It's All About Perception

A few weeks ago, I made a comment on Facebook, stating my beliefs in the (then) hottest court trial in the world, the Amber Heard / Johnny Depp Defamation Court Case.  I never blatantly chose a side.  I only stated that I believed Amber Heard.  Well, you'd think that I had murdered a puppy on a live stream, given all the f*cking hate that was directed my way.  Seems the world only sees things in black and white, not shades of grey.

People claimed that Heard was "acting" on the witness stand and that her facts were getting jumbled, but given the fact that she's trying to recount occasions where she felt threatened or abused, all the while, the man who (allegedly) victimized her, is shooting dirty hateful looks her way, is going to rattle even the strongest of wills.

I'm familiar with abuse.  Both physical and mental and though I'm not a psychologist or anything alike, I think I can recognize it.  Many people are lucky enough to never have experienced an abusive partner or parent and good for them.  They're among the lucky ones, but I grew up in an alcoholic family, my dad, more specifically and life as a kid was not all rainbows and sunshine.  I can recall on many occasions when I stepped off the school bus and saw that he was home.  Then it was a crap shoot.  Either he'd be sober or drunk and if he were the latter, f*cking watch out!!

The abuse wasn't always physical, though I do have some scars to prove otherwise.  Sometimes, I think the physical abuse would have been preferred. Scars heal, but mental wounds seldom do.  I'm not claiming that Johnny Depp was a monster, beating his spouse about, but sometimes, the mental anguished thrust upon a partner is overwhelming.  Leaves scars that people and loved ones never get to see.  And again, I'm not claiming Depp to be a monster, but maybe he could be mean sometimes.

I've always called it, "The Jekyll & Hyde Syndrome".  My dad, when sober, was the greatest man on Earth.  He was happy, jovial, always ready for a laugh and generous, like no other.  Sometimes people would take advantage of his kindness, but when he got the drink in him.  Sucked back a few brewski's or a 26oz bottle of whisky, ho-ly f*ck, the monster would come out and you'd not wanna be around the man.  I feel terrible revealing this factoid about the man, considering in his final few years, he was sober and attending a few A.A. Meetings and he was the sweetest man you'd ever be lucky enough to cross paths with.

All those years of tip-toeing around and being on the receiving end of threats, beatings and just plain mental hockey, I doubt anyone around me would have ever suspected.  It's all about perception.  If people haven't the experience with something, chances are, they're not going to recognize it.

I don't think Johnny Depp is a bad guy.  I like him.  He's a fantastic actor and seems pretty cool in interviews, but when laced with alcohol and drugs, who the f*ck knows what he's like?  It may be the Jekyll & Hyde Syndrome, all over again.

I only watched one episode of some show on CNN that recounted the days events.  It showed video of Depp, speaking calmly, but I sensed some ominous tone to his voice, all the while, he's slamming cupboard doors and swearing and throwing shit about.  Never laid a hand on Amber in that video, but the overtones of his actions were obvious.  I outweigh Depp by about 40lbs and tower a couple of inches over the guy, but I'd be intimidated if the guy was behaving this way around me.

There's a guy in my class, right now.  He's from what he claims is 'The Eastern Bloc', but the Russian accent is a dead give away.  He's always rude to me and snaps at me constantly.  I've confronted him once on it, addressing it respectively, but it fell on deaf ears.  He continues to be rude and I take great offense to his attitude toward me.  I mentioned it to my instructor, who laughed it off and claims to not notice it.  His perception doesn't matter, only mine, in this situation.  Maybe the fella doesn't even realize that he's being a dick to me.  Maybe in his culture, this is the way they treat others.  I used to work with a fellow from the Ukraine and he'd treat me like complete dogshit, until he needed a favour or a ride home.  Same thing.

Maybe there's that guy in your office or workplace who tells off colour jokes.  He does it to be funny, never thinking that he's making others uncomfortable, but all it takes is one person to perceive the humour as aggressive or offensive, to make in inappropriate.

I had an instructor, years ago, in a Parts Management class.  She refused to call a grease nipple, grease nipple.  Apparently, nipple was offensive to her and she preferred the term 'grease zerk'.  I never knew it as a zerk and in the years since, when I call them zerks, nobody knows what the f*ck I'm talking about.  Whatever, I'm off topic.

The fact that Amber Heard was ruled against, that her mental status was not taken into consideration and that all her claims of mental and physical abuse was denied, is offensive.  Yes, she's a celebrity, but so what?  She's a human being, first and foremost.  I believe her.  I sympathize with her.  And I'm ashamed to be a man, in some sense, because she was victimized all over again.  Having to recount moments where she felt she was a victim of abuse, only to be shunned and abused further by the populous.  I just hope she can bounce back from this.

On Facebook, all I said was: As a person who was abused mentally and physically, I believe Amber Heard.  That's all I said and I received about 80 negative comments that were nasty.  Just plain nasty and rude and abusive.  I'd click on some of the profiles of those ripping into me and I couldn't believe some of the quotes on their profile.  "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."  Or "I keep an open mind and listen to all opinions because they matter."   Bullshit, like that.  Ever single person contradicted themselves and wrote some of the most hateful shit I've read on social media in ages. Why do they call it 'social media' when it's the most anti-social concept in history? 🤔

I've never considered myself an overly nice person.  I can act appropriately when I need to, but life has beaten the shit out of me and I'm not always the nicest guy.  There'll be people, friends and acquaintances who'll claim this statement false, but like the make-up of a clown, I've learned to hide the pain and the strife.  Much like growing up, nobody knew what horrors were happening at home, until that one fateful day that I showed up to school with two black eyes and a broken nose.  Should've seen the people kissing my ass that day.

As stated a paragraph ago, I'm not the nicest fella, but I don't believe that I suffer from Jekyll & Hyde Syndrome, either.  I'm nice until I feel pressured to not be so nice.  A character flaw, perhaps, or maybe it's a result of a troubled childhood.  Don't know.  Don't care.  It's just something I work on daily, just like I try to keep my childhood demons at bay.

Bullshit!!

There's a whole lot of hype, right now, calling for the closure of Sea World, due to it's unethical treatment of their marine life.  CNN aired the documentary, Blackfish, this past weekend and as bad as people thought the treatment of the orcas was, the reality is a hell of a lot worse.  Everyday people are up in arms about the cruelty bestowed upon dogs, cat, birds, turtles, snakes and a menagerie of other creatures great and small.  Barnum and Bailey recently announced that they'd be phasing out the animal acts, due to mismanagement and poor treatment of animals, although I would venture a guess and say that it's more financial than anything else.  Whatever the reason, it's nice to get out of subjecting these animals to unusual behaviors not displayed in nature.

Calgary Stampede is one of the largest spectacles on Earth.  All cowboy-related events.  I've never attended the Calgary Stampede, nor would I ever.  I can't wrap my head around the logic (or illogic, rather) of riding a horse really fast around barrels or roping a f*cking calf.  The latter may be necessary for large cattle ranches looking to catch offspring for branding or tagging, but why make a big f*cking show around it?  What are those poor calves thinking?  Constantly running and up down, up down, up down.  F*ck off, already!!

Bronco busting....  Okay.  I'd imagine manly men since the beginning of time have been egging each other on, waging money and honour to those ballsy enough to climb on the biggest baddest steed and ride that motherf*cker until it's spirit is broken and can be ridden from that point on, but bull riding?  When and where, in time, was it ever necessary to ride a motherf*cking bull?!?

All these butt-reaming idiots, with their ten gallon idiot hats pulled down under their chins, desperately clinging on for dear life for eight seconds.  Eight f*cking seconds.  These cowboys march around with hubcap belt buckles, acting like they're the manliest of men, but they're willing to only hold on for less than a sixth of a minute?  Firemen are frickin' lunatics, but they're more manly because they  run into fires 'n' shit, but no.  Cowboys are the toast of the town.  Bullshit!!

Nowadays, I see those stupid motherf*ckers have cast aside their gay-as-f*ck cowboy hats, for full on helmets with full face shields.  Afraid of injury.  Full helmets and body armour, all to avoid injury.  Ya wanna avoid injury, hero?  Don't f*cking ride a bull, ya dumb bastards!!  Organizers even blunt the end of the bull's horns, for the avoidance of being gored.  Where's the danger, now?

As a naive child, the lion and tiger acts were always my favourite circus acts.  Later, as I aged and matured, I came to resent the trainers and organizations who exploit these poor animals.  One year, at the summer fair in the city, here, they had a tiger act.  The show was outside, which was fine, but between shows, the tigers could be seen locked up in cramped metal cages.  Their tongues wagging outside gaping mouths, heavily panting in the midday sun.  It was horrible.  The people I was in attendance with, wished to stop and watch the show, much to my chagrin. While the crowd encompassing the show area, oohed and aah'd in amazement, I silently wished the tigers would conclude enough is enough and lash out against the trainer, killing him in the process.  Sadly, though, if this were the case, officials would blame the animal, not the human-element.  Blame the wild animal for acting and reacting as they would in their native kingdom, and pay the price with their lives, ultimately.  Given the lives they lead in captivity, perhaps suicide by proxy would be the way to go for these otherwise stunning creatures.

Establishments, like Sea World, would be fine, in my opinion, if they acted more as an educational institution.  Catch and rescue sea life in distress.  Nurse them back to health, educating the public in exchange for monetary gain, to assist in the recuperation of the sickly animals, but shy away from the bullshit dog 'n' pony shows of having the Killer Whales swimming in circles, waving their fins and splashing the crowds, like dancing bears.  Stop the bullshit!!

#ShutDownSeaWorld
#ShutDownCalgaryStampede
#ShutdownAllAnimalActs

The King of Wishful Thinking

It is amazingly stupid, what passes for viable news, sometimes.  Two big stories emblazoned on the media right now, is the Lance Armstrong "juicing" confession that he made to Oprah Winfrey, in her desperate attempt for ratings on her dying O Network.  The other is Notre Dame football star, Manti Te'o allegedly being the victim of an elaborate hoax, in which he carried on a lengthy romantic relationship with a woman who not only died, but apparently never existed to begin with.

As for Lance Armstrong, I really don't see the big deal if he used steroids or not.  Cycling really isn't a sport, per se, so where's the harm?  Athletes and athletic companies continually test to find more aerodynamic and lightweight materials to give themselves a competitive edge, why is a chemical substitution frowned upon?  On drag strips all across this continent, you have people racing their cars with blowers, turbochargers, and Nitrous Oxide Systems (NOS) to give a winning edge, so injecting a substance into one's body should be an acceptable option, too. Besides that, the guy lost one of his testicles to cancer, for f*ck sake.

That might be something to debate in the media and the judicial system, but as for the latter, Manti Te'o having a fake girlfriend who died.  I don't understand why that is considered ground breaking news.  For the last couple of days, on CNN's sister station, Headline News (HLN), the story has been running nonstop.  My opinion is of the position, WHO CARES?  I don't even understand it all.  He (Te'o) apparently met this girl online and carried on a relationship which eventually turned into a boyfriend/girlfriend type relationship in early 2012.  This part is understandable, to a degree.  I think it's a helluva lot easier to fall for someone through text than it is in person.  That wouldn't work for yours truly, as I'm much more of an asshole in print than I am in person.

Manti's "girlfriend", Lennay Kekua, apparently had a bad car accident last summer, but survived.  Then she experienced further bad luck, by being diagnosed with Leukemia which hospitalized her and she eventually succumbed to the brutal disease.  (It sounds like this "chick" has shittier luck than me...)  Manti Te'o had grown so in love with Lennay, that her passing was quite overwhelming.  After that, I don't know what prompted the media to investigate deeper into the existence of Lennay Kekua, but it was quickly discovered that the girl that Manti Te'o was so madly in love with, never actually existed, and therefore the shit storm ensues.

Now it's speculated that Manti, himself, perpetrated the entire ordeal.  Humiliated, he denies all allegations.  But who really gives a f*ck whether he did or not?  Where's the harm in whether he imagined a relationship or not?  If in the process, he inspired some of his fans to donate money towards the research to cure cancer, where's the f*cking harm?  Whether the girlfriend in question, exists or not, cancer is still a motherf*cker of a disease.  I say lie to everyone 'til you're blue in the face, if it means bringing an end to this plague.

Scads of males everyday, go online, find "questionable" (and tasteless) pornographic videos, and for an average of 20 minutes, according to a recent study, pretend to be in a tawdry affair with a skeezy skank.  It happens.  Internet access makes it easy.  No one's proud of it, but it exists.  More so in Washington D.C., according to the research, but it does occur everywhere...

With much more important issues in the world.  Continuous poverty and unemployment; war in the middle east; whether or not North Korea is aiming any nuclear weapons towards North America; or most importantly right now, gun issues, like why is it so easy for the mentally unstable to acquire weapons, or why it's necessary and important for people to possess not one or two guns, but a complete f*cking arsenal of weapons, all because the constitution declares it.  (Talk about "artistic license".)

Even in the time that it's taken for me to tap out these few words, I've overheard some stupid stories covered on the television that I've left on in the other room.  I suppose when you run a 24-hour news channel, you need to air a lot of fluff to fill those empty spaces.

The comment I read in researching this story that I found the most absurd was "Even though Kekua never existed, Te'o's grandmother Annette Santiago did pass away on September 11, 2012."  As if someone would be cagey enough to fake the death of a family member.

God Has A Sense Of Humour

On my refrigerator, I have a cartoon that I cut out of the newspaper a few years ago. It's faded and turned yellow, and the corners are beginning to curl up, but I never want to get rid of the cartoon, because as humorous as it is, it also rings an astounding truth. It depicts God on a talk show. He replies to the host's question about his greatest creation. "I think my best creation was the Sense of Humor. The irony, of course, is that the people who claim to believe in me the most, are the ones least likely to have one..."

I learned this morning on CNN, that the idiots at the Westboro Baptist Church, are planning on protesting the funeral of the late-Jackass star, Ryan Dunn. The sickened me, as why can't these f*cking people leave well enough alone?

For those unfamiliar with these rude and obnoxious assh*les, let me refresh your memory. These are the people who protest military funerals, stating that the soldiers "deserved to die", that they died, because "America is soft on gays" and so on, and so on. If you google them, you will see a wide variety of shit that they oppose. They protested John Edwards' late wife who died from breast cancer, they held signs up high that read, "Thank God for Breast Cancer!" Just like they hold up signs praising the 9/11 tragedy, and thank God for war and other stupid shit. Ironic that they protest the funerals of the men and women who are fighting for the very freedom that they are abusing.

Because this conglomeration of idiots and fools, disapproved of the crazy and zany antics and stunts that Ryan Dunn partook in while participating on the Jackass television show and movies, they are claiming that he "deserved to die", and that he's "currently in Hell". I really doubt this is the case.

I'm by no means a religious person, and it's f*ckheads like these folks that make wanting to be a part of any religion a tough call, BUT...! I believe that IF there is a higher power, then that dude has one helluva sense of humour! I look at the Platypus and think, this dude is one hilarious f*cking guy!!! So that being said, I'm sure that God is sitting atop a cloud, somewhere in the heavens, laughing at the guy who stuck a toy car up his ass and went to the doctor for an x-ray!!!

These people..., if you can call them that. The Westboro Baptist Church. They gotta show some f*ckin' respect. They didn't like it a while back when a former military man began stalking them, doing to them, the very shit they've been thrusting onto others. In fact, they had the man arrested and charged. Pretty ballsy, huh?

I can't help but wonder about the consequences of their protest. I've got all of Bam Margera's "Viva La Bam" on DVD. I've seen some of the heinous shit that he's pulled on his friends and family. And he loves them. What do you think Bam Margera, who's a multi-millionaire, might be capable of, in regards to those who would desecrate the memory of one of his best friends...? I think Dunn was more like a family member, than a friend. I think the Westboro clan may be in for some serious shit. To coin the phrase from his show, "Who knows what Bam might do?" "Whatever the f*ck, I want!!"

Look out f*ckers!!!