Ride Into the Sun

Been singing this VU song all day. I forgot I made this mashup of two wildly different recordings way back in 2004. I liked them both a lot, so thought they should be stuck together into one ultimate version. Possibly a misguided idea, but I also think the song is kind of unruinable. You can judge for yourself.

For Lou

OK, well, I feel a lot better this morning. Amber and I patched things up last night. I worked all day on some very Velvet-Underground-inspired song lyrics that I think turned out pretty good. The tune I have in mind already sounds like a cross between VU and Stereolab, so I kept trying to steer the lyrics away from being a pastiche of images from "The Ocean." But they kept struggling their way back in that direction, and then I found out that Lou Reed had died that morning. So I said screw it and gave him full reign over my pen. Ride into the sun, Lou. You finally got out of the city.

Some nights a dark emotion
Rolls in upon the ocean
Indomitable motion
Outside you can't be certain
No sky beyond the curtain
Don't cry it only hurts your heart

You can never stop the tide
And there's nowhere you can hide
With nothing left inside
It's over once you start
Watch the castles fall apart

Moonlight and violent motion
Turn now to blind devotion
Learn how to love the ocean
So shy and unappealing
Birds fly beyond the ceiling
Don't try to lose this feeling

You'll forever be the tide
And there's nowhere you can hide
When everything's inside
You'll hear it in your heart
Once the castles fall apart

Give your body to the sea

Someday I'll write a song that's not about drowning. But not yet.

Bring It Down

The Pop Explosion's over now. Time to clean up all this gross pop everywhere.

Friday night I had a date with Amber to have dinner and see the Husband & Knife (with The Drone) show at Gus'. H&K(wTD) were amazing. Quietly, undynamically trucking through KC's beautiful and subdued songs on guitar, cello, keyboards, and a couple of drums — it was exactly what I felt like hearing. KC has released an album of new material on Bandcamp that you can buy from him as a gorgeous booklet of black-and-white night photography that comes with a download code for the music. Here's one of the songs on it.


Unfortunately, the date itself was kind of a drag. I was really tired going into it and had a 20-minute nap beforehand to try and energize myself. That turned out to be a big mistake. I woke up in a super cranky mood and couldn't seem to shake it. I warned Amber upon arrival that I felt crabby, and I tried not to aim it in her direction. But I ended up treating her meanly. After unsuccessfully trying to cheer me up for awhile, she started treating me meanly in return, and we passed that bad mood back and forth all evening.

Dinner at our favourite sushi spot was awful. They were busy and couldn't serve us fast enough that we would make it to the Gus' show on time. We sulked, bickered, and generally embarrassed each other and ourselves in public. There were some tears.

The music and friendly atmosphere at Gus' really helped, as did a couple of beers. Or at least they seemed to. But the mood came back as soon as we went back to Amber's place. By that time we were both exhausted, so we went to sleep without resolving things. In the morning, the beers and late night came back to haunt us by turning a discussion about what had gone wrong into a full-blown argument. We both felt attacked and got defensive. All remarks and behaviour taken badly due to the bad mood became the other person's fault. She cried, and I left.

I'm sure we'll resolve this. We've had worse fights before. But the awful feeling of the original bad mood has stuck with me all weekend. I saw Moonsocket and Besnard Lakes at the Marquee last night with Alison and a couple of other friends, and both bands made some undeniably great music. Yet, even as I was enjoying it, I was still somehow not enjoying MYSELF, if that makes any sense. I again had a couple of beers to try and remedy that, which was probably the worst of all possible solutions. It didn't help, anyway. This morning is cold and rainy, and I'm glad because all I want to do is lie in bed and feel bad about myself. What a long and self-perpetuating funk!

It's like a general dissatisfaction with everything in my life and a lack of hope that anything can be done about it. My job, my bands, my friends, every song I've ever written, and every way I've ever treated or felt about another person all suck. People in general suck. All my possessions are garbage. I'm out of shape and tired all the time. My meditation practice doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere. I can't trust myself or anyone else to come up with any practical suggestions, because we all have our own selfish, misguided agendas, and they all conflict with each other, as evidenced by the messed up modern world we are in the process of destroying by desperately clinging to it.

Never shoulda had that nap.

Gotta Run

Pop Explosion's on in full force now. No time to chat. Tonight I'm going to see Husband & Knife open for Jon McKiel and Ghostkeeper. Tomorrow is Wet Denim, Chad VanGaalen, Moonsocket, No Joy, and Besnard Lakes. Tuesday I played with The Reference Desk, opening for Quivers and Obits. We played well and sold a couple of records. Wednesday I watched Andy McDaniel play in an art gallery. I have a plastic Artist bracelet that gets me into everything but wakes me up at night when it scratches my face. But who needs sleep anyway when there's so much rock to be enjoyed? Fun times!

A Short Birthday Story

I found this one on an old cassette this evening. My sister, Dana, complains to me on tape (remember when people used to send each other tapes through the mail? I got this one my first year away at university. Seems impossibly quaint now...) about how our younger sister, Erika, got her in trouble the night before. Erika turned 40 today. Happy birthday, Er!



Gives you an idea of the kind of crap she has quietly put up with her whole life as the youngest sibling. Alison remarked this summer that Erika is the least complaining person she's ever met, and when I think about it, it just might be true.

I was actually looking for the tape where Eri plays a radio DJ who sings along with the entirety of Bryan Adams' "Summer of '69," not realizing that the mic is on. Funny stuff. But I don't seem to have it anywhere. Maybe someone could send me a copy?

Post-a-Day Ends Here

I guess? It seems?

Too much fun stuff happening over the weekend to have time to write. If 1 picture = 1,000 words, are three pictures worth two missed blog posts?

Obviously, I went for a hike at Blomidon with Alison. Saturday afternoon was really nice for it. We tromped around for about three and a half hours and caught the Valley's beautiful fall colours just before they disappear.

Then I tromped around all night with Amber, catching Nocturne, Halifax's version of Toronto's Nuit Blanche. Well, I tromped; Amber wheeled. We went literally all over the city, even to Dartmouth, looking for fabulous art spectacles and hidden gems. Unfortunately, I have no photos of that to show you, because we never found any. The whole event was a pretty major letdown. I remember it being really fun and mind-expanding and inspiring the first couple of years they held it, but every year it seems to get a little worse. Lots of businesses putting advertisements in their windows and installations that looked like they were done by a third-grader who ran out of time and/or interest.

Oh well, we managed to have fun anyway, weaving a wheelchair through the hordes of philistines. Got home late and stayed in bed the entire next day with pizza, coffee, Project Runway, and The Seventh Seal. It was quite heavenly, and my legs thanked me for the rest.

Now I'm back in high-hecticity mode, trying to get January's issue of the magazine finished up at work and preparing for tomorrow night's Pop Explosion show with The Reference Desk. Meg is frighteningly ill with the flu, too sick even to practise tonight. If she can't manage it tomorrow, Kristina and I might have to go back to being a two-piece for the night — an unsavoury proposition, I don't mind telling you.

Supermarket Spleen

On the way home from work this evening, I found myself in line at the grocery store checkout in a very cranky mood. Tired, I guess, and I'm having a hard time getting all the stupid administrative work done that I have to do lately. Feels like people are constantly forcing me to do little things that there's no reason they can't do themselves except that they don't want to and don't care if that means I end up having to do them.

So, usually in this kind of social situation I would try to maintain some kind of a decent mood for the sake of my fellow shoppers, who I'm sure have enough problems of their own without having the emotional byproduct of my day inflicted on them. Or I'd at least try to experience what the mood feels like without getting drawn into acting on it, while cultivating an attitude of empathy toward the strangers around me.

But today I felt like allowing the crankiness to have its way with my mind. Just let it go on a rampage and see what happens. It seemed like it could actually be entertaining. I began looking at all the stupid and ugly people in the store and judging them super harshly, no holds barred.

One jerk totally shoved his way into line in front of another idiot who couldn't figure out which tabloid she wanted to read. Meanwhile, a yuppy asshole was making business deals on his cellphone in front of the frozen pizzas, thinking we were all impressed by how oblivious he was to the hoodied loser couple he was preventing from buying their loser dinner. I started making up really nasty nicknames for all these characters.

And you know what? It was fun. I actually had to smile at the depth of my own cruelty. It's pretty amusing how mean you can get just from a trivial bad mood, if you let yourself. By the time I got to the checkout, I was smiling and feeling pretty friendly. The clerk and I had a nice conversation, and I didn't even want to wring his neck. Maybe sometimes it's best just to let anger work its way through you until it becomes transmuted into something more socially acceptable.

So thanks for the lesson, Punched-In Baby Face, Heroin Housewife, and Wannabe Barenaked Lady. I wish you all well and hope you find what you're looking for.

Good Times in the Maritimes

Oh, man, this weekend can't come fast enough. I am so worn out from this stupid cold. The coughing keeps me awake all night and tires me out all day. Tonight I had a Reference Desk band practice and found out that loud singing is one of the best ways to turn an occasional throat clearing into an uncontrollable hack session. Sorry, Meg and Kristina. I'm hoping my voice will be recovered in time for our Pop Explosion show on Tuesday.

But I'm also looking forward to the weekend because it promises to be super fun. Tomorrow night Alison and I go to see our housemate, Claire, play oboe in a small orchestra backing up one of my favourite local singers, Gianna Lauren. Saturday morning we'll get a car-share car and go for a drive and a hike to see the Nova Scotia autumn leaves. Then it's back into the city for dinner and Nocturne with Amber. I'll wheel her around to check out all the art, then we'll have a sleepover and spend some nice time together on Sunday. Weather's supposed to be very cooperative.

Yup, it's a pretty sweet life, if you can keep from keeling over.

Possible Omen

Today I saw a squirrel spontaneously fall out of a tree. I was talking to Alison out the window when it happened. She was wearing her bike helmet, getting ready to ride over to our friend Krista's place. A man and his young daughter were also there, having stopped strolling down the sidewalk to talk to me and Dave's cat through the open window. So there were plenty of witnesses, is I guess what I'm saying.

The squirrel fell about two stories and landed with a splat on the road behind the little girl. Then it got up, looked around, shook itself off a little, and scampered back up the tree it had just fallen from. It might have fallen from one of the power lines. I'm not sure. I'd never seen anything like that before. But it definitely happened.

Another guy happened by too, right afterwards, and he was laughing and shaking his head. It was one of those weird, friendly, apocalyptic, deus-ex-machina neighbourhood moments that crop up in magic-realist novels and bad horror movies. But it really happened. I swear.

New Beck!

I heard a Beck song I'd never heard before in a coffee shop today. Of course I got all excited that he had put out a new album without my hearing about it. (The last thing resembling an album I'd heard of him putting out, since 2008's underrated Modern Guilt, was some collection of songs that existed only as sheet music. An interesting idea, but I could never be bothered to invest the time learning to play them just to find out what Beck songs might sound like if Beck had his less talented cousin record them.) Unfortunately, there turned out not to be any such new album yet.

However. The good news is that:

a) Beck has a new acoustic album in the works (maybe returning to the stripped down anti-folk of One Foot in the Grave, oh please, oh please?),

b) he has released three separate singles over the past few months that don't seem to be preview tracks from said album (seeing as they're decidedly electric in nature), the second of which was the one I heard today, and

c) they're all really good.

Did other people know about this? Why had no one alerted me? I really gotta start paying more attention.

Tunage to Taste Tom Tofurkey to

I'm sitting in Alison's kitchen right now with her and her roommate, Claire. We're waiting for our Housewide Thanksgiving dinner to be ready. I don't know why, but every year the roasted vegetables part of the meal takes way longer than we expect. You're supposed to be able to put a bunch of root veggies in the pan with the Tofurkey, covered in juice, and have them cooked and ready at the same time as the "bird." But we always forget that it never turns out that way, and then end up scrambling to think of ways to finish off the potatoes and carrots and parsnips quickly.

So now we're all sitting around the table, listening to the terrible song choices Songza comes up with while the vegetables sit in a pan under a hot broiler, giving off smoke that smells weirdly like plastic. We had been listening to a Nina Simone CD, and then some Nick Drake, but finally Claire realized we were all looking silently at the floor and generally feeling like all the life had been sapped out of us. Internet music to the rescue!

The "Dad-approved" playlist for dysfunctional family dinners started out OK with some Joni Mitchell, but it quickly devolved into Don Henley, Peter Gabriel, and the Doors. We've been taking turns hitting the "next" button. It's kind of fun, I guess, like The Gong Show.

Now if we can just get some food on the table, this dinner'll be perfect.

New Favourite Record

Yesterday after work I went to the record store to pick up a few things I'd been meaning to grab for awhile. Sebadoh's new album and Cousins' split EP with Construction & Destruction, to be precise. But while I was there, I noticed this old Ravi Shankar album and decided I needed some more of that guy in my collection. And so far, it's been the record of the long weekend over here.

My roommate, Dave, has gone camping till Sunday night, so I have the place to myself for a couple of days. I haven't spent much time at home lately, so it's a nice feeling to lounge around in the Saturday sunshine, drink some coffee, work on a crossword, and enjoy these simultaneously mellow and exciting ragas. A perfect weekend, IMHO.

The Sebadoh's just OK, by the way. And the Cousins is on neat blue vinyl, but kind of sounds like crap.

Performance

So, remember that blog post where I complained about how awful it can feel to fake your way through a musical performance when you're just not hearing the sound right, even if you can tell the audience is enjoying it? Well, Good Old Neil just spoke to me very succinctly about that very subject, via the book of his I mentioned I'm reading. Check this out:

It is a lonely job out there performing. I have to do it because I always have. I probably always will. I love the music part. I like it when the sound is right and the audience is into it and the music is relevant. If one of those elements is missing, you are screwed. You are killing yourself slowly. You need all three elements.

I love that guy.

That's still a very germane subject to me, because I'm playing a show with Psychic Fair tomorrow night for the first time in awhile. And it's in a weird space that's a sort of half-assed art gallery in the back room of an oddball consignment store. (Plan B on Gottingen, if you're in Halifax and able to attend — opening for Scribbler.) Who knows what the sound will be like in there? Well, unfortunately, I have a feeling I do... But anyway, I don't have to sing or anything complicated like that, at least.

That will come a couple of Tuesdays from now, when The Reference Desk plays the Halifax Pop Explosion. Gotta get this cold out of my system before then. That show's at stinky old Gus' Pub, so I'll be plenty familiar with the setup and sound, but still, you always want to be on top of your game for the HPX crowds. There's a real excitement that permeates the whole festival, what with all the out-of-town musicians to check out and hobnob with and whatnot.

Plus, that will be the official on-sale date for our split seven-inch with Beached Out. Kristina put the two tracks that constitute our side of the record on our Bandcamp site today. Take a listen, if you feel so inclined.

Stuff I'm Reading

Hey, I skipped a day. So what? What are you gonna do about it? Yeah, that's what I thought... I can take days off whenever I feel like it — nothing wrong with that, he argued against no one.

For instance, I took the day off work today. I've come down with that cold I was fighting. Burning a lot of candles at a lot of ends, and it's catching up with me. E.g., I didn't have time to blog yesterday.

But so today I stayed in bed, ate some soup, worked on a new song, answered easy work emails, slept, and started reading Waging Heavy Peace, Neil Young's book that came out last year. So far, it's just a rambling, conversational bunch of reminiscences from his 65-year life, plus some depictions of his daily life while he's working on the book. In other words, highly compelling stuff, if you're a big Neil Young fan. Which I am.

I'm also in the middle of Martin Amis's Lionel Asbo. It's kind of a return to form for him — preposterous and funny in the same kind of way as London Fields, for instance, rather than ugly like Yellow Dog, limp like Night Train, or morbidly sad like House of Meetings. Self-consciously clever, sure, but that's just what you've got to be in the mood for if you're going to read an Amis novel. So far I've been consistently in the mood.

Finally, The Power of Divine Eros, a new A. H. Almaas book put out by Shambhala Publications, has been blowing my mind for a couple of weeks now. I borrowed it from work, so I'd better try to finish it up, in case someone else wants a crack at it. I was going to try to describe its premise myself, but I find that the back blurb is one of those rare ones that express exactly what the book is about:

What do desire and passion have to do with our spiritual journey? According to A. H. Almaas and Karen Johnson, they are an essential part of it.

Conventional wisdom cautions that desire and passion are opposed to the spiritual path — that pursuing desire will take you more into the egoic world. And for most people, that is exactly what happens. Wanting is experienced as self-centered. The Power of Divine Eros challenges the view that the erotic and the divine are separate. When we open to the energy, spontaneity, and zest of erotic love, we will find it holy and sacred. Thus desire and passion become a gateway to wholeness.

The authors reveal how our relationships become spiritual opportunities to express ourselves authentically, to relate with openness, and to discover dynamic inner realms with another person. Through embodying the energy of eros, we can learn to be real and alive in all our interactions.

If it's not apparent from the description, it's not just about convincing you through reason that the two kinds of love are actually one, but about helping you find the place within yourself where you can feel that to be the case. Great stuff!

Hollywood Hot Property Ryan Gosling Predicts his Upcoming Film Will Do Well at the Box Office

Went to see The Spectacular Now tonight with Alison before a late Psychic Fair rehearsal, from which I've just returned. The movie's a nice coming-of-age story with some understated acting that keeps you guessing at the depth of the characters' emotional denial. Tension builds very slowly, till you're almost grateful when it finally explodes more than two thirds of the way through. Kind of reminiscent of The Loneliest Planet in that way, though with more dialogue and action, fewer panoramic vistas.

But what is up with that woman who narrates the entire "preshow"? Bonnie Laufer of Tribute "magazine" "reports" the most uninteresting celebrity "news" imaginable, relentlessly, for half an hour before the movie starts. (Sorry for all the scare quotes, but really, who is actually supposed to enjoy this industry self-congratulation besides the celebrities' publicity agents? The commercials for cars and cellphone carriers, when they arrive, are literally a relief.)

Maybe the preshow would be less offensive if it weren't packaged as added-value entertainment, presented as though the audience is being rewarded for showing up early. But then there's that voice... I can't even describe how unpleasant it is to listen to. Bonnie Laufer activates cringe muscles I didn't know I had. She reads copy as if it physically pains her and the only enjoyment she can wring from her job is to cause as much suffering in the listener as she herself is experiencing. If Fred Allen was said to have a face for radio, Bonnie Laufer has a voice for newspaper!

Short on Hours, Long on Intentions

Ah, forgot to blog yesterday. I just can't figure out how to fit in all the things I want to do in a day. And with the days getting shorter, I find myself wanting to spend more and more time here:

This is what it looked like when I walked home from work yesterday. Sun's almost down already!

I guess that's what happens every year. I really should be used to it by now. Anybody ever tried one of those SAD lamps? Seems like they could be a good way to keep energy levels up in the dark days around Christmas. But then maybe sitting under them becomes one more thing you have to try to squeeze into your waking hours. Maybe I should just start sleeping in a tanning bed.

Bixby Says Relax

I don't want to jinx it, but I'm going to make an early-results call that what felt like a cold yesterday is being successfully defeated. [Editor's Note: I jinxed it. See Thursday's post above.] Cold FX seems to be doing the trick (thanks, Mom). Plus plenty of R 'n R (both kinds).

I haven't had a proper night's sleep in probably three weeks, so I'm sure that has had a lot to do with my general bodily rundown and now (further) messed up lower back. But last night I got a good nine or ten hours, thanks to a sleeping pill. And today has been spent brunching, walking around in the sunshine, and generally doing a lot of nothing with Amber. Just what the doctor ordered.

Now we're going to watch a Bergman movie and eat some Amber-made gluten-free pizza before I head home to hit the hay early. Gotta stay on top of my game for the Psychic Fair show next weekend, plus finishing those Reference Desk vocals from yesterday. And then the Halifax Pop Explosion's coming up fast, starting on the 22nd. That'll be the Ref. Desk split 7" official release date. Busy times, but lots of fun.

Days on Tape

The Reference Desk spent all day at Charles's recording studio today, cranking through five songs. Well, one of them still needs the vocals finished on it, because I couldn't reach the high notes by the end of the day. (Think I might be getting a cold, actually. Meg seems to have one.) But otherwise, we got everything tracked. I'm convinced it sounds better than our last set of recordings.

It was a really nice way to spend the day. Charles is such a great guy to hang out with and really good at his job. He always gets the best possible performances out of people by making the whole process relaxing and fun.

I guess we'll probably put the songs up on Bandcamp or something when they're all mixed and stuff. So, yeah, watch for that.

Fear-Go-Round

OK, well, I found out today that my job description won't be having as much added onto it as had been initially threatened. I still have to take on all the ad tracking for two magazines, plus place all the ads in one magazine's layout, plus design the classified-style directory for that magazine, all of which used to be the advertising department's responsibilities. But at least the powers that be are going to buy an expensive piece of software that forces advertising clients to preflight their own ads, meaning that they won't get through to me unless everything is hunky dory for printing, meaning I won't be having to troubleshoot and contact the clients whenever something is wrong.

Still... All these new roles are going to take up about a quarter of my working hours. That's a pretty significant redefinition of my job, a mere five months after I accepted it. I really wish someone had acknowledged that these are not exactly kosher demands, either asking my permission or at least apologizing about it. The whole thing was handed to me very straightforwardly and out of the blue, with a sort of defensive attitude that I should be expected to do all the production work, since the word 'production' is in my job title (having been added in after I took the job), and, besides, another person who once did my job used to do all this stuff (it drove her crazy and caused an incredibly expensive error to happen).

But what I wish most is that I had the courage to express these bad feelings to the people who have saddled me with them, instead of just saying OK and quietly moping around. Why does someone else's cowardice bring out my own? Why can't I see the angry look in someone's eye defying me to bring up the subject they really, really don't want me to bring up, and bring it up regardless? Being a chicken about emotional expression is very frustrating. And exhausting!

Why Cats Rule the Internet

1. Cute.
2. Unpredictable.
3. Seem to express some recognizably human emotions.
4. Never post rude comments or photos of their children/meals.
5. Never blog when they have nothing to say.
6. Clever hashtaggers.

News & Entertainment

I am so tired tonight, and really without a theme to write about. My work situation is still ongoing. I'm hoping to find out more tomorrow or Friday about exactly what extra work I'm going to have to take on permanently. It may be doable, but I really don't like the way this whole thing has played out.

Last night I went to see Don Jon with Amber. It was not bad. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a trashy New Jersey normal joe sex addict who objectifies a new woman every night until he meets Scarlett Johansson and thinks he's in love. It's surprisingly coarse and digs deeper than you'd think a mainstream movie would into the intertwined problems of gender roles, sex, pop culture, porn, and the romantic ideal. But not really that deep, in the end... Still, lots of fun. JoGo has no limits to his range, it seems.

Finally, the October issue of KC Spidle's new hip coffee-shop read, Concrete News, will be hitting the counters very soon. I've got a record review in this one, and there's a very short horror story for Hallowe'en. I'm just about to proof Meg's excellent layout so it can go to press tomorrow. Can't wait to read the new "Yeah Right" comic!

Unfortunate Opinions Delivered Unfortunately

Yesterday I got an email from a woman who hasn't talked to me for six months. She's been nursing a grudge. We had a falling out when I told her I didn't want to sleep with her anymore.

She had always claimed to value the unromantic nature of our relationship and to be my friend above all else, but that turned out not to be the case when it became all I wanted. I was angry and hurt when she cut off all communication, but I decided to just give her all the time she needed to process her own hurt feelings. Maybe she would eventually see that there was no need to feel wronged by me and attempt some kind of reconnection, which I would gladly accept.

I thought that was what was happening when I got an email from her yesterday, titled "Useful Information." But instead, it was just a link to this feminist rant about how men need to behave if they are to call themselves feminists. I guess it's been making the rounds on Facebook. It's actually not a bad article, though a bit preachy and second-wavy. "Guys, if you say you're a feminist, you'd better stop following The Rules and follow these rules I just made up instead." That sort of thing.

Anyway, whatever the article's merits, the question of whether anyone thinks I do or do not deserve any particular label is of zero interest to me. And given that this woman knows that about me, I can't understand why she would break half a year's willful silence just to tell me that not wanting to have sex with her means I can't call myself a feminist.

For the record, though, here's what I think about this sort of I'm-a-woman-so-I-get-to-say-what-feminism-is-and-you-have-to-listen-because-you're-a-dude polemic:

If your brand of feminism, or any other social cause, includes the doctrine, "People of my group are born into a position of victimhood by the nature of the culture we live in, so people of your group must learn to be aware that you control my feelings and adjust your actions accordingly," you're not doing anyone any good. You will never change anything. Only an adult who has a nuanced understanding of what it means to be a human being and to love without need — who, therefore, claims responsibility for her own emotional state — can claim to be working towards greater equality and understanding among all people.

10/02 Addendum: I realized later (/was made to realize) that the above paragraph sounds like typical white privileged male, what-is-wrong-with-feminism, blinkered thinking. While I stand firm on all these points, I also understand that some talk about the realities of almost universal female oppression and the dire need for deeper male self- and cultural exploration would have given my points about fatalism vs. individual psychological freedom a more balanced context. 

It's also probably true that my criticisms are 100% about the reasons I received that article and 0% about it's content. I.e. I don't necessarily disagree with any of the author's points about how men's behaviour can be problematic; I just don't think I've done any of those things.

Finally, I get that this whole post comes off as bitter and petty. Please feel free to apply its title to the post itself, as well as the story related therein. Thanks.