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15 KM of Stormy
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Stormy
- Hits: 454
Tuesday, my one trip to town, get gas, groceries, cigarettes, catch up with friends. A proper blizzard, roads covered in slush, first off the bat - Stormy.
Now, Stormy should never be first off the bat, but I wasn't thinking. The hill that he's on, it's slippery in the fresh snow, the jeep stops - barely, and I'm loathe to hang out for too long, but Stormy, his scooter, the charger's off to get repaired, he's been housebound these past few days and maybe I can help him run a few errands...
The first, of course, to the bank. Where he gives me his debit card and instructs me to withdraw $200, only he doesn't have $200, so $100 it is, nice try. From here down to buy him some cigarettes, then over to Extra-Foods where I have to buy him some candles, then for breakfast. He eats, I just have a coffee, he's spotted in the hallway a painting for sale - terrible, but he wants it, and as it's by donation the waitress goes out and just grabs it for him, I pop out to use the washroom, by the time I'm back he's packed up his food, painting, is ready to go - he's tipped the waitress $35 on a $15 breakfast.
From here - some more errands - past the antique shop - not open, past the coffee-wagon - closed, to the bike shop to check on his charger, to the deli where he instructs me to honk and the cute Quebecois proprietor brings him out $5.00 worth of cheese and takes his breakfast leftovers (to presumably throw away because I'm pretty sure I'm the only human being to eat anything he's offered), back to his house to drop off his treasures, then back down to Wal-Mart to drop him off, he's been riding me like one of those demons in folk tales that get on your shoulders and never get off, gouge you with their spurs...
I leave, and am only shortly into my own errands when I discover that he's forgotten his house keys in my jeep - I return to the mall, find him, return them, and now he's waiting for a ride home ...
He's gotten some new mittens, shows me, he went to the lost and found and protested that he'd lost his, then chose the best set they showed him as being the ones that he lost, he knows, he knows...
This, it fucks up my day entirely, the blizzard is now fully underway and my need for human company has completely expired, I check my odometer - 15 KM on his errands, 15 KM in a town that's 1 KM wide.
The Machine
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 486
Friend gets a job. No small feat around here, and so I'm getting the details, it's more than a little unbelievable.
The title, maybe "Customer Service", but a more accurate description might be "Energy Shaman". Working for a small company out of Nelson that directs "Energy" or "Positive Thought" or "Intention" or "Prayers" towards $50/month "Subscribers", the benefits of the program include greater wellness and life-satisfaction, etc, etc.
Vague, unsubstantiated benefits that can only be brought to light when you call customer service to cancel your subscription.
It's clearly a scam, and she knows it, and - gathering from the comments of the "trainers" - they know it too, but - hey - it's a job. And apparently all this energy being directed needs a lot of computers and programs so you can input information and route it accordingly - the energy can't go unsolicited, or it may cause harm...
I'm not making this up.
I listen, and ask questions, I sort of have my head around it, but it gets better and better...
8000 Subscribers. $50.00 a month. That's a 5 Million$$ dollar a year business, with 20 or so employees.
The owners of the company - "The Founders", they've built a machine - "A Machine", that routes the energy accordingly. She's asked about it, apparently no one has ever seen it, some say it's at the owner's place, other's that it's somewhere in the US, but they're surprised, when she asks, as if none of them ever thought to ask the same question themselves, then they "shhh" her, the machine, it's not to be discussed, too many questions and you don't want to appear incredulous...
I want to get Jon Ronson onto this, he'd love it, just hearing about it is making me anxious, what would it do for him?
Working on the Toronto Subway
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1103
I'm underground, the Toronto Subway, I run into someone I know standing outside the turnstiles. We talk, he tells me he's working, I can too, just standing there, people coming and going. And I'm wondering why we don't have uniforms, jackets like the other transit security people, and he's reassuring me, the uniforms are coming, we're both pretty shabbily dressed. Off in distance I see someone, older man, reminds me of Sammi from the old restaurant, Tunisian motherfucker who stole my daughter's vacation allowance, it's not him, but somehow reminds me of him, this older fellow, he has an accent I recognize, and a quiet dignity that Sammi never had...
I get bored with this standing by the turnstiles and go through, into a shop on the other side, I've got a pocket full of lottery and sweepstakes tickets I need to check. And the shop owner, a little East Indian woman with a part of the shop separated off with cardboard boxes, a half-living space, she's telling me that I can only check the one on this machine, and now I'm crawling around amidst all these other lottery machines that look like old pinball games, bright vintage and foreign motifs, trying to find the laser to check them all, there's hundreds in here, I'm not even sure that all the tickets have been drawn...
She - the shop owner - speaks with somebody that's just come in, middle aged, shirt open, unbuttoned, he's got a plastic fork stuck in his fleshy orange nipple. He walks outside, I follow him, he's talking to me while looking straight ahead..."That was real good", and I know what he's talking about, I've never tried it, too dangerous, addictive, but clearly it's done wonders if he can't feel that fork in his nipple...
News Junkie
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 445
Following the events of last Wednesday I've been online all day doomscrolling to the end of the world ... anxiety fueling anxiety, trying to find the latest news... like at the beginning of Covid, it's a train-wreck and you just can't look away. That Viking guy got himself lost on the way to Shambala, can't eat in prison because they won't serve him organic foods, the hilarious juxtaposition of absurdity and entitlement, the Trump supporting cop killed by Trump supporters, man killed by tasering himself in the balls, the clusterfuck of dark comedy, a most fitting and predictable end to 4 years of Trump, and this quiet now before the inauguration, it's got me suspicious, a little too early to be popping one's head out of the trenches yet I think...
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