This Is My Rifle: If I Ruled the World….

Ok. I’m back. I was noticeably absent last week because between writing and preparing mine and Rodney’s next album (currently titled “Pyramids In Stereo”) and doing some movie work to supplement my income while we’re in the process of putting this album together, I just couldn’t find time to sit down and write a new addition to my “This Is My Rifle” column.

Also, I’m aware that a few of the previous articles weren’t my best (with the exception of the last one, which I personally believe is my most informative to date). I know, sometimes I tend to go a bit too far off into my own universe. I have some pretty wacky theories and ideas and it’s hard to translate them so that they’re understandable. But this week I promise I won’t disappoint. And if I do, well fuck you then. I take hours out of my schedule to do this every week and give you something to read while you’re at work so appreciate it for what it is.

Ok, ok. I’m sorry. That was a bit harsh. I didn’t mean “fuck you” in the literal term. I was just lashing out because lately I’ve been constantly surrounded by shit that drives me fuckin crazy. Yes, I am still in Vancouver.

What was once my home city and the place that birthed some of my most cherished life experiences is now more or less just a collection of people that I despise. From the douchebags of the West End (Vancouver’s version of Beverly Hills) to the hipsters of the East Side (Vancouver’s answer to Brooklyn). And might I add, the hipsters moved to the East Side from the West End because they think it’s cool to be poor) there really is nothing about Vancouver that feels like home to me anymore. Don’t get me wrong, there are still a small handful of great people out here but, much like myself, they are all currently planning their exit strategies.

Last night while spending time with one of the aforementioned few great people, a very intelligent and beautiful young woman whom I’ve had the privilege of keeping company with these past few months, an interesting topic of conversation was brought up in passing.

Lately I’ve been thinking about my end goal. Where it is I would like to be when I close the door on my career in music. As an artist I will never stop creating. No matter where I am I will forever be wandering around with my headphones on bringing to life the world that exists inside of me. But what will eventually end is my pursuit of monetarily gaining from it. And so, when that day comes, I would like to be in a place that I could call my own. A small corner of the planet where I’m far away from the things that negatively affect my quality of life. One of the places that come to mind is Cuba (I’m Canadian so it’s a real possibility).

Yeah, that’s right. Big bad Communist Cuba. Home of the crazy Dictator that rocks a beard and smokes cigars. While I am not Cuban and in no position to discuss Cuba’s politics, I will say that Cuba has been unfairly portrayed by the Western media as an evil empire. Yes, Castro is corrupt. But when you look at the world as whole, who isn’t?

So as we lightly touched on the topic of a possible future in Cuba, I was reminded of when Castro filled boats with what he considered to be “undesirables” and sent them to Florida. At first the idea of packing a boat with people that you consider to be worthless and sending them to a foreign country seems like a brutal and inhumane act. But as I thought about it more, and thought about the general population in Vancouver, it made sense and it’s exactly what I would do if I were to become the head of my own Socialist Dictatorship.

And so I present to you my list of undesirables. A comprehensive run-down of who would set sail for Russia almost immediately after I took power (I chose Russia because like Florida to Cuba, Russia is the closest country to us across the Ocean). Also, I would like to note that my official Dictator uniform would look like a cross between M. Bison from Street Fighter 2 and Sergeant Slaughter.

(**SIDENOTE: I didn’t include obvious useless bags of shit like rapists, politicians and pedophiles because, to be quite honest, they would be lined up and shot before ever making it to the boat.**)

HIPSTERS - If you’ve been following my column for the past 6 months, you know how much disdain I have for this overwhelmingly irritating group of idiots. If not, let me get you up to speed. Hipsters are the black plague of music. They are the destroyers of all things good. Anytime I go anywhere, if hipsters are present, I feel like God is kicking me in the balls with military grade steel toed boots. I can’t count the number of times I’ve gone to a party and said to myself, “Fuck. This place is filled with fuckin hipsters”. Hipsters, I want you to know that your apathetic attitude and ironic sense of style is worst thing to happen to human life since Christopher Columbus landed on the shores of the New World. All of those ridiculously untalented artists that came out of your “counter-culture” will not survive the test of time. There is nothing about any of it that is significant to our universe. You are the after-birth of the 80’s. You are the slimy, disgusting remnants of a decade that most people have spent the past 20 years trying to forget. When you arrive in Russia I hope the Russians make you work in coalmines for one dollar a day until you’re well into your 90’s. That way you can feel what it’s like to actually be poor and not just pretend for the sake of some unfathomable irony.

SCENESTERS - There is no real difference between hipsters and scenesters so take everything I said above and apply it here as well. You are the Goth kids of adult life. Hanging out around art galleries and bars in the “bad part of town” doesn’t make you cool or avant-garde, all it does is make the people that have to live there hate their lives even more. Being poor is one thing, but having to walk down your street and see a bunch rich kids pretending to belong in your neighborhood is like Donald Trump punching you in the face with a 100 dollar bill. I would like to take this moment to thank the drug dealers of the area for actively working to decimate this population of morons. For every hipster/scenester that takes the inevitable leap from snorting powder to smoking crack, an angel gets its wings.

DOUCHEBAGS/BOUNCERS/GUYS IN SHINY SHIRTS - All men have been through the same situation before. You meet a girl who’s way the fuck out of your league, to your surprise she’s actually interested in dating you and about 5 dates in you realize she’s a psycho. Then you spend the next few weeks trying to figure out why this girl, who by all means should never even look in your direction, is so insecure that it’s impossible to do anything without her thinking that you’re with some other girl. It’s not her fault that she’s batshit crazy, she just got seriously fucked over by some jerk-off who takes steroids and wears Ed Hardy t-shirts. Thanks to these guys, most of the women in North America are either permanently damaged or have given up on men altogether. Which means that regular dudes like me and you better get used to never having a healthy relationship ever. Do yourself a favor, if something like this ever happens to you; don’t do what the little white dude did. Take all those years of being passed over by the cool pretty girl for some roided-out douchebag, ball it up in the pit of your stomach and maul that motherfucker. You have no idea how many times I’ve prayed for the exact scenario in the video you just watched to happen to me. I would honestly kill one bouncer just to be locked in a bathroom with another.

RAPPERS - Please note that I didn’t say MC’s. There is a very big difference between the 2 and if you don’t know what it is, I have no idea what you’re doing at this website. With that said, Rappers, you are the eternal thorn in my side. You are the reason why when people ask me what I do I say, “I’m a writer” as opposed to saying that I rap. You have made me so ashamed of what I’m most passionate about in life that I have to generalize the title of my career choice to avoid being mistaken for a loser. You’ve taken a culture that was the embodiment of free expression and made it a punch-line. You, along with the corporate elite (see below) took something that was at one time so powerful it scared the shit out of both the US government and the FBI, and turned it into a watered down tool for the same capitalists that the early Rappers fought against. You basically took Hip Hop and raped it until it defeated it’s own purpose. Your whole existence is oxymoronic (I used that word because I know it's not in your vocabulary).

THE CONSERVATIVE MEDIA - Hey Bill. You don’t know me yet but I know you and your cronies over there at FOX fairly well. While I can honestly say that in my heart of hearts I hate you with every molecule in my body, I actually admire your ability to completely fabricate the truth and lie so convincingly. You are the core of the propaganda machine and the fuel to Christian America’s fire. Uneducated White conservatives swear by you and the corporate elite use you as a puppet to perpetuate their capitalist agenda. As long as you have your mansions and Jesus to hide behind, you’re more than willing to continue being Rupert Murdoch’s personal cock boys. I would like to openly invite you to spend a week in your city’s ghetto or housing projects and get a first-hand look at what you’ve done to your beloved America. No? Ok, I’m sure Russia will be more suitable for you. I heard there aren’t many immigrants there.

THE LIBERAL MEDIA - Oh, you thought I was a card carrying Liberal? Nope. Michael Moore and Bill Maher, you too are propagandists to the highest degree. Instead of just making shit up like the conservatives do, you take it upon yourselves to distort the facts while wearing that stupid “I love everybody. Let’s all get abortions!” look on your face. Yeah, I’ll admit, you’re a lot more intelligent and likable than Bill, Glenn and Sean, but you’re all cut from the same cloth. And while conservatives at least pretend to be all “Jesus” with it, you don’t believe in anything. You kinda go along with what everybody else says and then when it’s time to stand up and fight like a man, you pussy out. You claim that you’re better than conservatives because you’re socially conscious, but we both know that if you had to sell your Benz to feed the homeless you’d somehow weasel your way out of it. I hope the conservatives eat you alive on your way to Russia.

THE CORPORATE ELITE - You secretly control the 2 groups of fuckwads above and play them against each other so that the majority of the public stay divided on either side of a non-existent political line. Your God is Capitalism and regardless of who’s winning the pretend tug-of-war, your only goal is to find a way to somehow exploit it and turn it into a profit. You’ve destroyed every facet of human life across the globe and now your focus is on pulling it all together, putting RFID chips in our hands and making every single person on the planet your bitch. But we’re on to you, Elitists. Alex Jones might be a little off his fuckin rocker sometimes, but the last time I checked his movies had 6 million plus views on YouTube. All the Justin Biebers and Jersey Shores you can conjure can’t make up for that type of awareness. Even this article is opening people up to the truth behind your bullshit “American Dream”. Sure, a lot of the Western world is afraid of giving up the life they’re accustomed to and will fall in line when you say so, but I want you know that we’re prepared to let them die in order to preserve what freedoms we have left. Who needs a bunch of retards in skinny jeans anyway?

It’s days like these that I truly wish I was a Socialist Dictator. Could you imagine what life would be like if we were able to create a Noah’s Ark packed full of these dickheads and send them away forever? Ah well, I guess that’s what dreams are for.

(Jason James is an artist, freelance columnist and writer for RefinedHype.com. You can listen/download his most recent album, "Marvelous World Of Color", here and you can contact him here and here.)