Fear and Loathing of Intolerance - Part 3 Racism

If I look at you reading this now what do I see?  Do i judge you by who you are (or to be more accurate the face you show the world) or do I judge you by vastly generalizing about things like your sex, your sexual inclination or your religion?  So far we’ve covered those and shown I hope how illogical they are.  But by a carpet mile the most widespread intolerance is that where we judge people based only on the colour of their skin.  As I’ve mentioned before my skin through whatever accident of birth assigns us to the parents we have, mean I am white… any paler and I’d be mistaken for a corpse.  But I had the good luck to be born to parents who were not racist, weren't particularly sexist, weren't homophobic and I spent from the ages of 6months old to 5 living in Leeds.  (Which is a large city in Yorkshire in England).

One of the things about Leeds that coloured me for the rest of my life is it was a multicultural melting pot.  I got used to seeing different colours of skin, different religions and the fact that you cannot and should not generalise.  Simple mathematics dictate that at some future point the idea of skin colour will disappear as we all mix together over the coming millennia.  There will be no black, no white, just people.  

Lets try a little mental exercise to show how stupid racism is.

Let's assume that skin colour doesn't exist for the moment. If people started to judge each other and say for example people with no wisdom teeth were stupid, prone to violence and obviously must be less highly evolved what would your reaction be?  If small groups of white sheeted  pointy hood wearing idiots started burning crosses outside of the houses of people with no wisdom teeth what would you say then?  No doubt people with wisdom teeth would congregate themselves into areas that those with wisdom teeth would basically turn into ghettos over time. Suddenly  you’d hear people saying on news interviews “well we all know crime is far higher among the wisdom toothless hordes, so our prejudice is with good reason”.

Suddenly you might even see police officers shooting far more of these wisdom toothless people… some may even think it would be a form of extermination.   The media may even be horrified at it all...but nothing would change it would only get progressively worse.

...all because some people were born without wisdom teeth.  So how is that any different to skin colour?  We no longer live in an isolated world where the idea of seeing someone from a very different culture, religion or skin colour is unusual.  We see people very different to ourselves all the time.   Is ginger hair any different really than dark skin?  That fact that some people get to save on suntan lotion in hot weather is really no different to people who may have for example a larger than usual lung capacity.  

If you victimize a group of people eventually they will stick together for protection, this will then be used as yet another excuse why they are ‘bad’.   So regardless of the colour of your god damned skin, if you're an asshat I am going to tell you you're an asshat. Not based on skin colour...but based on the fact that you actually are a terrific asshat.    Some people are idiots, some people are evil motherfuckers… skin colour plays no part in that.  if you removed the skin from everyone right now could you tell the difference?  What would you judge by? Body language? Accent?

I often hear how people being proud of their race is fine if you're not white.  Do you know why I think this is? Its because every single time a movement of white people being proud of being white it gets taken over by idiots wanting to exterminate people, or march them into death camps.  To take away any money or rights they have.  THAT is why white people do not need movements like that. We already have white privilege, white skin isn't going to give you a greater chance of getting shot or stopped by the police.  Imagine if you had to have a talk to your kids when they got old enough to go out on their own with friends about why it’d be a good idea not to wear a hoodie...or to not look directly in the eye of a police officer in case they shot them for no god damned good reason.

So the colour of a person's skin should never be used to judge them, and certainly not to judge them badly.  Maybe we should start judging people by what type of person they are instead of if they need to buy suntan oil on a summers day.  That seems to be a rather silly way to judge what sort of person someone is.

Fear and Loathing of Intolerance - Part 2: Homophobia

Every single person reading this has a perversion of one type or another.  So whether you're male or female; straight bi gender or gay there always at least one thing that will really turn you on sexually.  So every single human on planet earth deviates from ‘the norm’ in one way or another, thus making us all perverted in one way shape or form.  As I’m a straight guy I’m going to approach this from that point of view. So is you are a straight male you may find tits the size of barrage balloons turn you on, maybe it's some S&M; possible you have a thing for bottoms or you prefer your women with shaved lady gardens. (One guy I know has a thing about long wavy hair).  The point of this all being that no matter how hard we all try to portray ourselves as ‘normal’ sexually, the bottom line is there is no normal.  Normal only exists as a default imaginary state.  We all have at least one thing that sets us apart that turns us on and excites us in the bedroom..or the shower...or on top of a car , or behind the nearest bus shelter.  This is also why I find it so odd that homophobia exists at all.  I have a trope that I’ve trotted out so many times in conversation that if I had an English pound for every time I’d be a very rich man.  

That trope is that I have no interest whatsoever what you do in your bedroom.  I don't care if you tie up your other half and then invite the entire English rugby team in for a go… that's your business and as long as it's legal and nobody's getting hurt and all parties agree what the hell interest should it be to me or anyone else. It is no ones business (or it shouldn't be) apart form your own and your partner / partners.  I know a fair few people that fall outside of the ‘straight’ area of the sexual spectrum, some I’m related to, some have been work mates and  some are damn good friends.  They are not lesser people because they prefer something else in the bedroom.  

They are god damn human beings just like us!  Heterosexual males often have a rather confusing logical standpoint on people who are gay.  Women from the People's Republic of Lesbania are deemed as fine and often the focus or more than a few porn movies that many straight guys love.  Although to be fair this is often is as far from reality as straight male on female porn is.  But people are allowed their fantasies and they can inspire us out of sexual boredom.  A seemingly large percentage of straight men have a penchant for anal sex, or so information would have us believe and that seems on the increase.  Its deemed fine by the vast majority of people to stick a cock up a woman's ‘back door’ but should you dare to want to stick it up a blokes backside all hell breaks loose!  Suddenly a stream of insulting terms and names spring forth  to describe such people. (Just as a heads up I shall not be using this article as a thinly veiled cover to use any of these terms.)  

How does this make any logical sense?  So lets get this straight…. Its deemed ok to be turned on by a woman’s arse, it's deemed ok to do it doggy style, it’s deemed ok by most it seems to indulge in anal sex, it's deemed fine to watch videos of two women at it, but it is not deemed fine to do the same said things with another man, or to watch videos of two men….  It seems that there is a fine line between acceptable sexual preference and ‘you are an evil dirty pervert!’  I’m sorry but that makes no sense.  There are a whole host of things that on a sexual level don't turn me on, but I don't go and fucking vilify people who may like them.  Would anyone support an attitude where doing it doggy style was illegal or ‘evil’?  Is it do so very different?

Why is it that homophobia inspires some to truly terrible violent acts? Not all of it can be put down to religious intolerance or people trying  to distract others from their own sexuality.  Where does this violent urge to hurt others simply because they want to stick Mr Floppy into a different sort of hole come from?  How much of it is learned behavior from our families growing up and our peers?

There are a great many things I find offensive, I do not however go hunting out people who do these things and giving them a good kicking.  I believe in live and let live, you like the stuff you like and I like the stuff I like.  As I mentioned in the last article, the human being doesn't like people who are different and stick out from the crowd.  So in the same way that people of other religions or races can (and often are) the subject of all sorts of discrimination those that dare to fall into a smaller sexual preference group become targets through no fault of their own.

Homosexuality is often treated like its a disease to be cured, or something you can catch if you hang around people who are anything other than straight.  If this were truly the case the sheer amount of gay people I have mixed with over the course of my life would have had some effect on me surely?  Some sort of documentary effect would have occurred you’d think. However not once have I been tempted to stick Mr Floppy in a blokes backside.  My interior decor skills have remained as terrible and unchanged as ever and my fashion senses the same as it was when I was 18. (Terrible) 

So no, homosexuality isn't catching any more than eating spaghetti is catching by hanging around places that sell pasta.  Maybe it’s just more than a wee bit unhealthy to take an in depth interest in what someone does in the bedroom and in what way they do it.  I wouldn't go up to a mate and ask which position he screwed his girlfriend in last night and then kick the almighty crap out of him if he had dared to do it in anything other than the missionary possition.  So why should I be so intolerant towards someone who simply prefers the same sex as themselves?  The bottom line is the hole itself is unimportant, surely if two people get together and it makes them both happy (even if it's only for a single night) and both parties are in agreement who the hell am I to judge?

The greatest tragedy to me is those people unlucky enough to have been born in the wrong body.  Its something I simply can't process how that must feel living a life in a body that always feels wrong.  The gender reassignment surgery is incredibly painful and not something anyone would go through just for shits and giggles or as a ‘lifestyle choice’.  Anyone who is prepared to go through something like that just to feel as normal as others do gets my god damned respect!  

We have to be careful once again not to generalize about sexuality and not see it as something that is a black or white, good or bad thing.  But of course we also have bisexuals who find both sexes attractive.  Does that make them more ‘normal’ or acceptable to those judgmental arseholes who go around victimizing gay people?  What's the points scale on this?  Is it plus 90 points of being gay, plus 30 points for being bisexual and minus 20 points if you're a lesbian?  Who works out what's acceptable and what's not?   

But of course people who have sexuality other than straight often have a very hard time of it, imagine if you could never bring a partner home to meet your parents for fear both you and your partner would get a good kicking or thrown out of the house.  Imagine if just because you like a blow job or a 69 you could end up homeless.   Imagine if a little light bondage could end up with you getting knifed in a back alley. Pick your perversion...we all have one. Would any of that be fair? How would it make you feel?

But I have a theory, one I hope is correct in the long term and it all hinges around the internet.  The invention of the internet was a massive moment for mankind.  The elephant in the room is it HAS changed the human race, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. As suddenly everyone can in theory  have listen to what WE HAVE TO GOD DAMNED SAY!  Back when I was in my early teens the idea of a bloke doing anal on a woman was a rare thing and had a fair bit of stigma attached to it.  But judging by recent trends in porn movie production this has now changed as we have been exposed to more and more alternative sexual things.  So in a similar way, what are often termed ‘fringe’ sexual interests such as spanking, bondage etc have seen a massive surge as well.  Why? 

Well maybe as for the first time in human history the internet gives the option of coming across all sorts of things that maybe you didn't even know you were interested in.  Even if you aren't interested in them, it makes us more tolerant of other people's sexual interests.  So I think in time, the same will happen slowly to homosexuality and transgender, it will simply become more and more acceptable.  I’d like to think as a species we are too evolved for tiny unimportant things to get in the way of us all.  Homosexuality isn't catching, being around homosexuals won't corrupt your kids or yourself.  So what are we really afraid of?

Fear and Loathing of Intolerance - Part One – Religion

I came to an astounding realisation at a very young age.  The human race is a bunch of absolute screaming dicks.  We judge people based on the most spurious of reasons.  It can be the colour of their skin, the religion they follow, the sex they find attractive or even just being a bit different or odd.  So this is the first in a series of articles where I want to examine why as a species we behave like a bunch of judgemental dickwads in various ways.  Intolerance is all around us and it makes us weaker as world.  The core message in this series is the fact that you cannot and should not fight intolerance with even more intolerance and hatred. So I’m going to start with religious intolerance and more specifically the demonization that I see going on all over the world. 

It may seem odd that although I don’t follow any specific religion, I am a boring straight Caucasian male I feel the need to write this series of articles.  In fact if my skin was any whiter I’d be fucking transparent.  But yet again I’ve always been cursed with thinking deeply about things.  It never made sense to me to believe in something just because everyone else did or because I was told to.  As a child in my early teens I went to a catholic school, where you were told to simply ‘believe, don’t question...’ That just didn’t add up to me, why were we not allowed to ask questions to test the veracity of the whole bible story? Were they hiding something? Were there some dark parts we were too young to know?  

So I did something very few teenagers in my home town ever did.... I read the bible to see what I thought of it.  Then it occurred to me that maybe other religions may have a better point of view or make more sense.   So I read the Torah, the Koran (an English translation of it), some Hindu texts and so it went on and on.  It was my secret,  because let’s face it... when your 16-20 years old none of your mates are going to be too impressed with the fact you’re reading ‘religion’ for fun.  Let alone other religions.

That’s why victimising someone or generalising a person or group of people just based on somewhat spurious reasons makes no god damned sense to me.  It’s an unfortunate fact that human beings hate anything or anyone that’s different.  Anyone who sticks out and doesn’t move with the majority or follow the crowd is always in for a tough time.  But if we judge others by the cover they come in then we risk not knowing that the book itself may be rather interesting.  So in the same way as the different kids always had a far tougher time when at school, we often single out those we deem to be different.

At the moment the current religious group getting hammered as ‘evil’ are Muslims.  So whether its due to sometimes dressing a little different to the majority in the west.  Or the fact that middle eastern languages sound so different to the sounds within western ones, it means that right now a demon is needed to blame and tag they’re it!  The media portrays them as barely human hot heads that seemingly have a penchant for world domination and cutting people’s heads off (with a side order of blowing shit up.)  But they aren’t the first religious group to be vilified based on religion, and they certainly won’t be the last if history is in any way a judge about the future.  They are just one of the most recent in a long line of creating a group to blame for problems that we perceive cannot possibly be our fault.

But generalisation is the mother of all fuck ups.  Would you judge Christians as a whole on the actions of beliefs of the KKK?  Would you think these pointy hat wearing motherfuckers are representative of all Christians?  How about the Westboro Baptist Church?  If that sounds too crazy how about the Salvation Army whose local arm near me has a building with the phrase  ‘To cleanse the world with blood and fire!’ carved onto it in 2 foot tall letters above the damn door? Can you imagine if a mosque had that carved above the damn door? It’d be a major news story all over the western world!   So in a similar way that the aforementioned lunatics are not representative of all Christian religions (or even the west itself), all Muslims are not evil.  That’s a tiny percentage.

Sometimes if you flip the things being portrayed from one bunch of religious extremists to another you find a lot of similarities.  Catholicism has often declared throughout the centuries that there is only ‘one true god’ and waged religious wars on unbelievers, it has also had at times in its past a small minority of nutters who managed to create all kinds of evil in the name of religion.  Let me tell you how I see the whole thing.  Every race creed or colour has more than its own fair share of nutcases and whack jobs who are using any excuse they can to raise some hell.  I’m lucky enough to have met and talked to people from all sorts of religions, and 99% are normal people just like you and me.  Some may be religious in a sort of loose way the same as many Christians who may only visit a church once in a blue moon but ‘try to live a good life’.  Some may be very religious and try to follow what they believe to be the word of god as best they can. So why do we feel the need to have a bogey man to blame for what sometimes is due as a direct result of actions by leaders who have acted in our name? 

The west often tries its level best to bring ‘civilisation to the savage hordes’ in the same way it did back in history.  It’s a constant within our society, the need to feel better than someone else. Part of a nationalistic need to be enlightened enough to bring our lovely warm capitalism to them and make them civilised. (But not TOO civilised or they may end up richer than us!)  I’ve actually heard normally sane and regular people use phrases such as ‘those heathens need to be wiped out, they can’t be trusted to not cause shit.’  You know that’s been tried before, it’s called genocide and as a general rule it hasn’t worked out too fucking well in the past.  Anyone who thinks wiping out an entire race or religion just because they feel threatened has bigger issues than whatever religion someone follows or god they pray to.  That’s using it as just as much of an excuse as radicals and fundamentalists of all religions have done in the past.

All extremists regardless of their flavour of religion will warp and twist a book or text to best fit their goals.  They need a reason that will seem to make sense to some so they can do all the damn killing and violence that they like.  That way they can always say it’s in some god’s name.  It’d be far more refreshing if these types just admitted it’s all just a cover story and what they really want to do is raise some hell and kill as many people as they can. 

Another favourite argument is why don’t Muslims do more to stop these extremists?  Well let me answer that with a question: When was the last time you tried to stop the KKK or the Westboro Baptist church? (...and no... posting something on line or writing an article does not count!)  Have you ever taken direct action to stop them?  The vast majority have not...

If all religions had never existed as of tomorrow morning, you would still have these exact same people doing the exact same things with just another excuse used to verify to both themselves and others that they aren’t evil really... just following orders (regardless of whether they think those orders come from a god or somewhere else.  How many schizophrenics have claimed they only wiped out a family because a voice in the TV made them?  Is that any different really?  It doesn't really matter where someone thinks the message they follow comes from, whether it be from a god, a religious book, the fucking TV, or the Teletubbies, people will always find a way to justify their evil.

So how do we stop these people?  Do we bomb the shit out of them and try to bring ‘civilisation to the heathens’ again? Because that hasn’t really worked out too well in history.  People who are different cultures to yourself are not somehow less than you.  To think that will only lessen the person you are.  But yes there are those such as ISIS that want to kill and use a warped version of their religion to do so.  Do we fight intolerance with even more intolerance?  Intolerance we back up with bombs and drones and all sorts of other weapons no western power wants to admit they use?  Against often countries that have nothing...zip...zero.  This is the equivalent to a 16 year old kid stamping on a 5 year old kids sand castle.  No we don’t fight the likes of ISIS with even more intolerance backed with nasty weapons, ironically you fight them by showing tolerance and letting them become the Westboro Baptist church of Islam. So don’t worry, nutcases of any religion always burn themselves out once they have to do the boring things like create a working infrastructure of hospitals, roads, schools, income tax etc.  Without these no country is sustainable and so logically ISIS will burn itself out as most people have worked out. But alas those that make the weapons would far rather we all keep fighting and shooting and bombing each other so they keep diving into huge vats of money like Scrooge McDuck. 

So what god someone follows is of no consequence, I feel they should be able to follow whatever god they like without persecution.  If someone wants to pray to Mickey mouse they should be able to, what anyone else things is immaterial.  If someone gets something positive out of something and it isn’t harming anyone else why are we so bothered?  So no one should ever have to live in fear of intolerance that forces them to live grouped up in ghettos to protect themselves.  Wherever you have intolerance towards a group they inevitably band together for protection and support.  If you were in their position would you honestly say you would do anything different if you had a gauntlet such as that to wade through every single day of your life?  Or would you one day decide it’d all be far easier and less stressful to be around others similar to yourself who are also being persecuted?

Always put yourself into the other person’s shoes and ask yourself how you would behave and react if you were in their position.  Would you go in all high and mighty and ‘raise some hell and show those nutcases who’s boss’ or would you like 99.9% of people simply roll over, try to ignore the crazies and get on with your life as best you could?  Chances are the media would be simply telling you to roll over and take it like a good little boy.

But let’s not forget many of these crazies are crazies that we have created, or at the very least our leaders have.  Back in the gulf war we rounded a shit load of people up and stuck them in a huge camp (one of many) most without trial and many were innocent it was later found of ANY wrongdoing.  These places them basically became a terrorist version of Harvard or Oxford University.  The innocents, angry as all hell and being locked away with a bunch of fucking violent lunatics became desensitised and learned how to ‘fight back’ from these very same crazy bastards.  

Fast forward to Gulf War 2 (the sequel...now with even bigger explosions!), and the west hires these very same people at a rate of $300 a day to fight and do all the nasty shit we don’t want to admit to doing.  Then magically we are told ‘hey guys! Iraq is sorted now...we can all fuck off home!’  Only it wasn’t.... it really wasn’t.  We handed over control to the new government and they then stopped paying these guys their $300 a day.  Now after a good few years living like fucking kings they missed the lifestyle that money brought them.  So when what was eventually ISIS went to them and said ’hey guys we’ll hire you...but only for $200 a day’ they jumped at the chance.  Half don’t even know who they are fighting for or even that it differs from their reasons of simply making us pay for shutting them in a camp with a bunch of fucking crazy bastards.  Simply put we helped to create a problem and exacerbate an existing one through a combination of bad foreign policy, corrupt politicians taking back-handers from the military industrial complex and even in some cases, just some downright evil stuff. 

Can you say if you lived in Iraq and a bunch of guys broke into your house with guns, raped your wife and daughters, killed your sons then slammed you into a prison full of mad bastards who want to kill everyone that it wouldn't leave you damaged? That one day you wouldn't turn around and simply not be able to take any more and turn to the dark side?  There’s never been a side in any war yet that has not committed war crimes, if you think otherwise your fooling yourself. It’s time that we realised this isn’t about religion, that’s just an excuse. Don’t blame the innocents for those who just need a thing that makes them not appear to be the psychotic fuckers they really are who could twist any book, even Barbie goes to Toyland, into a reason to wipe people out.  Never generalise ... anyone who says ‘All [insert object of irrational hatred here] is [insert insult] is a bloody fool.  That’s offensive to us all as human beings; we should all be allowed to be proud of who we are. No matter what that may mean.  But we fear that which we can’t or don’t understand, so maybe the key is to try and understand others better.  Maybe then we’ll find that those we fear aren't so very different to us after all.

The Bisexual Generation by Tony X Stanton

I remember my 1st day as a single man once more finally living in a place of my own very well.  The night is somewhat more hazy… I had split with my ‘wife’ amicably enough and were still friends, but after 10 plus years under virtual house arrest and dissuaded from going to any pubs, bars, nightclubs or places of entertainment that contained alcohol, it was time to once again enter the mouth of hell that was a weekend in my home town of Consett.

Consett is a unique place, an ex industrial town in the middle of nowhere populated entirely by those that people from other places consider mad or a bit odd.  There is very little normal in my home town, Consett doesn’t ‘do’ normal very well in fact… and certainly not on a weekend night out.  So I left my freezing cold house that seemed to soak up any heating I put on meaning it was often warmer outside than in my actual house.  It seemed like a good alternative to freezing, so on with some clean jeans,a t shirt and my denim jacket and off I went… once more into the breach dear friends!

But the town had changed! This was NOT allowed in any way whatsoever! My visions of my home town on a weekend were now a decade old, and while I recognised a few faces for back then there were lots of new people most about 20 years younger than me.  Now a I do believe that age is just a number and you are as young or old as you feel, I made friends with a lot of these guys and lasses aged about 20 in Consett.  They seemed to appreciate an older face who was just as mad as they were, liked to go out, dance like a lunatic and not treat them like they were still kids.  As  such I gained the somewhat dodgy sounding nickname ‘Uncle Tony’.

Over most of 2014 whenever I was in town (which was most weekends) I’d spend time trying to find out what made this generation ‘tick’.  But I soon realised that something very unique had happened in the little hobbit like world of Consett.  This generation were very, very different indeed, unique maybe.  

At least 80% of both males and females no longer viewed sexuality as a set thing, but saw it more ‘variable’.  So as such it was perfectly acceptable for a guy to have had either a boyfriend at some point, or even occasionally still have one night stands with a guy, and then the following weekend have similar sexual encounters with females.  Back when I was thier age, homosexuality was frowned upon (not surprising really with it being an old steel town full of ‘mens men’.)  You were either gay or you were straight, you were not allowed to switch your pieces mid game!  While I’ve always been of the opinion that its no god damned business of mine who someone fucks or what they get upto in the bedroom, back of a car or top of the roof of the local Tesco's, This did surprise me.  So being an inquiring mind, I had to find out how this change had occurred in obviously less than a decade.

My key to this strange puzzle lay in Luke, a 20 year old outgoing guy who was popular with everyone, everyone seemed to know him and he was one of the few to actively label himself as a bisexual.  So through him eventually I became friends with a whole extended group of young people.  I soon began to realise after listening to the stories, the gossip and admissions that this was not just simply a case of young people experimenting.  No, this was a whole new sort of sexual revolution, all be it one that was in its very early stages.  There was no case of any of them doing it for shock value, or lying about it.  It simply ‘was’ and as such was accepted by 99% of that age group.  

This was such a paradigm shift from when I was their age, when the national front nazi types roamed the streets on the look out for anyone with anything but the most deathly pale skin colour or any ‘puffs, homos or gay boys’.  Everyone of my age had either seen and witnessed, or had someone they know given a good going over with the boots by them.  So men were men, boys would be boys, and sheep were nervous.

So after many months researching the whole thing while drinking copious amounts of alcohol, discovering the new drinks of choice for a new generation (and as previously mentioned even once being so drunk I fell into a 3 foot deep water filled hole in the ground in the middle of a field at 3am), I came up with my working theory.

Each generation finds new ways to rebel against their parents, this is an accepted fact.  So as their parents were of my generation and as such had been coloured by both their experiences growing up and those around them rejecting anything ‘gay’, it started a unwitting trend.  If this is combined with the fact that what some call ‘the loony left’, saying we should accept everyone no matter what and the increasing demasculinization of men since the mid 1980’s and you had a perfect storm.

So on a purely subconscious level I believe those 20 year olds had grown up perfectly accepting of just about any difference.  Different coloured skin? No problemo… we all bleed the same colour!  Different religion?  “I don't really see that as an issue”.  So they have as a result the most open sexuality of any group I have ever encountered in my travels.  But what does this mean for the upcoming generation? Will they also rebel against their parents and end up just like mine was? Or will they find even newer and what may right now seem to be stranger ways to ‘buck the system’.  Only time will truly tell.  But its worth keeping an eye on that small town in the north east of England in the middle of nowhere to find out.

Fear and Loathing in Heathrow

It had been a long day at the end of a perfect week.  After a month and a half living and working on my own in Montreal 3500 miles from home my girlfriend Louise had came over for a week long visit.  Well, I say perfect… it wasn't really perfect as I still had to go to work during the day. But that worked out rather well as the poor woman was jet-lagged into orbit and mornings weren't exactly her forte while she visited me.  Which left her with just the afternoons to fill.  Not being a ‘girly’ girl, she didn't fill her days with shopping, but with walking around places I’d recommended and seeing stuff. Occasionally even doing my housework in the apartment. (She is a goddess among women!)

We’d had enough time after I finished work each day to go and do things that any couple would do in such a situation.  We went to fancy restaurants, not so fancy restaurants and even got her to sample ‘Poutine’.  Now Poutine is a rather revolting sounding concoction that against all known culinary  laws actually tastes like angels having sex with your tongue. A combination of chips (fries to those not of the English persuasion), gravy and cheese curds.  Now the idea of cheese curds’ sounded like an awful way to ruin a chips and gravy meal to me, but then after a month of avoiding trying the damn stuff, and being harangued by every Canadian I knew I finally gave in.I was expecting to get as much enjoyment as biting off my own testicles… However it tasted wonderful, even when I reminded myself I was eating cheese curds mixed in gravy and chips.

But the week passed all too fast one night was spent going to a polish restaurant I’d never been into in the french quarter of Montreal. (The idea of a french speaking region such as montreal having a ‘french quarter’ seemed odd.  It was almost as weird as if Liverpool had an ‘English quarter’.)  The meal was wonderful, the company even better but with every bite we both felt the thread that held us together in Montreal drawing thinner and thinner as the time got ever closer to the time we’d both have to head back to England.  Where after a few days to see my kids and my parents I’d leave her in my home town and travel once more back to Montreal...alone.

The flight was in the evening at the end of a day I ended up having to take off ill from work due to nearly poisoning us both with reheated pulled pork.  Now I'm not an amazing cook, but I rarely poison anyone, either on purpose or otherwise. But as I’d been asked to stay back at work far later than usual, we’d ended up missing our reservation at a very fancy restaurant and as a result the pulled pork left over from the previous evening was reheated...after a day in which my fridge battled the crazy Montreal heat.  A battle I can tell you from the resulting food poisoning it lost in a most spectacular way.  I’ll spare you the gory details… but suffice to say by the time we got to the airport that evening neither of us was on the top of our game and had been awake a fairly long time already. A rather important fact that will come into play later.

So we got on our first of two flights, from Montreal Trudeau airport to London Heathrow.  So by the time we reached Heathrow at the end of a 7 hour flight, at the end of an already very long day we felt terrible.  Even more so as we’d been unable to sleep on the flight due to having a man mountain in the seat next to me with overly large and pointy elbows and knees snoring loudly like two buffalo have kinky sex.

By the time we disembarked into terminal five of London Heathrow airport (a terribly sterile place with all the character of a blank wall.) Neither of us were in a good place.  The sleep deprivation of being awake more than 30 hours on top of food poisoning left us both tripping balls in a zombie haze in the middle of one of the busiest airports in the world with 3-4 hours to kill.  Although having to go through heathrow terminal five on acid would have been preferable. It would have been far more fun.

So after arriving and making an executive decision to go outside so I could have a smoke, the fresh air hit us both like a bomb next to the bizarre water jet sculpture thing. We headed back inside.  Two chain smoked cigarettes were enough to recharge my nicotineless body.  I no longer wanted to kill every man woman, child and small furry animal I came into contact with but we would have to go through Heathrow customs….

If you've ever been through customs at Heathrow airport you’ll know that while the people there are pleasant enough, they take the security side rather seriously and do not racially profile people.  So if you turn up looking like a ninja post box you have just as much chance of them pulling you to one side as if you were dressed in a cliché bowler hat and suit and have skin as white as the driven snow.  ‘White privilege’ means nothing there as you snake round in a seemingly endless line back and forth until you hit the terror that is Heathrow customs.

Normally I always get pulled at customs, once for having a fold up walking stick that apparently resembled a gun, then the time where a bag of camera gear containing a LED light apparently looked like a bomb, then the hilarious time my then 3 year old daughter had slipped a plasticine ‘man’ into my hand luggage next to my watch. (That was all kinds of fun as it seems plasticine looks like C4 plastic explosive under the scanner. and  as such I now think UK airports must have a detailed map of my rectal area!)  But maybe it’s just as my passport photo makes me look like Carlos the fucking jackal.  Or it could just be my epic legendary bad luck.

But this time I sailed through without a care in the world, but Louise however...her they pulled…. It turned out as she and I were both in a barely human haze she had forgot a bottle of water in her hand luggage that sent the customs people in a panic in case it was some sort of liquid explosive.It strangely enough never crossed their minds that maybe as they sold bottles exactly like that not 400 feet away that maybe, just maybe it was a forgotten bottle. So after waiting what felt like several lifetimes finally they let her proceed, minus said bottle of ‘highly dangerous’ mineral spa water.

Everything was swimming and my vision distorted at this point onwards with flashing balls of light in multiple colours, not all of them possible.  Things made little sense, neither of us could process simple things such as words, and I'm sure I saw 4 people dressed as Hawaiian elvises at one point. Although that may or may not have actually occurred.  One question I do have is what is the proper word for multiple Elvises? is it Elvi? Evises? or simple Elvis as in Sheep are multiple of Sheep?  Are we supposed to capitalise or not? These are questions my brain needs answers to!

Caffeine!! we needed coffee, fucking huge buckets of the stuff as thick as tar, that’d certainly help wouldn't it?  So we decamped to a small coffee place in the middle of terminal five, which by theat moment started feeling like we were the only humans in a zombie apocalypse.We weaved our way in what I’m pretty sure was not either a straight line, or a normal way to the counter..one of us ordered the drinks...I can't remember who. I just remember being so tired I couldn't see straight.. feeling like ten ton of death and putting one foot in front of the other being a major mental challenge. It was then that the blurred shape behind the counter asked his or her’s most heinous question:

“Would you like anything to eat with that?”

I looked at the blur, trying to focus...I panicked...I looked at Louise, who after a very long pause to think...uttered “I don’t know!”

The blur behind the counter was obviously used to such casualties as us and wasn't phased.  As we sat down with our drinks trying to keep awake...me failing miserably and having to be prodded forcibly to stay awake, it was time to go for our second flight.  The problem being our legs were not listening to our brains. Our minds were screaming at our limbs to move, however our legs had packed up and moved to a small jamaican island.  They were on holiday god dammit and they weren't taking any calls right now.

After deciding that our legs no longer taking orders was a particularly bad thing at that moment in time, I came to the conclusion that jabbing a pen into my leg as hard as I could may help wake the fuckers up and start taking calls again from the brain department.  The leg department were not happy at this, and forced me to stand up rather forcibly.  Pulling Louise to her feet we staggered our way past a multi coloured horde of travellers, the bright floaty spots of lights in front of my vision had turned into a barbershop pole of stripes at this point.  Words no longer formed in our minds, just the predictable 1...2...1...2… of slowly staggering to the departures for the 2nd flight.

They let us on the light, I'm not sure why.  I think I may have passed out on the plane, I honestly don't remember any of it until arriving in Newcastle airport.  FINALLY WE WERE HOME!! but fate had yet more time to toy with us…. While waiting for our cases in the baggage area… the belt took this exact moment to fuck up.  It spent ¾ of an hour dribbling out one single case, then stopping for another few minutes before another case feebly dribbled out onto the baggage area.  After much heckling and shouting down the ramp to the poor person below, several lifetimes later our cases arrived.

I can't remember the conversation on the way back to my flat  just that my parents and brother had turned up to give us a lift.  We got back to the flat and in my infinite wisdom I decided that a maximum of 3 hours sleep were needed if we were to go out for a drink at my local that evening.  However Louise's phone died, no alarm went off and we rolled into the Turf at 10.45pm.  The single photo from that night shows the two of us looking stoned off our boxes with tiredness with a wide eyed mad gleam.  

But it was all worth it when it was time for my sons birthday party on the Sunday. He was 10, and a tenth birthday is a big deal for a kid!  That's why I had to come back...no matter what.  That's why even though I only sat down twice in the 4 days I was back and was equally as exhausted when I landed back in Montreal ...it was worth it.  

I got the cab to my apartment, and as soon as I opened the door the smell of Louise's deodorant was there, her previous bottle of water on the kitchen counter.  It was then I knew that I was truly alone until the next time either she came over, or I headed back.  If I had any energy left I’d have cried, but I had none.  There was nothing left to give, either to myself or for others until I had slept.  Then would come the darkness, the time when no ‘next visit’ was yet planned.  The time when the black dog would be constantly scratching at the door.  That old black dog does a lot of scratching at the door of late… but I’m used to him, he only occasionally gets in these days.  Sometimes you learn the best way to keep the darkness at bay is to admit that it is there.  Depression is funny like that, it can smell your fear.

Alone in Montreal

I stood on the terrace having a quiet smoke at 11pm with only  6 empty chairs and 3 tables for company.  I standing in the shadows beside a taped off area with a pool that seemed to be full of green slime.  Just being within ten feet of it made me worry about catching me terrible disease.  As I took another draw on my cigarette, one of my last English ones I’d bought while going through Heathrow 2 weeks earlier I heard a noise unlike any other.  It seems in defiance against all normality the Canadians like to have their fire trucks sound like bad 1970’s ghost trains.  As someone far more used to the more traditional English ones this left me standing there giggling to myself.  A laughing figure in the shadows billowing smoke.

As I looked up at the skyscrapers and one jumped out to me as being very similar to the oscorp building in spider-man. This made me wonder had I walked into some genetic experiment by accident? Was the green goblin or a slimy jade demon going to rise from the disgusting green slimy pool?  Sadly it seemed not. I was just stuck with the god awful smell emanating for the ‘swimming pool’.  I was glad I was staying for two weeks on the 19th floor in room 1020 far removed from this vileness..

I looked over the edge of the building to a building with a courtyard lower down. I saw a courtyard that was only visible form one position on the terrace. what i saw chilled my blood. I hidden courtyard full of statues of small children i various 'playful' poses. Black wooden boxes just large enough for an 8 year old child. A real journalist would have investigated...but I'm not a real journalist and I was not in the mood to see that. So I ignored it. Although I still have the picture I took the next day.

I’d moved to Montreal in Quebec Canada for a year for work.  I’d spent 6 months in my home town, drank all the beer any man could wish for, connected with people I hadn't had a chance for many years and basically had one big 6 month old party.  I’d ran out of money, borrowed off my parents and girlfriend (who is an angel unlike any other) to move here for a ‘big chance’ working in the film visual effects industry in a lead position.  That made me feel guilty, as I hate having to borrow money off people, it makes me feel beholden to them.  Its a weird quirk of mine. It feels like a terminal itch I can’t get rid of until I pay them back.

I’ve been lucky enough to live a lot of places in my time working in either visual effects or computer games. I’d spent a long time in Dublin, and enjoyed it so much I’m convinced I’d be dead if I had spent another six months there.  I’d spent 8 months living in Edinburgh in Scotland whose only redeeming features were getting to have a drink with a mate I’d known for over a decade and meeting Louise.

I’d always found it easy to work away.  I simply put everyone I knew back home in a little mental box and kept them there and made a new life while I was away. Once a day I’d let them out of this mental box to think about them,or chat to them on Skype.  Then back into the fucking box they’d go and get locked away for another 24 hours. I’d always had a habit of being able to separate people I knew into these little mental cases in my head to keep myself sane and also to give me freedom to change who I was every single time I worked away for any length of time.

My two kids were the hardest though.  They... although small enough to fit into a box, had such love and joy and held such an important place in my heart that they often escaped from this mental box in my head and invaded my thoughts like rampaging monkeys. But I simply see that as part of being a dad.They will always be there in my head making their presence felt...and I love them for it.

But there was one thing I hadn't considered before moving away for a year of my life. One thing I had assumed would be the same as it had always been.  When I was with my ex, being away was easy although we get on great now and still see each other as best friends, we argued like cat and dog. So I'm sure she got as much of a rest from the arguing as I did when I worked away.I don't think I have ever had an relationship that wasn't like that.  It was just ‘normal’ to me.  so being away even for extended times wasn't that big a deal.

But this time things had changed…

They had changed a LOT!....

When I was in Edinburgh it was one of the darkest periods of my recent life for a whole host of reasons, some personal some not.  But I had met Louise. It started as friends, we hung out together, a relationship formed, and like a small fragile flower it grew.  Both of us knew that at some point I would leave Edinburgh and go back to my home town of Consett.   Louise was from London by the way, not Scottish.  The trouble was you see, that after 43 years on this planet I had finally found ‘The One’.  That carries a whole demon host of things that go with it.

Yes I was paranoid of having another relationship that would go bad or not end well.. so I decided that logic was my friend.  I spent months from the point when I was living in Edinburgh, through to moving back to my home town (and Louise still coming down every weekend to visit me), right up till iI was in Montreal to work out all the possible permutations, and the permutations of the permutations.  I knew how I felt about her, that simply seeing her made me smile and lit up my day every time I talked to her.  We never argued, she’d seen me at my very best and my god awful worst, but was never phased at all.  She cared for me and would advise me but would never ever nag me or make any troubles real or perceived any worse.  

I loved her and finally I bit the bullet and let her know how I felt. We’d avoided the ‘L’ word for nearly a year. as it came with oh so much baggage that a 43 year old man can have with him.I’ll never forget how she looked when I finally uttered the words ‘I love you’.  It’ll live with me to my dying day.  How her face lit up as if by a million suns dancing across her face.

So here comes the kicker!

When you find ‘The one’... that mythical person who you are meant to be with that all good bad and indifferent romantic novels and films tell us is out there somewhere, its like you are a jigsaw but don't realise you are missing a piece until you find it.  Suddenly it makes sense….all of it.  But then being apart tears away at your very soul like a pack of rabid hounds.

By week 2 it was already wrenching inside of me and pulling away at my guts and my brain.  So I had to come up with a plan to ensure this wasn't all in vain. That I wouldn't lose another relationship to the visual effects industry.This one would last dammit..I had finally found the one...against all expectations.  So I realised I must now try to protect this relationship from the grim reaper that is the visual effects industry that chews up and spits out relationships

So my plan is a simple one.  Step one is to not try to change who I am as a person. Step two is to make sure I don't start a whole new life over here and that I turn up at the end of this exactly the same person that Louise drove to the airport. Step three is a one I was going to take anyway.  After 6 months of letting the little 17 year old version of me out of his mental cage I realised I couldn't keep on drinking 6 days out of seven and living every evening in the pub.  At a conservative estimate I was probably a maximum of 6 month away for alcoholism.  Luckily its not easy or cheap to get a drink in Montreal! So while there are places you can go for a drink almost everywhere, nearly all of them are places that do meals and that can get real expensive real fast.  So now if I want to go to a simple bar I have to take two metro trains and a 30 minute walk.  As such I only have a drink on a Friday and Saturday night.  No more mega piss ups...no more rolling in at 4 or 5am.  I drink 3 drinks then I come home. The rest of my night spent usually alone, deep in thought and people watching. This is the first time I am not hunting out ‘people like me’ (extremists) to party with.  I'm being sensible.  I'm being an adult.  So while I know for a certain fact some crazy things will happen during my time in Montreal, there won't be as many epic stories as there have been on my other times working away in odd places.

But I will of course pass on the crazy stories or interesting things that happens while I'm over here. But with any luck if I can last a year without missing both my two kids and my girlfriend Louise too much (which right now to be honest is fucking touch and go!..and I'm only on week 4!) If I can also come back the very same man who went away, if Louise can do the same, then I’ll be the happiest guy on this big ball of mud earth and water.  Now that I've found ‘The one’ I am meant to spend my life with, I have no intention of ever letting her go.  Some things are worth fighting for some people are worthy of a sacrifice...and Louise is worth that and more.   But yet again men aren't supposed to say such things, we’re supposed to be gruff and not admit to our feelings. However ...doesn't that make us a little too close to robots?

In the meantime I’ll be sitting here observing ...wondering why there are so few birds in Montreal...why fire trucks sound like ghost trains and why I bother going to bars if I am just going to sit on my own and take mental notes on strangers for future articles. But one day I’ll go back home, I’ll see my two kids, and I’ll hug my parents and brother. ..and Louise

well that's a story for a different time maybe a year from now...if I can last that long without her.

Kinky Animal Sex

It occurred to me while sitting in my local holding court after a particularly heavy drinking and karaoke session that while us humans (or those of us that pass for human) have all sorts of sexual kinks we can partake in animals don't have such luck.  The whole thing started off while discussing the logical merits of using a hamster for sex with humans.  After covering the need for large amounts of duct tape and not being bothered by eyes coming loose and bobbing about like apples in a water barrel, things sort of descended from there.  The requirement being that you obviously are going to have to somewhat ’encourage’ the hamster’s arse to be a little larger to fit even the most meager of penises.Obviously there’s going to be a tiny wee bit of blood, but that's just a lubricant really..saves on KY jelly anyway.  It is also imperative we worked out to duct tape your hamster like a tube leaving both head and arse duct tape free.  It was also suggested by one of the German contingent that maybe it would be good to not tape the hamster too tightly.

I should point out at this point that hamsters and sex with animals large, small invertebrate or vertebrate doesn't really ‘float my titanic’.  But it seemed that no one had ever thought through the implications of sex with tiny furry animals at the end of a heavy drinking session complete with a death metal karaoke version of Copacabana, that….well maybe it’d be useful to one of the great unwashed of the internet.  we did consider making a instructional video, but figured if we did that in The Turf we’d probably get either barred or be raised to godhood.  It simply wasn't worth the risk either way.

Then our thoughts turned to turtles.  Well I say ‘we’ I really mean mine… I was on a roll of pervertedness god damn it! There was no reason to stop at the nearly mildly disgusting! I did notice 90% of the tables went very quiet in what I am going to assume was contemplation at this point.  If you’re turtle, then besides the fact that you live a massively long time, your sex life has to get a bit boring around the age of 105.  So we had to come up with a way to spice up these poor creatures sex lives and in the process maybe help to stave off extinction.

If you're a turtle and your enjoying lots of kinky sex, then you're going to have more of it, meaning more baby wee turtles.  Thus helping to perpetuate the species.  It only seemed logical at the time.  In my defense I had been drinking rather a long time by this point so maybe my judgement was colored somewhat...maybe in a green turtle tinge.  

So if we keep in mind that turtle sex has to be rather clumsy and slow due to their heavy shells, they can't exactly participate in many of the more adventurous sexual activities.  So I put forward a solution to at the very least enable them to improve the speed a bit.  After discounting the initial idea of tying the male turtle to a bit of string and swinging it back and forth due to inaccuracies of impalement (and I’m guessing Mrs Turtle would not like a surprise anal visitor), I came up with a far more exciting bit of turtle love that I am sure Mrs (or Miss) Turtle would love and help to spice up the watery bedroom… hell why not push the boat out Mr Turtle and go full on public sex on a beach mode? Shit that's romantic for a Turtle surely!

No! What we do is we superglue Mr Turtle to the end of a road drill…. this is then set away and aimed CAREFULLY at Mrs or Miss Turtle and Mr Turtle can unleash the little green monster! (Are turtle penises green? I’m assuming so, but I am scared to google it sober.)  We could of course bring all sorts of things into play such as novelty glow in the dark condoms, blow up female turtles and even S&M for aquatic sea life.   Surely this would be a most amazing use of time and a fun way to help shore up endangered animals?  Besides who wouldn't want the title ‘Turtle and Sea Life Sexual Adviser on their C.V?

So all we need to save endangered turtles is a shit load of road drills, a few buckets of superglue and a load of volunteers....