Category: Editorials

I’m Becoming My Parents

Posted on by Rocco

I am going to start frequenting McDonald’s again, very soon. I haven’t been to one in years. Actually, it’s been decades since I’ve felt any kind of warmth towards the oppressive and insidious fast-food chain. Yet, already, I know I am going to love it.

It’s true, I used to hate it.

But times change. People grow up and gain new perspective.

They have a baby, in fact, and find themselves in a sea of hip cappuccino bars and pocket-sized restaurants with leaky washrooms, unable to find a single sympathetic or welcoming face peering up from a second-hand book about Nietzsche, or the latest issue of McSweeney’s. It’s amazing: young trendy people are most likely to support public breastfeeding, however, they are the least likely to actually want a woman to sit beside them and breastfeed.

My hatred of all things Ronald wasn’t always the way. As a child, McDonald’s was a second home. That, and Ponderosa, with its all-you-can-eat salad bar. The story goes that I was once a skinny little kid with very picky tastes. The Big Mac, as it turned out, saved my soul and fattened me up to the relief of my parents. From then on, it was a Big Mac and large fries for me every Friday night, at least until I became a teenager.

That’s when I began to hear things about anti-foaming chemicals in the Chicken McNuggets, and how the 100% pure beef patties were processed by a company actually given the name 100% Pure Beef Inc. It was then I began to seek sustenance elsewhere. Amazing: as a teenager, I would smoke cigarettes and raid my parents’ liquor cabinet on a weekly basis. I would often get in at 4:00 AM and get up at 6:00 AM for work. I would, in essence, punish my body on a regular basis, yet I was squeamish and morally outraged over the quality of the meats at MacDonald’s.

It wasn’t just that though. To me, McDonald’s was a family restaurant. And to me, family meant two things: boring and predictable. I couldn’t understand it. Why didn’t my parents ever do anything fun or spontaneous? Why did they watch so much TV? Why did they go to bed earlier and were always worried about money and were obsessed with buying things? Why couldn’t they be more like Robin Williams character in Dead Poets’ Society, and a little less like that hardass father in the same movie who stops his son from becoming a theatre actor and living out his dream? Why were my parents so boring?

It took becoming a parent to figure this out. The answer to why my parents – through my jaded teenage-eyes – were never very spontaneous, I could have learned by looking into any mirror.

I have a six-month old, and I haven’t done anything spontaneous in six months.

That’s not true. We did something on the spur of the moment about two months ago. And on that dark we learned about the dark side of spontaneity. We went for a walk on a cloudy Sunday and strayed a little too far from home. We soon found ourselves in Greek town in the pouring rain. Of course, all the cafes were full, so our only choice was a little sushi restaurant.

At the start, everything was fine. It was just like the old days when Lisa and I would sample sushi and grimace (well me, anyway) when any adult with a child would venture into the establishment. Ava, at first, was behaving so well (“She is so cool!” I thought), we ordered the buffet special. You know, the one with the strict rules about having to pay regular price for any un-eaten items and not being about to take anything home in a doggy bag?

Right after we ordered, the melt-down occurred.

We spent the next twenty minutes, taking turns walking Ava to the bathroom and back between trying to stuff our mouths with as much sushi as our chopsticks could carry. In a blink of an eye, we had become THOSE people with the screaming kid in a cool hip restaurant. The exact kind, as a young hip twenty-something, I would looked at with cold unwelcoming eyes and thought: why don’t you act your age and quit trying to relive your youth!

It was that during that afternoon that I finally understood who my parents were being “boring” for. Before we had Ava, whenever I was posed with the question “what would you do if you had only six months to live?”, my immediate response was to travel the world and have as much fun as possible. Now, however, six-months into parenthood, my response is to simply work my butt off in order make sure our kid has a secure future, and during the downtime, do whatever she wants to do, even if it means spending my last few days on earth going to Mcdonald’s, Ponderosa, and just about any Chinese restaurant.

Five New Year’s Resolutions I’ve Already Broken

Posted on by Rocco

1. I will cut out the weekend smoking. I tried, really. It lasted about two hours, then I had my first cigarette of the year at around 2:00 AM. About a decade ago, I disciplined myself into drinking only one night a week and smoking only when I drink. At the time, compartmentalizing, and therefore minimizing these vices was a great idea. However, like most people, I tend to deal with and eradicate problems only when they grow to a certain size. You’ve by now heard the expression “too big to fail”, yes? Well there’s a counter-point to that expression: “too small to bother with, even though this tiny little thing will kill me, or so my annoying ex-smoker friends tell me with their judgey eyes and, mind you, who should be more concerned with their own issues thank you very much and who the hell invited you over anyways?”

2. I will cut out the weekend drinking. I had planned on this being a dry New Year’s. But it was all Lisa’s fault. She suggested I go get a bottle of wine just in case. No, wait. She INSISTED I get some, if I recall correctly. Personally, between you and me, I think she likes it when I get tipsy, especially when we go to parties at her friends’ places. I can’t really understand this, because none of her friends really drink or smoke the way I do. The dominant theory I have for this is that in marrying my wife, I found the only person in the world, aside from myself, that thinks I adopt the charming cadence of Peter O’Toole when I’m a few sheets to the wind.

3. I will cut back on the gaming. Sorry. Again, I tried. But I’m the father of a 4-month old with bills to pay. Taking short vacations into the world of Skyrim just makes good economic sense right now.

4. I will eat better. This one went up in smoke the moment my sister offered me meat Samosa the size of a Bearclaw this afternoon. So carby, so oily, so good.

5. I will not swear at other drivers. Ummm, yeah: five minutes into the drive to my sister’s house this afternoon. To be honest, it was the spirit of this resolution that persuaded me to let the TTC bus pull ahead of me. Since I had never done this before, I was shocked to learn just how slow buses are. I mean, hair-pullingly slow. I couldn’t help but think that the bus driver was doing it deliberately because he knew I was late to my sister’s, not to mention the fact that I was starving because of New Year’s Resolution number four. Anyhoo, I swore, and it -as usual- felt mildly satisfying.

Almost as satisfying as rationalizing my way out of a series of unfortunate, and rather boring, new year’s resolutions.

Happy New Year!

 
 

An Open Job Application to the National Post

Posted on by Rocco

Dear Human Resources Department.

My name is Rocco de Giacomo, and I am a published poet, blogger and personal essayist. I have always been a fan of your newspaper and I am very interested in becoming a full-time editorialist on your staff. Please note that the National Post is the first website I visit in the morning and the last one I read before I turn in after a long day. I believe, after many years of reading your opinion columns, that I have what it takes to make great contributions to your team. Did I mention that I am a fabulous team player?

To be honest, the idea of acquiring gainful employment at your publishing enterprise is a recent one, but make no mistake, yours is the only newspaper in Canada that I have wanted write for. Although I am also a fan of the editorials in The Globe and The Star, their columns seem so bland, without an ounce of punch. For my part, what interests me is anything strident, combative and totally from the hip, so to speak. In other words, a man talks about a cure for cancer: snore city; but if he beats up the whole orchestra, I’ll read it! And nothing too involved or complicated! I hate it when things get complex – that makes my head hurt!

As I said, my decision to join your ranks is a recent one. Though thinking about it, it must have been brewing in the back of my head for a while. I remember reading Barbara Kay’s piece on male circumcision, “A painless, live-saving surgery” – Ouch! Just kidding; it’s painless! Anyway, there’s a part where she says that though circumcision is known to reduce sexual pleasure later on in life, in her opinion this is a good thing because it would reduce male promiscuity and make them more inclined to stay in long-term, meaningful relationships. Well, I have to tell you, when I read that, I thought to myself “hey Rocco, wouldn’t that have been a fun and easy thing to write? Just punch in whatever comes to mind and blammo! Paycheque!” Then there was the time when I was reading a column by Rex Murphy – host for the government–funded CBC Radio, commentator for the government-funded CBC Television, and an all around self-reliant SOB who would never take a dime from Big Government! Well, he had written an column entitled The Heroism of the Unsung Self, and in it he reminisces about the Canadians of old, and how tough and rugged and independent they were and how if we could only get these lazy bums off the government teat – my word, not Rex’s! – they’d toughen up and be able to build a boat with their bare hands like some old guy he knew back home. Well, gosh. I read that and I was like “hey Rocco, the boss just gives you a blank cheque and a Dell laptop and says ‘have at her, hoss’. Awesome!”

But what really made me shout “sign me up!” was this week’s column by Tasha Kheiriddin, The welfare state isn’t pleasing anyone, where she theorizes that all these government programs have made Canadians politically apathetic and spoiled, and if we could only scale back Big Government, then all these welfare-collecting couch potatoes would be forced to get off their butts and get involved! A phenomenal theory and thank God Tasha said “screw it” and posted that bad boy before she did any fact-checking. If she had, she might have learned that the Netherlands – a far better example of a nanny state than Canada – has a voter turnout of 75%, while the US – the Grand Poobah of small-government states – has a turnout hovering around 40% (Canada’s turnout is smack-dab in the middle, around 60%). Now, having to take that into consideration would have spoiled everything. I tell you, you can always count on facts to throw a monkey wrench in all the fun.

And that’s what I like about you guys: you don’t let facts get in the way of opinions, proudly born and raised in the gut.

So how about it? Could I have the honour of joining your team? I’ve even got some column ideas in mind. How about something like “We’re All Addicted to Big Government”? The whole government-as-illegal-drug angle? Or how about something a little more subtle like: “Occupiers should pack up their tents and go home.”

Well jeeze, I know Lorne Gunter has already got dibs on those titles, but tell you what? How about me and him arm wrestle for them, the way editorial columnists used to do it back before the whole researching and fact-checking thing?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

ps What’s with having no capital letters in your headlines?

Dear Occupy, Get a Leader Already

Posted on by Rocco

I love you guys. I love what you stand for. I love how you are braving the cold weather, rubber bullets (in some cities) and police batons to face down an out-of-control capitalist system which, in its mildest form, depends on the average person to spend what they can’t afford (thanks to a decades-long, near-freeze in average wages) on things they don’t need. At its worst, it’s a cleptocracy – as in the States – where the system not only lets the individuals who caused the global meltdown to go unpunished, but actually rewards them with higher positions of wealth and power. Occupiers, I have the utmost respect for your resolve to go face-to-face with the riot police who are paid with your tax dollars to protect those who caused all the problems in the first place.

Problem is, I’m an easy sell. You had me at hello. It’s not me you have to convince. It’s the great number of other people in my tax bracket who you need on your side and who, after two months, still don’t know what the hell you want. Fact is, if I wasn’t one to keep my ear to the political ground, I wouldn’t know what you wanted either. Even more, I’m willing to bet, dollars to donuts, I would probably dislike you as much as National Post readers, if I didn’t bother to sift the BS that much of the right-wing media is lobbing at you.

However, two things you need to know: much of the BS is picked, ripe and ready from your own camps.

First, the plethora of youtube videos depicting crowds of you chanting and repeating the words shouted at you from the microphone of one of your delegates (something that immediately brings to mind a scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brain – we are all individuals!). Second, from the interviews on TV and radio, hosted by right-wing stations. For example 1010 Newstalk Radio, in Toronto. On the eave of the Occupation of St. James park, they hosted a mini-debate between Mark Carney – governor of the Bank of Canada – and one of your delegates who, through the debate’s entirety, felt compelled to address everyone as “my brother.”

This is nothing new. All movements which upset the status quo are subject to redicule, slander and scrutiny.

But you needn’t make it so easy for your detractors. Movements thrive off of momentum, but after two months, the short attention span of the general public ( which you so badly need on your side) has already shifted to much more important things, like Justin Beiber’s concert baby and Kim Kardashian’s divorce. Accordingly, with the recent crackdown in NYC, you are setting yourselves up as glorious martyrs to those on your side, like me, and glorious failures to those that either are against you or have no idea WHY you are doing the things you do.

To hell with court decisions and legal aspects of your protest! What’s the point of a civil disobedience if you have to apply for a permit? The time is ripe for a leader to come forth, a representative, bold and loud, to articulate, in no uncertain terms, what you want. Imagine the civil rights movement without the personalities of Martin Luther King Junior and Malcolm X. No “I Have a Dream.” No “By Any Means Necessary.” To many, at the moment, you are a faceless mob from which your detractors can pick the most unpalatable to represent you to the general public.

I have a feeling that you find the idea of hierarchal structure repellent; that it’s your desire to operate from mass consensus, but the reality is that humanity, as it has developed, needs its icons. In other words, if you want to move forward and coalesce into an ideal that the full 99% can hold onto, you need to choose someone who can put a face to a clear and directed vision.

I suggest Kalle Lasn. What a better a candidate than one of the men who is not only behind the Occupy movement, but the co-creator of Adbusters magazine, and its various yearly protests. Kalle is not only trusted and beloved by his millions of fans, but he is someone who is learned, dynamic and incredibly creative.

Of course, this is just my suggestion. It will take a democratic vote to choose a leader. You should know, in the meantime, what bothers many those of us living in democracies – who take the time to vote in government elections – is being told “this is what democracy looks like” by a group of people who, as of yet, haven’t been able to choose someone to lead them.