For those of you who read my blog, you will know that I am a neophyte in the world of social media. I am trying to understand: (1) what works; and (2) what works for me.

What works: attractive, energetic boy/girl with good camera, editing, and message. The message is targeted to a specific group: make-up tips, tips on how to write, fish, shoot, whatever. The blog (now, usually, video blog or vlog) is generated regularly so that the audience can rely on their entertainment fix. This is usually once or twice a week. These vloggers/bloggers create a subscribed audience of tens of thousands and, sometimes, hundreds of thousands. (And, rarely, in the millions.) They entertain, educate, and cross-sell products through recommendations, links, and commissions. You Tube and other online outlets will monetise their message based on the level of viewership. It works for some.

What works for me: I don't mind regularised publications--vlog or blog. I enjoy a good joke, especially at my expense. I find myself ridiculous to be mimicking something I have avoided my entire life. I am not afraid to admit my insecurities or ambitions. In other words, I am happy with being transparent (or as transparent as I am capable of). One of the downsides to this is that I am self-absorbed with my own journey--and viewers may not find this entertaining. What I am coming to realise, is that I am not an entertainer. I have opinions and I will express them. I may learn something and I will share it. I want to be a serious writer and to be taken seriously as a writer. 

What has caused me to muse on this subject? I recently watched Tom Cruise's most recent film--which is based on a Lee Child novel. It is the Jack Reacher franchise. In the novel, Jack Reacher is six foot six inches and is somewhere in the forty-year-old region. Tom Cruise is probably a foot shorter than that and at least fifteen years older. I have no problem with that (artistic licence). What I find odd is how the characters we watch or read are increasingly becoming fantasized versions of reality. We must know that it is impossible to be hit in the face so many times and not have more than a slight scratch. Or to fall thirty feet and do little more than 'shake it off'. We are asked to do more than suspend disbelief as we watch or read these thrillers. (The books are invariably better in these instances.) Tom Cruise is almost believable. Let's look at some of our more senior action heroes. I don't want to offend by naming names, but take this observation: when you see the senior actor walking, he is obviously struggling with his legs; he is wobbly. How are we to then believe that he is capable of running, jumping, rolling, punching, and being punched with little to no effect on his body? Sorry, I'm going to name names: Dolph Lundgren in Kindergarten Cop 2. Firstly, he is ruining a great franchise (how can anyone follow Arnie?). Secondly, he can barely walk. I remember him as the super boxer facing Sly Stallone in Rocky IV. He was scary tough in that movie. Now, he should be tending tomatoes. BUT, because he has a fan base (of which I am one), he gets the tough-guy roles. Michael Douglas is another example. Time to hang up the tough-guy roles. I don't mind them being old tough-guys. But, please stay away from the unrealistic love scenes and the jumping-from-vehicle scenes or the cringing fight scenes. 

YET. Yet, they bring in the audiences and sell movies, books, whatever. They work. They have the 'x-factor'. 

Should I emulate them? Possibly. Copy them? Definitely not. They are outliers. They are the lottery winners. They are the necessary sparkle that keeps the rest of us hypnotised--believing that the dream is alive so long as some people are reaching our perceived goals.

​What should I do? I need to remember that gravity exists. Running for extended periods of time makes me tired. Too much food and drink will make me fat. And that I will not sell millions of books by acting like an idiot on my vlog or blog. I will write freely, allowing my imagination and senses to go to the extremes of human existence. I will question the good, bad, and the ugly in our society. Some of my writing will be worse (and better) than others. Some may not like it at all. Others may love it (and do). All I can do is to be honest with myself and write the best books I can on subjects that interest me. How those are received is beyond my control.

After three weeks of antibiotics, I thought I was out of the woods. I returned home to have a perfectly cooked meal of pigeon. As any carnivore will tell you, meat should be pink when cooked; I like it with a hint of blood. As any person dealing with food will tell you, be careful about undercooking anything for fear of not killing the bugs. As luck would have it, the bugs survived and wreaked havoc with my poor body. As I am an optimist, I am looking at this as a way to kick start my new diet--how to lose 10 pounds without trying. First step: get food poisoning. The rest takes care of itself. Now, I need to keep my mouth closed long enough for my body to digest the extra weight I have taken on as a result of: (1) a faulty scale at the gym; and (2) my thinking that two hours of exercise a day meant I could double or triple my food intake. 

During my writing spurts, I rarely listen to any audio books. I prefer to read--as I can skim through books where sections are slow and concentrate where I am interested. Audible books can sometimes be ponderous. I am currently listening to It by Stephen King. I read this circa twenty years ago and can still remember some key scenes. Listening to it is great BUT it is something like 48 hours. After 3-5 hours of any author, your mind/ears needs a break. It is a great companion for commuting or airports or long walks. I slowly chip away 2-3 hours a day. I am now in the home stretch of 10 hours to go. I am beginning to itch to finish and move on to another book. I still read my kindle and I tend to read multiple books at the same time. But audible does not give me this freedom. I am committed to one title at a time. Perhaps this is the greatest drawback of audible books. (That being said, ignore everything I said and buy my new audio books! he he)

​I guess it would be poor form if I didn't comment on the US elections being held today. I am going to go out on a limb and say that Clinton will win--if only because so many people want Trump to lose. I am one of those people who agree with quite a bit of what Trump says (not the xenophobic, ignorant stuff, just the iconoclast stuff) but I deeply distrust the character that is Trump. I think he is a sociopath and should not be trusted with the presidency. Whoever wins, I pity the other. Payback is, as they say, a bitch. I imagine the long knives are already being sharpened...

Food, writing, and politics. Short and sweet today.

On a daily basis, we can see politicians being caught (sometimes literally) with their pants down. Sometimes it is funny, many times not. As I navigate the waters of online existence, I am surprised at things that remain private. Is this because they are not happening or is it because they are too boring for public consumption? In the days of JFK, the media was too respectful to besmirch the President's image. The closest things came were reports of 'rumors'.

If I want to buy a pack of chewing gum at the supermarket, I will be accosted by headlines (tabloid and otherwise) decrying the latest scandal of some pseudo celebrity or public(ish) figure. We smile and pass or possibly buy and absorb. We think that it is news and decide that everything is fair once the person makes themselves a public personality. BUT, now that I am trying to make a splash myself, I am realising how difficult it is for something to happen without a very concerted effort. These tabloid covers are the result of careful brand management on the part of the person/publicist. There are just enough genuine surprises to keep us believing in the news/business model, but the reality is that well over 70% of the 'news' is fed to the outlets.

Every so often, we get a genuine event that makes us smile and touches that collective nerve. I am thinking about the mother who purchased a Chewbacca mask and did a live feed of herself over Facebook. I'm sure she thought it was funny and wanted to share it with her friends. But her laughter was genuine and it went viral. I saw it via the BBC news when it had hit 50 million views in a matter of a few days. The whole clip lasted less than a minute and brought a smile to almost anyone who saw it. It didn't have a message; there was no talking (that I can remember); only laughter of the mother at the ridiculous mask and how she looked in it. I am smiling as I recall it.

Then, I think about public figures who are so in charge of their image that nothing comes out without their say-so. Clinton comes to mind. Not Bill; he was a treasure trove of missteps and the public loved him regardless. Hillary is another matter. She is controlled and managed. What I don't understand is how we haven't heard about any of her boyfriends. Perhaps she doesn't have any. But I find it difficult to imagine in a world of global politics and all the sleaze that goes with it that Hillary hasn't succumbed the way every other male politician has. Is she a saint? Is she not interested? Is this none of our business? Probably, but it seems to be reported on every other politician. For example, why do I need to know that Trump likes to copulate up to five times a day with his pin-up wife? Why do I even know (or care) that his wife posed nude? Or that he trolled the beauty pageants for his jollies? Is Hillary a robot? Does she care only about power?

Or another person: The Dalai Lama. Does he copulate? With whom? Why haven't we heard of any scandals coming from that direction? I would have thought that women would be lining up to give birth or spend time with him. If not women, then men. I haven't heard anything. This is probably none of my business, but you can see what I am saying. We know that priests seem to copulate with their congregation, however distasteful that is. From my understanding, as many as 5-7% of the priesthood are sexual predators. This number may have now been reduced, but it is reflected in the way we think about Catholicism. Many (mostly non-Catholics) will associate the priesthood with child abuse. I haven't heard anything like this within Islam or other major faiths. I haven't heard anything like this within Christianity--apart from the usual abuses that power seems to attract. (Yes, there are abuses within Islam and Christianity as a whole, but it is not an institutional problem; it is a weakness of the flesh.)

Back to reality. Why do we hear what we hear? Who promotes and how is the message getting through? In a world of sensory overload, how does a person get their message across?

My answer: relevance and truth.

Relevance, because most people only care about things that impact them personally. For example, after you purchase a new car, you will find your attention drawn to similar-colored and make of cars. It is an odd sensation. My blue car suddenly made me realise how many other blue cars there are on the road. If you drive a Range Rover, you will suddenly see how many Range Rovers are out and about. Likewise with a white van. I loved my white van. Then I became aware of how many of those things are on the road.

Truth is more important. As we struggle to make sense of the world around us, we try to find people and things to trust. We look for guide posts to ground our movements. We need a structure to hold us amidst the tempest of life. When we trust a person or source, we absorb the material unquestioningly. The opposite is true of sources we distrust--the material bounces off us. Naturally, most of our sources are somewhere in between on the spectrum. Truth resonates within our souls (assuming we have one of those). We find ourselves nodding in agreement as the story unfolds. We find tears flowing when we thought we would never cry again. We find laughter when we thought there was nothing funny left in the world. Truth is the essence of our existence. If we can tap into that, the rest flows as a consequence.

I am searching for truth and relevance in my writing. Time will tell if I have found it.

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I don't intend to provide book reviews in my blog as a normal thing, BUT... I was moved by this book and the pain inflicted on our First Nations brothers and sisters. It is time we stop treating our citizens worse than we would treat our dogs.

They Called Me Number One, by Bev Sellars

Bev Sellers has written a memoir of her life and the impact Canadian Residential Schools have had on her and her family (and members of First Nations generally). I am Canadian, from Manitoba, and I was totally unaware of this issue. Manitoba has the largest aboriginal (First Nations) population in Canada. I grew up with a very prejudiced view towards the Indians (as we all called them). I now feel ashamed at my ignorance and at Canada for what it has done to these people.

The Residential School programme was initiated by the churches (predominantly Catholic) and the government of Canada to '...take the Indian out of the children' (their words). It was meant to assimilate the aboriginals and make them fit into the way of life as envisioned by the government and churches. The last such school was closed in 1996. The system was in operation for over 125 years. It took the children from their parents and put them in these schools for ten months out of the year (some were for twelve months). It was illegal for children to stay on the Reservations with their communities. Any stray children would be rounded up by the RCMP and taken to the schools. They were there from ages 7-15 but sometimes as early as 5 and as late as 17. (To compound matters, it was illegal for adult Indians to leave their reservations without a 'pass'.)

It gets tiring to hear about the abuse by Catholic nuns and priests, but I was shocked at the brutality visited upon these young children. In addition to having sexual predators running these schools, the beatings are something out of a horror movie.

A Truth and Reconciliation report has recently been issued by Canada (after this book was published) and this whole process has been called cultural genocide by the report. The churches and government have publically apologised.

This book is not particularly well written but it has a strong and true voice. It has also caused me to read (or at least peruse) the Truth and Reconciliation report as well as research the topic itself. It is a subject that will make you cry at the injustice. I alternated from tears to rage. I don't understand how it is the First Nations can be so peaceful despite the outrages they have endured. Perhaps their spirits have been broken. I have always associated Indians with alcohol and substance abuse. They are openly staggering on the streets of Winnipeg when I visit. I dismissed them as vacuous husks of humanity. Now, I look at them as victims where I am as much to blame as anyone else. I am to blame through my own ignorance and my apathy in trying to understand.

I never thought I'd say this, but Canada's role in the Residential Schools saga is as terrible as what the Nazis did in Germany or the South Africans did with Apartheid. I understand Australia had a similar programme in place for its aboriginals.

News of this has been in the papers and in the news for decades; my ears simply never heard. Now that I have heard, I feel that I can't be silent or complicit any longer. I don't have any solutions; those will only come from the First Nations themselves. But I think Canada should no longer be allowed to 'take care of' these people. If this were a country in Africa, we would be calling for UN oversight.

For those who don't know, all treaty Indians are governed by the Indian Act. (That is probably why we still call them Indians and not First Nations, etc) They live on reservations that they don't own. They can't own anything BY LAW on the reserve. They don't own their home or the land underneath it. They can't get a mortgage or do anything we take for granted (they don't have security to grant to the banks). As a result, they have no concept of ownership or the skills necessary to live in a world of varying shades of liability (all tied to ownership). Everything is rationed out to them from the federal government.

I have rambled on far too much in this review but there is so much to say. We have turned our backs on the aboriginals of Canada, hoping the problem would go away. The government enacted an institutional plan to erase the culture of these people. It is time we take a good hard look at ourselves in the mirror...

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