himself two years after writing this book. "God's Country" is a bitter thing indeed.

It's a satirical, absurd history of the United States, beginning with Christopher Columbus and ending with a bizarre dystopia in which women have taken over the government, radio advertisers have inadvertently caused widespread looting and domestic terror, and poison gas has destroyed everybody except for eight criminals who -- following the intentions of the pilgrims from the beginning of the book -- set out to wreck everything all over again.

Oooo, it's nasty. Barton has equal loathing for Democrats and Republicans (known in the book as "Uniboodlists" and "Multiboodlists" for reasons I didn't understand), Presidents ("Misters"), businessmen ("Interests"), newspapers (who dictate "Public Opinion"), and the everyday citizens who allow the aforementioned to get away with everything they do, over and over again, throughout the entire history of democracy.

Is there anybody Barton doesn't hate? He appears to have sympathy for Native Americans, he finds few unpleasant things to say about Abraham Lincoln, and he goes out of his way to avoid lampooning African Americans, but for the most part "God's Country" is a relentless, snarky skewering of EVERYBODY. And that means you too, reader. And me.

You can imagine how tedious such a book can be. It's especially tedious to somebody (like me) who doesn't know the finer points of every President -- errr, Mister -- in American history. Barton goes through them all, giving them the names of monarchs ("St. Abraham," "Franklin the Debonaire") to highlight one going theme throughout the book: the American obsession with electing "jus' plain folk" who are -- in actual fact -- part of the social elite who have been carefully groomed to appear otherwise.

This obsession is one element of the book that still holds true today (see Palin, Sarah). Another element is the reliance on FEAR to manipulate public opinion, as formented by business requirements and amplified by the newspapers. We sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that the disgusting collusion of politics, business, and media is a relatively new phenomenon. "God's Country" will tell you different.

After 250 pages of spot-on satire, Barton comes to women's suffrage and temperance activism. I can only assume that he really, really didn't like women, as the book tips from "cutting satire" to "cruel stereotype" in the space of a few pages, detailing a world where women with "blacksnake whips" run around emasculating everybody and turning them into "ex-males." They conceive arbitrary rules and devise irrational schemes to enforce them, finally bringing about the downfall of the already-tottering country. It's ludicrous and leaves a bad impression, and is probably one of the reasons The New Yorker reviewer panned it.

But there are great moments, especially near the end when everything goes completely off the rails. The businessmen are discovered to have retreated into a secret society with its own language ("Six huh pcent a fi million dollas is thutty million dollas. Fiscal.") and in a mysterious desert pilgrimage they invent golf. This presentation of Big Business as a totally self-interested, self-contained, and illogical cabal is ominous in light of the subsequent financial collapse.

When the new breed of radio announcers start to amuse themselves by shouting demands like "Desire to see a prize fight!" and "Long to see a movie about Arabs!", the book provides an amazing insight into '20s popular culture. It's like reading a Readers Digest Condensed Version of The New Yorker between 1925 and 1929:

[They were] soon being ordered to deodorize, to smear mud on their faces, to hate New York, to play Mah Jong, to do cross-word puzzles, to ask each other questions, to bathe in violet rays, to develop personalities, to practice numerology, to adore the Russians, the negroes and aviators, to eat Eskimo Pie, to throw bits of paper out the window, to have themselves psychoanalyzed, to engage in Marathon contests, to eat liver and to perform a thousand other like obediences.

When "God's Country" is good, it's very, very good, but most of it is the 1920s brand of screwball, sledgehammer burlesque that leaves me exhausted, alternating with some surprisingly dry historical dissection.

More importantly, however, it is a clear expression of the immense disgust that an intelligent, educated, creative, and mentally-tortured man had for all the things he saw in the world around him. If he'd had a more balanced view of human nature then "God's Country" would be an easier book to read, but it never would have been written in the first place.

Bell Canada Punches Me in the Nose

Remember me saying that "Everything went smoothly with Bell Canada during my move?" Well, not quite everything, it turns out.

Tonight I got a call informing me that I had an outstanding bill of over $200, and I was like, what? I hadn't gotten any bills in the mail, and I've even registered for ebills to prevent just such a thing happening. Of course I'm happy to pay my bills, but why wasn't I getting them?

So I went online and logged into my Bell account, which happily informed me that I owed no money. But then I noticed that it was displaying my old address, and that the last bill was from June...so obviously my account information had CHANGED.

My next step was to call Bell's notoriously awful outsourced technical support. First he wanted to verify my identity by using the new customer ID and account number THAT I HAD NEVER BEEN SENT. After we got around that little problem, we discovered that the final number in my postal code was incorrect. In his words: "You gave us the wrong postal code, which is why you haven't gotten your paper bills." My response: "I gave you the RIGHT postal code, and you entered it incorrectly."

I asked him how I could access my new account online, and he said "I'm not an expert on that, you'll need to email our support team or have an online chat with them. There is nobody you can talk to on the phone."

Then he tried to sell me Bell's cable service. I told him he was about to lose a customer entirely.

Armed with my new account number and customer ID I was ready to pay the bill online, but first I wanted to see what exactly I was paying for. So I registered for a new account at Bell's website...but it wouldn't let me complete the form because "Somebody is already using that email address."

OF COURSE! THAT'S ME! THAT'S MY OLD ACCOUNT! IS IT UNHEARD OF FOR PEOPLE TO CHANGE RESIDENCES BUT KEEP THE SAME EMAIL ADDRESS?!?

I logged back into the old account and went through the laborious process of deleting it. Finally I managed to create a new account, and when I tried to hook it up to my billing information so I could see the bill...guess what? It wants to know my "bill date." And guess where that information is?

On the paper bill. Which I never received. Because they screwed up my postal code.

Remembering what the awful tech support guy had said -- that there's no way to get website help without using email or a chat window -- I searched the entire Bell site for contact info regarding account issues. Nope! Nothing.

So I tried chatting about "Billing" instead, and got a very slow (but fortunately human) typist who -- after the fifth identity check of the afternoon -- finally gave me my "bill date."

I entered the information. I clicked through a bunch of confusing windows. I finally clicked on the link that's supposed to show me the bill I have to pay...

..."Since your account is new, it will take at least fifteen minutes for this information to become available. Please check back later."

Fifteen minutes. Long enough for me to say: yes, Bell often sucks for two reasons: outsourced technical support and tangled bureaucracy.

I am still a customer. Barely.

UPDATE:
I finally get into my bill and what do I see? THE BILLING ADDRESS IS STILL MY OLD ADDRESS. So buddy was telling me that I wasn't getting my bills because my POSTAL CODE was wrong, but I'm REALLY not getting my bills because THEY HAVEN'T CHANGED MY F*CKING ADDRESS.

What part of "I'm moving" didn't they understand?

Of course I discovered this at 7:04pm, and their support lines close at 7:00pm. Right on the button. They won't answer the phone...no doubt they're too busy sending stuff to my previous address, you know, the one I switched my phone service from.

A Street Person's To-Do List

For a few weeks this summer my workplace has had to deal with a street person's leftovers. This person would sleep overnight in one of our entry ways, then leave behind a bizarre collection of odds-and-ends the next day, including syringes.

Some of his leftovers have been bizarre -- children's toys, a broken stereo, a sleeping bag -- but once I discovered a backpack, and in it a "To-Do" diary with some very interesting notations.



His writing is difficult to decipher. Here's page one:

I NEED DO THE DO
STOP
DO NO HARME
BI BI
LEET GOOD

DO
CALL SHARON
MOM

Page two is labeled "TO DO" and says:

1 DENTOS AP
RENT TO INTENT LETTER
1 2 3

FIND OUT WHAT NEEDS TO BE DON AT
1 TAX
2 WELFARE
GET RENT
PHONE BANK

400 WATS + iPOD
99 HDML DVD
49 5.100
B: DVD
79 200WAT

Page three is one-sided:

START TO SLOW DOWN AND STOP
M L

AT 5:00 I WAS DOWN TOWN AT MARKET IN KIT
$120 PAND FOR RED PUMPKIN
7 DID IN IN THE ROW
8 WALKT HOME

10 TO 2:00
1 AM

Page four is most interesting:

CALL MOM
GOOD DAY TO DAY
TRY 3 OR
$10: OOW AT LARAL STREET

TO DO
GET NUMBER FOR METH
CLINICK WOOD STACK
BUS FAIR
$20 DOLLERS

NIKKEY IS WITH ROS AND ALL I SENS IS NEGATIV MY LAIF IS OFF THE HOOK

And finally, page five:

I CANT US
I CANT SEE YOU MONBER
HEPUT

I suppose this is a glimpse at the functionality of a drug-addicted, partially literate person. He hasn't come around lately.

PS: As much as my workmates hated having to dispose of his garbage, what they objected to most were the syringes. This annoyed me too, but then I realized that they were all prominently displayed...almost laid out deliberately in front of his former possessions.

Suddenly it occurred to me: what is a street person going to do with used syringes? They aren't going to carry "sharpie" boxes around which would advertise to the world that they're injecting drugs. When they want to dispose of a needle, I think their only options are to throw it in a garbage or hide it in something until they're far away.

I don't know about you, but I'd much rather the syringes be immediately visible...I don't want to pick up somebody's old backpack or pull out a garbage bag and get a needle in the hand. I wonder if, by leaving their needles where everybody can see them, these street people are being CONSIDERATE?

What's Going On:

Here's a quick and impromptu recap of the last few weeks!

If you've ever bought a home, you know what I've been doing: planning, coordinating, waiting, worrying, and spending. I've been dealing with official-type people such as mortgage brokers, lawyers, insurance agents, and bankers. I've also been counting my pennies and trying my best to make sure my finances stay in good shape, while still keeping myself happy and amused.

Purchasing this townhouse condo has been an all-consuming process. Every day I email, telephone, and fax the people who need to coordinate their efforts to make this happen. I've suffered through a drastically "stuck" hedge fund which threatened to leave me $18,000 short of the required down payment...fortunately this appears to be resolved today. I have gone from a total fax newbie to a virtual fax repairperson in the space of a month: scanning, dialing, confirming, crossing items off the checklist, moving to the next one...

I'm AWFUL at this stuff. I hate bureaucracy and have managed to avoid it for most of my life. Now I suddenly find myself competent, able to learn the ropes and harass the foot-draggers. These skills alone are worthwhile results of this whole ordeal.

I followed a house inspector as he poked into every nook and cranny of my upcoming home, and I was thrilled to hear that it's in tip-top condition (considering it's exactly as old as I am). Meanwhile, every day I look at the real estate listings, dreading the moment when The Perfect Home becomes available, and I'm happy to say that nothing even CLOSE has appeared. Everything else is too expensive, too far away, or too crappy...often all three.

I've started packing, which is silly because I still have a month to go. People are giving me cardboard boxes. My basement is FULL of boxes, each one waiting to be filled with my life's irreplaceable trivia.

When I told my landlords that I was moving, I initially felt a bit guilty: they've been conscious of my needs and we've always had a pretty good relationship, and ten years is an awful long time. But then -- after chopping down the precious greenery under my living room window -- one of the tenants next door got permission to park his "for sale" junker car on my front lawn. And -- totally by accident -- I discovered that this building has been on the market since the week before I said I was leaving...at least *I* had the decency to tell them we were through!

Meanwhile, in consideration of prospective buyers and tenants, I've been monitoring Zsa Zsa's catty smell, the result of a kidney condition which causes her to pee about eight times a day. Any odour in this apartment instantly spreads through the entire building -- and my unit has always smelled a bit like cat-spray, since before I even moved in -- but I still want to make things as painless for others as possible.

Last weekend I spent five hours with my mother, aunt, and grandmother looking for new living room furniture. I am determined to leave as much of my ramshackle and mismatched furniture behind, and five hours of comparative shopping -- and sitting in about six hundred chairs -- was more than worth it. I'm looking forward to planting some shrubs, and having my own washer/dryer, and not sharing ventilation with anybody except those who I invite. I want a coffee maker. I want my own home.

I am hopeful and happy and busy. This is probably the most significant thing I have ever done. That might seem silly to those of you with spouses and children, but for me it's a big deal...and wonderful!

Our Lame Town Square

When I heard, two years ago, that developers were going to tear up one of downtown's uglier parking lots and turn it into a town square, I was THRILLED. All the objections to the plan were silly ones involving apocalyptic parking shortages and supposed safety issues. The nay-sayers didn't seem to care that uptown Waterloo doesn't have a convenient and communal place for people to just sit down and relax, a place to congregate while shopping, a place to eat your food outdoors.

What I hadn't counted on was the fact that the town square designers were bone-headed morons. They tore up the old parking lot in front of Waterloo Town Square...and then they basically paved it over again, giving us a huge flat concrete area ringed with concrete seats, with a tiny little garden enclosed by -- you guessed it -- more concrete.

It looks vast and featureless and unwelcoming, but the biggest and most obvious problem is that there is no shade. I mean seriously people, what the f*ck were you thinking? Did nobody stand out there and notice that the sun beats mercilessly down on that area between 9am and 5pm? Didn't anybody say "maybe we should position an awning or some trees to block out some of the sun?" Or how about -- lord forbid -- GRASS to break up the heat reflection, or at least a water fountain?

No, the only additional feature they gave us was a metal butt-plug sculpture which -- you guessed it -- has been carefully positioned to provide no shade whatsoever.

This really is a sad bungling of a well-intentioned opportunity. The square appears to be vetted by people who never actually go outside and who have a disconcerting concrete fetish. The only other explanation I can think of -- and this is probably the REAL issue -- is that they built the square specifically for EVENTS, and therefore didn't want to muck it up with pesky "features" and "trees." The fact that those events only occur during eight days of the year must have slipped their collective minds.

So now we have a parking lot in uptown Waterloo that you can't even park on. During the day, six or seven stalwart shoppers sit along the edge, dwarfed by the emptiness. Other people sit on the plastic patio furniture that has been hastily placed in the shadow of the mall -- a shadow that doesn't even touch the square itself. The only people who enjoy the square are the skateboarders, who are managing to slowly remove those metal divots intended to keep them from having fun.

Waterloo Town Square's town square? An abject, stupid failure. A meeting place designed to repel people who might want to meet there. A two-and-a-half million dollar thud.

PS: I hear that the square "isn't finished yet," and that they're asking people for their opinions. My opinion? Rip up half of the carefully-laid concrete and put some grass and trees there, and then add seating in those areas. As for complaints about the skateboarders, well, perhaps you shouldn't have built something which screams "SKATE ON ME!" As it is they're the only people who seem to regularly use the park, so more power to them, they're filling a void. If the void wasn't there -- because people actually felt like sitting in the square -- then the skateboarders would move to another area of unobstructed concrete, because they probably don't want to skate on fingers and feet.

iMovie '09 Stabilizes Me

This "make a movie from scratch" thing is entirely new to me, but every project is a learning experience. I've learned a little bit about composition, and a bit about lighting, and a LOT about how to use iMovie for something it's not meant for.

iMovie is a video editing tool that is part of Apple's iLife, a suite of integrated multi-media products. You get iLife for free when you buy a Macintosh so a lot of people create their home video projects using iMovie. It's a hell of a lot cheaper than Apple's professional offering (Final Cut Pro).

But why should Apple bother to even SELL Final Cut Pro if people are happy to simply use iMovie? Well, Final Cut Pro is marketed to the professional video editor, and iMovie is marketed to hobbyists. And for that reason, before Apple releases a new version of iMovie, they usually go into it with a stick and beat everything useful out of it.

Even so, if you have a little bit of ingenuity (and an awful lot of patience) you can stretch iMovie beyond its limits and create -- say -- all the videos I've been putting online for the last two years.

This week, however, I ran up against something new: shaky video. In the past I have always filmed footage using a tripod, but now that I'm trying something radically different -- which you'll see soon if it works out halfway decent -- I actually had to take my teeny-tiny camera (a Canon PowerShot SD1000) outside and shoot things by hand...on a windy day.

Despite the wind, there's apparently a growing problem with cameras getting smaller and smaller: tiny, light cameras are hard to hold without shaking them. When I got my hard-filmed footage home and looked at it on my computer I absolutely freaked: it wobbled all over the place, rendering all my focus and detail into an incomprehensible stew!

Short of hiring a steadycam operator I had only one recourse: to upgrade to iMovie '09, which -- besides a whole whack of other new features -- allows you to stabilize shaky video. It analyzes your clip, tracks the motion, and then zooms in JUST ENOUGH to crop out the edges while moving in the opposite direction of the shake.

People are raving about this feature, and about iMovie '09 in general. The thing is, you can only buy iMovie '09 as an integrated iLife '09 package, and this costs (in Canada) $100.

That would be fine if I actually USED anything in iLife other than iMovie and iPhoto, or if there were an existing upgrade path from the relatively pathetic iMovie '08 (which is what I've been using for the past year)...but no. As the folks in our local Apple store said, "There's no upgrade path, but the suite is WAY cheaper than anything you'd get from another company."

Plus there is simply no other game in town. All the other video editors for the Mac are either crappy or vapourware.

So I bought iLife '09 yesterday and installed it late last night. It came to life instantly and worked perfectly. And when I instructed it to stabilize one of my shaky clips -- which it does at about half the speed of the clip itself -- it...holy wow, it WORKED! It looked PERFECT!

I've stabilized half the footage I shot yesterday and it has all come out clean: no shake, no weirdness, just a smoothly-flowing image. All my carefully-filmed details are visible again. iMovie '09 -- despite its slightly galling price -- did exactly what it promised to do.

How often can you say that about software these days? And I haven't even looked at all the OTHER features yet.

Apple, I quite often love ya.

You're Going to "Go Galt?" Oh yes PLEASE!

I'm loving the way a bunch of right-wing pundits have been threatening lately to "Go Galt." At first I was worried that they were planning to move to the CITY of Galt -- which is just a few kilometers away -- but when I found out they were getting all Rand-happy I could only laugh with glee.

I read "Atlas Shrugged" while I was in University, sometime around 1992. I can't remember every detail of the book but I DO remember that it tried to build simple archetypes around complex human traits.

In Rand's world you were either a creator or a parasite. The creators were brilliant, inventive capitalists who forged their own way through the business world, sort of like Paul Bunyan with a briefcase. The parasites were dim-witted, simpering socialists who used government intervention in order to latch on to the creators, growing fat off the work of others.

When the creators in "Atlas Shrugged" decided to go on strike -- by disappearing to a secret compound -- they removed all the best minds from society and left the parasites to die.

One thousand libertarians reached the last page and ejaculated. The End.

One of the problems with Rand's outlook is that she equates self-interest with both brilliance and social health, as though the wealthiest capitalists were somehow both intelligent AND unreservedly good-for-all-of-us. She seemed to think that successful businesspeople must automatically be super-intelligent AND have an automatic benefit to society as a whole (and be gosh-darn handsome to boot).

Another of her oversights is the hilarious idea that businesspeople and industry tycoons are both "inventors" and "capable of existing all on their own."

Now, imagine all the corporate CEO's of all the banks decide to withdraw all their money and then start their own society. In Rand's world, these CEO's would suddenly be inventing amazing new gadgets and curing some REALLY cool tobacco, meanwhile magically providing each other with electricity and plumbing and food.

What's amusing about the rightwing bloggers threatening to "Go Galt" is that they actually seem to think that THEY are innovators TOO, and they don't seem to be aware of where their word processors, clothing, and panini bread actually comes from, let alone who carries their clubs at the automatically landscaped golf course.

So it's laughable enough to think that the richest people on earth could actually survive (let alone thrive) in total isolation, but it's downright HYSTERICAL to imagine these armchair pundits doing so.

I can't help wondering what these people will do when they reach Galt's Gulch, particularly until a brilliant investment banker invents the "static electricity motor." Who's going to cut Michelle Malkin's hair? What services can she offer to their little society, and what happens if Ann Coulter proves herself BETTER at offering those services? Who's going to build their church? Will we REALLY get to imagine Instapundit doing his weekly stint purifying sewage, and...hey, doesn't it all sound a bit like communism anyway?

Oh please! PLEASE go to Galt so we'll all realize how much we miss you while you're gone! Search engines will weep when they run out of "Islamofascist" hits, and CNN anchors will have to talk to blank video feeds. Would society fall apart? Would you bring about hell on earth? Perhaps heaven.

UPhold's "Roade" Available Now!

My new CD ("Roade") is available on CD Baby here, if you'd like to listen to some samples and/or buy it for yourself! I'm particularly happy with how this one turned out...it's been a long time coming.

The second half of the CD ("On Your Way Out") is dedicated to Eric Little, who long-term readers of this blog will remember. I still don't know the how's and why's of his death but I certainly miss him. Finally releasing "Roade" brings some measure of closure to me.

This is the first time I've dealt with CD Baby, and my experiences so far have been good. If you plan on using their distribution services yourself, however, keep in mind that they can't market you digitally without a UPC. If you don't want to spend a ton of money on your own code you can ask CD Baby to buy one for you...but it costs $40. Weigh the pros and cons for yourself, and consider the future of the independent CD-R.

As for the digital distribution aspect, I see that they're gradually sending "Roade" out to various companies, but it apparently can take up to three months for the product to be fully registered. So Napster, Lala, and Amazon, here I come!

PS: If you do plan on ordering it, do yourself a favour and take advantage of the $5.00 sale...it's a great way to hear new (and desperate) artists cheap!

Logic Pro 8

There was a practical reason why I bought this new computer. It wasn't just to play "Doom 3" and "The Sims 2," or to acquire a status symbol, or to fulfill whatever bizarre ideas I had about my iPod a few months ago.

I bought this computer so I could expand my music-making capabilities, which were tightly constrained on the old eMac. Tiny screen, slow processor, 60GB hard drive, ancient operating system, USB 1.0...there just wasn't enough I could DO with it anymore, without squinting and watching the poor thing shudder and cry.

So I bought my gorgeous iMac, which suffers none of those old limitations except for one thing: my copy of Logic Audio 6 wouldn't work on it. Damn. At least there was "Doom 3."

But today, with my finances beginning to stabilize, I took my next and second-biggest step: I bought Logic Pro 8.

I sort of wonder how much I needed the Pro version, over the comparatively cheaper "Express." I have no intention of using the six DVDs of loops and "Jam Packs," which I consider to be tools for cheaters. I'll never use MainStage because I never play live, and as far as I know the effects plug-ins and soft synths are pretty much the same in both the Express and Pro versions.

Pro DOES come with a CD burning tool which looks useful, however, and if I ever want to record in surround sound or score a movie...well, I can now.

Most impressive about the Pro package is the enormous, sturdy box, which all but affirms your suspicion that You Are In Fact A Worthwhile Person. The manual for the effects alone is heavy enough to topple my cat, and the actual User Guide is over 1000 pages long. Fortunately, having launched the program and loaded in a few old projects, it looks like the interface is much the same as version 6, only beautifully integrated in a way that requires a nice big screen. No more F9 to seek and grab the six windows that are open in the background.

I'm very excited about the busses and the sampler. I can't wait to really use it...

...but the old eMac with Logic 6 has got a few more months to go, since I don't actually have a MIDI interface for this computer, and I may need to re-purchase my old plug-ins ("iDrum," "Pluggo," and "Mode") to get my old projects migrated over. More RAM would be nice, as well as a breakout box...and a hardware drum machine...and one of those fiddly USB control boxes with lots of knobs and sliders.

Anyway, hurrah!

Alas, Beckzy, We Hardly Knew Ye

I decided to drive to work this morning so I could pick up cat supplies on the way home. At the corner of Erb and Caroline, however, Beckzy stalled...and just wouldn't start again.

That intersection is a bit of a zoo during rush-hour and people were honking and waving at me, so I put on the hazard lights, got out of the car, and locked the door. For the first time I was acutely aware of not having a cel phone. I was alarmed to see tiny wisps of smoke coming out from under Beckzy's hood.

Just as I'd decided to walk to the nearby police station, a sweet guy named Ian pulled over and offered to call a tow truck for me. While we were debating who to call, Beckzy made up our minds by releasing an enormous plume of smoke, so Ian called 911 and asked for a fire truck; we stood and watched as Beckzy became obscured by a black, evil-smelling cloud, and then we backed up another twenty feet when the undercarriage began to burn.

So there I was, at nine in the morning, watching my beloved car catch fire with a sweet stranger who was kind enough to stick around. Policemen arrived and they blocked off the road. Firemen came with gas masks and smashed the hood open, spraying water everywhere. It was the most surreal moment of my life.

Once the fire was out I asked the fireman why it happened. "It just happened," he said, and gestured at the melted mess that was once the front of my car. Then he laughed. "You'll never know now!" The policemen were delighted because they'd never seen a burning car before. Ian remarked quietly that the policewomen were very pretty.

I felt a strange giddiness. While waiting for the tow truck we stood around and talked about mundane things, one of the policewomen occasionally running off to chase people who were trying to run the barricade. I learned that Wednesdays are quiet days for crime until 10am, when house thieves traditionally break into homes vacated by the 9-5 crowd. I learned that the police station is too small and that they send their criminals to the holding tanks in Kitchener. I became intimately familiar with the smell of burning toxic chemicals.

Then the old people started to arrive. Nothing makes an old man happier than a melted car. "It just burned up!" they'd say, peering through the windows and poking around underneath. "You won't be driving this one again!" Women brought their children to look. "What a car!" they'd say, and the children would stare, terrified.

The Practical Side of Things

A company came and towed my car to the pound for $269. Since they'd charge an extra $25 for each day the bill was unpaid, my boss was sweet enough to drive me to Breslau and settle the account. They told me to go to a scrap dealer and sign the car over to them, and my boss drove me there too. It was an amazingly cramped and greasy building full of "Beware of Dog" signs, where you have to sign in and wear workboots if you want to go past the counter. Lots of stubble in that place. They had their names embroidered on their overalls. They gave me $150.

I had declined the non-liability portions of my car insurance so I was unable to get any other money for Beckzy's burned-out carcass.

What I Think About the Situation

Thank goodness this didn't happen on a highway during a snowstorm with me in drag. And thank goodness for the kindness of strangers, the cheerful professionalism of the police and firemen, and the guy who ran over with a tiny extinguisher and volunteered to fight the fire singlehandedly. Thank goodness for the instinct that makes humans huddle up when something freaky happens. Thanks most of all to Ian, who calmly directed the situation until the police showed up, and then stood around to shoot the shit, and THEN called my work to tell them I'd be late.

I'm sad because I bought the car and then barely drove it...but the point IS that I didn't drive it very much. I bought it to take me to family functions and drag shows -- which rarely happen -- and to take me to bars, which I decided never to do. I also wanted to drive to remote places and perhaps go camping, but I was never totally confident that Beckzy could take me that far (with reason, it turns out).

I liked knowing that Beckzy was there in case of an emergency, and it was also nice to know that she could take me to places I otherwise couldn't go.

One group of people are now telling me to lease or buy a new-ish car...then I could feel confident driving it, and it would be more comfortable, and I wouldn't worry about people making fun of it or denigrating it. Another group are encouraging me to check out a car share instead...that way I could still get to out-of-town events when necessary...in an emergency I could always take a cab.

In a way, Beckzy's sudden end is a relief because I no longer have to worry about her; I lost enough money to make me sad, but I am no longer faced with thoughts of euthanasia; she can't be repaired, she's already scrap, she's gone. I will no longer sit here on weekends thinking "I should go out and USE the car but I just don't FEEL like it."

I like to think that Beckzy decided to go out with a bang. Instead of whimpering and stalling and dragging along, she burst into flame and created a fiery spectacle. It's how she wanted to die.

The Pee Scream

After three days of force-feeding laxatives to my cat, I am delighted to come home and see both pee AND poop in her litterbox. "Wonderful!" I say to myself, "Zsa Zsa's feeling better!"

Then, at 7pm, I hear it again: "the poo scream." She's walking around her litterbox with her tail raised, straining and crying. After a while she starts doing this in various rooms of the apartment: the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom. I'm hoping that she'll finally succeed, even if it means getting poop inside my Mary-Janes.

But it's not to be. After an hour of this I can't take it anymore and I call the emergency clinic. They're cheerful and tell me to come on by, with a warning that they're more expensive than a regular vet. I don't care...my cat's in pain.

So I bundle her into her catbox and begin driving in the general direction of the clinic, which is far off in a bizarre industrial park that I've never driven to. Sometime during the last fourteen years when I wasn't driving, some city planner had stepped in and moved all the streets around. I'm driving through the rain, desperately trying to figure out where I'm going, while beside me my cat howls and howls.

Then, while we're on the Expressway, her howls escalate a notch and the most terrible poopy smell fills the car. I'm glad that she's finally cleared her obstruction but I don't like the thought of her sitting in her own feces, plus the smell is really, really awful. I drive faster.

Much later, at the clinic, I pull her out of her box and...there's nothing inside. She pee'd a bit, but nothing more. "Must have been gas," explains the receptionist.

The vet is a no-nonsense sort of lady, she's not going to take any guff from MY puss. She squeezes Zsa Zsa's lady-parts until a tiny bit of urine comes out, which she sends off for testing. Then -- to pass the time I guess -- she sticks a thermometer up Zsa Zsa's butt, followed by a finger which she twists around as Zsa Zsa hisses and bites. "Not much feces in there at all," she says, taking a cursory look at what she's managed to scrape out.

After all this -- the laxatives, the thermometer, the rubber finger -- it turns out that Zsa Zsa has a bladder infection, and she's straining to pee because her irritated bladder THINKS it's full. Pushing my quivering, traumatized pussy-cat down on the table she demonstrates the fine art of "pilling." I hold my bleeding wrist and watch carefully; this will be my life for the next ten days.

The price for all this joy: $200. Fortunately this elevates my money anxiety out of the "vaguely anxious" category into "oh hell, just roll with it."

Seriously, the vet was wonderful and the money was worth it; I couldn't sit at home and listen to the poor girl howl like that. Of course she'll have to go to her regular vet to get her kidneys checked out, and this is a sign that my previously-robust Zsa Zsa is definitely in decline. That's sad, but at least I know she'll pee easier on the way down.

The Little House in the Wilderness

I love the little house in the wilderness, the one tiny house which has withstood all efforts of the Big Insurance Company to buy it. The B.I.C. owns everything else on that block, with the hopes of someday building another tower or a parking lot there...but that plucky little house has stood its ground and -- if Ian has anything to do with it -- it will be there for a long time.

Ian owns the house. Today he caught me snooping around and we started talking. I'd assumed that the house was deserted -- most of its windows are painted over and its wall of two-storey bushes form an impenetrable shell around it -- but no, Ian still lives there. He's an imposing middle-aged guy in green mechanic's coveralls, his face is huge, he is enthusiastically anti-establishment. I found him yanking out the four-foot high thistles, part of the foliage that he correctly calls his "naturalization." It would seem, however, that the B.I.C. doesn't like those thistles.

The 1861 farmhouse has been in Ian's family for a long time, and he says that if anything happens to him it will be inherited by his equally imposing cousin. Ian is friendly and gregarious, a brilliant talker. He calls the B.I.C. tower "Big Brother" and the rising loft tower on the other side is "Big Sister." He shares my amusement that a newly-constructed apartment complex can be called a "loft." As a child in that house he remembers seeing the factory which used to be there belch huge clots of fabric out of its smokestacks.

Ian says, referring to the B.I.C., "They hate my entire G.I. tract."

We talked until the big storm came down and hammered us, when Ian gathered up his electric clippers and disappeared back into his tiny patch of wilderness. It thrills me that he lives in there, happily isolated, a pain in the ass.

A HappyHuman Post: Royal Bank Customer Service Lady

I went to the Royal Bank in order to get a new client card.

The customer service representative was already saying "hello" before I'd even cleared the door. She listened to my spiel, then cheerfully walked me through the mundane procedure of getting a new card, lightening the mood by "quipping" now and then but never getting off-track or personal.

She was pleasant and professional. She made me feel like a valued customer and a distinct human being. She had a genuine smile. I liked her and I'd never even seen her before.

Thanks, customer service lady!

Day of The Mail

Over time my anxiety rises. When I leave my apartment I turn my eyes to the sky so I won't have to look at the mailbox, pretending it isn't there and that it doesn't contain anything. But eventually I need to face the awful truth: there are LETTERS in my mailbox, and they must be opened.

Today this task was long overdue and I was dismayed to find SIX letters addressed to me. I sat down in front of the computer, logged into online banking, and started reading the bad news.

A letter from Bell telling me that I'd really, really enjoy watching "ExpressVu digital TV." No I wouldn't.

A bill for this month's car insurance payment. Don't these folks know my car is ill? Have they no decency? This is like sending a tax form to the relative of a dying grandmother.

Speaking of tax forms, a notice from the Canada Revenue Agency that I miscalculated my taxes this year...and I get $149.85 back. Whew!

A bill from Royal Bank thanking me for paying a huge chunk of my credit debt, but kindly reminding me that there's much more left to pay.

Another letter from Royal Bank containing a new debt card, this one with fancy chip technology. I am convinced that this chip stores confidential information about my right buttock.

A bill from CIBC, notifying me that this month's balance due is...$0.51, thanks to an odd interest fee that I have no memory of accumulating.

After all that worry I'd say I got off pretty lightly. I cannot always be so fortunate.

Beckzy Has a Cold

I never fooled myself into thinking that my car has a bright and glorious future. Beckzy is well-worn and poised for the retirement home.

The thing is, she runs so WELL. Sure she sounds a bit farty when she accelerates, but LOTS of old broads sound like that. And if her doors let in the rain and there are a few coffee stains on the quote-unquote "upholstery," who am I to complain?

But today Beckzy began to make a new noise, a sort of pleasant whine which changes pitch depending on her speed. I tried to pretend that she was singing to me out of sheer joy, but self-deception won't get me very far (and will probably just leave me stranded on a highway somewhere). Nope, Beckzy has an as yet undiagnosed problem.

If she went belly-up on me tomorrow I would be very sad, but I would survive. I told Vanilla today that driving my car gives me an incredible sense of freedom. Vanilla said "Driving also gives you the freedom to pay bills." She knows.

So please say a prayer for Beckzy as I gird myself to take her to a mechanic. I'll probably get fleeced but hopefully my darling car will be better for it.

The Muffypod Takes a Powder

I have a love-hate relationship with my iPod; I love the convenience of it, but I deplore what it has done to my concept of music.

I used to view a song as part of an entire album, just a piece of a larger work, a work that consisted of both exceptional and substandard songs. Now, for me, a song is an isolated object. My patience for album-listening has gone down. These days I tend to listen to songs on "shuffle" instead.

On Saturday night my MuffyPod became suddenly corrupted. They always tell you not to unplug iPods when they're doing "busy stuff" on your computer, but in my experience the MuffyPod will sometimes do "busy stuff" until the cows come home (and then the cows get angry because they can't shut it off either). So I'll occasionally rebel against convention by unplugging my iPod when I shouldn't, and by doing so I have totally trashed the poor thing, leaving me with 864 songs out of the 12,000 that used to be on there.

This was my first (somewhat childish) emotional response:



Then I got greedy.

"Hey, why bother uploading all those songs back into this piddly 6oGB iPod...I should just buy a 160GB one instead!"

Yes, but...

"Why commit myself to years of uploading songs using a USB 1.0 port...it's REALLY time to upgrade my computer! I actually need to buy a new iMac!"

Yes, but...

"If I buy a new iMac, I shouldn't splurge on a brand new iPod right away...I'll get the iMac first -- next weekend, probably -- and then buy a new iPod somewhere down the road."

So you see how I've convinced myself that the failure of my iPod actually justifies the purchase of a WHOLE NEW COMPUTER. And it really DOES make some sort of sense, or at least it would if I hadn't just bought a car and if I actually had a piece of furniture to put the new computer ON.

Thanks, MuffyPod...your legacy will be credit debt and a brief return to "album-oriented" song appreciation. The god of technology works in mysterious ways.

Mother's Day in the Rural Badlands, Amongst the Antiques

I spent much of the day with my mother. I love eating and shopping with her. Since we're both socially-cautious people, it's sort of delightful that we've managed to warm up in particular situations -- eating, driving, shopping, drinking -- sheerly through observation, empathy, and the same cautious approach you use when making friends with strange animals: extend the palm, let them smell you, don't lunge or grab, next time bring treats.

We went to Angie's Kitchen in St. Agatha. When I was very young we used to go there frequently, but that was thirty years ago, so all my memories are of dark woodsy corners and paper placemats with connect-the-dot swans. This Angie's Kitchen experience was a little different as we'd come during a traditionally hectic day, and we were inexplicably seated at a huge empty table in the middle of the room. It felt like I was at a conference, sitting beside my mother because the table was far too wide to sit facing each other at opposite sides.

Then we went shopping in Shakespeare, which over the years has become a flypaper-strip meant to catch tourists on the way to the Stratford Festival. It's baited with antique shops. I saw things there that I might actually buy, if I had a lot of money and I had more concern about my personal space. My mother liked the weatherbeaten stuff that looked slightly decayed, whereas I am unable to eat around such things without thinking of fingernail dirt and feces. The one item I decided to buy -- a sort of art deco yoga ornament which could be explained away as an "interpretive dancer made in China" -- ended up having a cracked leg, which wasn't my fault, honest.

(When you are prevented from buying something because it turns out to be broken, don't despair! You've saved money that you can spend on something else, like a belt or a down payment on shoes! You should be happy!)

Speaking of spending money, I decided to re-learn pumping gas. After two months of driving my car to such far-off locales as Paris, Wellesley, and Philipsburg I still had a quarter tank of gas left, but fuel-efficiency can only get you so far: it was time to finally brave the pumps. I was astonished to learn that my mother has been shelling out for full service all these years and has never pumped gas herself, so we combined our experience (and our ability to follow written instructions) and came out feeling empowered and fulfilled. The price for this experience? $50. Less than I'd expected.

Here's hoping you had a good mother's day, and that you both did something new, and that your breakfast sausage was ladled out by a cheerful buffet lady wearing a clean smock.

Taxes Times Two

The real joy of filling out tax forms is knowing that you're going to lose...but not knowing BY HOW MUCH. Last year I was shocked and horrified by the amount of money I needed to pay at the end of April. This year I need to pay twice as much! You may have guessed that I have not started earning twice as much money in the meantime.

There are only certain circumstances during which I require an afternoon drink all alone. This is one of them.

The Week of Beckzy

A month ago I set my father a task: find me a car, daddy-o! This is a point-form summary of the results, covering the last week and perhaps explaining why I haven't been up to blogging.

Saturday: While spending Easter with my parents, my father -- who works at a car dealership -- is sad to report that the perfect car for me -- actually exceeding my minimum requirements as to practicality, price, efficiency, and age -- has slipped through his fingers. Oh well, at least the family gets to come together and eat ham, car or no car.

Monday: My father calls me at work to tell me that the aforementioned car, under miraculous circumstances, is once again available. She's a blue '95 Chevrolet Corsica named Beckzy, in perfect running order, very fuel efficient and small enough for my limited spatial skills to handle. He can bring it by my workplace tomorrow for a test drive.

Tuesday: For the first time in fifteen years I am behind the wheel of a car. I have no insurance and haven't even set my eyes on Beckzy before now. A horrendous rain/sleet storm has arrived with gusting winds, and I re-learn my driving skills by sliding my white-knuckled father around the block. Even this short experience is enough to tell me that I'd be CRAZY to pass up this opportunity. I'll take it!

Wednesday: My father calls to say that Beckzy has passed her E-test and is going in for her safety. Things have taken on a sudden immediacy. Vanilla, conscious that this may be the last time she needs to drive me someplace, takes me to State Farm where I get both auto and renter's insurance at surprisingly low prices. I have a payment plan. If somebody breaks in and steals all my showgirl outfits, I will now be able to afford NEW showgirl outfits.

Thursday: It turns out that I will have to go to New Hamburg in order to get plates and ownership as my father is not allowed to forge my signature. I have 24 hours to brace myself for tomorrow's ordeal.

Friday: My father shows up at my workplace, driving Beckzy. He hands me the keys and we begin what is simultaneously a right of passage, a refresher course, a final legal hurdle, and an impromptu driver's exam. I discover that Beckzy has a ridiculous blind spot: when I turn to my left to check for oncoming traffic I can only see my headrest. We take the Expressway all the way into New Hamburg, allowing me to re-experience city streets, on-ramps, merging, highway driving, and extremely pokey small town navigation.

In New Hamburg I get the ownership, we put the plates on, I sign a ridiculously miniscule check for my dad, and Becky is mine...if I can get her home again.

After the return trip I swear that I'll never drive again: I'll just park the car in my lot and look at her, and maybe sleep in her when it's hot outside. Gradually I come to grips with the situation: I'll simply need to keep ramping up my experience until I'm really comfortable driving.

Saturday: I go to Hakim Optical for an eye test and glasses, only to discover that they don't do such things without an appointment. Since Beckzy has a quaint little tape deck I go looking for one of those audio-adapters which allow you to plug in an iPod, but I have no luck. Now I know why I kept all of those mix-tapes from my University years...driving Beckzy will be a '90s experience in more ways than one!

A Vehicle: Edging into Adulthood

I've done without a car for thirteen years. I live in a city with lots of cabs, good bus service, and plenty of sidewalks to walk on. I have friends and family which will transport heavy goods in a pinch, and if I need to get out of the city there is always the Greyhound.

But jeez, I think it's time to get a car. I hate sponging off of friends. I hate being unable to visit people in other cities. When I'm invited to do a show in Guelph, I hate forcing them to pick me up and drive me home. I hate taking the bus to Toronto.

Most importantly -- and positively -- I would love to be able to drive during the summer. I want to drive to little towns and explore without worrying that other people will be bored. I want to visit the Bruce Penninsula again. I want to see Lake Huron.

To do all of these things I need a car.

So I've started the ball rolling. My father works at a car dealership and he knows his cars, so he's scouting out a practical used vehicle. I've called an insurance company to find out how much I'll need to pay for the privilege of driving...I'll get the bad news tomorrow. I've decided that -- for the first time in my life -- I need to go into temporary debt to achieve a useful and substantial goal: geographic independence.

Hopefully this will all happen.

I need to balance this with two other desires. First off, I want to go to the 2008 Pennsylvania STC Summit in June, and though I'll be reimbursed for everything it always involves my paying upfront, out of my own pocket.

Also, while editing a new "Domestic Drag Show" in iMovie, I finally decided it would be worth it to get better (that is, ADEQUATE) video editing software. But that would require upgrading my operating system, which would ultimately require just getting a new computer. As nice as it would be to enjoy all the perks of a spiffy new iMac (not to mention the ability to make better videos, and to make them faster), I have to admit that this is hardly essential.

So the car wins.