Chapter 51

 My dad told me that Édith Blais, the young woman who got kidnapped by jihadists in Africa, has been interviewed on Quebec’s biggest talk show, I looked it up. She said she fled through the desert at night, but a lot of people, including a retired intelligence officer, speculate that in fact the government paid the scumbags off and the whole thing is being covered up to save face and continue pretending that “they don’t negotiate with terrorists”. There was another guy on the interview set, working for the government in some capacity as a specialist of radicalized groups, who had been the link with Édith’s family throughout that ordeal. When the interviewer asked him “So the federal government didn’t do anything then?” he backpedaled and mumbled things about trying to stay on top of things, but being severely limited by local geopolitics and France’s military involvement in the region, it wasn’t very convincing.

Also a lot of viewers in the comment section were skeptical of how relaxed she seemed to be and how that doesn’t really fit with what we’ve seen in the past of military personnel or other people who have experienced traumatic events. I don’t know enough about her situation and think it’s a bit unchristian to not give her the benefit of the doubt, who knows, perhaps she is indeed mentally strong and deals with her PTSD by projecting this positive vibe.

Either way it’s genuinely nice that she’s safe and sound. That kind of stories makes me question my committment to pursue adventure travel as a hobby, especially now that I travel as a couple, but the addiction is too strong.

I saw that author Roosh V just released a new book, and that made me want to reread one of his short ebooks called Why Can’t I Use A Smiley Face. Roosh is a rather controversial figure to say the least and I don’t agree with all his political views, far from that, but he’s had an interesting life that I can relate to in many ways. And while I don’t care much for his “pick-up artist” material, some of his writings about the hedonistic treadmill, being burned out from the expat life or feeling reverse culture shock upon going home really hit me, as well as some of his commenting on cultural, political and social issues. He pretty much renounced his past, becoming a born-again christian and finding some purpose through his love for Jesus. Now that’s something I can’t relate to and more than likely never will, but I did enjoy his YouTube video series about his road trip around the USA so I bought the new book and will plunge into it soon.

I watched the Slay At Home, an online music festival. Ten bands ranging from grindcore to doom metal and from technical death metal to modern black metal performed short sets. All of them were good, the highlights were the furious grinding attack of Hivemaster and the bass-heavy Portuguese black metal outfit Gaerea, whom I saw live in Shanghai two years ago and been a fan since, as well as an Amon Amarth cover that made me headbang in my living room like a chicken. Some people think those online shows are a poor substitute for the real thing, well, no shit, but I’ve always liked well-produced, well-recorded live sets like what’s offered by NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts and KXRP so it’s nice that metal and grindcore bands are also doing that.

The host, a guy from Metal Injection, intervened once in a while to introduce the next band and to push a black arts fund of some sort, I thought he was talking about satanic stuff until I realized it’s something for African-Americans. I smiled at the irony that not a single of the musicians in the whole 90-minute show was black.

I also listened to an interview with Carl Benjamin AKA Sargon Of Akkad, one of the most astute political commentators on the internet in my opinion. I have been following him for a long time now, and the fact that so many want to paint him as an extremist while he’s so reasonable and rational does highlight in its own way the problem with the current political discourse in the West.

Down the Top 500, it was the legendary funkmaster James Brown and his appropriately titled Sex Machine, followed by a boring Blur album. Then it was an eclectic and fun piece of music by UK band Primal Scream, and 2Pac’s All Eyez On Me. I never liked 2Pac nearly as much as many other rappers from that era, not sure why. I still listened to the whole two-hour album.

I took the dog out for a little longboard ride. I like walking, but I much prefer riding when I can and I think he likes it too, as he can go faster, when we walk him he tends to pull on his leash. We went to a pedestrian path by a canal, it’s incredibly picturesque, and there are dozens and dozens of such small parks around the city, many of them built in the past few years in places that were previously barren. I’m impressed and grateful seeing how much money and resources the municipal government dedicates to make the city pleasant.

Along the way I started a podcast about one of the most badass men to ever walk the face of the Earth, Pierre Lemoyne d’Iberville. He was a corsair, basically a state-approved pirate for France in the late 1600s and early 1700s, dedicating his life to the noble endeavor of ruining England’s shit. Most of his exploits took place in the great north, he would sail to the Hudson Bay and take over English fur trading centers, once he managed to do so with only one small ship against three much bigger ones. He got fucked over by history to some extent (the central theme of that podcast series), as some of his impressive and gutsy victories were made useless by diplomats and perfumed nobles, like in the Treaty of Utrecht that gave back the Hudson Bay and the James Bay to England. As a result, he was somewhat of a pariah during peacetime, and he eventually went to ply his trade in the Gulf Of Mexico, working to establish Louisiana. He is now buried in Havana, erased from many French history books.

At night I listened to mixtapes from Kool G Rap and Pete Rock, the latter being a highly respected producer of 90s east coast hip-hop, having collaborated with INI, Baby Pa and Edo G to produce absolute greatness. I buzzed my hair and trimmed my beard, I was starting to look like a hobo. I have to look presentable, school starts on Monday, and I can’t say I’m not looking forward to it to at least some extent.

While I was sitting on the couch reading my Kindle, the dog came and slept beside me. He stank of urine, and the hair on his belly was all yellow. One thing we noticed is he doesn’t pee like most male dogs do, by lifting one of his hind legs against a tree or a pole or a wall, he just stops in his tracks and does his job. The problem is he has a micropenis, or at least I think that description would fit him, a tiny one centimeter long twig not quite emerging outside his body. As a result, he sprays his piss all over his belly, chest and legs rather than shooting it in a more controlled jet. I know it’s a bit weird to be talking about my dog’s dick like that, but it’s something we have to deal it daily, otherwise it stinks and he gets red spots. I shaved a lot of the hair down there and we clean him with wet wipes or water and soap and a towel every day. I wonder if there’s some kind of surgery that could be done to remove the excess skin on his underdevelopped pecker, but as much as I like dogs I’ve always seen expensive surgical procedures on pets as a little obscene, with the number of people living in penury (yes, I’m a speciesist and it’s a bit dumb that it’s even a thing).

Other than that, our dog is the posterboy of health and youthful vigor so we can’t complain too much I guess.

The girlfriend came in, after her work dinner, and we went on a short walk to retrieve some mail. One of the hot sauces we ordered arrived, the Peri-Peri sauce from Portuguese chicken chain Nando’s. I tried it on a piece of fried chicken and it’s nice, not very spicy but with a good sour kick to it. Dinner was the same as lunch, a big bowl of soup and some pieces of chicken. The soup has been sitting in the pot for two days now, and since I put red cabbage, tomatoes, lentils and broccoli in it, it all turned an unappetizing purplish-brown color, but it’s damn tasty, even tastier than when I had just made it.

In a discussion about music on Facebook, a friend of mine mentioned he likes “psybient”. I asked him what the hell is that, and he replied with a link to an album by an Italian band named Progenie Terrestre Pura. It turned out to be a very atmospheric and multi-layered piece of black metal and I loved it.