No Rest For The Wicked, Pandemic Journal

      While I have been lulled into semi hibernation with Christmas lights, darkness, and more turkey than most people on this planet have access to in a lifetime the news takes no holiday! The madness of King Trump continues it's stupid path into infamy, just as Dems and R's struck a deal to aid the millions of unemployed Trump comes out and says a $600 payment is not enough for the public and he wants $2000, it's nice and great and all but Mr Art of the Deal seems to know nothing about deal making, such as being present while deals are being struck. It came out of left field days after the deal was announced and a government shut down looms with the passing of this bill as well. Many, including me, believe Trump is mad at Mitch McConnell for accepting reality and acknowledging Bidens win, fine by me, go down attacking your own party, that makes sense. In the background of all this the Georgia Senate runoff elections will decide the fate of Senate control for the next 2 years! Win 2 seats and Biden can do as he pleases, lose one and Senate control remains in Republican hands and thus years of more gridlock and stupidity of getting nothing done! So ole Mitch is in a real pickle, will he press the Republican $600 deal or let his Senators vote for Trumps (and Democrat backed ) $2000 deal? And keep in mind the Georgia candidates are for Trumps plan, now throw in Bernie Sanders. Turns out Trump hates the new military budget, because he is on Russia's side? and threatened to veto the bill but the house members have voted enough to override his veto but Sanders is threatening to hold up this vote until the Covid relief bill is passed. I tell you American politics are more drama than a god damned soap opera! But wait there's more! Because the US system is so insane, they have to vote again to formalize the Electoral College in the Senate, it's been a dumb formality up until now as Trump thinks if he can get enough Republican Senators to reject the reality of the election they can overturn the actual vote and leave a vote for President to the Senate which he would win. It would be the end of the worlds oldest democracy and become the beginning of A Handmaids Tale, it's very scary how close the world is to the nuts taking over! There is one Senator who is already on board and maybe more to come. It probably won't happen this time but Trump has laid out a path to end democracy in the future, elect enough crazy people and this could easily happen! On a sad note a newly elected Republican congressman has died of Covid at the age of 41, he had a wife and two small kids, so sad, this should be the biggest story of the day but it's not! And I would like President Piece of Shit to say to his widow and kids that "Covid is a hoax" or "nothing more than the flu" also note that we have recently lost singer Charley Pride from Covid.

     As for the pandemic, on the eve of vaccinations comes a newer stronger more contagious mutation from the UK and of course it's already showed up in Ontario, BC and Alberta because self centered assholes cannot stay home for Christmas. I knew this would happen! As Canada tried to quickly close its borders the new strain was already here, surprise, surprise! As I walk the dog I often see the giant KLM flight right over my head, bringing people from Europe for I don't know what reason!?!?!? Stay the fuck home, Christmas is all BS anyway, there will be time enough to see people again. I find that people never really change and you can pick up where you left off like you've never been apart, don't people know this? I doubt it, people are so stupid these days! So we are up to 1,028 deaths in Alberta and over 15,000 in Canada, the US is over 300,000 so there's that! Kenney is at the bottom in a poll of pandemic handling at 30% approval among the Premiers, too funny! We had my mom over for Christmas, this is allowed according to the Provincial guidelines, and my biggest takeaway from her 86 year old mind is that "Kenney should find a partner, maybe he would be a nicer person" like Kenney being gay is something everyone knows and we're now using the word "partner" for gay relationships! Who knew we would ever get to this place with her???? There may be hope for the world yet!

     As for New Years Eve, tricks on you Covid! Turns out for maybe the last 20 years my New Years consists of watching CNN at home anyway! I don't have friends or go to parties anymore! LOL Most of the time we are lucky to be awake by midnight! The current thinking is that 2021 will automatically be better, as if 2020 was cursed, but the shit show will go on a little longer I'm afraid and the consequences of Christmas are yet to be seen. I'm not too happy with vaccine roll out plans, in Alberta the focus is rightly on essential workers, nurses and such but not EMS which is infuriatingly stupid! The next group is old people in long term care and I'm sorry but WTF!? Please give it to the people who work with them first we don't need to put these old folks ahead of others. I believe people who work in public, of all ages, should be vaccinated, then by risk and age, people who can work from home do not need it right away either. This province is also focusing on inoculating the First Nations first as well, my mom (longtime Kenney supporter) is not pleased with that and neither am I, I thought this place was about the economy? Not humanitarianism? Color me confused!

Well, I just learned that Dawn Wells, MaryAnn from Gilligan's Island died of Covid at age 82, that makes me so sad, we met her once in Calgary, I will tell you about that one day, what a sweet heart she was, I'm not usually sad about celebrities but this one really hits home!!!

See you in 2021!

Serious Shit, Pandemic Journal

      One week before Christmas, my mothers Birthday, she's 86 today, and a fair amount of things to do which is making me testy! My Dr. thinks now is the time to experiment with blood pressure drugs, yeah, over Christmas time, I am getting really tired of all the Muslim Dr's I have had over the years who seem to have no understanding of Western society, yes we drink, have gay sex, celebrate holidays without fasting, gawd, I'm looking for a new Dr. in the new year! Our friend and best client Orme passed away recently, from many many medical issues, he was one of the richest people in Saskatchewan they say, is having a virtual funeral today! God damn does it have to be today? Id like to do some baking today, who has time for this?

     Anyway, I don't know if it's the new drug I'm trying or the news making me so angry today but lets just cover some of the Trump shit show today.  Apparently there are thousands of doses of the new vaccine just sitting in storage because the Trump administration can't get it together, they have no excuse or reason for this but are "looking into it" says Alex Azar Sec. Health/Human Services. Yeah, BULL SHIT! I think we know that Trump is deliberately trying to fuck up the roll out of the vaccine because he is a petulant asshole man baby who probably has it out for the entire country right now. Another issue is the Russian hack, I mentioned it earlier but it is far worse than thought even a few days ago. Turns out they have been hacking since March into almost all US departments including Energy which is the nuclear bomb agency! We have also learned they have hacked into many US corporations and many more organizations in the West including those in Canada, people are calling this an act of 21st century war. Trump has nothing to say about this, busy with a golf club up his ass I guess? He is also busy blocking Biden from getting Pentagon updates during the transition. If it's not apparent that Trump is a complete traitor who actually hates America then the entire Republican party should all be exiled with him somewhere, Guantanamo Bay? Only Mitt Romney has the balls in his magic Mormon undergarments to say anything! If anyone ever deserved to be led to the guillotine in history it is Vladimir Putin, I hate this son of a bitch so much, I hope he gets everything he deserves when America comes back in the Biden years. I think NATO should take Crimea back, FREE CRIMEA! you deserve it Putin, the only thing that stops these shameless assholes is to neuter them, kick em in the proverbial balls and those balls are Crimea in this situation. Another stupid thing going on in the US is aid for the population during covid. Aid is set to expire at the end of this month, people will be evicted and have no unemployment benefits because this is how they deal with people, well Republicans anyway, they are soooo close to a deal, it's insanity to those of us who live in normal countries! Like Trump I believe all the Trumplicans (Republicans who follow Trump) are guilty of criminal negligence, on the virus, on hacking, on destroying democracy, on all of the stupid shit they did supporting this wanna be despot!

We also see today Pence and his beard, I mean wife, getting the vaccine, really? I can see the VP getting it but why on earth does his fat bitch of a wife need one for? To keep spreading homophobia in her Christian school? Give me a fucking break! How much do you wanna bet vaccines in America will be directed to Congress and the super rich before people who actually need it, especially blacks and latinos? I'd bet the farm if I had one!

How's it going in Alberta? Shiiit all the government dorks are standing around taking credit for the vaccine of course, that Trudeau approved. Yesterday we had a record death toll of 19 in this Province, and it's all due to bad government just like the US, India, Russia and Brazil, consider the similarities.

Christmas, Get Over It!!!

      People around here were getting ready for Christmas back in November, the millennials who have taken over my neighbourhood are apparently really into the holiday this year! My other neighbours who I get to observe like a zoo exhibit of "Straight White North American Homo Sapien" because of our window proximity, began watching Christmas movies, women's fantasy type romantic dramas where the girl always gets the impossibly handsome and perfect man, around November 1st! Then I would see some Christmas decor going up, then the outside lights, and I would say to Gord "I think a Christmas tree is going to be born soon." and sure enough a few weeks later I was right! Even my other neighbours who I consider much more normal in most ways put up their tree in late November! Sheesh, I don't like Christmas that much, I don't want all that stuff around for a god damned month! To me Christmas is sentimental, I enjoy the foods, the lights and the music for a very short period but the actual meaning of it, the religious part, is about as important to me as the Myth of Osiris or Zeus, interesting and pretty weird mythology. During this pandemic lockdown a lot of young people feel like they are missing out, we already saw them going nuts for American Thanksgiving earlier, this generation needs their parents and other people to share all their dumb existence with. They need to be at home with their parents so they can stare at a phone for 20 hours a day! I think they are nuts and need to get the fuck over it! There will be more Christmases and fun times in the future, let me tell you about my worst Christmas ever you young whippersnappers.

     By the year 1987 I was 19 and living on my own because I was disowned for being gay, this means no contact with your parents and I feel I have to stress that because many young people don't seem to get this point. I had already met Gord my life-partner in the summer and he was attending college out of town 50 miles away and I was living with a nuts lesbian couple and a self proclaimed witch/fortune teller in their basement suite storage closet in the Beltline area, hey we all have to start somewhere! My friend Triste somehow got me a temporary Christmas job at the Body Shop in TD Square where I made gift baskets and totally sucked at shipping/receiving in the back room, sometimes I got to help in the store too! I tell you downtown at Christmas time is a magical time, the decorations, the hustle and bustle, the prettiness of historic 8th Avenue, it was fun, my favourite job in so many ways. Christmas Eve in retail is also just too magical, it's like the last day of school and we all get to look forward to at least one day off! Most of that day was probably just screwing around and I remember we were all invited to indulge in refreshments by the TD Square Corp. which meant going to some strange storage area of the building where you could have a drink with some maintenance guys. I was far too young and too gay to be hanging out with some middle aged janitors but I do remember looking out the window to see it was snowing and heavily! Many times in Calgary it snows heavily and magically right around Christmas even Christmas Eve, it's so god damned magical you could just shit! By the time our day was over we walked home in all that fresh new snow, it had been dry and bare up until then all November and December, so beautiful. 

At some point I made plans with my other friend, Lori, to go to her relatives out in the mountains for Christmas dinner as I was going to be alone, disowned, orphaned by my real parents. Loris parents were always so nice to me thru High School, I spent many days and nights at their house, they were like my second parents. I wasn't really thinking about what the reality of a disowned Christmas would really be like, I don't recall specific details because this is so bloody long ago now but I do remember the feelings. Gord was off to his parents in Saskatchewan so I didn't have my new boyfriend and love of my life around. What I mostly remember is the uncomfortable couch in that basement suite I was sitting on as everyone slipped away to do holiday things with their families, first the lesbians were off, Deanne was the nicer one and Shauna was a nightmare of a human being, so many issues, not missed by me on this day, she later became straight and hated all of us and we never saw her again after 1989. I was thinking oh right, people have families, I forgot. I remember talking to our other roommate Erica who was a pretty good palm reader/psychic, sitting together on that terrible couch, she was always nice but like so many young people in the 80's had a hard edge under that sideways mohawk and intense scrolling eye makeup, she had to go to her family later too. Really no one was going to go out of their way to help me thru this lonely void. Mostly I just remember sitting alone on that couch, I don't think I watched TV, did we even have one? Did I listen to Depeche Mode or something? I don't know, I do remember the song Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas from this time, it still reminds me of this time of my life. I remember phoning Lori to ask when are you picking me up? Oh later, was the reply. I was hurt, I thought I could go over for more of the day, they didn't show up until almost 3, it was almost dark. We drove to a small cabin in the foothills where some relative of theirs was hosting Christmas dinner, it was nice, weird, not my family but fun anyway. Lori had already prepared me with a lie, she was always lying, it's what she does, if anyone asks about my parents just say they are in Arizona, which I did, probably not convincingly! This was not my favourite Christmas! Mostly I felt alone and betrayed by most of the people I knew and understanding that people are more self centered than we ever want to believe at that age, I wasn't really that important to other people. Hard lessons, I guess Dolly Parton would call it a hard candy Christmas!? The next year I was in Art College and Gord and I lived in a cute apartment in an old house which was probably one of the best Christmases ever and I would never be alone for Christmas to this day. The point? You'll get over it. It is important to go thru things like this, this was character building! Every moment of our lives is not perfect in fact it is often fraught with harrowing bull shit. The young people of today drive me nuts, they are such whiney babies to me, they want to be with their parents way too often which I find bizarre! Go, make your lives, build experiences of your own, there will be plenty of Christmases in the future! God, we have had 32 Christmases since then, most of them I could barely remember now, what gifts were given, what dinners consumed, drinks drunk? I tell you young folks, in 2050, you may look back on this year with scattered memories but you will have better ones, so many better ones to look forward to, one bad year will be forgotten easily. Consider it character building, it's what life is made of.

     

Twas the Week Before Christmas, Pandemic Journal

     Its about a week or so before Christmas, the first two weeks of December were in the 10 to 15C range making it one of the longest double digit spells for December, I kept saying to Gord in my best Mr.Hankey voice that "It sure doesn't feel like Christmas around here." December 6th I wore shorts and a T-shirt to walk the dog and later hung out with the neighbours on their front lawn as they were having a socially distant gathering with some people they know, some drivers were really glaring as they passed and the next day Kenney announced new restrictions, guess it was this gathering? The millennials are so funny to me, later my quite drunk neighbour was telling me how much he "needed" the social interaction, geeze, life must be hard for the young!?

     It's quite nuts that a few weeks prior Kenney was shirking new restrictions and then suddenly abouts-face and introduces a bunch of new restrictions which don't really have any teeth, so the impression of restrictions without really doing much. It's stupid but apparently so are most Albertans! Indoor dining is cancelled, gatherings of more than 10 people outside are not allowed and everyone who can is supposed to be working from home, so lets see how that goes! The death rate is escalating wildly, 10 or so everyday, we are now up to 744 and Global News and CTV (CFCN) do their very best to bury these numbers as they fumble thru reading numbers and throwing out confusing visuals of numbers that are different everyday, I can't follow their graphics and numbers how can my octogenarian mom!? Some stupid facts from a stupid population; we need to have 70% or more get a vaccine to attain herd immunity and Alberta has the lowest rate of immunization willing folks at only 66%  and Kenney will change the Health Code to remove mandatory vaccination! It makes me so furious, I just can't believe how stupid and ideological this little prick is, I guess it shouldn't surprise me? And then they go around saying that everyone else is being ideological, it's so Trumpian! Fuck! I just want to say that getting over Covid is linked to the economy stupid!!!! How are we going to recover with these idiots at the helm? And if Albertans are going to act like stupid Americans then fuck you all too! I tell you one day I will leave this stupid place!

     What's going on in the last episodes of the Trump show? This week AG Bill Barr is either fired or resigning, some people calling his letter a hostage statement, and just what is Trump up to? Probably trying to enshrine an investigation into Hunter Biden that the incoming AG will not be able to stop. We have seen this before from nutcase Republicans with Benghazi, stupid nonsense that was a waste of time and money and this Hunter Biden thing will be the same. Trump thinks he will get revenge, whatever turd, fuck the fuck off! I firmly believe Trump may not be with us in 4 years, he strikes me as the kind of guy who would die on Christmas day! You know Trump famously does not eat most of the day going over 14 hours and then likes to chow down on two Big Macs and a Fillet-o-Fish with small chocolate shake eaten within 5 minutes! Ever see Jordan Klepper try to eat this and do his monolouge within 5 minutes? It's inhuman! Big news yesterday is that Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell congratulated Biden and Harris after the electoral college did their job and voted but unfortunate for the little turtle man is that Vladimir Putin beat him to the punch that day, what a fucked up world! There was much drama and stupid nonsense with Republicans threatening violence and trying to crash the electoral college voting places, some were moved to secret locations. It just looks like a nuts shit show and embarrassment for the "world's leading democracy", these dwindling days of Trump cannot go fast enough! This week also saw a Russian hack of several US departments including Treasury and the Pentagon, I guess under Trump they better do what they can before normalcy comes back! The Russians make me so mad, I would be totally for NATO taking back Crimea, FREE CRIMEA!!!! and or some real consequences, getting kicked out of whatever international bodies they belong to, seize foreign assets, outlawing their currency! Fuck you Putin America is coming back! The best way to sum up this time period is by listening to former McCain campaign head Steve Schmidt "there is now one pro-democracy party in America and one that is for dictatorship" it's true I don't know what the hell Republicans are still thinking getting behind this personality cult that is Trump but they will find themselves on the wrong side of history soon! Lesser countries would have traitors shot at dawn! In a moment of "holy shit the monster is destroying the lab now" we find out that Jared and Ivanka have bought a 300 million$ property in Florida and she may be planning a Senate run in 22 against guess who......? Marco Rubio! LOL she is going to primary him and I just wonder how the Republican powers that be think about this??? How far will they let these Trump people go? I don't even believe the Trumps will survive legally for very long and may find themselves living in Saudi Arabia soon! We'll see!

     Since the first of the vaccines are rolling out we are being treated to multiple first vaccines footage, so boring you will be reaching for that remote control faster than a greased goose in a hen house! First in the Western world was old people in the UK, save the old! Turned out that Canada got the vaccine the same day as the US so much more footage of all that, over here we are vaccinating nurses/essential workers and old people later. So I guess all that hot air in Parliament from Conservatives was just that? Yeah, thought so. I don't know, I kinda wish the pandemic would linger a little longer, I don't think anyone has learned their lesson, especially Americans. I don't really support giving most Americans the vaccine at all, maybe we would all be better off ? Less racist idiots, Trump cultists, gun loving, bible thumping, loud mouthed dickheads, sounds good to me, besides they never learn their lessons, be it the crash of 08, 9/11, Vietnam, all of it, they just get terrible consequences and then get right back to it a few years later. I'm going to miss the lockdown, it makes no difference to my life, I am an artist and longtime loner I don't need to be running around like a god damned teenager all my life! I already have a small social circle and hate leaving my house for fun. If we just go back to everything we were doing before then we haven't learned anything and are doomed to repeat it. There will be Pandemics in the future if we don't change our ways.