tantastik dot org

There are 5 stages in the Kübler-Ross model for dealing with grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Where am I in this model? Somewhere in the abysmal ether between the intransitive verb form of balding and the adjective form of bald. Soon, I won’t just be balding, I’ll just be plain bald! I find this particular state not so unlike purgatory, begrudgingly waiting for that someone to conjugate this verb slightly; to shift the paradigm of my life with one phrase; to note in passing to a mutual friend as they point my way and say, “Who’s your bald friend?”

No, he’s not bald, my friends would defend. He has a shaved head! Surely, you can see the stubble that rouses out from his scalp, resolutely defying all resemblance to Lex Luther, Gandhi or (God forbid) Howie Mandel. But then again, denial is merely stage one and I’ve already come so far. No, there is no more denial or anger. There may be bargaining at hand though, depending on whether or not I can employ my seasoned bartering skills with God and have him, once more, bestow upon me that raven mane I once wore.

And yet, I ask myself, will I ever be able to walk into a hair salon again and ask for a haircut without being faced with suppressed mirth and sly grins?

Recently, I needed to find some oil for my clippers and I wound up in Zellers wandering aimlessly down fluorescent aisles looking for some kind of mythological oil product that no one seemed to know about. If you’ve ever owned clippers, you will know how difficult it is to find replacement oil.

As I was ready to give up, I stumbled upon a large, red, neon sign that read “Magic Cuts” right there inside this vast and sterile discount department store. Should I continue my interminable search for clipper oil or just pay the requisite $20 for a quick trim? Laziness seems to always prevail.

The moment I walked in, the entire staff of barbers and stylists paused and glanced up from their work chairs, simultaneously turning off their noisy clippers. The silence, broken only by the stereophonic muzak coming out of the ceiling’s speakers, caused me to consider turning and fleeing in the style of Road Runner.

“Can I help you,” asked the middle-aged, jerry-curled receptionist.

“I need a haircut.” Why else would I be at Zellers?

She smiled and looked up at what remained of my youth atop my head: hair soft as goose-down, clutching to my scalp like dying leaves in autumn.

Yes, I thought. I really do need a haircut. I’ve got a hot date with a gorgeous Turkish webcam girl and no amount of high-contrast, blurring or pixelation would spare her the unsightly wreath of shag around my ears. My clippers were rusted, and I had no salad bowl. Perhaps I should be glad that I still need clippers to cut my hair, rather than being sufficiently equipped with a pair of tweezers.

And so, I sat down and she proceeded to work her so-called magic cut. It took approximately 6 minutes and I was whisked out with a wave and good tidings.

I’ve considered skipping one of the stages and the model, and move forward. I mean, why waste time being depressed about this loss? I would much rather move past that stage, and side-step into the Fünke model with the help of some plugs. Or… should I say 4,000 plugs?

Living on my own, has me resorting to just eating butter.

The hardest part of growing up is telling your parents that you are moving out. Typically, this is a problem people face at 18 years old but for me its more likely to happen 12 years later. I’ve lived at home for far too long since coming back from Vancouver. They call us the boomerang generation.  We leave for college, come back and live at home, leave for a few years then return home again to get our bearings. Mostly for financial reasons, but in my case, because I’m really lazy.

I wasn’t sure how I’d break it to my parents that I’d rented an apartment and secretly started moving small boxes out during the week. It wasn’t easy explaining the missing furniture, emptying bookcases and even my own often random disappearances.

It came down to a head one morning when the night before, I had packed up a few boxes and lined them up in the hallway while my parents peacefully slept. But I was so tired, I lied down to rest, and awoke the next morning. Crap, I thought. I didn’t move those boxes last night.

I walked out of my room and my mom and dad were sitting at the breakfast table talking quietly. Here it comes. They saw me and started asking, what is with those boxes. Surely they figured it out. My mom already knew, but my dad took a deep sigh and had to sit down. His only question was, who’s going to pay for the cable bill now?

I got ready for work, with them talking and walking around asking if I needed boxes. Surprisingly, they got over it pretty quickly. My dad called out to me as I was putting my coat on and said, “Before you leave can you move my TV into your old room?” He’s already planning out how my old room is going to look.

My parents were reasonable and very supportive. A far cry from the last time I tried to move out; not only move out, but move 3,000 kms away. There were no tears or guilt trip this time, just questions concerning logistics and how we were going to get a cable outlet into my old room. My dad had already started packing up his stuff to move into my old room. We ended up pulling about 40 feet of cable through the condo’s air duct and draping down the wall, held together by a twist-tie, to his digital cable box. Decor is not a main concern for my dad. Making sure the Fairchild channel still works, that was his paramount concern.

This, taken just before I wrapped it in Saran wrap.

It took a week of not very stealthy preparation, but I’ve finished everything relatively quickly. I started with a naked apartment, and now, thanks to the Brick, I have a queen-sized bed, a nice TV and a couch that I have seriously considered wrapping in Saran wrap. Most Asians will understand this oriental tradition of wrapping things in plastic. Certainly not for fear of dust mites, but more for preserving furniture until long after you are dead and gone.

I never thought I could love anything more than my Mac laptop, but as it turns out, I love my new couch! I hesitated for a few days on making the investment, but after dreaming about lying on it on a lazy Sunday sometime down the road, I walked into the Brick and asked them to wrap that baby up.

The sales team at the Brick have recently discovered their new paycheck in the form of this striking young Vietnamese man. Generally, Vietnamese people are dauntingly hard-nosed when negotiating sales. This, I was told by Ahim the Brick Sales Guy. “Most Vietnamese people are really tough,” he said. “But you, you are the easiest sale ever.” I couldn’t decide if it was a compliment or a slight, so I just said thanks.

Not only do Vietnamese people fight for every penny, they would rather sell out their own relatives to avoid paying more than 50% of the ticketed price. Its a cultural thing. So when I went in and bought a bed, tv and couch and was going to pay full price, instantaneous in-fighting broke out. I was pretty sure I heard someone get on the PA system and said, “Sucker in Aisle 5″.

And here, I had to make sure each sales guy got their fair share of commission on each of the sales. Like hyenas scavenging over a dead gazelle, they clamoured over the cash registers hurriedly pressing numbers and telling me about these wonderful accessories for my TV like a wall bracket or a $50 Obama bobble-head that would make a great addition to any living room. I respectfully declined the wall bracket, but did briefly consider the bobble-head.

After my warm carcass began cooling down and they realized they couldn’t get much more out of me, I walked out of there admittedly feeling a little bit ravaged. Well, at least delivery was free.

Unfortunately, I’m just not that good at bartering. In fact, not only did I pay full price, they up-sold me on a 5-year extended warranty plan for my couch (which I love). I also bought two memory-foam pillows for another two bills and a dust-mite killing mattress cover. It’s no secret that I will go to any lengths to kill dust mites.

I suppose there is a course I can take that will arm me with negotiating skills when embarking on purchasing outings. I don’t know how my parents could be proud of me without these skills. How could I ever face them, knowing I have been paying full price for big ticket items all my life? Luckily, I’m very good at hiding things from them.

In various caricatures of McCain and Obama, they are often depicted as the erratic Captain Kirk, and the logical Dr. Spock. Its uncanny how the similarities stack up, from their prose, their personalities and their actions. Did Gene Roddenberry have a brief episode of clairvoyance and see this election coming? How could it have been foretold in such eerily accurate ways?

When Captain Kirk noted in quiet reflection his feelings towards the Klingons, he said, “I’ve never trusted Klingons, and I never will.” This quote was used to convict him of murdering the Klingon Chancellor and he was exiled to a frozen wasteland. Nearly a decade ago, John McCain was quoted as saying something quite nearly as despicable towards the Vietnamese people. ”I hate the gooks,” McCain said in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus. “I will hate them as long as I live.” Supposedly, he is allowed to do this because he was a POW.

He qualified his comment by saying, he only meant his captors. As one reporter noted, what if he had been captured by Nigerians? Would he call them “niggers” and then explain that his derogatory slander applied only to those Nigerians that captured him? How would that have gone over with the rest of the country?

His ignorance is further revealed in his choice of slur. The term “gook” is a bastardization of a racial slur against Koreans who in their native tongue refer to themselves as “Han-guk saram.” The bigotry in the USA continues to defy all intellect and reason without reprimand. All of this passes by without notice because of the passivity that minorities have afforded to their taskmasters coupled with the moral values that a nation of supposed Christians promotes. 

My family came across the waters on a boat, hounded by Thai pirates, chased out of country by our own people. Japanese war machines ravaged China and did unspeakable horrors to millions of muted victims of my own race. Yet we continue to rise above and become better humans for it. We don’t spread hatred, we don’t pass generalizations on a race and incite further violence. We evolve.

“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.” Robert Kennedy: Delivering News of King’s Death (NPR)

I’ve been obsessing slightly over this new kid on the stump (NKOTS). I’ve watched mostly all of his speeches, even his horrible attempts at comedy at the Alfred E. Smith dinner (McCain was much funnier). I’ve read through most of his speeches and transcripts, trying to draw parallels to former presidents. Sure, he says “two hundred and twenty-one” instead of “eleven score and one”. But he still evokes the spirit of those men in his eloquence and rhetoric. In fact, he might even have the ears of Lincoln who was described as, ”a wiry lad with a shock of unruly hair, big ears and highwater pants.”

He is a master at public speaking, reaching near heights of Hallelujah-esque moments. I suppose he has learned his lessons well from the gospel churches of his youth. What Obama really needs, is a travelling choir of women who look remarkably similar to Whoopi Goldberg to follow him around wherever he goes. Some people need an entourage, others need a gospel choir.

It is no great surprise, the level of support McCain is still garnering, nor is it a great surprise the pundits who relentlessly defend his campaign tactics. The great nation of USA boasts a remarkable 29% of people with college-level education. The correlation between this is self-evident by their choice of the incumbent president for the past 8 years. So how can Obama win against the crooks and liars of American political system? I hope you are all just as excited to witness a true miracle take place in the next two weeks. Clouds parting, lightning striking, whatever form it may come in it will need to be a miracle of mass proportions for this unlikely candidate to take over a nation of sheep.

How odd, that we are so obsessed with American politics. Although Canadians aren’t included in that report, I can personally attest to the levels of quiet stalking we have done in waiting for Nov. 4 to come. Canada is just another one of America’s typical Facebook friends, scanning through your photos and monitoring your status updates, waiting for the twitter that reads, “America has a new president.” Hopefully, he’ll be smart enough to wear Kevlar® everywhere he goes.

“That’s what hope is. That’s what hope is, imagining, and then fighting for, and then working for, struggling for what did not seem possible before.” - Feb 19, 2008 Houston, TX

A Less Guarded Barack Obama

Dom has been deported out of the country. He’s had a good run at being Canadian, but to be honest, we just don’t want him here anymore. He had a going away party in Vancouver, and I made a surprise appearance via Skype. Or should I say, Quacho Libre made a surprise appearance.

This is what I had the pleasure of waking up to the next morning:
Play

Have a safe trip back to England, Dom! Keep those incisors sharpened. I may need you one day.