<< July 2005 | | September 2005 >>
August 29, 2005 >> PrimedWhen every goodbye
peels a thin layer of flesh away
until you feel like you might strip all the way down
and there'll be absolutely nothing left,
take heart in the fact that you're human
and humans were built to last.
Still,
you wish that you could find
the warranty God left in the box,
just in case
you're defective.
And you could get around to fixing that flaccid penis thing while you're at it.
Posted by Chris at 07:56 PM >> Commentations (5) | Permalink
August 27, 2005 >> Post Blog Party 1/2
After me and Kristen cleaned the house (well, sorta - when you're moving out in four days it doesn't really seem worth it), I was just too exhausted to blog. So many balloons to pop, so many beer bottles to empty into the thirsty masses of tangled plants out front. So many things missing from the house, escaped to new homes. So much of everything.
So this is my preamble until I can properly assemble my head and write something better, perhaps tomorrow.
I would like to mention, however, that by far my favorite thing from last night was playing street soccer with a voraciously enthusiastic Dave Alexander. Hoodie and Brandon and Tanya were all wonderfully skilled, of course, and the spontaneity and excitement of it all was almost too much to bear. Hoodie cheated mercilessly, though, and that's clearly why my team lost. Not even my furious riposte of kidney shots and running headbutts could stop her.
A lot of the fun party ideas and key equipment were provided by Amy - thanks so much, it wouldn't have been nearly as good without you.
After the fact, I still don't know if it was a Blog Party or a Give Away My Stuff Party or a Get Super Fucked Up Party or WHAT, but I had a wicked-sweet time! And really, that's what matters in life: Chris needs to have a good time, and you people made it happen! Muahahaha! That's right - the Blog Party was merely an excuse to entertain me with egg-throwing antics and balloon ballrooms and jump kicks and and and
Thanks for coming. Sorry I'm feeling so inarticulate, but I'm still recovering.
Posted by Chris at 07:55 PM >> Commentations (3) | Permalink
August 25, 2005 >> Blog Party Final Hours
As you get closer to a day of departure, things speed up. By your very last week, everyone moves around you in a crazy blur of friends and enemies, faces you've never seen before and faces you'll never see again. There isn't enough time.
REGARDLESS, tomorrow night be the Blog Party! I have noticed somewhat of a psychological backlash against the Blog Party, perhaps because Amy has been spamming your blogs or we've been talking a whole lot about 'giving my crap away'. The Blog Party, perhaps, has Lost Its Roots.
Well, this is silly, because I don't want to build hype for an Event of the Year or get everyone to come for an obligatory well-wishing as I run off to Korea. Fuck that. The beautiful thing about blogging is that I'll still be right here, on your computer screens, and you'll be on mine. We won't know each other any less, we'll just have different stories to tell and live in inverted time zones where I post from your tomorrow. Geography is superficial.
What I wanted to accomplish with the Blog Party was to meet some new faces and be drunk and strange with the faces I already enjoy. I don't want something rigidly structured... we can do whatever the hell we please. Amy has been excellent enough to provide some party stuff and we - along with Hoodie - came up with some demented games to play, but if you feel like sitting and talking about public image issues with blogging, that would be amazing too. I am Pumped to see how people will experience the event and how everyone's perspectives might build a single story. I don't know WHAT is going to happen. Bring yourself, bring anything you think might make for a more amusing experience - booze, drugs, cookies, whatever. I'll do my best to provide as well.
As far as giving away things goes, I don't care if none of you want to take my stuff because we have a nice big can of gasoline floating around in the garage and I can set everything on fire down in Waterloo Park. I just thought it might be nice for some of my favorite and/or useful things to find new homes instead of perishing horribly in the blaze. If you want to play party games and say Fuck The Prizes, well, I'll be doing that too. I don't want to win my own stuff back, that would be hella-retarded.
PS: the games are very very weird for the most part. Prepare to write poetry about a refrigerator.
Here is a detailed map to my house, for thee who don't know me: I figure since I'm leaving, putting this on the internet isn't really a privacy issue anymore (not that I really cared before either, let's be honest here).
And here are all the things that I would like to 'reallocate' or 'redistribute' around Waterloo, if Y'all are willing - click each picture to see more info:
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See ya tomorrow night, internet geeks!
love
Chris
Posted by Chris at 05:37 PM >> Commentations (15) | Permalink
August 22, 2005 >> Cord Ed Board - Tha Singlez
Sometime iz bes' notta talk 'bout wha happen.
Posted by Chris at 08:37 PM >> Commentations (2) | Permalink
>> Shorthand
Can't talk long stop
In the midst of detox slash hurricane whirlwind of activity stop
Blog Party
Blog Party a GO stop. This Friday stop. 9:00 PM stop.
Planning needed this week: Dave Alexander, Amy, Hoodie, Blair, ???? (insert your name here stop) stop. Let's meet and hang out stop. Wednesday okay with everybody stop?
I will start taking pictures of thievable items tonight stop
News Flash stop. Cord Ed Board retreat a massive victory over the forces of nature stop. It is yet to be determined who is the most proficient at knocking over and shattering beer bottles in a drunken haze stop. You never really know a chair until you burn it to the ground stop.
Telegraph messages must have been annoying to read, eh?
Posted by Chris at 11:58 AM >> Commentations (5) | Permalink
August 19, 2005 >> Risk Management
This weekend I'm off to the Ed Board retreat at Bryn's, even though I am neither an Ed nor a Board. It is only by the good graces of the Eds and the Boards on the Ed Board that I will be participating in this traditional drug-fuelled orgy... I mean, intense journalism seminar.
I mention this only because there appears to be a Class-A hurricane brewing outside and a mighty gust of wind just blasted the rather large screen out of my window and tried to garotte me with it. What happens when you combine an Ed Board on a head full of mushrooms with a tropical storm? Many, many, many worse things than a meagre beheading, I'll wager.
I'll let you know what happened at the professional development sessions when I return (if).
Posted by Chris at 01:50 PM >> Commentations (0) | Permalink
August 18, 2005 >> I Really Don't Know.
There's a place
in the West
where the wealthy are frozen
and thoughts turn to death.
There's a place
in the East
where nothing was you
and you ate the peace.
There's a place
in the middle
where great minds collide
but before we could get there
they closed the divide.
Posted by Chris at 10:29 PM >> Commentations (0) | Permalink
>> Kimono
If I was in World War Two they'd call me spitfire.
My stuff is leaving incrementally - today I dodged Shirley's crazy KISS-loving roommate and deposited most of my earthly possessions (books) into her basement. But not too close to the water heater. As Shirley herself put it, she holds my fragile life (books) in her hands while I goof off in South Korea. Thanky kindly, my dear. I will bring you a kimono if they have one.
Posted by Chris at 06:28 PM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink
August 17, 2005 >> Diaryboy
Deep in the bowels of my computer, beneath ancient essays and video clips of morose Japanese girls waddling around in penguin suits, lies a series of text files so old they were created in WordPerfect.
These texts are known as Emblematic and Semblematic and have survived numerous hard drive crashes and computer swap-ups. With names this cool and a bad-ass history of survival against impossible odds, you might think that I'm hiding epic tomes of incredible wisdom... but no. These files contain pages upon pages upon pages of my idiotic thoughts, reflections and ideas. They are, as an academic might put it, my Memoires. A 12 year old girl would call them a Diary. This is precisely why I hate 12 year old girls.
Emblematic and Semblematic mostly serve as a reminder of how retarded I was in the past and how my writing was horrifically reminiscent of - wait for it - a 12 year old girl's. Early entries hurt my face when I read them, to the point where I contemplate selecting the whole foul paragraph of text and sending it to the netherworld with one fell swoop of the Delete key. But no - it's History. And History is good for a laugh and a cry when you're 30. The short stories about what my life would be like if I were a beautiful mermaid of the sea are especially touching.
Lately everything's been coming out here, to the point where I even wrote a couple of entries in Semblematic apologizing for neglecting it: "Baby, I'm sorry. I know I haven't been around lately, for you or the kids, but I've been fucking a blog over on the East Side... she's prettier than you."
But hey, there are some things that you just can't say on the internet, like Who has a Mega-Crush on Who and your secret dreams to dance in Broadway's Cats. Lately I've been using Semblematic as an idea pad for TV and movie scripts and plots, and weird 1-liner observations that wouldn't really make for a satisfying blog post.
I'm curious to know whether I'm the only person who writes both on the internet AND privately. Probably not. Definitely not. But really, what seperates your blogging from your journal? When you write for yourself, what do you talk about that can't be said in public?
Posted by Chris at 02:55 PM >> Commentations (9) | Permalink
August 16, 2005 >> Beneath the Encasing of Sawdust
This morning I stepped out into the sun for a cigarette and heard a violin amongst the chainsaws. Bare-chested workers were cutting huge branches off the trees, sawing limbs to sanitize the grove, and in the middle of this madness a tiny girl - perhaps five or six years old - was playing the violin on a bench.
The tree surgeons took a break to chat and the little girl's music rose and cut through everything, her strings tearing holes in the world that the rasp of chainsaws could never match. Her father stood over her, stony-faced, as she played, critically judging her technique. People walked by, busy busy busy, always looking forward, and some gave her a cursory glance before returning to the Future. My heart wrenched a little when I realized that nobody ever really listens.
I listened. I'm pretty sure my mouth was open, gaping, with some kind of wonder at this little girl who was creating such beautiful music, who was ripping away at the mundanity of life with her tiny violin. She opened doors until there were no doors left to open and then she tunneled and soared and burrowed through Us who are so impassive, so uncaring, so very nothing. Just by playing, she tore it all down.
For a heartbeat, it was gone.
And just like that it was back, she was finished, the violin packed away quickly. Her father gathered her belongings - a little pink backpack - and they left. The diminutive musician skipped beside him, gleeful and childlike, as they disappeared around the corner.
I clapped as she left, all on my own, in the hopes that maybe she would hear me. I wanted her to know that I had cared, that she had given me the wonderful gift of Loving Now in the midst of a routine arbor massacre. In that instant, I desperately needed her understanding: children still know things that we have all forgotten in a haze of wheels and ten-year plans and chainsaws, and I saw, in her violin, the way back.
She didn't notice me. She kept dancing away until she was gone, off to a recital or whatever pointed goal her father had dreamed of for the Future. She had been practicing for something bigger, something better.
The clouds rolled over and the shattering whine of the saws started again, huge gouts of sawdust covering the grinning idiot who was clapping to himself on the back stoop of Little House. But he didn't stop smiling, at least not for a while.
Posted by Chris at 03:36 PM >> Commentations (4) | Permalink
>> Gamble & Forget
Today I forgot a good many things, mostly related to CKCO's Rick Gamble ("I'm gambling that you'll kick this exam's ass!") and his various witty reporter-like axioms that he showered us with back in first semester. I think we remembered that one of them was, "The media is selling you," or some kind of spooky thing. Peter Mansbridge is going to eat your fucking brain.
I learnt more about news in that class than I would have ever expected, but I can't happen to recall any of the details and catch-phrases and bullet lists of the various ways in which Public Relations reaps human souls.
This always happens. As soon as I drop the exam paper in the basket, my brain drags all the course files into the Recycle Bin. It has a small hard drive, apparently, but the really good classes are the ones which leave viruses behind and change the way I work. They supe up the OS with stuff like critical thinking and Badger theory. After Badger theory, I will never be the same.
To illustrate my point about losing the details, I was utterly convinced that CKCO's Rick Gamble's theory had been Raccoon, earlier tonight. Susan thought it was Groundhog theory, or perhaps Prairie Dog theory. She thought she had it right with the hogs and dogs. She was wrong. I was wrong. The Badger was missing (MSN history found it later), but the theory never left us.
For any future CS 207ers, CKCO's Rick Gamble likes dancing circus badgers. That's on the exam for sure.
Posted by Chris at 12:01 AM >> Commentations (6) | Permalink
August 15, 2005 >> We're going to need you to just pack up your office by Friday, mmmkay?
Something feels a mite chilly about this formula.
You'd think that higher education might've found a better way.
Posted by Chris at 12:31 AM >> Commentations (0) | Permalink
August 14, 2005 >> Eastern horizon
It's hard to be original when everything you feel is Taoist. Your thoughts have already been written and meticulously discussed, thousands of years ago.
Too bad you just found out.
Too bad you aren't illiterate. You could've died smiling.
Too bad the messenger had to be Winnie the Pooh.
Posted by Chris at 06:54 PM >> Commentations (0) | Permalink
August 11, 2005 >> Wrestle the Words
Last night it finally hit me that I'm actually leaving. Leaving this city and these people. I don't really know how to explain how I'm feeling, which might seem like a first for outspoken me, but I often think that English doesn't have a fucking chance. There's too much to think and feel, every emotion is tinged and tainted by another, and my heart or brain or whatever-it-is that commands these fingers is sick of the prisons built by sentence structure and Canadian spellings and language.
Everything is an approximation, scaled to the nearest adjective. As Lisa and I were fond of saying as we rambled through Waterloo Park, zoomed out of our heads: "Words are not enough." I'll say it in sobriety too. Words are not enough, but maybe Korean will say what English cannot. I will clumsily draw the Hangul symbols that mean I Miss You. Of course, I won't know a thing about Hangul so I'll really just be sketching lines and dots and pictures of all the things I remember, and all the Koreans will laugh. They'll think, "Aw, isn't it sweet that this Westerner is trying to absorb our culture but what, in the name of the ancestors, is this symbol supposed to be?" They won't know and you won't know but I'll know. Chris Clemens' Korean is useless and cathartic.
I'm sad - see? sad. a word that doesn't say what I want it to say. despondent? somber? morose? pensive? this list of synonyms is unworthy, doesn't touch me, and I can't think of any alternatives that would.
I'm sad that I won't be around to see what the Social Committee can do. Carly is suddenly a fountain of ideas and inspiration and energy and I hope it lasts. It's pretty selfish to think that everything comes to a grinding halt once you move on, but... yeah. It's nice to leave a dent where you used to be, a hole that isn't easily filled. To be missed. Selfish human. Everything that is Now and Important eventually falls to the wayside as a marker of the past. But right Now, it feels Important.
The finest people in life are the ones who fall and then rise again, better than before. The finest people were ugly children who read countless books to deal with rejection, who had time to learn the things that mattered. To appreciate. And when they bloomed in their late teens, beautiful and compassionate and humble and armed with the acquaintance of solitude, the world welcomed them back warmly. For they were what the world so desperately needed.
And just like that, English comes back to me with a sad smile that says it's sorry.
Posted by Chris at 12:35 PM >> Commentations (3) | Permalink
>> Image Gallery
Deep-Fry Convocation picture gallery is up... finally. God that day was hottt, 2.5 months ago. I'm sweating.
Posted by Chris at 12:29 PM >> Commentations (4) | Permalink
August 10, 2005 >> HOT TIP!
If evil men are ever "checking the fire alarms" at your workplace and you hate them and the vicious clanging of the bells, you might do some crazy things.
You might, in fact, get violently bitter after three hours of intermittent false alarms and charge out into the hallway, brandishing a pillow and screaming "MOTHERFUCKER!" to nobody in particular. You will then swing the pillow with enough might to throw you wildly off balance, hammering the satanic red dome near the top of the ceiling with satisfying pillowfight force. It will immediately stop clanging - hushed, silent. You will be shocked. You will be vindicated. You will do it again and again and again until the fire alarm fears the pillow properly.
Posted by Chris at 04:07 PM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink
August 09, 2005 >> Suburban Tragedy
Tragedy struck today when two young girls discovered that they were wearing the same studded belt.
On their way to the mall, Tia, 15, and Marsha, also 15, were horrified when they laid eyes on each other's outfits at the local bus station.
Eyewitnesses say that Tia reacted badly, stomping her feet repeatedly and screaming "I wanna be a rock star! I'M the rock star!" She then proceeded to remove Marsha's duplicate belt while the girl was sobbing and beat her heartily - to the great amusement of onlookers.
"I give that whoopin' an eight-an-eeee haff!" declared a widely-grinning, toothless old man, who went on to declare that, "That was the fuckin' craziest thing these eyes ever did see!" The hobo was asked not to comment further.
Marsha was taken to the hospital, her skull battered and pierced by the hundreds of tiny plastic studs that once adorned her bloodstained belt. The belt was detained and charged with statutory rape and three counts of DUI, and will be sentenced next month. Tia went to the mall. She was the real Rock Star.
Posted by Chris at 04:44 PM >> Commentations (2) | Permalink
August 08, 2005 >> ImageCrash
Some of my favorite images from the year (my year!) so far:
Metal men run mad in Vancouver...
A wide variety of emotions frame the Tomb Raider ride at Canada's Wonderland...
My proposed theme for WLUSU's Summer Conference was apparently not Politically Correct...
But I got sweet (strange? incomprehensible?) revenge in the SummerCon pamphlet,
and I called sly attention to Jen Mitchell's sodomite ways as well!
Fuck I should really start packing my stuff.
Posted by Chris at 06:30 PM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink
>> Murder (ball)
I'm stressed, dear readers, and August is racing onwards. I feel as though I'm not quite on board, dragging in the wake, holding onto the anchor of a quick-moving Sloop for dear life. Yes, you heard it here: August is a Sloop.
I want to tell you about Murderball, a movie which is critically acclaimed and (I don't mind telling you from experience) damn good. It's also failing miserably in the box-office, which is what often happens when Something Original butts heads with big-box drone formula.
No full-length review: all I'll say is that it's extremely refreshing to finally see physically disabled people as people, real guys with their own stories and ambitions and an intense desire to be themselves and not just the sadsack biological half of a cyborg wheelchair. They compete fiercely in demolition-derby style death-chair rugby and joke sadistically at their own expenses. They fuck hot girls (some of them) and regain shattered confidence in themselves. The worst thing you can do while watching Murderball is sit and oooh and awww and "aren't they precious" and pity. Of course, here I am saying "they" and "them" which is evil and complicated in and of itself, but hey now: just go see the movie. It Deserves Your Money.
And so, clearly we have learned that I am not that stressed if I have time to watch movies about athletic paraplegics and disability porno.
Posted by Chris at 01:53 PM >> Commentations (0) | Permalink
August 06, 2005 >> Pressing Matters: Tudor / Blog Party
First things first: Tudor is sacrificing his sanity in a 24-hour blogathon to raise money for literacy (so people can read blogs I guess? It's all very circular and confusing for me). Regardless, he is gung ho and choppity-chop about the whole thing and, while I tend to be a cynic, I wish him the warmest finest in his endeavors and look forward to seeing just how deranged a man tied to his computron for a day can possibly get. Go see!
Second things second: It's on!
The details have arrived:
>>The Anti-Exclusionary Amendment: If people don't write a blog (like Popular Jackie, for instance), they're still more than welcome to come! We demand it, actually. However, I am going to link up my laptop in my room and ask that any non-bloggers take a minute or two to write a short paragraph or something in a text file, which I'll post the next day. People can also come and update pages during the party if they want, as long as nobody spills beer on the Silver God's keyboard. The Silver God must survive the Blog Party!
>>The Anti-Clique Amendment: It probably seems like everyone on Tudor's blogroll is a tightly-knit group, but I wanna break that idea up if possible. I don't care if I don't know you or haven't ever talked to you before - you're invited. We are good people and good things come from drinking with good people. I hope to meet some new faces! Also, nobody smash my house because the people moving into 195 after us are nice asian girls and they don't deserve the mess.
>>The Our Hidden Agenda is Your Free Shit Amendment: Me, Chad and Jen are moving to South Korea. Gord is moving to a Torontonian suburb. Over the last two years, we have assembled a fine gathering of items that are either too unwieldy or useless to take with us: posters, pictures, decor, consumer electronics, toys, Playstation 2 games, stray DVDs, a bar fridge, books and God knows what else. Chad has 2 Pearl Jam tickets to auction. Some stuff is already taken - Carly gets the Marshmallow Lump, Shirley gets Darth Vader, Kat gets the 90210 phone - but everything else is, as of now, Undeclared.
Now I have a particular affinity with many items, generally choosing to give them away to ensure their continued storytale rather than risk their demise for a few bucks (my poor Tempo... *sniff*). I want these things to go to good homes. The roomies agree that giving our stuff away seems like a damn fine way of clearing it out of the house, as opposed to consigning it to the vague mechanisms of Goodwill or the Trash Pile out front. It'll also motivate us to pack.
But it's not that simple. Oh my, no. I am going to turn our house into a silent auction, putting Post-It notes on everything that has to go. Want something? Write your name on the Post-It. If you're the lone claim by the end of the night then great - it's yours, hassle-free. But if more than one person wants something...
Let's just say that if you want the stereo, you'd better be a damn good shot with the dollar-store bow & arrow in the back yard. If you crave our Prince of Egypt movie, you may have to throw down in Dead or Alive 3. Feel like you could give the Shetland Pony a good home? You'll have to prove that you can ride it with critical acclaim. Want my bong? You'll have to smoke me under the table (which I highly doubt is even possible). Every mini-contest will be short and sweet and all in good fun - I'll make sure that nobody gets greedy and takes home the entire house. There'll be something for everybody!
Which brings us to...
>>The Anti-Unilateral Amendment: I can't do this alone. I've already roped a semi-bewildered Dave into agreeing to help set things up, but I'd appreciate any other offers to help me conceive and run contests and think of other cool things we might wanna do. Please?
Well, that's about it. In the coming weeks I'll try to start documenting all the stuff that we'll be giving away so people can start eying up the Goods!
Posted by Chris at 04:56 PM >> Commentations (14) | Permalink
August 05, 2005 >> BLOG PARTY
After brief MSN consultation with Amy, Dave, Dan and Nicki this morning, I think I've found a way to make the Geeky Blog Party work.
Here's what I'm thinkin'.
I'm pretty booked up for the rest of the month, but the last weekend before I leave for Korea is remarkably trouble-free. From what I can tell, Friday the 26th is a good date, falling just before people leave to scatter across Ontario and the globe at large. And my roommates will be in the Yukon on a crazy camping expedition. My Home is Open. And we have Stuff to Give Away because we're moving. Lots of Stuff.
Amy is talking about having a patio party on the 19th, but I don't see why we couldn't do both. Pros/Cons for the 26th? Is there enough interest to make planning this worthwhile?
Posted by Chris at 01:49 PM >> Commentations (8) | Permalink
August 04, 2005 >> Your Blog Sucks
I wonder if, at any time, this will be a valid comeback on the battlefields of verbal warfare:
"Oh yeah? My mother licks and sucks like a greedy Slavic vacuum cleaner, eh? Well... YOU SUCK AT BLOGGING!"
The words will resonate in cutting silence, jaws agape at the bold accusation.
The victim will, shocked, rouse a flimsy defense:
"Hey, just last week I wrote a pretty damn good review of -"
"A pretty damn good nothing! You talked about how cute your cats were that day. You posted Taking Back Sunday lyrics. You took coy pictures of yourself in the mirror. Your blog blows!"
And this time the silence is only broken by the muffled sound of weeping into the oversized sleeve of a hoodie.
Posted by Chris at 02:23 PM >> Commentations (9) | Permalink
August 03, 2005 >> Blogconceptpeople
I always enjoy passing Real Life conversations with people whom I generally know more about through the blogosphere than actual, you know, hanging out. In person, with faces and mouths and ears and everything. We know each other and yet not. We're busy, we live apart but we still read in parallel. And more than likely, we'll talk about blogging when our busy-bee paths do cross in the physical realm. Ideas surface.
This summer, two ideas in particular stuck with me. I've been waiting to see if the two bloggers I talked with would run with the concept, but since they haven't and probably don't even remember...
1. Dave Alexander & the Blog Party.
I ran into Dave at the Underpass as I was heading back to work and he, well... I didn't ask. Small talk irritates me on some days. Anyways, we fell into conversation about the recent Arcade Fire show, after which fucking heaps and stacks of bloggers we knew who had attended posted their reflections afterwards in quick succession. Everyone had a different slant on the show - review, social commentary, inane banter... the works.
Springboarding off this phenomenon, we thought it would be cool if someone threw a Blog Party in Waterloo (where many bloggers are known to mate and gambol), and everyone who attended went home and wrote about their experience - or reflected upon it in their own particular way. One might think "holy shit, a bunch of internet geeks at a party... great idea," but I thought it would be really neat to build a consensus description of the event by compiling everybody's thoughts and images together. 30+ bloggers, each with their own distinctive voice. The whole dealie would likely come off as a bizarro-surreal narrative, a rainbow painted by many fragmented, tinted lenses and eclectic perspectives. It could be an exercise in defining individuality or psychoanalysis or God-knows-what for theorists. It would be Hella-Interesting.
2. Laura & the Feminist Checklist.
I came across Laura in the Quad and somehow we rambled into conversation about Being the Endless Student, orange perma-tans, pierced genitals and - her potential Master's thesis - feminism. Her take was that feminism is an extremely nebulous term: while she identified two main kinds of feminist movements (Use Sex vs Hate Sex - my clumsy paraphrasing), the signifier of being a feminist is very much in constant cultural contention.
The definition of feminism is constantly shifting, and so we thought it might be a funny, weird idea to pin it down with a Feminist Checklist online somewhere. We didn't really explore the idea very thoroughly or even seriously - "Have you had a penis in the last 24 hours? Yes? -5 points. Have you had a vagina? Yes? +10 points!" - but I think it would be interesting to see someone give this a shot. Someone who isn't me, particularly: I have no interest in further rousing the ire of militant harpies. I have a penis and thusly am, by simple elimination, particularly unsuited to creating definitions for women about women. But I'd sure like to see someone who's qualified (read: possessing of a vagina) try. Seems like a daunting task, but you never know - ideological solidification has to start somewhere. And fuck, it would be nice to finally nail something to the wall.
Actually, someone do a Checklist for postmodernism too.
Posted by Chris at 03:44 PM >> Commentations (13) | Permalink
August 02, 2005 >> McBoycott
More than a year ago, I trounced down to our beloved Princess Cinema to see the latest hype in the Documentaries-R-Kewl movement: Supersize Me. I haven't eaten at McDonalds since. Not even once.
I'm not telling you this so you can be all like "Omigod that Chris Clemens, he is so dreamy and has convictions and social awareness and FUCKTHECORPORATIONS!" Hells no. Because I don't.
It was really just a matter of a trend-inspired decision turning into something that I felt I could hold onto, something I could do. One by one, everyone who had made similar pledges fell prostrate before the Golden Arches in moments of drunken lust or vicious circumstance, but somehow I said "No" and kept saying it. It felt good, especially since quitting smoking has failed time and time again until eventually I decided that I didn't really want to quit. Quitters are losers, right? The real winners get lung cancer.
But I digress. McDonalds is not on the menu. Memories of Supersize Me have faded substantially (except the Chicken McNugget grinder. God I used to love those sweet golden nuggets, but now...), and my boycott is really more a matter of personal pride than a dedicated slap to Ronald's freakish mime face. It's the joy of being an uncompromising dick for an extended period of time.
I eat other fast food. I am eating Wendy's fries right now, for instance. Damn they're tasty. I'm dipping them in Sweet & Sour sauce right now. And I'm sure you can call me hypocritical, if you like, for munching down on the filthy wares of corporations which are just as reprehensible as McDonalds when it comes to ecological crimes, strong-arm business tactics and building an army of pimple-faced, recycleable staff. But... fuck you. I'm hungry. I'm human. I'll pick my own battles and taking on Fast Food in general is just not something I want to do. And if I did, I would have to be friendly with vegans and I hate vegans.
I don't care if other people eat McDonalds. En route to a camping trip up north earlier this summer, we stopped at a rest station and - guess what - McDonalds was sitting there: proud, defiant, fat. I sat staunchly by while everyone blasted McEverythings down their gullets and fuck, it was hard. "Want the rest of my fries?" "You know, we won't tell anyone if you take one bite." I just couldn't. It smelled like delicious, juicy poison... but No. Because then, what would I live for? What could I believe in?
Dear readers, I am telling you now that my entire existence is dedicated to the worthy pilgrimage of Not Eating At McDonalds. If you all stop eating McDonalds and the Arches fold, my life becomes meaningless and I will have to kill myself with a rusty butterknife, sawing down the highway instead of across the road. I know the drill. I will implode in some kind of Nietzsche-like abyss.
So Supersize those fries and add a McFlurry for only $2.39, if you love me at all.
Posted by Chris at 01:32 PM >> Commentations (7) | Permalink
August 01, 2005 >> Temporary
We don't want kids. The world is overpopulated. Adopt. Or kill.
We don't want marriage. The Church is obsolete and laced with hate. Pledge hearts with rings of twine, not diamonds mass-marketed for unblinking greedy eyes.
We don't want careers. ADD makes it impossible to concentrate, to dedicate. Television stole our will to stay. Move. Move again. Never grow roots, drop anchors. Never stay.
We don't want pop culture. Wait, we sort of do. We want a neon signpost so repulsive that we instinctively turn in the opposite direction. That makes us Cool.
That makes us We.
Posted by Chris at 04:52 PM | Permalink