Hello and Happy New Year! 2024 is here, and if I can manage it, this will be the end of Teflon Ghost the blog. Not that I intend to stop, I just want to make it what it should have been from the start: Six Beer Shakespeare. (or Eight Beer Shaksespeare?) The catch is, I want to make it so all the stuff I’ve written over the last almost 8 years is still attached in some way so it can be found. I hope I’m not talking to myself here, as I haven’t had any feedback for months and my statistics say nearly no one is going to my site. It’s ok, I enjoy writing in here, whether or not there is an audience. It’s my version of singing in the shower.
A funny thing about the recently departed 2023 is that I intended it to be a year full of writing. I had won a prize late in 2022 in a writing contest, so I wanted to build on that, submit to some larger contests with bigger prizes, freelance for the local paper a little. Maybe make a few bucks, maybe get long listed somewhere prestigious. So what happened? I got sucked into two major distractions. One was I took courses and tests for work, and the other was I got pulled deeper into the local chess scene, becoming a National Arbiter along the way. How did your plans for last year work out? Did you find yourself accomplishing all your goals or did you also find yourself going down some side road? Comments are welcome.
I found out today that we got tickets to see the Rolling Stones this May in Seattle! Our early plan is to take the Amtrak train down and get an airbnb somewhere near the stadium. I think the four fares on the train, plus room, plus a few meals and the tickets will cost about the same as one ticket in Vancouver on the secondary market. I know the people who resell those tickets are “providing a service” in that they have a way for you to get in the concert. But what makes them vultures and parasites is the fact they don’t create extra seats or extra opportunities for you to go, they just get between you and the promoters and jack the ticket prices way the fuck up so normal fans can’t even afford to go. There won’t be too many more chances to see the Stones, as the clock is ticking when all the members are 80+. Luckily the Seattle show didn’t sell out too quickly and didn’t get bought up by blood sucking low lifes.
Hopefully this will be the year that the wars in the Ukraine and the Middle East end. People only get one fleeting chance at life – to feel purpose, to fall in love, to have dreams – and no one should die for an imaginary line on a map or because their neighbour reads a slightly different religious text. At least the Russians won’t be invited to the Olympics in Paris this summer. Their athletes may not be to blame, as the cheating is sanctioned by the people in charge, but you aren’t usually in a fair race with a Russian these days, and even their judges have been known to be corrupt. This year’s special Olympic event will be peddling your bicycle with a baguette in the basket, ringing a little bell that goes “bring, bring!” France is favoured to sweep the medals in that competition.
I have written in the past about how I hope this and that for various years, hoping for peace or whatever. But the fact is, you and I are the people alive in this moment, and we can all make the world a little warmer by being kind and creating happy little ripples in whatever pond we are treading water in. It sounds corny and like some ridiculed dogma from hippy days gone by, but love is the answer.
We have been invited to dinner this first evening of the year, so I’m going to quit rambling nonsense and go. I will try to set up some sort of alert when my blog changes names, if it does. Hopefully, it won’t just be me echoing in the shower.