Chapter 19

This morning I listened to Sargon Of Akkad and his new chubby sidekick talk about alternatives to tech monopolies YouTube and Twitter getting blocked and censored and their users attacked. I went on Bitchute, a video-hosting platform, a few times in the past, and I thought it was slow and clunky compared to YouTube. Also there was quite a bit of nazi content on the front page, and not nazi as in “Trump supporting” but rather of the “jews suck, am I right guys?!” kind, or even more extreme stuff. I was a bit puzzled to see such material in the wild.

I’m not really advocating for them to be banned or censored or investigated unless they’re breaking laws or inciting violence, let people see their dumb message and decide for themselves. And for sure if big tech keeps canceling and antagonizing edgy content creators or anyone slightly right of Stalin, well, it’s no wonder that they will eventually go congregate on another platform alongside extremists. It’s just my opinion as of now, it might change as I get more informed on the matter, but it’s not a hill I want to die on.

I listened to some Big L on my way to work, a Harlem rapper who is considered by many to be one of the best MCs to ever do it. His album The Lifestyles Of The Poor And Dangerous is a masterpiece of punchline-driven lyrical hip-hop and if you like hip-hop, you have to check it out. He died way too young to deliver a follow-up other than an incomplete posthumous album, unfortunately. Seems like a common affliction on the hip-hop world.

I kept grading my papers, listening to a variety of new metal releases. The one that caught my attention the most is Ritual Moon, with their black-thrash that seems to be plucked out of the early 80s. I also listened to Manau’s album, the Breton hip-hop group, I remember it as one of the very first CDs I’ve ever owned, twenty years ago. They really put their Celtic heritage on the forefront, with bagpipes in the beats and numerous references or whole songs talking about druids or bloody battles in ancient Gaul. Many of the tracks are pretty good but can also feel a bit corny at times, like pretty much all hip-hop that got the seal of approval of moms and corporate radio stations.

Last weekend we bought parbaked baguettes at Metro and they’re pretty delicious, I put one in the oven for a few minutes then ate it with cream cheese and the bell pepper nutty garlic spread I made the night before. I also watched a review video of the videogame Cyberpunk 2077, apparently it’s extremely buggy and unfinished. In the sidebar there was a link to a review of GTA V, even though (or because?) I know all the ins and outs of that game after playing 100 000 hours, I watched it, and the reviewer was pretty effusive in its praise. GTA V, and all the 3D incarnations of the franchise (I don’t give a shit about the really old ones) are so much fun.

I finished the grade twelve pile, and started going over the grade eleven papers, while watching some “SJW cringe compilations” on YouTube. I know this is absolute low-hanging fruit but it entertains me a lot. Well, it entertains when it’s just a pink-haired nutjob having a meltdown, a celebrity or corporation engaging in transparently hypocritical virtue-signaling, or whatever completely ridiculous policy enacted on a small liberal arts community college somewhere, but some of those entries were a bit more disturbing, as that clownish shit is permeating the mainstream. I keep saying it, but it’s very much a bizarro world we’re living in.

When I couldn’t take the cringe anymore, I put on some punk rock. I never was into NOFX so I tried out their album Punk In Drublic, amused by the title. It was OK, the 90s skate punk parts were cool as hell but there was also some slow ska here and there that I didn’t care for. After that I put on Blink-182’s live album, now THAT’s a band I was into back when I was a snotty teenager and it has aged pretty well.

I got home and soon after I rode my bicycle to meet my friends at their workplace and we took a taxi to the climbing gym. That stuff is pretty addictive, and the more I do it the faster I recover, just like any sport that puts a strain on seldom used muscles and joints I guess.

“So what kind of card did you get?”, my buddy asked me.

“The one with 10 sessions”

“Make sure you record them yourself. The guy there will try to rip you off, and tick it twice or whatever, say that you got fewer sessions left than you actually do”

“No way! But he seems so nice!”

“He is a friendly guy, he puts on a nice façade, but he’s a hustler. Party in the front, business in the back”

“So he is a human version of a reverse mullet?”

I take those stories of “woe is me, the mean Chinese guy tried to rip me off because I’m a defenseless foreigner” with a pinch of salt. Oftentimes it’s just miscommunication. Still, I’ll keep my eyes open.

The owner was there, a jacked ex-military guy who was way, way too stoked about having us there. He filmed us play hacky sack, got group pictures taken with him in the middle, and asked me to arm wrestle him on video. He immediately put everything on social media. I did a few ascents on the first intermediate route, and got a bit further than last time on the second one. Baby steps.

I made it back home, took the dog out, and then cooked a pound of ground beef with a pack of fajita seasoning. I put a few spoonfuls in a baguette with shredded gouda, baked it a for a few minutes, and ate it with a quickly prepared homemade salsa. It was delicious. I ate it while watching UFC prelim fights, washing it down with an Erdinger dunkel beer. I’ve eaten two baguettes today, like the Frenchman I am, I should reduce my bread consumption a bit.

I poured myself a nice glass of Japanese plum liquor, and put the finishing touches to this literary piece while listening to Leprosy, a young Quebec death metal band with a rather unoriginal name and with a singer who sounds like the one from Obituary. Their debut album Obnoxious Futuristic Vision is pretty damn good.