I am so loving this Harley Quinn series it's just pressing so many of the right buttons for me. I love series like Archer and Rick and Morty where it's a group of assholes who actually care about each other but are the architects of their own misery. I love the over-the-top campy blood-soaked Tarantino-esque violence. I love the complete lack of taking itself seriously like Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law. All this and swearing and sex jokes.

I just love the chemistry between the characters. I absolutely adore Clayface with his unbridled enthusiasm and scenery chewing hammery. It's so cute how King Shark gets so stoked when he gets to put his tech skills to work instead of being muscle. Sy Borgman which is basically just George Castanza as a CIA war criminal, BAY-BAAAAY!!!! I love Poison Ivy's sardonic wit, it's like if Daria became a supervillain and her low-energy humour makes her a perfect counterpart to Harley's Manic Pixie Death-Girl.

I think what I really love is the two different angles on misogyny in the series. You have the Joker who is a misogynistic asshole but he completely lacks the self-awareness to realize he's a misogynistic asshole because he's also a complete narcissist and then you have Doctor Psycho who is also a misogynistic asshole but he has self-awareness and does make an effort to correct himself when he catches it and the crew doesn't let him get away with it, but they don't give up on him either because they're a group of friends who are recognize they're all fucked up in their own ways so they work together to improve each other even when they fuck up. Baby steps, you'll get there eventually little man. Just keep working on catching yourself and making progress.

Harley Quinn is now my favourite Group Of Assholes Who Are Friends series.

I was reading an article a few months ago that was talking about Hollywood and representation. When different ethnicities are measured as they exist as population percentages blacks are slightly under represented, SW Asians are very under-represented, Latins are grossly under-represented. In fact the only groups that were over represented in Hollywood compared to their population percentages are whites, and eastern Asians.

This surprised me and really got me thinking because while it was obvious that whites are over represented in Hollywood it never seemed like eastern Asians were also over represented in Hollywood. Then I realized.... JAPAN!

Whoever wrote the article was counting all the ninjas that are hidden in every movie Hollywood has made since the 1920s. I went back and started rewatching old movies frame by frame and sure enough I was surprised to find 38 Ninjas in Jimmy Stewart's movie Harvey alone.

I was listening to the radio today and The Smith's song "Big Mouth Strikes Again" came on. One of the lines sounded weird to me so I looked up the lyrics for the first time in my life and it completely changed the song because it turned out this time I heard the lyric the way it actually was sang and not the freaking mondegreen I'd been hearing since the 80s.

I had for the first time heard "Now I know how Joan of Arc felt" (the actual lyric). Previously I had always heard that line sung as "Now I know that you're immortal". This changed entirely the meaning of the song for me.

I had previously envisioned the song as being about some guy who had in a fit of rage and frustration bashed in the head of his girlfriend and then looked on in horror as she reset her broken neck and her caved in skull reformed itself whole before his eyes so he nervously tried to tell her "Ha. Ha. Just kidding with the whole smashing your head in thing" as he realized his girlfriend was some sort of undead supernatural being that could snuff him out like a candle if he dared incur her wrath like when Graham Chapman tried to pump the Grim Reaper full of lead in The Meaning Of Life.

I just really like the song much more when I picture Morrissey slowly backing away from an immortal inhuman creature that is striding towards him with a frighteningly calm visage that starkly contrasts the horribly violent frenzy that Morrissey had just beaten it to "death" with. A wide eyed, terrified beyond rational thought Morrisey, backing away and trying to block his "girlfriend" by toppling furniture, lamps, literally anything he can get his hands on to stop her slow, deliberate approach while he pleads "Baby! The crowbar thing was just me having a bit of a laugh. I love you baby!". I imagine her eyes turning Vanta black and her maw ever so impossibly widening in a terrible grimace that is neither a grin nor a scream.

"I didn't mean it! I DIDN'T mean IT! I DIDN'T MEAN IT!" he screams over and over forever.

You know when you think about it, the Empire was clearly a white, male and human only club. But The First Order had POCs and women in it so I guess even Space Nazis can make some progress.

So in the past three months I've had several straight friends contact me, as their queer friend, to ask for advice to help them understand what trans family members are going through and it makes me so glad and proud of the people I call friends that their instinct was "better ask a friend who knows more about this for some advice" and not "better cut this family member out of my life for doing something I don't understand".

My initial advice before they get into the specifics of their situation is always the same.

Once upon a time we didn't exist, we didn't feel pain, loneliness, suffering or anything else for that matter. Then one day we were ripped from the void and stuck in a meat prison where we'll get about 80 years give or take until this meat prison finally breaks down and lets us return to that blessed void. There are so many things that hurt us mentally and physically while we exist in these meat prisons. So much pain and so much suffering and each of us have the right to be comfortable in our own skin because while we're here this meat prison belongs to us and we should all have autonomy over our meat prisons.

For some people making peace with their meat prisons is really easy. Some people don't have to do anything at all, their meat prison suits their own identity very well, almost like a glove. Some people have to do a little tweaking of their meat prison to make it reflect who they are so they can be as comfortable as possible in the time they're condemned to stay inside this meat prison. Some people just need to wear certain style of clothes to feel at home in their meat prisons. Some people don't like the colour of the hair in their meat prison. So they dye it. Some people want their meat prison to be hard so they exercise in ways that make their meat prisons muscular. Some people feel the skin of their meat prison is too bland so they tattoo it. Some people think their meat prison needs some shiny adornment so they get piercings, which hurt a bit at first but ultimately makes them more comfortable in their skin. That's what it all comes down to, their right to make their meat prison as comfortable as possible while they're stuck in it.

Some people need to do even more before they're finally comfortable in their meat prison. Some people dressing to their identity is all it takes to make their meat prison a home. Some people need to take hormones to make their meat prison a home. Some, but really very few people even need to have surgery to make their meat prison a home and that's perfectly valid too. We all should have the right to make our meat prisons as comfortable a home as possible for our consciousness to live in for however long we're stuck here.

I don't have the right to forbid someone from getting a tattoo just because I don't feel having a tattoo will make me more comfortable in my meat prison. It's a hell of a lot easier for my tattooed friends to just get the tattoo they want than it is for them to try and rewire the desire for a tattoo out of their brain, so let them get the tattoo. Doesn't affect my life in any meaningful way and it makes them happy in their meat prison.

A common concern people will follow this up with is "Don't they know how hard this is going to make their lives?"

Oh hell yeah they know. They know they're going to be mocked. They know they're going to be ridiculed. They know they're going to be discriminated against. They know they're going to be shunned. They know they might even be killed all for the sin of trying to be comfortable in their meat prison. But they also know the pain of not making their meat prison a home is going to be so much worse.

"So what do I do as a concerned and caring parent? Just sit back and let them do all this?"

Hell no! Take action to support them through this. Communicate with them your concerns but most importantly listen to them when they tell you their concerns. Be there for them. If you got em reach out to queer friends for advice. Join a positive support group (even if it's just online) for parents of trans people. Understand that none of this is about you. You didn't "fail as a parent" because you raised a trans child. Your child isn't doing it to rebel against you or to punish or to embarrass you. Let your child know that no matter how hard things get and no matter how much you might struggle at times to understand what they're going through that you love them and you will be with them to support them as they do what they need to to make their meat prison a home. By being proactive in your child's transition you will make the whole thing so much easier for yourself and your child.

"I feel like I've lost my son/daughter."

That is a perfectly understandable feeling. But understand the loss you are mourning isn't the loss of a person. It's the loss of your own mental construct of who that person was which was based on your experiences with that person before they began to do what they needed to do to be comfortable in their meat prison. They're still alive, they're still here, they're still the same person you had all those experiences with. They're not going away unless you drive them away. They're still your child and as much as it might pain you to watch them struggle to make their meat prison a home, as much as it might pain you to watch them struggle against a world that persecutes them, mocks them, and hurts them it will pain you a million times more if you have to bury them.

The biggest problem with the 2009 movie Surrogates, (bigger than the so called "hero" of the movie condemning thousands of people per day to death just because he was having intimacy problems with his wife) was the lack of diversity in people's surrogates. If we ever developed surrogate technology we wouldn't just see people running around in robot bodies that looked like themselves in their prime. People would finally be free from the biological limitations of human flesh and would be able to express themselves however they wanted. You think every Furry you know would opt for a robot body that was just a younger version of themselves? Hell no.

If surrogate technology was real would I walk around as a younger version of myself? Hell no! I'm walking around as a god-dammed 80s Sorayama poster. If you don't want to see me walking around as an 80s Sorayama poster then you'd better devote your life to stamping out any surrogate-like technology because when we get it I'm ditching this meat prison and strutting myself around as a sexy chrome bitch, and no laws, no men, no force on heaven or earth will be able to stop me!

Think you can stop me in your younger-you surrogate? HA! You get within 5 feet of me and you'll be mesmerized by your reflection in my shiny chrome boobs. You will look upon your reflection and see the sad, shocked face of a person who could have been walking around as a sexy 80s Sorayama poster but chose not to. You will see the naked truth looking back at you from my shiny smooth tits and realize the folly of your ways.

Birdman said "Wubba lubba dub dub" meant "I am in great pain. Please help me." In the episode "Raising Gazorpazop" after Rick is released from being choked by a Gazorpazop female he says "What is the opposite of Wubba lubba dub dub."

Over the course of this lecture I will prove that Rick Sanchez has a breath-play fetish.

So there are a couple of memes I've seen going around that I wholeheartedly agree with. The memes all state in various ways that it's okay to be bad at doing something creative and to still enjoy the hell out of doing it. That is 100% true, you can be a terrible musician and still love playing music, terrible painter and still love painting. Absolutely! I support you 100% in your creative endeavours that bring you joy. But I would like to take a moment to discuss the inverse of this that rarely gets mentioned.

It is okay to be very talented at something and to only perform that talent when you want to. It's okay to be a talented musician who really only likes getting together to play a ceilidh with their friends now and then. It's okay to be a talented painter who only likes to paint sporadically when the mood takes them. It's okay to be an actor who only wants to do the odd community theatre play every now and then. It's okay to be a talented writer who really only wants to scribble poems and stories in a note book for yourself. It's okay to only use your talents to make your life happier when you want to do so. It's okay to only want to employ your talents with friends and people close to you. You are under no obligation to turn the talents that make you happy into a hustle. It's okay to not want to turn something you're very good at and love doing into a job. Your talents are yours and it's not selfish to decide you're going to use them to make yourself happy. It's not selfish to decide who you're going to allow to have access to them. Now matter how good you are at doing something there is nothing at all wrong with only doing that thing when you want to with no concerns about making it pay. It's okay for the only pay off to be the happiness it gives you.

We have a weird dialectic in our society that tells young talent that on the one hand they're stupid for going into the arts when it's a field that, with the exception of a very few elite, pays very little and yet also tells these artists that if they're not hustling every minute to exploit their talents for a dollar that they're "wasting their gift". This attitude is what causes artists to burn out. It's causes them to suddenly hate the thing that used to give them joy. Now some artists love the thrill of the hustle, and hey all the more power to you. But for some of us the hustle wears us down and sucks the joy out of creating and makes us fall out of love with the very thing we are exceptionally talented at.

Your talents are not a gift, they are something you earned through practice and study. Even for those few individuals who are born with brains already wired to excel at art, their talent is still their own. You do not need burdens and obligations heaped upon you just because you are really good at doing something. It is perfectly valid for you to wish to employ your talents, no matter how exceptional they are, to make your time on this Earth happier for yourself without any desire to turn it into an occupation. You have every right to decide when, where, how, and with whom you chose to share them. That's not selfishness, that's self care.

There is a lot to be said about having the sum of human knowledge at your fingertips and it's hard to imagine how we ever got along without the internet but there were times when it was very handy to not have instant access to any knowledge you desired.

Back in 1993 when very few of us had any sort of online experience the movie The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford came out. CityTV reran all the original episodes and a friend of mine was very into the show and was telling me how much he was enjoying watching it for the first time.

Me, being the little shit that I am, saw an opportunity for mischief so I told him, "Oh yeah, it's even better when you rewatch it after the finale so you can pick up all the little clues."

"Clues for what?" he asked, falling into my trap.

"Well the final episode he finally confronts the One-Armed-Man on top of a water tower and it gets very emotional and he suddenly realizes the One-Armed-Man doesn't exist. He realizes that he's been chasing a phantom of his own making and that he himself murdered his wife but his mind couldn't handle the guilt so it manifested the One-Armed-Man so he could project this guilt upon him rather than face the horror of what he did. When he realizes that he was the one who killed his wife the One-Armed-Man falls from the tower and just fades away into nothingness. Then Dr. Richard Kimble climbs down the tower and turns himself over to Gerard having finally accepted the truth that he murdered his own wife. Yeah, once you've seen the finale it is so much fun to go back and rewatch it to pick up all the subtle clues."

So my friend ends up watching the rest of the series trying to pick up all these subtle clues that Richard Kimble killed his wife and hallucinated a One-Armed-Man to carry the guilt of what he'd done. Then he gets to the last episode, watches it, calls me up on the phone and yells "YOU ASSHOLE!"