CitizenTed

Let me make this clear: if you got up early on Friday to line up outside some stupid retail hell in order to “score bargains”, you are a moron who deserves to be etched from the tapestry of human experience. If you are reading this and you are one of those people, I strongly recommend you kill yourself immediately. Just find some rope and hang yourself. Really.

In the news today, a WalMart employee was killed when the usual Black Friday stampede trampled over his sorry WalMart ass. In the coming months, we’ll endure all the lawsuits and dodged responsibilities that these events generate. All the while, we will utterly ignore the ignoble, unAmerican, uncivilized idiocy that is Black Friday – the cause of all this garbage. No one will blame stupidity and crass corporate greed for this annual self-humiliation. Instead, we will wonder how we can improve it so next year won’t be so homicidally vapid.

But there is another way. There is the Way of Ted. If you are patient and listen well, I can offer you a chance to enjoy Black Friday with pride, humility and joy. Are you ready? OK. Here we go:

On Thanksgiving Day, enjoy yourself. Stay up late. Eat that piece of pie. Fuck it. Then, on Friday morning, sleep in till noon. That’s right: noon. Ignore the pets/kids/neighbors and whatever. Tell every one and every thing to to go fuck itself. Then, get up slowly and in your own good time. Make some breakfast. French toast is a good choice. Be sure to have some organic juice, too. Not the stuff with the corn syrup. The good stuff.

After breakfast, pay attention to your loved ones and pets. In no time, it’ll be dinner time. Eat out or stay in; doesn’t matter. Then, in the evening, you should watch a movie or have sex with someone. I know you slept in late, but you will feel sleepy again before midnight. I promise. Off to bed with you!

There you go. A picture perfect Black Friday. This is the day after Thanksgiving. Treat it like the day after Thanksgiving.

Well, some of you meddlers have inquired about my plans for the so-called “Thanks-giving” holiday. I can assure you, I won’t be wasting my time with such frivolities as are expected in this day and age, when men can idle themselves in empty reverie. No, I do not respond to the klaxon call of manufactured celebration like the rest of you lay-abouts. Not when there is proper work to be done!

Each Thanks-giving I work late, covering for that shirker Cratchit. At least I’m free of his bumbling excuses and can concentrate on extracting some profit from my meager enterprise. With all the town fools away in their awful little homes, the office is actually quite quiet and amenable to those willing to invest their time in useful pursuits, rather than frittering away their hours in such frivolities as roasted turkey and sport-games.

What are you looking at? Get back to reading the story, damn you!

You can rest assured that something good will come of my efforts; it is by labour that the fruits of life are wrought, and while Cratchit is home with his dour wife and menacing brood, I will be here, in this office, making good on plans well conceived without the help of oafish others!

Come dusk I’ll fix myself a nice bowl of thin gruel, so as not to upset my stomach. As evening draws near, it’s time to head home, where I can relax in my dressing-gown and indulge in a good book, preferably one extolling the virtues of market economics. With a shuffle of feet and heavy sigh, I’ll extinguish my candle and dream away of the riches to come – riches borne of effort and sacrifice! What know you of such things, busy as you are giving thanks to long-forgotten Puritan fools and the barbarians they befriended! Pah! Pish!

So go ahead and enjoy your candied yams and moving-pictures! While your Thursday passes with nigh an indication of any accomplishment whatever, you can be sure that mine has put crowns in my pocket and black ink on the ledger!

That’s all I have for you now, so go away! Off with you! Go on, now! Can’t you see I am working???

Sex and drugs but no rock n’ roll.

I like electronic music. Actually, I like some electronic music. I’m a big fan of the European Chill sound, as well the updated Lounge sound of Europe and the US. I like music that is smoldering, lyrical, melodious and hypnotizing.

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.I’ve been to plenty of clubs and raves. I understand the appeal, even though I don’t dig the scene. It’s a tribal thing. They know the music is canned and repetitive. The DJ’s are gesturing alpha’s with headphones whose musical skills are supplanted by programming skills. The club kids themselves just wanna dance. There’s no musical integrity to be found. But it’s THEIR thing. Older adults, music critics and naysayers can go fuck themselves, because the ravers are having fun. In its own way, this attitude is more rock n’ roll than rock n’ roll.

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I can dig it, even though I don’t like it.

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Thus, this 40-something musical snob found himself volunteering to VJ at a local rave. My company manufactures high end video gear, so I have access to all kinds of cool toys. A local promoter is a friend of mine, so I volunteered my services as a VJ. Why not? I own earplugs.

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I prepared a massive arsenal of content and loaded it into cutting-edge visualization gear. There would be abstract eye-candy, of course. But I also built up some narrative sequences: apocalyptic imagery, sensual imagery and even a complete narrative about the joy of journey and the relief of return. Would it be lost on the club kids? Probably. But I I had to go beyond eye candy.

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This is VJ Culture (Grant Davis), a VJ superstar at work.

At the show, I was bummed to find they only had a mediocre projector and a bare wall for a screen. Not optimal. But the show must go on. I did my thing and had some fun. The kids seemed to like it. When I went outside for some air, not one but TWO local promoters approached me. “Dude! Your visuals RULE! Holy shit! Can you work my party? Here’s a card. Got a card? Oh, man. We really NEED you!”

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Ah, sweet victory! They love me! They really do!

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But yea, the honor is dubious. Ask any VJ: there’s a lot of work and no money in it. Unless you go corporate, you’ll never live off earnings from VJing. The DJ is the star and you are the window dressing. Learn your place. Maggot.

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So I won’t become a big VJ. I am, however soliciting names. Email me with your choices. “VJ Ted” and VJ Retard” are already taken, just so you know.

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Before I go, I leave you with some samples of the kind of electronic music I truly adore: Chill. As you listen to it, try to imagine making love with your sweetie. It’s music made for fucking (languid and sweet), but it’s also melodious and hypnotic; it stands on its own.

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Hooverphonic \”2Wicky\”

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Zero7 \”Home\”

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Morcheeba \”Moog Island\”

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These words were spoken by Les Nessman on the ancient TV show “WKRP in Cincinnatti”. He was running a Thanksgiving radio promotion and released a huge rafter of turkeys out of an airplane, where they plunged to their deaths. It was a funny show, but it belied the truth: turkeys CAN fly. They just suck at it.

As we enter the Thanksgiving season, it’s a perfect time to tell you a story about Easter. It was 1996 and I took my then-GF Griffin camping out on San Juan Island. Easter Sunday broke with warmth and sun; I could sense the welcome glare burning blue through the tent fabric. Griffin was fast asleep, but I was awoken by the sun and by some strange sounds. I had to get up anyway to prepare the ultra-secret Easter basket I had prepared for Griffin, so I quietly slipped on my boots and exited the tent to see what all the clatter was about.

And there, high in the trees, were turkeys! They were gobbling and grunting and being all turkey-like. I was stunned. I walked up the path to the car and prepared the Easter basket.  On my way there, I saw the turkeys still in the trees, and I thought of Les Nessman. Les! You should have thrown them off a crane! They would have been fine!

I snuck back into the tent and snuggled up with Griffin. “Happy Easter, baby! I brought you a basket. And guess what? TURKEYS CAN FLY!”

She was all groggy, but the smell of jelly beans and chocolate bunnies brought her around in no time. We went outside to behold the majesty of nature: turkeys flapping and flying in the trees! Oh, the wonder! The thrill!

As you and yours prepare for Thanksgiving this year, be sure to remember that, as Ben Franklin once said, “I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country; he is a bird of bad immoral character: like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy. The turkey is a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America.”

That’s right, America. We should be roasting eagles this year, not turkeys. This noble bird has swagger and pomp. It warbles and clucks all day long, even if no one is listening. It tends to be fat, and has a very small brain. The turkey, therefore, is all-American.

Happy Thankgiving.

This is Meridian. It’s Bellingham’s ugly, crappy “strip mall” hell. Unfortunately, I work in an office park in this area. I hate it. I honestly believe this car-centric, wasteful, ugly, shitty form of development is a harbinger of the end of America. There are very few places in the United States that are not infected with this kind of idiotic and grotesque commercial nightmare. One of my favorite writers, James Howard Kunstler, refers to it as a “technosis externality clusterfuck”. Here’s his talk at TED in 2004:

James Howard Kunstler Dissects Suburbia

I agree with every thing said in that video. Kunstler may be a loose cannon, but on this subject (Peak Oil and the the End of Suburbia) he is right on. What’s so frustrating is that almost everyone agrees that this is Not Good. Only an aesthetically bankrupt moron could look at suburbia and strip malls and say “This is good. I like this. I want this.” Yes, there are many such morons. But they are easily outnumbered by the Americans who say “I hate this shit, too. But it’s overwhelming. Where else will I live? Where else will I shop?”

They have valid points. In the last 50 years, corporate superpowers have raped the American landscape. There is almost nowhere left to hide. No cookie-cutter development is too blank, no strip mall too hideous, no civic center too brutal. The Greed-heads have descended like locusts and converted all of America from a community-minded group of Main Streets into a fearful swath of isolated brains crammed into a sprawling surburban same-scape.

Now, Bellingham is lucky. We have two “Main Streets”: our downtown core and the Fairhaven district. They were built prior to WWII, when civic design was driven by a desire to make neighborhoods walkable and attractive. They were built on a human scale where people could live, work, shop and recreate within walking distance or a short trip on public transportation (in Bellingham, it used to be trolley cars).

Fairhaven in Fall

Fairhaven has become a magnet for locals and tourists. All the businesses are locally owned. Franchises and corporate giants are verboten. Historic buildings butt up against reasonably attractive condominiums. Isn’t it telling that places that eschew corporate retail become destinations? Don’t you think we deserve better than the soulless garbage heap at the top of this post? Why do we put up with this? Where is the outrage when another scumbag developer waltzes into town to take a dump on our city, profit handsomely, then leave?

This may all become moot. When Saudi Arabia eventually lets the world know that its production has peaked, our car-centric infrastructure will very suddenly become an albatross around our necks. All those millions of square miles of tidy suburban developments (and their adjoining lifeless strip malls) will become the most undesirable places to live. The big question will be: can we retrofit this unsustainable sprawl, or should we just plow it under? When gasoline becomes $20 a gallon, these questions will become very real indeed.

Kunstler summed up suburbia very well: It’s the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world.

We in Bellingham are lucky. We’re comparatively compact. We even have a usable shipping port (which is about to be retrofitted into a marina to support all those luxury yachts that no one will want when Peak Oil finally sets in).  We are surrounded by good arable land. We have plenty of rainfall. Our electricity is 100% renewable hydro. We have some suburban sprawl, but it’s not big enough or far enough to be unservicable when cars become useless.  We are lucky.

Ever been to Phoenix?

Technosis Externality Clusterfuck.

I like dogs. But I just don’t want to live with dogs. It’s a practical thing. The smell, the mess, the destruction, the noise. For me, they outweigh the pluses: a true buddy, a travelin’ pal, a little brother. Instead, I like cats. Yeah, yeah, I know. “Oooh! The middle-aged bachelor has a cat! How surprising! FAG!”

Well, they see my kitty rollin’, they hatin’. Fine. But my cat is different. My cat is the best cat ever. Heard that one before? It’s all lies. Krazy Kat Ladies all say their cat is the best ever. But they’re wrong – MINE’S the best. Want proof? Here we go:

1) My cat has never – NEVER – peed or pooped anywhere but outside or in her box.

2) My cat gets disciplined once and remembers. “Biting Ted’s toe at 3:45am” is no longer in the behavioral pattern.

3) When I get home from work, she leaps from her window, bounds up to my car, then leaps onto the hood as I  park beneath the car cover. From behind the windscreen, she meows loudly, “You’re home! Awesome! Let’s play! Hooray!” How cool is that?

4) You can’t herd cats, but you can walk them. My cat is a female, so her territory is tiny. She never ventures more than 50ft from her window. That is, unless I take her for a walk. Then she will venture – at my heel – around the grounds, inside the Manor, and far out into the woods. She loves these walks.  No leash necessary – one whistle and she’s back at my side.

5) My cat fetches. Nuff said.

6) My cat has no interest in human food. Not even tuna! She never begs.

7) My cat is unaffected by catnip. She is beyond the cat drug culture.

8) Cheap toys: her favorite is the balled-up cover sheet from a Netflix delivery.

9) At night, when I’m reading in bed, she’ll snuggle up on my chest and stare right at my face, purring madly. If it’s a bit cool, she’ll gently rake a paw on my shoulder, which means “let me in”. I’ll lift the covers and she’ll settle in, her chin resting on my arm, purring away madly. It’s too cute for words.

10) When the lights go out, she leaps off the bed and quietly goes to her chair. It’s Teddy’s snoozy time. She’ll be quiet and respectful until I awake (which she detects with preternatural accuracy).

So, rather than go on about me, I give you my cat. The best cat ever.

My pal, Fudgie:

At home

On the prowl