Umm... I'm Sorry?

Poor Elliott Ness, erm, Spitzer. Some say that behind that massive jaw, those beady eyes, and Julian forehead there lies a ho-loving hypocrite who may have spent public funds to "meet" with "models." Now he has had to resign or be subject to impeachment proceedings. He has given up the gubernatorial seat to his second-in-command who, with any luck, has a history of molesting livestock. More public humiliation on the public's dime!

With all the electionating going on south of the border this is a season of announcements and pronouncements. I hope it is also a season of accountability. Not the dispassionate sort which I ought properly crave, but the blind retribution doled ought by the self-interested types in the paid media. With any luck the people who reach for positions of power shall have their gnarled and furry little mitts smacked down courtesy of some past indiscretion. Or present. I don't care. If you present yourself as some kind of action hero you'd better have a life somewhat consistent with your image, or you deserve a good kick in the nuts.

There is no shortage of examples, delicious examples, of the pride before the fall. Be it an anti-gay preacher, high on meth, swapping semen with some hustler, or some other example which eludes me at the moment. Mmm, like a presidential candidate, or president (no link necessary), or preacher, who has a malfunctioning trouser fly. Like that.

I am pleased to announce I have not been involved in any car accidents since Saturday. A day at a time... Associated with the regular level of embarrassment of being the negligent party in this auto-auto accident is the humiliation of once being (or at least thinking I was) a good driver. Fast. Efficient. Safe under any influence. So here I am, free of influence for a number of years, driving around the lower mainland like Hotrod. Talk about taking flight on one's own petard. Embarrassment plus, with wings!

Of course, any shame I feel on account of my own errors in judgment (of distance) pales in comparison to that of Mr. Spitzer. I'm not saying this married man was having the odd poke with really expensive hookers while living the life of Elliott Ness. I don't know what the facts are. I was not in the room. But assuming, just for the sake of argument, that this crime fighting dude of long standing was out there fucking in contravention of penal and marital standards, maybe using public cash to pay for his indiscreet liaisons, it may take more than a "some time" to regain the trust of his family. Or the public to whom he presented himself in a certain way. Natch.

I don't know how I would feel about having our premier run afoul of someone's criminal code. Amused? We all have our weaknesses. For some it is parallel parking in front of their houses. For others, it is "meeting" prostitutes in hotel rooms. Let's be fair to Mr. Spitzer: he was probably there to tell that girl she needed to be saved, that she'd been led astray by bad men... and he was bad. Very bad... (This furore would, of course, never happen in France. The indignity there would be paying for "meeting" with "models".)

This is not to say I am entirely without sympathy for this man. Although he has brought this reckoning upon himself he is still largely human and therefore weak and deserving of compassion. He is also, I now suspect, kind of stupid. He could have had any number of unusual desires and he could have, should have, kept them at home but he chose to take his kink out of doors and engage in what remains an illegal activity.


p-man out.

Music At Work

For some, religion and politics are divisive topics. I am not so troubled by either subject that I will become heated. As Jesse Young once sang: politics and business, I don't pay them no mind. For some perverse reason I reserve my ire for the truly unimportant subjects: reading material, headgear, and taste in music. Some say there is nothing more boring than a music snob. "Some" likely enjoyed a Justin Timberlake concert in the recent past. "Some" likely have Bon Jovi in heavy rotation on their mePods, 8-tracks, or what have you.

But I digress. The point of this post is not to put the point and marvel at the assistants in my office clamouring for Bon Jovi tickets or the new associate's primordial lust for Buns'n'Hoses. To question these people, as I do, as to what it is they see in this type of music. They appear to be in the majority and their tastes, however strange, do not appear to cause actual harm to themselves or others. I try not to get involved in their conversations about the latest reunion tour by some bunch of septuagenarians who said they'd never play with one another again! dammit especially after the last time they performed a lengthy sellout tour of baseball stadiums and hockey arenas, and the time before that. No, because I am too cool for that. My tastes are fucking legendary, mate, they are off the chart!

I stay in my office, maybe I listen to some Getz or Errol Garner. I'll hum bits and pieces of whatever is playing in my head. Occasionally I utter what few lyrics I have been able to make out and recollect. Sometimes it's something old and comforting. Sometimes it's something fresh to my ears. Sometimes something horrid leaks out, unbidden.

Case in point: the other day I walked out of my office to collect something from the printer. I was singing or humming something, I don't know, when one of my colleagues asked me: p-man, is that the Wiggles you're singing?

Why yes, yes it was. At sea I am, on a big red boat.

Ahoy mates,

p-man.