Put on jeans. Black shirt. Same socks from yesterday. Probably. No breakfast. No coffee. No hunger. Just the ritual of skipping it.
Went outside. Didn’t lock the door. Don’t even know why I used to. The kind of neighbourhood where no one steals, they just borrow forever.
Took the long way. Not for the view. Just didn’t want to pass the guy who always smiles. Not in the mood to be perceived.
Crossed three streets without looking. Not to die. Just didn’t care enough to check. It’s different.
Walked into Shoppers. Bought toothpaste and a lighter. Don’t smoke. Never have. But something about buying a lighter makes the day feel more functional. Like maybe I’ll use it. For something. Eventually.
Passed a dog tied to a bench. He looked at me. I didn’t look back. Not out of cruelty. Just didn’t want to be understood.
Stood in front of a vending machine for seven minutes. Didn’t buy anything. Read all the labels like they were instructions for life. None of them applied.
Took a bus I didn’t need to take. Just sat near the back. Watched buildings go by like static on an old TV. Got off six stops later. No reason.
Saw a guy arguing with a parking meter. Not metaphorically. Just. Actual guy. Actual meter. Actual yelling. Didn’t stop. Didn’t judge. Just noticed.
Ate a sandwich from a 7 Eleven. It tasted like time wasted.
Walked into the afternoon like it owed me something. Shoulders squared. Jaw set. Every step a threat I didn’t follow through on.
Held a coffee like a weapon. Didn’t drink it. Just clenched. Heat bleeding through the cup, into the palm, into the bone.
Then someone said my name. Not a shout. Just casual. Like they knew me. I didn’t turn around. Just stood there. Still.
Waited until they gave up. Walked the other way. Faster than before.
Didn’t check who it was. Didn’t want to know. Just knew that if I saw their face, something would split.
Canadian Prime Minister Carney’s first foreign meeting is with French President Macron.
Traditionally, the first meeting would be with USA or UK. But now his first meeting is with France.
Symbolically, this represents a big re-alignment geo-politically. And if you hear Macron’s words, you’ll understand exactly what this means: he says Canada and France have a shared cultural heritage and values.
But also, unlike Trudeau, Carney has an Anglophone heritage. Not Francophone. Yet here, he primarily speaks French in this news conference. Because the emphasis here is that French is a core element of Canadian identity.
What does this mean? Already, Canadian media are calling France—not USA—Canada’s closest ally. This has never happened in my lifetime.
Tesla – that’s right, the same company Trump was shilling for two days ago – is now begging the U.S. to back off from tariffs because it’s a threat to its business.
Freeway (1996) is one of the darkest but also funniest films I’ve ever seen, and it’s the movie that made Reese Witherspoon a star.
And this is shocking stuff. It’s Reese Witherspoon like you’ve never seen her. I don’t think she’d ever take on a role like this again. She was 19 when the movie was released, and she displays an impressive range—really hits the high notes—that few actors ever achieve in their entire careers.
Let’s be real: this movie isn’t high art. It can be lowbrow at times. But it has something to say.
Freeway is an urban retelling of Little Red Riding Hood—except here, Little Red Riding Hood is Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon), a 14-year-old girl who can’t read. Her mother is constantly turning tricks on the corner outside their house, and her stepdad is a drug addict who won’t stop trying to have his way with her. But when her mom gets arrested, and shortly after, her stepdad too, Vanessa is left alone. She’s about to be taken in by Child Protective Services when she gets an idea: she’ll go live with her grandmother instead. So, stepping out on her social worker, she heads down the freeway—and that’s where she meets Bob Wolverton (Kiefer Sutherland), who exudes an impressive menace. And, as his last name implies, he’s the wolf in this retelling.
As you can probably imagine, Vanessa and Bob collide in a battle of wills. But Vanessa, a victim of the system, does things no 14-year-old in a healthy environment would ever do. This film is as much about her descent into criminality as it is about the world that made her this way. Because Freeway makes a point: girls like Vanessa don’t just happen. They are created. They are products of an unjust world. We already know what kind of person Vanessa is going to become because the system makes her. When you grow up like that, you’re just trying to survive. And sometimes, the only thing keeping you alive is your will to live. That’s what this film is about.
Now, I have to mention the supporting cast—because they’re amazing. Brooke Shields plays Bob Wolverton’s wife, Mimi, and wow, is she obnoxious. I wanted to slap her a few times. Brittany Murphy has a short but memorable role—she grabbed my attention right away, and honestly, it’s too bad she didn’t get a longer career. RIP, Brittany Murphy. Wolfgang Bodison and Dan Hedaya play the detectives, and they are riveting.
Now, to say this film is offensive is an understatement. It is wildly offensive. If I had known some of the scenes that were coming, I might not have watched it at all. At one point, Vanessa utters the N-word, and I was furious that the scene even made it into the movie. It was inexcusable. There is no situation where a white person should ever say that word, and it came with a hard R. Had I known, I wouldn’t have watched the film.
And yet—I have never seen a movie like this before, and I don’t think a movie like this will ever be made again. I don’t think Reese Witherspoon will ever play a character like this again. It’s kitschy, maybe even trashy. There were moments where I laughed and immediately felt like I was going to hell for laughing—but it was funny. Especially when Vanessa, pointing a gun at someone, drawls in her thick Southern accent (I think it’s Southern, not sure if it’s Texan—my ear for American accents isn’t great):
“Do you accept Jesus into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior?”
Come on. That’s funny.
Do I regret watching this movie? No. Did I laugh? Yes. Did it give me a lot to think about? Absolutely. Is Reese Witherspoon an incredible actress? No doubt.
But the one thing that keeps me from recommending this film is that N-word scene. I just don’t think there’s ever a reason for that word to be said.
All I can say is, I wish more films like Freeway could be made. It’s just too bad about that N-word, though.
We look like them. Most of us speak the same language. We share the same religions. We eat similar food. And yet, we are not them. We don’t want to be them.
We looked at everything the USA is and simply said: That’s not us.
Sure, you have Wall Street and Hollywood. A massive GDP. Lots of guns. A big-ass military. Flags everywhere. Fireworks every Fourth of July. And here in Canada? So many of us—white, English-speaking, churchgoing—look at that and say: Nope. Nope. And we’ve been saying nope for a long time.
Since 1775, in fact.
In 1775, we watched your American Revolution and said no. In 1812, when you tried to invade us, we said no—then burned down your White House to make the point clear. You tried again in 1837. Nope, we said. You tried with the Fenian Raids in 1866 and 1871. Still no. It will always be no.
Now, I’m not saying Canada is a saint. We have our own history of colonization. We have very real flaws. But we’ve said no.
Even as we offered our hand in friendship—fighting alongside you in two world wars, trusting your word that the bad times were over and we would be allies from now on—we still said: Thank you, USA. We’ll be friends. But we are not Americans. No, we do not want to join you.
Now, you might think I’m just some rah-rah nationalist, waving a maple leaf, chugging maple syrup. No. This is about something simple: No. A strong no. A crisp no that rolls off the tongue. Because so much of what Canada is—who we are—is defined by saying no.
And American conservatives don’t like no. They have bullied their entire country into believing the lie that everything Trump does is done with consent. Legally, perhaps it is. Institutionally, the deck is stacked against American progressives, and I do feel bad for them.
But I am not American.
I am Canadian. I do not pay U.S. taxes. I do not vote for the American president. I do not follow American laws. I do not use American healthcare. I do not call American police when I need help. I do not hire an American lawyer if I need legal advice.
And that—that right there—is what pisses off American conservatives.
Because I look like them. I speak their language. I eat a burger every now and then.
And yet, I do not live by their rules nor share their values.
Thank you to @Flipboard and @mike for having me as a guest on your podcast!
I’m loving the word that #Flipboard is doing, and their @surf (currently in beta) is one of my favourite apps. Not just social media app, but my favourite app.
Actually, dark patterns do exist on #Mastodon. We don’t recognize them as dark patterns because we’re too politicized to see what’s obvious in plain sight.
But here’s an example of a #darkpattern on Mastodon: harassers being able to send you abusive messages as “followers only”. This renders the message invisible from public view while being visible to everyone who follows the abuser – followers who are likely to have the same toxic affinity as the abuser.
Let’s not pretend this is not a dark pattern. It clearly is.
Putting the sauce in awesome! This is my own self-hosted single-user Akkoma + Mangane server. I primarily talk about the Fediverse, movies, books, photography, video games, music, working out, and general geekiness. I’m a proud husband and father.