aMMusing

In a little less than seven hours, we will be stepping into a new year in Atlantic Canada. People like Damian are already several hours into the new year, which is always a strange notion when you think about it a little bit. But what’s an even weirder notion is that it’s already been six years since we glided into Y2K.

As tradition wants, I will be attending the 10th annual Eggs & Roses party with the Queen of Sheba, the Grand Poobah of Culinary Delights, and other assorted guests. It will be a good evening and I look forward to it for the most part. But there is a little part of me that’s not looking forward to it.

I find a bit depressing the fact that I keep seeing the same hopes and aspirations appearing on my rose from year to year. And I think this realization is a bit more stinging this time because it’s the 10th consecutive year for this event. I do think I have evolved on a personal level, but on the professional level, I feel I haven’t moved forward as much as one would expect someone would in 10 years.

In turn, this realization probably explains why I’ve always been reticent to make new year resolutions. They can be such a letdown if you don’t succeed. Even looking back at my blog entry two years back, when I thought I was entering a pivotal year, is a bit of a letdown. I haven’t taken any step backwards; just not as many steps forward as I thought I would…

Despite this sentiment, I feel compelled to make resolutions for 2006. The very good prospects for a new job are leading me to believe I can make plans based on more than hope and optimism. I can imagine how I can emerge from my 40s, which I just started, and not feel as I do as I emerged from my 30s. So now, in no particular order…

I will try again in 2006 to quit smoking. I came as close as I ever have in 2005, so instead of looking at the failure, I ‘ll be taking what I’ve learned to finally succeed. I simply feel deep in my bones that I must quit if I want to reach my 50s.

I want to continue making sane eating choices. I’ve gain a few pounds in the last month — nothing even worth mentioning, really, but it’s showing me how easy it would be to slip right back to April 2004. As early as next week, I plan to apply the 80/20 rule: make good choices 80 percent of the time, and allow bad choices 20 percent of the time to keep my sanity and avoid going back to making bad choices 100 percent of the time.

I need to finally get over my fear of the gym, which I’ve been carrying since I was a kid. I’ve read several tales in the last year of guys who were exactly where I’m at (both physically and in their mind) but, in 12 to 18 months, have toned up admirably. I’ll never be super buff; I’ll never have a six-pack and pecs from here to Tuesday. But I would like to find out how it feels to be tighter. I suspect it should feel similar to how I remember feeling when I had a gut and how I feel now that I don’t have one (or hardly any). It’s hard to describe, and unlike the weight loss, I would be doing it more for myself. It would be a very selfish thing. I like not having a gut to rest my arm on. I like the way I feel sitting down. I like the way I feel lighter standing up. And I think I’d like feeling tighter. I think I would want a personal trainer, because I don’t know where to start and I don’t want to injure myself. I have no idea how much one would cost, but I think I might be able to afford something in 2006, which wasn’t the case these last few years.

I need to reverse my internal clock, which the job, if it materializes, may end up doing. I’m such a night owl that I panic at the thought of a meeting before noon. I honestly don’t think I’ll ever NOT be a night owl, but this going to bed at 6 a.m. and getting up at 2 p.m. is getting to me. I’m tired of it. It’s dysfunctional.

I want to travel a bit more and take more advantage of Junior. RCP has been pestering me for years to go visit him in Toronto. Cleopatrick, I think, is no longer in Montreal but I’d like to visit him wherever he now is in southwestern Quebec. I’d like to hang out a bit more with J in Montreal. I’d like to visit with The Quad and Hiker & Bello in Fredericton at least once in 2006 for more than a few hours. I’d like to go terrorize BeeGoddessC more often. I’d like to send more time with my mother, just because… And, and, and… you get the picture.

I think that’s all.

I think most of us who spend the least bit of time reading blogs have encountered some that have captivated our attention and our imagination more than others. Of course, it could be argued that all blogs to which we return with any regularity have that effect; otherwise, we wouldn’t go back to them. But sometimes, there’s something more: the narrative attracts you differently or you’d really like to meet the author. Or both. For whatever reason. And in the past month, I discovered two blogs for which I’ve felt that strong attraction.

I won’t link to the first one; however, I will say I ended up spending a few nights in a row reading her back entries and felt exactly as one feels when picking up a book and being unable to set it aside. It’s the blog of a woman whose husband left (but has since returned), and in the time he was away, she had, to put it lightly, a very busy sex life. I think what fascinated me about her tales (and tails) is how she was completely unapologetic about her appetite and what she’d insist on picking from the menu (i.e., younger, exotic men with above-average appendage). What struck me the most, though, is how such behaviour by a woman still comes across as unusual, yet that thought wouldn’t necessarily come to my mind if these accounts were from a gay man. This is not to say that all gay men or even most gay men fuck like bunnies; rather, it’s simply because they are men, if they behave like she did, it wouldn’t seem unusual. That’s how deep the double standard is: women who fuck a lot with multiple partners are sluts, but men who do the same thing are studs.

The second blog, which I added to my “aMMusing Friends” list, is by a guy my age in Toronto who has been HIV+ for more than 20 years. Now I won’t be coy with you; I admit that I think he’s a total hottie and not much twisting of my rubber arm would be required to…… However, it’s not this fact that draws me to his blog. (Or maybe should I say, for the sake of honesty, that it’s not just this fact.) It’s because of many other things, which I can sum up to his having lived a life that is completely foreign to me. He’s one of those hotties who used to be a circuit boy addicted to crystal meth, but he’s given it all up in the last year and a half.

I think that, aside from the fact I’m physically a pretty ordinary joe, what has kept my hedonistic streak in check is that I’m a chickenshit. I know myself to have an addictive personality; consequently, I’ve had no interest in trying hard drugs because I feared myself more than the drugs themselves. Similarly, I came out just as the media was talking about an outbreak of “gay cancer,” which eventually became known as HIV/AIDS, so even though I was just a teenager back then, my cautious nature kicked in and I found out what I needed to do and not do. I have since been in several serodiscordant relationships and, happily, I’m still fine. And I get angry with “neg” guys who figure that “what they need to do” is to judge “pos” guys and treat them as lepers. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t put pos guys on a pedestal, but I don’t put neg guys on one, either. I reserve the pedestal for other virtues.

But coming back to that Toronto guy, what I enjoy is the authenticity of what he has to say. Now remember, I’m the chickenshit. The drug-avoiding scardy cat. As such, I can’t understand what would lurr someone to try meth. But an entry like this one gives me a better idea.

Living with HIV for over twenty years can get to be a bit of a drag. I get tired of being tired. Tina was always there for me. She knew how to pick up my spirits and forget about the trials and tribulations of everyday life.

No, that doesn’t absolve that Toronto guy. But it’s not about sinning and then seeking redemption. It’s about understanding what drives some people’s decision to help them cope through life, because it’s difficult to maintain a positive attitude all the time. Even if you’re a hottie like that Toronto guy.

In the past, Canadians have come to expect Conservative candidates to be the pros at putting their foot in their mouth and saying really stupid things during an election campaign — things that worked against them and cost them votes. But it would seem that, in this campaign, the Liberals have taken a page from the Conservatives’ “bad form” book.

• First, in mid-December, it was Scott Reid, Paul Martin’s communications director, who attacked the Conservatives’ plan to give parents $1200 per year per child to pay for childcare by saying on CBC News: Sunday, “Don’t give people 25 bucks a week to blow on beer and popcorn.”
• Then, last Tuesday, Mike Klander, the executive vice-president of the Liberals’ Ontario wing, stepped down from his voluntary job after he posted in his blog a picture of Olivia Chow (NDP candidate in the Toronto riding of Trinity-Spadina and wife of party leader Jack Layton) next to a picture of a chow chow dog, with the caption, “Separated at birth.”
• Today we learn that Industry Minister David Emerson, in a speech at a convention dinner in early December, said that Jack Layton has a “boiled dog’s head smile,” ostensibly “in reference to his constant chattering away with this great big grin on his face, pasted on, kind of an overextended grin” and “constantly seeing Jack Layton looking like a boiled dog’s head, talking about some of these shallow, ideologically driven policies of the NDP.”

These good ol’ Liberal boys are phenomenally stupid, arrogant, and desperate.

I must say, though, that I also disagree with the Conservatives’ idea for childcare. It doesn’t create new spaces, so yeah, it is quite possible that some parents wouldn’t spend the money directly on childcare — not because they’re bad financial managers, but because they wouldn’t have the opportunity spend the amount as it’s intended to be spent. That’s the simple point Reid should have made instead of trying to make a sound-clip joke which, understandably, fell flat and offended many.

You’ll notice that the other two comments were aimed at the NDP, and I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m a big-time NDP supporter. However, even as I set this bias aside, I believe these nasty, unsubstantive slurs demonstrate that, again this year, the Liberals will do and say anything to sway the soft NDP supporters to their side in order to block the rise of the Conservatives. Clearly Klander, in particular, hasn’t found out that claiming a comment was made in his personal blog does not provide immunity. In other words, he’s only now figuring out what I’ve long figured out, in my case, about blogging about my clients. It’s the same thing, really.

Meanwhile — and unrelated — so much for the campaigning truce, eh? Interestingly, it’s the Conservatives’ good Christian Stephen Harper who’s broken it two days after Christmas. Fucking hypocrite!

I don’t even know how to write this entry or what to write, yet after seeing the 1988 Australian film, The Everlasting Secret Family, I feel compelled to make some kind of comment about it.

Oh, what a bleak, sad film it is! I wouldn’t say it’s great film or a lost gem. Not even close. In fact, it’s creepy in so many ways. But the the main musical theme has floored me completely. It is beautiful, haunting and disconcerting, and gives a sad irony to the story told by this film — a fitting melancholy juxtaposing beauty (the song) and ugliness (the story). In my mind, it gives a whole new meaning to “It’s hurts so good.”

As I watched the film, I assumed the song was an old, very British men’s choir song. But then, as I started searching, I discovered it was an original score and nearly impossible to find. I downloaded a few shareware applications to try to get the track to share with you on this blog, but after several failed attempts, I gave up. Then I persisted to try to find the CD, and when I finally found it on Amazon, I ordered it without hesistation. I fear the rest of the CD will be trash and the track I want will be short, but at $9.95 U.S. including shipping, who cares!

Spammers. Script kiddies who spend their time writing bots to deface websites. Internet frauders like the U.K.’s Peter Francis-Macrae (a.k.a. Weaselboy). People who deploy DDOS attacks.

They’re all getting to me, both figuratively and literally. Click below to enlarge how one of my installations of phpBB has been defaced.

Yeah, this gets on my tits in a big way, not because I got punk’d, but because of the very existance of these effin’ little pricks. And in fact, I’m convinced we’re literally talking about little pricks in the same manner as guys who drive around with big honkin’ muscle cars.

I’m fuming on all sorts of levels right now. For one, I’m pissed with developers of scripts like phpBB for fabricating such vulnerable trash. I’ve installed their scripts even though I could plainly see how they didn’t bother taking measures to prevent illicit admin access (e.g., storing passwords in a publicly accessible directory). But I have neither the time nor the inclination of coming up with my own script like a bulletin board to circumvent such shortfalls, nor is modifying their script to patch these vulnerabilities easy or obvious (not to mention how they’d only get overwritten in an upgrade). Secondly, I’m pissed at the time I have to spend to fix scripts because it amuses some losers to go around and causing havoc. And for what? The thrill. To be able to say they’ve done it. And then you have folk like me who have to waste countless hours undoing the shit they’ve done. And “shit” is the right word: It’s like someone coming to your home and defecating in the middle of your living room floor, and you’re left with the job of picking it up.

You start by searching the cause and source of the hack or defacement, how common it is, how it can be patched up and how it can be prevented from happening again. Judging from the number of other sites that look just like yours, you quickly figure out that you’re the victim of a very common defacement. But the vast majority of what you find to reverse the defacement is hopelessly unhelpful because it’s written by well-intended script kiddies who can only write in indecipherable geekspeak. And, of course, I recognize there’s a Catch 22: post too many explanations of the vulnerability and what was done to fix it, and hackers will use that information to launch another exploit. *ARRRGH*!!!

After considerable probing, I discovered that this specific exploit was database related and was easily fixed by editing two fields in a given table. But that, in itself, really scares me. What bugs the bejusus out of me that this script, like many other PHP scripts that are being distributed, store the database login info in plain text in a file stored in a publicly accessible directory! I mean, ferfucksake! Even when I began scripting in PHP in 1999, I knew that was the dumbest thing anyone could do! And yet I see it all the time. (Of course, TextStyleM isn’t set up that way.) With that what-ought-to-be precious information, even the dimmest hacker can figure out how to get admin access and cause a real mess. In fact, the defacing could have been much worse, but I refuse to feel thankful to the hackers for not going any farther.

And here’s another thing that gets on my tits! Every time I use a script other than my own, I’m reminded why I got into this crazy adventure of creating my own CMS. I keep seeing these “very kewl features” popping up in these other scripts, but simple, commonsense features that would make day-to-day management so much easier are nowhere to be found. For instance, registering a new user/poster in a phpBB installation can only be done on the public side of the board; it can’t be done on the admin side. What’s more, turning off registration entirely requires a hack (i.e., a manual change to the source code), which most likely will end up being overwritten if later you upgrade to the newer version of phpBB.

It just never ends! It seems we keep making more work for ourselves by taking shortcuts earlier on or not thinking things through properly. Then you have fuckwits whose only goal in life is to waste other people’s time, just because they can. In the end, this line of work is fraught with pointless frustrations and is becoming less and less fun.

I’ve had this thought in the back of my mind for nearly two weeks and have been meaning to record it in my blog, but I’m just now doing it. So it’s not exactly timely…

During one of the leaders’ debate — I believe the one in English — Gilles Duceppe countered, in response to Stephen Harper’s idea that the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman should be brought back as a free vote in Parliament, that the question of same-sex marriage has already been debated and passed through Parliament and there’s no need to go back to it. Very shortly afterwards, several commentators who oppose Duceppe’s sovereignty option used the same logic against him. Indeed, given that there have been two failed referendums, why do the Bloc and PQ insist on posing the sovereignty question a third time?

While asking this question is no a way of making friends in Québec, it’s nonetheless a valid question. I know some would argue that the 1995 referendum was “stolen” by the federalist forces, thus invalidating the result. But I don’t think that counterargument is as strong logically as the “why a third time” question. I know that as someone who in the last year has become less antagonistic to the notion of an independent Québec, I wouldn’t know how to answer that question without resorting to double-speak. That’s all I’m sayin’…

I’m sorry MaZe is away from her computer these days — though I hope she’s having a fantastic time in Montréal — because she might have some thoughts on this.

Oh, and speaking of MaZe, she mused a while ago about what kind of support the BQ might get if it ran candidates outside Québec. Well, it would seem there are some pockets of support in Fredericton, of all places. I can’t help wonder, though, if the people who put up those signs were sincere sympatizers or pranksters tired of the Québec question trying to say, “Go away, already!” I suspect it’s the former, but I don’t think we can dismiss the latter possibility.

“Sleep on it.”

That’s a bit of advice people give each other when they’re on the verge of making a big decision. In French, the saying goes, “La nuit porte conseil”, which, literally translated, says “Nighttime brings advice.” I didn’t go to bed last night hoping that sleep would work its magic other than provide rest, yet I woke up with thoughts that I didn’t have or didn’t want to acknowledge when I wrote my last entry on my feelings in view of yesterday’s Indiana Jones sighting.

One comment in particular from that entry came back to me, namely “I can’t imagine a closure would ever have been possible given how a conversation with him always felt like walking on eggshells.” And today I woke up acknowledging that this makes me angry. I can’t easily define that anger, but I owe it to myself to try so that I can finally purge it and move on.

• I’m angry that I let him use my hypersensitivity to avoid addressing issues head on.
• I’m angry that I let hearsay go unaddressed and become an alternate narrative that bore no resemblence with the truth.
• I’m angry that if he were in front of me right now, I wouldn’t know where to start, what to say, and would probably end up saying nothing …again.
• I’m angry that I let my accommodating nature be so visible that it was there for the taking, ready to be used and abused by a user.
• I’m angry that I turned a blind eye to situations or events that should have set off alarm bells.
• I’m angry that I stuck it out with a former army buck because, my sexual self-esteem being where it is, I believed (and perhaps still believe, hence the lingering) that the non-athletic, more intellectually inclined person that I am will never again experience having a bodyguard type by his side.
• I’m angry that I lost 30 pounds and denied the extent to which I did so in the hope of making myself more “worthy” of a bodyguard type and demonstrating to him that it’s possible to set a goal and reach it in a timely manner.
• I’m angry that I made so many excuses for him while denying my own needs.

That last point is particularly touchy for me because I always have this fear of being thought of as selfish, of taking more than I give, so in many situations, I probably end up giving much more than I take yet still fear that I might be perceived as having ulterior motives for doing so. I know that’s really fucked up; however, I can see therein several lessons for me to learn, a balance I need to strike.

You know, this little exercise is forcing me to be totally honest with myself. I’m certainly having to question the superficial parts of my personality; however, I’m also brought to ask if any and all forms of superficiality are inherently bad. If it’s the dominating trait, then no doubt it is. But if it’s a minor trait, is it not useful in introducing a bit of lightness, a certain joie de vivre, to ride through the times when superficially is wholly inappropriate? While I realize a defense of superficiality might be dismissed as a defense of immaturity, of refusing to grow up, I’m not so sure it’s that black and white …because we should all know by now that one size doesn’t fit all.

I was going over to Saddam’s (my corner store) and as I was driving up Isleville Street, I thought to myself that it’s funny Saddam hasn’t asked after Indiana Jones in a while. I walked into the store, and Saddam said, “Guess who I just saw?” Of course, I knew exactly who he meant. “That’s so weird!,” I said. “On my way here, I was thinking about how you haven’t asked about him in a while.” To which he replied, “Funny, I was thinking about you because I was filling my cigarette order, and just as I marked off your brand, Indiana Jones walked in. I hadn’t seen him since before his mother died.” Indeed, she passed in mid-September.

Neither have I, I thought, but didn’t tell Saddam. The last time I saw Indiana was in late-July or early-August when I bumped into him on Spring Garden Road, and the last time I spoke to him was three or four days before his mother died, when he called out of the blue for J‘s number in Montreal, at which time he informed me his mother was dying. I asked about what arrangements were planned and he adamantly replied that there would be none. I then asked that he call me anyway when she would pass, as we would like to know …just to know. But he never did. I found out by keeping an eye on the obits online, in which another guy’s name (certainly not mine) was listed in parentheses as his partner next to his. That brought BeeGoddessM to call me and ask, “Who the fuck is JoeBloe?” (BGM is always delicate.) And, truthfully, I had no idea. I didn’t even recognize the name.

Fast forward to a week before Christmas, and J calls me. He was in Halifax because his ailing grandmother and his old dog died, literally at the same time, in the same room. He wanted to reach Indiana while in town but didn’t know how to, and I was of no help to him. I have only a vague idea where he’s living these days.

I don’t understand why I still care, or why a tiny part of me still misses him. My “good riddance” column stretches out a mile, and the very short “But…” column is filled with qualifiers. Maybe it’s the lack of any kind of proper closure, the fact things just drifted, although I can’t imagine a closure would ever have been possible given how a conversation with him always felt like walking on eggshells. I also know the few things I miss are very superficial or fabrications of my own imagination. Yet, tonight’s Indiana Jones sighting caused a little knot to form in my stomach. And I hate that because, cognitively, I know there’s no point to it. All my friends have said in their own way that they’re relieved he’s out of the picture, for my sake. I agree with them unequivocally, and yet…

I remember the early days when I thought ours was going to be a casual friendship with extras. Then I remember the precise moment when he said something and that all changed. I remember thinking to myself, even though I had had a few drinks, that “this has become heavy” and the fun and lightness was over. Immediately running the other way at that instant would have been the most insensitive thing to do. But it would also have been the best thing to do — not just for me, but for both of us. Certainly it would have fortified his low opinion of and trust issues with gay guys, but in a general, non-specific sense. At the same time — and somewhat contradictorily — I don’t give a rat’s ass what other people think. As J has told me many times, anyone who knows me and knows him knows to take whatever he says with a grain mine of salt. So that’s not the issue for me. I know it’s that very narrow window when it was “casual with extras” that I miss very much to this day, and sometimes I wonder if it really happened or if it, too, was just a figment of my imagination.

As planned, I went to see Brokeback Mountain with Stephanie and BeeGoddessM on Christmas night. I have to agree with Steph that it was a good movie — better than average — but certainly not the best ever. However, from what I’ve been hearing and reading, I’d have to say my reservations aren’t the same as most people who have reservations with this film.

Of course, some of the comments from naysayers at imdb.com are completely laughable and irrelevant. Some of them suggest that the fact the main characters were heterosexually married serves as evidence that homosexuality is a choice. Others say that it’s a “lust story,” not a real love story. One goes so far as saying that Brokeback is the work of Satan himself. These people went with their preconceived notions and prejudices, and were hell-bent on despising this film no matter what.

However, and conversely, I believe there’s pressure for fags, dykes, and open-minded “liberals” to love this film unequivocally and to reserve criticism on minor points like how the aging of the characters is unconvincing. I think the pressure is so great that it’s easy to be accused of harbouring inward or outward homophobia for not raving about the greatness or ground-breaking nature of this film. But I have to agree that this film, while good, should go down as the most overhyped of 2005. Films like Don’t Tell Anyone (Peru [1998], see my Dec. 29, 2002 blog entry and the imdb.com description) and the light-hearted Mambo Italiano (Canada [2003], see the imdb.com description) which was aired last night in French on Radio-Canada, managed as well if not better at addressing how it can be difficult, even impossible, to live in peace as a gay person or, more aptly in the case of Brokeback, someone who just happens to love someone of the same sex. Except that because Brokeback is a big Hollywood production, it’s as though the genre and storyline have just been invented.

Many of the sane detractors of Brokeback speak of being unconvinced of the love relationship between the main characters. But I, for one, think that’s the most successful part of the movie. One has to view this film in all its contexts. For instance, not too long ago, my mother reported having seen C.R.A.Z.Y., which I haven’t yet had the opportunity to see but have heard a lot about. She claimed not liking the storyline, in large part because she didn’t like the father’s treatment of or reaction to his son’s homosexuality. Undoubtedly she was thinking about her own reaction when she found out that her son was gay, back in the summer of 1982. I pointed out to her that C.R.A.Z.Y. was set in the ’60s and ’70s, so while it wasn’t that far from 1982, there were already huge differences in how homosexuality and homosexuals were perceived — differences which are almost as great as if we were to compare those perceptions in 1982 and 2002. She admitted that she hadn’t thought of that, that she hadn’t viewed the film in its temporal context (not that she actually said “temporal context”). But thinking back to the film with that notion in mind, she agreed that it altered her view and understanding.

The love between Brokeback‘s main characters is not only a love that dared not speak its name among cowboys from 1963 to 1982; it was a love for which they hadn’t the emotional vocabulary to express. Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) is the quintessential strong silent type who’d be unable to express love demonstratively even if he didn’t have this attraction to Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal). Ennis’s stoic nature (and resistence to taking his love for Jack beyond occasional rendez-vous on the mountain) can be infuriating when viewed through presentist lens, but he could not view things any other way given his context. This is what makes Brokeback such an authentic story; this is the heartbreak everyone speaks about, although I posit that heartbreak is more the viewers’ as a result of witnessing the story of Ennis and Jack. They say that after any couple’s (straight or gay) period of heavy passion, what sets in (or not) for the remainder is true love. I have no trouble seeing circumstances having turned Ennis and Jack as a “old couple,” perhaps more quickly than we’d expect under less stiffling circumstances. As such, it’s not such a stretch for me to comprehend Ennis’s outward reaction upon his first separation from Jack and his final separation, a point that seems to be a bit of a stumbling block for many who have viewed this movie.

So, if I’m so convinced that the storyline works, why do I not consider Brokeback a great film? Well, while I understand the effect that the pacing of the film is supposed to achieve and I agree that the cinematography is excellent, I think 15 to 20 minutes could easily be shaved off and still carry the story well. Also, while Ennis’s marbled speech provides valuable insight on his personality, it could be a little less marbled so that one doesn’t have to strain so much to understand what he’s saying. But I guess because this film has been hyped by many as nearly the Most!Revolutionary!Ever!, my expectations weren’t met, although I’m not sure what exactly my expectations were.

Maybe I expected something new, but once I took some distance from the specifics of the plot, I realized I’d already heard and seen it all before. So, I end up saying that it’s a good film and I would definitely recommend to anyone to go see it while it’s on the big screen. But I don’t think that in 2019, it will have risen to become a cult classic à la Thelma and Louise; rather, it will be remembered as a film that was talked much about in its time for having nudged the mainstream into an uncomfortable area. Yet the former legacy is what one would have expected if this film were really the Most!Revolutionary!Ever!

In my Christmas day blog entry, I reflected on how the year that’s coming to an end will probably not go down as a good one for most people. If you viewed the Queen’s Christmas message — and never mind the debate about the relevance of the Queen — you were probably as struck as I was by its bleakness. Certainly, for it to have been cheery would have been callous, but I have to say it effectively echoed my sentiment that we’re going through tough times, and we can only hope that we have nowhere else to go but up from here.

As if to reinforce this feeling of sadness, there was a late-afternoon shooting on Boxing Day on Toronto’s Yonge Street, which injured six people and killed one teenaged girl. Gun violence in Toronto has reached unprecedented heights this year, one killing not too long ago occurring at the funeral of another young man who had also been shot a few days prior. There have been well over 50 gunshot deaths in 2005 in Toronto, a city which, despite its size, is unaccustomed to this level of violence.

That said, however, I can’t tell you how tired I am of hearing the same old clichés whenever something like this happens. By far the most meaningless is the claim of loss of innocence, which one Toronto detective has dished out when remarking on the Boxing Day shootings.

A comment like that makes for a great headline, but it’s been so overused that it’s long been devoid of meaning. In Canada, it was used — although maybe not in those exact words — as far back as World War I, with this country’s brave involvement in the trenches of Europe. In the States, it was used most memorably when JFK was assassinated, but also after Pearl Harbour and, in some case, post 9/11. To me, the notion of “losing innocence” implies going suddenly from a care-free, idyllic existance to one of fear, sadness and mayhem. But I don’t think that we were (or Toronto was) anywhere near that starting point when those shocking and senseless shootings happened yesterday. This event has certainly further eroded Torontonians’ assumptions and sense of safety, which is both sad and disturbing. However, it’s not like there was a child-like innocence to lose to begin with, given all that’s been happening all year in Toronto’s north side.