MMA vs Everyone part 1: the ground (and pound) rules.

I've decided for my return to Blogland that I want to do an informal examination of MMA. I want to explore its rise from the underground---a smaller thing that jocks at my high school guiltily traded VHS tapes of as if it were porn---to the mainstream monstrosity it is today. What has made this possible? How did such a brutal combat sport become family entertainment that plays silently on lcd screens at the McDonald's? And furthermore, is this okay?

This will be a series since it's much too involved and important a thing to examine for just one blurb. Or maybe it isn't that important and I'll just blather on incessantly until my smartphone battery runs out of its charge. At any rate this is a complicated and controversial issue, with a lot of misinformation flying around about it, yet also some compelling arguments for both sides.

I should start by explaining that I never used to like MMA and thought of it as hideous. But I have friends whom I respect that love the sport and out of that respect, I did not want to be simply dismissive of their thing, man. So I desired to learn a lot more about the subject and even willingly desensitized myself to its inherently violent nature for that sake. Then, for reasons that are hard to admit, I found myself loving MMA. Yet I am questioning those reasons because beyond the mere aesthetics ("I don't like to see people bloody each other up," or "boxing is graceful like ballet, compared with the slam-dancing of MMA") I have some serious difficulties reconciling the sport with my own values and beliefs about non-violence.

I'll tell you what I won't do, though, and that is pretend that I'm above it. I can't pretend I have not thoroughly enjoyed watching UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) sometimes. I must also concede that I was/am attracted to the violence that I hate about it. But I still think it's possible to be critical of the things you are guilty of. Furthermore, I think it's possible to be critical of things like the UFC, despite the fact that any such criticisms are immediately quashed (online always and often in legislation) by the massive lobbying onslaught that is MMA fandom.

1. This Ain't Just Fisticuffs.

What is MMA? Well, if you don't know that, your language uses different letters or you have dealings with some other body using the same acronym, because for most of the world, those three letters mean mixed martial arts. But what does that mean, beyond what it sounds like? Aside from the fact that it is the elite competition between practitioners of various schools and disciplines of combat skills, it is a highly scrutinized and regulated sport, which is becoming so popular that its relevance to a sizable portion of society cannot be rationally denied.

Two fighters go "toe-to-toe" in a cage or a ring, depending on the organization (UFC's "Octagon" cage or DEEP's classic four-turnbuckle ring), and are monitored by skilled referees as they do battle in a bid to either knock out or technically knock out their opponents a la traditional boxing rulings. They may also cause their opponent to submit due to giving them a tremendous amount of pain (an "arm bar," for instance) for a controlled period of time. A fourth method of beating an opponent is by a choke-hold, whereby blocking the air passages results in either the opponent "tapping out" or passing out. The fifth method of scoring a victory, also similar to traditional boxing, is a points-based decision in favour of the combatant who has landed the most "significant strikes" or who has controlled the direction of the match with superior authority.

But that's just the surface---MMA is much more than just those things. It is a very complex sport and it involves so many different martial arts and so much technical information that commentators and regulators alike have a hard time keeping up with the newest (or least-known) techniques of hurting somebody else using your body. I will try and describe it better, but I offer no promises of getting it right.

Taking boxing as a familiar combat sport to compare and contrast to, the first thing one notices that is different is that there are kicks, knees, elbows, and grappling techniques. MMA is no mere skirmish with repeated punches to the body and head, like boxing. This is more like a gladiator sport minus weapons, armour, and the intent to kill.

Mike Tyson's ear-biting notwithstanding, boxing seems formal and quaint in contrast to the brutal and unexpected nature of MMA. And while professional boxing rings are not pristine sparring venues that haven't seen a splash of blood before, bloodletting is certainly a much bigger part of MMA, hence my comparison to the gladiatorial arena. If that comparison irks you, as it does for many MMA defenders, consider the recent match between Sean Jordan and Mike Russow (Jan 26, 2013) where Jordan was backed up against the octagon cage with one hand on the ground to legally prevent Russow from kneeing him in the head, all to the audience's chorus of "Knee! Knee! Knee!" You don't hear people united in chanting "right hook!" at a boxing match. That's colosseum-type shit, that is.

I'm going to stick with UFC's current (2013) rules for the sake of this section, but bear in mind that there are a number of variations. A fighter may strike or otherwise inflict pain to the face, the neck, the knee, the stomach, the kidneys, the femoral nerve, the heel---anywhere but the eye (at least with poking or gouging), groin, the back of the head, or the cheeks (i.e. "fish hooking," the practice of ripping someone's cheek open resulting in a smile like the Joker's in The Dark Knight). I might have missed some other no-nos, but those are the basics. These rules have evolved with the sport, remember, and were not always in place.

Taking that in, there is a lot of harm the fighter can Inflict. As the fighter you may, for instance, restrict the escape motions of an opponent whilst driving your knee with terrible force into the opponent's cranial orbital repeatedly, provided the opponent isn't leaning on the ground with his or her hand. If the opponent has fallen to the mat you may punch the person repeatedly in the head without letting them up for air, so long as they are "defending themselves" by blocking or punching back periodically. You may hyper-extend ligaments or dislocate an arm or leg by bending them in ways they weren't meant to bend. You may sit on someone and repeatedly slam your elbows into their face, bouncing their head on the canvas until they escape or the referee stops you. You may wrap your arm around someone's neck, say in an "arm triangle" or a "rear naked choke" until your opponent taps on you or the mat, signaling for to the ref to remove you. In fact, and I've seen this more than once, some people even continue their submission or choke after their opponent has weakly tapped their arm, if the ref hasn't seen the tap, and nothing happens to the offender. "I never felt the tap!" is an ironic t-shirt I've seen some big dudes wearing. Maybe they meant this?...

But it's not all fun and games. If you tend to kick someone in the groin over the course of a three-round bout, you might lose a point or two and your opponent can have up to five minutes to recover. Same goes for poking someone's eye. Boy, will you ever get a stern warning from Herb Dean if he's officiating and you knee someone's head while they've got a hand on the mat. Also, you may not, at least since 2006, "stomp" on a grounded opponent, which is a merciful improvement on the old UFC 'rules' from the '90's.

But really, twenty-five years ago if you read this in an article, chances are you'd be saying "are you KIDDING? What sport needs to even put those fouls in WRITING? Am I in some sadistic pit fight from a Chuck Norris movie? And seriously, dude, when I bet and wave my fist full of Vietnamese money at the wrinkly man with one eye and the long cigarette, how does he calculate my winnings when Chuck kicks some serious ass?"

Despite how bad that seems when I stack it all up in sarcastic tones like that, I would like to remind the reader that this fighting is not done maliciously the way it might come about in a personal beef between say, two street thugs. Also, neither fighter is a hapless victim falling prey to a sadist's whims. Seriously, more times than not, when the fight is over the two combatants are hugging and congratulating each other and their corner teams on a job well done. The truth is, these men (and more and more women like George Lucas' daughter) know better than anyone else what the risks are and they love doing what they do. Yes there are injuries (more on that next blog), but hey...it's a free country, right? If people want to put their bodies on the line to pursue Ultimate Fighting Championship glory, they ought to be allowed to do that oughtn't they?

Please tune in to next week's exciting installment where I hope my analysis will prove less exhausting, and more exhaustive instead.

NaneekoftheNorth

Stolen Lawnmower (file under "boo-hoo")

Today I came home from work to let the dog out during the lunch hour, and found my lawnmower had been absconded with. I have no freaking clue when this happened, because how often do you look at your lawnmower in the whimpering first weeks of spring? (by the way, that's a mostly rhetorical question, all ye men over 65. I know you guys check the spark plugs on yours every day) It was a fine machine, purchased a couple years back when I lived on a different property with a much bigger yard. Now that I live where I do, it hardly made sense to own it any more. Those little reel, push-powered mowers are much more this current yard's style than the self-propelled marvel of machinery that this thing was. What I should have done right when I moved to this admittedly rougher part of town is sell the damn thing and use my own elbow grease with the enviro-friendly mower that came with the house. But it was MINE.

Now, I didn't name it or anything, but if a good quality rider mower is like a Mercedes Benz, then this was a Cadillac. No mere Briggs and Stratton, which I suppose is the equivalent of a Harley Davidson---a noisy, scars and all type of thing, this mower was smooth-running and pampering. It even had its own collector bag. Now I fear I'm too materialistic as it is, and I feel my actions are not very much in line with my ideals, but I must confess that "Aww....hey, man!..." was the cry of injustice that whimpered from my heart as I noticed it was gone. But then I went back to work, distractedly thinking about whether I should bother reporting it or not. 

As my brother Tom once said, "You're not going to be hit by the old-age truck, you're already driving it!" 

I have a mixed-up sense of right and wrong in these morally ambiguous times. The part of me reared on old-school notions of WHAT TO DO in these types of situation is always at odds with what the reality of what I see going on around me is. I know that for this one (extremely minor) injustice, there are several much more severe problems from the past week facing the authorities. I've always liked the sound of that phrase "don't sweat the small stuff" and I fully intend to live by that credo one of these days, but at the same time I am pissed. It wasn't some two-stroke broke-down hand-me-down Lawn Boy, but the friggin' Cub Cadet 3-in-1 Convertible Self-Propelled 160 cc Honda 500 horsepower beauty I replaced the former with. An extravagance, sure, but one that certainly helped out my lower back, by virtue of its self-propelling feature, and, like I mentioned above, MINE. Well, no longer.

I'm reminded of that slightly stupid, but very funny sketch comedy piece by the Kids In The Hall where Bruce McCullough comes on to the stage with a bike that's had its front wheel stolen and chastises the anonymous thief. "What, did you think I wouldn't need it???" That's kind of how I feel right now. It's a fruitless, impotent whine that I hear in my writing at this moment. But I'm still not ready to just shrug and say "well, at least it wasn't the Pink Panther diamond or anything,..."

So what do you think, should I bother amusing our beleaguered cops with a stolen property report? I'm inclined to say 'no,' but feel free to weigh in on the comments section below. Bear in mind I have already scoured Kijiji for recent lawnmower postings. However, inventive and sleuthy suggestions are very welcome. Readers of my posts know I have a fair bit of time on my hands to go do detective work...

Speaking of which, I know this isn't the long-winded type of diatribe you few faithful readers of my rants are used to, but that is all I have to say on the matter, except that if you get approached by someone in the North End of Winnipeg who is selling you a Cub Cadet self-propelled gas lawn-mower for really cheap I want you to know it came from someone whom you admire.

Naneek Of The North

Winnipeg, Canada

PS, give it back you hot-item buying prick!

Superman III: Evil Superman vs. Clark Kent, and Truth vs. Fiction

I remember Superman III quite a lot better than it deserves. 

Not because one of my all-time favourite comedians, Richard Pryor, is in it, and certainly not based on Pryor's so-so performance in the film. And not because Annette O'Toole is flamin' hot as Lana Lang, Clark Kent's old Smallville High School classmate, though that certainly did help. No, I remember Superman III so well because of a particular sequence when, after being exposed to a synthesized version of kryptonite, the Man of Steel loses his innocence and starts being a total prick.

It was a very disturbing thing to have to watch in the time I was growing up. When I was a boy in 1983, there was no one bigger than Superman except maybe the A-Team or Darth Vader. Okay, maybe Indiana Jones, too. Thanks in big part to the pure-hearted portrayal by Christopher Reeve, we all bought into Supe's unwavering decency. He was like some supernatural Elliot Ness---untouchable. So to see the Man Of Steel become a nasty drunk, well, that was about as disturbing a thing as a kid in 1983 could imagine, and I think that image may have sunk the franchise (though Superman IV was the dull aquatic thud of it hitting the ocean floor).

The reason it sticks with me and fascinates me to this day, however, is the way that problem of Superman becoming corrupt is resolved. It is by far the best sequence of moments in the whole shitty movie. He gets a nasty headache after stumbling out of a bar that he just destroyed by flicking beer nuts at every glass bottle in the place (remember, he's super-strong), and stumbles into a nearby wrecking-yard. Screaming in pain, the M.O.S. suddenly splits in two and becomes Clark Kent and the evil Superman. They begin to fight, sort of like Jekyll and Hyde going toe to toe, if Jekyll retained all of the brute strength of Hyde. This scene was also traumatic because nobody likes to see Kent being kicked around or squashed in a car-squasher. After duking it out for a few minutes, however, Clark Kent wins and rips open his starched white shirt to reveal that iconic logo. The stirring music of John Williams plays and we know the real Superman is back and will finish the rest of the lame movie in standard Superman fashion. What got to me, and it would have happened sooner or later whether I watched the film or not, was this sense that we can be at least two different people at the same time.

I am at least two kinds of person at all times. 

One of these people is communicating with you right now. The other is waiting to get drunk and start flicking beer nuts at things. I know this yin-and-yang stuff is not news to anybody, except perhaps a seven year-old in 1983, but I hope to get beyond just blathering about moral duality, so hang on and give me the benefit of the doubt. I'm trying to coax out something perhaps profound without thinking too much about it.

My duality is more of an intellectual than a moral one. When I write a considered piece (even a rant), I am working on some level I can't possibly understand. I'm typing faster than my more buffoonish self can think, and it allows a deeper, more thoughtful side to rise to the top. I use words that I forgot I even knew, I develop ideas that I think are somewhat intelligent, and I don't just get wasted and act like a clown. I don't know how to describe it except to say that I am not fully conscious when I get into that zone.

I must confess something cheesy, now, that I was hoping to avoid:

I was inspired to start writing a blog after reading some Hunter S. Thompson articles. As phony as it sounds, I figured that maybe his 'Gonzo'-style was worth emulating to some degree. I think that much of Thompson's profundity lies in his inebriated and unconventional presentation of ideas, and I even pretended to myself that it would be good for me to write while under the influence. But as the buffoonish side of me began to write, it gave way to a more sober, literary part of me which championed some semblance of linguistic acuity. The trade-off, though, is that as this half emerges in my virtual scribbles, I notice I lose that sardonic Hunter Thompson edge I was trying for. Which I guess is for the best.

I am usually an idealist when I write and often a bit of a broken, flawed guy when I just hang out with people. It wasn't always the case, but I guess the day-to-day me didn't have the energy to keep believing in the lie of perfection, let alone attempt to attain it. I don't lack ideals entirely, but I get tired of coaching myself into striving for them. When I write, it's a different story. I write to make pronouncements, to make judgements, to try and change something. It's a different kind of communication, and if it seems to come from a pulpit,  I hope it's at least occasionally enlightening or entertaining.

I once had a relationship based almost entirely on letter-writing. 

In these letters I would try to be as poetic and romantic as I could, praising the object of my affections to the stars and trying to build my own image up a fair bit in the process. But whenever we did meet up, these rare encounters were always awkward and thoroughly un-romantic. This wasn't her fault at all, I realized, but my own because I never gave her the chance to just be herself. I made up what she was in my mind, and so whenever I actually met up with her, I was thrown off and confused and so, I suspect, was she. I couldn't do anything except blunder like Clark Kent---maybe boyishly charming, but not sexy or cool or deep or anything a lot of girls seemed to like in guys.

I think that is the precise moment in my life when the day-to-day me gave up on most of my ideals and started becoming bad Superman. I had had many moments of doubt before, certain crises of faith, but never on this scale. And it was horrible. When our 'relationship' (read: pen-pal romance) fizzled out, it did so because I could see everything too clearly. I could no longer pretend that I could whisk this person away and live like a rebel with her on the road, which was a naive fantasy we had been toying with very briefly. I knew that if we continued on the strength of our initial momentum, it could only be possible by supporting the lies of how I was presenting myself and how I chose to see her.

I got into a deep funk, at first thinking I had lost my true love, and afterwards getting more depressed as I realized it had never existed and I wasn't ever going to look at the world the same way. I did not realize at the time that this was a really good, healthy thing which would open my mind and allow me to fall for the person who is now my wife. But I was not comfortable with this new me and, unfortunately for my wife, there have been years of serious growing pains.

Through writing, I found a kind of truth in the analysis of my fictions. But man, did I wallow! I really went on and on about my broken-heart, my shattered ideals, and my inability to let go. I did so in a feverish bout of writing which yielded over seven hundred poems and scrawlings, averaging almost three a day, and a good many of these I turned into tragic, idealistic songs that I could sit at the piano and soothe my melodramatic soul with. It was like my bad Superman self was fighting constantly with my good Superman self.

We tend to forget the instructional value of fiction, whether you are writing it or reading it. 

There is such a wealth of self-generated wisdom that can arise from appreciating a good novel or poem or play. Because we are being entertained, I would suggest that the potential for learning is especially high, for we aren't intimidated by a story we are enjoying, though many of us can be bored by or scared of an academic journal, or a philosophical text, or some such egghead thing. I'm trying not to think of where an overly-wordy blog would fall in that spectrum...

Rats, I've broken character too many times with too many coy asides to the audience. Writing things like this in such a way that I can believe in them requires that I balance precariously on the mid-point of my dualistic nature. I'm having a hard time getting back in the groove of this rant, and I kind of think it's overly self-serving. The only thing keeping me from deleting it altogether is that I suppose there's some small value in my sincerity.

I guess the reason I started off with the Superman III stuff is that I'm just starting to feel a new form of post-innocence optimism (a long time coming), and I think that's something that makes the evil Superman somewhat of a godsend. I know many people who can't stand Superman because he's an indestructible goody-goody two-shoes. Batman is much more easy to relate to for a lot of people who see the grime of the city, the inner conflicts of a mostly good person, the violence that it is sometimes necessary to explore in oneself. But I was not on board with Batman nearly as much as Kal-El, the Man Of Steel, while growing up. It was easy to believe in the virtuous, pure Superman if you were lucky enough to have a delightful childhood, which I was. The rude awakening comes when you get out on your own and realize there are a bunch of Lex Luthors out there, and a lot of them are your friends. The worst is when you realize that you yourself have a bit of ol' Lex in you, which every one of us does.

That's why the slightly traumatizing appearance of the corrupted Superman (and please remember that the ingredient in the synthetic Kryptonite that made him such a bastard was tobacco tar) was like the blessed shit-hammer of truth coming down on our heads. We had bought into the Superman lie our whole lives, but now we were being confronted with the truth: no one is incorruptible, but that doesn't mean they can't still snap out of it and come back to be our hero. In that theatre, I think I remember some kids (maybe even me) crying with disappointment and shock during the film's darkest moment, and I also think I remember being part of one of the most thrilling cheers in a theatre I've ever seen when the good Superman comes back. 

And that, dear reader, is how I strive to see myself. I'm sick of the wallowing, and I want to work my way back into being something good. The joke that I composed this on Easter Sunday was not entirely lost on me, either. Can I end this now? Good. Don't get hung up about Easter, okay?

Naneek Of The North

Winnipeg, Canada.

Nucular vs. Nuclear (and all things Ghoti)

It's a small thing, really. A very small thing. I just cannot stand knowing that there are people out there---smart people---who insist on pretending that "Nuclear" is pronounced "Nucular." I have tolerated the use of "hung" when people mean "hanged." I have suffered "irregardless" when regardless would have done the job properly in the first place. Incidentally, "irregardless" isn't even a proper word, but an accidental portmanteau of "irrespective" and "regardless." But people keep saying it, so now I guess it is a word. A stupid, unforgivable word. Well now I must draw a line in the sand. Things have gone too far. "New," "Clear." Period.

We all know languages are constantly evolving (see "Energizer Bunny" in the O.E.D., for Christ's sake---er, I meant for instance), and some words in English are particularly troubling because they were adopted into our language from other tongues and so they can incorporate different conventions of pronunciation. And because of the multiple pronunciation conventions of various combinations of letters in English alone, we sometimes can't even use borrowed-convention as an excuse! It's a confusing world out there for English language speakers, from the novice to the professional.

Just look at the word Ghoti. Erroneously attributed to George Bernard Shaw, this was actually a combination of letters employed by William Ollier Jr. to illustrate the confusion which arises when you try to undersand how to pronounce a word you've never seen before. (Keenan, 20687) This is a word which incorporates the "fff" sound of "enough," the "ih" sound we hear when we say "women," and the "sh" sound of any word that ends in "-tion"(excepting a few words like "cation"). Ghoti=Fish. Cute, but where does that lead us?

Then there are those words it's nearly impossible to sort out without "good proper British training," like the ridiculous "Worcestershire Sauce" which is supposed to be pronounced "Wooster sauce" and  the absolutely insane "Featherstonhaugh" which is to be pronounced "Fanshaw." When one regards the murky, confused ocean of possibilities that is the English Language, clearly we have good reason to commit malapropisms and mispronunciations.

But the whole thing with "Nucular" bugs me because there is no real excuse for it. On the website englishforums.com there is a debate about this very subject, entitled the "Nuclear Pronunciation Debate"  (if you're a pedant like me then I highly recommend it, otherwise give it a miss). In the forum, it is observed that President W is one of the more famous folks guilty of pronouncing "Nuclear" incorrectly. Defenders of former US president George W. Bush are quick to point out (in droves!?) that it has been an accepted mispronunciation for decades, and therefore it doesn't indicate that he is a few cans short of a six-pack. Then again, the corruption of standardized language can stem from a stupid lineage, can't it? If Eisenhower was ridiculed for his mispronunciation of Nuclear, as contributor to the online debate Don Phillipson points out, then perhaps there was a reason for that ridicule. Two United States presidents endorsing something wrong don't make it right, do they?

I feel that we humans are not so bright on the whole, especially compared to the beautiful, awe-inspiring Orangutan, or that crafty devil the Vervet Monkey. I say this because we could easily correct an isolated problem such as this, but we lack focus. Our primal relatives, however, can focus on an ant for two or three hours! But our eyes are briefly and furtively trained on so many problems on any given day that perhaps getting food in our mouths or finding a person to sleep with takes precedence over analyzing the language we speak all the time. And if we learn to say "Nuclear" correctly, who is to say that we won't still have a problem getting 'jiggy wid it' in the sack or getting crucial caloric input? I understand this is a problem, and all, but I feel that's a fucking copout. Allow me to illustrate why.

Do you know somebody who has all the greatest stuff that comes out on the market and doesn't use it? Like that person who buys a top-of-the-line stereo and speakers and is constantly tweaking it in his sonic fortress (read: garage), but then spends so much time continually researching and tweaking the setup that he doesn't actually spend time listening to music on the damn thing? Or how about that person who has everything Apple can possibly sell her---a macbook pro with all the trimmings, an iphone, an ipad, an icar, an ihusband,...---only to use them all for the tedium of social networking (the author is exempt from judgement here)?

It's kind of like that with our brains. We have these amazing gizmos in our heads, but we're too stupid or too lazy to operate them at their full potential, with the obvious exceptions of Isaac Newton, Aristotle, Albert Einstein, and John Candy. I guess a fair argument with my premise here would be to blame our brains for that very failing of our brains which I am speaking of, but don't think your cleverness will get you anywhere. This is a rant, not a fucking MLA college paper.

Where was I? Oh yes, distractions! The fact that we have a great number of problems to solve at our disposal doesn't really hold water for me as a reason for why we can't all get together on the pronunciation of "Nuclear." There is the matter of triaging, which is a useful way of making sure the right patient gets in to see the doctor at the right time. We understand and accept this concept quite readily (unless we're stuck sitting in the reception area of a doctor's office for hours) because we triage every day. Who hasn't been hosting a dinner party when the phone begins to ring? Do you answer it? Do you let the machine pick it up? Politeness usually decrees you should let it ring and entertain your guests. But what if it's important? The machine picks up and you hear an urgent message being left on it. Suddenly it's like the guests aren't there and you rush to pick up the phone before they hang up. You have just triaged.

I think that most of us are not in a constant state of emergency. Apologies to the ones who are, but the tactics I am about to suggest are ones that even the twenty-four-hour-a-day survivalist can employ. You can learn new things. You know all those studies that show you that the older you get, the less you can learn? Bullshit. What you do is you trick your brain.

Step One: Treat it as an entirely new word.

Nuclear is a simple word, a mere two syllables! Remember learning your first words? Probably not, unless you are a robot or you are still learning your first words. But at any rate, one can imagine how simple, after learning the trick of the basics like "ma" and "da" and "peal," acquiring a lexicon can be. Treat "Nuclear" as a word you've never seen before. Even if you end up saying something like "knucklier," that's much better than saying, "oh yah, I know that word, it's nucular!"

Step Two: Hooked on Mnemonics.

Mnemonics is a way of remembering something by abstractly associating something else with the thing you're trying to remember. However, what I am about to suggest is somewhat different from the way one might chose to remember the phone number of that really sexy somebody by phonetic association (732-7610 becomes "Heaven sees you, Heaven picks one hero").  I am suggesting you remember how to say "Nuclear" by dividing it into two words that, by some strange coincidence, echo the sense of the whole word you're learning. 

Consider that nuclear power is a relatively new energy source compared to some of the other tried and true methods of heating your home or driving your car. See that? I just helped your brain remember with the eighth word of the first sentence in this paragraph. Nuclear lends itself quite easily to an association with the word "New." 

Now try that second syllable. "Clear." This might be a bit of a stretch, because there is a lot of debate about whether Nuclear energy is cleaner than other forms. But "Clear" can refer to whatever you wish. You can "clear" out Chernobyl with a nuclear explosion.  Or you can look at it as a "clear" alternative to more primitive energy sources which pump greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. You don't have to be for or against nuclear energy in order to say the word "Nuclear" correctly.

Step Three: Practice.

Well, this is an obvious one, I would say. Even if you're on board with saying "Nuclear" correctly now, you may have slip-ups if you have never said it correctly before in your life. Do not be discouraged. Just remember, you're not being an elitist by saying it correctly amongst your peers all of a sudden. You are just being an English speaker. That's okay, isn't it? So let's try it in a few sentences to get you going:

"I have all this nuclear waste to hide before the authorities twig on to what I am doing."

"I want a nuclear sandwich on rye, light on the radium."

"I had some nuclear sex last night."

Easy and fun, isn't it? So let's get this movement going. Tell your friends that they can easily learn how to say the word correctly (remember to employ tact in this venture). Then show them how. Even that person you're on a first date with. Let them know it's worth it to you, and they'll learn. And they will be empowered by this learning. It's not too late for us humans. Let's make this happen tonight! Or maybe after Easter Sunday.

Works Cited:

Keenan, Patrick. Thoughts in My Head and Gleaned Wisdom. 1st Ed., Winnipeg: Patrick Keenan's Published Brainwaves, 2012. Brainwave.

Naneek Of The North

Winnipeg, Canada

Hey Jude-Album or Greatest Hits Collection?

        Once upon a time, when music and the music industry were in a relatively innocent state of cooperation, there came a group of four individuals who, after a period of approximately eight years, called their organization's activities to a halt, much to the dismay of enthusiasts around the world. In the wake of their absence, a capitalist monk who was transcribing their great works saw fit to collect nine short pieces and one extended one and present them as a final, posthumous reiteration from the group itself. This group was The Beatles, and the collection in question is "Hey Jude."

God, I love this album. It isn't technically an album, however, since a record album is usually the presentation of a collection of new sonic and lyrical ideas never before released to the public, sometimes with the effect that they present an overall thematic through-line. It is also a flagship "product" from the folks who have put it together. Usually, when cataloguing a band's output, the studio album is an official thing, the live album is of secondary importance and often not counted as official, and the greatest hits album is basically a post-project recruitment brochure. "Hey Jude" contains ten songs, all of which had appeared previously as either 45 rpm singles or their b-sides, and so at first blush it seems fair to consider it as a "hits album." As a result of this status, however, it was allowed to wither away, out of print, supplanted by subsequent collections which, spread over two or three CDs, replicate the "Hey Jude" collection. Except briefly (and perhaps not entirely legally, but that's a whole different story) in Japan, there has been no post-cassette tape release of the collection "Hey Jude."

When it was initially released in 1970, fans treated it as an album, not a greatest hits collection. Fans in the UK, confounded by the collection's release in every other major Beatles market but its native homeland's would struggle to order it from Australia, Canada and the US. Eventually, since people for eight years had persisted in lamenting its absence, EMI re-released the collection to the United Kingdom in 1979. I don't think I know of any other collection of "previously-released music" that has received so much loyalty.

Another element about "Hey Jude" which points toward canonization is its cover, which merely has a photo of the Beatles and no words. This is in keeping with their late-sixties releases which would play games with the common marketing practices of the day. The fan-named "The White Album" was released with a stark-white cover and only the subtly raised off-white lettering of "The Beatles" on the right side of its face. "Revolver" mentions the Beatles by name in near-microscopic lettering on the back cover, but not at all upon its showpiece front. Abbey Road was initially released without either the band name or the title appearing on the front. But they were the most popular band in the world. No one needed to be told it was a Beatles album if their picture was on it. No one needed a title if their name was on it. And apparently, no one needed either their name or the title on the cover if there was adequate pictorial representation, or even just a whisper in the press about it. These stunts are commonplace in music marketing nowadays, but back in the late sixties it was a cocky and original statement: Who cares what it's called, or what its cover tells us? It's a Beatles album!

So what part does an audience's interpretation play in how an anthology of music is classified? For all I know, Pink Floyd's "The Wall" could be a collection of completely unrelated throwaway songs that they just stuck together and released because the band couldn't work with each other, though they still needed an income. Yet we are expected to listen to "The Wall" as if it were an opera, the music orchestrated only to serve the over-arching story. And on the other hand, is "Aerosmith's Greatest Hits" more of an album than "Get a Grip?" I'm inclined to say yes, although perhaps that's more because I don't like acknowledging the latter at all. At any rate, there is a lot of wiggle-room in these definitions, and I feel strangely passionate about exploring them at this juncture.

When I drop the needle of my Technics SL-M1 into the groove of this well-used vinyl disc, the strains of "Can't Buy Me Love" jangle nicely out toward my ears. My first impression is aesthetic and technical. I can tell immediately by the stylistic choices the band and Mr. Martin are making, combined with the technical limitations of the studio equipment they were using, that this is clearly not a 1970 release from The Beatles, which should be obvious to anyone who knows their history anyway. "I Should Have Known Better" follows, and I can once again tell that this falls into earlier Beatles territory, simply because of John Lennon's use of the harmonica and the fact that this recording lacks in he realm of low-end frequencies. So far, this seems like a capital (rather than a Capitol) release, which it is.

But something's happening to me as each song comes and goes. Perhaps it's the fact that I grew up with this record playing as part of my mental soundtrack, but as "I Should Have..." starts to fade out, I find myself warmly anticipating the opening lines of "Paperback Writer," as though it can only belong three and a half seconds after the previous selection. Now we're getting into the realm of the album. Next, the terribly overlooked tune "Rain" socks it to us and I know that this peculiar collection is working its own magic on us, providing a context and a cultural framework out of thin air.

There is a beautiful arc to "Hey Jude," both sonically and emotionally. As "Revolution" finishes up side A I know that it could not have come earlier or later in the album. It is so raw and treble-fuzzy that it's hard to imagine it belonging anywhere else but as part of "Hey Jude." It really earns its place as we roll through the ages, song by song. So far I have been developing an impression that "Hey Jude" is a carefully composed and framed snapshot of the progress of sixties rock and roll, and for lack of anything more profound to say, I think I'll run with that for a while.

Think about it for a second: a snapshot of the artistic development of a whole cultural era, captured in just 16 minutes (I haven't got to side B yet, of course) by one band. We can hear the pre-fabricated marketing of "Can't Buy Me Love" giving way to something more strange, less traditionally marketable. The songs stop talking down to us. The lyrics move quickly away from that standard love song format and into some unique poetic expressions. Nobody before Paul McCartney wrote a song like "Paperback Writer." It's a brilliant and whimsical glimpse into the mundane work stresses of a struggling pulp writer. And it's a catchy song to boot. You'd also be hard-pressed to find anything in the rest of the Beatles' (or anyone else's) catalogue which resembles either the music or the lyrics of "Rain." (some solid drumming, there, Ringo!)

So what happens when we flip the record over? We get the reason for this compilation's very existence, the song "Hey Jude." It goes without saying this tune has earned its stripes, but my appreciation of the song is enhanced by the fact that it's the main course of the album's meal. If "Revolution" was a startling little palette-cleanser following a sampler plate, this is our rich Boeuf Bourguignon, with complex seasonings serving to highlight the simple beauty of the pastoral recipe. No shocks here, no real surprises. But such wisdom and mastery is at work in the presentation that we can't help but be moved, even after the eighteenth chorus of "na-na-na-na."

And then something peculiar happens. Things shift gears slightly, making us think back and forward simultaneously. This is the work of a group up until a point. But then you have John singing two songs, one a live recording from the Let It Be sessions (but clearly a Lennon song) and one about himself and his girlfriend doing their activist stuff, you have a neat one-off by George Harrison, and Lady Madonna, while still on Side A, was a song that really sounds like it's mostly Paul performing it. In 1970, it could hardly have been lost on the avid Beatles follower that the last few songs on "Hey Jude" were recorded during the period of their break-up. Nothing after the title track indicates as much togetherness as it does. "Hey Jude" is the epitome of the sixties' togetherness angle, after all. When we are treated to "Old Brown Shoe" by Harrison, we know that we are being distracted away from something. Perhaps we're being distracted from the ironic tragedy inherent in appreciating the teamwork style of "Hey Jude" by the since-disbanded Beatles. It actually sounds like the beginning of the seventies to me, both sonically and stylistically.

"Lady Madonna," while actually appearing as an ominous note of foreboding on side A, continues in the whimsical-literary vein of McCartney's preference, but as I mentioned there is something more insistently Paul-ish about this one. He's very high in the mix, and seems to me to be trampling upon the others. Lyrical content aside, his aggressive and smug tone is forcing a singular artistic agenda upon us, some bill that has been pushed through without the other legislative parties being consulted. Not that I don't like the song, but it's no "Hey Jude." It almost feels, I dunno,... bullyish.

The point I have been belabouring is that this collection of songs has a personality all its own, and it has a more potent force as the collection that it is. I remember being about ten years old and checking out the cassette version of the album in my old pal Collin's basement. I was upset that they put the second side on first. They did this because it's the longer side, and it was feared it would annoy potential consumers if they had to fast-forward the rest of side one so they could flip the tape and play side two. But that treated it as a mere commodity, not the album I felt it was.

If you can get into this theory I am espousing, I would strongly urge you to do the following:

1) Arrange the ten songs of the album in the following order on your iphone or whatever:

• Can't Buy Me Love
• I Should Have Known Better
• Paperback Writer
• Rain
• Lady Madonna
• Revolution
• a pause (1-1 1/2 min. should do, just enough to simulate having to get up and flip the record. Be sure to take this time to get up from where you're seated, or to put down whatever you're holding.)
• Hey Jude
• Old Brown Shoe
• Don't Let Me Down
• Ballad Of John And Yoko

2) Now listen to this album several times from start to finish, or at least from the beginning of a side until its end.

3) Repeat.

4) Repeat again. Listen to the album until you know its order the way it is.

5) Now take a couple weeks off, and then in a fortnight do it again, but this time, shuffle the order, add songs, delete some.

I think you will find that you can shuffle them all you want, tweak the playlist here and there,  even flip the position of only two songs and you will never be as satisfied as you were with the album's initial presentation. I know I will not.

This was not an essay, clearly, but a formless rant. I need subject matter to shape a proper essay around. Please send any assignments my way through the blog. I will strive, within boundaries of taste that only I will define, to do your considered suggestions justice. Just don't give me a deadline.

Naneek of the North,
Winnipeg, Canada

The Dangling So.

                            "...which means that I paid for the wrong part of our table's tab, so..."
                            -unidentified made-up person.

The so-called 'Dangling So' has been employed in speech for longer than speech has, I presume. For, in the time before regulated word-usements, a nice linguistic term Steve Martin invented in LA Story (Jackson, 37 minutes), there would have been a great many awkward pauses round the cave fire:

 "So...."

 "So...."

 "So...."

And then Thag, reaching his social-tension threshold, would spring to life and show Glaug his latest spear innovation. 


Or:

"Sooooo...."

Which could convey the meaning "wow. Nice pickup line, Bonehead." In fact I would even venture so far as to presume that one of the first linguistic units was the Dangling So.

And yet it never got so proud of itself before. It never had a popular name before, even. It always did our dirty work---you know, the whole saying what couldn't be said and all that---and it quite often has smoothed things out for us. Its value was always silently appreciated, like the charming forbidden love between princess and palace slave. But now it is an uppity thing our entitled youth have transformed from a merely functional place-holder into a goddam socially-hip meme (a term used so readily nowadays that I don't even understand what it memes).

I can remember more than a couple occasions when the Dangling So has helped me in utterly awkward moments that arose if ever I tried to speak sincerely to say, Angela McFarlane to pick a purely random name. I'd pause, thinking 'what am I going to say to her next,' and then fart or burp or something, and you know, the girl would say "so..." with that awful crinkly-nosed expression. That will have been her using the Dangling So to stall while she desperately tries to think of something interesting enough to distract from what I just did. Knowing full well that I have blown it with Angela Mc--the girl, I will have just been glad she was kind enough to segué into an exit-strategy rather than wait for my red-faced silence to end with me peeing my acid-washed pants and crying. Or some such scenario.

The Dangling So, suggests my awesome coworker Jeff, would be a good name for a hipster band:

"So, uh, you checking out The Danglin' Sos tonight at the Toad?"

"Meh, maybe that would be alright, man. What time?..."

"Unhhh, I dunno, man."

You get the idea. Those characters whose dialogue you just read, incidentally, are my tools for testing a band name. They're these two asshole roommates named Braden and Dran who, if your made-up band name sounds cool enough to get them to pause their Xbox and go out to see a live band, you know you've got something. Try it, it works. Just copy the dialogue and attitude verbatim and substitute any band name.


Anyway, it's really been hard to resist pointing this out til now, but you who are reading this are a bunch of spoiled, lazy assholes, and you all employ the Dangling So too often!

What I'm trying to say is that we use the Dangling So so often that we don't even care if it makes sense. It just finishes a sentence you were too stoned or lazy or uncomfortable with to finish yourself. The truth is, we often haven't even bothered to consider the answer. It's almost used unthinkingly like a shield:

"I thought I told you to stock that Campbell's soup right away!"

"Yeah, well when you were saying that I was just helping that old dude take his groceries to the car, so..."

Excuse me? So that means the whole day I was paying you was pointless because you helped a man with his bags at noon? And the bizarre import of this totally apathetic response is, 'you can threaten to fire me but I won't go into any excuses or apologies for totally ignoring your request.' And because it's so hard to find anybody with brains or sticktoitiveness enough to do that shitty stock-person part-timer, especially at the wage I'm paying, I'm gonna have to sit back and take this one in the tailpipe.

But hear me now all you turds taking a year off before university to see what you want out of life...your boss has every right to remember this moment. In fact, the second he or she can competently replace you he or she probably will.

I harbour this little mote of hope: that natural selection will smite all you Dangling So-and-so's and will reward all those pure at heart souls who do not know what the terms 'mumblecore' and 'shoegazing' mean. (the author is exempt from this judgement) For the very rapidity of a catch-phrase's ascendency to the norm belies its hollowness, and I would assert that the Dangling So is a hipster thing that has infected society with its poor attitude.

Don't get me started about hipsters. I get confused about those people, perhaps because I have the same interests as they do, only they do it better. So much better that they become annoying completists who have nothing else to contribute to the universe but their subtle refinements of style and their acquired knick-knacks that look like cool funky shit on top of their desk at the graphic design firm where they work. Where was I? Oh yes, the natural selection against entitled jaded youth and their Dangling Sos.

You small business owners know this rare type we're all selecting for. The type of person who gladly does a job of work at an exploitative wage and sticks around for years and eventually buys the business off you in installments, even though he's been running it mostly on his own out of loyalty for the last five years since your stroke. Now you're 65 and retiring and moving to Florida or BC and he's pushing 50 and he's stuck starting a whole new and dubious career path and he still doesn't have a dental plan. That's what one could hope is being selected for in nature.

But there may be a few kinks along the road. Nature may not select in so tidy a way. After all, the useless are not being punished enough as they develop. What we need to do is drum a sense of decorum into the next generation before it's too late.  Check out the public schools in Canada, if you don't believe me. Christ, just look at today's cartoons. Nature, or at least human nature, does seem to counter-intuitively select against perfectly nice, smart, competent, evolved people because, to quote that smartass Douglas Adams, "the one thing [we] really couldn't stand was a smartass." (Adams, 78)


Works cited:
LA Story. Dir. Mick Jackson. Perf. Steve Martin, Victoria Tennant, Richard E. Grant. Carolco Pictures, 1991. DVD.
Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. 2nd ed, London: PAN Macmillan Adult, 1979. Print.

This was not an essay, clearly, but a formless rant. I need subject matter to shape a proper essay around. Please send any assignments my way through the blog. I will strive, within boundaries of taste that only I will define, to do your considered suggestions justice. Just don't give me a deadline.

Naneek of the North,
Winnipeg, Canada