4
Jun

Life and Gigs and Alien Conversations

Waiting to hear confirmation on some gig dates coming up for late June and early august thank you to all my “fans” for, reading this blog and then becoming ergo a fan.

PS on a side note. Life’s really hard eh?  Like just in general, difficult thing to experience… I think.

If an alien popped down and had some translation devise and the alien asked me, “what is human life about?” I would reply, “Ugh.. it’s okay, pretty hard thing though, just always is, how ’bout you? I mean even when we are coming off of a high, natural or unnatural and we think, “Life is sooo…good right now.” We think that only because ten minutes ago it wasn’t.”

Then the alien interupts my aside, and asks, “your alive during the modern age, what are the advantages and disadvantages of it?”

“Well, there are laws insisting that human rights is a real thing, modern dentistry is a plus,  it doesn’t hurt as much as old fashioned dentistry and toilet paper, all advantages.”

The disadvantages?  “Reality TV and just the sense that everyone, everywhere is messed up over something. There are a lot of self help books, you know, it’s acceptable to believe the difficulties in our lives are curable through therapy or dudes talking about their mother issues and such, you know?”

“No.”

“Well yeah you’ll have to study that one. As for reality TV you watch Keeping Up with Kardashians and weigh in if the show has any value, I’m curious what an outsider would think of Kim Kardashian”

“Is she of importance to your planet?”

“Apparently, I just mentioned her.”

“Why does she have importance?” asks the alien

“Because she’s sexually attractive.”

“What is, sexually attractive?”

“It means, like, that a person looks right on the outside but is usually messed up on the inside or at least has an odd sense of priorities because they get attention for nothing that has to do with their behavior or intelligence, skin deep.”

“What is attention?”

“It’s what I’m giving you right now little alien man-thing… and that’s only because I’m not getting enough of it myself from the opposite sex, where did you come from anyways, where did you park your space ship?”

“In the new Bow building, parking in your city of Calgary Alberta is way too expensive, especially around the Eau Clair area.”

“Wow Alien, I’m really starting to like you, and what you’re about, I mean your inquisitive, you hate parking in Calgary just like everyone else,  I actually feel like our conversation between Alien and Human was more free, intelligent and natural than most of my awkward and empty conversations with humans, Oh Alien-man-thing  I’m happy I get to be myself around you and talk about the Kardashians and…..”

“Okay Good bye thank you for the information female human.”

Jaimee

1
Jun

Dead Martyr

I’m an old newspaper I need to throw out
But I miss all the horror stories that made me certain of what life’s about

I can’t put words on my feelings… but I know they feel light
It’s a warmness inside used to combat demons at night
My lightness expands and has brought me you
And I’m confused now on how to be or what to do

My thoughts are clumsy my feelings raw
I’m not used to kindness, is this kindness? You’re staring at all my flaws

My words are all strange and completely out of place
Something between wrought iron and skin-touching-lace
I’m resisting all fear but I’m a girl who looks good
Like a brand new car with an old engine under the hood

This new person I am… Has nothing to say
My troubles and struggles are skin peeling away

there’s a wolf in my throat whose tied up at rest
And he’ll rip you apart if I’m not at my best

An ugly devil who sits on my shoulder and waits
But I know who I am and I known who he ain’t

So what if he sits there uninvited into my life
He is no longer my muse and I am no longer his wife

I’m now a new chapter of some old stereotype
Of a brand new identity who surrenders the fight

18
May

Summer Vacation for the class of Western Canada Highschool

Recently I ran into a man who I knew when he was a kid in Highschool.  In fact at his party I ran into several men who I knew when they were boys.  They also knew me or didn’t when I was in High-school and was a very quiet girl… I know right???.  It was a very eery feeling.  There I was 12 years older with a brand new condo,  brand new car as well as a completely different world view and belief system than I did when I was 17 and yet, I was going to hang out with dudes from high school at a party???  Was I going backwards? Was this the awkward 10 year reunion I chose to miss but which my girlfriend wanted to attend so she could show off her new weight loss?

I had no interest in revisiting anyone until recently.  My school was jam packed with the sons and daughters of millionaires, a crowd I did not run with, and even now I am a musician, and I had no interest in Bobby-Joe the CEO or Serena the born again… what would I say was my accomplishment, I’ve worked on movie sets and had a following of lesbians in Montreal?  Hehe, still a rebel, and that I am proud, my accomplishments are somehow always something that I can use to jolt people out of their middle-upper class haze.

But the man’s party was not stuffy at all, not that this crowd of men ever played up to that, in fact all of us had experienced huge changes, surprising successes, even more surprising humbling failures, 2 head injuries, 7 break ups, 4 bands, 2 daughters and one partridge in a pair tree over the last 12 years.

“Yeah,” said the man, “I’ve read everyone of your blogs, I know lots of things about Jaimee, more than she’d probably want me to know.” He spoke staring across at a wall, his mouth smug, his eyes fixed, and his gut most likely full of humor, disgust or pity for me.

“Ughh..”. I said trying to sink into the chair at his party like a guppy sliding down a water slide by accident.  How bad could it be… what’s he thinking of?  The strange rant against Julia Roberts I wrote while PMSing… did I write anything about menstration… crap shit! Not that! I hope not!

“I always think people don’t read my blogs”

“Oh but they do.. and you should update your server to word press…”

Naive. naive to believe that what you post on the Internet won’t come back to look you in the eye.  I suppose some part of me wanted that vain attention. But I always assumed I wrote this blog like a show, it was removed from me.  I treat my blogs like classy actresses treat the movies they’ve starred in, like a one night stand never to be discussed again… “I don’t like to watch myself on screen”.

But I was okay with strangers reading this information, as I’m okay with strangers reading posters, and traffic signs.  But people from high school!?

When you run away from your past for as long as I have, you develop a thick skin with people from highschool…or fast legs and great hide and seek skills. I have  run away in grocery stores, parties, Chinnok Mall and the Calgary Zoo, from alumnists just to avoid a superficial, status-comparison ridden conversation with someone who knew back in the day when I hated myself.

But now. I don’t really hate myself so much.  Like many others, high school was just such a painful time period. And that I understand, but now I almost regret sharing so much blogs full with anger or scorn.  Because although I can let go of that troubled identity in high school now, at the time and for years after highschool I wanted people to see my pain. I wanted people to keep away and be scared,   to see my drama, and to be wrapped in the self absorption of what I thought was an unjust life not lived.  They  weren’t the bad people… well ughh, lots of them weren’t bad, I was, like a human sacrifice, or like the strange ritual of Halloween I wanted my bleeding heart mounted on a stick for every ghost who could haunt me to stay away… the ghosts we run from are never as scary as the masks we wear to keep them at bay. Now since my mask is down I have averaged running into 2 people from my past, per day, for the past 2 months.

So… to keep in good faith that perhaps good people and bad from Highschool are reading this current blog I’ve decided to something that shows how classy I’ve become and how immature I still am..

I’m listing all of your names:

Tim Pudelko,(choir)

Curtis Perry (highschool)

Riley Frame (HS)

Mark Johnson, (HS)

Samantha Hallbrook (HS)

Stephanie Damus (Elementary, Junior High and Highschool, and Mum’s Yoga class)

Julia Sabey (Pumphouse Drama Day Camp, Highschool)

Cynthia Jones (Ele..Junior, High)

Jonathan MacDonald (HS)

Andrew Woods (Ele, JH, HS)

Al-Karym, I’ll offend him more is I post his last name that start with a S, cuz I don’t know it. (Junior High, Highschool)

Russell…?( JH, HS)

Lucus….? (HS)

Cameron…? (HS)

Mel Bonar (HS)

Simon ..? (University)

Tom…? (JH and HS)

Argen…? (University)

Gabriel (University)

Eric Twa (HS)

Kyla Arnoldson (HS)

Stephan..? (HS)

Nicole Thornton (Kindergarten, Elem)

Lane Theriault (JS HS)

That brunette guy whose really tall and has Tony Kurtis’ face, he came late into Highschool (HS)

Matt Swann (something music-related)

Sean..?  (Carly’ Moore’s current boyfriend)

27 people and counting.  All in one month, with the exception of 2 of those people.

Honorable Mention goes to Emily McCartney and Anisha Karia, both of who I ran or hid from in the past year.

Please note no Youth Singers or Calaway Live alumnists may join this list nor ex boyfriends.

Also please note I have gotten a lot hotter.  LIKE A  LOT!!!! AHAHAHAHAHA

Jaimee

20
Feb

Having Traditional Morals when you are a Musician

Reader discretion advised, this next article includes topics… more like hot topics which have sexuality in nature.  Judging from the title perhaps you might be expecting to read something salacious and some story that reveals too much information.  Well if you want that article I suggest anyone of my other blogs but not this one… this one is clean and surprisingly conservative.

In the past couple of months I feel that I have been pushed to my social tolerance limit.  A long time supporter of gay marriage, I feel homophobic, an open minded artist I feel like “settling down” in a boring heterosexual monogamous relationship where I get to walk around Starbucks talking about nothing in a couple.  Interested in expanding the mind I have never been more anti-drug and narcotic oriented as I am now.  For a songwriter of 28 years of age I sound more like Richard Nixon than a young modern woman.

We have heard of complaints of people who are “leftist”, or non-conservative finding themselves stuck in a conservative institutions, gays who are in the military, environment-focused Calgarians working in the oil fields, Gloria Steinam a playboy bunny, but what about the opposite?

I am religious, and openly straight.  I have been asked to lie and say I was gay to encourage and increase my once developing gay following.  Did I care the following was gay.  Hell no, they’re people, people with ears who’ll like music.  I understood as well that my songs often written on themes of prejudice and leading a double life would relate to gay people, but I wasn’t gay, and I didn’t care until I was asked to lie…

…now I might suck hard at being a heterosexual female… like really! But after one attempt at being gay, which proved false..

(I realized this when I observed that I was just waiting for my turn instead of caring about the other person) I heterosexual. I suck at being straight, but I also suck at being gay, and I am not turned on by it.

I’m so bad at being straight, I miss cues, I don’t understand that men attract themselves to pretty ladies, when I get attention from men I assume it’s because my mascara is running or I have something embarrassing like chocolate all over my face.  At Halloween I ask grown men if their costume is  that of a “douchebag” I asked an older woman if she was a cougar, innnocently, and I don’t baby men, because I feel like too much of one myself… every societal recommendation for me to follow in relationships I have ignored, rebelled over or broken including the following; don’t sleep with a guy on the first date…whooopsie, don’t call him, wait for him to call… yeah not happening,..play hard to get.  Be confident. Ughhh…… Also my new fave…. be in relationships that are casual, even if you know you won’t love the person… now that one I really am offended by, because I think that’s totally dishonest.

Even in the expression of my personal life I must… MUST be a modern women… naturally, open to tons of relationships with gay guys, I must love Starbucks and be a financially independent female, not dependent on my Dad or man…

Sorry.. wrong.

No.  I don’t do drugs, I’m religious, I believe continuing in a relationship which is not equal and has no possibility of love in it from both parties is our societies greatest way to waist time and is slightly slutty and immoral.  I won’t work unless I’m paid. I’m a monogamous, and I believe that no one should enter into any trade relationship without good will. I’m blue collar. But I don’t drink beer because of I have a gluten allergy… okay, that makes me modern.

And yet I have been asked to engage in everything that doesn’t reflect any of these values, open poly–people relationships (with ugly people I might add), a three some (also with non beautiful people), and a gay relationship ,with someone who I deeply cared for…although that was more of a wish I felt and she was beuatiful so it was tempting.

I eat steak and potatoes.  But having had a more worldly view by being a conservative spy in the leftist managerie I can say that nobody, no dude no old christian grandma can be as homophobic as me…

If you aren’t around gay people, why be afraid of them? They won’t hit on you, they don’t know you?  Where you gonna meet?  Church?   I think true blue conservatives who don’t know any gay people have no right to think that gay people want them… what makes you think your so attractive to gay people true blues?  I like that arrogance, I find it funny and because I’m straight I find it also a slight turn on…

….horrible at being heterosexual

But what I have experienced from my lifestyle that never fit my internal compass, is that people who hurt you the most are those who are hurt the most, straight, gay married, single, polygamous.  People who try to get you to go outside of your comfort zone aren’t a gays who likes a straight person they are anyone who doesn’t feel loved.  Straight or gay, sleeping with 3 people or none.

The more people have invited me to into their bed the more I longed for my own.  Being popular is ultimately hallow, It appears to be a power desirable when you don’t have it, it’s like that damn ring all the humans want which ultimately consumes them and corrupts them.  I feel corrupted.  By meeting so many inappropriate matches, people who judged me from the outside, by my trappings as a loud outspoken musician, I just feel sad, not for myself but for the world.  No one cared to find out I just wanted to go to Starbucks and talk about nothing that I had no affiliation to veganism, greenism, hipperstor-dom, or something else cool.  I am completely uncool.  I hate trend.  They thought my freedom of the mind equaled untempered hedonism.

Politicizing religion in the bedroom or tryng to sleep with 5 people at once.. all of this desperate action exhibits the real sadness… few of us feel loved exactly the way that feels best for us, and it’s always easy to criticize or politicize some sex trend, to ease that sense of being alone, to distract ourself from being the only person that truly gets us.  Yes that’s right… we are the only person that truly gets ourselves. No amount of positive media attention, no amount of lovers, can cure it.

My name is Jaimee, and I like boring things….

Ughh

I will playing live music March 30th, in Calgary at the Cornerstone Music Cafe

12
Jan

Our Generations’ Racism: Sexual Arrogance

My ethnic make up is half caucausian and half chinese, however I don’t look very asian unless you look closely. My eyes are not hudded, my hair is brown, curly and full with red highlights and my skin, perhaps caucasian or asian is almost translucently white and not yellowish at all. I often envied my sister who had long raven black sleek hair and darker colored skin. Growing up people thought she was anything but white but could not place her accurately, East Indian, Arabic, Hawaiian. And for me well I was clearly white, however when people got closer to me they would begin to examine my features and pronounce me “Not quite white”. Something about my “whiteness” was off.

I never considered any of this thought racist, it was curious but had no sense of judgement, or negativity about it. In fact, when white people caught themselves asking about my race they’d become sheepish, apologetic, sorry even. Chinese people who’d notice would point at me and say “you’re a halfy”, emotionless, and then keep walking along without stopping or considering the pointing rude.

I have never really experienced racism in the Sydney Poitier kind of way. Never really been denied opportunity or access because of my “not quite whiteness” and mixes are not in great vogue at the moment! My father had experienced quite a lot of racism, both from Chinese people, white people and black people, (he grew up in Jamaica).

I have however understand that for some caucasian men there exists a “sexual preference” of women that is very superficial and often includes large generalities based on race. I like to call this preference arrogance. There is no accountability in this sexual arrogance, that the man using it maybe un-worldly, uneducated, or stupid, their generalistic, masogynistic statements about what color of women they find sexually preferable is argued to be just an aspect of freedom of speech, even if it has racial language in it which is comparable to the way white slave sellers and owners used to describe black slaves’ physical and facial features 300 years ago. Each one of my ex boyfriends, all caucasian had made statements that had a tone of sexul arrogance in it.

“I’m attracted to white and asian women, black women tend to have “primitive and heavy” features they look more masculin.”

“I’m attracted to asian, white and hispanic women however I don’t like the look of aboriginal women and black women, they look more man-ish, and you don’t want to think you’re sleeping with a man.”

All of these boyfriends came from other places in the country but I had met them in Calgary which is a conservative 1 Millionin population- big city.

As this racism put my kind (asian and white) in the “favorable” position to be liked by the arrogant white guy, I had a hard time understanding how the statement was a offensive to me. Then I understood that the language of the statement although seemingly racist was nothing more the masogynistic.

I find it hard to believe watching how much men fall crazy in love or more so in lust after beatitful women that any man would ignore his sexual feelings simply because of race. Still to this day no one quite knows what Jessica Alba’s ethnic make up is, with her dark skin and dark eyes, but most men…Calgarian or not would not turn her down. These are no longer the Victorian days or the days where “good breeding” is a term or a behavior that’s considered anything but archaic.

I also could not imagine a beautiful black women, let’s say Beyonce, finding anything attractive about these arrogant, probably smaller penis-ed (relative to what she’s used to) men. I found the statement laughable at best but completely uncomfortable.

While I lived in Montreal I experienced a culture where most women were far more attractive then men. This was in part that men in Montreal often had less money and less opportunity than the more affluent men found in Calgary. Also the ethnicities attracted to Montreal, french speaking africans, algerians, french, portugese, eastern european, created quite a mix of beautiful people and women, in beautiful setting.

Where Calgary men are encouraged to act more “American” or “Canadian” there is still the prevaling idea that one’s wife, if of another ethnicity is “exotic” and not… the girl next door (also an offensive term to any girl not purely white). Although the english, Candian men might find the exotic girl more attractive she is still “foreign” if not beautiful, and not home-home on the range enough. Or so I gather is the thinking?

Beautiful women exist in all races all cultures the 2 most beutiful women I had ever seen were Arabic and East Indian, (in Montreal of course) , and falling in love has no racial lines. Men are only setting themselves up for failure trying to keep their gene pool in one area, so why is there a convention to denegrade women out of sexual preference?

To bond, political with woman whose ethnic backgrounds appear politicall stronger and more similar. To political ally with an asian or causasian people more, as they are considered the most affluent on a poltical cultural scale. The statements are more political in nature then personal. All the cultures and races mentioned as being “not as desirable” are cultures where there is higher rates of domestic violence, more single parent families, less opportunity to post-secondary opportubity and higher rates of teenage pregnancy…. correction, in Alberta there is the higher amound of sexual assault reported than in any other part of the country… and that has no racial lines to it. But the point is the statement is political.

And this is why I find these particular white men on their white horses so offensive? These women may already have striked against them, let’s just keep them down there and call them ugly….. ?

I suppose I also consider these “personal opinions” arrogant as my own father travelled outside of his race to find a mate. However he did this in a political fashion too. My father said, “My mother wanted to set me up with an asian girl, no way, no way, I’m not following all the asian practices and customs, I’m in Canada now.”

Even, positive, perhaps men always believe they are marrying into a culture and political position with a female. As ex morman, white as rice friend Max had put it. “White guys who won’t go for black women are so stupid, when black women gain weight it’s far more propertional than white women, and their skin is seemingly always flawless.”

Perhaps the male mind, positive or negative about races always has a masogynist political tone in it, which sees the culture of person before it understand that person as an individual.

And although I find my exes, if anything unworldly, unwise, and totally stupid… for these comments I also note, that all of my exes are white…. perhaps saying something about my preferences or saying something about where I think power lies in racial politics. It says something about my sexual arrogance.

Jaimee

9
Jan

Upcoming Gigs

Cornerstone Music Cafe- - Saturday Afternoon, January 19th 2013, 3:30-5:00 pm Featured guest of Czarkology

Cornerstone Music Cafe- Saturday Afternoon, March 30th 2013, 3:30-5:00 pm, featuring violinist, Eileen Kosaki

28
Nov

Relationships are Hard

Relationships are hard. Human ones at least. My relationship with Guinea Pig is quite simple. My guinea pig’s priorities are fairly simple. She likes to eat and she likes to be petted and cuddled as long as you don’t touch her face.

These are things I can do for a guinea pig. They are simple not complex, not politically or psychologically complex ornate ambitions, my guinea pig has, just simple needs. But still even with Petunia my Guinea Pig I still screw things up with her from time to time no matter how simple her needs are or are not.

After staying up late last night, and sleeping inappropriately over at my new friends condo, I showed up to take care of Petunia, tired, disheveled, and feeling ashamed. Before I entered into my apartment Petunia had remodeled her cage, which had kicked hay outside of it, the 2nd level (her dinning room area) she had bucked from the ground level and it had toppled over in the middle of the cage making it difficult for her to move around, she had a look on her little sweet mouse face that read. “WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU! I GOT HUNGRY, I WANTED ATTENTION AND NEEDED TO HAVE A PET, YOUR A TERRIBLE MUM”

I felt ashamed. But instead of just atoning my sin to her I started to get reactionary and defensive. Maybe Petunia doesn’t “get” me maybe she’s not the right guinea pig for me, maybe she’s not my true soulmate.

My relationships with people are “private” so I won’t write about them, though relationships and the laughter they have all produced have wrinkled the corners of my lips from smiling and have softened the bags around my eyes from crying proof of their successes and failures as well as my lack of an even temper. My face is map of all the histories, the miscommunications, the moments of connection and the tearfulness of disappointments.

At work a colleague who has oppositional political points of view from me was nit picking and finding criticisms in my work and teaching, which were unfounded (he admitted) and in life, boys had started to get fidgety and moody around me, as well as scornful. I had no idea why I was running into such conflicts. I wasn’t any different than I had been 3 months ago when I so men mostly looking at other women, and when my colleague and I still enjoyed coffee cooler conversation. And I thought, why does anyone care what I think anyway. Most of the time I’m just put down for being expressive different and irreverent. Why all the fuss… poor me. I’m the one he feels the affects of other people’s power, and I’m not famous and in this generation that’s our life long goal. And then it hit me.

Human beings don’t realize how much power and influence they have on others. I don’t realize how much power and influence I have on others. I get so trapped fearing and self pitying feeling the affects of feeling powerless and not connecting to media moguls who I’M TOLD have power, that I don’t realize that I have power. The colleague of mine who was so offended was so because he respected my opinion. He wanted some validation from me, he honored me enough to care. If he didn’t value my opinion he wouldn’t have held a torch against me banging me over the head with criticism trying to get it from me. The boys… well.. they were moody because they wanted to have an effect on me, because I had an effect on them… I know I’m a bit slow.

I realized that the people who often have the biggest problems with us don’t hate us because they don’t care, they hate us because they can’t seem to stop caring. Making things confusing, complex.

Now I now that we have stereotypes in the media, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, those Twilight Films, which are supposed to represent power, relevance, importance, but all of those moguls have an institutional power and temporary. On a one on one level, who knows if that power is still there… it’s more mysterious than commercial, and our own inner power is something we can’t see outside of ourselves. It radiates from us like an aura, and it does the strangest things, turning people who never you;ve never noticed watching you before into fans, turning trusted colleagues against each other and turning Jaimee Lee-Baggley into a depthful optimist. The true sign of powerlessness is not when people hate you, it’s when no one does.

PS I have some new gigs booked please check out on this page

http://jaimeelee.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=9&action=edit

18
Sep

The Relevance of 15 Minutes of Fame: What grabs our attention and what doesn’t

Honey Honey Boo Boo… count 5 seconds starting at 5 and counting down to 1, and allow the rage, frustration and curiosity which serge in your blood and take over your thoughts, “stupid show”, “how some things, get on TV”, “some people”, yes all the judgement that comes out of frustration at reality TV Show which at the same time entertains us and takes over out attention.

Kate, from John and Kate plus 8…. Really, no hatred, no heart pounding, “will she stop being such a b*&^% already?”, “over and done with, her fifteen minutes of fame”, “I forgot about that, all very silly in the first place.”

Kate Plus 8 still makes me madder than Honey Honey. I’ll tell you why.

The trendy all consuming Honey Honey Boo Boo, mass social frustration is only this way because the show is relevant to our times. Toni Morrison had spoke of reality TV as “our day’s public lynchings” , people used to go to public lynchings simply because they could not divert there eyes away from the horror, and it is nothing different than to watched reality TV personality, people who have not shown any sign, of accomplishments, ability or integrity and who get attention, for most often being bad.

But in the days of public lynchings we knew it was wrong.. or maybe with prevalent racist and class structured attitudes people didn’t. With Honey Honey Boo Boo no one is dying, but the prevalent attitude is one of disgust sometimes following resignation that these days if you exploit yourself enough you will be more rewarded than if you accomplished great things.

Okay… immorality aside Honey Honey Boo is not important in itself it’s important in the way that people react to it. In Adrien Grenier’s (Entourage’s star) documentary about a young paparrazzi who followed him (worth watching) he learned that the qhole cult of celebrity is a way for people to come together and focus on values, attitudes and trends, represented by the celebrities as a way to bond and as a way to discuss abstract, but relevant changes in the society.

the focus on Angelina Jolie Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston has absolutely nothing to do with them, it could have been any other group of actors (how appropriate) who could have played the roles of a marriage broken up by a beauty and all the surrounding judgements, fears, and comments that go a long with it. For women who fear any beautiful woman around their man, the event of the dissolution of the Aniston Pitt marriage validated the fears of those women. For women, like me, who are often scorned for being unconventional, rebellious, passionate, arguably attractive (this is arguable) and very willing to buck societies traditions to be the man you truly love and truly loves you, well we had reason to hope.

Something about us as a society needs to have stories told in front of us which act out our fears and intuitions. It allows us to take our attitudes and psychologies and remove them from ourselves and see them before our eyes. Basically we all at times need to live vicariously to understand ourselves better.

Back to Honey Honey… why is it so relevant. Because children of the 2000s plus are the day and age of self exploitation. Bullying now not only happens at school but it happens on Youtube, Myspace and facebook. Children have 2 worlds to live in a virtual one and real one it is unlike any other generation before it and there is no wisdom from days of yours which can help our children through this virtual double life. They need to figure out themselves.

Enter to stage left Honey Honey, with poor health regimes, and a self described white trash family where the pig in the family is the only living thing which is not overweight, Honey Honey is trash, and we can all agree and throw stones. To me the trash is actually none of my business, poverty is something every one can laugh at til it happens to them, and often people learn great resourcefulness and empathy through over coming it. So that’s an easy blow to take.

It’s the idea that the child may know have enough money to go to University through exploiting the family’s privacy which is the scarier thought.

Would you want your child’s childhood out there for everyone to judge if it gave them greater opportunities and wealth in return?

Hard question to answer.

Psychology comes in to questions, social issues about parenting and exploitation as well as questions about the American Economy and weather or not it is a success for being one of the only places on earth where this stuff can happen or for being an utter failure for having the exploitation of children be one of the few ways, these days, you can create wealth.

All of these harder to answer questions are pressing, and they stur in us fear and for me, curiosity. It is also a sign of how our generation compared to the last is drastically different.

I did not proof read this article before publishing it, sorry for the typos and stupidness of my spelling made up words such as stupidness I must go to work now, so I’ll proof it later if I remember

Love
Jaimee

1
Sep

Visit to the US Divergence and No Sense of Shame

Recently I visited Santa Monica and the small norther city of Agoura Hills in California. I really enjoyed my visit. I’ve always found the US to be an interesting country. A country of extremes, in Santa Monica walking opposites decorated the streets. Huge billboards advertising up and coming TV shows and movies getting ready to launch with celebrity faces of Mathew Perry’s, Chelsea Handler, or Will Smith, cloud your vision of the sky as hundreds of want-a-be famous singers and aspiring actors buzz around the streets like ants quickly going to their day jobs as waiters and waitresses, tour guides and shop girls.

Beautiful and vain couples, couples who epitomize the American dream, and for goodness sakes, my own personal fantasies Aphrodite and Andonis’ as well as manicured already physically tuned human specimens entering the gym, contrast the grim reality of the homeless people, tired, broken, dirty, hoping for another hit or another chance who cover the coast of Santa Monica like salt covers corn on the cob. There are homages to Elvis Presley. James Dean and Marylin Monroe, people America won’t let us forget-ever, dancing in the eyes of nameless citizens who just want one day of knowing what being memorable and famous feels like.

The US is lively and optimistic, despite very pessimistic times, the city buzzes and in Santa Monica I met many friendly people, one woman even gave me a ride home after I shared a drink with her. Few people took their jobs too seriously there and nothing felt too awkward nor too stuffy. I think in a city filled with people who came from some place else to become something or someone else or something HUGE, it definately attracted people who could recognize others who had the courage to dream.

But for a country so in favor of sponsoring individuality and off of that independence it’s also a place of frightening hypocritical.

It is depressing a country which founds itself on personal freedom and liberty of an Individual which also has a history of enslaving a whole race of people. And it always feels like that history haunts the citizens of the US as it wasn’t that long ago. The US has a history of affording “Universal Rights” to a select group of people. The history fundamental of the racial divide is evident, with many people criticizing Barack Obama for his race alone and displaying alarming no shame in the blatant racist statement. To head off intense political debate on my statement, there are many who criticize his character or leadership before his race, I’m just amazed at the nerve of people who flat out say. “I don’t like him as a President, it doesn’t help that he’s black.”

After watching the Republican Conventions surprise entertainment of a non lucid, brilliant and always defiant Clint Eastwood, a man I like even more after he performed a slightly absurd incoherent soliloquy to a chair (Aspiring actors take notes, that’s a risk!) I started to ask myself why are they distracting us with silly entertainment? Oh right, they don’t want to talk about the scarier things the Republican party supports;

The Republican dude who even the most right wing of groups tried to distance themselves from who suggested that rape of women is totally not rape at all and that women’s bodies can magically reject rapes as they happen! The attempt by civil organizers with Republican sympathies to force elections to only allow people with visual IDs to vote, in effect cancelling out the vote of the poor and some black citizens who don’t have visual ID such as driver’s licenses or Passports.. (think about it can you imagine the homeless having a pass port or driver’s license?) People who demographically tend to vote democratic (as a group).

Republicans in this day and age specifically, (Nixon and Regan is another beast) get to have power as individuals, as long as no one else gets to have their same freedoms. Like you know pillagers who are bigger than you and therefore get to steel your food. Arguably their power is not embedded in the personal freedoms of human rights as their constitution stipulates, their freedoms are a bullying attempt to take away the freedoms of others like a militia would. As a unite, indivisible, a group of people like minded and NOT filled with individuals. People grouping together off of common christian beliefs, racial backgrounds and social demographics and most importantly fear and hatred. A party formed off of uniformity versus a party which is fighting for an individual (such as homeless person) to have a voice in society, despite society’s scrutiny. This is particularly apparent in the Republicans attempts to force visual IDs during the voting process. Sneaky sneaky are the snakes.

Now please don’t get on my case about being a leftist… seriously I’m not, there were many times the Republican party wasn’t super scary, but as any group of people fearful their way of life is at risk they are fighting dirty and it’s scary.

Most of the people I spoke to in the states about politics completely wash their hands of believing any of their politicians blue or red have any credibility or integrity. My uncle would try to by pass the conversation with a big sigh, even young people, most often the most oblivious roll their eyes and discount the dark thoughts they have in their heads concerning the political chaos which is the states.

But as I still really like the states, and the states should like me because I go down there and buy into their American tourist industry (don’t try to black list me any of you sneaky Republicans, you need my Canadian dollar, ….don’t do it, finger shaking) I will say that part of the reason the states is interesting and palpable an experience is because of it’s volatile nature. The shamelessness in the freedom of expression used to express the comment “I don’t like Obama cause he’s black” shows a lack of self consciousness one would see in overly polite Canada or the restrained and the critically reserved UK. As a Canadian my whole sense of heritage develops from a British desire to look back into history, to be sage and wise and learn from the mistakes of former societies, older ones. In the US people are creating their own history and such civil life is more of an experiment rather than a tradition. The fight to distinguish Universal Rights for the rich versus for the masses will continue, he US has no frame of historical reference to look back to predict the next turn of it’s fate. Audacious, which the show Honey Honey Boo Boo and it’s success at exploiting the poor shows that instead of sense of shame the US is defiant in it’s sense of divergence, even if the divergence is unwise, hypocritical or in many ways immoral.

I miss you Santa Monica, you were one of my favorite mistresses

Jaimee

8
Aug

Twitter Updates for 2012-08-08

  • American team leader for soccer Abby whatever is a cheater, I hope she doesn't sleep at night, cheater, cheater, cheater, cheater, cheater #
  • The poorly and unfair game between Canada and US yesterday was terrible. Clearly soccer is more of a monarchy instead of a meritocracy #
  • Keep your head held high Canadian soccer team, the Americans didn't play well they were dirty, unfair and deceitful. Not people to respect #