Here’s Bobby!

Hello friends and gentle readers.

I feel that I should first apologize for the distinct lack of posts this last year or so, I basically took the year off as a sabbatical of sorts. My health in general was poor, my mind increasingly disjointed and unorganized. In short, I needed a break from life. I went to my Doctor and arranged a break of sorts. A mental and physical health holiday of the highest order.

I can happily report to all of you that my break was not in vain. In fact, I would highly recommend to anyone at the midpoint of life to take a year off and really dig into the mechanics of who you are, where you are and how you got there. For me it was not only the single-most difficult thing I had ever done, it was also the most rewarding and enlightening. A fearless accounting into who I am and who I am working to become in the future.

I say that with humble honesty, my friends, very few people to my knowledge take the time to mentally and emotionally rip their lives apart crawling hands and knees amongst the facets of our lives relentlessly searching and examining the good, the bad and ugly. The dark, sticky shame covered fragments that hide in the dingy corners and under the beds and the floorboards of the home that is our psyche.

I have trembled and cried uncontrollably at times, facing not the facts of my life, but the raw suppressed emotions I had buried for decades. I am beginning to learn how to feel and not just think. One of my most vexing Councillors repeated again and again, don’t tell me what you think, tell me what you feel. Scary stuff for a 45 year old man raised in the 70’s to do.

The long and short of it friends is that after a much needed break from life I am striving to return to the land of the living. Slowly at first, moderation I am finding is a good friend of mine. Surely though you can expect new content to grace the pages of Exploring Winnipeg and Beyond. I have been networking and working on story ideas that I hope you all find interesting and enlightening.

So it is with full optimism and determination I am proud to announce, the best is yet to come.

With Love to you all, I am once again, your scribe.

Bob

Corprorate agenda quit fucking up Christmas!

Ok, I’ve stayed silent enough but tonight the gloves are off. I’ve seen Santa turned into an avenger this year.  I’ve seen has been hacks from Saturday Night Live playing moronic elves in movies.  Hell I even put up with Linus getting his blanket back in a “new” Holiday special.  This I can live with.

However what I cannot abide is  re-branding or should I say requisitioning of the holiday classics from my childhood to new corporate masters.  Yes I get that the classic Christmas shorts from our childhood are awesome property to acquire and license the fuck out of but why in all that is good and holy in this time of year would you turn a half hour cherished Christmas special into a miserable 60 minute shlock-athon  for Macy’s.

Really Macy’s you own it all in half of the country anyways, you have the parades the storefronts .  Do you really need Rodolph the Red Nosed Reindeer too?  Do we need to stop in between frames of duologue so you can shill medium grade cookware?

The season is commercial enough.  Just lay back like the whores you are, open your doors and have a fucking sale.  Don’t ruin Christmas for everyone, by having a damn commercial every three minutes in a children’s show in prime time.

I’m done, everybody carry on shopping.

Related articles

• My Favorite Kinda Messed-Up Christmas Songs (persephonemagazine.com)
• A Jewish parent’s guide to Christmas specials (denverpost.com)

 

A Night Off.

I am sitting here after eating a great meal, that I prepared and ate all alone.  It’s one of those weird nights since Darlene and I got together that is nice, but lonely all at the same time.

It turns out that she’s out at her mother’s place tonight, partly due to weather and family obligations and I am glad she’s there.  Not for the reasons one would expect, that we don’t get along or we had a fight.  It’s not that at all.

Sometimes we all just need a night off.  Right now I am (half assed expecting) the Winnipeg Police to be knocking on the door because I have AC/DC cranked to 11.  Not really, my ears are too old for that crap but you understand what I am talking about I hope.

Don’t get me wrong I love Darlene with every fiber of my body, but sometimes it’s just good to get some ME time.  I was a confirmed bachelor for many years before I met Dar, and everyone likes certain things.  My particular thing when, she’s out for the evening is putting in a great concert DVD and maxing out the speakers.  Is that a bad thing??? I hardly think so.

I tend to lead a pretty boring life at the best of times, I like my news at 6 and a few shows.  So unwinding with some ear-splitting rock and roll to my mind seems like a good thing.  Fist pumping in the privacy of ones home seems to be almost an unalienable human right.

So why do I feel guilty?  Maybe because I wanted a night off?  That she would be snowed in due to icy roads?  Does that make me a bad person to want a night alone, do my chores and cook a nice meal?  Crank some tunes and hog the bed?

Maybe I just miss her too much, or maybe I am just too Canadian?  I don’t know.

In any case I have a shout out to send.  Happy Birthday Mom.  It was 3 years today that I started this adventure in blogging.  I wished you a Happy Birthday then and I will do it again.  We love you and wish you the best in all things.

Bobby and Darlene

Just a tad under the weather, Ikea and Bond.

I know many of you who read my blog on a weekly basis have been hoping for something new of late.  I do apologize these last few weeks have been really hard on us.

Dar was struck two weeks ago with a severe stomach ailment that sent us to hospital in the middle of the night and kept us there most of the weekend.
Thankfully it was only a flu,  I say thankfully in severity to say losing an organ.

She came down with a 9 day bout of this stomach flu from hell and I am currently on day 7.  So hopefully on the mend.

I will be back talking all about the new found pluses in our life such as the invitation to an Ikea opening here in Winnipeg, the new James Bond hype and anything else that rattles my cage in no time at all.

Thanks

Bob

 

 

Amanda Todd Remembered: I was bullied in High School too.

I know that a great deal of ink has been written on Amanda Todd, and in my view all justified.  She was pressured and tormented in the worst kind of ways for a teenager. Let’s face it High School is tough enough without adult perverts trying to sneak a peek at some innocent child.

But as I said I am not trying to add to that mountain.
Instead I want to add my name to that list.

I know that most of my readers see me as a well put together middle-aged man who writes about Winnipeg.   Concerts, dining out, and just general everyday stuff.   But in this context I can relate to Amanda because I was bullied every day in high school too.

Thinking back it was actually in grade school because I had a cousin who, shared my last name who WAS the bully in the day.

Bare with me I am putting pieces together.

We all start small, there is always someone bigger than us, and that was me.  From the big and little hills in the back of Robert Moore School in Fort Frances. Where big kids would dominate  the little kids according to hill size.

To the stinking old Fort Frances High, where you could take shots in the stairwell for not being part of a clique. I was never part of a group.  My little group huddled in an alcove most mornings and between classes.  Outsiders one and all.

We all got beaten down in different ways, I took beatings in the stairs and lockers.  Girls got berated in the bathrooms. To a person we were made to feel smaller and worth less.  I remember Darren, Barb, Carrol, Todd, Calvin.

Then came the day that I got bigger than them.  I was drinking from a fountain one afternoon. One of those shits pushed my head in, and I found my strength.
I took that motherfucker by the scruff and bashed his scrawny head into a locker.  Not once, not twice but multiple times.  All the while he was crying for his big bully brother to come to his aid.

Sorry fucker you messed with the wrong dork.

I know the shame that Amanda felt, how low you can feel when someone drags you under their boot.  I wish Amanda would have had that anger that I felt. The ability to regain her power, but at that tender age you really don’t have much power to start with.

I know  your pain Amanda, I hope that you finally rest in peace.

God Willing

Bob

Related articles

• This One is for Amanda Todd & The Rest of Us (goneawayboys.wordpress.com)
• Like Amanda Todd, I Was Blackmailed With Naked Pictures When I Was 16 [Amanda Todd] (jezebel.com)
• The Amazing Atheist spits on the memory of Amanda Todd [TW: bullying, sexual shaming, suicide] (manboobz.com)
• Amanda Todd’s death inspires Sun readers share experiences with bullying (vancouversun.com)
• Pete McMartin: Amanda Todd, the Internet and us (vancouversun.com)