it’s a wonderful world.

it’s heart-warming to know our prime minister is committed to protecting the environment. the liberal party is apparently forcing the carbon tax on the provincial governments that aren’t into it. trudeau’s being applauded for his bold intention to keep our planet healthy for generations yet to come. the wonderfully and wildly weird part of that good-news story is that folks seem to have forgotten he or they are also boldly pushing through a major oil pipeline. so what’s wrong with this picture?

the liberal government is saying taxpayers will all receive a rebate to offset the rising costs involved in exacting the carbon tax. however, they also recently paid $4.5 billion of taxpayers money to actually buy the trans mountain pipeline. i’m perceiving mixed messages here. it’s kinda like: do you like like me or am i in the friend-zone? i just need to know.  

perhaps they’re trying to strike a balance. perhaps they don’t wanna fugg up the economy. or perhaps they simply don’t wanna fugg up their economy. and yet we’re talking about our friggin whole friggin planet! and according to the ’u.n. intergovernmental panel on climate change’, which included the world’s leading climate scientists, we’ve got twelve friggin years!

i’m fine. in twelve years i’ll be pushing eighty and i have no children. but here’s my problem: i have your children. and have you ever experienced extreme heat? well i have and i can assure you it aint pretty. first you just feel a little thirsty, but soon your tongue begins to hang out, eyes bulge, legs wobble and you have trouble sustaining an erection. and don’t get me started on other forms of extreme weather. i experienced extreme weather just the other day but that was due to some vegetarian burritos i’d eaten, but i digress.

now i know most people feel somewhat discouraged, dispondent, even depressed in regard to this huge problem. it’s a global issue after all, and the current leadership of the biggest polluter of all the countries doesn’t even believe it’s a real thing. they believe they know better than all the scientists. 

a friend of mine once said that old age is when you realize you’re not just having a bad day. old man trump and others will eventually realize that all the rather catastrophic events happening around the world these years are in fact part of a very unfortunate trend. 

in the meantime he, who has already pulled out of the wto, nafta, the nuclear arms deal and stormy daniels, has pulled out of the paris agreement on climate change mitigation. he stated that the accord would permanently hurt american workers. of course there won’t be any american workers to hurt in a decade or two if all the scientists happen to know more than trump. 

which brings me back to my point: i personally believe our government at least should keep things in perspective. i personally believe we should say yes to carbon taxes, no to oil pipelines, fugg up the economy if that’s what it’ll take. i personally believe our children should see that, irregardless of any other complacent countries, horrible hardships or fear of failure, we’re courageous enough to do the right thing.

the donut shop.

"Me only have one ambition, y'know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together - black, white, Chinese, everyone - that's all." Bob Marley

just on the off-chance you haven’t heard, marijuana became legal recently in canada. it’s true, really happened. and i find it fascinating if somewhat unsettling that what was once considered an offence worthy of jail-time is now perfectly acceptable. in my day lives were changed or even ruined for possessing what is now actually considered medicine, for you and for your dog too. 

personally i haven’t had a toke in over forty-five years. before that, however, well, suffice it to say i knew how to roll a joint. hell, i didn’t even need rolling-papers. i learned to roll huge spliffs with newspaper in jamaica. i used coconut leaves in mexico. i could actually just use whatever was handy. meanwhile, i suppose now we’ll all have to listen to everyones’ tedious, boring old doper stories. unfortunately there’s no reason for aging hippies to bogart those stories. it’s all good now, no worries. so allow me to be one of the first. 

it all began one night in my buddy‘s family apartment. jim went on to become one of canada’s leading criminal lawyers. always a high-achiever, in those days he was one of toronto’s leading criminal pot dealers. anyway after lighting up and puffing away that night it just seemed like nothing was happening. i kept insisting that the whacky stuff wasn’t having any effect. i recall that being a big issue for me although jimmy seemed singularly unconcerned. eventually we made our way to a nearby ‘mr. donut’ shop where i found myself standing on a stool and, using my best w.c. fields voice, hollering somewhat inappropriately at the african-canadian waitress: “come over here my lovely chocolate eclair, my chocolate cupcake.” that’s when it dawned upon me that i may have been in fact a little bit stoned. 

tattoos were once considered only for criminals. women wearing pants musta been whores. gays were thought to be criminals. kids who danced were possessed. only drug addicts smoked marijuana. meditation was for flakes. perceptions change over time. the message is clear: i should not be totally completely and stubbornly sure of my ideas. and yet i’m not ready to jump on the pot-smoking celebratory bandwagon.

“one love, one heart, let’s get together and feel all right.” bob marley.

the autumn festival.

there were so many folks at lac phillipe on sunday you could barely find a place to park. it was a zoo. as i walked around the corner on a path along with many others i half expected there’d be a tim hortons. it was warm-ish and sunny, the trees were brilliant, of course there’d be many folks at lac phillipe. what was i thinking?

nevertheless i‘d driven into the park to walk around alone, commune with nature, feel close to the creative intelligence, perhaps talk to god, whatever that means. i’m not sure what i wanted to talk to her about but i have to admit i felt let down. i really could not believe the throngs, the sheer number of humanoid creatures up on their hind legs making all manner of noise. i felt dismayed. of course i coulda just driven somewhere else, further up towards lac de loupe perhaps or down chemin eardley into the park. well, i didn’t.
 
the secret to enjoying the park the way i wanted to that day, i figured, was to just walk and keep on walking. as time went on i saw fewer and fewer people. and eventually of course i was all alone. still i walked and walked, then sauntered and sauntered, and then lumbered. i lumbered on through parts perhaps never before mapped. i made my way over hill and dale to parts perhaps never before explored. the only weeee problem was that i really seriously was all alone, a bit lost and my feet hurt.

i wasn’t the least concerned when i realized i’d lost track of where i was, even though my phone was nearly dead and i actually was more than a bit lost. but it was early. i wasn’t concerned about running into deer and bear. i like running into deer and bear. well, not exactly running into them, but seeing them was cool. the only thing that bothered me was that i was already rather tired, pooped, fatigued, flummoxed, frazzled.

i’d like to write about how a white wolf showed me the way back, or maybe it could’ve been a hawk. i’d like to write about how i re-oriented myself using the direction of the sun. in actual fact i simply wandered around stupidly for what seemed like hours and with what felt like a degenerative nerve issue in my aging legs until somewhere in the distance i heard someone speaking mandarin. i followed the beautiful welcome sound of humans talking and laughing, as it got louder and louder until eventually i was back.

once i made my way to lac phillipe i sat at one of the many picnic tables there and enjoyed the joyous joyful scene on a late sunday afternoon. there were so many folks there, it was like one big party, an autumn festival: kids running around playing while parents watched or chased, picnics going on and as the sun only just began to soften.

the old man on a bench.

there are seriously a lot of aged folks at the athletic club i attend. because there’s a full-care old-age home right across the street. these are people way older than i am and i aint getting any younger. that being said, i must add i love the place, wouldn’t wanna go anywhere else.
   
so the other day i was sitting in the hallway checking my messages when an ancient fellow crept slowly up to the door leading into the exercise/fitness room. he honestly was barely able to walk. he was one step or misstep away from a scooter or at least a walker. at first he just stood in front of the door to catch his breath. it must’ve been tortorous for him just to cross over to the club. and i watched as he laboriously lifted his cane to push the large silver button to automatically open the door. and i smugly if not condescendingly thought: if you can’t even open the door what the heck are you expecting to do in there(?)

anyway, i went off to the gym to play some basketball with my guys. i’m at least fifteen years older than the next oldest guy but they’re a great bunch and i still have my moments. unfortunately, there weren’t any of those moments on that particular day. i only took a few shots and one didn’t even hit the rim. i guess i looked a bit pathetic, kinda pretended my knee had buckled as if that was the reason for such an inept performance. be that as it may i love those games at that place and happily limped off to the showers after. i dressed myself, kept in mind to put my pants on before the shoes.

then as i walked past the exercise/fitness room i caught a glimpse of an ancient fellow sitting on a weight-lifting bench. the old guy was still in there an hour-and-a-half later. he was sitting on a bench with a weight in each hand. they looked like not more than 5 kgs each. but he was still in there an-hour-and-a-half later sitting on a bench with a weight in each hand.