Life As Performance Art 142

Good morning, Gentle Reader, and Happy Saturday! Today is Nothing Day. Day off. I am going to walk in lovely places full of trees and gardens, sit in a coffee shop with my sketchbook, maybe buy a few food items on the way home, after which I expect to tuck myself into my easy chair with the Weekend Globe and Mail and fall into a prolonged nap when it gets too boring. What an exciting life! But excitement comes in surprise packages, and sometimes I get excitement fatigue. Especially with all the strident and ear-splitting firetruck, police car and ambulance sirens that serenade us who live downtown day after day and night after night. For example, on this otherwise serene Saturday morning, there were three sirens in a row, and no one should have to close their window in the summertime. I suppose I should be glad that help is coming to the poor bastard who just got run over or is having an overdose or whatever but I think that the nerves and wellbeing of those who have to hear this and bear this decibel overload every day could also be taken into consideration. When you already live downtown, you get plenty of excitement already, and just hope that it doesn't make you develop high blood pressure or a cardiac condition. And I had plenty of excitement yesterday when I had to call out a crew of young (male, and allegedly heterosexual, of course!) construction workers doing renos on an ostentatious house in Kerrisdale. From a block away I could hear the kind of language they were using, and ,soon after, the way they were shaming a young woman in some of the most ungentlemanly terms. (She was not there to defend herself, and straight men have nothing on women when it comes to gossip, by the way. They are just as bad as women, and sometimes worse!) And I had thought that in this age of post-feminism and Me Too that young men should know better. But they are every bit as obtuse, misogynistic and obnoxious and sewer-mouthed as their dads were. Well, I happen to be an equal opportunity shamer, so just as I will call out a couple of young Mexican women for sexually shaming a young man about the size of his penis, so I will take on a whole group of young white males doing something similar to a woman. You see, Gentle Reader, I don't suffer from the kneejerk hatred of white males that is epidemic among the politically correct nazis. I hate everyone equally. Which is also to say that I love everyone equally (well, I aspire to, anyway!) Neither do I believe that there is any merit or justice in straight white men becoming marginalized, or going underemployed, unemployed and homeless just to score a politically correct point about giving up privilege. No one should have to go without adequate food, shelter or employment. What the politically correct nazis are, in my view, is really a particularly noxious class of bigots hiding behind their own smoke or vape screen of human rights protection, only they aim their hatred at straight white males. Well, straight white males are not my favourite category, either, but no one should have to be mistreated or treated with contempt just to score an ideological point. Back to my little story. I called out those young construction idiots, saying "Too much information". Then I proceeded to tell them they badly needed to grow up and work on their crappy attitudes. They were clearly embarrassed, but tried to have fun with it. They did shut up, and made funny little bird noises instead. Their white asses need badly to be kicked, and I have no compunctions about sicking my inner dad on those idiots. And by the way, had those little misogynists been idiots of colour I would write that their brown asses need to be kicked, and if they were women I would be every bit as harsh, no more and no less, as I am to their favourite bete noire, the straight white male. There is no excuse for objectifying others, and this goes way beyond gender and race, Gentle Reader. I think we really all have to try a bit harder. And we really need to learn how to think.