But as the slow march towards equality continues, people continue to out themselves as bigots. That’s OK. Bigots are a part of life, and so long as bigots are increasingly marginalized, and bigotry continues to be less acceptable, they can serve as a barometer of our progress.

But sometimes the bigots are not inconsequential voices. Sometimes they are members of parliament; people who author, debate, and/or vote on laws. Bigoted MPs are not good. And some of them are saying things that truly piss me right the fuck off.

For instance, there was this article on the BBC, in which Defence Secretary Phil Hammond says:

There is a real sense of anger among many people who are married that any government thinks it has the ability to change the definition of an institution like marriage.

This anti-gay-marriage argument is one of the most common, and it is absolutely infuriating.

First, Hammond cannot even manage to make it for himself. He feels the need to disassociate with it, and claim it on the behalf of “many people”. So the whole thing begins with a bit of doublespeak, so that he can distance himself from the opinion when people call him out as a homophobe. Good politics, perhaps, but cowardly.

Secondly, it implies that the value that (some) people see in their marriage does not have to do with their partner, love, family, or commitment. It has to do with privilege. It states “I value my marriage because my ability to be in it makes me feel superior to other people.” Instead of a simple, straightforward dislike of people who are different, it is a belief that societal institutions that disenfranchise a segment of the population are good, right, and moral.

That, to me, is far more horrific.

Finally, I’m married. And I have never felt entirely comfortable being part of an institution which continues to enshrine inequality. I’m part of a “many people who are married” as well. Only, unlike Hammond’s “many”, mine believe that our marriages will gain meaning by being inclusive. My membership in the married club will be made all the better once the club is no longer exclusionary.

Today, the BBC published another story, of course. We can probably expect to see these every day between now and the first gay marriage in Britain. And each of them will feature Conservative politicians expressing their homophobia couched in terms that are meant to hide it.

And bravo to the Conservative politicians pushing this through despite this opposition. It can’t be easy for them.

There’s a post on this blog titled Links, including foam, porn, robots and sports statistics. Commas are important.

You might be forgiven to think that this is not the deepest of posts I’ve ever put together. But clearly you’d be wrong.

“I want to express thanks to the writer for rescuing me from such a crisis,” the comment begins. “I was thinking my entire life was over.”

How sad.

Also: “Thank you very much for your high quality and results-oriented help.”

I’m assuming that this was all to do with including a link to instructions on making your own toilet paper.

Photo by Toni Verdú Carbó.

A song that you can dance to

To which I immediately think:

We can dance if we want to; we can leave your friends behind.
Because your friends don’t dance, and if you don’t dance you’re no friend of mine.

Seriously. That’s what I think. I literally just think the lyrics to Safety Dance.

Because if you can dance, you can dance to any song you like. And as soon as I start to think that, the lyrics are pretty much underway.

Only one problem. I chose Safety Dance last time I did this thirty-song-thingamajig. So I need something else.

There’s the titular one. Except that my main memory of wanting to dance to it was people resolutely refusing to do so when I decided to add it to the list of songs being played at a party that everybody was dancing at. So fuck that. The people in residence in first year had no Bowie appreciation. The fuckers.

Which brings us to university. And dancing. And the song that would get even the most resolute non-dancer off their ass and on to the dance floor.

A song that you know all the words to

Oh, my. There are simply too many choices here. I spent most of high school learning to play songs on guitar and sing them; this process prompted me to memorize many, many, many songs. Many songs.

And then there are songs with no words at all. Millions, and millions of songs.

But let’s assume that instrumentals don’t count.

I’m actually slightly concerned that somebody listed this as part of a “30 Day Song Challenge”, as though finding such a song might be challenging. Or perhaps it’s meant to be revealing?

Well, a cover of this song is coming up in my playlist, and I know every word — so let’s go with that:

Fuck that. Everybody should know every word.

From memory:

It’s four in the morning, the end of December.
I’m writing you now just to see if you’re better.
New York is cold, but I like where I’m living — there’s music on Clinton Street all through the evening.

Sincerely,
L. Cohen.

And the cover currently playing? Tori Amos:

A song that reminds you of a certain event

And unlike the last few, I’m not searching through memories or songs. Because it’s on video.

Back in 2002 and 2003, there was a global outbreak of SARS. It started in China, and spread across the world to more than 30 countries. Those countries with more than 100 cases, though, were small in number: China, Hong Kong (for those of you who consider it different than China), Taiwan (for those of you who consider it different than China), Singapore, and … Canada.

Cases in Canada were concentrated in Toronto, and there were various official warnings to avoid non-essential travel to the city.

When the summer rolled around, the city and country wanted to announce it was open for business. And the Rolling Stones were happy to oblige by being headliners in the largest concert Canada had ever seen.

I was there, with friends. I had sunstroke.

I enjoyed the Flaming Lips set, early in the day. I remember hearing Blue Rodeo while I was in the medical tent to be rehydrated. I remember listening to Justin Timberlake while lying under a truck, having been released from the medical tent and desperately seeking shade.

It was at this point, I decided that it wasn’t worth waiting until the concert ended to leave with my friends. I would leave. Now. Find my own way home somehow.

I walked towards the exit, but … you know … it was still sunny. I needed to stop in a shady spot, and down another bottle or two of water.

As I sat there, with the distant sounds of Rush playing, the sun was going down. I was feeling better. I decided to sit a little bit longer, and the sun obliged me by continuing to lower.

I still felt completely awful, but with the sun gone I was no longer in desperate shape. I would rather sit on the grass, listen to music in the dark, and go home with my friends (one of whom was to give me a ride) than figure my own way while feeling like shit.

So I walked back. And sat on the grass. Closed my eyes. And just listened to music while everybody partied around me.

And then AC/DC came on.

Words cannot express how good AC/DC were that day. 400,000 people were there. Some were there to see AC/DC, but the lineup was star-studded, and they probably weren’t the reason why most people bought a ticket. Some were likely just there because it was a party. The mass of people was just giant.

I certainly wasn’t there to see them, anymore. I was there to catch the ride home.

But when they started playing, it sent a jolt through everybody there. I stopped lying down, and sat up. Then this:

Unfortunately, 2003 is before the iPhone brought us a video recorder in every pocket — and so the video (and all the others I can find) takes the sound from the soundboard, and does not do it justice.

The crowd was loud. You can’t hear it on the video, which just amazes me. It was loud. At the beginning, when they’re shouting “THUNDER!”, the crowd is singing along. And by singing along, I mean 400,000 shouting it in unison. You can tell at the end. You can hardly hear the crowd. At the end of the song, Brian Johnson says “man, we could hear you.” Believe him. There’s no way he could hear himself singing up there without an earpiece — he would have been drowned out by the crowd.

Thunderstruck brought me to my feet. I hadn’t eaten since the morning, and I’d thrown that up. I’d spent half the day in the medical tent. And I was up and shouting at the top of my lungs, with the other 399,999 people there. It was unlike anything else.

The whole AC/DC set can be watched here, though it hardly does it justice. They are feeding off the crowd, so you’re only getting half the show. It’s amazing how many times they refer to the crowd as loud, big, or beautiful … but you can hardly hear it.

There’s a photo of all of us afterwards. It’s notable due to the fact that I look like a zombie in it. And that I can’t find it.

If it turns up, though, I’ll update the post with it.

A song that reminds of you of somewhere

Continuing from yesterday, I’m searching for songs that are strongly associated with both a memory and a particular geographic location. Preferably with a story attached.

But yesterday’s approach doesn’t work very well. Music is part of my everyday existence; I love listening to music, and so it’s associated with the day-to-day events of my life. There are, therefore, plenty of songs that remind me of little haunts where I have lived, in Kingston, Hamilton, London. The landscapes of these cities have had a musical backdrop that’s reflected in my music collection.

It’s hard to count the places that you spend your time everyday as somewhere though. The songs remind me of places that are mundane.

And when I travel, the headphones are off. I don’t wander the streets of a city I’m in for the first time with music piped in my ears. So searching through the music I pump into my ears is fruitless.

So let’s step away, and go through holiday memories.

From there, it doesn’t take long to get to the Dominican Republic.

I was … I want to say 15, but I’m pretty sure my sister had joined me in high school by this point, which would make me 16. And my mother took us to an all-inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic.

It was fun. We found other kids our age. We found that the bars were happy to serve us. So it was all booze and sun and new friends; I don’t think either of us had experienced anything quite like it before.

And that spring, there was a hit song playing on the radio. And the people who worked at the resort — who we spent a lot of time hanging out with — would play it non-stop …

Oh god, that’s a little bit sad, isn’t it? Clearly getting on a bit, past their prime, still trying to be some sort of hard-ish hair rock, while playing a pop song aimed at teens and pre-teens.

Let’s fast forward to a more comfortable and knowing nostalgia phase, and try that again:

A song that reminds you of someone

This could be a bit too easy. There are lots of easy associations that don’t make for good stories, or real memories connected with someone else. But this is supposed to be a challenge. So instead, I will hunt for a memory that is strongly associated with both a song and a person.

Oh.

This is pleasantly difficult. Let me browse through my music collection and … no. Too big. Too much stuff.

Do I start with a person, and try to associate them with a song? A memory? Do I start with the music itself?

Well, it’s supposed to be a song challenge. So I guess I’m starting with the music. Let’s put on some magic random playlist, and see what comes up. “One Random Track from each Artist with more than 4 Stars”. Sounds plausible.

Up first, Crazy by Gnarls Barkley. Saw Gnarls Barkley live once, in Hyde Park. but this reminds me of nobody.
Bobcaygeon by the Tragically Hip. Nope.
Mad World by Gary Jules reminds me of Donnie Darko. That’s not a real person.
Freedom 90 by George Michael reminds me of the music video filled with supermodels. Supermodels ARE real people.

Still guessing it doesn’t count.

Possession by Sarah McLachlan?
Fast Car by Tracy Chapman?
In My Life by Johnny Cash?

This approach is not meeting with much success thus far.

I go on and on, down and down the list, until I get to this:

Loser, of course, was first released with only 500 copies in 2003. It picked up steam — getting played on radio across the United States — and was re-released by a major label in 2004.

As a teenager in Canada, I had absolutely no exposure to Beck until after that 2004 re-release brought Loser across the border. But sometime before that, Sara, my high-school-girlfriend-who-lived-in-America (I really had one of those! I wasn’t just pretending!) was visiting.

You wouldn’t have thought — or at least, I never thought — that Akron, Ohio would be a place more in tune with coming musical trends than Kingston, Ontario. But it seems that it was (at least in this case). Sara had obviously heard Beck before her visit, and at one point we were trying to find it on CD. Or tape. It might have been audio cassettes we were looking for.

But I had never heard of Beck. And neither had any of the people at the record store, who tried to direct her towards Jeff Beck, who is clearly not the same dude.

A few months later, you couldn’t unplug your ears without hearing Loser on the radio. And even though I heard the music no earlier than anybody else in Kingston, I had a little hipster moment when I went back to the record store, and presented a copy of Mellow Gold to the cashier.

And now Beck and Sara are forever linked in my mind.

This morning I added the above photo to the Maggie-a-Day series, as entry 722.

It’s not from day 722. It’s from day 689.

Day 689, by the way, was August 26, 2012. That’s summer, last year. It’s now May, the sun is out, and there’s every chance that I’ll be spending some of today outside, in short sleeves, in the sun.

So it’s pretty much the summer again. This photo is a year gone by.

It has also been five days since I posted entry 721 in the series.

There are good reasons for the last break. A busy schedule, Maggie’s been sick, I’m a little sick, and quite honestly this morning (Saturday) is the first time I’m firing up my laptop since Tuesday.

There are always good reasons. And the problem is that they’re cumulative; so much so that I can see a point coming where I am literally a year behind in posting, even though the project is not even three years in.

I’m pondering options.

The easiest way to catch up is to abandon the daily nature of the whole thing. I no longer take photos of Maggie every single day. If there’s no photo for a day, I could always just skip that day.

I could also double-up. Try to post twice a day.

Will I abandon the daily nature of the project? Will I seriously claim that my response to not being able to reliably do something daily is to do it twice every day?

I doubt it.

For those who follow the Maggie-a-day, I hope you don’t mind how far behind it’s falling, and continue to enjoy the photos of very-slowly-aging-Maggie.

I’m easily angered by a lack of pavement etiquette. I dislike fellow pedestrians who fail to make up their fucking mind as to where they’re going.

Are they bearing right?
Left?

I couldn’t care less, so long as they’re doing something.

An even greater hatred is reserved for the phone addicts. The denizens of the city who stare blankly at their phone screens while walking, clearly oblivious to their fellow pedestrians, walking alongside them.

A reprieve is granted to those who are staring at a map. London is a large, confusing city, with a multitude of visitors. Some people need guidance. Those who are typing on their phone do not belong in this group.

There are three locations for the eyes when walking. All are important.

The ground is important. There lies the remains of the dog’s bowel movement. The pothole. The loose cobblestone. All hazards lie on the ground, and are ignored at the peril of the pedestrian. Every person walking needs to keep half an eye on the ground.

This needs to stand in contrast to forming a barrier against interaction with the environment. The ground is also your path. An introverted focus.

Focusing too much on the ground is to be alone while being amongst the masses. A lonely place.

Straight ahead is important. This is where your destination lies, and the space in which your fellow walkers reside. Keeping your eyes ahead allows you to navigate the streets safely and successfully.

This needs to stand in contrast with appreciating your surroundings. The journey is important, as well as the destination. Do not allow your focus on your destination to blind you to the places through which you pass.

The area around you is important. This is where you are passing through. If your journey is to bring you pleasure, this is where that pleasure comes from. The buildings, the landscape, the sky.

It does not help you place your feet, or navigate. But it helps you appreciate the space through which you are passing.

The angry pedestrian

Tonight, I was walking to the pub.

In central London, watching the ground was unimportant. I wanted to look ahead (to best get to my friends, at my destination), and up (to appreciate the city through which I walked).

I wasn’t really in a hurry. So I was mostly looking up. Ahead was addressed via peripheral vision.

And that’s when a pedestrian moving in the opposite direction stepped into me. Purposely. He may have been blowing a raspberry — I hope he was — but I suspect that he meant to spit on me.

I was instructed to watch where I was going.

But I was. I was walking along the sidewalk, safe and sound. I saw him in my peripheral vision, before we collided. If I was looking down and wearing less conspicuous headphones, he probably would have ambled by. But I was looking up. Daring to enjoy myself.

Spit-worthy.

Part II: The tube

There are also paths home from the pub. For me, this means the tube.

I boarded. I took a seat.

The fellow next to me was larger than me. His shoulders were, arguably, wider than the seat width. He sat with his legs spread out — a suitcase between them.

As I sat down, he complained about me spreading out too much. As I sat there, knees pushed together, elbows glued to my sides, less broad in the shoulders, I asked him if he was serious.

He gestured to indicate that my elbows had departed from my hips as I sat down. This was quite possibly true. I may have spread beyond the edges of my seat for a moment as I sat. I am not a likely candidate for the ideal commuter. But that was merely a moment, shortly after which I reverted to my minimal-space-taking approach to public transport.

Curiosity

And now I sit at home, typing. Wondering.

Why did these people confront me today? Does a suit and a pair of headphones make me a target — some sort of privileged person who does not deserve the space due to everybody else?

Am I too slight? Too much caught in daydreams in a happy postwork period?

Or am I simply unlucky to encounter two such people in one night?

4: A song that makes you sad

Yesterday, I think I covered the fact that songs make me happy pretty well. They do not make me sad. Even sad songs make me happy.

Angry music doesn’t make me angry.
Prog rock doesn’t make me progressive. Or rocky.

Instead, music helps me explore these emotions. There is no such thing as a song that makes me sad.

So I suppose I’m meant to ask myself, What song assists you to plumb the depths of sorrow? And I suppose this comes as close as anything:

It’s the last bit that gets me:
No one’s ever lost forever, they’re caught inside your heart. If you garden them and water them they make what you are.