Thumbs Out...
Hey I saw an ad for this on a light post down town. www.thumbsoutcanada.com is a hitchhike race across Canada. Teams of two will be departing this weekend to race from Nova Scotia to B.C. It’s sort of like the amazing race just with out stupid challenges, but the whole thing will be documented by each team on video.
I can just imagine the excitement that will ensue. The riveting conversation after being stuck on the side of the road with your partner for two weeks in northern Quebec. Or the stellar nightlife of Moose Factory Sask.
Joking aside this is something I’d love to do. Last summer I quit my job to hitch hike across Canada. I had it all set up, I was gonna work on a tomato farm in some valley in B.C. but before that I was going to visit a friend in Trois Rivier but got stuck in Ottawa over my birthday by myself. It was so hot, and I was all lonely and shit. I was in bed by 10 o’clock on my birthday. Needless to say I never made it out there.
Good luck to these adventures, I’m chained to my desk this summer.
The Time Machine
Now that this introduction stuff is out of the way I guess its time to get into more of the day-to-day stuff. Nothing too eventful today…I hate public transit. I grew up on a farm where we either walked or drove everywhere.
I feel guilty about pushing the stop request button and inconveniencing people. Sometimes I wait until someone else pushes it first, and oftentimes I’m like 5 stops beyond where I want to be.
Where I’m from people say “please” and “thank you” and let you bud in line if you really have to pee. Here it’s different. I like it but this whole public transit thing scares me. Although I pay the same fair as other passengers I still feel like a second-class rider. There are many who utilize it everyday, or have been for years. These are the ones with the truly vested interest in public transit. I’m an occasional rider, subject to the prevailing attitude of the long-term rocket riders.
People are pretty territorial; most rules governing behavior simply aren’t adhered to. I don’t know if it’s a function of the demographic, or of the swelling population competed over the same amount of resources. But people devolve down there. People mark their territory; they leave their garbage behind as a sign that this is their stomping ground. They fight for supremacy, all jostling for the higher pole position so as to not have someone’s armpit stuck in their face. I guess there is no better way to dominate someone then to force them to smell your stank ass B.O. at 7 in the morning.
It really is, at some points, the law of the jungle, and the TTC hurdles us back into the Paleolithic era or (whenever cave men first were invented) all at 100 mph. The rapid devolution of man; all courtesy of the taxpayers of Toronto and the Province of Ontario. For all the good that public transit affords our city (lower emissions, convenience etc.) perhaps its greatest gift is it offers a glimpse of what life was like or could return to if there was another wildcat strike.
On this bus or subway I am definitely the lesser specimen, I don’t push to get on, I give up my seat, I don’t argue with the bus driver. Once I watched some strung out lady yell at the bus driver. Right away I thought to myself “OMG that ladies gonna’ get in trouble.” Then I realized-by who? The bus driver? I felt this way because I rode one of those big ass school buses to school every morning. You couldn’t mess around on them. For me the hierarchy of authority was like –policeman, fireman, bus driver. They were more important than a judge!
Where I’m at is a far cry from where I came from.
Where I'm atPerhaps it would serve me well (and my adoring public, I have 2 views now) to explain the name. “El Chupacabra” is Spanish for the goatsucker. Not the coolest I know, however, there has been a significant increase in the intrigue surround this creature.
The legend of El Chupacabra has been around for centuries. Indigenous peoples throughout Latin America all have roughly similar accounts of a large humanoid being that terrorized livestock. This creature has been depicted in folklore as standing 3-4 feet tall with big red eyes that hypnotize its prey, big sharp teeth and a forked tongue. It got its name for the way in which it kills its prey, a la Dracula style.
Over the past decade, reports of the goatsucker have increased in frequency and expanded in geographical range from Puerto Rico, to Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, Chile and as north as the Carolinas. Goatsuckers are no longer considered a plague from God or the devils minions, and now several new theories have emerged. Still remain some hypothesis that they are the escaped pets of alien visitors, but the newest and most popular ideas are rather amusing.
In Venezuela, woman’s advocacy groups claim that societies elites crossbred wild dogs until they had a monstrous hybrid. The intention was to release these hound periodically to terrorize villages so as to prevent women entrepreneurs from raising livestock. That way the exclusively male ruling elite could retain power over their agro business.
In Mexico, it has been said that a canned fruit company, in concert with the United States Government, produced the monster to force local farmers off their land so that they could buy up all the land. The displaced farmers would then have to travel to Guadalajara or Mexico City in search of work, and guess what, there was plenty of work at that same company’s canning factories.
While traveling in Mexico, I asked a local bakery shop owner who or what is El Chupascabra? The response was El Presidente: Vincente Fox.
Although other strange creatures have attained some degree of fame, like the Moth Man who had a movie on the subject with Richard Gere, or the New Jersey Devil who had a hockey team named after it, the Chupacabra has experience little of the same notoriety. Its interesting to note that the origins are evolving, always subject to new interpretation compared to the relatively agreed upon creation of the other two beings. Yet it hasn’t been able to parley this into commercial success. Perhaps some career counseling would benefit the goatsucker, in its attempt to reach levels of fame hereto unattainable.
First PostingHey just wanted to introduce myself....
I'm a 24 year old male living in Toronto. I live and work downtown, beyond that you don't need to know much about me. I choose to do this anonymously so I could say all sorts of crazy stuff and not have it come back to me.
I picked the title not because I have ghosts (or skeletons for that matter) in my closet, but because I think ghosts have gotten a bad wrap over the years.
Not that I've met any, but I think ghost suffer from a bit of negative self-image. I think the whole idea of being a ghost is cuz they did something wrong, or had unfinished business or something, hence being a ghost. Trapped to wonder in purgatory or earth or some combo of the two. Also, ghosts experienced a bit of fame in the '80's with Ghostbusters and all. Sure there were the bad ghosts but they had some good ones too. But since then they've fallen out of favor in the public eye, and now they're probably feeling neglected.
I attribute this to a couple of things. One, most ghost are damn old. They died like hundreds of years ago, back when an integrated communications process wasn't really refined, so they are having trouble marketing themselves effectively. Also, they aren’t very organized. They probably died prior to the industrial revolution, or at least before the 1st labor day, so they perished before becoming unionized. I say this because usually ghosts are those dudes who died in pain or were crazy, and after that point there have been significant improvement in both palliative care and the treatment of the mentally ill. So I would suppose that most humans who end up as ghost died prior to this turning point in history.
Secondly, the new breed of ghost probably are able to integrate better into modern society, both because they lived for at least a while in it and had a chance to acclimate to it, but given the rigid and inequitable social structure within the ghost community, they are often not given the high profile haunts that they may deserve. Also, given our generations affection for drugs/video games/rap music, many of us are brain dead to begin with, so there isn’t a marked difference between them and us anyways, dilluting their contribution to the ongoing activities of ghosts.
The third reason ghost don’t integrate well into society is their damn wardrobe. As mentioned before, ghosts were typically the result of tormented souls either who died in hospital, hence their stupid ass bed sheets they're always wearing, or in mental asylums, so they have chains and shit. I know there are probably some cool ghosts, but they are the newer ones with a bit of a fashion sense. So really you have this top heavy organization with limited upward mobility, because new ghost are being added at slower rate then anytime in history, and the old ghosts just kind of stick around.
So in order to improve their image a number of things have to happen. 1) they need a good advocate, cuz really the only people going to bat for them claiming their existence are crazy people. Maybe this is their tactic to insure increasing numbers, because once you come out and state you believe in them your often ridiculed, resulting in a tormented soul at death, increasing the probability of you becoming a ghost yourself. So maybe they stand to benefit from some sort of P.R. campaign. 2) They need to become more cohesive, ghost have been around a long time, and I imagine they're pretty territorial. There has been several millennia worth of ghosts inhabiting the same areas. Space is becoming limited, that’s why you heard of haunting in unconventional areas. Due to the over population of their traditional habitat (cemeteries, convents etc..) they are being forced into city centers. I'm sure you've heard of the ghost of taco bell or something. I would support a push within the ghost community to move toward a more socalist ideal. Where home turf is distributed equally ensuring equal opportunity for all ghosts.
This way many ghosts may experience greater satisfaction allowing them to move on to whatever else is waiting for them. Also, It would allow for a greater influx of ideas from the newer ghosts, because they are all equal stakeholders in the haunting business. This would move away from the typical old boys network if you will, destroying the idea of a glass (or at lease plasma) ceiling.
I think there is room into today’s society for a peaceful coexistence between ghosts and us, however the ghost community as a whole would have to adopt a more progressive outlook. In a place like Canada where we welcome the world, why not the undead as well. They probably have a lot to offer us mortals, and we could stand to benefit from a close partnership.
Anyways, that’s all for now,
Thanks
