The Double Standard of Violence

One of my rare forays into politics on here - I much prefer to keep these discussions to in-person with a select few people and generally over a few beers, but I honestly cannot keep my mouth shut about this anymore.

I've noticed a disturbing trend among the more hardcore left in recent months, what with the election of President Trump (or Satan, depending on who you ask). Now let's get one thing straight - I'm not a Trump fan any more than I was an Obama fan. One of the benefits of being an American (and one that many don't take advantage of) is the ability freedom to think critically and independently; I was always quick to criticize the last president, but also freely admitted when he did something I thought was beneficial to this great nation we live in. Trump is no different. But I digress.

This disturbing trend is the overt threatening of violence - against Trump supporters, against the White House (ahem, Madonna), and against the president himself... and people are cheering it on.

Three days ago, in Phoenix, AZ (look it up, I can't get links to work right, it's in smaller news outlets though), around 40 members of various left-wing political groups showed up to protest a pro-Trump rally in some just adorable matching red neckerchiefs (OMG!)... oh yeah, and a bunch of "tactical gear," armed with various semi-automatic rifles and wearing some holstered sidearms, chest rigs, plate carriers, etc. etc.

Oh, so now you remember what the second amendment is all about... interesting. So am I still a racist/bigot/Nazi for owning guns, or how does that work, exactly?

Anyway, various members of this ragtag band of self-proclaimed Reds voiced their concerns about an impending civil war, making various ominously open-ended claims about their readiness and willingness. (To clarify - I'm not against them exercising their rights or protesting, this is America, after all. If you want my thoughts on open carry of rifles, look in the July, 2014 section over there. ==>)

Quick tangent - I don't think these guys have thought this through. From their budget-ass gear to their perfect hair, I don't think most of these guys (and girls) could fight their way out of a hair salon with an M240. A lot of those same people that they're advocating or threatening violence against have spent at least one enlistment swapping rounds with much scarier people than these - combat experience (however limited) is a hell of a thing, something that I suspect remains lodged in one's subconscious, hiding in there with all the preconditioned responses to getting shot at. I'd bet good money that the first couple rounds cracking overhead would result in sheer panic - whereas if by some miracle they got the first round off at a fireteam of experienced infantry dudes, the response would be a wall of gunfire and the violence of action that will win a firefight every time.

My question is this: at what point did advocating (or perpetrating) violence against those with differing views become acceptable? When right-wing nutjobs did the same thing during the last presidency, it was a complete outrage, all over the news, and the response was overwhelming disgust (and for good reason). But now, it's okay, because it's not your candidate in office? No. That's not how this works... that's not how any of this works. Madonna gives a speech to thousands during a worldwide broadcast saying she wants to bomb the White House, and she gets FUCKING APPLAUDED for it?

You either respect the rule of law, or you don't. It's become clear to me that this element of society does not.

More double standards from the Tolerant Far Left.

Rant off.

My dog is right, as usual

Becoming less jet lagged, thank the gods.

I had a thought this morning that is more or less the conclusion of an idea I've had for awhile - that while you don't get to pick your family, you do (at least in my case) get to choose which of them you spend time with, and you also get to choose your friends. I'm also fortunate in the regard that I actually want to spend time with my immediate family members, which is a huge plus for a variety of reasons. Moving on.

Hans, and all good dogs, have their own familiar behavior... while he didn't really choose me so much as I chose him, he has picked the rest of you people and decided that he loves you (or doesn't).

A lot of people forget that dogs are pack animals in the wild, and their family loyalties lie therein; there's none of this mandatory family love that seems to be a more or less human social construct - wolves have more of a mutual contract of defense and protection, with a genetic predisposition towards the well-being of the pack and the understanding that the weak will be sacrificed should push and shove come together. To be fair, some dogs have been so domesticated and removed from that element that this is no longer a part of their functionality. If you've ever seen a retriever hide behind its human and bark at the door, you know exactly what I'm talking about (it's not restricted to certain breeds, but some do show it more than others, in my experience). This is why there are different breeds - there are as many kinds of hounds as there are beers and individual tastes.

That said, having a Doberman has taught me a fair amount about the importance of loyalty. While he may be a complete fucking goober the majority of the time, Hans is also a killer, which is a quality I've also encountered in a few humans in the Army - fun, mellow, entertaining, but let someone shoot at or otherwise threaten their people and watch 'em go. (Side note - I'd actually say this applies to most of the paratroopers I've met, and probably the infantry community as a whole. Of course, some are scarier than others, as with canines.) This is when humanity is at its finest and when dogs are, well, just being dogs.

The point I'm rambling towards here is that while the civilized community can lead to "hive mind", the savage origins we all have in our ancestry give us quite the opposite. Hans still has it, and I can think of several of my close friends that wear that shit on their sleeves, while many others keep it hidden until necessary (and some don't have it at all, but that's not the point). Personally, I think camouflage is a useful thing, but I'll trade loyalty for subtlety any day.

The difference between us and our noble four-legged servants is that we get the luxury of picking our pack.

I know who's in mine, and I'm proud to say that we'd all shed blood for one another if we haven't already.

Much love. Off to human, be good.

South of France, Pt 6

Happy St. Paddy's day, friends!

I'm savegely hammered as I write this, as I had to be.

Dropping the Harley off today at the rental place (MotorbikeTrip, highly recommended) was one of the more depressing things I've done in awhile. It was the end of my independence, and also of the south of France's liberation tours (I hope everyone reading this knows it's an endeavor in humor).

I celebrated this holiday (Saint Patrick's Day, for the weak among you) properly, by being the first person at the only right Irish pub in old town Nice - which is of course staffed by proper ex-pat Irish types, good people all around, who were sufficiently receptive to wild asshole Americans such as myself - drinking Guinness and Jameson in large, perhaps even horrifying, quantities. Given my sadness at leaving and at returning the Harley, walking down the Promenade des Anglais a couple miles on a beautiful Côte d'Azur day to the right bar was the only thing I could really do.

Leaving tomorrow is going to be completely miserable, primarily because it involves 20 hours of travel and that extremely rare experience of traveling backwards in time. Honestly, the only good aspects of this that I can find are that I'll get to see Hans and my own bed again. Seeing my good friends also won't suck... you know who you are.

I'm going to be in a shit mood for at least a couple of days.

Love, the American,

Jack.

South of France, Pt 5

Today was dedicated to the motorcycle. I grew surprisingly fond of the Harley today, but more on that in a minute.

I knew I wanted to go to Antibes and possibly Cannes, but from there, I essentially just picked points on a map that looked like they had fun roads and nice countryside, connected the dots from there, and went about my merry way. Riding straight up (down? west, anyway) the coast, as close to the beach as possible, takes you through Nice along the Promenade des Anglais, through several indistinguishable and easily forgettable resort towns and to Antibes. Antibes is supposed to be beautiful, which it is, but I didn't explore it much. While I do like rolling solo, exploration of cities is much more fun with a travel companion.

I got to play a new game today I like to call, "Where in the absolute fuck am I?" I enjoyed the game so thoroughly that I played it several times, each time in a different location. Cities are kind of a foreign concept to me navigation wise - even in the US - and Cannes was no exception. Nevertheless, I found my way out and to the countryside, where everything makes much more sense and one feels less like a rat in a maze.

This is where the Harley and I really bonded. I was given ample opportunity to really wind it out, and I did, and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it to the point that I'd now say that I "get" the Harley thing, to a large degree, even if it's not where I hang my hat. Blasting through small villages with the pipes rumbling, bobbing through gentle turns with one hand on the tiller, waving back at the pretty French girls, it is impossible not to feel astoundingly alive. There were several points during my ride today where I realized that I was grinning like Lenny with his stupid rabbit. No fucks given, screw on the speed, both hands, drag that foot peg around the turns, passing truck after truck after truck.

The Ducatis and the real sport bike guys had no problem getting around me, of course, as is their right - I would do the exact same thing. I'm still very much a sport bike enthusiast. However, while I may have gone faster and hit those apexes just right on my Fireblade, I'm here to tell you that it wouldn't have been nearly as visceral and thoroughly fun an experience as I had today.

Valbonne, Roquefort-les-pins, La Colle-sur-Loup - these are among the towns I passed through. They're all charming little places loaded with history and ancient churches, the very picture of the French country village. Of course, some have been scarred with hideous new additions, but that is life. The essence remains.

I return the bike tomorrow morning, and then I'll be on a plane around dawn on Saturday. No St. Paddy's day celebrations for me.

I made some new friends last night whom I will be going out with again this evening... rowdiness level: last real night in France. Shit's gonna get weird, fam.

South of France, Pt 4

Today was a pretty mellow day. This morning's ride took me up Mont Boron, between Villefranche and Nice, to the historic fort located at the summit, which provides a commanding view of the surrounding terrain. It was quite spectacular (peep that shit on Instagram @flyfishnaked, if you don't know). I was then planning on riding to the Musée Matisse in Nice, but I was sweating so badly in my gear by the time I reached the apartment that I elected instead to park the bike and take an Uber.

The Matisse Museum was nice and had a few gems, but I guess every other museum is impossibly underwhelming when compared to the Louvre, the Monet Museum, or my personal favorite, the D'Orsay... the curse of being exposed to the finer things in life at a young age is that your bar will be set unreasonably high for the remainder of your existence. Ignorance is bliss. And talk is cheap, motherfucker. What?

One perk was that a single 10 Euro admission fee gets you into a variety of local museums and other exhibits, so I checked out the slightly more impressive Museum of Archaeology, the grounds of which border those of the Musée Matisse. Nice and the surrounding area, being European and specifically Mediterranean, is littered with history dating to the Romans and before. There's actually a rather well-preserved ruin outside the museum itself, which was an unexpected treat to tour. Combined with a decent collection of artifacts and a pretty odd death-obsessed exhibit in the lower level, it was overall a wildly acceptable experience - particularly since I didn't know I'd already paid admission. (Edit: I just found out that admission is free for both veterans and students, and I had my IDs verifying both - although I doubt they'd credit my American service. Doublefuck.)

Other than that, I've been eating myself sick on charcuterie and seafood. It's actually a little disgusting.

My knees hurt like a bitch. Fuck you hills, fuck you Army, and fuck you, weak knee genetics. Hopefully this bottle of Bordeaux I just drank will provide some measure of relief.

More rides on the Harley tomorrow... Antibes? Je pense que c'est necessaire!

South of France, Pt 3

(Or, "How to get completely fucking lost on your motorcycle in the French Riviera.")

Well, the Musée Matisse is evidently closed on Tuesdays - I should know to check these things, as I had the same goddamn thing happen on a Tuesday a couple visits ago to Paris with the Monet Museum. Apparently some lessons need to be learned twice. Long story short, that will be tomorrow's adventure.

As such, I decided to venture northeast along the coast through Monaco, to Menton, and then across the border to Ventimiglia, Italy, before heading inland and returning home by a different route. Three of those things happened... I skipped Italy because, honestly, I got bored as hell by the time I hit Menton and couldn't imagine there'd be a significant difference with a border crossing.

Monte Carlo was excellent for two reasons: I got to see the marina where the 0.0000001% dock their megayachts, and I got to ride down a stretch of the Monte Carlo Grand Prix track on (what the hell? where am I?) John F. Kennedy Boulevard. Also, the local gendarmes were very courteous and had a good sense of humor when I was attempting some mild-mannered fuckery to correct a missed turn, which brings me to my next point:

It is extremely easy to get lost in the French Riviera.

I managed to get lost as FUCK on my way back from Menton, as I wasn't exactly sure where to turn off the A8 to get back to Villefranche, so I made an entertaining detour all the way through Nice to get back. It wasn't all bad, but I was more than a little frustrated and pretty exhausted when I finally got back here.

Anyway. The Mother is pestering the shit out of me because she's bored, so off to dinner and more than one cocktail. Stay weird.

South of France, Pt 2

Great success! I have acquired a motorcycle, a Harley Davidson Sportster 48 - it just seemed right, and neither the BMW 1200 nor the Ducati Monster were available, and neither was a Road King, so it's just me and 1200 cubic centimeters of Milwaukee steel out here to liberate Southern France, one kilometer at a time. We won't discuss the price of the rental.

It's pretty safe to say that I've exited my comfort zone mid-flight with something like a handheld tent fly as a parachute. This is where fun is found and where life gets interesting. I'm no longer terrified of speaking French because I might fuck it up; I'm going to fuck it up, but improvement is born from failure. My Harley is still something of a mystery, as it is not built for tiny little hairpins that would honestly test my skills on anything other than a dirt bike. We are bonding, though, and I'm starting to figure this little beast out. The roads here are an absolute, unbridled terror with shit for signage, often no way to tell directional flow of traffic, steep climbs in many places, and narrow mountain canyons that are unlike anything I've seen in the Rocky Mountains.

There is something supremely satisfying about the sound of the big V-twin rattling through these tight limestone cliffs and off the walls of several millennia of architecture, dragging the pegs as I try to avoid impending death either at the hands of a local nutcase or the concrete wall to my right. Tomorrow will be my first real ride, beginning in Villefranche, stopping at the Musée Matisse in Nice, to La Trinité for lunch, then through Monaco/Monte Carlo up to Menton for fuel and probably a beer. I'll loop back inland for the first half of the longest leg - to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat to see the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild. Finally, I'll cruise back to Villefranche for either dinner or a nap (likely both).

My sleep schedule is still, as they say, "le fucked." Jet lag can suck it, but I really can't complain other than that.

I miss my dog. He's in good hands.

More wine, and then a plan for Wednesday. À demain!

South of France, Pt 1

I'm out here in Villefranche-sur-mer, which is about 20 minutes east of Nice on the French Riviera. My mom got an apartment here for a month as part of her month-long French immersion course, which is apparently what you do when you're retired and bored with too much money. I'm about it.

Naturally, I'm only here for the week, as I have to return and finish the semester. Fuck. Also, fishing season doesn't start here until about mid-April. Double fuck. One of my grail fish is a white marlin, which they have here, as well as swordfish, mahi-mahi, tuna etc.

Ah well. I've already seen several 9-figure megayachts heading towards Monaco and/or Italy from the west (Saint Tropez is around the corner, as are Cannes and Antibes). Our little port here is supposedly the fifth most beautiful bay in the world, according to the people who know these things. It's a quiet town primarily for lame old folks with too much money, but it really is beautiful and friendly. It's a totally different culture than in Paris, where the locals are often curt or outright rude if you have the nerve to butcher their precious language, or even just the audacity to not be un Parisien. Côte d'Azur is a different vibe - think Los Angeles versus Manhattan, but different.

Jet lag is still kicking my ass, and I'm wide awake at 2:30 AM here. Not ideal. I didn't drink anything but water and coffee yesterday in an attempt to keep it reasonable; I suspect that the collective system shock has contributed to my misery. I'll be fine, but I'm definitely going to be putting some of their glorious wine in my body later, ideally over a feast of various creatures that were swimming a day or two ago.

Before that, however, I'm going to go rent a motorcycle and explore the area. They're very strict about drinking and driving (riding, whatever) here, so mixing of the two, even on the scale of a beer or two that would be completely acceptable in the US, is highly discouraged. Additionally, the traffic system here could be accurately described as terrifying. Every near miss attacks my nervous system ever so slightly, to the point that I'm now even a little jumpy (I'm never jumpy). The bike will be interesting in this environment.

I think I've got my rental narrowed down to one of the BMW 1200 throwback café racer-style bikes, specifically the 1200 R Nine T Racer, because I'll probably not have the opportunity to ride one again. My other options were various - I rejected the Harley Road King and Sportster 48s in the interest of avoiding being too American, the Ducati Monster 821 for not being interesting enough, and the GSXR 750 because I've ridden one and it's too similar to the Fireblade I ride daily at home. I guess my decision will be determined by what they have on hand when I get to Nice.

That's assuming, of course, that I can figure out the fucking buses here. Cabs are absurdly expensive, much like everything else.

I'm yawning again, thank fuck. Back to sleep for a few hours. Stay weird.

Bachelorism

Bachelorism: [let's just say I find Urban Dictionary's definition a little too marriage-focused and from a guy's perspective. This applies to ladies as well. Hell, in the spirit of equality, let's say that this applies to all thirty billion genders that currently exist.]

Being single is for some people is a sad state of affairs, a reason to go drink and make a fool out of yourself, something to be pitied and talked about by others - "Oh, that [guy/girl] is single at this age, there must be something really wrong with them. Observe, but keep your distance, dear." Been on both sides.

I can see that, on some level. You get into a serious relationship and you get dependent on each other for a variety of things. You see your friends get into relationships, for better or for worse - "Oh, they were never going to work together," or "Oh my god! I can't wait until they have kids!" and everything in between. (Let this not sound like I'm downplaying the true happiness that some achieve in relationships, as that is a beautiful thing. Go you.)

Bachelorism is my counterpoint to the aforementioned sort of codependency. Bachelorism is not only being single and owning it, but being good at it. Great even.

I've been actually single now for long enough to get really fucking good at it. Several years go past after a real relationship, and you either figure shit out, or you melt down, or you try again, or you do all three. That's life, you suck it the fuck up, you get over it, and then you improvise, adapt, and overcome until it's not just you pretending you're not broken anymore - your projected strength and faked qualities become your own.

Bachelorism is the comfort and realization that being without a significant other is not only not a bad thing, it's something to be treasured. Your time and space is your own. Whatever realm of independence you have, whether it's your own house or just a room in your house, you are free to do as you please. Don't want to watch something? Don't. Want to eat what you want to eat? Make it without concern for anyone else, and then smash it with reckless abandon. Drink your preferred brand of booze, or don't. Have dogs. Have cats. Have a fucking ferret/goldfish/tiger hybrid. The point is - do you. Period.

That, however, is just being single.

Bachelorism is like all of that, but excelling at it. Cook what you want to eat. Make the drinks you want to drink. And don't fucking suck at it.

If you're a phillistine like many of the single guys I know, QUIT THAT SHIT. Explore new foods and figure out what you enjoy eating, then figure out how to cook that, and fuck it up enough times that you know how not to do it - so that when that pretty girl from your class (or work, or the streets, or the crack den you frequent) you asked out actually decides that her girlish figure is worthy of your encumbrance, you can do it fucking perfectly. Drink drinks and enjoy variety, until you can make at least three good cocktails, every time, all the time. Pick your favorites. Fuck, learn what you think her favorites will be. Starting tips - learn how to make yourself a good Manhattan, and how to make a proper margarita or Cosmopolitan for her.

Final advice: get a dog. Not only is your personal space completely devoid of love, acceptance, and confirmation without a good dog, but a good dog will be the best wingman you've ever had. (Thanks, Hans.)

Alright, the advice portion of this lesson is over.

You will know you've achieved True Bachelorism when you have to clean up and reassemble the torn-apart water pump from your CBR1000RR off of a kitchen surface in order to prepare the multi-course seafood and/or game feast you're about to prepare for yourself with the assistance of an alarming amount of your favorite cocktails.

Sincerely yours,

Jack