The internet is a seductive devil, isn’t it? It is so very easy to track down information about your favourite artists, to feed your hungry curiosity. Where did they go to school? Who did they love? Who do they hate? More, more more! We are compelled to look for explanations for the art that moves us. We want to know the secret to it. We want to look at the art, then the artist, and announce our deducted reasoning of what drove the artist to make that art.
Stop. Please stop. YOU ARE RUINING THE MAGIC.
You’re demanding to know how the sausage is made. But if you knew (or thought you knew) exactly how it was made, you’d see only the component parts. It’s all lips and assholes. Wish fulfillment and artist self-inserts. Nothing special. Nothing spiritual. No magic.
Is your life so full of contentment and satisfaction that you need no sense of magic and mystery? What a special child you are. The rest of us trudge through this world of material needs and human concerns, carrying the weight of this mortal coil and the daily demands of the flesh. Art gives us a peek at the divine. Even the ugly art, especially the ugly art, speaks to our spirit and brings us respite.
When you mistake the artists for the art, you rob yourself of the audience’s true power: the power of interpretation. In a perfect world, the artist completes the work and leaves it at your proverbial doorstep. An orphan with no history. You, the audience, now get to define the art as you experienced it. Your interpretation may be the antithesis of what the artist had in mind, and that is also part of the magic. The art lives independant of the artist. The art is not real until it collides with the audience. It’s the resulting explosion that matters.
(Is that an optimized title, designed to tickle the algorithm just so? Of course not! Make the machine’s life harder, I say. )
Been a little while since I popped in here for an update. Which is unfair to you, my tiny audience. Apologies! You should know it’s not deliberate avoidance, simply limited creative resource. I only got so many words per day that I can coherently fit together, so it’s blog post or book work. I aspire to being able to manage 2 creative projects at once. Hopefully I can do so before the creeping threat of senility comes calling.
But to specifics: I am in the final approach to publishing the next Falstaff book, “Falstaff Gets Dirty”. For the record, the Falstaff books are a series titled “Faded American Empire”, which was a much more fun title when I came up with it a decade ago. It is not now, nor was it ever, a literal political commentary on the big ol’ US of A circus. Just a title that sounded tough and cool. Don’t read anything into it, and for the love of JEEBUS, don’t map your own political bugbears onto it. It’s just a bunch of made up stories about lies, drugs, and murder.
Local dullard defies odds, writes yet another book.
When will book 2 come out? An excellent question that I should have an answer to. Let’s say sometime between tomorrow and Halloween. I’ll give you a heads up when it’s on its way. If your fired up enough that you want to pre-order a copy (really?), comment on this post, send an email, or message me on instagram (spankules). Weirdo.
Is that all the book-related info? YOU WISH. I am now writing the next book, which is for some reason a prequel. It made sense at the time I chose to do it. That makes the official series order:
Book 1 -> Book 2 -> Book 0 -> Book 3
Look, I know its confusing but you just gotta relax and let it happen.
There’s an interesting contrast between novel writing and stand-up writing. The timeframes and level of deliberate preparation are vastly different. Comedy demands efficiency and economy of words. I only have a few minutes so I have to cut all the fat out of the writing. Novel writing, on the other hand, is a wonderland of sprawling, rambling indulgence. At least, the first draft is. So the two different writing situations end up being complementary. Try new things, kids. It’s good for you!
An arrogant Canuck, showing his dignified self to the country.
So the U.S.A., our long-time special friend-with-benefits, has broken up with us. And most of you are not handling it well at all. Standing near the border and shouting “HOW COULD YOU? DON’T YOU KNOW HOW MUCH YOU NEEEEEEED US? WELL TWO CAN PLAY AT THIS GAME, BUDDY”. We tried to make the U.S. jealous by cozying up the the sick old man Europe, and the U.S. laughed. Next, we hinted that maybe we’d be new best friends with China.
You know China, right? The oppressive, authoritarian Communist country that is aggressively grabbing territory in the South China Sea? The country that runs illegal police station in other countries like OUR OWN? The country building up its military in preparation of invading and conquering Taiwan? The Country supplying Russia with money and troops (via its puppet state North Korea)? The country that is currently trying to destroy Canadian Canola farmers and pork producers with massive tariffs? That’s who our ‘eLBowS uP’ Prime Minister wants to deepen trade ties with.
Oh, did I mention that, in the event of China launching a war to take Taiwan, the U.S. would come to Taiwan’s defense? That means our actual ally that we share a massive land border with, would be at war with our new best friend China, which would make Canada a strategic threat to the U.S. How do you think that plays out for us? Have you even spent a moment considering the ramifications of repeatedly antagonizing the Americans?
I struggled to understand the emotional tantrum that my fellow Canadians started to throw once the U.S. tarriffs were announced. It sucks that our largest trading partner decided to apply sales tax to things not covered in our massive trade deal (USMCA), but since USMCA covers about 90% of the goods we sell to them, the additional tarriffs affected very few finished goods sold to the U.S. But we went ballistic with our outrage. Our government slapped on counter-tarriffs, which didn’t really affect the U.S. but did violate the USMCA agreement. Yeah, that’s right. The first thing we did was piss on the trade agreement that the U.S. continued to honour.
We had Premier Lardass go onto U.S. television boo-hooing about how much the mean Americans were hurting our feeewings.
Premier Lardass shows off his ice cream eating skills at a press conference. Never doubted you for a second, Fatty.
But all of you got a lot more upset by trade issues than was reasonable. You reacted like Donald Trump had slapped your mother on the 6 o’clock news. More than costing your country money, you were enraged that your Canadian identity was being attacked. Because it turns out, Canada defines itself by its relationship with the U.S. You all need the Americans to be your best friend, because you don’t know who you are without them. Sure, you’ll trot out some tired cliches about politeness, hockey and maple syrup. But all your core National traits are based on a contrast with the U.S.
And what’s worse, you define yourself this way to avoid fixing your own problems. 14 month wait time for surgery in Ontario? Well the U.S. has medical bankruptcies! Canadian courts keep letting violent sex offenders out of jail early? America puts everyone in jail forever!!! Massive increase in non-citizens allowed into Canada by Federal government, causing housing, healthcare and employment crisies? Trump’s being mean and deporting everyone!!
Your screeching about American politics gets louder and louder, to drown out the reality of the state of our country and its continued decline into disorder and poverty. You voted for the men, federally and provincially, who told you the comforting lie that everything was fine, America is wrong about everything, and nothing has to change. Our youth have an unemployment rate of 15%, but not one of you seems to give a shit about that. You’re more than happy to keep exploiting temporary foreign workers and international student labour to keep your coffees and hamburgers made for cheap.
And you, my fellow Canucks, are in complete denial about the reality of the U.S.-Canada relationship. We are not equals. At best, we are an irritating sidekick to a country whose population is TEN TIMES the size of ours. At worst, we are a security threat.
We do a terrible job at keeping track of the Asylum claimants that have flooded our nation over the last 10 years, most of whom are falsely claiming Asylum as they exploit our federal government’s poorly run Asylum program. It takes up to 60 months for our plodding federal government to determine the validity of an Asylum claim. During that time, we may or may not know where the claimant is residing within our country. Are they in a homeless shelter? A church refuge program? Did they sneak into the U.S to attempt to commit an act of terror? Our government would be the last one to know.
We cry about ‘Free Trade’ while demanding that our dairy cartel protectionism is left untouched. We inherently bargain from a position of bad faith, in defense of a Supply Management system that makes the Quebec Dairy industry rich and average Canadians poorer.
We whine about ‘soft power’ and demand we be listened to as a N.A.T.O. ally without doing our fair share. For decades we have coasted on the U.S. military’s coattails, refusing to meet our N.A.T.O funding commitments. And when we do increase our spending, we do it primarily by labelling non-military spending as ‘Defense spending’. That’s dishonest and shameful. The goal of a GDP spending target was to increase each NATO nation’s military capability, so that they can each help defend democracy from hostile actors like Russia. Instead, Canada and Europe have used deceitful accounting tricks to skirt their obligations, relying on America to do all the heavy lifting. Is that a respectful relationship?
So spare me your rending of garments and gnashing at teeth over the injustices inflicted on innocent Canada by the Bad Orange Man. We have been poor friends and allies for years, taking advantage of American openness while sneering condescendingly at them at every turn. Stop refusing to consider the possibility that their issues with us could have merit. Stop trying to spite them at every turn, for the sake of your bruised ego. The world is stumbling towards a full global conflict, if it isn’t already underway. We are out of time, and can no longer indulge our massive egos and even larger insecurities. To paraphrase what Trump said in response to Zelenskky’s attempt to publicly shame the U.S. as a deal-making tactic: We’re not in a good position. We don’t have the cards right now.
At the very least, find your principles, grow a goddamned spine, and get your own house in order.
Chris Loblaw, Author 