DO YOU FIT?

“You must fit in.”

God I hate that turn of phrase. Hate it, hate it, hate it. It’s like telling someone to think a certain way, act a certain way, do whatever is accepted by the mainstream because you’re going to be alone otherwise. It’s just such a profoundly limited worldview. It’s futility squared.

Someone told me that phrase today. It’s as if that person was searching for my collective panel of buttons and pushed the nuclear option. I was flabbergasted at it. It’s so ridiculous and asinine to ask that of me - GREG HUGHES, a guy that’s never known what it feels like to truly belong - that I wanted to laugh and puke at the same time.

Talking about conformity and the ability of the average person to “fit it” as it were is, normally, something you’d espouse philosophical when you’re a teenager. Ah yes, those glorious years of being a teenager. I can recall those days vividly, thanks to my photographic memory - a fact I’m increasingly finding myself on opposite extremes of whenever I consider their benefit or hazard to my sense of self. I don’t like remembering certain things. High school’s mostly of that vintage. So are nights at The Toucan, indie bands that barely register beyond some wannabe-hipster’s image of themselves and a few people over the years that taught me a thing or two about the fluidity of trust (i.e. the Modern Rule of Trust - not only is trust earned, not given freely, but you better believe it can be taken away as fast as a Twitter post).

Anyway, I was reading Norman Mailer’s seminal essay The White Negro the other day. It’s a pretty amazing read, save for the momentary lapse into paragraphs that sound and look like they were written on a bad, choppy, broken-down typewriter. But no matter - it’s still one hell of a good read.

Mailer makes a point at the beginning that’s surprisingly apt for the time we live in. In the course of the recent century, we’re facing a cultural milieu that demands conformity for the simple sake of responding to fear. Fear, as we all know, is a powerful weapon to use against the democratic wishes of the people. American governments have been using it against their own citizens since time immemorium. Conformity for the sake of conformity is really nature’s way of assuring our thoughts never get heard and the meek inherit the Earth.

So why fit in? Why, so I can give into the simple impulses of fear of non-acceptance? What, I’ve been, along with a large number of people I know, what you could call an outsider. Fuck, I can hardly remember a time when I was innocent and naive enough to believe being yourself was the ticket to social integration. I gave up a long time ago trying to fit in with any real sense of effort or calculation. I’m just being me, take it or lump it.

Part of my mindset, really, isn’t about the simple act of rebellion for no apparent reason other than just to be different. I do conform to a lot of social norms and cultural pursuits best described as “normal” - sci-fi, seeing the consumerist porn that was Sex and the City: The Movie, wearing GAP khakis designed with maximum efficiency and as little creative impulses as possible. It is what it is, I suppose.

It’s amazing, however, how a lack of fear about the world and the people in it really does liberate yourself to not caring about comforming to the conscious and unconscious wishes of a molified society like ours. So many people have become so afraid of so many things because we’ve allowed bullshit to dominate our modes of debate in all-pervasive forms. We’ve taken the spice out of the sauce. We’re using idiotic trinkets to distract us from creativity, freedom and true happiness. The philosophy of futility has completely usurped our conventional imaginative power. Vanila-fueled mayhem through the lenses of brown-coloured glasses.

ANOTHER REASON TO LOATHE TV NEWS

I generally find most TV news (with the exception of the BBC World News and the CBC News) pretty stupid and banal (watch even five minutes of City”News” on CityTV and you’ll understand what I mean). TV news journalism these days, especially at the local level, is full of non-stories, trivialities and crime-ridden junk.

But this segment is brilliant, halirious schadenfreude at its finest. Serves this KTLA reporter right for being such a bona-fide moron and asking what has to be the dumbest question ever.

SOME RANDOM MONDAY MUSINGS

Greetings - hope everyone had a nice weekend.

So I have an iPhone. And yes, I love it. I love it in a kind of way that must be organized into “Pre-iPhone” and the “iPhone” Era. It’s positively life-changing. It’s gorgeous and easy-to-use. I’m officially Apple-For-Life now. And I got it for $40. I had an hardware upgrade credit and a manufacturer’s rebate. Ironically, having an iPhone will cost less under my new plan than when I was using a Razr phone. Weird, no?

BEIJING OLYMPICS: Do you ever wonder how much words matter as opposed to action? Of course actions always speak louder. And for this reason, it’s funny how the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee, which promised back in 2001 to “significantly” clean up its human rights record and terrible environmental impact before the Games started. Well, it’s seven years later, and not a damn thing has happened when it comes to press freedom in China or the country’s abysmal human rights record. Seriously, does anything matter to the International Olympic Committee other than dollars? Wasn’t the whole point of giving the Games to China about opening up the country to new, proto-democratic reforms?

HYPE WILLIAMS: You may find this funny, but I’m a big fan of Hype Williams’ videos. Hype Williams is a genius in every sense of the word when it comes to his visionary approach to directing hip-hop videos. He’s got a new video out by Lloyd featuring Lil Wayne that honestly could have been made in the 22nd century. It’s stunning to look at. Check it out.

Lloyd Featuring Lil Wayne - All Around The World

I DON’T FEAR

So what’s your greatest fear?

I’m sure if I actually posed this question to people on the street, they’d probably think I was asking the wrong question (or merely run away from the bald-headed, scary-eyed, tattooed, shoulders-as-padding, Ironside-esque creature known as Greg). In a world that goes along to get along in so many ways, keeping the smile up and insulating your reality with topical illusions is a hell of a lot more comforting.

It’s funny how even when I ask myself this question, I’m remarkably bereft of fear now. I figure life’s pretty much thrown a whole shit-against-the-wall motif at me for years and years and years and numbed me down. Fuck it. You’ve won. I concede. There’s no sorrow or self-pity. It’s just vacant. It’s just quiet and accepting. Throw-caution-to-the-wind and never asking questions about whether I should or shouldn’t. I don’t care. Your judgments are more lame and sad than even remotely interesting. I’m doing what I do and I don’t care if you like it or not. You can throw it all at me again.

For anyone who has spent even a modicum of time in a mental place where all you can think of is What Has Gone Wrong and what a fuck-up you are, getting out of it is like being re-born. It’s like looking into a rearview mirror and seeing a major car crash you just got out of with your life intact. You suddenly feel grateful and liberated in profound ways. You’re still, at your heart, the person you’ve always been. But while facing your darkest fears and most vengeful, angry hopelessness, it’s hell that has a purpose. Letting yourself feel the anger you repressed in the name of bullshit, self-defeating conformity, you re-awaken. It’s like escaping The Matrix, only without sexy digital rainfalls and cool-looking Berettas.

It can be summed up very clearly: I’ve got nothing to lose but fear itself.

It’s funny, but looking back on things, I wish I was the man I am today while I attended Queen’s (here, reader, is a sidebar).

Back then, I was naïve enough to believe that respect comes out of initiative alone. But, as Toby Young acutely observed, respect is incredibly hard to earn and insanely easy to tear down. To win at the game of life, you pretty much have to bust your ass to achieve your own ends—nobody, and I mean nobody, cares what you do unless it directly affects them. That’s probably the best lesson Queen’s taught me: people aren’t born good or bad, but self-interested first and foremost. I guess I should be thankful. I probably would have saved myself some grief if I let myself be myself, not caring what people thought, instead of caving into fears and insecurities back in those days. But hey, what can you do. Not as if it all matters now anyway.

Hey, this might have a whiff of bitterness, but really, do you think the world owes you anything? Hell, I’ve taken more than enough to know that finding good things and people in this world is like finding a rare, out-of-print book or an 8 mm film loop from 1972 – you’re damn lucky if you find them.

Alright, so back to those fears. About the only truly paralyzing fears I haven’t experienced yet (and hopefully never will) are the horrors of a) actual, real life combat in a war zone, b) make-work camps designed from the minds of dictators and sadists, and c) prison life (although you can make a case high school wasn’t that far off).

So here’s the deal. Writing an honest, true-to-form post on here hasn’t been my style for a long, long time. I write about stuff that mostly informs my interests and amuse people with casual, off-the-cuff remarks about technolust items like the iPhone. Welcome to my world of blogging.

But, since this is a public blog and people actually read this blog sometimes, I still have to censor my thoughts, given Google’s tendencies to archive everything for all digital eternity. I can’t really say what I want to say all the time. Can anyone, really? If people knew what others really thought about each other, there would be a lot more murders and crime, R.I.P. George Carlin.

My only non-paralyzing fears left are essentially snakes (I hate those slithering creatures, can’t stand them) and heights, even though the heights thing has gotten better recently. Besides that, it’s all pretty simple now.

I don’t fear.

ROGERS TAKES A PR BEATING

This rumour on Smithereens’ blog is too deliciously awesome to ignore. Apple sanctioning Rogers over their voice and data plans for the iPhone? God it would be so nice to see Apple really take it to Rogers on this one.

We can only hope this is the case. Yet another web site has emerged that neatly illustrates how royally screwed Canadians who buy the iPhone will be under the current pricing scheme (which, according to the National Post today, may change since Rogers executives, ever wary of the public relations nightmare they’re facing in lieu of this ill-conceived strategy). RuinediPhone.com, as of noon today, has almost 50,000 signatures on it and counting.

All of this on top of numerous stories on the CBC, Canadian Press and many, many other outlets. Sooner or later, Rogers is going to have to take notice of all this.

See, this is why the cellular market in Canada must be regulated. It’s obvious the carriers can’t be trusted to look out for consumers’ best interests. Here’s why libertarian free markets don’t work - if you leave companies in a position to regulate themselves without regard for the demands of consumers, you’ll get burned.

Rogers, how much more PR heat do you really want to take?

DIGITAL BACKWATER?

Let me ask you something: do you ever feel like Canada’s a bit of a digital backwater?

For all the touting of Canada by successive federal governments as a “world leader” in technological innovation, one wonders exactly how the political mandarins in Ottawa come to that conclusion. Perhaps in aerospace engineering, industrial manufacturing, biotechnology and other commercial development, that might be true. But when it comes to consumer technology, Canada is about as far from world leader as Robert Mugabe is to being a truly democratically elected President.

First off, Exhibit A: our pathetic cell phone culture. For a country that politicians claim has a lot in common with Nordic nations like Finland or Norway in terms of social democracy, we look more like a Banana Republic when it comes to cell phones than Nordic.

Globalize this little fact – over 90 per cent of Swedes use cell phones and has the highest rate in Europe of 3G phone network penetration. Canada? We still have cellular operators using the outdated CDMA frequency over the global standard GSM. We barely have 3G penetration to speak of outside of cities. Our lack of GSM options means we have to put up with Rogers being the only cellular operator able to offer the iPhone, which means no choice, no competition, no benefit to the consumer. We also seemingly lack the mindset of unlimited access, unlike our neighbours to the South – why is Rogers cynically charging consumers for capped data access when Americans can get unlimited data coverage nationwide? It feels like a gigantic middle finger to the consumer. More to the point, why are Canadians paying for things that U.S. cellular companies offer for free? Don’t tell me it’s about comparative market sizes – if we’re as advanced as the federal government claims, shouldn’t the cost of data and voice access be going down, not up?

Exhibit B: our Internet culture. While America experiences the same problems in terms of our capped internet speeds – wow, a whole theoretical five megabytes a second! Boy, that puts Koreans to shame *sarcasm* - we have to deal with Bell and Rogers throttling data speeds and making the web a functional experience at best. Sure, Europe and Asia have far, far more advanced digital infrastructure in place to ensure best speeds, but come on guys – you can’t expect us customers to be happy with download speeds that are positively antiquated in nature compared to French telecoms. Again, why are we paying for such crappy service? Worse, why is the federal government pretending this problem doesn’t exist? I can just see federal Industry Minister Jim Prentice sitting in his office with fingers in his ear, singing “la-la-la-la-la” at this moment.

God I wish we could be more like Europe sometimes.

GEORGE CARLIN REMEMBERED

I have a heavy heart today. One of my heroes, George Carlin, is dead.

To truly understand the impact one comedian - a subversive, hilarious, downright inflammatory voice in a sea of banal, unfunny Dane Cook clones - had on the American cultural ethos, one must look at some of his finest one-liners. I think his words, not mine, illuminate the wisdom he offered through comedy. Even though he’d probably loathe all the platitudes media commentators and other professional pundits are dishing up today, his work is right there with Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks as sharp, insightful, scathing critiques of American life.

Here’s some of his more memorable quotes, curtosy of BrainyQuotes.com:

At a formal dinner party, the person nearest death should always be seated closest to the bathroom.

Dusting is a good example of the futility of trying to put things right. As soon as you dust, the fact of your next dusting has already been established.

I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me - they’re cramming for their final exam.

I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood.

If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front row seat.

Religion is just mind control.

Rest in peace, you old codger.

THE FILM CLUB

Recently, my boss at my work loaned me a book called The Film Club. It’s written by David Gilmour – the former host of Gilmour On The Arts on CBC Newsworld and a writer of various pieces of fiction.

He writes in a very breezy, accessible style. It’s the kind of book that’s not just about the magic of films and their ability to bring people together. It’s also about the relationship between fathers and sons, the inescapable and complicated bond they share between each other.

Still, there’s a sequence in the book that really sends me for a loop. David’s son, Jesse, has a girlfriend at one point named Chloe. She goes to school “in Kingston, Ontario,” for economics, later switching to Business Administration. This is all literary code for Queen’s.

It’s unnerving to feel like part of your past is being relived in print, but needless to say, Chloe reminds me an awful lot of many people I knew at Queen’s – some good, some bad. Chloe bores Jesse incessantly with her careerist prattle; there were a lot of people, men and women, at Queen’s like that (myself included at several stages of my complex, troubled evolution in Limestone City).

Chloe eventually dumps Jesse because she feels he’s not going anywhere in life and that he’s got loser friends. Worse, she dumps Jesse in a very irritating, fake fashion – it’s all false-friendly, sniveling, “bye-bye Jesse” on the cell phone while she’s in a bar.

I can only imagine the shit-eating grin she has on her face later.

I knew a lot of people like Chloe at Queen’s. The sense of smug self-satisfaction, the arrogance of knowing your class in life all too well, the entitlement that comes with attending a place like Queen’s.

Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t change anything. I would still have gone to Queen’s in 1997 if I had had a chance to do it all over again. There were some great aspects to Queen’s, stuff I’ll always remember and appreciate.

But it’s hard to reconcile my hindsight on the place with my current state of being. Queen’s was a cold, competitive, brutal place at times. There were many people far, far too satisfied with themselves and their opinions. There were many vivid memories of witnessing how anything and anyone that was different from the mainstream at Queen’s was looked upon suspiciously and with veiled (and not-so-veiled) contempt at times.

Bear in mind: not everyone and everything was like this at Queen’s. But the Jesse-Chloe story arc only re-affirms what I already know. Even when it comes to love, Queen’s makes it hard. Queen’s and other elite institutions make it possible to engage in denial.

You can deny your origins, deny your place in the class system in Canada, deny even your heart – as long as it gets you further up the economic food chain.

IPHONE MADNESS AND ONE SWEET DIATRIBE

So today’s the big day - the second generation iPhone debuts today at the WWDC 2008 in San Francisco, presumably (of course, Steve Jobs could pull a homer and not even release the new iPhone today…). Engadget is liveblogging the event.

DIATRIBE: My old newspaper has posted some front covers from this past year’s volume of issues. Just to give you an idea of how far this newspaper has come since its debut in 2001 (jeez, has it been seven years?), check this cover out…

Wow. That’s pretty much all I can say. Effin’ A!

iPHONE UPDATE: Wow - the 3G iPhone has been announced. It looks incredible - some amazing new features, GPS tracking and a much slimmer design. And the price point! $199 for an 8 GB phone, $299 for a 16 GB phone. Best part: that price is fixed globally, so Canadians will get an affordable iPhone!

July 11th the new, 3G iPhones debut. Very, very cool stuff Apple.

OBAMA AND MAD MEN’S SEASON PREMIERE

What a relief last night.

The never-ending psycho-drama that has been the Democratic Party’s Presidential nomination race is finally over. And I couldn’t be happier – Obama’s finally vanquished Hillary Clinton.

Now the real battle begins. Expect this race between Obama and John McCain to get exceedingly nasty in the next several months. If you think the Swift Boating that got dumped on John Kerry in 2004 was brutal, you haven’t seen anything yet. That being said, McCain’s hardly a sure bet to beat Obama at this stage in the game. Interesting fact I read the other day: did you know that an overwhelming number of past Presidential nominees with war hero backgrounds didn’t win the Presidency? Just saying.

MAD MEN: Very exciting news - Mad Men’s second season will premiere on AMC on July 27^th at 10 p.m. Woo-hoo! Finally!

One very strong rumour is the show is now taking place in 1962 – two years after the election of JFK as President. Roger Sterling is apparently still working.

And, here’s a few photos from the set that magically made it onto the internets:

Interesting look for Betty – she seems to be moving into 60’s-style fashion more now and has a riding outfit on. Wonder what this means for her marriage to Don…

A beard? And Peggy’s hair has changed and she seems to have a prominent place at the copywriting table now. There’s also the little issue of Peggy’s child at the end of the first season. What’s really interesting though is IMDB listing another Olson woman in the cast – is this Peggy’s sister?

Stay tuned - thanks to Basket of Kisses for the link.