The Antisocial Socialist

Links of the day:

zerzan

(via anarchists.)

And you might have already seen this, but it made me laugh:

Awesome band. You should check them out. They're the wacko-right equivalent of that really bad folk music I keep ragging on -- earnest, talentless, and unintentionally funny if you don't need to sit there for an hour and listen to them.

( cut for a sampling of my favourite song so far )

Photo of the week:


Photo By Dan Bergeron/Fauxreel

This lovely scene appeared in both eye and NOW this week (the eye photo was better, but I can't find it); if you can't read it, it says: "Drake, you ho, this is all your fault."

On a more serious note, Slum Tourism Toronto.

Let's see...

• It is too early for the Second Cup to be busting out eggnog-flavoured coffee. I can see that sort of thing two days before Christmas as sort of a novelty gag, but it's disgusting and I wish they'd stop offering it to me. Ugh.

• It's that time of year again! That's right -- people are getting all snarky about "Merry Christmas" vs. "Happy Holidays" and there's not even snow on the ground.

• No, that doesn't mean I want there to be snow on the ground. It took me some time to locate clothing warm enough for sub-zero temperatures today. I hate this time of year.

• Hey, you know what else would be nice to have in my apartment? Heat. Maybe enough hot water to take a bubble bath at night, but I suppose according to my landlord I should be happy that the roof hasn't caved in yet.

• Texan Republicans? At my family's dinner? It's more likely than you think.

• rohmie? WTF?

---

Okay, so it seems I have some heat now (a wee bit in two out of three rads) but the power keeps going out. Maybe I should light some candles or something.

New Gaybortion!: Overheard at Mitzi's Sister.

I finished reading The Trial of Henry Kissinger and it occurs to me that many of the things that irk me about Hitchens, such as his histrionic writing style, are present even when I agree with what he's saying. It's a good book otherwise.

Someone is playing music really loudly. I mean, it has to be incredibly loud for me to hear it in here. I can't move out of this building soon enough, I tell ya. The hot water tank is dying again.

First, read this.

I'm glad the lockout is over. I'm also glad that CBC Unplugged isn't going anywhere (or if it is, it will go kicking and screaming) because it has become one of my favourite blogs during its short existence. A lot of the other CBC blogs are really good, too, so it'll be interesting to see which ones stick around.

In other news, I settled up with my landlord today. This guy really knows how to charm a girl, let me tell you. He really likes to talk. He launched into a monologue about the '67 war and how after all of that killing, Israel finally "gave up" Gaza, and what was the point of it all, apparently thinking that it was a very apt metaphor and very appropriate given that his tenant is a Jew. Man, if I'd wanted to cry anti-Semitism I could have had some real fun.

Anyway, he has some relative coming from Greece so he's happy to evict me. In turn, I informed him that I'd fight it. He informed me that the Rental Tribunal were all friends of his, which is probably true, given the complicity of such bodies in tenant exploitation. So after both of us threatening to make the other's life a living hell, he offered to swallow a bit less than half of what I'd withheld. He then went on to another monologue about people with mohawks, and while tuning him out, I contemplated the offer.

I could keep pushing for the whole thing, and legally, I might win, but if the Tribunal is all Greek-landlord mafia, I could get completely screwed, too. If I paid and then appealed to the Tribunal, I might have to end up paying the whole shot. So I went for it and made my landlord sign a note that we'd settled up and there was no money outstanding.

I figure I'll be out of here within six months. Moving will be stressful enough without having to go to court. And I did end up with some discount, at least, and maybe in the future he'll know better than to fuck me around.

In other news, Fearless Leader is two hours late. I don't think he's coming. Of course, if he called to say he was late, lost, etc., it wouldn't have done me any good because the stupid phone has been ringing off the hook all night and no single person in my life seems to understand the meaning of I don't like talking on the phone, I don't have call waiting, and I'm expecting to hear from other people.

EDIT: [The following morning.] Ooops, Fearless Leader did come by, exactly when he said he would. Apparently, my doorbell isn't working (or maybe I just didn't hear it because of the ringing phone). Sorry, Fearless Leader, for implying that you are flakey!

( cut for unadulterated moment of phone anxiety and CAPLOCKS OF RAGE )

Yeah, so I'm glad that's dealt with.

I'm watching, and feeling, sadness turning into physical horror turning into rage. And people wonder why folks in New Orleans are rioting?

( cut for pure and uncensored sabotabby-rage )

On a comparatively trivial note, I really, really wish my landlords (father and son) would agree to discuss rent disputes over the phone instead of insisting on getting together with me in person. Just because my landlord has nothing better to do with his time doesn't mean that I have nothing better to do with my time. They always show up late and I waste my entire evening on what could be solved in a few minutes of discussion.

Predictably, the substitute-landlord took issue with the figure on my rent cheque. This is not surprising. What is surprising is that he felt the need to call me, express his dissatisfaction, and make a vague threat of eviction, before he had actually opened the cheque and seen the amount on it. Nor, I might add, is he familiar with the amount that I regularly pay, so I do wonder why he never said anything about my payments being $100 per month less than what he thought they should be.

In other words, he is a spectacular douche.

Anyway, by my count, I was without hot water for 10 days. (He took issue with this too -- claiming that for some of those days there was lukewarm water. I can only assume he means the days where we'd have about five minutes of lukewarm water before it reverted to cool, and finally freezing cold water. This is acceptable in a ridiculously overpriced apartment. In a First World country.)

So essentially, Captain Douchebag believes that since he installed the air conditioner (that I bought) for free, he has documentation claiming that he did everything possible to get us hot water (apparently, that doesn't include actually checking to see if the work was done or asking us if it worked), and since I still "had a roof over my head," his duties as a landlord have been fulfilled for the month. Given that he was supposed to call me to discuss this after the hot water was back (he never called) and before the rent was due, he had plenty of opportunity to offer up a fair figure of his own. He didn't. He basically went along assuming everything was business as usual, which in his case involves being surly and inaccessible to the tenants.

Him: "I guess you've never rented from anyone else before, but my father and I do things differently than other landlords. Any other landlord would have written up an eviction notice."

This is obviously an empty threat -- I believe that I'd have to have been in arrears three months before he could legally evict me, besides which there is a board that deals with such matters. I informed him of this, whereupon he backtracked and said that he wouldn't evict me. He's insisting on talking to me in person. Which will be fun, as I'm going out of town on Thursday.

I guess I should probably be more concerned about this whole thing, but I get this feeling that his father wouldn't be very happy to come back from Greece and find out what his son's been up to. Also, I really don't care. I'm not quitting my job until I have a better one, and if I get evicted, I can find a new apartment in a snap.

It's incidents like this, though, that remind me that when we talk about class in brutal and uncompromising terms, we're not being histrionic. No matter how nice a guy he is on the weekends, your boss is still screwing from you. And even if you live in a funky student neighbourhood, your landlord still has the mentality of a slumlord.

In Serious and Scary News: This is from Information Clearing House, so take it with a grain of salt, but it appears that Iraqi children are being imprisoned, raped, and tortured by American soldiers.

The Apartment Gods have seen fit to take my hot water away. Am in a crusty mood today.