Happy Mother's Day

Now go thank your mother for letting you penetrate her engorged vagina as your earliest memory!

Princess Sarah

I used to work at a mystery shopping company. I was going to try to describe it, but I immediately vomitted in my mouth. Anyway, that is where I met my good friend and accomplice Sarah. As I was looking through her blogs on another site, I came across a blog she wrote about me. So I am cutting and pasting it for all to see. Of course, I have added on to it, just to clarify a few things for you people.

Sarah's Entry:

it was a cold day in hell when i met rob.

actually, it wasn't. i don't have the faintest idea what the weather was like because i was on my way into a building that was slowly and painfully sucking my will to live out through my pores. anyway, rob was waiting for the elevator and i took the stairs. that says a lot about our friendship.
we avoid each other.

so i don't really know what we said to each other on our first meeting, but had i known how monumental it was, i would have written down the transcript to be sold on ebay for lots of pennies. maybe even a hundred!
in any case, i figure the first exchange was "hi" or "what are you in for?" or something like that. it quickly degenerated into heinous abuse (i admit, i threw a lot of stuff at rob over the cubicle wall, though it didn't dent his perfectly round head), witty observations of the morons in charge, craigger and tits mcghee, cynical analysis of our daily tasks and blatant abuse of break time during which we plotted escape and other fun activities to break the monotony between cackles and sobs. that is, when we took break. sometimes we were too busy huddled in our cubicles, wailing and pleading for mercy.

you see, we edited stuff. when i say "edited stuff", i mean we wrote mystery shopping reports (not even "rewrote"!!) people submitted in language a chimpanzee would be ashamed to call english. nay, not a chimpanzee - a louse. a louse would have been ashamed to try to pass off what we interpreted, deciphered, eventually grudgingly accepted as attempted english. we wept at the abuse of the language daily and tried not to acknowledge our efforts were futile.

we worked in beige cubicles trying to read reports - through our tears for humanity - submitted by these 'mystery shoppers'. these people - treasures that they were - were somehow overlooked for other jobs. it was beyond me why.

not really.

it was quite obvious why they were overlooked. illiteracy, even when you can spell it properly on a cee-vee, is not a "marketable skill". day in and day out i corrected, interpreted, and indeed just wrote long reports on behalf of people who were paid for a job "well-done". the mystery shoppers were lauded for giving up their time, for their hard work and for their many efforts. i suspected walking and chewing gum was out of the question for these people. and i was trying to be nice. (breathing is supposed to be automatic.)

with the help of rob, passing kleenex back and forth to stem the tide of tears and coming up with the 'idiot of the day' quote (so very many to choose from!), we delved into the deeper background of these mystery shoppers. we wanted to know the selection process. because, you see, we'd have worried a lot less for humanity had these people been a part of some kind of rehabilitation programme. we'd likely have volunteered our time (well, i would have, probably, but rob's plain evil) to help these people gain some basic language skills. but these people weren't new arrivals to our fine country struggling valiantly to learn an additional language, they weren't students who had fallen through the cracks of a faulty education system or people who had been raised by wolves.
they were adults.

and so about the fourth minute on the job, rob and i had bonded in a common cause. 'teach the english language'. it was a simple solution, we thought, to the obviously rampant problem heretofore unnoticed - unabated adult illiteracy in mystery shoppers. good intentions bubbled to the surface: help educate the masses. do your small part. dream the impossible dream. seize the day.

so on our way to break in our fifth minute on the job, we discussed how we could make the world a better place. then we decided to aim lower and concentrate for the interim on how to make our own miserable lives working as editors in beige cubicles less exasperating.

slurpees!

and report cards!

yes. we got to write "report cards" for these mystery shoppers. so rob and i would write long explanations about what "objective" meant. and we'd explain the difference between "your" and "you're" and "they're", "there" and "their" with admittedly finite patience. a hundred times a day and we eventually resorted to cutting and pasting from files dedicated to the personal errors of each shopper we came to know and... loathe. for many mystery shoppers, we encouraged the use of adjectives and gave examples of how to use them. "the french fries were served hot and the texture was crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. delicious!" or something equally ridiculous.

one day, a staff meeting was called. we (our department) were told that our report card explanations were far too complicated. we were to edit, and we were to edit faster. we were asked if we had any suggestions. being an idealistic fool in my youth, i raised my hand confidently. "maybe we can hire mystery shoppers who know how to read and write?" that idea was shot down and i was properly chastised, duly noted as a troublemaker and subsequently blacklisted from all the "good shifts".
we resorted to circulating "shame" emails around the department as a way of sharing our frustration over mystery shopper illiteracy with our colleagues. all the greatest nonsense made the grade. it made most of us giggle at least once during the day - except when that happened, our newly-promoted manager/yes-man freaked out. rob and i excelled at freaking out our newly-promoted manager/yes-man. it gave us something to do besides contemplating whether a leap through a second-storey window in don mills would be enough to kill us. (did i mention we were in beige cubicles in don mills? across the street from harlequin? yes, that harlequin.)

so my eight-hour shifts - reduced to once a week for bad behaviour (editing, which strangely was the job description when it clearly should have been 'writing fiction'...) i did my best to excel in even less time. i became more efficient. i started sending on the nonsense. as i suspected, no one even read the reports. my friends (co-editors) caught on to the ploy - fair enough, after i announced it with glee to the entire department - and there was no small amount of departmental mirth for two whole minutes. we no longer dreaded reading passages that didn't make sense.

and so before losing my mind entirely, i escaped the hell of editing utter crap. i'll never edit another thing, unless i know the person who requests the service and i can throw large objects at them should they submit drivel or nonsense for my review. just writing this blog has given me hives. but i had to share, because rob is my friend and one must allow for opportunities to reminisce with friends.

Rob's Response:

I remember the weather quite well that October morning. The sky was writhing with terrible premonitions. The Virgin Mary was crying tears of blood in the form of crimson rain. War, famine, pestilence and death were mounting their horses across the heavens. Rainbows were rusting copper and falling to the Earth in a fiery burnished paroxysm. I just thought this all had something to do with the green house effect. I was, admittedly, naive. So I see Sarah as I'm waiting for the elevator. She didn't completely avoid me. She took one look at me, like a jaguar sizing up its meal, and said in a mocking tone, "Are you the new sacrifice?" Searching for something clever to retort with, my flatulence acted up and I let rip a 'Quaker Rocky Road granola bar from earlier that morning' fart. She opted to take the stairs, pulling her shirt over her mouth and nose like a ninja. (I would later reference this ninja story and be met with a roundhouse kick to the head - Sarah had a funny way of taking things literally, but she would say she was just being affectionate. Any contact was a gift I suppose. Even if it hurt like hell). Anyway, the days crawled by slowly and more and more the company began to make a baby in a roasting pan look positively cuddly and delightful. Then one day, when I was sitting there wishing for a plane to fall out of the sky and land on my head (Sarah's paper clip projectiles were the closest thing to that happening), this fat, jovial, kiss-ass with a smug grin only a child molester could appreciate was promoted to manager of our department. His name was Rene Blanchard. He used to molest pitbulls just for fun. If any of you ever see him on the street, throw knives and porcupines at him. Rene had the bosses dicks permanently planted up his ass. He was insanely jealous because no one liked him and everyone liked Sarah and myself. In fact, we would have been voted prom king and queen if the company had a prom. So Rene cut our shifts and separated us (with Sarah working during the days and me working at night with the employees who had disproportionate faces like something out of a Picasso painting and smelled like sour milk). So I had to suffer through reading those mystery reports (or the piles of fuck belched forth by some of the most illiterate and stupid people in the world) alone. Without Sarah, my mind, which I believed to be resilient and impenetrable, was plunged into madness.

Sarah and I were reunited during the A&P crisis (a crisis that puts that war with archangels and flaming swords to shame). I remember the moment well. Sitting in my cubicle, talking to the large poster of Gary Coleman I had pinned to my wall, face twitching, getting in trouble for breathing, Sarah walks in. Our eyes locked. The world slipped away. Everything became soft focus. A single spotlight illuminated my workspace. The haunting and serene sounds of Marvin Gaye sang out in the distance. Paperclips were launched at my head, followed by a half-full bottle of Evian. Sarah had returned! I was concussing.

Shortly after that I decided to partake in the whole "coming up for air" thing people tell me about and quit.

Bad Habits Die Hard

It's been a week since I stopped biting my nails. I've been shaking, sweating, shivering and twitching. Kicking heroin was easier. But my nails have never been healthier looking or this long. And I did it without any of that poisonous acrylic either. It's all will power. But it's so hard to resist biting, but I must try to continue to fight.

However, I only said I stopped biting my nails. That doesn't mean I won't bite yours. So watch out.

Back From New York

It's been a while since I posted. The voices in my head have been instructing me not to. Take it up with them. Anyway, I am back from my stay in Manhattan. I would have stayed longer but I was sort of forcefully removed from the country. You see, while there, I visited my sister and her husband. As always they decided to use my visit as a means of exploiting me for labor. Turns out they've been completely assimilated by US culture now as they have recently purchased an American flag to dangle from their balcony for all to see. Why anyone would feel the need to embellish their property with patriotism is beyond me. So naturally they demanded that I go hang it up. My sister is pregnant and my brother-in-law is, well, useless. So after 10 minutes of bitching and complaining, I finally dragged my stubborn ass onto the balcony, balancing like some tightrope artist with this huge flag. Since night had fallen, it was pretty dark out. So to see exactly where the flag had to go, I pulled out a lighter to light up the dark space. As luck would have it, I accidentally lit the flag on fire and before I knew it 3 thousand Muslims with long beards and googly eyes were below me, dropping to their knees and calling me "Allah."

That's the type of thing that gets you removed from the US.

Viva La Revolution

I woke up this morning and there was a pod beside my bed over-stocked with funky weaponry and shiny buttons that hummed. It turns out the pod was a state of the art time machine (I knew this from my over-extensive knowledge of time travel engineering and my repeated viewings of the Back To The Future trilogy - mainly the latter). I entered it, pressed some buttons and was sent back to the year 1758 in France. I lived many years there among the aristocracy, finding myself engaged in an affair with a peasant chambermaid. I was soon sentenced, in the revolt, to die by the guillotine. I escaped in the nick of time with a mystical Martian named Oroak through a green vortex that had magically appeared over the Obélisque de Luxor in the Place de la Concorde. I ended up back in my bed and hadn't aged a day.
It's 11am. What did YOU do today?

It Begins With A Limerick

EFO's (Errors, Freaks and Oddities),

Through one of my many Internet searches, I finally came upon the answer to the much questioned "There once was a man from Nantucket" thing-a-ma-jig. I always wondered whether this was a real limerick or only one line written long ago that was aimed to torture mankind through the ages. Turns out it is a real limerick. Here's the history.

The limerick was discovered in a June 14, 1924 edition of a Nantucket newspaper. It all began when the Princeton Tiger revived the then well-known limerick and the Chicago Tribune answered with a second limerick that continued the first. The New York Exchange went one step further with the third rhyme and the Pawtucket Times took over from there. Basically, there's an open invitation for common folk, like us, to add to the quartet's adventures.

So I present to you the original 4 limericks, followed by my own limerick, added on, continuing the tale. Add to mine with one of your own, but know that it has to follow mine. Find others to add to it. Let's create the mother of all limericks.

It's a good test to see, not only how creative all of you are, but how creative the people you know are. Or have all your acquaintances been corrupted by the monotony of life and corporate/financial/security/ commodity lifestyles? Have they all been turned into a quagmire of morose automatons, forced to become drooling desk pieces or proletarian servants, ever gazing at a computer screen? If not, then let them know about this and have them add in their 2 cents to the pile (consisting of rusted copper and that sticky substance that one finds on old pennies).

There once was a man from Nantucket,
Who kept all of his cash in a bucket,
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man,
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
- Princeton Tiger

But he followed the pair to Pawtucket,
The man and the girl with the bucket;
And he said to the man,
He was welcome to Nan,
But as for the bucket, Pawtucket.
- Chicago Tribune

Then the pair followed Pa to Manhasset,
Where he still held the cash as an asset,
But Nan and the man,
Stole the money and ran,
And as for the bucket, Manhasset.
- New York Exchange

Of this story we hear from Nantucket,
About the mysterious loss of a bucket,
We are sorry for Nan,
As well as the man,
The cash and the bucket, Pawtucket.
- Pawtucket Times

Now the fate of the bucket's unknown,
But who cares about a pottle of chrome?
I'd rather hear tales,
Of midgets in jails,
And rat monkeys plagued with down syndrome.
- Kid Rob

Grumble

Hi. Life sucks. And is crazy. (This can be used interchangeably with unsound, abnormal, insane, delirious, odd, demented, eccentric and for our Portuguese audience reading along at home: louco).

Nothing clever or witty to say today because I'm not myself. I am actually Chuck, a redneck baker in a Japanese deli. But fear not, I will be back soon enough in top form. I'll buy you all drinks. The first (and likely the last) round of Windex will be on me!

In other news, I've decided to write a delightful little animated film called Angie The Anthrax Bacteria. I hope everyone takes their children to see it.

Oh and I think random sword fighting should make its way back into popular culture.

But for now I must be off. There's a kitty stuck in my tree and I want to be the first to throw sharp objects at it.

Go Leafs Go...back to the minors!

There is a disease here in Toronto. Not quite as deadly as the bird flu, but almost as catastrophic. It's called the Toronto Maple Leaf fans. Now I don't mind people cheering for their local sports team. But people who aren't from Toronto will never get to experience (and lucky for them) the pathetic phenomenon that grips hold of the city every year. I hate what happens to this city, where everyone and his uncle suddenly becomes a Leafs fan, waving stupid flags around the street, obstructing traffic, jam-packing bars and going through the most drastic mood swings, alternately elating and despairing every time there's a game on. RELAX people...it's a fucking game. It's amazing that the suicide rate didn't sky-rocket last year when there was no hockey. What did these people do with their lives? Clearly they got by somehow (although I suspect the disappearance of hockey last year had a direct impact on the rise of child pornography cases. Merely speculation, of course).

What bothers me is this. Canadians bitch and complain about Americans being so patriotic and always claiming to be "the best," yet are completely at fault of this same accusation when it comes to our beloved hockey. I've actually heard conversations from die-hard Leaf fans regarding why hockey should only belong to Canada. Sure...then the Leafs might actually win a Stanley Cup, but when you're playing a pack of wild beavers in the finals who would rather be sharpening their teeth on the hockey stick than trying to score, that's not quite the sports accomplishment.

I hate hypocrisy. I hate when any group of people bitch about what other people do and then do that act themselves. It's like the mentality here is: "hockey is ours, eh. Americans don't have the right to be better at something that's ours than we do." Well guess what? They are. Deal with it.

The good news is the Leafs are out of the playoffs. So it appears the beer-chugging, gut-hanging, toothless, slobbering, uneducated, wish-you-were-American-wannabe, Canadian patriotic scum can all return to their flea-infested, run-down, unimpressive cottages at some no name, non-picturesque swamp in the armpit of Ontario, and sit and sulk in their own useless and gnarled existence for the remainder of the year, until next season's inevitable disappointment. It'll be hard for them to return to their real jobs (you know, the one that doesn't involve them standing on a street corner, causing car accidents, waving the blues and whites, holding a misspelled sign that reads "hokn 4 da Leafz"). The only people I feel bad for are those poor saps that work at the welfare offices. The line-ups are going to be pure madness now that these Canadian hockey fans have nothing else to look forward to, except that $45 dollars a month to spend on mustard stained, wife-beating T-shirts, and tacky neon bikini tops.

On a happier note, I'm quite enjoying our new currency (which looks like a cross between Monopoly money and Clown school flyers). It's not bad enough the $5 bill has a hockey poem on the back of it, but word is, the new $50 will have a scratch-and-sniff sticker that smells like beer. Ah, the 2 things that shape us as Canadians - beer and hockey. The thing we put our misplaced loyalties and pride into. No wonder the Americans contemplate fucking bombing us in "friendly fire" mishaps all the time. I would too.

Oh, and for all of you who bought the eye-sore of a flag to suction to your car, why don't you do something useful with your money next year? Perhaps feed a fucking homeless person instead of heartlessly cruising by them in your daddy's Pinto, screaming incoherencies out your window to these human beings that can't even afford to have any sense of spirit.

The only thing worse than this hockey phenomenon is soccer, when everybody suddenly becomes an annoying European. Is it so hard for people to actually think for themselves? For people to have their own independent thoughts? For people to not just jump on board the bandwagon because everyone else is doing it?

I AM (ashamed to be) Canadian sometimes.

- Star-Spangled Rob or Hollywood Rob (which ever one sounds more distant from the true north)

P.S. Just for the record people, the word is "bar" not "bawrr," eh.

Truly Outrageous!

I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t download movies, TV shows or music from the Internet. Forget all those guilt-eliciting ads they show before movies that spew some nonsense like, “You wouldn’t steal a car so why steal movies?” Believe me, if someone found a way to make cars as accessible as films, they’d be stolen just the same. No, the real reason you shouldn’t download is because of the story I’m about to tell you. So pull up a chair, put another log on the fire, pour yourself a drink and cry with me.

So this gal I know (whose name, incidentally, rhymes with "gal") is a huge Jem And The Holograms fan. This was the show she grew up with. We all have those shows that were the staples of our childhood. Jem was hers. So my mission was quite clear: I had to find a way to track down Jem And The Holograms for her. I would have settled for an episode or two…anything. You see, I’m one of those people that actually gets a kick out of doing things for others. Think what you will about hidden agendas, ulterior motives or some need to ensure my spot in heaven, I find one of the most rewarding things in life is knowing that you were personally responsible for putting a smile on someone’s face. That’s really the only thing you can’t fake; the one thing that’s irrefutably yours. There's no other feeling like it.

So I tried to do things legit. I went to Amazon.com and looked up Jem. Turns out it was actually released on DVD for like 3 days before it was discontinued. I hate this whole concept of discontinued. What is this, some sort of sick supply and demand experiment that distribution companies like to perform on consumers? Either you release the product or you don’t. Discontinuing products actually generates and popularizes piracy. If you don’t want to mass produce the product, at least have an order form available on your company’s website that would allow people to order it directly from you. This way you could produce only copies you’ve pre-sold and not take a bath on over-stock. Anyway, knowing that it had been released (for literally 3 days), I then checked eBay.

Right, as much as I would have loved to have paid $200 per season for the show, I hadn’t totally lost my mind. Plus eBay worries me. I always have this image of some fat, naked, hairy guy rubbing his sweaty balls on the product before shipping it out. So I did the only thing that made sense next…I searched the torrent sites. I visited my usual haunts and came up with nothing. I then started visiting the seedier ones, the type of torrent sites where you find videos of women being perforated by horses. Still nothing. I finally came across one torrent site that had a listing for Jem And The Holograms Season 1 & 2 (20 episodes). I danced like the flames in a pyromaniac’s eyes! Joy of joys! I was already excited imagining the look on her face when I presented it to her!

I then checked the stats. 1 seeder, 18 leechers and 6.8 gigabytes!

Allow me to reiterate that: 6.8 GIGABYTES!!!!! (I grabbed my head in shock and shouted this number in the same manner that Doctor Emmett Brown did to Marty McFly in Back To The Future upon learning he’d need 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to fuel the DeLorean, thus sending him back to 1985).

Holy fucking hard drive Batman! Not that my hard drive is small mind you (the same line I once used to pick up this nerdy chick at a computers conference), but I have a film sitting on my computer that takes up 120 gigs as it is. Add up all my other files, programs, music, porn, viruses, etc. I’m down to my last few gigs and I don’t have an external backup drive. So I started rationing what I needed. I looked through my computer, figuring out what I could delete (i.e. did I really need the singing sheep exe?) and finally managed to make some space. Problem 1 was solved. Problem 2 was now downloading this torrent which was being seeded by 1 person. That meant if that person decided to move to Kuala Lumpur or perhaps do something less drastic like stop seeding or turn off his/her computer, us 19 leechers would be up shit's creek. So I decided that I would just leave the computer on and pray that the fans did their job keeping the motherboard from exploding. 2 weeks later and most surprisingly, the torrent was finished downloading. Sure there were moments when it seemed like all hope was lost, but it downloaded. I was a happy happy man!

With my blank DVDs by my side, I rebooted my computer so that it could take a breath before burning. I then opened up the folder to check out the quality of the episodes. What happened next proved yet again why there is no god. Instead of being bombarded with some cheesy retro musical animated goodness, I was staring at a live-action Japanese soap opera. Pause with me for a moment, will you? A FUCKING LIVE-ACTION JAPANESE SOAP OPERA! The bad news is that I now had 20 of these in my possession. The worse news is that they all came with subtitles…in CANTONESE!!!!!!!!!!

It's as though The Misfits found their way into my computer and sabotaged it. Oh man, I howled a string of the most shockingly offensive swear words that I had in my disposal from 28 years of accumulating hatred. In fact, my swearing was so loud and so profound, that when I left the house later that day, the neighbours across the street were standing on their driveway, frozen, staring at me, drop-jawed and buggy-eyed. The little girl, whose bicycle was flipped over onto the grass, without looking up at her mother softly said, “Mommy, is that…” Before she could continue, her mother placed her hands over her daughter’s eyes and screamed out, “For the love of Jesus, don’t look at him!” She then crossed herself and resumed frozen position. I got into my car and drove up the street. And there they remained, unmoved. And they stayed that way long until after I returned home.

So don’t download boys and girls. Not because it hurts the already thieving entertainment industry, but because you never know when some cocksnake motherfucker sadist is going to rename the file(s) and bamboozle some unsuspecting "good-intentioned" person like myself into downloading some utter donkey vomit. My hatred of humanity has only just increased from this.

Good Friday I'm In Love

Ah Easter...the celebration of Christ's crucifixion at Golgotha on the cross, whereby he died like a common criminal (not like the prophesized "king of kings" that he actually never claimed to be while living). This is followed by the celebration of his "so called" resurrection that no one actually ever witnessed, but instead were merely told by Mark, one of his disciples. Let's see if I understand this. After Jesus was killed, his disciples were forced into exile. Now, when Mary (the whore) and Mary (the "virgin" - nudge nudge, wink wink) made their way to the Sacred Cave, Christ's body was missing. How is it that two women such as themselves would have been able to budge the massive and strenuous rocks sealing up cave? They couldn't have. The cave had to have been previously entered and the rocks previously loosened. So here's what I'm thinking. There have always been sheppards and there have always been sheep. Especially back in the age of miracles (the age before science) when people would have believed most anything you told them, Christ's disciples concocted this plan to deceive the simpletons into believing that he had risen from the grave. They entered his tomb, removed the body and spread word that there had been "Christ" sightings all over town. Again, none of these were ever documented by historians. It was all word of mouth (ever play broken telephone?) In fact, Christ is but a mere blurb in the Old Testament. Quite a paltry coverage for the alleged son of God. Amazingly God was able to create a full grown male from dust and female from a rib, but to produce a tiny little baby, he had to rape some nobody woman. The bottom line is this: the disciples created a lie around the ressurection of Christ. A lie, that somehow caught on with people's willingness to accept blind faith (blame the tyrannous Roman Empire for people's willingness to put their faith in a new set of spiritual beliefs to rally behind). The disciples had their own interests at heart (like all people do). They did this as a way of saving their own asses from exile. And we all know that men, especially when forced into exile and shame, would never lie to save face or their own ass. If people hadn't been that naive, this whole Christ story would have died when he did and I wonder if Catholocism would have ever seen fruition. But newly designated Christian groups spread like wild fire, setting up missionaries to convert people (note, this is the only religion that does this. I'm not knocking it. I think safety and strength in numbers is a tried, tested and true practice). You get enough people to subscribe to your bullshit, you have what is referred to as "organized religion." Again, the world needed a new religion, a new symbol. And as the saying goes, timing is everything.

But have times really changed so much in the past thousands of years? Nowadays, if you crucify someone you get to celebrate with 80,000 jolts of electricity running through your body. In any case, to mask the hypocrisy of Catholicism, Christians have decided to totally take the focus off the crucifixion and instead create more of a Hallmark holiday by marking the coming of Easter with an identity-confused rabbit, who for all intents and purposes, should be a chicken with all these fucking eggs he has in his possession.

The Easter bunny has its origin in pre-Christian fertility lore. The hare and the rabbit are the most fertile animals known and they serve as symbols of the new life during the Spring season. So good news for all you bestiality fetishists out there. You'll be happy to know that your best chance of getting a willing animal participant for all your sexual needs lies is the molestation or assault on either the genus Orystolagus Cuniculus or Lepus. But use a lot of protection or you're likely to end up with some cotton-tail sexually transmitted virus such as the calicivirus or the more common "you're a sick twisted fuck" virus.

The bunny, as an Easter symbol, seems to have its origins in Germany, where it was first mentioned in German writings in the 1500s. Is there anything the Germans didn't do? I'm totally convinced that if the Germans could put aside their need for mass annihilation and genocide for 5 minutes, they could usher us into a golden age whereby all disease would be cured, the famine crisis solved and people would be driving cadillacs to the moon. Anyway, the first edible Easter bunnies were made in Germany during the early 1800s. This was after years of just dipping live bunnies in tar and trying to digest them. These new tasty bunnies were made of pastry and sugar and good old German love (that white stuff ain't icing)!

The Easter bunny was introduced to American folklore by the German settlers who arrived in the Pennsylvania Dutch country during the 1700s. The arrival of the "Oschter Haws" was considered "childhood's greatest pleasure," next to a visit from Christ-Kindel on Christmas Eve and a visit from Daddy's Special Friend on Friday nights. The children believed that if they were good, the Oschter Haws would lay a nest of colored eggs. If they were bad, he'd just poo in their basket. And if any of you have ever had a steady diet of carrots and green pellets, you know that ain't a pretty sight or smell.

Originally Easter eggs were painted with bright colors to represent the sunlight of Spring and were used in Easter egg rolling contests or given as gifts. After they were colored and etched with various designs, the eggs were exchanged by lovers, romantic admirers and stalkers, much the same as valentines. In Medieval times, eggs were traditionally given to the servants at Easter. In the late 1960s, a new tradition began in Boston where eggs were exchanged as the form of hurtling objects, aimed at schools, houses, police stations and various neighborhood geeks. Amazingly, this tradition transcended Easter and has become an annual celebratory custom. Kinda shows us what people get out of things!

Easter egg hunts are also part of a community's celebration of the holiday. The eggs are hidden in public places and the children are invited to find them. It is ill-advised to hide Easter eggs in a blender, a rabid dog cage, a grain auger or silo, near large pieces of running farm equipment, at the top of a rickety ladder, on a porcupine or skunk, in a rattlesnake den, in rat poison, in a box of razor blades, next to a loaded hand gun, in a liquor cabinet, in a discarded refrigerator, in a trashcan full of the family junkie's hypodermic needles, on the subway tracks, in an iron maiden (for those lucky enough to own one), near downed high tension power lines, near an uncapped well, in a tank of piranhas, next to an open mine shaft, under asbestos, in a woman's womb (however tempting to find), near a radioactive waste dump or in a badger den.

Easter egg hunting is also a form of non-discriminatory fun as it includes everyone from the handicap, to the mentally challenged, to those suffering from Alzheimer's (who just so happen, as a bonus, to be able to hide their own Easter eggs).

The rules of an Easter egg roll is to see who can roll an egg the greatest distance or can make the roll without breaking the egg, usually down a grassy hillside or slope.

Hmm...right. This is soon followed by other fun and equally rewarding activities such as "clamp the testicles on the doberman" and "changing granny's tampon."

The most famous egg rolling takes place on the White House lawn. Hundreds of children come with baskets filled with brightly decorated eggs and roll them down the famous lawn, hoping the President is watching them. Oddly enough, since George W. Bush took the seat of Commander-In-Chief, most of the children coming every year with baskets filled with brightly colored eggs have the strangest names. Names like Allah, Mustafa, Ahmad, Raheesh, Tasnim, Ghitbah and Habib. And even more strange, their eggs are of the exploding persuasion.

Anyway, a very happy Easter one and all (or at least to those that celebrate) and depending on how hardcore you are remember, Easter doesn't have to be once a year. In fact, you can have Easter all year round. All it requires is this easy, do-it-yourself Easter kit: 2 boards, 3 nails and a martyr!

Don't "Passover" This Blog

Today, Jewish people everywhere frantically prepare for the holiday known as Passover. But what is Passover exactly? Listen up and I shall impart some theological gibble-gabble on all of you.

About 3000 years ago, the Israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians under the rule of the Pharaoh Ramses II because they, yet again, ran their mouths about being the "chosen people." Most, if not all Jewish oppression and hatred could have likely been avoided over the ages if the Jewish people would just accept the fact that there's no such thing as "chosen people." It's an arrogant and self-righteous belief. In my opinion, if your people have enough nuclear fire power to turn a continent into kitty litter, then, and ONLY then, do you earn the title of "chosen people" (but that's more out of instilled fear than anything else).

Anyway, Moses, a simple Jewish shepherd (who unfortunately was about 3 millennia too early to compete in the Charlton Heston celebrity look-alike pageant in Vegas) was instructed by God to go to the Pharaoh and demand the freedom of his people. Without giving the Pharaoh a chance to mull it over, God unleashed a series of 10 terrible plagues on the people of Egypt. But hey, if you had divine power, you'd probably look for every reason to abuse it also. The plagues were as followed:

1. Blood
2. Frogs
3. Lice (vermin)
4. Wild Beasts (flies...go figure that one out!)
5. Blight (cattle disease)
6. Boils
7. Hail
8. Locusts
9. Darkness
10. Slaying of the First Born.

Now aside from plague number 10, these are not that serious. Why I bet within a given week most, if not all of you, contract at least half of these. Ever gone camping? It's like boogie boarding back in time to ancient Egypt. Perhaps back then these plagues were more serious. I believe if God were to lash out now, these 10 Contemporary Plagues that I have compiled would do a great deal more damage than the infamous ancient and outdated plagues:

1. Being exposed to sexually explicit lesbian videos of Sally Struthers and Rosie O'Donnell
2. Explosive diarrhea on a first date with no known bathroom in sight
3. Having to shave a parent's crotch
4. Being a contestant on Faces Of Death
5. Watching Canadian art house documentaries
6. Forever having a nose itch so far up the nasal cavity that you're eternally picking your nose
7. Having your breath smell like baby formula always
8. Acting on an uncontrollable urge to yell "cocksucker" at the top of your lungs whenever you see a new face
9. Having large canker sores swell in the back of your throat so that every swallow feels like death
10. Being forced to stare at a chalkboard for long periods of time that have been fully erased except for one little smudge of chalk that someone missed and all the while not being able to do a damn thing about it.

Now those are plagues!

If any of you are like me, then you believe that everything written in the new and old testaments are tales and folklore that have been misconstrued, misinterpreted, revised, written and re-written with the intent to distort, manipulate and ultimately fly in the face of scientific fact in order to scare people into believing in spirituality, the underworld and attonement. Recently I read an article that said like all biblical tales, the 10 plagues of Moses' time easily yields to a scientific explanation. In the book of Exodus, the sky turned black and the river turned into blood and there followed the plagues of frogs, bugs, boils and the death of the first born. What we have evidence of is a volcanic eruption. The ash flew into the sky thus turning it dark. Mud poured into the Nile turning it red with silt, driving the frogs to the land where they rotted in the sun, which drew bugs by the billions and they carried typhus (boils) that swept death through the first born - the eldest children whose exposure was the greatest because they were the ones laboring in the fields. To quote C&C Music Factory, "Things that make you go hmm?"

The holiday's name Pesach, meaning "passing over" or "protection" in Hebrew, was first spoken by a timeworn senile-stricken geriatric whose teeth were not in quite right. It is also derived from the instructions given to Moses by God (who later instructed Moses to become the chair of the National Rifle Association).

In order to encourage the Pharaoh to free the Israelites, God intended to kill the first-born of both man and beast. Now what exactly was God's beef with the beasts? I'm not clear on what they did wrong and what killing their first-born would accomplish. Can you imagine two zebras trying every conceivable avenue to give birth? I'm talking everything from counseling, to aphrodisiacs, to ultimate guides, 10 step programs, Viagra, Kama Sutra, power pills, Bang Bros. porn videos...the works, finally giving birth and then having that baby zebra killed? And it's not like humans suffered from the untimely death of a zebra's first born child. It's not like there were interspecies arranged marriages between humans and wild horse-like African mammals and the death of the first born had tragic implications, the likes of which cried out: "What a scourge is laid upon your hate, that heavens finds means to kill your joys. All are punished." (A university professor once said to me that when you've started a thought you can't finish, distract people by quoting Shakespeare. Did it work?)

So to protect themselves, the Israelites were told to mark their dwellings with lamb's blood so that the angel of death (yes, they have an ANGEL for this kind of thing) could identify and "pass over" their homes. (This story was later mistold by Anti-Semites who claimed that the Jews put the blood of Christian children on their door to partake in some Pagan-like ritual. This is, if not a more interesting approach, totally false and absurd. However, Jews did and still continue to use the blood of Christian children to bake cookies for other Jewish holidays, observations and rituals).

Of course none of the 10 plagues worked as Pharaoh said, "Good, kill my son! Then maybe the slag I call my wife will have sex with me again." After hearing this, God sent an 11th plague that is rarely documented - the plague of carnal nymphomania. After being poked, stabbed, banged, humped, coitioned, fornicated, copulated, screwed, violated, sodomized, fingered, junctioned and horizontally mambo'd by every known courtesan, concubine, strumpet, harlot and ancient Egyptian whore pawing and lapping every pleasure nerve, orifice and sensory organ on his body, the Pharaoh was so delirious with orgasmic glee and testicular drainage, that he not only agreed to free the Jews, but he agreed to henna tattoo his ankles, shave the words "pimp daddy" into his unkempt pubic hairs and rename the pyramids Disneyland Egypt (this was before the god-less soul-suckers at the Walt Disney Co. sued everyone and anyone for the slightest copyright infringement or slanderous remark). The Israelites left their homes so quickly that there wasn't even time to bake their breads. This crisis obviously could have been avoided had the Israelites invested in the George Foreman grill. So they packed the raw dough to take with them on their journey. As they fled through the desert, they would quickly bake the dough in the hot sun into hard crackers called matzohs (which roughly translates to: even a homeless person would refuse to eat this unsalted cardboard shit). Today, to commemorate this event, Jews eat matzoh in place of bread during Passover (and then relish in the delight of heartburn, constipation, gas, hiatal hernias, esophagitis, peptic ulcers and other various forms of stomach rot, disease and ridicule).

Of course once Pharaoh realized that he no longer had the cheapest labor outside of a Thailand sweat shop, he immediately sent every single one of his guardians on horseback to chase down his slaves in a strange sea (that seemed a lot more vertical that day than usual. But if any of you have been to Universal Studios, you know how that was done). And since God hates equines as much as everyone else in the world, he decided to kill them all in the Red Sea. Rumor has it if you go swimming really late at night in the Red Sea, you can hear the scream of a thousand dead horses. (Not surprisingly, it is the same sound a Red Sea swimmer makes if he or she enters the sea with an open wound anywhere on his or her body).

Leading up to the first night of Passover, the home is cleaned and cleared of all yeast foods called hametz (which doesn't actually mean anything...it's just another excuse to give something a goofy name). The cleaning of the house also marks that special time when Jewish families find all those cool things that went missing over the year (like the 999th piece in their 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle that some thoughtless tit bought them years ago for a Bar or Bat Mitzvah). It is also usually the time when they find the exoskeleton of beloved pets and various other cherished dead things that mysteriously disappeared over the year.

The Seder plate (central dinner display plate) contains foods that have special meaning for this holiday: Haroseth (another name for spiced barf), parsley dippled in salt water, roasted egg, burnt shank bone and bitter herbs. It's clear that the Seder plate contains a smorgasbord of the most indigestible foods the human body is capable of absorbing and a sick twisted mind is capable of imagining.

During the Seder, 4 glasses of wine are poured to represent the 4 stages of exodus: Freedom, Deliverance (another word for freedom), Redemption (yet another word for freedom) and Release (are you beginning to see a trend here?) It's my belief that someone just came up with a serious of synonyms for "freedom" as an excuse to get drunk on cheap wine. A fifth cup of wine is poured and placed on the Sedar table. This is the Cup of Elijah (no no, not the kid that played Frodo), it is an offering for the dead prophet Elijah. During the Seder, the door to the home is opened to invite this creepy ghost prophet in. And no on thinks it's strange that they're inviting a dead person into the home to sit at the table, drink wine and share out-of-date sandal fashion tips with the family? Yeah, that wouldn't fuck up any small children! And only a desperate and pathetic moron leaves their front door wide open in a day and age when various madmen kidnap small children and rape teenage girls right under their parents' noses. Granted, any madman would take one look at the Seder and deduce that these people are certainly more deranged than he is and would proceed to "pass over" to the next house with the hot teenage girl in the sexy tube top and lacey thong.

Finally, the youngest child (who would rather be on the Internet downloading transexual anal porn and posting hatred on chat forums) is coerced into asking 4 timeless questions:

1 - Why is this night different from all other nights? (Answer: because on all other nights, your aging 106 year old grandmother with various facial hair isn't sitting at the table causing everyone great worry that at any given moment the formaldehyde in her blood is going to dry up and her heart will wither into a crispy nugget and we'll be inconvenienced by our "close family" facade by having to drag her dead ass to the hospital).

2 - Why do we eat only matzoh tonight? (Answer: because of all the races that hate the Jews, none hate them more than other Jews. Jews find ways to torture their own. Also, McDonald's doesn't cater to kosher folk with 99 cent Passover Big Macs).

3 - Why do we eat bitter herbs? (Answer: because it rapidly causes flatulence and the release of other gastrointestinal gases and lower body secretives to ensure you don't get laid any time during the holiday season. I mean, when was the last time you EVER saw a Passover-themed adult film?)

4 - Why do we dip our foods twice? (Answer: so the women, like in every other sexually oppressive religion, have twice as much to clean up at the end of the night, while the men all sit around and pat themselves on the back for doing jack shit).

Like most Jewish festivities, Passover is a time when Jews are made to feel guilty for something that happened a gazillion years ago. For those that celebrate this holiday, try something different this year...don't. God doesn't exist. And if there's even a small chance that he does, believe me he hates you!

Happy Passover to those who do indulge! I gotta run. There's a burning bush outside that eagerly wants a word with me and it doesn't seem too pleased.

I am taking off the day to develop a growth potion, which, if successful, will allow me to grow almost 100 yards high.

Seemingly there is no benefit to this potion other than the obvious joy of being able to use an elephant as a paperweight and a crocodile as a pair of scissors.

Will keep you posted.

And the Oscar goes to…

Me! For my short 1997 film The Klown (with the K flipped horizontally in a pretentious attempt to come off more artsy than I actually was).

Okay, this email’s a little late, but for some reason people still ask me if I think Crash was the best film of last year. Well guess what? It wasn’t. Not by a long shot. Crash was good, but not great. Crash is the type of film they make you study in film school screenwriting because it’s filled with every little nuance and cliché that a writer uses to manipulate the audience into caring. Seriously, this was a very very over-done film that tried way too hard to come off as ironic and socially profound but only ended up emitting this feeling of pathos. The actors are fantastic and I appreciate the way the stories intersect with each other. But the bottom line is (and this is what I told people who asked me if they should watch the film back when it was in theatres): “If you’re racist, you’ll love it.”

As for Brokeback Mountain, I finally got around to seeing it. Beautiful cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto. The story was just slow-moving and awful. The only reason this movie garnered as much hype and heat as it did was because Hollywood is a very liberal community and for a country on the verge of treason, this movie flies directly in the face of the conservative views of George W. Bush. Like a bratty little kid who doesn’t get its way (i.e. its candidate lost its election), Brokeback Mountain was an attempt at a jab to the ribs or a sticking out of the tongue to democracy. If you want to ensure an Academy Award nomination, just amass some controversy behind your film. Find out what’s taboo at that time and get on it and fast, because if you don't, some Republican-hater will beat you to it.

(Side note): This is what troubles me about the Oscars. It’s so obviously political and yet no one realizes how insulting that is. Remember the “all black” year? When Halle Berry won for Monster’s Ball and Denzel Washington won for Training Day? This was such a farce and an obvious farce. What exactly was the message being conveyed here? Yes, after almost a century of cinema, we the people of Hollywood accept and acknowledge black people as more than song-and-dance acts or wide-eyed simpletons, saying “Yes Mammy,” or “No Sah!” The truth is the Oscars are just another cog in the machine. Its purpose is to satisfy and reflect white peoples need for social interaction with its own ethnic group to which a black person has no part. The largest and richest audience is young white adults (who the Academy is constantly trying to appeal to by hiring some hip comedian as MC for the night). Awarding any ethnicity (besides foreign film) to anyone other than white necessitates a departure from generic conventions and will cause less people to go to films in the future. The almighty buck is more important than an accurate and positive representation of a multicultural world and an honor in artistic excellence. It was a total sham! And yet people just ate it up. However, by honoring both Halle Berry and Denzel Washington, Oscar could sit back, take a financial hit, but pat itself on the back and make sure it wouldn’t have to do something of this magnitude for years to come. I mean Denzel Washington? Once upon a time he was a fantastic actor. But if I have to see one more movie with him playing the “cop-with-an-edge” I’m gonna castrate myself. Talk about typecasting. And I’m sure they could have found a far better African-American woman than Halle Berry to award this "ground-breaking" Oscar to. I think Angela Bassett should have won back in the day for her portrayal of Tina Turner. The only African-American who deserved the Oscar that night was Sidney Poitier. In fact, he deserves an Oscar every night! But the fact that they made that night such a political agenda actually cheapened his life-time achievement award.

As for the others: Capote, Munich, Good Night And Good Luck and Walk The Line, I never did see Good Night And Good Luck. I find George Clooney smug and arrogant and he tries to come off as this knowledgeable political virtuoso exposing topics that people don’t like to hear about. Well Good Night And Good Luck is about 50 years too late, wouldn’t ya say? Back when McCarthy was going ape-shit on the world, most of Hollywood hid, cowered or pointed fingers to save its own ass from being blacklisted. And guess what? The same thing would happen today. However, today there’s no threat of communism amongst Americans. Today it’s safe to make a film like this and say in retrospect (50 YEARS LATER), hey, we might have been a little wrong. Good job Clooney, way to get us thinking! I really enjoyed Munich and felt that out of the 5 poor choices here, this one probably should have won. But don’t even get me started on why Hollywood hates Spielberg. Walk The Line was fantastic. Unfortunately for poor Joaquin, Ray had won the year before. Jamie Foxx was excellent in Ray, but Joaquin Phoenix was excellent as well and he got shafted because the two films were so close together. I mean, the man transformed into Johnny Cash. Whatever! I understand why Capote had to win for best actor. An assured Oscar statue comes from playing a retard. Do this and you will win.

While I’m on the topic of movies, lemme give you a run-down of my 5 favorite films this year and my 5 most disappointing films. I say disappointing not because I hated them, walked out of the theatre and sulked because I’d never have that time or money back again. I mean disappointing in the sense that I was looking forward to these the most and they let me down. There are still elements to these films I enjoyed. I've even bought them on DVD and will buy the rest when they come out. I guess I just built them up as being the be-all-and-end-all and then when I saw them, they didn’t live up to the expectation I created for them. And I’ve given most of them a second chance, this time unbiased, and they still disappoint.

Top 5 Disappointments Of 2005:

5. Land Of The Dead – okay maybe I’m being picky but this was the master himself, George A. Romero, returning to the genre that he invented: zombies! After seeing 28 Days Later and the remake of Dawn Of The Dead and knowing that you could create fast-moving and actual threatening zombies, Romero opted for his original slow-moving idiot zombies. The beauty of a Romero zombie flick is there’s always some underlying social theme to the film (whether it’s anti-consumerism, anti-military or in this case, anti-class division). But the zombies just seemed so…unimpressive. I found myself waiting for something that said “George is back!” but that something never happened.

4. The Notorious Bettie Page – I saw this at the Toronto film festival and I couldn’t have been more excited. Bettie Page has and always will exude sex appeal in its rawest form for me. She will forever be "THE" pin-up girl. Gretchen Mol WAS Bettie Page. I couldn’t believe it. The film was beautifully photographed and well acted, but it lacked something that a biopic needs: a story or expose. This film was made without Bettie Page’s involvement, hence anything really interesting or profoundly secretive about her life is lacking. There’s one incident at the beginning where we learn why Bettie takes the road she takes, but after that the film becomes an hour of us watching her being photographed by various photographers. What the fuck? Great, so she looks sexy and provocative. But where is her life's story? I learned nothing in this film that I couldn’t have learned by reading a small biography paragraph on any number of Bettie Page sites on the Internet. The film touches upon the Senate Hearings on Indecency & Smut but never actually returns to it. This film is merely a long overdue nod that quickly becomes visual eye-candy for die-hard Bettie Page fans. But anyone actually wanting to know about the person will be as disappointed as I was.

3. The Piano Tuner Of Earthquakes – another film festival screening from those masters of stop-motion animation, the quirky Brothers Quay. I love stop-motion. I consider Jan Svankmajer and the Brothers Quay to be the masters. Their short films are haunting and surreal and I was eager to see how that vision would translate to a full-length feature. Wow, what a kick in the teeth. I have a lot of patience for films, especially abstract films. I don’t need to be spoon-fed a plot, I enjoy trying to put the pieces together, but there has to be pieces to put together. Otherwise I feel as though the filmmaker is laughing at me as I try to decipher metaphors and symbolism that don't actually mean anything and are weird for weird's sake. Individually, each frame of this film is a painting that should be hung in a gallery. Put those frames together and this is just a train wreck of a film. It just gets completely lost in its own obscurity and unfortunately is way too abstract even for me. Sometimes things that work in 5 – 15 minute pieces should just stay that way. Otherwise the charm tends to fade.

2. Corpse Bride – I always felt uneasy that Tim Burton didn’t direct The Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s painfully obvious that he was involved in that film from beginning to end and all the characters are based on his vivid and bizarre imagination. But director Henry Selick really got the short end of the straw on that one as few tend to acknowledge his genius on that film. Regardless, I absolutely love The Nightmare Before Christmas. To me, that was Tim Burton and Danny Elfman at the peak of their creative game. So, naturally, hearing that Tim Burton was returning to stop motion animation in the director’s seat with Danny Elfman by his side and the extra special addition of Johnny Depp in the lead, how could I not soil myself during the first trailer? I thought this was going to be the best movie ever! Tim Burton returns to the musical macabre! I left the theatre so angry. The story was so utterly weak. This man couldn’t tell a love story if it bit him on the ass. The music was so forgettable. It’s like it was strung together last minute using rejected pieces from Sesame Street episodes. I can’t remember, nor do I care to remember, any of the songs in the film. None of them stuck with me like the tunes in Nightmare did. Even Johnny Depp’s second incarnation of Ichabod Crane couldn’t save this film. Tim Burton relied on his usual character actors to breathe life into this piece but it was dead to begin with. I felt the only thing this film had going for it was that people like myself would be duped into thinking it was going to be the next Nightmare Before Christmas, and so story and music were sacrificed because of that. A cheap and pathetic reason to make a film.

1. Mirror Mask – Neil Gaiman is my God. I own everything he’s ever put his name on as a writer. If he wiped his ass on a piece of toilet paper and wrote the word “eat my shit” on it, I would spend my life savings on eBay purchasing it. I remember listening to the commentary track on Neverwhere. It’s obvious that Gaiman hated the way the BBC interpreted his story. In fact, he hated it so much, he wrote it in novel form just so he could tell it the way it was meant to be told. So, hearing that Neil Gaiman had teamed up with long-time collaborator and illustrious genius Dave McKean and the two of them in turn teamed up with the Jim Henson Company (a company responsible for some of the most memorable films in my childhood), I had an orgasm. Finally this was Neil Gaiman’s chance to tell a film the way he wants it to be told. If anyone’s going to take his words and do them justice it’s Dave McKean. If anyone’s going to take McKean’s visuals and do them justice, it’s the Jim Henson Company. The recipe was perfect. What could go wrong? I still ask myself that question months later. The story about a little girl who wants to run away from the circus and join real life sounded good on paper, but the film itself was slow-moving, painfully uninteresting and filled with characters I could give two shits about. Visually, it was breath-taking, but still, the CG looked kinda washed-out and muddy at times and the animal/character inventions were really not all that impressive. And I understand that Dave McKean is an avid jazz musician, but what a poor choice of music to accompany these visuals. We needed something more magical, more other-worldly, more circus-like. To me, this was supposed to be the best film of the year. I dragged many people to see this at the one theatre playing it. At the end of the film, the ones who were still awake looked at me with the look of “You fucking owe me BIG TIME!” Heartbreaking, really.

My Top 5 Films Of 2005:

5. The Constant Gardener – no film has made me think this much in a long long time. If Crash had been this thought-provoking, then it would have deserved best picture. I understand the agenda behind this film, but really, it shows you just how frightening the situation in Africa is to us blinded and blissfully ignorant Westerners and it shows us the horror behind what giant, monopolistic drug companies are capable of doing. Great performances and one of those films that when it ends, you’re left sitting in the dark, unable to move or get up, and just thinking.

4. The 40 Year Old Virgin – I saw this film at a time when I needed to laugh and boy did it do just that. This movie fucking slayed me. There were moments when I couldn’t breathe I was laughing so hard. Tears were streaming down my face. And it wasn’t the slapsticky humor that you’d get out of a Will Ferrell or Jim Carrey flick. This film had heart and a lot of it. Someone recently told me that the film was just a giant propaganda piece for abstaining from sex because Steve Carell is part of some ultra-Christian group. I don’t believe that at all, and even if it is true, go fuck yourself for telling me that. This film rules. So much better than that Wedding Crashers flick that fell apart half-way through the second act.

3. Sin City – wow! This film started and never stopped. And I was worried too. I love the Sin City comics. They have this neo-noir flare to them that I feared only worked in comic form. After watching Michael Madsen try to speak the Frank Miller dialogue, I thought for sure this movie would suck. Turns out Michael Madsen just sucked in this role. Once you get past that scene, the movie takes you on a roller coaster ride, stuffs you full of amphetamines, penetrates every available orifice on your body, then leaves you wanting more. I felt so invigorated after this movie ended, I could have watched 3 more hours of it. Robert Rodriguez has always been hit or miss with me. This was a definite hit! I can't understand why comic book films are so hard to get right. As much as I liked Batman Begins, I still felt that it was fucked up. Batman is a DETECTIVE! Why can't one filmmaker who steps into the director's seat for a Batman film acknowledge this? We'd get a wicked mystery film with a superhero as the gumshoe. Who wouldn't want to see this? Oh that's right, the toy companies when they're trying to push their products to children. That's why Sin City works. It had integrity and didn't bend-over or sell-out in order to sell movie tie-in's. Hell, Rodriguez quit the Director's Guild just so Frank Miller could co-direct. That's ballsy.

2. Everything Is Illuminated – I was surprised at much this film touched me. You constantly shift between these great dramatic moments and then these great moments filled with dry humor. It’s a shame more people didn’t see this film. There aren’t enough personal and humanistic stories anymore and this one excels. This is one of those movies that’s not in your face or over-done and if more people saw it, I think more people would understand why there’s so much miscommunication and misunderstanding in the world. Really a powerful film. One of the reasons I love film so much is because of films like this that can elicit such strong emotions from you. The book was really good, the movie I felt was even better. That's a rare thing.

1. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – yes, I know, an usual choice, but this was the most clever and entertaining film I saw last year. I’m a huge Raymond Chandler fan and I find that there aren’t enough good mysteries set against the backdrop of Hollywood anymore. The difference between this and some hard-boiled detective story is the comedy. Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer are fantastic in this film that really keeps you guessing until the end. I love when a set of events domino into each other without getting too absurd or lost in complexities. This film has style and wit, with a narrator that talks to you, the audience, in a humorous and beguiling sort of way. I can’t say enough good things about this film and I don’t wish to talk about it without giving things away. See it when you can. It’s hard to come up with original concepts anymore. It’s all about taking existing ideas and trying to put a unique twist on it. This is exactly what this movie does. Guns, girls, murder, intrigue and the city of angels! Really, do we need anything else?

Fucking Weather

What is it with Toronto weather? This is exactly why people snap. I saw a guy last week walking around a parking lot wearing ear muffs and some sort of sweater that looked like a shaved Wookie, he was doing the breaststroke with his hands and peering into vacant cars. I always wonder what makes someone decide that's how they're going to spend their evening. What drives a person to that point? It's the weather. It has to be. There's no other logical explanation. It makes us crazy.

It was finally becoming warm and sunny here again. And suddenly, today, snow and hail! HAIL for fuck sake. And bitter cold. And then really sunny with hints of warmth. And then more hail and finally snow again.

Toronto changes seaons hourly. We take weather hits the likes of which would have caused Noah to curl up into a fetal position, rock back and forth and chant a series of calming mantras. At what point does the city get sanctioned as a no man's land and marshal law is declared?

Oh wait, I'm receiving word that city hall had this message delivered to it earlier:

Mortals,

Until my daughter Persophene is released from Hades, her younger brother Glacius will continue to plague your city with snow and ice.

Sincerely,
Demeter

Evidently, a misconception was made and Toronto has been mistaken for hell. Why can't the Gods all get along?

Feeling Poetic

Some of my favorites:

"I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet."
- William Butler Yeats

"To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour."
- William Blake

"And sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;
What are all these kissings worth
If thou kiss not me?"
- Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day
In a vision, or in none
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream."
- Edgar Allan Poe

"I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me."
- Gerard Manley Hopkins

"I dwell in possibility..."
- Emily Dickinson

"In the pale light of the moon,
I play the game of you.
Whoever I am.
Whoever you are.
All sense of where I am, of who I am and where I'm going, has been swallowed by the dark.
And I walk through the stars and sky.
A trinity of dreams beneath the moon."
- Neil Gaiman

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind
And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.”
- William Shakespeare

In a Wonderland they lie
Dreaming as the days go by
Dreaming as the summers die.
Ever drifting down the stream
Lingering in the golden gleam
Life, what is it but a dream?
- Lewis Carroll

Good, Fast, Cheap

There’s nothing quite like making a film. The moment you see an idea you had one sleep-deprived night reflecting back on you on a large screen in front of a crowd is truly more divine than the trinity, more beautiful than the birth of Mars, more profound than the vigil of Sir Galahad, more bewitching than the seven seekers of knowledge gathering the unicorns.

I’m always happiest too when I’m making a film. For some reason, I enjoy working myself into a coma. I enjoy the quick turn-around time that gives us all little chance to recover. We become like mummies on a chain gang, sleeping for a few hours at a time in a rejuvenation tank. To me, making a film is like turning impossible goals into a shimmering reality. But I don’t make films that often because (a) it takes a lot out of you and (b) I have to really love the material to want to devote all that time and effort to it and (c) a little concept my cinematographer is always yapping about. He says making a film takes into account 3 principles: good, fast and cheap. You can always have two but one has to suffer. For example, if you want to make a film fast and cheap, it won’t be good. If you want to make a film fast and good, it won’t be cheap. And if you want to make a film good and cheap, it won’t be fast. I fall into that latter category. I want to make a film good and cheap. And for that reason, it usually takes me several months to shoot it.

When I was in school, I used to make short films. They were either over-ambitious films that, admittedly, didn’t work or short visual congeries of confusion; that same level of confusion one would find if she or she tried to study the mating habits of plastic lawn furniture.

When I left film I was bitten by the bug to continue making films. Of course, funding these films was not easy. When government grants, commercial producers, private investors and money from rich, obscure relatives fell through, I would max out my credit card. The problem was, every day I would arrive home to find some ostensibly innocuous envelope from VISA. Much like a Palestinian entering a pizzeria in Jerusalem, the benign exterior harbored impending doom. My doom manifested in the form of threatening letters reminding me to deliver several thousand dollars by the end of the month should I ever want to see my knee-caps and loved ones again. In time, I became overwhelmed with debt and ended up contracting scurvy from having to resort to a diet of plain couscous and free popcorn from movie rental shops as a way of saving money. I decided, no more films until I had the proper funding.

And life was plunged into darkness.

And I began massacring actors just because I missed the hodgepodge feel of grisly thespian flesh between my fingers.

And then the voices came instructing me to do their bidding.

And then I woke up naked somewhere, covered in goat semen, shouting mispronounced phrases from the Necronomicon, assured that an ancient prophet or some higher power would offer me sanctuary in Shangri-La for this immoral act.

Hey, what can I say, not being able to follow your passions does strange things to one’s emotional spectrum. The constant anxiety treats my quintessential personality like the ever-changing Jekyll and Hyde, alternately elating and despairing (minus the primate-like behavior, giant growth spurts, bad breath and burgeoning desire to commit grotesque acts of limb-severing homicide – except on actors, of course).

I’m happy to say that I’m taking up the directing seat again and soon. I recently made a contact that initially started speaking about having me shoot a film for him. I thought it would be nice to return to my roots for a bit and take up the role behind the camera as cinematographer. He had also mentioned something about having me direct a short film for him. Directing shorts doesn’t really give me that same level of excitement it used to. They’re very limiting in terms of who sees them and where they can go. However, after a meeting with this company, they’ve decided they want to shoot a few shorts with the same theme, only given a different flavor from different directors, and then package them together. Interesting idea with a lot of potential for coolness. So, I’ve agreed to do this. Over the next year, I will be directing and writing 3 short films for them. The first theme is “dark fables” – a theme right up my alley!

My production begins in June with a film called Fables.

And now you know everything about my week. What did you do today?

Mi Familia

I'm in one of those moods right now that's hard to describe. It's the same sort of mood that captured tourists in the Congo feel sitting in a circle drawn from twigs and sand while their tour guide's head rests securely on a spike in the center of this circle, and they're being danced around by torch lights and sharp daggers, while their captors drink the blood of a virgin gorilla in an attempt to harness the power of Akonadi, all the while hissing tribunal chants and voodoo incantations in an unrecognizable form of mystical gibberish that sound like the music of Enya (which is actually good).

Does anyone else ever feel like that?

(Speaking of which, why are there never any good incantations anymore? Or even magic potions? Or spells at the very least?)

So anyway, I really have nothing to blog about but I'm in a writing mood nonetheless. So I'm gonna talk about my family (unfortunately without the appropriate visual material. Wouldn't want to scare any of you).

We begin with the elder, decrepit folk:

My grandmother Yetti was born in the fortress of Sighisoara in Romania. She was inducted into the Order of The Dracu in 1436 by the emperor Sigismund. Shortly after, Yetti became ruler of Wallachia, launched a campaign against the Turks along the Danube river, was personally responsible for the mass execution of over 100,000 people and was finally brought down somewhere near Bucharest in 1476. Her remains had been on display in Constantinople up until about 1931, when they mysteriously disappeared at sunset. Yetti enjoys poker, walks in the moonlight, metamorphosising into bats, wolves and mist, solitude, eternal darkness and she never drinks wine.

My grandmother Mary was part of a Polish dark arts scientific experiment back at the turn of the century, using futuristic extraterrestrial technology called the granite bridge formula. This experiment was designed to see what would happen if human DNA found in the Broca’s area – the small area of the human brain responsible for the production of speech, was successfully combined with the mortifying sound that a Mack truck makes when it blows its horn. The result...Mary!

Saul is Mary's husband (not my grandfather). Saul is Romanian. For some ungodly reason Romanians have this unhealthy act of giving their children the same first name as their last name as Saul's real name is Strul Strul (also known as Strul squared or the square root of Strul to the power of 2 or Struls). Saul is an intense gentleman with the wisdom of Yoda and the experience of Geronimo. He has an eye for the arts and a nose for cocaine. Yet Saul is an eccentric fellow who’s favorite pastime includes hanging out in boy’s change rooms with a pinhole camera and a framed 8 x 11 inspirational picture of John Wayne Gacy.

My middle sister's names is Candice. Once every millennia, the demoness Naamah, Agrat daughter of Lilith and the fallen angel Mahlat, successfully mates with an organism of the same gender, in this case a human female, to give birth to a hell-spawn with the potential to bring forth the end of the world. Candice, or as we like to call her, the princess of darkness, is that human female.

Josh is Candice's husband. Josh was born in a cobbler’s basement, forged out of wood and brought into this world through the love shared between a man and a fairy. Of his many endeavors, Josh has been swallowed whole by a whale, sold to a traveling side-show circus and on many occasions, has turned into a jackass (or donkey). But little Josh still believes he’s a real boy. He's a compulsive liar but only does so because of what "grows" from that. He tries to compensate for his short comings, if you know what I mean!

My eldest sister is Melanie. She was born 8 and half months premature. She is actually a freaky looking, underdeveloped 32 year old foreign exchange student from New Guinea. Her illustrious jobs include washing the bibs after meals at Red Lobster, teaching line dancing at the local Bowlorama and mass producing children at an alarming rate. She has 3 kids (2 girls and a baby boy with another child on the way). Like Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn or Charles Dickens’ Pip, my nieces and nephews are innocent and adventurous children with smiles like cold water in the desert. How I envy them! The sights they've yet to see, the trials and tribulations they've yet to face on the ultimate adventure that awaits them in a few years time: the journey to find their real father!

Mitch is Melanie's husband (and yes, the father of her children...I think). Mitch just got over an ugly lawsuit with the estate of Jayne Mansfield for stalking, transvestinal copyright issues and necromancy. During the day, Mitch stands on street corners dressed as a burlesque dancer, handing out fliers for cults. At night, he’s hard at work trying to perfect his wit with word games. Mitch obsesses over his own name. He sits around trying to come up with acronyms, amalgamations, syntax, malapropisms. The other day I overheard him trying to come up with rhymes for Mitch, like hitch and twitch and kitsch. And speaking of words that rhyme with Mitch...

My mother Susan is one of the kindest and most gentle people I’ve ever met in my life. When I was a baby, she put me on her lap and told me three things that would forever shape me. 1 – things that are different aren’t necessarily bad, they're just wrong. 2 – one of life’s biggest problems is that not enough people name their pets after common household snacks. 3 – it’s a small world after all, but for a midget, it’s all eye level. My poor mother deals with her own little dementia day in and day out. When she was a little girl, a Canderian witch put a spell on her that has never been lifted. To this day, every morning at 1am to 5am, she turns into Juansalo Ramirez, the gay outlaw Latin superhero who crusades against the forces of tyranny and oppression.

And finally my father (and probably some poor illegitimate child’s long lost father as well) Fred, who, like most Neanderthals, lived over 40,000 years ago. While staring at a strange monolith one day, he was fortunate enough to fall into a lake of ice, whereby he became cryogenically frozen until sometime in the 60s when a group of hippies, tripped out on acid thought it would be cool to thaw him out by throwing candles and burning sticks of incense in the water. Luckily for us, he has mastered most of the modern day homo sapien formalities. He does however find it difficult to walk without dragging his knuckles on the ground and occasionally grabs small animals from the wild and devours them whole.

I love them all.

I really do.

Well most of them.

Come to think, I can't stand the lot of 'em.

Bloody wankers.

To think of inspiration is to think of a single thought. But how is it possible to isolate a particular focus on a vision that may not even exist in this time and space that we hold true to our existence? What I do is I jump from thought to thought, collecting each as I pass GO and slowly distribute them among the masses of feeble-minded electrodes flowing through my cortex that thirst for inspiration. And when all is said and done, I still feel stupid and void of thought so I close my eyes and allow my mind to wander beyond the threshold of non-existing visions and I find myself tip-toeing to the edge of a reality on a diving board, hovering thousands of feet above a cesspool of fictitious realms of fantasy and nonsense. I search my pockets for my nose-plug and bathing cap but I soon learn that I am naked...so I do the only thing that makes sense and I search my pockets again.

Finally, coming to terms with the fact that I am unequipped for this abyss of inverted reason, thousands of feet up, I look behind me and realize that all I have known for the past twenty-eight years has been documented in an autobiography written by a total stranger and shelved just out of reach for me to justify. So blindly and somewhat foolishly I take the plunge into, what I cautiously call, the unknown and I allow the waves of absurdity and obscurity to crash over me as I float down the stream towards an enigma of surrealism and the theater of the grotesque. I have been baptized by my own inanity, that of which others might refer to as insanity. I lick my arm in this cesspool of pure imaginative cognition and it tastes so sweet...almost like sugar. I lick my arm once more and I notice a section missing from it. It is sugar. Suddenly I feel myself being stirred around, caught up in a whirlpool of nausea and disorientation and I look up only to notice a giant, life-sized me stirring myself in a tall paper cup of deep black coffee in a run-down decrepit diner, halfway between Cape Fear and the Heartbreak Hotel.

I stare deep into the inky liquid I am about to ingest before adding one more lump for taste. And the lump cries out to me, "Stop stirring so vigorously for you're bound to drown me with the rest of your sorrows." But I understand the impossibility of this whole situation because my sorrows have fins and Olympic medals in swimming. So I place the oil up to my mouth and take one sip before recalling that I am sick of coffee, it is all I ever drink; I think I would like to try something new...I think I would like to try some tea. So once more I dive into my own twisted thoughts and I am taken far beyond the rainbow of conscious understanding. Now I've never seen the rainbow from behind before but it supports my theories that rainbows are only made up of one color when you disregard the superficiality of them and truly get around to looking at them. The backside of rainbows are much like the backside of water...only the novelty wears off with the excitement.

Again I feel my breathing slow to a pendulum-like procession, and I gasp for air as I notice I am hanging beside a pair of old gym socks in Davey Jones Locker. So I close my eyes and project myself to a time and place much like this one only different. Everything is so peaceful...there is absolutely no disturbance with the tectonic balance of tranquility. I find myself spying a crystal lake. There is a duck in this lake with a piece of bread in its mouth and there is an ant in the bread and there is a fly trying to eat the ant and everything is in balance as it should be. But instability soon finds a way into the ideal and it conquers the peace in this world as a fisherman pulls up nearby and tries to kill the fly with his hands. But he is a mutant and does not have hands.

And now I begin to fear myself. I fear what I am becoming with such dark and solemn images: the suicidal Walt Whitman. I do not want to be the depressed, aging artist, standing on a street corner, clad in a Hawaiian shirt, black socks and sandals holding a cocktail umbrella in one hand and a toy raccoon with a shirt that says hug me in the other hand. If experience has taught me anything...I will never hug that raccoon. I just can't allow myself to get close to anything right now. I've got to keep my edge. And above all...I have to find some tea.

But there is no tea to be found as I envision a cement truck on a gravel road with a flat tire, cruising at 100 miles per hour. There is no gas in this truck and it's being driven by a blind girl scout from military school with empty pop cans on both hands and feet and in the passenger seat is God, rapping to the tune of Smurfs Adventures. And I realize, hey if it's good enough for the creator, it's good enough for me. So I add theory number 88 (just like the keys) to my ever-growing list and I practically convince myself that cartoons are the foundation for our existence but then I remember just how little faith I have in God, but I like the number 88 so much because it's such a round number that I am willing to sacrifice my beliefs and faiths for shallow and phony reasons and to save face. After all I'm only human and sometimes I regret my abandonment of theology in these strange times.

So now I'm swimming upstream once more for I have survived the deep undertow of madness from naturally induced mind altering hallucinations. A sweet feeling of joy and luck has come over me at this moment. So to keep this feeling alive, I cash in my chips and find myself sitting around a small square table without corners. Joining me at this table is the Boogie Man to my left, the Closet Monster to my right and the unexplainable smell rising from my sink directly across from me. And the four of us are engaged in a staged, stalemate game of poker where the deuces are wild and so are the rest of the cards and the sky is the limit. And I realize, I haven't had this much fun since I strip-searched a fuel tank and went mini-golfing with an armed band of killer monks just the other day.

But no one cares. They're more interested in the private, bizarre and perverse side of me. The side I don't like to show in public. But I am a man for all seasons and I understand what the audience wants to hear so I satisfy them as much as I can by enlightening them with tales of moldy bananas and a 25 cent gro-aliens and ways to amuse past world leaders with nothing more than a hammer and chisel. But still no one cares. If I told them I could grow and spit mushrooms out of my ears and fly through steel walls sideways, they'd still be more interested in the latest prime time ratings sweeper, crap-o-vision that consumes my social qualities.

I reserve judgment on harsh comments but it is my belief that everyone must be crazy. I myself am not crazy because even if I were to wear a dress and a false mustache, dentures shaped like Lucky Charms and call myself Lars, I'd still be getting the best of both worlds and I’d be doing it with style and a hint of passion.

I now find myself in irons in this cesspool of fantasy and imagination and as much as I'd like to see my sails raised, the sad truth is...I am not moving forward and have not moved forward for a very long time. I know what you must be thinking...what now brown cow? Well I'm not so sure myself. The water has gone stale and it’s evaporating at a rapid pace and I still crave my tea. But as soon as this is said, a gust of wind hits me from the fifth direction (you know, the one that doesn't appear on any conventional maps or composes). I grab hold of the wind and fly off into the distance with it. Ironically I find myself looking through the magnifying end of a rather large telescope and I see a jaw-less dog walking on the moon, singing in perfect harmony with Beethoven's Ninth. Our eloquent and quite mysterious canine friend soon stops for a nap and begins slobbering over a dish that says how much wood would a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood, written in Braille. In the dish is a mouse without eyelashes wresting John F. Kennedy in vinegar over some broad named Ginger or maybe it was Mary-Anne? The dog stares straight at me in an eerie and almost familiar way and says, look on the ground, it's a bird, it's a plane...no, it's a dead spider on a hacksaw with a sign that says “Help Me." But nobody is helping it because it is dead. I am appalled by the cruelty and inhumanity of this scene because even if something appears to be dead, it doesn't mean that we should just turn our backs on it; it might only be wounded temporarily or just hurt inside.

I take my quarter out of the telescope and thank myself for not putting any money into this cheap piece of scrap metal to begin with. Then I am upset because I wasted my time and precious moments on something I already knew.

I begin to crawl like a someone who crawls through the final few miles of this long and twisting lazy river of fantasy and inspiration. Before I am ready to give up and sink to the bottom like a dead balloon, I catch a glimpse of an island mirage protruding right below me. So naturally, I situate myself on the island, accept the hospitality, crack open a coconut and converse with the local. He is a kind fellow with three kids, one of each kind. He turns to me and tells me that the words "do you believe in magic?" really just means "do you believe in weird shit?" Now, on any other day, this information would have moved me to the point of laying an egg, but all I could think about on this particular day was what if Alvin and the Chipmunks really existed and how would that change the face of music as we know it and what moral implications would have to be considered in attempting to exploit these genetically-altered rodent-like creatures and would they scare people or would we find them all cute and cuddly and accept them into our culture? Then I remember David Seville's The Witch Doctor and all my chipmunk questions seem to fade away in a quagmire of ooh eeh ooh ah ah's, tin tang walla walla bing bang's.

My concentration is soon invaded by this feeling of nostalgia for something I can't remember. Then I feel something in my nose and after a moments thought, I realize it is only my nostril. Then I wonder if I would be disappointed in seeing a big fish come and eat this kind fellow who helped me out and showed me the support I feel I've been lacking for most of my journey. But before my thoughts turn to actions, I sit myself down and listen to an old tale this fellow has to tell me before he forgets himself and I have to remind him who he is. I pull up a sofa and clear my head of any brains and three dimensional objects that resemble the letter Y. The fellow starts talking in a monotone, squeaky voice much like his own. He tells me about this man, who happened to be a woman, who happened to be a man, who tried to tame a freak sheep in a petting zoo one day at the 67th parallel in the center span of the universe. But the sheep soon got loose and was holding the ring master at gun point. And on his head was a hood ornament, and in his gun were blanks...but that's only what the sheep said...they really weren't. But who in their right mind would believe a sheep?

Now I've heard a lot of fibs in my time and I knew something wasn't quite right with this one; this man was a liar. I knew a sheep that always told the truth. So suspiciously, I asked this fellow if he could spot a cup of tea. The local got very angry and said: "You don't like the coffee? I brewed it special just for you. That's good beans there y'know. Straight from the mountains. People like you can't appreciate what they've got until it's too late. You always have to be different don't you? Always craving something more?"

Now I've rocked around the clock with Bill Haley and his Comets and I know for Whom The Bells Toll because Hemingway told me and I've seen all of Bergman's B-movie features and I've read books about sex and books about the Roman Empire and I still get them confused on a good day, but never in my life have I ever been this insulted. So I pack up my grit and dive back into the water but this time the water has been diving into me without my knowing about it and I sit there at a table again expecting to play some poker, but it's not that kind of table and how can I poke her when I don't even know her? Instead, I am playing with a doohickey and reciting lines from Jabberwocky as the Mad Hatter and March Hare sit across from me looking on in amazement, yet staring at me in a way that makes me feel self-conscious, as if I have mustard accumulating at the side of my mouth. But I think, hey this is it, this is my chance for tea...even if it is mad. And besides, it was the best mustard! Finally I can sense success at hand and this is my opportunity to seize it or I shall live out the rest of my days as a failure...always wondering why I didn’t keep my posterity. I look towards my new friends and I ask them politely, where exactly the Dormouse is for I can't seem to see any sugar containers around and isn't he usually the one that serves the tea? And the Mad Hatter and the March Hare reflect for a moment in a team huddle and then without provocation whatsoever, they point to me in a moment of haze and suddenly I find myself craving cheese and running from a barrage of alley cats. And I begin to wonder if this is what happens when you reach the end of your thoughts. So painfully and without reservation I scream out and confess my love and desire for coffee and the fact that I hate tea and all it has to offer. And I lick my arm once more only to taste the sweet nectar of sugar coated skin cells. And I float onwards towards the fountain of insanity, the fountain I once believed to be called inanity, until I slowly sink under the cesspool of fantasy and I wake up in reality only to find myself dead and drowning in my own ingenuity.

V For Virtuoso

A whole slew of unrelated thoughts are currently penetrating my mind right now. The first is, what ever happened to that Ruby-Spears animated Superman series from 1988 that was on Saturday morning? Why does no one remember this? Why have all traces of it been eradicated? Especially in a time when the new Superman movie is coming out and every bit of Superman-related property is getting the DVD treatment, why has this one been swept under the rug? Did it somehow employ animation techniques and subliminal messaging to corrupt our young minds?

Second, why don't I read more Philip K. Dick? Lurid pulp covers aside, this man really wrote profoundly on the eroding sense of reality and in a day and age of picture books for 2 year olds like The Da Vinci Code, I think that thought-provoking literature is rare. Plus I really like the term "Phildickian." I can use it openly without sounding dirty.

Third, OH MY GOD! Spike Jonze is making a live-action film of Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak - a favorite childhood story that to this day has boggled my mind. I'm sure there's some underlying connotations to the book that I have yet to uncover and that worries me.

Fourth, what the hell did WHAM! actually stand for? Remember that cheesy early 80s pop group,? They belted out such memorable tunes like "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" and "I'm Your Man." I checked every FAQ page I could find regarding George Michael and WHAM! It seems as though there is no mystery behind the name. It isn’t English slang for anything, nor is it an acronym (I sincerely doubt it means White Heterosexual Atheist Males). So, it would appear not all mysteries are that mysterious. I think they just liked the name WHAM! And what happened to Andrew Ridgely? Did he have a career after George Michael left? Am I gay for even wondering this?

Fifth, why was Carnivale canceled? Nothing was resolved. The show was brilliant. It had style, stellar acting and a mind-blowing premise. It’s like Twin peaks all over again. HBO renews every ass-wipe piece of programming, but something different, dark and clever comes along and they shit-can it. I’m afraid for the people of Earth. When American Idol or The Apprentice can surpass 4 seasons, it’s time for mass annihilation. Time to start anew.

Finally, I can't get over how much I loved V For Vendetta. I own the comic and have read it a few times and was seriously biased by its author, Alan Moore, describing the screenplay as "rubbish." I felt that there was no way the chilling beauty of it could ever be captured on screen (especially because it was being adapted by the hacks known as the Wachowski Brothers). But hot-damn and a bucket of pasterized lard, this movie took me, uncorked a bottle of chartreuse, put on some Barry White, unbuttoned my clothes, laid me down gently and proceeded to fuck me sadomasochistically! I loved every second of celluloid that danced across the screen in 24 frame-per-second intervals. It was ridiculously good. It gave me chills.

Even more entertaining was the ditzy little blonde number in front of me (who was clearly dragged by her boyfriend as a way of paying her back for taking him to see Failure To Launch). She laughed at inappropriate spots, was getting noticeably frustrated at simple concepts like "fascism" or "hegemony," and clearly missed the point at the end when she turned to her guy with a look that would make someone with a name like Dummy McDumbass feel smart and said, "I don't get it." He made brief eye contact with me and sort of grinned in that smug 'Secret Boys Club' way that alludes to "Yeah, I know, my girlfriend's as stupid as a freeze-dried turd, but look at her; she's hot like the devil's anus." I nodded in agreement. There was also this gal in my row who squirmed uncontrollably the whole film, shifting positions every 10 minutes or so. It led me to believe she was suffering from some sort of yeast infection. I trust the good people from the Department of Hazardous Material will see to it that theatre 10 at Colossus is dealt with accordingly. Or do I have to dress up in a porcelain mask and black cloak and blow up the large UFO-like structure as a symbol of hope for all those who suffer the atrocities of bearing witness to squirming patrons?

I may have missed the point.

The Evil Known As "Cuddling"

You have to cuddle after sex.

Whether you go an hour or a minute, it’s too insensitive not to cuddle. And the thing is, you have to make a conscious decision to do it. That is, if you actually care about the girl you’re with. The problem is this: there’s really nothing else to do after sex. I mean immediately after. Sure, you can eat or shower together or have really forced Richard Linklater-like conversation or smoke…but if you’re just lying there inert which is usually the case, you have to cuddle. You’re totally out of options. You can’t have sex and then decide to have oral sex. For the girl it would be like sucking on a desiccated gummy bear and for guys it would be like sticking your tongue in a black hole in space…you’d have no idea where it’s gonna resurface. Too messy! What are your other immediate options? A massage? Sure, that sounds like a good idea especially if your performance was lacking, but the pressure to give the massage of your life would be too overwhelming (considering she’s already disappointed in you and a massage is based both on physical execution and emotional mind-set. You’re starting at a disadvantage). Plus, after a guy blows his load, he really wants nothing more than to sleep, close his eyes, meditate or be left alone long enough for his testosterone levels to replenish to the point where he can go back to being a typical male asshole. See a guy’s afraid to really open his mouth after sex. The uncertainty of what he might say is just too risky. You’ll never have your guy more honest, caring and open than just after he’s squirt.

You have to cuddle. It’s the trap.

And the thing is, a guy always has to fart when he’s cuddling. It doesn’t matter. I mean, everyone farts. That much is true. It’s natural and healthy for the body. But when you’re out and doing stuff, you can always make a fart blend into your environment but when you’re alone, especially in an intimate scenario, it ain’t gonna blend and it's just gonna horrify your partner. And it never fails. You always have to fart. It's nature's cruel way of messing with you after a good thing. And it’s not like you can just let one rip. It’s not like she’s gonna laugh it off. You don’t wanna scar the poor girl. You don't want her to associate sex with you and farting. You don't want her to run off and tell her girlfriends thus limiting your chances with the female population in general as word spreads around the sewing circle. So what do you do? Well you consider getting up and using the whole “I have to pee” excuse but you know any movement, regardless of it, is gonna bring out the fart. So you lie still and you try to get her to leave. You ask her, “Do you want something to drink?” primatively thinking the subservient side of her will offer to go get it if you're both parched. The answer's always no. So you try to get her to pee. You push down on her bladder or tickle her or something and she either gets angry at you or confuses this act with you wanting to go again, like it’s some form of foreplay. Then you’re really fucked. So you think of anything to make excuses for her to leave for a few seconds, but the cunning part of your brain has turned off so you usually end up saying really stupid shit like, “Can you grab me a comb from the bathroom?” And she asks why you need a comb right now and before you have a chance to stop yourself you say something ridiculous like, “It’s for my dolly. I like to brush its hair.” And she looks at you in such a way that if she were to think you were creepy and weird, that would be flattery by comparison.

So you hold it in. And the more you hold it in the worse it gets. You feel it turning in your stomach like a cement mixer. And it’s no longer just a stomach rumble, it becomes like a thermo nuclear device welling up in your belly. You try to squeeze the sphincter muscles in your ass so tight in the hopes of easing it out silently (much like you’d deflate a balloon with a pin by sticking it into the pinch mouthpiece). But the fart always ends up coming out like shrapnel or the 4th of July fireworks. So you store it and suffer the internal damage, the cold sweats, the hallucinations, the week-long constipation, the fever and delirium.

And then there’s cuddle talk. Girls say some fucked up cutesy wootsy shit when you’re cuddling that actually lowers your masculinity and more times than less makes you question your own sexuality. She’ll tell you how cute you are, how beautiful you are, how she loves the little grooves beside your mouth or the squinting of your eyes, the way you quiver, or the way your Adams apple bobs up and down when you swallow out of breath. How do you reciprocate? Especially when your most potent sexual hormone has been depleted? “You have pretty titties!”

Don’t make us sound more stupid than we already are. A guy wants to be told things that actually matter: like the release date for the new Van Damme movie or some clip you downloaded off the Internet that showed a blind nun from military school with hooks on both hands kicking the shit out of God.

Oh…and why do girls try new things when cuddling? Like braiding your chest hair or draping their leg across your balls? Don’t you realize that shit hurts? And she sighs something like, “This is so perfect, I could just stay like this forever.” Meanwhile, in about 2 seconds, your testicle is gonna collapse from the pressure, your body’s gonna convulse and vomit’s gonna spray out of your mouth like the little girl in The Exorcist.

There’s no solution to this cuddling crisis. Unless your practice abstinence. Sure you may live a healthier life but you'll lose your fucking mind!

Happy St. Patsy's Day

What exactly is St. Patrick's Day? All through university and high school, I just thought it was another boorish excuse to yet again get as liquored up as humanly possible before ending the night dry humping some questionable species of human at the pub until it became abundantly clear that the zipper was causing irritation and not that person's willingness to act as some sort of primal scratching post. This was of course topped off by an alarming amount of puking outside the club. Good times! As if we need another day out of the year where people make excuses to go get drunk. It seems every day is becoming some sort of excuse.

St. Illiterate's Day
Roommate 1: Dood im lyke toetaly faeliing englash.
Roomate 2: Fuckin' A! Let's go get smashed.

St. Melodrama's Day
Girl 1: And then Sharon told me that she heard from Katey that he gangbanged the entire sorority. But he says he still loves me and that the other 30 meant nothing to him. How can I stay mad?
Girl 2: Fuck him! Let's go get smashed.

St. Moron's Day
Patient: My ear infection is getting worse. At first I thought if I just didn't use my left ear the pain would stop, but now it hurts to swallow and blink.
Doctor: You're a fucking idiot! Let's go get smashed.

St. Too Much Information Day
News Anchor 1: Despite Mr. Henderson's recent success at cutting off his own arm with a steak knife, he probably did not need to cut off his scrotum and testicles with said knife.
News Anchor 2: For the love of fuck! We NEED to go get smashed.

And so on...

The truth is St. Patrick's Day is just another shit slurry of conventions floating around in our brains that we process in an attempt to make meaning for our existence. Let me share with you some of my learnings about St. Patrick's Day.

Patrick was alive before any of us were pooping our diapers and suckling our mother's teats. He made a damn fine slave; a quality of slave so unrivaled that it sparked several Slavery Abolitionist movements across the world when slave traders realized they would never get the same pleasure flogging and degrading another man in quite the same way it felt with Patrick (proving that no one ever really forgets their first). At 16 Patrick considered himself a Pagan. Get that? A self-proposed Pagan. And who says you can't label yourself and still make an impact? So being a Pagan, he decided to conduct sermons to convert people to his beliefs. And wouldn't you know it...it worked!

And now an angry and jealous sidenote: UNBELIEVABLE! Every time I put my faith in a new system of beliefs I never try to coerce people into following blindly. Like I had this idea once where men should all have their genitalia replaced with a .45 and two hand grenades and women would have intelligent vaginas, complete with a GPS navigation system. But I never tried to impose my will onto others. Maybe that's why there's no holiday named after me? Is falsifying observance forced onto others really what it takes to gain recognition in this life? Fine then. From this time forth it is my will that all of you shall grow your toenails hideously long - so long, in fact, that they protrude through the front of your socks like menacing claw puppets. One day there will be a national holiday to celebrate this tradition and it shall be known as St. Needs-A-Pedicure-And-Fast Day.

So anyway, Patrick's actions pissed of the Celtic Druids (who just so happened to pop up everywhere back in the day, much like that Polkaroo character) but never seem to be around much more these days. Some of the lore surrounding St. Patrick's Day includes beliefs that Patrick raised people from the dead and converted Pagans. Though originally a Catholic holy day, St. Patrick's Day has evolved into a more secular holiday. This happened around the same time that the Catholic Church realized it could invest in the booming green beer market, thus further thieving the public of its hard earned cash and reaping the benefits from any establishment carrying a liquor license out of even more money a year in a vain move to construct several eye-sore abominable monuments to itself). Just you wait and see. These Catholics are really good with revisionist history as a way of propagating their lies. It's only a matter of time before we see some "authentic" Renaissance paintings showcasing the baby Jesus chugging a Guinness with priests (and this is what I love about these paintings because priests never existed when Christ was a baby because Catholicism hadn't been invented yet) with their arms entwined around each other's shoulders in what appears to be a ballad of "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling."

So basically the bottom line is Patrick did nothing that warrants a holiday named after him. When Filocalus was writing the Christian calendar, he just wanted to fill in that month-long void between Valentine's Day and Easter with a national holiday. Unfortunately it seems the Hallmark thugs got to him first via the time machine they secretly stole from H.G. Wells and were thus able to bully Filocalus and bend him to their will. (They probably passed themselves off as gods by doing the whole "pulling my thumb-off trick." Back in the 4th Century, that's the type of thing that would have made others perceive you as a god. Today it's just something your grandfather does to freak you out when you're a toddler).

The traditional icons of St. Patrick's Day are even more unsettling.

1. The Shamrock - a three leaf clover meant to symbolize the Trinity. It also means Nirvana. But now that most people have tired of the vinyl and black leather ensemble pieces of The Matrix and have lost interest in depressed and suicidal Seattle grunge bands with minimal talent at best, they have turned to a more conventional and recognizable association with the shamrock - Notre Dame football. Amazing how we always seem to exchange one insignificant symbol for another. I think that's why our evolution is on hold. Bring back the spiritual metaphors, for the love of hell!

2. The Blarney Stone - a stone set in the wall of the castle tower in the village of Blarney. Kissing the stone is supposed to bring the kisser the gift of persuasive eloquence. Legend states that an old woman cast a spell on the stone to reward a king who had saved her from drowning. (Sure, another fucking old woman casting another fucking spell. Where are these miracle-weaving hags these days to cure cancer or world hunger?) Kissing the stone while under the spell gave the king the abliity to speak sweetly and convincingly (thus ensuring that women were more interested in his charming personality than his kingdom and all the riches...suuuure). These days it's difficult to reach the stone. Kissers have to lie on their back and bend backward or downward, holding iron bars for support. If this isn't the biggest sham! What has life amounted to when you reach that new level of pathetic desperation and have to make out with a rock? How can things have gotten that bad in your personal life? I draw the line at heavy petting with inanimate objects. And really, are we to believe that tongue-tango-ing with a rock is going to give us the eloquence and charm of a witty repertoire to woo whomever we deem striking? I'll tell you what it'll give you: cyanobacterium, endolithic bacteria and various blue-green algae spores forming in your mouth that should ensure your visit to Ireland is not only a memorable one, but a permanent one.

3. Leprechauns - little old men who are shoemakers for the fairies (because even in the world of make belief there are blue collared workers). They usually stand about 2 feet tall (the perfect height for oral sex). Treasure hunters can often track down a Leprechaun by the sound of his shoemaker's hammer. Legend states that if you catch one, you can force him to tell you where he hides his gold (they don't tell you that you have to employ various means of CIA-like torture before the Leprechaun breaks). Apparently there are no evil Leprechauns (like the one from that shockingly offensive B-movie). So are we to believe that little proletariat imps are going to be happy to just hand over their retirement bonds, RSPs, residual equities, money masters, children's college funds and entire life savings to anyone who happens to hear the sound of a freakin' shoe hammer? Leprechauns are fabricated little scapegoat characters, discovered amidst some drunken, alcoholic, schizophrenic and psychotic hallucinogenic rage that most lunatics try to hide behind in court under the guise of "insane" as their excuse for slaughtering family members. That's what you get for drinking green beer. A dialogue, if you please:

Human: Holy shit man, you're a Leprechaun!
Leprechaun: Aye.
Human: I don't feel so good. I think I had too much to drink.
Leprechaun: Thas juss yer airlocled head swoonin' me lovely. Have yeeself anoother roond.
Human: Wait, aren't you like supposed to show me some gold or some shit like that?
Leprechaun: All in due time, laddie.
Human: SHOW ME THE MONEY!
Leprechaun: Aye, aye, gallery entertainin' I'm shore.
Human: I'm just messing with you little dude! It's that movie with Tom Cruise.
Leprechaun: A gom wee geebag if 'ter ever was one. So you is after me pot o' gold?
Human: Damn straight!
Leprechaun: I reckon ye first must do somethin' fer me.
Human: Sure thing dude. You need me to help find your lucky charms?
(Human breaks out into uncontrollable, snorting-like laughter).
Leprechaun (mumbling to himself): I swear now, if that ain't the stalest fookin' jest mine ears are subject to from the ages. Fook General Mills. Fook their frosted marshmallow cereal-producing arses to the copper gates of Hades and beyoond.
(Leprechaun notices Human studying him strangely. Leprechaun is nervous).
Human: That's it! I totally know who you remind me of. You're like that ewok dude! That freaky little ewok in snazzy green threads.
Leprechaun: Ewok?? Why of all ye bloody nerve! I'll have ye know that that there George Lucas fella is nothin' but a bleedin' demon wearin' human flesh, he is. Ewok! Why I ought-ta. Never ye mind. Nay, to get me gold is easy. Alls I be requirin' is fe ye to kill yer fam'ly, slice 'em up in their sleep and feed them to the neighborin' doogs. Ye can tell the authorities that Flint Flannigan the Leprechaun told ye to do it!
Human: Aflaminghomosayswhat?
Leprechaun: Bleedin' hell! I'll kill 'em me damn self ye useless git.

4. And finally, school children have a little tradition of their own. They pinch classmates who don't wear green on this holiday. First off, wearing green is strictly a North American custom as the colour green is not popular in Ireland. Green is connected to the old green flag and a time when Ireland was NOT free. Way to rub it in, huh? And second...children pinching each other? I don't buy it. Not in this day and age. Kids can't get away with the simplest pecks on the cheeks in schools today without being slapped down with litigation in compliance with the requirements of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 stating that any prohibited acts such as discomposure, malaise, vexation, dejection, annoyance, irritation, infliction, mortification, chagrin, eslandre, solicitude, distress, affliction, infelicity, tribulation, extremity and prostration will be culpable under the generic legal term "sexual harassment." That's why kids just opt for pre-pubescent quickies in the locker room and under the stairs between classes. It saves them all the bullshit that comes with justifying their innocent, child-like affections.

Anyway, for those of you that still don't care and are into that hocus pocus, happy St. Patrick's Day regardless to you and yours. May you have a wet night and a dry morning (like anyone needs a holiday for that)!

From The Vault

One of the principles behind this blog is that I don’t really wish to talk about people in my life. I don’t mind talking about myself, after all, this is MY blog, but I’ve chosen to leave out the day-to-days, to respect people’s privacies. Today is one of those days where I’m going to open up the vault and present a rare glimpse into the past. Since I have been out of contact with this person for several years and I recently unearthed some gems, I thought I’d share a story with all of you. I was cleaning out one of my closets and I stumbled upon the holy grail! Now, when a relationship ends, I usually burn all traces of that person’s existence (pictures, letters, gifts – unless it was a really good gift – etc). I just find it unhealthy to dwell on things best left in the past. So anyway, I stumbled upon a grey folder. I opened up the folder and I was suddenly transported back several years ago when I was dating this girl named Sophie. Sophie was a fantastic person through and through. She was a little young and naïve, but there was truly nothing she wouldn’t do for me and I admired her for it. But Sophie really wanted me to be ga-ga in love over her and the fact of the matter is, I don’t do ga-ga. I’m the type of guy that prefers not to tell someone I love them, but show them instead. Some girls need the security of constant “I love you’s” in their lives. Sophie was one of them. And the thing is, it was a hard fit considering the type of person I am and the type of person she was.

For example, I’ll never forget the day we were strolling around the Toronto Islands and we came upon a tree that had dozens and dozens of initials carved into it encompassed by little hearts. Sophie looked at me and before she could even say anything I told her I was on it. I pulled out my keys and proceeded to carve a small heart with the initials R.L. + R.L. into the tree trunk When Sophie saw the final product, she cried for about an hour. At first I was all, “You're not really upset, are you?" But after about 20 minutes of her sobbing, I realized I had actually done something that she perceived as really bad and I felt horrible. I mean, it was a joke.

Luckily my remorse usually only lasted about a day before I was up to my old tricks again. Sophie used to wait at work for me to pick her up every day. There she would spend the day writing little love sonnets and drawing adorable pictures of me which I would then callously vandalize the first chance I could get when she wasn’t looking or when she was helping a customer. And every time I would end up saying the same thing, "I'm soooo sorry baby, I just thought it was funny." She never got me.

I mean, I like affection, I really do. But there's affection and then there's insanity. I don’t know how many times I’d come to her work place and there would be an alarming amount of Sophie + Robert hearts waiting for me on post-it notes, prescription forms, discarded cardboard and notepad paper. More than usually she would take on my last name too…scary. So this forced me to be creative every time I wished to deface one of these hearts in terms of how I could totally demean the image. Sometimes I would add on to the picture of "R.L. + S.F." with an “= Forever Hatred” or sometimes I would take the “t” in Robert (when she used my full name) and draw a picture of Jesus crucified to it with a word caption that read: “Why Sophie? Why did you do this to me?”

So anyway, one of the things I found today was this picture she drew for me a long time ago. When I first met Sophie, I had Elvis-like hair. I cut it really short very soon after I met her and always regretted doing it, claiming she killed the king. So she gave me this one day (click to enlarge):

Cute, right? So in typical Sophie fashion, no good deed goes without immediate recognition and she asked me to draw her a picture in return to consumate our love. Now let me just state that I’m pretty good at drawing things. In fact, this is how some of my art looks when I actually put in the effort:

But for Sophie, I wanted to mimic her style...show her the juvenile ways of her approach. I am so glad I kept this drawing! For some reason, she refused to accept it. I can't imagine why. But seeing it today, I almost cried laughing so hard. Sure, it's one of those "you had to be there" moments, but...well, just check it out:

Now come on! What girl wouldn't find a guy who drew this for her amazing? If I were a girl, I'd be enamored.

Here’s another example. Sophie had this guy who was vying for her attention. She kept telling me about him as a way of inciting jealousy. Of course, being the non-jealous type that I am, I kept telling her to be with him, so the whole jealousy thing sort of backfired. One day she got more bold and she showed me a poem that he wrote her. His name was Inky by the way. INKY! The boy didn’t stand a chance. This poem was called “Alone.” And it was all about how he was alone without her and suffering. She thought it was very romantic. I thought he might actually have a vagina. This guy did know how badly I could hurt him and yet he still insisted on trying to court her. Anyway, I decided to play Sophie’s sick little game and reciprocate with a poem of my own called "Alone." Again, I cannot express to you how happy I am that I found this. I thought this gem was forever lost. Naturally I wrote it in the same style that Inky’s poem was written. Unfortunately I don’t have his poem, but this should give you an idea of the type of writer he was based on my mock version of his poem:

ALONE

I sit alone under a dark sky and wonder where you are tonight.
There is a moon in the dark sky because it is night and night's tend to have moons.
But tonight, I am alone and I cannot see the moon, so it is dark.
(Did I mention I am alone?)
It is so dark now and I am thinking of you.
I need your light and your glow to illuminate my night.
Your light burns bright and brings radiance and sunshine to the loneliest of souls.
Come to think of it, why is there a light emanating from your body?
That's kinda strange.
I wonder...Perhaps you are an alien.
An alien sent, not from space, but from heaven.
But then, I am an alien too.
I am alien to a world filled with meaning and compassion.
This world I speak of is yours.
Let me into your world.
Unlock the door.
Invite me to stay for fried chicken and watermelon.
We can run in the grass and sit by the bushes.
But not too close though because we might cut ourselves on the prickly branches.
But even if we bled, I would be there to mend your wounds just as you are here to mend my broken heart.
Well, it's not really broken in the literal sense, because if it was, I'd be dead.
But I am dead and alone on this moonless night because I yearn for you.
I want you.
I want to love you and to have crazy monkey sex with you.
Oops, did I say that out loud?
I have to stop writing everything I think.
But I can't because...I think of you always.
It's the truth. The truth I say.
My therapist told me that the truth would set me free but I burnt his house to the ground and he lost the family cat to the blazing flames.
The blazing flames of my heart burn ferociously for you.
That's my truth. But truth distorts facts.
Hey, facts rhymes with packs...well, sort of.
But the fact is...I love you and I need you to love me.
But until then, I am dark and empty.
And I am alone.
And the moon is gone.
And I think I'm coming down with head-lice.

And what do you think happened after I gave this to her? She was angry that I mocked Inky.

The bottom line is, I wish this blog had a point. But it doesn’t. I just got a really good laugh out of some of these old memories. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not laughing at her. I'm not that sadistic No no, I liked Sophie…a lot. Unfortunately I met her at a time in my life that I like to refer to as the Dark Ages – a page that has been ripped out of the biography of Rob and placed on the fire of extinction to burn there for all eternity. So unfortunately I ended things with her rather prematurely. She had to suffer for my indiscretions and lack of emotional stability at the time. I do miss her now and then and I’m glad I have these memories to fall back on and while the ones I’ve shown you may present me as some horrible monster, there are more “good” memories in this folder than these cheeky ones. But this blog is about parody and attempting to entertain you.

If anything, finding this folder has made me rethink the whole “burning all traces of that person’s existence” once the relationship ends ordeal. Because years later, I might look back on it with fond memories and good blogging material!

No More Eating After Midnight

No I'm not a Gizmo. Eating after midnight doesn't grow spores on my flesh that mutate into green, lizard-like creatures with sharp teeth and claws, channeling some fiendish personality into manaical acts of destruction and mayhem. It gives me weird dreams.

Last night I dreamt I was sitting in the Java Lounge, sipping shots of this Beatrice raspberry lemonade that I used to be addicted to and having a conversation with an earwig that kept insisting that it was trying to take a leak in it’s version of a urinal and I was giving it stage fright. So I got up to move to a tiny booth and sitting near me was a space man, an acrobat, a two-headed serpent, a talking monkey and a small little boy wearing a kite. There were other faces in this place, twisted, desperate and vague. There were other voices too, bitter, unyielding and unloved. For unknown reasons, I felt totally at ease with this crowd, as though I had been hanging around them forever. They all had weird names though that I can't remember, but you know the type I'm talking about, the type Douglas Adams would have invented where there's an apostrophe in it (like Shar'jsm Golth - some shit like that). Anyway, I'm sitting there, same as usual and suddenly I begin sliding through the entire lounge (which is really just one room - but for some reason, this time it is a series of different themed rooms – like this slanted room us Torontonians used to have in the Science Centre…it was like that). And I'm sliding through them as though I'm being pushed by a fierce wind. I have absolutely no control over this movement. I'm sliding extremely fast but everyone is moving in slow motion. I finally end up in this room that is shaped like a bus (probably because it was a bus) and sitting there with me is an entire trainee team of roller-skate 50's-style waitresses all with thick New Jersey accents and hair curlers (I doubt I'll ever be able to stomach the term "hun" again) and also present is this bus driver I once had. His name was Lemon Baines. You don't forget a name like that. He kept insisting that it was pronounced Le Mon, not lemon. But I knew better.

Anyway, Lemon turns to me and tells me very militantly that I need to embark on a journey across the galaxy, on an intergalactic star cruise to bring back a gift to Earth. When I asked him what the gift was, his response was: "The concept of hug-a-handicap day" - a day that would go down in infamy such as New Years day, Lincoln Day, Memorial Day, and so on. Suddenly, I'm in a very bright room surrounded by an infinite amount of wheel-chair bound people, all coming towards me with their mouths sewn shut and their eyes the colour of marble. I'm dressed like some reject from Battlestar Galactica and for some unholy reason Slimer from the Ghostusters was there chugging wine like he did in the movie. Finally, a figure emerges out of the swarm of wheelchairs and it's my dad dressed as Zorro. He tells me we must fight, but 30 seconds into it, he's lying on the ground doing physiotherapeutical back stretches and I’ve turned into some little girl on a quest to find cookies through a twisted mansion made of lollipops. I battled a cookie monster, giant sock monkeys with spears, a witch and large puddles of spilt ice cream that spoke upwards from the ground like some trippy Jim Henson production.

I don't quite remember the rest but I do remember a large mirror that, when looked through, I could see my reflection refelcting the little girl's reflection. I also remember something about inaudible scratching noises that only the magical pixies floating in the air could hear, which induced pixie nausea.

Weird!

Rest In Peace David

Every moment is rare because it is a moment you'll never have again.

In time all is lost in the silent forever.

Time itself is no longer even a memory.

There is no comfort and so we busy ourselves with the task of ignoring our mortality.

So live without regret. Your legacy is you.

Sleep well my friend. You were a consummate dreamer. An ambitious hero. An ever-growing young god at play.

You will be missed.

"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live." - Norman Cousins

Got Rid Of Milk?

Who was the brain fart that decided making songs about milk would actually give people the urge to drink that pasteurized opalescent saliva? For some reason dirty white hicks rapping with a cow in the background doesn’t convey that same level of cool that, say, Usher performing lewd acts of dry humping with the Swedish bikini team does. I’m more inclined to buy whatever the hell he’s selling. Just check out these lyrics:

"Straight to your bones, from the farm to the fridge. We know what you want ‘cause we know how you live. Moooooo. We got a big bad Bessie with the M.I.L.K. We be chillin’. Ooohhhaaooh. Want milk? Uh huh Uh huh, I said. More milk? Uh huh Uh huh. Come on. Want milk? Uh huh Uh huh, I said. More milk?"

It doesn’t even fucking rhyme?

And now the Dairy Farmers have a new milk song, with some shameless Pussycat Dolls wannabes spewing the same nonsense. The bottom line is unless you actually advertise the product as such: Milk – now with cocaine; I seriously doubt anyone’s going to be swayed by these embarrassing attempts to elevate milk to some pop culture-like status using sad and forgettable ballads.

What the Dairy Farmers have to realize is that everyone equates milk with something they were forced to drink at a young age because of this fear instilled in their heads that their skeleton wouldn’t develop properly and they would suffer from osteoporosis or end up looking like something some Victorian anthropolist would have deemed a new species of sub-human. Milk became that thing that you would put in your cereal to dilute the taste and then when mom wasn’t looking, make deals with your siblings that you won’t tell if they don’t tell that you’re pouring it out into the sink when mom goes to change the load of laundry.

There are many other ways to get your calcium intake. Three glasses of low-fat milk adds up to more than 300 calories to your diet a day. Not to mention cow milk is responsible for other such problems such as lactose intolerance, faltulence, gastrointestinal distress, increased risk of ovarian cancer and prostate cancer, anemia, allergies, heart disease and insulin-dependent diabetes. And dairy products may actually cause osteoporosis, not prevent it, since their high-protein content leaches calcium from the body. As well, milk contains no fiber or complex carbohydrates and is laden with saturated fat and cholesterol. It's contaminated with cow's blood and pus and is frequently contaminated with pesticides, hormones and antibiotics.

But you don’t see that on the Got Milk? mustache ads do you? You don’t see Michael Jordan sporting the Pearly Sanchez defecating into a colostomy bag or Britney Spears injecting insulin into her ass cheek.

So what’s the solution? Stop trying to convey this idea that milk is cool. It’s not cool and never will be. Stop the juvenile gimmicks like a milk carton that “moo's.” Putting a microchip and small wire in a milk carton is the type of thing that gives terrorists ideas on how to strike out at unsuspecting Westerners in day schools. The Dairy Farmers need to realize that the only way they’re going to sell their tainted products is by employing the strategy that most advertisers have adopted: feeding off the public’s insecurities and creating fear. The next Got Milk? ad needs to give consumers a glimpse of a future without enough calcium intake. A future wrought with arthritic pains, oxygen tubes and IV lines extruding from every exposed facial orifice and some sort of metallic pikestaff intertwined around their wrists to aid in mobility (which has been reduced to that of a limping amputee).

If you really want calcium, try a supplement. Sometimes the "natural-straight-from-the-source" approach isn't actually the best. However, if you just can’t part with the sperm-like consistency that your morning lactaid brings, try soy milk or rice milk. You might live longer and with better colon control.

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY

Yep, 28 years ago today I was causing my mother insurmountable pain. Glad to see not much has changed in 28 years. Now before you see fit to sacrifice small goats and children in my name, you must know that I don't like birthdays. I have nothing against getting older, I just don't like any day that singles out any individual person. I find it alienating. Things have meaning in this life only if we get to share them with another person.

Amazingly I get to see all my friends on my birthday. Seems a little phony in a way. Why do you need a reason to hang with your friends? Why all of a sudden is this weekend free for them? I'll tell you why. Because it's an obligation. I'm sure the same thought goes through their head that goes through mine on birthdays: "Great, I have to go out for some obligatory crap." The worst part is I have to prolong this agony too as I am being taken out by two separate groups of friends. The Jets are taking me out Friday night and the Sharks are taking me out Saturday night. For some reason, these groups refuse to intermingle and mix with each other. The last time they did, whistling ensued, followed closely by finger snapping and then both groups of friends suddenly broke out into dynamic and surprisingly well choreographed high-stepping, vigorously athletic and visually intense ballet of pirouettes dance sequences to the beats of interpretative bebop jazz. They claimed it was a dominance / territorial thing, although I just thought they all looked really gay.

Anyway, if you really want to make this a special day, send me money, drugs and hookers!

24

Hands down this is the greatest television show on right now. I just caught up on last night's 2 hour visual orgy. Absolutely brilliant! Does it make me less masculine if I felt a little teary-eyed with that ending? I feel dumber as a human being after watching this show. 24 needs its own awards ceremonies. This program is the greatest television experience you'll ever have, second only to that beloved but long cancelled Fox reality show Man Versus Beast. (I mean, come on, how can any show possibly compete? Conceiving the concept of pitting an orangutan versus a sumo wrestler and strapping an airplane to the backs of 44 midgets lay on that border between genius and insanity where camels pass through needles eyes and ants can move rubber tree plants). I'm so excited that it's only half way through the season. We get 12 more episodes of this! I actually look forward to Mondays now. So far this year we've seen death, death and more death, heartbreak, nail-biting-edge-of-your-seat suspense, Russians, mall consumers rightfully being killed off, Robocop, Warlock, Leland Palmer, the Girl Next Door, Samwise Gamgee, Ponyboy Curtis and word is that Tyler Durden will be making an appearance too!

God bless Joel Surnow, Robert Cochran and Keifer Sutherland! And may God smite all those who don't watch this show.

This message was not paid for or endorsed by the Fox Television Network (but if you're looking to hire...)

Mutants Everywhere!!

I just now saw the X-Men 3 trailer! I just now had multiple orgasms!

Opposite Sex vs. Complimentary Sex

It’s Saturday morning and I hardly ever blog on a Saturday morning. Usually at this time, I'm waking up in some strange bed, trying to figure out if I should apologize for any words of affection I may have prematurely spoken the previous night or just opt for the less emotionally-destructive act of smacking her over the head with a lamp before making my way to the front door.

So today's subject has to do with something both men and women can appreciate because, well, it's about them. You see I've heard it argued that men and women should be referred to as the complimentary sex, not the opposite sex, because we compliment each other. Like peanut butter and jelly, male and females compliment each other like no other.

I believe this to be wrong. Sure, our genomes produce different phenotypes, which arguably could be called opposite, but saying that men and women are opposite implies that they are completely different in nature, quality and significance. Biologically, male and female are very similar. And in both quality and significance, we are most certainly equals. So, it would seem that the complimentary argument is right. Wrong.

First and foremost, opposite can and does imply that certain things are related in such a way that they negate the other. If we do not wish to bring distinction to men above women or vice versa, (for if we did, the whole idea of equality would be compromised), then these two terms need to be negated by each other. As well, something that is opposite of something else is the other of two complementary, but mutually exclusive things. Take yin and yang for example. While it's certainly an outdated principle (yin being the passive female and yang being the active male), the theory still holds up because it deals directly with the principle of dualistic philosophy, the same philosophy from which men and women are distinctly defined. This philosophy states that the view of the world consists of or is explicable as two fundamental entities, such as mind and matter. While mind and matter compliment each other, they are in no way complementary. They are complete opposites. One is physical and one is spiritual. It's the same with men and women. We have two basic natures - physical and spiritual. Physically, we are different. And spiritually, men and women have different beliefs, thoughts and ideologies (especially when it comes down to what differentiates us so much...sex). Finally, opposite implies supplying mutual needs. While gays and lesbians may be able to supply the same mutual physical and emotional needs, they can and never will be able to supply mutual biological needs. Hence, men and women are opposites.

Anyway, I must go back to the corner now and continue shaking uncontrollably like a human bobblehead.

Don't love me because I'm smarter than you. Love me because you're too dumb to know otherwise.

I'm going to die. I don't want to die. But failing that, I suppose if I had to die, I'd want to do so in some spectaular news-worthy way - like saving burning orphans from cancer or being eaten alive on daytime television by genetically engineered pint sized cannibal hippopotamuses.

I'm sitting at work right now thinking I'd rather be running around a crowded area with a Super Soaker that has been modified to expel napalm than sitting here staring at a screen. I would stand on the roof of the building and rain liquid fire down upon the populace. Of course, I'd also be content to just get really drunk, climb a tall bridge and urinate off it. Because that would cover the largest area accessible to pee on in one go.

The only thing sustaining me today is that I came in really early this morning and put LSD in the water cooler just so I could watch everyone tripping all day.

I'm not usually the complaining type. It's just recently I've been considering other career options. I mean, I've been dealing with the stupidest bunch of ideas all month from the stupidest bunch of people. I'm still waiting for someone to pass a law that allows me to hit people with a golf club everytime they say something extraordinarily stupid.

Ugh, sometimes I just want things to be like they were 20 years ago, when strangers used to come up to me and ask in awed tones if they could offer me some candy. Maybe I should have followed my mother's advice and become a high school teacher so I could have properly warped the minds of the young and prepared them for the misery of university and college? It's just that at times like this I go through massive creative doubt, thinking, why couldn't I just be good with numbers and be a content little boring accountant or something? Or strong and be a tradesman? Or fast and be a cheetah? Why must there always be that raging voice in the back of my head, malcontent and demanding power, success and artistic expression? A cure or a blessing, time will truly tell. I guess it's like the poet Suenes says, "Happy are those who dream and are ready to pay the price to make them come true."

Anyway, please drop me a line and save me from the tedium of another so-called story arch in this relentless continuum we call life. Amuse me and I'll make it worth your while. I have otters.

Oh that's right, there will be otters! Okay, I'm off tomorrow so have a good weekend one and all. And try not to kill anyone. But if you do, tell the cops that I made you do it with my mind rays.

I'm A Joker

I went to a fortune teller today against my better judgment. This is what she said: "You will fall into a vat of makeup chemicals after a failed burglary attempt. After that, you will crawl out of it relatively unscathed, save for the fact that you are horribly disfigured. You will then crawl to a back alley surgeon to have yourself put back together. However, when the surgeon hands you a mirror, you will come to the realization that you are truly that much better off with a pasty white face, green hair and a hideous muscular reaction that gives off a strikingly psychotic smile. Then it's off to a mad life of crime."
Stupid gypsies!

Stop Breeding

According to an analysis by the International Programs Center at the U.S. Census Bureau we've just hit a population milestone on this jam-packed planet. On Saturday, Feb. 25, at 7:16 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the population on Earth was projected to hit 6.5 billion people. Even more alarming, in six years from now, on Oct. 18, 2012 at 4:36 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, the Earth will be home to 7 billion folks. 500,000,000 more people in 6 years? Outrageous! What we need is a good genocide. Where are all the Mussolini's or Hitler's or Stalin's or Sulla's? Hell, even a good Caesar would do? I'm very perturbed by this "sanctity of life" mentality we seem to have adopted in recent years.

Quality Programming

Is it just me or is there nothing to watch on TV any more? We have thousands of channels of shit. It's getting so that I have nothing to talk to the water cooler about anymore. So here is an open pitch to all you network types out there (if I can pull you away from your goat sodomy for a few minutes). The following are just some ideas to consider for your next fall lineups:

Leprosy Island – works the same way that Survivor works, only contestants get to vote each other’s body parts off. My gal pal Erica thought it would be great to see a literal “face-off” in the corner that didn’t pertain to hockey. I really wish I could have just killed her and stolen that line for myself. Damn you girl!

Speaking of Survivor, why hasn’t someone done a Survivor with convicts and mass murderers? That would totally sell. I mean, you need to get death row convicts to participate and the winner gets to rot in prison for life. I think they should choose crazy environments for them too, like family theme parks or international landmarks. Could you imagine serial killers and rapists running around Disneyland in Orange County or The Forum in Rome? And pretty soon you could have other versions of Survivor. Put a bunch of Ku Klux Klan members in South Central L.A. and have them “survive.” The possibilities are endless.

Saved By ESL – a popular teen sitcom shot with the same goofy storylines that made Saved By The Bell mandatory childhood viewing. Except in this series, the 6 main characters whose lives are interwoven throughout every ridiculous plot thread (I mean, really, these kids did it all) will be English as a Second Language students. Zack will be Zohar, Kelly will be Katarzyna, A.C. Slater will be Kuan-Yin Shaiming, Jessie will be Jadwiga, Lisa will be Lakshmi and Screech will be Simba. Mr. Belding can play himself. The poor guy needs work.

Mental Babies – Like Muppet Babies, the patients will go on magic hallucinatory adventures as well as real life journeys (for example outside). They’ll also end each episode writing and singing a song (which will sound mostly like some sort of grunting, accompanied by drooling and monosyllabic gibber-gabber – like Frankenstein in a karaoke bar). The Doc will always be filmed from the socks down).

Blind People Date – Just like Blind Date without the arrogance of Roger Lodge. Same snappy pop-ups that blatantly insult the contestants and we get to explore the world of what blind people do on dates! I don’t know about you, but just thinking about Blind People Date Uncensored makes my massive kahoonas rise!

With the success of shows like Will & Grace and The Odd Couple back in the day, it’s clear that people like mismatched pairing. So why not have a show where a priest is roommating with a nymphomaniac? It may not spell Emmy, but the Nielson ratings will go through the roof!

We need more Televangelists for Satan shows. I can hear the words now, “My brothers and sisters, the Lord of Darkness needs your support. He needs your cash donations to raise his legions of the undead onto Earth. In the name of Lucifer, reach into your pockets and give generously for the end of days is upon us.”

Geriatric Hospital – Old people tend to make up a majority of the target market that soap operas appeal to. I think this has something to do with the fact that soaps are broadcast at the time of day right after their morning medication stops working and right before they have to take their evening medication and go to sleep. So soaps are like the one thing they can genuinely enjoy without being doped up. So why not cast a soap opera entirely with old people? How fucking creepy would some of those storylines be? Especially ones that have to do with pregnancy or evil liver-spotted twins.

We need a Partridge Family or Brady Bunch for the new millennium. I’m thinking The Sadomasochistic Family. You have mother and father Bondage trying to raise their emotionally disturbed/confused children. “Mom, I caught Peter playing with your horse-tail leather whip butt plug!” “Now Peter, you did use a water-based lubricant I hope? Oil tends to dissolve latex.” Always a lesson to be learned and there’s definitely room in here for a variety hour spin-off.

I’m also thinking we need a pedophilia show aimed towards a kids market. Or did Barney already corner that market? What about giving children characters they can relate to not some fictitious pre-historic dingbats? Replace Barney with Uncle Billy, Baby Bop with Daddy’s Special Friend Rick and B.J. with…well, keep that name actually, it works!

A situation comedy that takes place in a concentration camp. Hey fuck you! M.A.S.H. was a success.

Dancing With Perverts - instead of ballroom dancing, this would have to be professionally trained belly dancers trying to teach horny, on-the-verge-of-a-sex-crime virgin contestants how to dance erotically, showcasing dirty dancing, latin dancing and, dare I say, the Lambada (yes, the fobidden dance). You lose points for semen stains on your clothes, groping your partner unnecessarily or attempted rape.

Untitled – a show about Jesus Christ coming back. After all, isn’t that why so many Catholics do unholy things to begin with? In a jaded attempt to usher in the messiah? Well, let’s have a show where he comes back and no one actually believes it’s him (as this would likely happen anyway). This would be a great outlet for comedy. Imagine a hippie-clad Jesus trying to get onto the subway for free and the guy behind the toll booth saying, “I don’t care if you are our lord and savior and the son of god, you still have to pay $2.50 for the subway, pal!” If this succeeds, like CSI there could be different branches of this show. Perhaps one for the Hindu god Shiva. Perhaps one for the Jewish king from the Davidic line. Perhaps one for Mohammed. Er, perhaps not that last one. We wouldn’t want to insult the Islamic people. Why force their hand to abandon their peaceful resolves and start blowing shit up?

Shows like Harry & The Henderson’s and Alf were great because they showed a freakish looking alien or otherworldly creature growing up among humans. Why not reverse this formula? Create a cool space-adventure-like family comedy. Maybe you have something called Planet Of The Gnomes where a family of gnomes find the last survivor from a shuttle crash and raise him/her as one of their own, hiding him/her from preying neighbours and ghastly horrors and such. Oh the wacky adventures that await. The series finale would be a real tear-jerker, unless it ends with the gnomes deciding they’re tired of harboring this human and eat him/her instead of sending him/her back to Earth. Who doesn’t like a twist? I always thought the Tanner's should have given ALF over to the CIA or something to have him dissected.

A psychic show with a psychic who’s always wrong. Oh wait, that’s Crossing Over with John Edwards. Hmm…then perhaps a Dr. Phil-like show with a shrink who further regresses his patient’s psychoses.

Which segues us nicely into MW. Like ER, this will take place within a mental ward at a hospital. This just writes itself. And if no one’s willing to cover the heavy production costs, just make it a reality TV show. Sometimes art really should imitate life.

Game shows are huge too. But they all blow. Why has there never been a Truth Or Dare game show with college fraternity and sorority contestants? It's a no-brainer. This would be perfect for the Playboy Channel or even a dumbed down version for MTV. How about a game show called Fun With Homeless People where the contestants play for food, liquor vouches, perhaps a bath and a shave. You get them to do all sorts of crazy shit (like a job interview or smiling without scaring babies or the Pepsi challenge without going into a hypoglycemic coma). Or if exploiting the aromatically and financially-challenged isn’t your thing, do Fun With Drunk People. Make the contestants do all sorts of challenges whilst under the influence (like drive a car, bowl, bob for things, memorize poetry, etc.). You know it’s brilliant.

Finally, we need to see some more shows out there with Siamese twins. Imagine one twin getting angry because he thinks the other twin’s girlfriend is spending more time with him than he is. But they’re attached. Mind-blowing stuff isn’t it?

I’m available for hire you know. However, I can't give away all my ideas on-line because I’m aware of all you Internet pirates out there. Argh me mateys! Avast ye thievery, says I!

Happy Venereal Disease Day

What is love?

Love is a shared psychosis between you and someone who absolutely, perfectly, uniquely completes, compliments and parallels your own fucking crazy nuttiness! Love is nothing more beyond folie à deux and if it is nothing less, it is nothing at all and you should let it go until the right one comes along.

Valentine's Day. Not only does it give you something to be stressed out about, like New Years and Christmas, but it's got the added layer of romance (yet another thing to make you feel inadequate). I don't care how confident you are, you're basically setting yourself up for something impossible. As a culture, we've taken all meaning out of Valentine's Day and instead replaced it as a referendum on our whole romantic life.

But alas, it seems the devil-worshipping, baby-killers at Hallmark have won out and Valentine's Day is here to stay. So in the spirit of lovin' you, happy Valentine's Day to one and all and remember, when you're asking yourself "How can a day that celebrates your feelings for another person possibly be a bad thing?" just think back to its origins: Valentine's Day, like so many of these so-called holidays, is rooted in a barbaric, sexist and uncouth history that once saw goats being sacrificed, their meat cut into strips, dunked in sacrifical blood and then used to flog women and crops - a ritual that was supposed to make them more fertile. So go out and buy your woman...or your crop (if you care to make the distinction) something special!

Big slobbering kisses (of the Saint Bernard persuasion)!

Saddam causes more trial chaos by turning into monkey

Is it just me? Or is Saddam Hussein starting to look more and more like Bubbles the Chimp? Archaeologists need not go any further than Reuters to find their missing link. And can someone please convict this cocksnake already? Geez. I wonder if the people in Baghdad are as amused by this trial as, say, us Westerners were by O.J.?

Support Your Local Writer - Buy A Horror Movie!

Many people think that my job is to sit on the edge of my bed and talk to invisible cheetahs. While I may still do this from time to time, I am actually the head writer for a production company called Cin-O-Matic Films Inc. The company is run by an unknown entity named Sammy Miami. Much like Charlie’s Angels’ title character Charlie or Inspector Gadget's nemesis Dr. Claw, no one has actually seen Sammy Miami. We just know that he's the ominous voice behind the production company and what he says goes or our loved ones end up sleeping with the fishes.

I took over the reigns as head writer last year. Basically my job description is as follows: wake up in the morning, sit in front of the computer, look at porn, yawn, stretch, balance a pencil on my nose, look at more porn, plan the destruction of all those who ever did me wrong and somewhere in between all of this laborious work, indulge on Chex Mix, Party Mix, (place other hydrogenated unhealthy snackfood here) Mix while racking my brain trying to come up with witty dialogue for horrible, er wonderful, story ideas I am hired to write. Every once in a while I am forced to sit through a mandatory production meeting where Satan himself sits in and takes notes, copping tips from the executives so he can make hell more efficiently horrible and hellish.

You see a lot of the time the executives ask for the impossible. Then they ask for it with cheese. For some reason they think writers are retarded. But believe me, time doesn't stand still when they're off doing whatever it is they do. The only thing that does stand still, I assure you, are goats of all shapes and sizes (but that's more of an instilled fear of unwanted and non-consensual sodomy than anything else).

Who the hell is in charge of divvying up destiny? I have a complaint...or ten.

Right, back on track...anyway the films I wrote or was indirectly responsible for creating ala the never-talked-about boardroom brainstorming sessions are starting to make their way to DVD stores and video rental outlets. The first, War Of The Dead, is out now. The second, Blood Creek (the first film I wrote for them) will be out next month, followed by another film every month. 9 films were made in total. So even though they’re not wonderful masterpiece Hollywood movies like Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo or Doom, by buying a Cin-O-Matic film (full length features for under $20) you’ll be keeping me in business so I won’t have to go back to my old job of selling crack to underage prostitutes.

Anyway, go out and buy them. Repeat after me in a series of mantras: B-u-u-u-u-u-y T-h-e-m-m-m-m-m-m. B-u-u-u-u-u-y T-h-e-m-m-m-m-m-m. B-u-u-u-u-u-y T-h-e-m-m-m-m-m-m. B-u-u-u-u-u-y T-h-e-m-m-m-m-m-m. (It helps if you periodically and somewhat spastically elongate and draw out each actual verbalization of the word, tightening the throat muscle that controls your larynx and allowing the pitch in your voice to gradually decrease to a lower, more melodic tone analogous to a hybrid of eerie wind / bass guitar / low and husky smoker's voice). Now GO!!! GO!!! NOW!! DON'T WAIT!!!!!!! DON'T MISS OUT!!!!!!!! LASSSSSSST CHAAAAAAAANCE!!!! BUY MY MOVIES!!!!!!!!

Gogogogogogogogogogogogoogogogogo (Yes, there's a goo in there for good reason. There always is where goo's concerned!)

Galactic Follies

I don't care what line anyone feeds you about if they had the ability to time travel they'd go back in time and invest in Microsoft or bet on Superbowls or other callow ways of making cash. This man right here has the right idea! After all, sex and the promise of it has fueled most technoligical revolutions in the last century.

I suspect if I was given the gift of time travel, it would only be a matter of time (hours at the most) before I was subpoenaed to appear in some trans-galactic court to be put on trial for messing with the space-time continuum. Not to mention the amount of religious nuts that would be gunning for my blood because I've set a new world record for amount of times one could break the 10th commandment.

Vexations

For some reason tonight I can't help but to feel sad. It's an emotion I'm unfamiliar and uncomfortable with. But what saddens me is that from now until I die, I will forever be hampered by physical hardships, rhetoric thought and second guesses and, although in my better moments might have aspired to the position of a god, will now always be pulled back by my perilous mortality.

Yes. This makes me sad. I'm almost 28 and I still haven't achieved the position where I can begin all my addresses as: "People of Earth..."

I think I’m gonna go get wasted and hurt some puppies.

Canada's Wonderland

I got an email from someone yesterday asking me about Wonderland. Right, because I live in Toronto and write a blog I'm suddenly the minister of tourism. This person was writing from Brazil. He went online and looked up places to visit in Toronto and I guess the good people at Wonderland paid off the website or found some dirt on the website's moderator (I'm talking like real dirty stuff too...with goats and shit) and crawled its way into the top 10 list. So this dude from Brazil wanted to know if Wonderland was a place he and his family should visit when they come to Toronto in the summer.

Well, since I'm a giving person, let me give you my take on Wonderland. Of course, I do not allude to the Wonderland of tea party and white rabbit fame. While similar, this Wonderland is a much stranger realm. Nothing is as it seems. What looks to be a mere bottle of water is in fact a treasure worth nearly half a Wall Street broker's annual income. Anyway, I hadn't been to Wonderland since I was about 7 (no joke). I finally went again last summer and let me tell you, things had surely changed at Wonderland since I was 7. Granted, I too had changed (i.e. I had physically aged 20 years and grown a few feet taller, with the exact growth figure depending on who you ask). But the place was looking a lot less wondrous than I remembered. Wonder Mountain, which I once believed to be a transplant from the Rockies, looked like a cardboard cut-out just begging for graffiti. The rides seemed to be falling apart at the seams too. While in line for the Bat, they stopped the ride and 5 acne-laden employees stood around pointing at the rollercoaster and shrugging their shoulders. One of the 16 year olds got out a manual and sifted through it for a while and that's when I knew that everything was under control. Finally a few adults who looked like they earn slightly above $8/hr showed up and spent 20 minutes looking at the same car, shrugging their shoulders the entire time. Their shoulder shrugging skills were so finely honed that I concluded that they must have worked at Wonderland since teenagehood (you don't develop that overnight). Finally one of the shoulder-shruggers nodded his head and the ride started up again. They of course put the coaster through two test runs (and by that I mean that two loads of passengers went on the Death Mobile before me).

Oddly the Smurfs were nowhere to be found so I asked a park employee what the deal was and he just shifted uncomfortably and suggested that I speak with Guest Services. There I was given a printout explaining that the Nickelodeon crew made an offer on the Smurfs' territory that they couldn't refuse, but the Smurfs are living "smurfily" in a series of condos in Newmarket. Frankly I believe that the level of inter-cartoon intolerance has skyrocketed in recent years and that the Smurfs were forced out like a band of gypsies.

Back in the day, come lunch time at Wonderland, I'd whine and beg until someone big and bearing money produced funnel cake and blue ice-cream. This time around, I whined and begged until someone bought me coffee and unfortunately that someone had to be me (this led me to conclude that self-sufficiency is highly over-rated). I had to search high and low for a place that even had coffee - in the Tomb Raider's tomb, under Yogi Bear's hat and by far my least favorite place to look, in Sponge Bob's square pants. When I finally found a Country Time and rejoicingly told the pre-pubescent working there that I just knew it couldn't be called Wonderland if it didn't have coffee, he looked at me as though to ask just how much caffeine I would be bringing back to the mothership this time. The whole experience made me need a shot of something stronger than coffee and although I'm pretty sure I saw Huckleberry Hound and Wilma Flintstone sniffing something white and powdery behind Scooby Doo's Haunted Mansion, they don't allow illicit substances like booze at Wonderland. Not so wonderful after all.

Bottom line...go to Orlando instead if you're looking for fun parks.

Off to change my email address...again.

Hamas Wins...Everyone Else Loses

What revels are in hand? Is there no play to ease the anguish of a torturing hour?

Warren Ellis Is God!

So elections are over in Canada and Stephen Harper and the Conservatives won with a minority government (which basically means it will just take a little longer to establish the concentrate camps and lynchings here in Canada). The Liberals have the same agenda. They just bullshit it better.

Anyway, no time to blog today kiddies, but I have something better than my usual diatribe. This is taken from legendary British writer Warren Ellis's website. And if you don't know who Warren Ellis is, it's time to bite down on the cyanide pill as you're likely to amount to nothing more than a human coat hanger.

Again, this is not my writing. This is Warren Ellis from his website. I had the honour of meeting the man himself last April here in Toronto. He is the KING! A real cynical genius! Enjoy.

23/1/2006
Canadian Style

Just stopping past to note that, on this day of Canadian Comedy Election Cavalcade, where you can vote for any one of a bunch of useless weird-looking twatwarts differentiated only by the timeframe in which they intend to screw you so hard and deep that they jerk their thin, grey, stinking semen directly into your very heart.

Here on Canadian Election Day, give the system the finger and send your money to Japan, where Jean Snow is selling his CANADIAN STYLE t-shirts, in association with the art/design event he’s producing in Tokyo. He takes the PayPal.

24/1/2006
Post-Canada

Doesn’t Stephen Harper look like the kind of actor a US or US-but-produced-in-Canada TV show uses as the bad guy when they can’t afford a British actor?

(Which, when David Warner is still working, is kind of unimaginable. But still.)

You know the kind of guy. Grey hair, so white you can practically see through his skin into his circulatory system, with the kind of unblinking half-glower that lets you know that no matter what he’s talking about, he’s actually thinking about shoving pregnant lesbians tits-first into a woodchipper. He’s the white guy in the suit whose last job was sitting behind a big desk condemning Tia Carrere to death in an episode of RELIC HUNTER.

Paul Martin should never have let on that he was desperate. And now he’s in the bin and my Canadian friends are ruled by the guy who plays Creepy Vice-President in Sci-Fi Channel shows.

Fitty

My grandmother asked me today if I had any music from 5 Cent. She said, "Vee listened to him on da bus on da vay to Rama (a local casino) and I norly died. Ach, ver vee danzing and clapping...[she then went on to mutter something in German that I didn't quite understand]. Anyway, it took me a while to realize what the hell she was talking about. I said, "Do you mean 50 Cent? The rapper? His name's not 5 Cent. It's 50 Cent."

She looked at me with a glazed over look of faraway confusion."

"The black guy?" I then went on to ask, feeling like I had somehow regressed a couple of hundred years into the past.

"Ya. Dat's heem!!" she exclaimed with joy and recognition.

That's right. My 85 year old dear sweet granny is dancing and clapping to these lyrics: The semi auto spray, run if you get away I'll find your whereabouts and clap at you another day nigga play with the bread, get a hole in ya head you touch a dime of mines dawg and your ass dead.

Brace yourself boys and girls...the end of the world is officially upon us.

Munich

I finally got around to seeing Munich last night. I had to fit it into my busy schedule (which basically consists of surreptitiously injecting unsuspecting kittens with ridiculous amounts of biogenetically altered strains of feline dementia before turning them loose on slumbering newborn babies)!

Great movie. Important too, especially in this day and age. The only thing that sort of troubled me while watching the film was, why didn't Eric Bana just turn into the Incredible Hulk and kick the shit out of the Black September masterminds? I mean, it wasn't like he didn't get angry. That would have saved a lot of time and money on the Israeli government's behalf. And if for some odd reason the Hulk couldn't pull through, they always had Daniel Craig (AKA James Bond) on reserve. He's good for at least 50+ kills.

Whoever planned the recruit team knew what they were doing. However, whoever implemented the strikes clearly didn't realize the sort of man-power he or she was dealing with.


Off to vote now for the Canadian elections to see what kind of troglodyte laughing stock of a quasi politician we can throw into office this time to make bad decisions and help keep Canada's global status viewed as nothing more than its current distinction - a bunch of igloo-dwelling pussies.

Revelations

A day is had and yet no one seems to recall blinking. Nights are spent. Nothing poetic. Just spent. The world realizes it’s an only child. But only children are just that: only children. The Zen barbecue is ready and there’s plenty of meat and karma to go around. Belasco is tired of eating hot and spicy food and so leaves the gates of hell to pursue ice cream. Rain always seems to fall on the unloved. “We were young and thought we didn’t know any better,” becomes a recognized excuse for knowing too much when you’re young and don’t know any better. There aren’t enough singing stripper pentagrams. Invisible kids still talk to their make-belief friends even after being told it’s unhealthy by their dead parents. Pink dragons make the extinction list, yet, coincidentally, there are an abundance of clouds in the sky. A house made of swimming pools floods. The Red King rises and nobody’s sure who’s part of his dream. And finally, there is no such thing as permanence; it is an illusion much like chocolate bunnies.

In The Midnight Hour

I'll rarely blog twice in a day (in fact, I've never done it). But let's give some respect to the late and great Wilson Pickett. Mustang Sally's riding off into the sunset...

Are you a Twinkie?

A friend called me last night and wanted to go see King Kong. Considering everyone and their transvestite bride has seen this film, I told her to forget it. 10 minutes later she called me up and wanted to go for coffee instead. I really didn't want to go anywhere, opting instead to stay home and watch various shows on the fireplace channel. But she started begging, claiming she doesn’t “get out much” (an affliction that affects most perverts and child rapists as well). So I said okay.

“Thanks sweetie!” she exclaimed.

Sweetie? Now there’s a name only one other person calls me. But sadly it’s my doctor moments before he slaps on the rubber glove and tells me to bend over. This is soon followed up by the totally unprofessional disgorging of baby oil around his nipples and he proceeds to maniacally scribble lipstick all over his face.

I gotta gets me a new doctor.

So we ended up at one of those symposium places (same shitty coffee, new higher price). And we’re sitting and talking and I’m trying to figure out creative ways to kill myself with a styrofoam cup and package of sugar when all of a sudden this sight walks into the place. She was gorgeous. She looked like a waterfall painted out of light. Turns out my friend knows her. So they exchange the usual phony pleasantries (a kiss on the cheek – each hoping they remembered to put on their rash-inducing lip balm that night). The girl looks over at me and smiles. So naturally I introduce myself. “I’m Rob…king of the underground zebra lizards.” She shakes my hand and tells me her name is Michelle. “Hi Michelle, nice to meet you!”

She agreed that it was nice (whether or not she was actually referring to meeting me back or not is still up for debate). So she looks me up and down and side to side, checking out my wardrobe, sense of style, any visible jewelry and, I’d imagine, using her X-ray vision to check out my car keychain to see what I was driving. I love it when a girl does that. Ladies, let me save you the trouble. I look like a cancer patient with an undertaker’s wardrobe but I drive a fucking Porche. So she asks me what I do for a living.

“Well,” I explain, “Um…you see, okay, let me put it like this. People in photographs can see me if I hold them up and talk to them.” I laughed. My friend laughed. Michelle didn’t laugh. But unsurprisingly, her head began to levitate much like that of a hot air balloon. Anyway, we asked her to join us. Okay, my friend asked her to join us. And as expected, I spent the next 30 minutes staring off into the middle distance, waiting for fainting to occur while the two ladies discussed men.

Suddenly, Michelle lets out, “No, I don’t date twinkies.” My ears perked up. Ah ha! Opportunity to involve myself in the conversation. “What’s wrong with dating twinkies?” I queried. “I can almost understand chocodiles or even ho ho’s, but twinkies? And here I thought you were this close (well, if you could have seen the metric distance being scaled between my thumb and index finger at the time, you’d be quite impressed) to being the perfect girl.”

So Michelle gets all defensive and says, “Where I come from, twinkies are trust fund babies who moonlight as street hustlers. I have nothing against the Hostess treat or any other snacks and will eat them with you upon request.”

For the rest of the night, I was quiet.

And then today I got to thinking: where she comes from? I come from the exact same place and I’ve never heard that expression. I love middle class suburban white people that act like they come from the streets. Who can keep up with all this terminology anymore? So I decided to do some investigating. And while she was partially correct, it seems as though you owe me an apology. Michelle, if you’re reading this, here’s what I discovered.

I went to the grocery store today where, upon searching the depths of the bakery, I uncovered something both alarming and shocking. There I was digging deep behind all the cupcakes, snowballs and Joe Louis' straddling the shelf in perfect mixed snacked unison, coalescing together in a series of diabetic orgies. I dug so deep behind them, in fact, that I almost slipped into a Narnian portal. (Why these passageways are placed in such awkward locations is beyond me). Anyway, after surreptitiously baring the shelf, I uncovered a most suspicious syndicate comprising primarily of these twinkies to which you spoke of. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, but there they were – hundreds of cream-filled yellow sponge cakes donning penny loafers, navy blazers, grey flannel pants, Argyle sweaters, pastel shorts and accessorizing monograms, sipping Dewar’s and Manhattans and discussing the works of Salinger, Fitzgerald and Updike. In exchange for my silence, one of them even pulled out its gold card and remarked, “How much is this gonna cost to keep you mum?”

Appalled and horrified, I immediately ran home and cleaned out my pantry of every and all snack foods bearing the Hostess symbol on it. Then, to be safe, I continued to clear my place of all my peanut butter cups, Fruity Yummy Mummies, cookies n’ cream, strawberry short cakes and a plethora of other sugar-glazed morsels. To exorcise that agonizing image permanently burned into my mind in the bakery, I replaced these delicious treats with wheat thins, rice cakes and goldfish just to be safe. However, I would never request of you (or anyone for that matter) that you eat them with me as that would just be indigestibly inhuman.

Oh and before you ask, I was able to clear the bakery unseen only because of my quick- thinking diversionary tactics. Minutes before hitting the bakery, I opened up about two dozen Kool Aid packages and a case of Crystal Springs, mixed them all together and threw them down the aisles, like tropical sugar grenades. Then, I snuck off to the bakery while the Kool Aid Man proceeded to knock down every wall and shelf in site, unsure of his own comings or goings. The other customers ran for the parking lot, believing that the world, in fact, was coming to a Hawaiian punch liquid end. It took about 8 stock boys, 4 cashiers, the ham slicer and an assistance manager to subdue that seething mass of volatile hyper humanity before the cops came and dragged his ass away.

Anyway, I will be expecting your apology by midnight tomorrow. Failure to do so will result in various vehement altercations and, quite simply, wrath. Not the immature and over-done "key-your-car-and-run" wrath. I'm talking good old fashioned biblical wrath (minus the impressive and somewhat supernatural acts of divinity).

Fw: Fw: Fw: Re: ENOUGH ALREADY

The sending of email forwards has gotten out of hand. Reading most of them is about as much fun to do as counting extra chromosome 21s in Down Syndrom patients. It has to stop. It's getting to the point where people will just forward every little piece of crap in their inbox. Take for example this godless piece of shit I just received:

First off, the froggy is a rapist!! Don't let that boyishly innocent gaze and adorable disposition fool you. The froggy is nothing but a common rapist. I said no...and I meant no and he just kept going: up and down, up and down, like some primordial green savage on my lower extremities, croaking the entire time: "Je t’aime mon cherie, mon amour, mon trèsor, ma joie." Up and down, up and down. "Je t’aime, je veux vivre toujours, toujours près de toi." Up and down, up and down. "Je t’aime, comme on aime un amant qu’on aime éperduement."

If this inagurates 2 years of good sex, then the price is way too high (especially since most of that time will be spent trying to cure some amphibian fungal disease that will send the opposite sex screaming in the opposite direction).

Well, at least the frog didn't mutter the much familiar and dreaded "I have a headache" evasion. Like I need that kind of rejection to bitch about as well.

Blogging Sucks

My hump of foul deformities,

People actually read the shit I write. I must get at least 2 - 4 emails a day asking me why I don't update as frequently as I used to. Well, there's a few reasons. The first reason is, I'm a raging alcoholic. In between beating innocent old ladies with their own canes and throwing discarded wine bottles at homeless people outside fast food joints, I need time to pass out, vomit and sober up. It’s not as easy as it was when I was a teenager. It takes more time these days to stabilize. Like last night I was throwing back a few shots for a friend’s birthday shindig (the shindig itself was almost as much fun as stomach digestion). After the 7th shot, I actually thought I was in the past. I began speaking in proper old fashioned English and everything, howling obscenities and shredding coasters down to their atomic makeup before chucking the micro-mini pieces from the table. Of course, I kept noticing a group of people at a table beside me, covered in coaster bits, staring at me in a rude manner. They were all dressed in modern day outfits, so naturally I became really scared and thought that they must be from the future.

Second, I need to be inspired to write something. I find writing for the sake of writing is as rewarding as playing the name game with a group of non-English speaking East Europeans:

"Okay, let's do Vyacheslav! Vyacheslav Vyacheslav Bo Byacheslav, Banana Fana Fo Fiaches...fuck it!"

Plus being inspired means needing to be free from distractions. Currently, it's raining. Not only is it raining, but there is some metallic surface right outside my window and somehow the innocuous little drops of precipitation have managed to produce the most horrific sound imaginable on the metal. It is as though the rain has awakened the angry underlords and they are banging their steely drums steadily outside my window to make me aware of their displeasure. You try writing something witty with that in the background. Drive you fucking mental.

Finally, it helps to have something reasonably interesting to say. I guarantee most of you have very little to say that’s interesting on a daily basis. In fact, I'm sure of it since I've spoken to many of you. 95% of the world's population are complete idiots. Another 4% aren't complete idiots. Some parts are missing. There's a hopeful 1% still out there. I mean, stories about your life, your job, your family...BORING! I want to hear something that matters to you. I want to hear about your dreams, your ambitions, your wants and needs and goals, what gets you going, what makes you stop. For example, I'm interested in having a child on every continent, and through an aeon of my own brand of genetic osmosis, one day populate the entire planet, solely with my own heirs.

What have you got?

Exactly.

So bugger off. I'll update when it amuses me to do so.

Sincerely,
The Management

Mind The Djinn

So I found a magic lamp whilst tomb raiding through Arabian sand dunes and so I rubbed it and a genie came out and told me I could have three wishes. I wished for a million dollars. The genie nodded his head and whisked me off to my new job at McDonald's. He told me if I worked there for 75 years, without ever spending a dime of my pay check, I would be a millionaire one day. No, this was not good. So I then wished for my seond wish. I asked for a million dollars right away. So the genie transported me 75 years into the future after I had retired from McDonald's. I was living in a cardboard box, still wearing my McDonald's uniform. I was so old, obese, had liver disease, cancer, couldn't move and had trouble breathing, but I was a millionaire. With my last few breaths, I asked for my third wish. I asked for a million dollars now at the age of 27. The genie thought about it and decided instead to just throw me in front of a moving bus.

The lesson here is, make money the honest way. Play the lottery.

The New Gap

Wow...I remember a time when Gap ruled the world. Sad to see them struggling so hard with their new campaign.

x4=9jg6#%'/pi&086tERROR

My Internet is down and sucks (in that order). For the past two days it’s been giving me some strange binary sequence error message that could only take the combined efforts of Stephen Hawking, Rene Descartes, Pythagoras and various numerology disciplinarians to decipher.

Reviewing my writings, I clearly have nothing of value to say.

Online Dating

I’m gonna forgo the usual diatribe and actually blog something a little more insightful today. This is sort of an extension of a conversation I was having earlier today and it’s been on my mind, so I learned a long time ago to just write things out.

Time (along with its other 3 horsemen of the apocalypse: sloth, work and obligation) tends to deprive many of us of all our free time. We’re out of school, not so big on partying every Thursday – Sunday and have found that romance or deep-seeded emotional connections can scarcely be found in places where you spend most of the night screaming in your object of affection's ear. So what do a lot of people turn to? Online dating.

Do I have a problem with meeting someone on-line? Absolutely. The whole anonymous person thing just lends itself to paranoia and ulterior motives. I don't know. I guess I still subscribe to that whole antiquated mentality that it's creepy to have the means to contact someone without actually working to achieve those means (it’s like a step above talking to yourself). But I’ve also come to accept online dating as the new means of meeting people in this day and age of high-paced technology. I mean, it's scary to think that in 10 years, real person-to-person encounters will be a thing of the past. We're creating a whole generation of the socially inept. A buddy of mine came back from Korea recently and said that they have this whole network dating scene there whereby you enter your stats into your computer and the stats of someone you’re looking for (right down to ridiculously fine detail), import that into your cell phone and then if you’re within the vicinity of someone who matches what you’re looking for, their phone will page you. It’s crazy.

Or is it just me?

I was talking to a family member who was 10 years younger than me and she doesn’t have the same feelings of uneasiness that hooking up on the Internet seems to create in me. I guess it’s because I’m part of the generation that was already a little older when the Internet became full blown accessible and we were coerced, convinced, forced, brainwashed, threatened, pigswiggled, hornswaggled and even flim-flammed into believing that all people online were crazy stalkers who wanted to kill, rape or dance around us in a suit made of human skin in some damp basement singing Come Rain Or Come Shine. The generation under me grew up on the Internet, so the transition wasn’t as extreme. It’s as natural in their lives as television was to us.

I mean, the truth of it is online dating has opened up the door for more guys out there with no more command of language than a mongoloid Neanderthal with an itchy ass and unexplained liver pains to find a girl, club, drag her by her hair and impregnate her with his gene-deficient and leg-waving primitive seed before dismembering her with a flint tool of some kind and lightly cook her over a makeshift campfire out back in their hovel. There's no doubt that there are more crazies out there than normal folk looking to meet people online. But with all aspects of life, you need to trust your instincts because there are still genuine people out there who have found that those other scenes just ain’t working for them. I don’t believe that excuse that someone doesn’t have the time in their busy life to meet someone. You make the time. I do believe that other avenues just haven’t been working for them or they’re just not as immersed with people as they would like to be. As for the creeper factor, it’s just as easy to get fake business cards made up, don a snazzy suit and go around telling people at bars that you’re some bigwig as it is on-line. Lying is universal. I don’t know if it’s really the crazy factor that’s an issue online as much as it is you don’t know what you’re getting into. Photos can lie.

I mean a typical dating site goes like this. You write down what you want people to know about you. Like a sales pitch. You have time to think it over, edit, re-write…finely hone it. In real life when you meet someone, you have to immediately be yourself; you have to be spontaneous and in the moment. You don’t have time to think over every little thing you say. You’re more on the spot. There’s a genuineness that comes with that. On a dating site, after you’ve submitted what you want people to know about you without them asking questions back, you choose your best pictures. None of those spur of the moment pictures in your Hello Kitty boxers, unshaven and toilet paper hanging off your shoe. It’s usually some picture of you out having a great time surrounded by others or some unnatural glamour shot in a pose that professional athletes train their entire life to achieve. So right away you’ve created this false persona of yourself in that you’re this person for all seasons. You also create totally unrealistic expectations for who you want because now that you’ve put yourself out there in a vulnerable way, you won’t settle for anything less than exactly what you’re looking for. You want the entire package. Part of meeting someone is accepting their little quirks and imperfections – that sense of growing attachment. Online, you want to meet a god.

The advantage of meeting people face to face is that you can have those moments of genuine physical attraction, not just the superficial ones. I mean, there’s no difference in mentality whether it’s online or in real life. You’ll still only contact and respond to those you’re physically attracted to. Hey, we live in a shallow world. But what you don’t get online is the flirting or the connection. When you meet someone in real life and talk to them, you can have these great moments (whether it’s subtle or blatant) that make you feel more comfortable with that person, that lets you know if you’re interested or if they’re interested. Body language is worth 1000 words and the sexual attraction that stems from that is more mind and body, not just the latter. Trying to achieve that same feeling over some Instant Messenger program (because inevitably that’s where you’re gonna begin…it never goes to the phone right away because in your mind you’re still thinking that this on-line person is a crazy lunatic and there’s no way you’re giving your number to them) is almost impossible. IM conversation has only further deteriorated our social abilities. If people spoke in real life the way they did on IM we’d all be insane, searching the inner linings of our brains for little smileys we could use in place of words. And all IM really is is a series of non-sensible drivel and a plethora of computer-specific acronyms. The girl sits there having multiple conversations, essentially waiting for the one guy that can hold her interest long enough to decide she might tease for a while and the guy sits there waiting for even the smallest sexual innuendo from the girl so he can start going all pervert on her (following up every sentence with the dreaded LOL as to instill a sense of “I know I just said I wanted to stick my dick in your ear, but I’m kidding…you can tell by the LOL I’m still normal and it was all in good fun”). Yeah, whatever. And by the way, who laughs out loud that many times? Anyone who types LOL in response to something you say didn’t actually read what you wrote or truly isn’t equipped with conversation skills.

Again, I’m not knocking online dating. I understand why people do it and there have been many success stories. I’d be guilty of hypocrisy if I said I never met someone online. Granted, the few times I did, they turned out to be disasters. But the same disasters happen in real life. About a month ago, I ended up on a date with some girl I met at a bar. The date was more like a masochistic endurance test than the anachronous consorting of yore. Anyway, she had as much personality as a collection of pencil shavings and an attitude to boot. I thought it highly likely that she goes out at night in bat form to suck the blood from sleeping innocents. I even mentioned this theory to her at one point, but she failed to see the humor in it. So you never know what you’re gonna get.

But if I was to sum up my biggest pet peeve about online dating sites, it would be the people who come on there just to have others confirm their good looks for them. This is usually women. There are an insane amount of good looking women online, so insecure in their own skin, that they come online for the purpose of being desired by guys who they believe would never stand a chance with them in real life. Well guys, be thankful for that. These women would suck the life and soul out of you and offer nothing in return. Any person (guy or girl) that comes online to be desired with the attitude of “You can look but never touch” needs to be gunned down in some bank heist gone wrong. The following is a true profile, unaltered of someone from some dating site. This is why the world is the way it is:

sexybytch

im spanish/arabic.................22.......model for MAXIM.........and im gorgousssss thats all u need to knowwwwwww ;) likes dancing, ...being with my friends anything interesting and fun ;) i am not on this site to meet guys or meet new ppl so dont msg me talkin crap..............i dont need internet friends ........pretty hurting this whole site jus on it when im bored soooo #*@% off

I’m not even sure if that was English. So you’re a liar first off because you’re not a model for Maxim. Second, it would take at least a good percentage of the most notable Western translators to decipher what language that profile was actually written in. Finally, why are you on a dating site if you’re not looking to meet people (friends or more)? What purpose does that serve? Is some talent agent going to discover you this way? If so, it’s not a real talent agent. People who post profiles like this are ugly through and through. They’re the type of person that ends up in a trailer home with 5 kids, cancer and a lifetime of regrets. And you know what…it’s well deserved.

The bottom line is this: trust your instincts and be genuine. If you have reservations about anything in life, you have a choice not to do it.

Return Of The Rob - Hobbits Rejoice

Yeah yeah, I know I haven’t updated this thing in about a million years. So what? I was on vacation for a few weeks. It was a much needed vacation and I had a lovely time. In fact, I'm doing a mocking little shimmy dance to all of you that didn't get to go anywhere this year or had a shitty time over the holidays.

I had intended to write something before I left. Sort of a "2005 in review" blog. But when it came down to conceiving it, basically month after month looked the same.

January: met a crazy fetishwear clad tattooed chick. Insisted I called her mistress Silvana. Brought a leash to our first date. Didn’t see any pets hanging about.

February: Learned that when I stand too close to girls they suddenly develop bipolarism. Interested to see what happens when I kiss one of these lunatics.

March: Had a birthday. Sickness followed. My present was this cute little Polish number. I, of course, was interested in her mother. Where's the petition I can sign to ban teenage pregnancy?

April: Had a blind Korean grandmother who didn’t speak any English try to set me up on a date with her granddaughter, who was laughing at us with her boyfriend. One month til Star Wars.

May: So desperate for a blowjob that I stuck my dick in the AquaVac and found that it was too big and got stuck. I almost snapped my banjo string pulling it off my engorged head. After recovering, I tried putting yogurt on my bits and got a friend's cat to lick it off. Please note to anyone thinking about trying this: cat’s have very rough tongues. Star Wars sucked.

And so on and so forth.

I’m finding more and more my interest in sex is wavering. The word just conjures vague memories of warmth and awkwardness. Well, not quite.

Anyway, a sincere happy new year to everyone. Well, everyone CHRISTIAN that is (which, last time I checked, was the entire world or at least should be. This way there won’t be any more long-drawn out idiotic debates over whether or not people should say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” come December. I don’t know what the problem is anyway. They both mean the same thing when translated: “Go fuck yourself, please get shitty gifts that you can’t return and I hope you and your family argue so much at your festive dinners that you all collectively come down with bone cancer).

So did any of you make any good new years resolutions that you don’t intend to keep or have already broken? I find it’s always nice to set low personal goals and then consistently fail to achieve them! As for me, I resolved to stop killing prostitutes this year. Although after last night, I’m afraid I’ll have to wait til 2007. What can I say, I can’t cum unless they scream!

Back to work now (and by work, I mean perusing through dirty magazines)!

Rob (who’s currently on the verge of a total nervous breakdown. I’m just waiting for the straw to break my back but before that happens, I must wait for someway of becoming a camel).

Seeking Sympathy

I'm so sick right now. Last night, I was up every half hour on the half hour coughing up phlegm. I don't understand how the human body can produce so much phlegm per half hour. I learned during my restless night that my 'pus capacity', much like the 'flux capacitor' that powered the Delorean, is unrivaled.

Somebody give me some drugs dammit.

While Visions Of Sugarplums Slap Me In The Head

I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus. Well, actually, it was my dad. But that's just what the reindeer told me when he tied me to my bed, gagged me and stuck a Colt .45 automatic in my face before having me repeat the words, "It was just my dad," over and over to make me forget.

Say Ah!

We’ve seen it spoofed a million times in every medium. Man and woman have sex. Man begins to climax. This is intercut with a rocket discharging its steam to penetrate the outer rims of the atmosphere. Cut back to the woman starting to orgasm. Parallel this with fireworks culminating in an ejaculatory cacophony across a dark night’s sky. Sure, there have been variations on this image (for example the train entering the tunnel or the petals on a flower opening up like a labia in bloom). But I bet you didn’t know that this allegorical reference originated in a little porn film called Deep Throat.

I never did see the original Deep Throat. Call me picky, but there’s something about 1970s porn that my sensory cells can’t handle. I think it has to do with the absence of pubic waxing. Probably also has something to do with the callous attempt to create a plot. I’m sorry, but nowadays, I like my porn silent and sleek and in 5 minute intervals.

So anyway, I finally got around to watching the documentary Inside Deep Throat last night. I missed it when it played in the one theatre that was showing it in the city and it’s not like you can just walk into a Blockbuster and find it for rent. So luckily a friend of mine owns it and she gave it to me to watch. First off, let me say the documentaries tend to be very hit and miss. But this was a documentary at its finest. None of that falsifying and completely manipulative Michael Moore horseshit (which shouldn’t even be considered documentary, but more, fiction).

The film examined freedom of speech, censorship and an individual’s constitutional rights in a very informative, interesting and humorous way. It also did a surprisingly good job of presenting both sides of the censorship argument objectively (with the tendency to obviously lean more towards the first amendment…after all this is Inside Deep Throat here). Most of the key players involved in and around the film’s production, the porn industry and the senate report of the commission on obscenity and pornography were interviewed (along with some rather unexpected interviewees and their surprising revelations). The documentary dives into the mob’s former stronghold over the porn industry, society's obsession with smut, the deconstruction of taboo as a whole (following its traces of integration and influence on the mainstream market), the sexual revolution, issues of feminism and our current ideologies when it comes to what is deemed indecency. Who would have though a documentary revisiting a porn film with a hokey premise about a woman with a clitoris in her throat could do all this? And William Grayburn and Jeremy Simmons did a bang up job on the editing of this film. Some laugh out loud juxtapositions.

Best Hidden Gem Moment Of This Film: Amazingly all the posters and promotional tools for Deep Throat were torn down and burned in a display very much like the Gestapo of old. All images (pornographic or not) were deemed unsuitable for impressionable theatre-goers because of the subliminal sexual subtext they harbored. Yet a cute little animated commercial that ran in the theatres for years was never questioned, even though it showcased a young woman with a splooge of mustard shot across her face after engorging a long meaty hotdog in one swift swallow. Nope. Nothing subliminal going on there? Who says sex doesn’t sell?

Most Disturbing Moment Of This Film: I suppose the ultra prude would testify to this being the infamous Linda Lovelace blowjob scene. But then again the ultra prude wouldn’t be watching this documentary. No, for me it was former editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine and outspoken advocate for women’s sexual freedom and liberation Helen Gurley Brown’s interview where she explains that she’s "always known ejaculate to be good for the complexion because it’s full of babies. It’s full of protein. It’s full of plasma. And women know that running it all over their faces and necks and chests is a good thing. Not for the guy, but for the girl." Back up a minute? Because it’s full of babies? If that doesn’t get a rise in every human rights, pro-choice and moral activist living, then we have finally become completely desensitized as a culture. And to hear these words spoken to us by a woman in her 80s. I get chills just thinking about it.

Supply & Demand

At what point will the makers of 2000 Flushes finally give us consumers what we've all been waiting for? Red colored 2000 Flushes. Forget blue and green and bleach. I want to look into my toilet bowl and see a nice crimson basin reflecting back my image.

Can you imagine the fun you could have with people? Especially drunks?

Come on guys! Get with the program.

Santa Claus: The Prince Of Darkness

I can’t take credit for a lot of these. This is information I’ve come by from several websites over the last few days. Sure, I know I should be footnoting them, but this isn’t some essay I’m handing in to be graded by some fuckhead teaching assistant with his/her vendetta to boost his/her own sense of self-worth and importance by giving me a lesser grade than I rightfully deserve. Let’s just say I’m fessing up to my blatant plagiarism here. I've just reordered, reworded and restructed most of these so they make sense.

Santa Claus is evil. He sets a bad example by promoting consumerism, communism and obesity.

Santa is bent on world domination. He wants to turn the whole world towards communism. It is already present in his workshop as everyone dresses the same with list upon list of every single citizen. Because Santa is the only one who decides who's naughty and nice, we have no way of stopping his evil plan. He has set up propaganda all over the world to promote his campaign. They are called malls. As the shoppers pour in every year spending every single cent they have on Christmas presents, Santa's evil messages get more and more ingrained into their heads. They hear the Christmas music in every store subliminally convincing them that spending every cent is best for all. Santa's plan is to leave everyone penniless so that they have no choice but to listen to his demands.

Santa Claus uses slave labor in order to manufacture his toys. His little elves are all made to work day in and day out without any benefits or pay, except for Mrs. Claus' cookies.

And as for his submissive little wife, she doesn't even admit to having a first name. How out of touch is she? That the feminist movement hasn't taken this issue up to the North Pole is a startling realization that we are extremely ignorant upon this important subject.

Due to the submissiveness of his wife and her obvious mental disorder displayed through her incessant need to bake cookies, it is possible to infer that Santa beats her. What with his obvious power hungry personality, lecherous behavior and sick use of slave labor, his abusive behavior should not be surprising.

Santa is a blatant racist. He is always talking about how the "nice" little boys and girls will get presents at Christmas. Did you ever wonder why no little Jewish boys and girls ever get a Tonka truck under the menorah from Santa? In this case the naughty children all just happen to where yarmulkes.

Song lyrics such as "He's making a list, he's checking it twice, he's gonna find out who's naughty and nice," sound eerily like Nazi chants to me. And these are songs which children sing every day.

Santa has brainwashed the entire nation into believing that it is normal to allow their little children to sit on a strange man's lap just because he is wearing a horribly out of fashion winter suit. Where do you think all the child molesters of the world came from? They learned it from watching Santa Claus.

Santa Claus needs to be investigated by the animal rights activists. He makes these poor reindeer, who were never meant for flying in the first place, carry nearly 500 million times their own weight at twice the speed of light all in one night. Granted the load does get lighter as the night goes on, but just think how many reindeer must instantaneously burst into flames as they pass the speed of light. Their poor singed carcasses probably never even reach the ground. That's a lot of dead reindeer. Is this treatment moral? What kind of sick delusional man is this Santa Claus?

And what about the striking similarities between Santa and Satan?

The Bible clearly teaches of a powerful, rebellious, subtle, evil being called Satan who’s usually clad all in red. The rearranging of letters (called anagrams) to hide secret names or words has long been practiced in the occult.

In Luke 10:19, Jesus Christ compares Satan to lightning, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” Sounds a lot like Santa and his reindeer sled flashing through the skies.

The Bible teaches that Satan rebelled against God. Satan rebelled because he desired to be like God and persuaded mankind to rebel against God. If Santa not worshipped as a God in the eyes of children everywhere? Jesus teaches that the younger years are by far the most spiritually fruitful in the life-cycle of an individual. If the most productive time of salvation are the pre-teen years, and if the pre-teen years are the most vulnerable – does it not stand to reason that Satan would fiercely attack this time?

Santa (or Satan or whatever you wish to be called)...we're on to you.

Turn them out, knaves all three!

Rub a dub dub,
Three men in a tub,
And nobody finds this the least bit disturbing...?

crazy going slowly am I

Did you know there was a time when companies in the private sector only hired psychotic axe murderers? But they ended up killing all of the clients, so the companies banded together, fired all their employees and now only hire coma patients. It's true. A magical lemur told me.

When I was a little girl, I failed phys ed. Apparently, I was really a little boy.

By the way, the color blue looks like this.

If you are going to act like a cat, expect people to treat you like one.

Sometimes it’s not smart to use a very large font. This is a large font, but you can clearly see that it’s being used in a smart way.

By the way, the color green looks like this.

1001 reasons why I’m not a Chihuahua:
(1) Because I’m not.
(2-1001) See above.

FRIED CHICKEN WATERMELLON!!!!! (see that's in caps, or rather the proper term is 'majuscules', which means I yelled it. I can't account for the exclamations marks, however. Damn things have a mind of their own).

By the way, the color purple looks like this.

Now on-line: If you are reading this, chances are that you are on-line.

By the way, the color orange looks like this.

Will Monday never come?

Ooh eee ooh ah ah, ting tang walla walla bing bang

The deadline's looming.

The Real Clone Wars

The following is an actual modified transcript from a conversation I witnessed this summer during a weekend camping up north. The names of those present have been modified, not to protect them, but to further slander them. They have been replaced with archetypes instead. Anyway, I present to you the 3 in the morning Clone Conversation (place spooky space music here).

Guy Without A Girlfriend: You're telling me if you had a clone, you wouldn't be curious to know what it would be like to have sex with it?

Guy With Girlfriend: Why is it that if I had a clone, I'd immediately become gay?

Guy Without A Girlfriend: It's basically taking masturbation to a whole new level. It's like masturbation for the new millennium.

Guy With Girlfriend: No it isn't! When I masturbate, I'm not thinking of myself. That's sick dude. I'm thinking of a hot fucking chick, okay, you know what I mean? (makes a "big breast" notion with his hands and nods his head suggestively).

Guy Without A Girlfriend: Well you don't count 'cause you have a girlfriend.

Guy With Girlfriend: That's bullshit.

Guy Without A Girlfriend: No it's not. Why would you be interested in jerking the weenie when you can just mustard her bun any time?

Guy With Girlfriend: What kind of shit is that? I always have Kleenex around, but that doesn't stop me from picking my nose.

Girl Who Everyone Thinks Is A Lesbian: Why is it always sex with guys?

Guy Without A Girlfriend: Oh, don't start getting all feminist, liberal pro-choice on us.

Girl Who Everyone Thinks Is A Lesbian: No, some of us actually like a guy who doesn't just think with his dick.

Guy Without A Girlfriend: You find me a guy who doesn’t think with his dick and you’ve discovered a new gender.

Hot Girl Who’s Status Is Unsure But Is Most Likely Dating A Dickhead sits back with The Potentially Gay Guy watching the conversation taking place. The Shy/Nerdy Girl is sitting with them. The Hot Girl Who’s Status Is Unsure But Is Most Likely Dating A Dickhead looks at The Potentially Gay Guy and realizes she has nothing to say to him, so pays a compliment to The Shy/Nerdy Girl’s earrings.

The Hot Girl Who’s Status Is Unsure But Is Most Likely Dating A Dickhead: Those are very pretty.

Shy/Nerdy Girl: Thank you. They were my mother's.

The Hot Girl Who’s Status Is Unsure But Is Most Likely Dating A Dickhead smiles at The Shy/Nerdy Girl.

The Hot Girl Who’s Status Is Unsure But Is Most Likely Dating A Dickhead (realizing she has nothing else to say because, in reality, has no personality to compliment her good looks): They're very pretty.

Gay Guy: Oh my god, they SO are!

Drunk Guy Who Thinks He’s A Stud has joined the 'Clone' conversation now.

Drunk Guy Who Thinks He’s A Stud: What if the clone was only alive for one day and no one would ever know? Would you do it then?

Girl Who Everyone Thinks Is A Lesbian: No! That’s so immoral.

Drunk Guy Who Thinks He’s A Stud: It's not like it's rape. It's you.

The Slut and The Guy With Girlfriend’s Ditzy Girlfriend are having a few drinks and whispering to each other.

Ditzy Girlfriend: I don't know, it's just sometimes he's such an asshole. Like he doesn't appreciate me.

The Slut: Have you ever cheated on The Guy With Girlfriend?

Ditzy Girlfriend: Are you even listening to me?

The Slut: Ya!

Ditzy Girlfriend: Well…no, I haven't.

The Slut: You should. It would totally make you feel better.

Ditzy Girlfriend: How would that make me feel better?

The Slut: 'Cause it would show him that you can still have anyone you want. You're so beautiful. No one should treat you like that.

Ditzy Girlfriend: Really? You think I'm beautiful?

The Slut: Oh yeah.

The 'Clone' conversation is still taking place. The group is getting louder. The Awkward Guy Who No One's Really Sure How He Got Invited And Always Says The Wrong Thing At The Wrong Time comes back from the woods wearing a raccoon hat. What he was doing there remains a mystery.

Girl Who Everyone Thinks Is A Lesbian: No, not even if we were the last two people on Earth and my clone was going to die the next morning and my memory would be erased would I have sex with it.

Guy Without A Girlfriend: Clearly, you're asexual.

Drunk Guy Who Thinks He’s A Stud (putting his arm around The Slut): What about you, hot stuff?

The Slut: Threesome. Two tongues are definitely better than one.

All the guys freeze up. Drunk Guy Who Thinks He’s A Stud removes his arm from around The Slut most likely to throw a jacket over his newly erect boner. The guys stare at each other, silent, salivating.

The Awkward Guy Who No One's Really Sure How He Got Invited And Always Says The Wrong Thing At The Wrong Time: What if it was your sister's clone? Would you have sex with her?

The group is in disgust.

Drunk Guy Who Thinks He’s A Stud: Ah, fuck! Way to kill the image.

Girl Who Everyone Thinks Is A Lesbian: Do you take classes in being retarded or is that just a natural talent of yours?

The Awkward Guy Who No One's Really Sure How He Got Invited And Always Says The Wrong Thing At The Wrong Time: Ph.D baby!

Girl Who Everyone Thinks Is A Lesbian: If you were any more stupid, you'd have to be watered twice a week.

The Girl Who Everyone Thinks Is A Lesbian throws the rest of her beer down at The Awkward Guy Who No One's Really Sure How He Got Invited And Always Says The Wrong Thing At The Wrong Time's feet. The whole group, except for The Guy Without A Girlfriend and The Drunk Guy Who Thinks He’s A Stud get up from the camp fire, leaving The Awkward Guy Who No One's Really Sure How He Got Invited And Always Says The Wrong Thing At The Wrong Time there to wonder what he said.

Guy Without A Girlfriend: Would it be possible for you to not be yourself for just one night?

The Awkward Guy Who No One's Really Sure How He Got Invited And Always Says The Wrong Thing At The Wrong Time: Who do you want me to be?

Drunk Guy Who Thinks He’s A Stud: Dude, you just try too hard.

The Awkward Guy Who No One's Really Sure How He Got Invited And Always Says The Wrong Thing At The Wrong Time: That's not true. I just set low personal standards and then consistently fail to achieve them.

Guy Without A Girlfriend: Do yourself a favor, go find a squirrel or something to talk to.

The Awkward Guy Who No One's Really Sure How He Got Invited And Always Says The Wrong Thing At The Wrong Time (excitedly): There are squirrels here?

Drunk Guy Who Thinks He’s A Stud: You're such a freak. Oh and thanks for blowing my chances with The Slut. I could have had that shit.

Guy Without A Girlfriend (shining a flashlight onto the trees): That's all the bush you're gonna get tonight, stud!

The scene is interrupted by the soothing sounds of someone throwing up behind the tent.

End Scene.

And there you have it...humankind at its finest. I don't know what the big deal is with the whole clone issue. Personally, if I had a clone, I wouldn't give it half my workload or make it clean the house or play pranks on people. Fuck that. If I had a clone of myself, I'd probably beat the living hell out of myself, just to see what that would look like!

Til Death Do Us Part

I’m taking a break from scripting to write to you all with splendid and magnificent news. On Wednesday, November 20th, 2005 at approximately 3:30pm, I was proposed to. Now I know what you're thinking: "Damn, there goes one big hunka hunka slab o' man." But do not fret all ye broken-hearted damsels out there because this is all for the best. The truth is that I was very surprised by the proposal. At the ripe old age of 27, many would say that I am too young for such a life-long commitment. But this is something that I feel good about; something I feel strong about. I know I'm doing the right thing because a chance like this really is once in a lifetime - love at first sight and all those other antiquated clichés that we laugh about to mask the pain of not really knowing it. That is, until it happens to us! Well it’s happened to me and I'm grabbing onto it with both hands and heaven only knows where I'll wind up. But as the saying goes, I’m gonna reach for the stars and never look back.

As I was sitting chewing on my pen and trying to figure out a crucial plot point that I must have over-looked during the treatment phase of the script, a thought popped into my head: turpentine is NOT the solution for world hunger. From there, I began to imagine myself in a wedding dress. Well, it doesn't take a scientist to know what came after that. I then imagined myself in a tuxedo. And (that's right) I imagined what if I had a hybrid of both? Well my next step was to put the plan in motion. I knelt down on one knee, pulled out a ring and asked myself to marry myself. And I said yes!

This is the happiest day of my life. It was all so romantic and surreal. I'm still reeling from the shock of it all. I mean, it was so sudden!

A date has not been set but I want all of you, my faithful readers, to know that you are all invited. Expect your invitations mid-March. It'll be a glorious event. I can't wait!

Sincerely,
The Mr. & Mrs.

(place farting noises here)

Very busy week = no real time to blog. In my absence, I've hired a chimp to fill out the rest of this week's blogging. At least you'll have someone reciprocating some kind of consistent communication (even if that is just the literary equivalent of pressing its lips together and spitting out some sort of farting noises).

Where did I find this chimp, you ask? I rescued him from becoming an experimental test subject of Maybelline cosmetics. Their new tag line was going to be: Maybe she's born with it, maybe a couple of dozen monkeys were tortured. Doesn't quite have the same flare as the old slogan.

TBA

No time for blogging today, my pretties. I'll make it up to you. In fact as of right now I'm implementing phase one of Making It Up To My Faithful Readers For Not Blogging Something Interesting Today. Wait for it...

Phase one has officially commenced. The torch has been lit, the trumpets are blaring and various other ceremonial customs are inaugurating as we speak.

(Actually, that was probably it).

(Okay, to be perfectly honest, that WAS it).

(Minus, of course, the lit torch...)

(...and the blaring trumpets).

(I did however spark a match and blow, rather unsuccessfully, into a kazoo).

Hugs & Kisses

My biggest writing pet peeve (besides LOL and the alarming abuse of exclamation marks that people use in their discourse) is the addition of the letters "x" and "o" to denote some sort of abstract and feigned affection. Most of the time, these letters can be found on autographs or other signed endearments (such as the sign-off to an email or letter). First of all, 9.9/10 times, anyone who signs xoxo to their name wouldn't touch you, let alone hug or kiss you, with a 10 foot pole. Famous people who autograph this initialism before or after their name would sooner have you maced, pepper-sprayed or beaten by their body guards than even consider making hand-on-hand contact with you.

The behavioral disturbances found in people who sign-off with xoxo should not be taken likely. If you suffer from Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome or a severe case of Tic-Tac-Toe Disorder, it is with my highest concern that I not only recommend, but insist that you check yourself in to one of the finer medical establishments in your city and have yourself administered for a moderate dose of electro-shock therapy (or if you're really a glutton for punishment, become a contestant on Hollywood Squares).

And be weary of anyone who freely offers hugs and kisses to you in the form of hollow, superficial letters. Chances are anyone willing to just throw away free love is suffering from chancroid, crabs, gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, chlamydia, scabies and a slew of other sexually transmitted diseases. They may as well annex the letters stdstd to their name or autograph. It would be much more honest than the delusory and deceitful xoxo.

Whining In A Winter Wasteland

Every year, around the same time of year, I ask myself: Why do I live in this city? Hell, why do I live in Canada? This country is good for 2 things only – envying the United States and hibernating. We’re lucky if we get 3 solid months of good weather before that blanket of synthetic white flesh covers the land. I had my annual first car-skid-out-of-control incident yesterday. Amazing how you seem to forget the absolute horror and panic that causes you and your nerves. There I was just driving along blissfully and I put my foot down on the brake, only the car had other plans in mind. I like black ice.

Here’s what else I like:

I like waking up in the morning to scrape ice off the car windshield - like chipping away at some constellation fallen on hard times.

I like shaking, as though I am some human bobblehead, for the first 10 minutes in the car before the heat decides to kick up a notch.

I like walking anywhere in the city, shivering so intensely, that I actually manage to slip various discs in my spinal cord during my convulsive attacks.

I like losing my balance on icy patches in front of large crowds, falling on my ass, thus causing my tailbone to actually protrude through the top of my head and not being able to sit for a few weeks.

I like putting on 15 layers of clothes. I’m not happy until I look like a cross between an astronaut and the Michelin Man. I like how the cold stands laughing at my side as I assume the guise of something human. I like how every indoor place has the heat on so high that suddenly the 15 layers of clothes causes me hot flashes and bouts of nausea all evening.

I like driving through zero visibility, using up my windshield wiper fluid in a rather futile manner, spying Ton-Tons and Abominable Snowmen in my rear-view mirror, fast approaching.

I like what people turn into on the roads – frightened, lobotomized children who have been transported rather prematurely out of the womb and suddenly placed in front of the wheel of a car to which they have no recollection of how to operate.

I like perpetual night and the massive depression that comes with that.

I like how girls cover up and get fat and don’t shave their legs.

I like how there’s nothing to do in the winter socially. At least in the summer when you go somewhere (and it doesn’t take you 2 hours to get there) and you realize the place sucks you can go, dare I even say walk, somewhere else and the night is still salvageable.

I like knowing that penguins are laughing at me.

I love testing my endurance, stamina and sanity shoveling snow so it can just fall again the next day. There's really nothing more rewarding.

I like how the only thing there is to do on a weekend afternoon is go to a mall with every single other breathing entity in this country. I like hearing the same 5 Christmas songs over and over and over again thus equating the season with unholy rage.

I like frostbite.

I like psoriasis.

I like putting my hands under a tap of water and feeling like a voodoo doll being stuck with a thousand tiny needles.

I like being able to see my own breath.

I like when my nose can’t stop dripping.

These are a few of my favorite things!

But my favorite thus far is this. I LOVE wet socks. That’s right. I had my first wet sock experience the other day. I decided it was time to unearth the boots from the bowels of my basement thus leaving my state of denial and officially ushering in the shitty season known as winter. So I put on my boots and they still felt cold even after months of sitting in storage. As soon as I put on my left boot, I felt a sharp prick on my toe. I removed the boot and a large and very jagged looking black spider with a red stripe on it ran out of the boot. I had a heart-attack. I’d never seen a spider like that. I killed the arachnid and wearily put on my boots. The rest of the night, my foot felt warm and pulsating. I do believe the bastard bit me. The swelling is going down. If it was anyone else in the world that this were to happen to, they would have woken up the next morning with the proportionate speed, strength and agility of a spider, complete with a tingling spider sense, the ability to stick to walls and shoot webbing from their wrists. Me, on the other hand, will likely wind up dead. I’m just that lucky.

Put Him In A Body Bag, Johnny

A beloved childhood icon has passed on, taking with him a very piece of my childhood. For the next 24 hours I shall hold vigil, repeatedly listening to "You’re The Best" by Joe Esposito, walking around in my human shower costume, sanding the floor, painting the fence, waxing the car and dropping anyone and everyone with a crane kick to the head who comes within 5 feet of me or subscribes to the hated Cobra Kai decree that mercy is for the weak.
Pat Morita...you will be missed.

Today I feel older.

Today the world is a darker place.

Sticks & Stones

Coming up with names is my Achilles hell (I know it's heel and I'm well aware of the spelling mistake, but it's warranted...because it is hell). I can't name stories or characters. I can sure as hell write them, but I can't name them.

And names have such power. For example the name Lexington demands respect. You can't go wrong naming a child Lexington. He'll either be a multi-million dollar business tycoon or a porn star. Either way, his life is set. But name a kid Ewalt and you have a bed-wetting cross-dresser to deal with. A wise writer once said that names don't necessary define us, but they influence us for good or ill, help to shape and form us. Yet so many people disagree with this. They stand by the whole "What's in a name?" objection. But I'll get to these naysayers in a moment. I've not yet finished stating my displeasure for naming things.

This power of the name works the same with story titles and character names. I can't take it. Why am I so bad at this? I've tried everything from paying homage to names I like to taking a bunch of books and mixing and matching random first and last names. Nothing. I end up with something like Giovanni Cervantes. Sounds cool...if you're a pirate.

And I just know when I'm a parent, I'm gonna be 1000 times worse. That's why I've decided to use my future children as social experiments to not only amuse myself but prove these naysayers wrong. I'm going to name one child Einstein and the other child Lil' Disappointment, sit back and observe the kind of person they turn into without any sort of parental structure in their lives.

Is that a cum rag in your car or are you just a SICK LITTLE MONKEY?

So I was in a friend’s car last night (a friend who will go unnamed) and I asked him if he had any gum. Sure I could have just grabbed last week’s piece that I stuck underneath the passenger side seat cushion or the piece from the week before that I embedded underneath the dashboard (a side-effect from my high school years cramped into those plastic folding chairs with pivotal metallic legs and a threatening-graffiti-filled wooden desk attached to it). But I wanted something fresh. He told me that he had a carton of some new flavor of Juicy Fruit somewhere in his backseat and that when I found it, to get him a piece too. Yes, you see, like most insane old women preparing for the end of days, my buddy buys things in bulk from Costco, unlike normal human beings who purchase their chewing gum one package at a time at the local convenient store.

So, seatbelt on and face forward, I extended my go-go gadget arm into the backseat. Like Willie attempting to save Indy and Short Round from protruding spikes by reaching into the dirty and insect-laden crevice to find the control lever in The Temple Of Doom, my hand suddenly found itself in similar territory – dark, sullied and unknown. My fingers slithered past empty pop cans and crumpled bags of chips, discarded papers with razor sharp edges likely discarded only for the sole purpose of inflicting paper cuts on prying hands, a half-eaten Eatmore bar (which felt more like a hardened turd and, for all I know, could have been), antifreeze, a gym bag, Jimmy Hoffa’s body, various forms of non-human genitalia and a stupefying plethora of other hideous limbs and deformities. Finally I heard that familiar sound that tin foil makes when pressed up against plastic. Eureka! I had found the carton of gum. I grabbed it and pulled it into the front seat. Much like the crew of the Nostromo picking up the eponymous alien parasite, I too had garnered a hitchhiker (only one that didn’t reproduce by parasitizing living victims). The hitchhiker manifested itself in the form of a harmless white T-shirt.

“What’s this?” I queried.

“Gum,” spoke he who cannot be named (no, my friend isn’t Lord Voldemort).

I kinda just looked at him for a moment, blinking. The blinking was so bleak and sporatic, it should have been accompanied by the appropriate cartoon sound effect. I mean did he really think that in my 27 years of existence on this planet I couldn’t tell the overwhelmingly obvious difference between a pack of gum and a cotton T-shirt?

My mind, now flooding with a slew of sarcastic nomenclature thought only to let out these two words: “no shit.” I then held up the T-shirt and said aloud, “This. I was talking about this.”

“It’s a T-shirt,” he said very matter of factly.

It was as though time stood still. I was convinced now that Alan Funt was going to rear his ugly head any minute, point me in the direction of the hidden camera and everything would return to a relative state of normality. Before I could think up another clever insult (which would have been turned into mere profanity once it made that journey from my brain to my mouth), he who cannot be named said, “Ohhhh…THAT T-shirt. Yeah, look at it. It’s fucking cool.”

I unfolded the shirt and took a look at it.

“What the hell is this?” I demanded.

Well it turns out he who cannot be named (oh hell, I should just call him Voldemort for short, but then the last thing I need is an already cranky and egomaniacal J.K. Rowling on my ass for copyright infringement) designed this picture and then ironed it on to a T-shirt for our buddy’s stag party at the end of the summer. But apparently the groom-to-be refused to wear it. (Clearly the request was made before he was good and drunk). I was so pissed off because I hadn’t known about this T-shirt at the time. Had I known, there would have been no way I would have let him refuse to wear it.

Suddenly he who cannot be named said, “By the way, don’t lick the shirt.”

Again, it was though I had entered some drug-induced state of make-belief. Did I seem like the type who went around licking shirts?

“Not that the thought ever crossed my mind, but…why?” I innocently asked.

“Well…” he prolonged, “I was fooling around with (she who cannot be named) a few nights ago and I sort of had an accident and there was nothing around to clean it up with except for this shirt. So it actually came in handy for something.” This was followed by a one-way chuckle.

The following series of events happened in slow motion. I screamed “Nooooooooooooo” and threw the T-shirt into its debauched backseat tomb from whence it came. My eyes twitched, my facial tics out of control, my head turned rather unsteadily (it had a stop-motion meets Linda Blair from the Exorcist feel to it) as I faced he who really should be named now. I contemplated grabbing his wheel and turning us into oncoming traffic. Any remorse I once felt about my gum-sticking actions were not only gone, but replaced with homical rage. I looked at him, eyes blazing, and shouted out, “DON’T LICK IT? WHAT THE FUCK DUDE?”

He followed that with, “Yeah, well, I wanted to warn you.”

Warn me of what? Was I some ejaculate-depraved sociopath? Did I ever give any indication that when no one was looking, I snuck down to my fresh supply of freeze-dried sperm I kept in Baskin Robbins-style ice cream tubes and guilty pleasured my woes and follies away? If one were to take all the phenomena governed by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and couple it with an improbability bomb detonating with a fallout analogous to that of a nuclear explosion with me at ground zero, would there even be a remote possibility of such a thing ever occuring? If Bizarro Rob came to visit us from Earth 2 and was confronted with such insinuations, would he not make sure to close all trans-dimensional portals and destroy all scientific means by which one could conceivably cross over from opposite universes from now until eternity?

There were no words.

In retrospect, all I can think to say is God bless the makers of Purell. From this time forth, Strappleberry Juicy Fruit will elicit thoughts of licking cum-stained T-shirts. I’ll likely not be suggesting this promotional image to the Wrigley Company as, admittedly, it doesn't seem like the greatest marketing strategy.

Bring On The Cold

I just purchased a new winter jacket and hat today. I was in serious need of both of these items because during last year's winter, I looked like a giant, walking, talking 6-foot tall penis every time I stepped out in public adorning my winter garb. Contrary to my belief that women would flock to such a blatantly masculine appearance, it only caused them to run away in horror and disgust every time I walked down the street.

I tried on over 100 different combinations of hat and jacket today, in a desperate attempt to steer clear of repeating the same phallic image faux pas of last year. Almost ready to give up, I finally found something that worked! The salesgirl told me I looked like a bullet. I have yet to form an opinion on the matter regarding how this makes me feel.

Fuckity Fuck Fuck Fuck

I had the most BRILLIANT post EVER here tonight. I laughed my ass off typing it. I was giving myself high fives and pats on the back. Tears were streaming down my eyes. I finished it and kissed my fingers like some culinary "artiste." I was just going to read it over for spelling when all of a sudden I guess I must have pressed something and the entire thing just vanished. I wanted to kill someone. Ugh. I thought about re-typing it, even started it over and it just didn't have the same magic and flow to it. I'm going to sleep unhappy now. A piece of genius died tonight...lost in cyber Neverland, doing battle with cyber pirates and gleefully crowing the days away with cyber lost boys.

In The Beginning

"In the beginning Rob created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of Rob moved upon the face of the waters.
And Rob said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And Rob saw the light, that it was good: and Rob divided the light from the darkness.
And Rob called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."

I present to you the first paragraph from my new book entitled: A First Person Perspective On Genesis or Why Don't Strangers Scream Out My Name During Sex? The story is coming along splendidly and the illustrations are breathtaking. There's a two page splash of me playing twister with the Heathens (using Adam's rib as the spinning needle for the board), a gold foil fold-out of Ham being name-taunted by Shem and Japheth (like they had anything to laugh about with those monikers) on his first day or ark appreciation seminars, and finally a whimsical centerfold of me limb-whipping the Serpent of Eden with a pair of crushed and gangrened legs found amputated underneath a large boulder left over from a casualty of the flood (but I dressed up the legs to look like the Wicked Witch of the East legs found underneath Dorothy's farmhouse when it landed in Oz).

But the bastards from the publishing company didn't even have the decency to put my face on the cover. Originally the cover was supposed to show Eve and myself embracing as the world around us is created. This was rejected by their marketing department, claiming that I didn't have the right "look" they were going for. Apparently my mug isn't inspiring enough to sell multiple copies of the book. They want to reach a market that extends beyond 12 year old kids who like to place magnifying lenses over ants on the sidewalk and stick macaroni up their noses. They kept Eve on the cover but digitally replaced me with Fabio Lanzoni. (Is it just me or is his eyeline a little sketchy?)

That fucker gets all my covers.

The Potter Illness

Harry Potter has become a phenomenon now. When the hell did getting tickets to see this thing become such a task worthy of Herculean effort? Most theatres were sold out until Tuesday! TUESDAY!! How is this possible? Anyway, I really had my heart set on going to see it last night. I'm not really a Potter fan. I've never read the books nor could I care less about them. It's just that I find with big movie releases, if I don't see it on the opening weekend, I probably won't go see it at all. Which makes no sense to me since I hate going to movies when it's crowded.

I mean, is it just me or is the whole movie going experience turning into hell? Why does everyone have a cell phone light that you can see from space? Also, everyone now talks during a movie. Apparently the commentary track on DVDs have inspired people to create their own running commentary during films. (There’s nothing better than a dialogue-heavy film coupled with a zit-ridden moron sitting a few rows behind you talking about some underage crackhead he tagged the other night, which I'm convinced was really just his sister as there's no way in heaven or hell that pizza-face could ever even get a girl to touch him...even to mace him). As well, the back of my chair is usually being used for some sort of a rugby tournament. And I love those people who slowly try to open up a noisy plastic bag of twizzlers for an hour and a half. How is it that people are so dumb to think that slowly opening something reduces the noise level? I think if the entertainment industry is so concerned with people pirating and downloading films, they should make the cinema experience better. Perhaps specially trained Vikings on demand hired to sear the flesh off anyone who's voice surpasses .0001 decibels would do the trick – posted at every aisle, of course.

Anyway, I went to pick up Miriam after fighting black ice and snow (dahoo doray, welcome winter come our way). When I arrived, I told her that the show was sold out and because of that the night was ruined and I just wanted to sit in some brooding restaurant and sulk. So she says to me, "I have a surprise for you." I always get nervous when a girl says she has a surprise for me because next thing you know, you're changing diapers at 3 in the morning and appealing for visitation rights to your own penis. Anyway, at that moment she pulls out two tickets to Potter at 10:30. I was wrought with disbelief. "How the fuck did you pull that off?" I queried, fearing only prostitution as a reasonable answer. Well...it goes like this:

She called me on the way home from Etibicoke earlier that day because sitting in traffic is boring and torturous so why not inflict that on someone else? I was the lucky victim. She was complaining that she had to pee. I told her to just do it; roll down the window or something. But modesty got the best of her and she decided that a bladder infection would be that much more appealing. Anyway, I ended up getting off the phone. Sure I felt bad about that, but by the time my finger hit the end button on my phone I was back to my old, blissful self. Well it turns out that Miriam, being the amazing person that she is, stopped off at a movie theatre (urine about to burst from every orifice on her body like some yello glazed sprinkler), stood behind some old lady (that same old lady we all fear at grocery stores who asks a million illogical questions and then proceeds to count pennies for exact change). Turns out this woman didn't understand that she couldn't purchase 7 tickets when there were only 2 left. Lo and behold, Miriam got the last 2 tickets knowing how badly I wanted to see the film, got back in her car, fought more traffic and died of a urinary tract infection later that night. What a doll! I shall always remember her kindness.

So anyway, I'm sitting in the theatre and I start to feel like SHIT. I mean, I'm getting hot and sweaty, stomach is killing, had to use the bathroom like 18 times and everything around me began to morph into Lovecraftian angles. I felt like I was going to die. Miriam told me we could leave but after the hell she went through, I was gonna stay there through anything short of an atomic bomb. And then it hit me. I went to get my flu shot the other day. Perhaps that's why I was feeling so ill. You see, I totally believe the flu shot is an intricate terrorist plot whereby Al Qaeda members dress up like western-style nurses and set up "vaccination clinics" to surreptitiously inject unsuspecting North Americans with the Anthrax bacilli.

For the first 30 minutes, I was squirming uncomfortably. The dude beside me kept thinking I was coming on to him. Frighteningly, he was reciprocating. Just thinking of the way he kept licking his hot dog and dipping his nachos makes me feel ill all over again. Finally my super-human, radioactive, gamma ray-bombarded, kryptonite-resistant immune system overwhelmed the infectious particles and I survived the entire ordeal.

But god DAMN if I wasn't fucked up. Anyway, the movie was good and dark too. I'm not gonna talk about. Go see it if you wanna know. However, I think it's only a matter of time before we see some full out sex in these movies between that Weasley boy and that Hermione chick. The tension is building to an unhealthy crescendo.

Al Jazeera Sock Monkey

Terrorism at its worst.

My radio audition

I finally got a callback from all those radio audition tapes I sent in. I had to drive out to the middle of nowhere in the armpit of Ontario for my first official on air go at it, but it was still cool, it being my first real gig and all. Although the subject the station had me work with was kind of sketchy. Anyway, here's hoping this was the beginning of a long and fruitful career in talk radio! Below is the exact transcript of my interview with the skeletal remains of legendary Vaudeville singing sensation and Ragtime artist Byron G. Harlon:

Q: How did you come to be involved in Vaudeville?

A: [grim silence]

Q: Do you feel that multi-media streams such as television and radio ruined the Vaudeville scene?

A: [moody silence]

Q: I see. And what about the rumors that Vaudeville will be making a comeback after our high tech media and entertainment networks are virtually wiped out by the rising industrial apocalypse?

A: [dark, brooding silence]

Supermodels

I'm watching some special right now on supermodels. Is it just me or are supermodels the epitome of ugly? Not models. No, models tend to be good looking. But "super"models...hideous! Not that I subscribe to that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" nonsense, but supermodels are notoriously freakish. For example Esther Canadas is a supermodel but her lips terrify me and they're eerily similar to the lips a normal person gets when they are suffering from anaphylactic shock. Also, she looks like she's sizing everyone up as a potential meal to be promptly regurgitated. Victoria Secret's Adriana Lima looks about to fall off the dolly they've got her propped up on. She's obviously some Frankenstein science experiment who originated in the plastic surgery capital of Brazil. But they did a nice job on her boobs. The whole world knows Tyra Banks is an alien and let's not forget that creepy mole that runs Cindy Crawford's life (it's her business manager). They all look like oranges on swizzle sticks in real life. And don't even get me started on the beautiful boys with their empty gazes and mouth-breathing tendencies who create bulk to make up for lack of gray matter.

I'm turning the channel.

Sith

So I rewatched Star Wars Episode 3 last night because I picked up the DVD. Two thoughts crossed my mind while watching this over-rated pile of monkey shit. In all 6 Star Wars movies to date, why have the Jedi never done the "Your fly's undone" Jedi mind trick, with the wave of the hand to convince the enemy it's true?

Second, what in the blue hell happened to Yaddle? Am I losing my mind? Was there not a female Yoda in Episode 1 who, along with all the other sterile members of the Jedi council, sat and just talked smack the whole movie? What happened to her? Why wasn't she in the movie? I would have loved to have seen her get slaughtered. I checked the deleted scenes and everything (oh by the way, another good move Lucas cutting out the whole forming of the rebel alliance...way to go champ, give yourself a gold star) and nothing...no sign of Yaddle.

I demand Yaddle's green blooded head on a plate.

Miriam

This is Miriam. She’s swell. I met her in this little Moroccan café I frequent when I’m writing during the days. The café is most notable for its house specialty briouates with kefta, which Miriam swears is not made from burning the carcass fat off dead kittens that she has shot with bee bee gun pellets earlier in the day.

Miriam has this unhealthy addiction to strolling around car crash sights and collecting any dolls, stuffed animals, rattles or various other beloved novelties that may have belonged to small children brutally maimed or murdered in the accident.

Miriam truly is a force of nature. In fact she once ate a live grizzly bear for dessert. You would be wise never to ask her what she had for dinner that very same night.

We’ll see where this goes!

The Best & Worst

I've compiled a list of my Top 10 favorite musical artists and my Top 5 most hated musical artists (and I use that term loosely here). I've put the hated ones first because, with life, we tend to hate before we love. Enjoy!

Top 5 Most Hated:

1. Sean Combs (or whatever the fuck his name is these days: Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Puffy, Diddy, Dodo, Dumbass, Dickwad, etc.). This is a person, much like Paris Hilton or Michael Moore, who just needs to vanish off the face of the Earth. Just like that. He needs to go. And you know what? No one would miss him or even notice he’s gone. And the thing that kills me about this dude is that in his morbid little universe, I know he thinks that his disappearance would cause shockwaves around the globe. Why is he even famous? He’s a criminal. Oh I forgot, Puff Daddy was a criminal. P. Diddy isn’t. Much like bankrupt companies that just change their name to stay in business, Diddy did the same. All I know about this guy is that he produced the Notorious B.I.G.’s music until BIGGIE was killed (no fucking surprise there…did people think he was just making up his gangsta shit? Play with matches, you get burned and all that philosophical mumbo jumbo). Why does no one question how this guy made all this cash? He owns restaurants, a clothing line, a film production company, a record label. What has he done? And you know what else? He’s smug. He’s a smug motherfucker. When I saw him at last year’s MTV VMAs waving his baton around the stage like some deific conductor who’s graced us mere mortals with his presence, I prayed for an aneurysm to just explode in his swollen head. And why is it that in every picture taken of him he’s got that same look? I call it the “intense” look (also to be found in bad acting). It’s the look of someone who’s just been anally deflowered by a gorilla while receiving ridiculous amounts of morphine injections at the same time.

2. Dave Matthews – who listens to this shit? I gave it a chance. I really did. The same people that listen to Dave Matthews are the people who watch hockey. There have been a lot of bands that have appealed to stoners: The Black Crows, Phish, The Grateful Dead, but Dave Matthews is just abysmal. He’s one of those singers that actually sounds bored by his own voice (in similar company with Eddie Veder, Dido, Lifehouse and David Gray – only they’ve had some songs you can actually listen to). I think why the stoner community has taken to Dave Matthews is that by listening to him, you actually appear more stoned. You hear slurred words and lyrics about fuck-all nothing and smoking joints and repetitive acoustic licks and hippie girls with fat asses and pornstar tattoos on the brunt of their sweaty backs. A few summers ago, after indulging in a ridiculous amount of drugs, I was lying in a pool as the sun was setting. My friend put on Dave Matthews and said it was the perfect music to “chill” to. In my current state, you could have put on the fucking Christmas Cats and I would have been euphoric. After 10 minutes of Dave Matthews, I was having an anxiety attack and wanted to gauge my eyes out. He sucks. The people that listen to him have no personality. They suck too. Dig a hole all the way to China. And don’t fucking return.

3. Bjork – What the hell is Bjork? This is performance art taken to an unhealthy extreme. Sigur Ros, I get…sort of. Siouxie Sioux, same deal. But Bjork is an enigma to me. So abstract and obtuse. That can be a good thing. Unfortunately here it’s not. Bjork reminds me of this short story I once wrote about a mentally challenged guy who makes his way into a high society party wearing a dead squirrel on his head. The people at this party are so taken aback and so confused, having no idea what to make of this, that they proclaim him a genius and his life becomes this whirlwind of talk show appearance, book deals, film rights for his life story, pretty women, insane parties, even alien cultures visiting Earth to converse with this figure who the world has elevated to god-like status based on the fact that they just didn’t get him. Fine…it wasn’t a great story. It was years ago. Fuck off! But that is Bjork to me. Someone who no one actually gets, but she just happened to enter the music scene at a time when collectively, we all needed some meaning in our lives. Bjork’s music is as catchy as helium-addicted underwater fish singing at decibels only specially trained attack dogs can hear. Can anyone actually hum a Bjork song? Would anyone want to? The only thing worse than Bjork the singer is Bjork the actor. Assassinate her. Please.

4. Ashlee Simpson – Yeah yeah, this is one of those no-brainer ones that people read and say, “no shit.” Well no shit. Besides looking like some sort of Scandinavian troll, she really is horrible. At least if she looked like her sister, I could appreciate that. Sure I know looks have nothing to do with talent, but talent’s only half of it. Image is the other half and her sister is a fine looking barbie doll come to life (only anatomically equipped). Ashlee has no image and she has no talent. Her songs are stupid, forgettable and appeal to no one. Her voice is as refreshing as a pitcher of broken glass after a month spent in the desert and her whiny, "why can’t I be more like Jessica" attitude is exactly the reason why there are so many teen homicides in America. Didn’t someone clue Ashlee into the famous person dogma that states all famous people have a sibling who is less famous, less talented, less good looking…just less in general. Why is she fighting so hard to deny the fact that she’s just that? And how did she manage to escape from that SNL lip-synching incident with her career still in tact? That was the smoking gun!! I wouldn’t lala with her on the kitchen, on the floor, in a Nazi concentration camp if I knew I was gonna die horribly the next day.

5. U2 – I feel bad for Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. They should have given themselves snappier names like Bono or The Edge. Whoever remembers these guys are actually in U2? Now don’t get me wrong. I actually like U2. Well, I like U2 up until Achtung Baby! You know, before Bono became the self-righteous piece of shit he is now. Like Morrissey or the Dixie Chicks, Bono needs to shut up and realize his shit stinks just like everyone else’s!! You’re a fucking singer! Fine, you’re an artist too. That’s it. No one cares about the vox populi of opinions at your disposal. Remember, opinions are like assholes and everyone’s got one. Bono needs to realize that he, like all celebrities, is a monkey for the system. Dance for us monkey, sing for us monkey, perform for us monkey. I ain’t paying for dialogue so cut the chin music, monkey. A U2 concert used to be 2 hours of good music and good times. Now it’s 5 hours - 2 hours of music, interspersed with Bono’s political diatribe about god knows what anymore. I hate celebrities that abuse their position as a celebrity to state their opinions. If you’re so keen on having people listen to you, write an article to the New York Times or some other reputable news rag. As it is, it’ll likely get printed because you’re famous, but at least then people have the option of not listening to your nonsensical drivel. Why they ever banned the chucking of glass bottles at lead singers at concerts is beyond me. Not once did you ever hear Fats Domino or Chuck Berry or Bo Diddley or Sam Cooke or other talents suppressed by both race and creed stop their sets to vent their thoughts (which would have actually been poignant and warranted, mostly telling Whitey to go collectively fuck itself). A true artist knows what their audience wants. And how many of you remember that time he was giving Frank Sinatra the lifetime achievement award. Bono spoke for 30 minutes! You'd think he was getting the award. The network actually cut off old blue eyes to go to a commercial. He couldn't have just shut his mouth for one night, not tried to be the center of attention and just graciously handed out an award that Sinatra had earned and then some? Cocksnake. But Bono does hold a special feat for me. His face has the distinct ability to actually give me diarrhea every time I see it plastered on magazines, newspapers and television screens. He should be the poster child for Imodium.

Okay enough ranting, here's the good stuff!

Top 10 Best:

1. The Cure – I can’t say enough good things about The Cure. I grew up on The Cure and still love them as much as ever. Robert Smith is a genius. Disintegration is the greatest album ever recorded. It’s haunting and heartbreaking. Just Like Heaven was at the epicenter of every mix tape I used to make when I was a kid. People always think that The Cure appeals to goths, introverts, heroin addicts, social outcasts and hermits that are fascinated by dead things. No. These are the same people who have never heard a Cure song from beginning to end. Admittedly, Robert Smith’s voice is either a love it or leave it kind of voice. But all good singers have a distinctive voice. Bands like Creed, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Theory Of A Dead Man, Staind (and the list goes on) have the type of lead singer where you could literally just treat their music like the Pepsi challenge with only Pepsi as an option. The day The Cure makes an album using pipe organs as an ambient track is the day I die a happy man! Me likes my pipe organs! Unlike Marilyn Manson who went out and found his crowd, The Cure’s crowd found them. And sure, there might be a few of the above mentioned demographic, but for the most part, Cure fans are just like you and me. They walk among us. Be afraid.

2. Psychedelic Furs – Richard Butler is another one of those lead singers with an ineffably fascinating voice. The songs of the Furs are just really catchy and really soulful. A love song by the Furs was actually written with love in mind, not some manufactured contrived product of what people fool themselves into thinking love should be. And not to mention the Furs (like The B-52's and The Thompson Twins) wrote fun music. The fun seems to be lacking in music these days. It's all about the fucking bass. But that's a whole other rant. Thankfully The Wedding Singer brought some interest back to the Furs, otherwise they were on a one-way street to obscurity. If you get the chance, pick up their greatest hits. You can usually find it for 10 bucks anywhere. It’ll be the best 10 dollars you’re likely to spend.

3. The Smashing Pumpkins – Billy Corgan is great. Wait, let me rephrase that. The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan is great. Zwan and solo career Billy Corgan suck major ass. I don’t understand what happened to the Pumpkins? It seemed that they were so uncomfortable in their own skin, that they eventually just stripped off all their layers until there was nothing left. Gish was okay. Siamese and Pisces were great. Mellon Collie was a masterpiece. And I think after that, the band tried way too hard to change their sound and image. Billy Corgan went from the doughy boy next door to the chrome-dome vampire goth suffering from rickets and the music became electronic and then industrial. I still liked Adore more than most albums release but Machina was pushing it a bit. The problem was the fans didn’t like these two albums and Billy took it to heart. His live performances got sloppy, his song-writing became forgettable and then POOF – just like that they were gone. 1979 is still the one song that will forever hold a special place in my heart. It reminds me of high school, Jenny and loss of virginity (in that order). The good news is this: after Billy’s last album tanked, he took out an ad in some Chicago paper claiming he misses his dreams and his old music and will re-form the Pumpkins! I can't wait. I'll be on board.

4. Wumpscut – I love crazy German music. And more, I love crazy gothic industrial German music that doesn’t involve some guy screaming at me. Of course, a great deal of Wumpscut’s music isn’t in German and that stuff’s just as cool if not cooler. Wumpscut is the labor of love from Rudy Ratzinger. He reminds me a lot of Trent Reznor back when Trent Reznor was good. Now Trent wouldn’t know industrial if you slapped him across the head with it (come on...Jackalope? WTF?). Wumpscut is inspiring and creative. Cool music. Don’t get me wrong, you ain’t gonna be macking any chicks with these tunes. Try Keane or Coldplay or some other one hit wonder for that. (But if you really wanna get a girl to fuck you, put on some Roxy Music for her. Hell, I'll fuck you!) No no, this music ain't for that purpose. This is music to get shit done to!

5. Apoptygma Berzerk – Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE the 80s. Part of the reason I love the 80s was New Wave. New Wave was made famous by the gay Brits, but it was also made famous for its use of the synthesizer – possibly the most underappreciated instrument in music. Bands like Depeche Mode or Erasure or The Cars or A Flock Of Seagulls would never have broken into the industry had they not known this little secret of the synth. Apoptygma Berzerk is another German band. They’re a mix of trance and rock and what a great mix it is! Their songs are so damn catchy and so energetic, it even gets this cat from squaresville to shake his money maker. Certain artists are always trying to break down “cool” into its elements, capture it and portray themselves as it (for example the soulless/clueless Wachowski Brothers). Real cool is not having to convince anyone of it. This is Apoptygma Berzerk. So fucking cool…they’re sub-zero.

6. Elvis Presley – Well flip my fins, Daddy-O, he wasn’t called the King for nothing. And this wasn’t a self-proclaimed moniker and it sure as hell wasn’t bestowed upon him by the thieving Colonel. Elvis was a legend, straight up and down. He was the epitome of rock and roll and the epitome of cool (and if Chris Isaak had played his cards right, he could have been the next E, but thanks to a shitty agent and goofy show, he'll forever be second rate now). The King’s joint and all its digs still make my massive kahoonas rise to this day. He’s the only artist that has not only transcended death, but time and space. Most of his criticism comes from the fact that he ripped off black music. Elvis didn’t rip it off. While he did do it justice unlike others who tried over the years (but still nothing ever shakes the original) more importantly, he brought black music to the mainstream. He brought it to the attention of the god-fearing church goers in their Footloose-like communities who used to spend a Friday night lynching black people and then having sex with their own children. He brought backseat bingo to the kookie kids who would have been content to just keep rocking around the clock with Bill Haley and his Comets or listening to the doo-wopping dolly tunes of The Chordettes. He revolutionized music and popularized Satan’s influence on it. His films sucked and yes he got fat and sweaty. But his music was the rompin’ stompin’ livin’ end.

7. Rob Zombie – I love Rob Zombie because not only is he a comic and film geek hiding behind the rough Hell’s Angels exterior (complete with smoking hot wife, Satanic countenance and disposition and serious bad-ass tattoos), his music fucking ROCKS! Talk about distinct sounds. I also love Rob Zombie because he’s gotten me through 4 breakups. I know when people breakup with a significant other they usually go through a spell and listen to really depressing and low key music. That’s just counterproductive. It makes you feel shittier. I know that’s the plan, to feel shitty. But no, that’s unhealthy. You need to be listening to music like Rammstein or Three Days Grace or Linkin Park or Rob Zombie. Music that makes you want to kill everyone in the most harmful and disturbing way. Music that harnesses your deepest, angriest emotions and expels them in a scintillating expulsion of rage, animosity and other paroxysms in their purest and most passionate forms. You’ll still feel shitty for a while, but without all that self-loathing, loss of appetite and need to be left alone. It’s like hitting the boxing ring on a fresh diet of steroids, adrenaline and adenosine triphosphate.

8. Joy Division – Ian Curtis is one of those guys that killed himself at his prime. Like Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix and Shannon Moon, we would have never known what would have become of the real Joy Divison had he lived. Sometimes, it’s almost fitting for a death because it immortalizes that person. Can you imagine an 80 year old Marilyn Monroe or James Dean? Joy Division is dark and moody. I really can’t say any more than that. It’s like Halloween manifested in music.

9. Lou Reed – I like solo Lou Reed better than Velvet Underground Lou Reed (this likely has something to do with Nico – who I put right up there with Yoko Ono and Gwen Stefani's entourage of strange Asian women on the annoying meter). Sure Lou is very avante garde and even attracted the attention of kitsch legend and a man I’m convinced was one of Satan’s minions: Andy Warhol, but Lou Reed is one of the only singers (I include Nick Cave in this category) that sings from the heart. He’s an artist in every sense of the word. His songs are meaningful and tell you it like it is. No sugar coating here. They’re short stories with some accompanying music, only not of the annoying bohemian persuasion. He was never one for a big sound. Granted that sound wouldn’t have accommodated his monotone delivery. But he found his niche, stayed true to it and listening to music from Lou Reed is like having him there in the room with you whispering life lessons and old magic tales in your ear.

10. David Bowie – I wouldn’t include any of Bowie’s songs in my top 10. Probably not even my top 20. But this isn’t about specific songs. This is about all around music and image. The beautiful thing about David Bowie is that you can find a song of his for any mood. It’s amazing! If you're feeling like a hermaphrodite anteater, there's a Bowie song for you. This is a chameleon who changed his sound, style and persona on every album and yet still got it right and still pleased the fans and made great music. Sure some of his androgynous glam rock costumes and flamboyant looks were unnecessary and downright frightening, but would you expect any less from Ziggy Stardust and his Spiders from Mars? He’s had a huge and profound influence on music for four decades and he’s not one of those fuckers that tries to do it all. He’s smart with the way he handles his career, has limited his film work (Labyrinth rules) and unlike guys like Bono and Morrissey (mentioned above) keeps his opinions mostly to himself. He’s never used his celebrity status in a negative way as far as I know. He’s classy and talented and his longevity is proof of all that.

Be Still, My Heart

I get to tell you all about an event last night that I attended; an event I had been looking forward to forever. Last night, Floria Sigismondi was at the MOCCA for her book launch Immune. Immune is Floria’s second photography book showcasing her work in music video production, painting, abstract, surrealism, goth and other deliciously naughty things. I love Floria. Okay, let me restate that for a more profound effect. I LOVE FLORIA. I have a very difficult time expressing my love for anything. I occasionally tell my parents they’re all right. I've been known to tell girlfriends from time to time that they’ll do. But I have no difficulty confessing my outright love for Floria. And celebrities never impress me. I never get all goose-pimply with a case of the shakes when I hear a certain person is in town. But for Floria, I become a 19 year old girl. So what? Fuck you! Stop judging me. I can feel your judgment seeping through the LAN cord, flooding my hard drive with your virtual condemnation!

The evening started out with free wine. Then, when everyone was nice and toasty, we were treated to 45 minutes of her new videos (ranging from The Cure, Sigur Ros, Living Things, White Stripes, Incubus, Amon Tobin, Martina Topley Bird, Tricky and Christina Aguilera). After we were blown away by that, the proprietor of Pages (book store on Queen West, who I'm also convinced is just a monkey who was dipped in Nair) interviewed her with the most ghetto setup not worthy of such a queen. After that, it was a book signing, followed by a schmooze fest and then more drinks and sushi.

What an evening!

The thing about Floria is that she’s not only the most gorgeous woman in the world, she’s so creative. The woman made me actually enjoy a Christina Aguilera song! Floria is something made flesh from a lost childhood dream, as though God itself breathed in and then exhaled its quintessence of perfection in the form of Floria. I thought it unwise to reveal these feelings to her with her husband and daughter present, but I did have a good little chat with her towards the end of the evening where I refrained somehow from making a total blithering ass of myself. What a doll! Can't wait for her first feature!

Check her out: www.floriasigismondi.com

School Nudity

I never understood the significance of that whole "Sitting in class writing an exam in your underwear" nightmare. Is that supposed to be alarming? I don't know about you, but if I had a nightmare like that it would be almost surreal considering I was stark naked all through school.

I hate the subway

Why are there so many crazy people on the subway?

Some fuck face hit my car in a parking lot and left a dent in it. AND, he or she or it didn't even have the goddamned good decency to wait around or leave a note or anything. Why I haven't unleashed hell, fire and brimstone on the world is beyond me. The best part about all of this is that I had to get a loaner to drive around while my car was at the automobile salon. The loaner they gave me smells like foot cheese, so I decided to take the subway. Now, I'm a magnet for crazy people and the subway is certainly no exception. Today I had a guy explain every combination of fast food from every fast food chain to me and how I could utilize this knowledge to spend the least amount of money and get the most amount of deep fried death. He also kept spitting into a cup every few minutes that worked wonders on my gag reflexes. I hate the subway. Everyone's a lunatic and they all find me. Over the past year alone, I've had some real winners. Here are just a few of the highlights:

Crazy Eating Apple Boy: Looked normal. Young. Dressed funky. Nothing out of the ordinary. Out of nowhere, starts hitting his head against the glass behind him. Yes, alarming. But then subdued. Only to start miming the act of eating an apple. What the fuck?

Crazy Winking Man: A same day occurrence. While Crazy Eating Apple Boy was doing his masochistic thing, Crazy Winking Man sat across from his staring at me and winking sporadically.

Crazy What Does Your Shirt Say Lady: I think this one is self-explanatory. I was accosted for about 10 minutes. The best part was, I was wearing a solid color with no writing on it.

Crazy Mike Tyson Look-Alike: Fresh addition to the list as this happened recently. He went on about studying to be a vet and how he recently helped deliver 12 baby snakes by C-section. Then he asked me if I thought he looked like Mike Tyson (the missing tooth added to the resemblance, but the fact that he was Indian was working against him). He then asked if we could hang out sometime. Naturally I agreed. I've already ordered the wedding invitations. I think I'll make a lovely bride.

Crazy German Lady: She had a piece of glass in her hand from a broken mirror which she was speaking through. Amazingly talented if not completely loco. A really annoying voice, a thick accent and stories about her daughter in the old country made the ride last forever. If I had to hear "Ach du lieber" mournfully expressed one more time, I swear I was going to kick the bejesus out of her. (Who knows, perhaps through some wild stroke of luck she would have turned out to be an ex-Nazi spy or something and suddenly I would have been a big super hero! Of course, then I would likely have had to deal with a few dozen super villains, all of whom having come into existence for no other reason than to annoy me).

Crazy Catching Invisible Flies With His Fingers Man: It could have been worse. Not wait...he had Turrets Syndrome. It couldn't have been worse.

Crazy When We Get Home Lady: The winner! A large black woman with nothing but a duffle bag sits diagonal from me. The train goes through a tunnel and when we come back into the light, I find she's locked eyes with me. Suddenly, she grips her bag, rises, staring at me and screaming, "When we get home, I'm gonna fucking kill you! I'm gonna fucking kill you when we get home!" Over and over and over again, while the other passengers thanked their gods that she didn't catch their eyes.

And the list goes on...

Please stop hitting my car.

Trolls

Do you think trolls belong to unions? I'm just curious about the whole living under a small bridge thing and how that works. Do you think that after a certain quota is filled (i.e. you've consumed X amount of people, you move up to, say, a bog or a larger bridge even?) How many people would you have to consume to be considered for living quarters at a dumpster behind a Chinese grocery? Or does being part of a union dictate that you can't live anywhere else, hence the reason there are never goblins or gnomes living under bridges?

Psychological Rape

If someone masturbates to your image and then tells you, "Yeah, I beat off to you yesterday," does that count as psychological rape? Is that grounds for a solid court case?

Religion + Moron = 99.9% Of The Earth

At lease Scientologists acknowledge the fact that they're complete idiots. For some reason, the Catholics still hide behind this facade of celestial intellect.

Coincidentally, this is the same pickup line most priests use on altar boys before choir practice.

Help!

Comic Books

Fuck all of you who say comic books are for kids. Why should I be made to feel ashamed that I read comics? Many prolific writers read and write comic books. New York Times best seller authors Neil Gaiman and Brad Meltzer write comics. As does Pulitzer Prize winners Michael Chabon and Art Spiegelman, multiple award winner Harvey Pekar, countercultural icon Robert Crumb, Pie and Requiem For A Dream filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, one of the most influential filmmaker's and author's Clive Barker, Film and Television producer Mark Verheiden, Buffy The Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, The Matrix fuckfaces The Wachowski Brothers, rock legend Rob Zombie as well as a plethora of others. Yet imbeciles still maintain that comics are just for kids. Well if they help promote literacy, then good for comics. But comics stopped being aimed at kids years ago. Sure there are still a handful of children's comics being produced, but most mainstream titles are geared towards adult markets.

And anyone who bashes comics needs to know that ideograms and hieroglyphic picture stories were our earliest written language, how we recorded our exploits and our fabulous imaginings. Words being the currency of our verbal "left" brain and images that of our pre-verbal "right" brain, perhaps comic strip reading prompts both halves to work in unison?

Also, comic books are collectors items. A lot of them are representations of times past. Many comics challenged freedom of speech, created auteurism, protested wrongful ideologies of war and racism, battled drugs and poverty issues and created meaningful icons in a world full of despair and hopelessness during the second world war. And would it blow people's minds to know that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, 2 Jews that felt alienated and were trying to gain acceptance in a world filled with hatred, created Superman (an alien trying to gain acceptance in a world filled with evil)? No. Most people just think it's some dude in tights and a cape. Comics are forms of art and important pieces of literature. They are studied in many universities worldwide and still people treat them like they are just pure pulp junk for geeks.

And don't go thinking that comic conventions are about fat, pimply-faced virgins dressing up as Sailor Moon or Spider-Man or Spock. Those are sci-fi conventions and anime cons. Don't confuse that shit with comic shows. Pure comic shows are just some dealers selling books and some industry people doing sketches and signing things. Unfortunately, most big cons are a conglomeration of sci-fi, horror, fantasy and anime, so you're always gonna get the freaks in the costumes. But who cares? Live and let live. I don't remember when having fun was a time to be scrutizined. Oh yeah, I know the whole "Aren't you a little old for that?" scorn. Well for those of you who say shit like that, go fuck yourself hard in the ass. Phrases like those remind me of cliques or insecure people who think they're more important and better than they really are. These are the same people who dress up like cats, angels or grim reapers on Halloween (i.e. ZERO fucking imagination).

FUCK YOU! Now I'm angry.

Skull-crunching conundrum

If you sold your soul for immortality, could the devil ever collect?

Neighbours Suck

I am SO tired. I was up all night listening to this damn neighbour of mine in his garage. I swear this guy spends the hours of 2am - 6am repairing busted chainsaws and bent bicycle spokes that have tended to accumulate cluster around his garage. My only reason for not reporting him thus far is that this particular garage may just come in handy for manufacturing Dark Ages weaponry when the time comes to form a mad survivalist apocalypse cult, dress up in smoke-cured human skin and name all newborn babies after dead planets.

Listerine

I swallowed an alarming amount of mouthwash this morning whilst brushing my teeth. I'm not sure why there isn't some prohibition law against that stuff. I think I actually went blind for about 4 minutes. Not that I did this in purpose, mind you. I guess I wasn't really paying attention (because, you know...it's such a demanding task) and before I knew it GULP...I swallowed the entire cap of Listerine. It was like the Great Gazoo came down from whatever planet he was victimizing, snapped his fingers, wiggled his nose, ascribed his signature "Dumb Dumb" barb towards me, forcing my throat muscles to retract this foul tasting arctic mint substance into my body, when it should have otherwise ended up a salivary secretion in my sink drain. When I was done shooting back the mouthwash, like a pathetic drunk my eyes immediately dilated and emitted a strange red glow. As well, all the mysteries of the universe made perfect sense for a brief moment, I could speak 6 different languages (5 of which were made up) and the small elves that live in my body took a break from their usual biological functions (such as cranking my heart valves, pumping air into lungs and sending small electric currents to my neural synapses). The elves, now drunk with menthol glee, floated down towards my liver, stomach and spleen, utilizing them like bean-bag couches, kicked their feet up, hiccupped and burped in merry mirth and intoxicated, began singing various verses from Spirit Of The West's "Home For A Rest." (Yes, it hurt like hell when they started jumping).

The Donald (and I ain't talking about no loser named Trump)

Oddly enough Donald Duck comics and books were banned in Finland because he doesn't wear any pants. Yet for some reason, this is okay.

We are all fucked.

Day Of The Dead

Fine, North Americans get Devil's Night and All Hallow's Eve. But we're selfish. We want Day Of The Dead (Día de Muertos) too. This is a Mexican celebration of the memory of deceased ancestors with the emphasis on celebrating and honoring the lives of the deceased, rather than fearing evil or malevolent spirits.

Of course, if North Americans got hold of this holiday, it would probably look something like this:

Happy Halloween

This is how I'd look if I was a zombie!

Mmm...brains.

Someone take these dreams away

I had a weird dream last night. I dreamt I was a plastic surgeon for clowns. I spent a good deal of the day today trying to figure out what this meant.

In retrospect, I believe that clowns may in fact suffer from a disorder known as clownofaciomorphus, a condition which can be surgically corrected with a procedure known as a clownofacioplasty. The procedure basically involves sticking a thousand very large pins into their face until the tears and cerebrospinal fluid start rushing down their head and dissolving the facial abnormalities. It's very common, but also one of the most excruciating things in the world. In fact, it's so painful, that I've been considering dropping out of the film industry so I can devote all my time to doing the procedure, and having the joy of inflicting such pain on others.

Who would you kill?

Someone asked me a real interesting question. He asked me if I was only able to kill one person, be caught but get away with it because of some screw up in the justice system (i.e. didn't get read my rights or some nonsense like that), who would I kill.

This is a great question because really, who do you kill? Sure there's always the celebrity angle but why bother? 9/10 times celebrities kill themselves off with bad career moves or aging. And besides, killing a celebrity only makes you a celebrity. That's very hypocritical.

There's always that personal satisfaction involved in killing an enemy or a girl or guy who turned you down, etc. but after that, then what?

The key is to strike fear into as many people as possible. See I have it all figured out. Here’s what I’d do.

I would randomly kill someone I went to high school with. Not even someone I knew or was affiliated with. Just someone totally random. But I’d leave a note or carve a message or something that said: “I remember Grade 10!” Sure it's cryptic, but it doesn't sound angry and upon investigation it would be known that me and this person had no history together in Grade 10. This way, everyone I went to high school with would live in fear that I could just lash out and murder them for no good reason at any time even if I didn't know them all that well. It would almost be like I randomly opened up a year book and selected someone in my year to kill. No motive, nothing. I’d say, for at least a few good months, I’d have people constantly worried and paranoid. Fear is power.

The Letter G

An experiment in both tolerance and endurance to see how many times I can type the letter g, without merely holding my finger down on it, before I get bored or lose my mind.

ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg
ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg
ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg
ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg
ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg
ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg
ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg
ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

Yeah, I think I'm done.

You TOO could be the mother of God

PEOPLE! We're not having enough unprotected sex here. How the hell else are we going to bring about the Messiah?

I don't know about you, but does anyone else find pro-lifers extremely sexy?

And what's the deal with that creepy Winnie The Pooh over the old guy's shoulder?

Relationships

Boy Meets Girl At a Club:

Boy: “Hi, how are you doing tonight?"
Girl: “Fine…”
Boy: “This is a really great place. I come here all the time, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here before.”
Girl: “It’s my first time here.”
Boy: “Cool. Well, they make these really amazing margaritas. I get them here all the time.”
Girl: “Oh.”
Boy: “Why don’t I get us a couple?”
Girl: “Yeah, sure. That would be fine. I’ll wait for you over here.”
Boy: “Great. I’ll be right back.”

So here we have the typical scene with the typical dialogue and we all know how it’s going to end. Well...we should all know how it’s going to end (with him trying this line 12 more times on 12 different girls, getting exponentially more drunk). But wouldn’t it be more interesting if it went like this?:

Boy: “What’s shakin’ bacon! The name's Jack. How are you doing tonight?”
Girl: “I’m fine. This is a cool place.”
Boy: “Yeah. I’ve been here a few times.”
Girl: “Really?”
Boy: “Sure. Hey, have you ever tried to walk on your knuckles like an ape?”
Girl: “Why yes, as a matter of fact I have. I was just doing it last night, to see what it would be like.”
Boy: “That’s swell! Listen, I’m going to go and get a margarita. They’re amazing here. Would you like to try one?”
Girl: “I’d love to. Thanks for asking.”

Now here are 2 possibilities of what goes on in both their minds at this particular pause.

Possibility 1:
Boy: I really like this girl. She’s smart, attractive and she doesn’t seem to have a guy.

Girl: I really like this guy. He’s funny, charming and available.

Possibility 2 (more realistic):
Boy: “All I have to do now is act like I don’t care, even be a prick and she’s all mine.”

Girl: “Wow, this guy is so witty and charming. I really like him. I bet I can really fuck with his head.”

Now, in the real world, men get rejected. In fact, men get rejected a lot. A typical reaction to a rejection goes like this:

Boy: “So, can I have your number?”
Girl: “I don’t give out my phone number to guys I don’t know very well.”
Boy: “Oh, well if you give me your phone number, you’ll get to know me better.”
Girl: “Oh, well in that case, no.”
Boy: “I promise not to write it on any bathroom walls!”
Girl: “You aren’t getting my phone number.”
Boy: “PLEEEEEAAAASE?”
Girl whips out pepper spray and blinds Boy.

Ah, the lovely beast known as rejection. It’s that thing that girls do so well. Nice guys finish last and all that. Have you heard the story about the nice guy? How we met the girl who wasn't so nice? Better yet, have you heard about the guy who wanted to be more than friends with this girl he liked? It went something like this:

Boy: “Hey, would you like a ride home?”
Girl: “Yeah, sure. That would be great, if it’s not out of your way.”
Guy: “Oh, no problem.”

In his mind, he’s thinking:
Boy: Great, this is my chance.

In her mind, she’s thinking:
Girl: What a great friend he is.

In the car…
Girl: “This car reminds me of my ex-boyfriend’s car. No, I’m sorry, not my ex, it reminds me of this guy named Ron I dated. Wow, I can’t believe I did that. That was a mistake. We only dated for a few weeks. I knew I shouldn’t have slept with him. I usually only sleep with guys with a lot of muscles. I like guys that work out a lot. Like this guy I slept with once, his name was Tony. He was ripped. I think he was Italian. I love Italian men. So sexy. He used to say things to me in Italian to get to do do things for him!
Boy (starting to sweat now): “Yeah! Boy, guys will do anything to get a girl in bed, huh?”
Girl: “Oh that reminds me of this other guy I dated. Well, I don’t even remember his name. That lasted only a few days.”
Boy (starting to convulse now): “Sounds great.”
Girl: “Well, he doesn’t really count. Now Tom, well, I was with him for a weekend, but that was quite a weekend, let me tell you. Wow, he really knew what to do. I’m talking town bicycle here.”
Guy (now wearing a dress and make-up like he’s one of the girls): “Really, tell me more…”

It is clear that the boy is not getting anywhere. Worse, he’s stuck in friendship hell. He could tell this girl that he’s interested in her, but that would mess up their “friendship,” and what guy doesn’t want a nice girl as a friend? Golly, it’s so easy to say, but it’s another thing to do something about it. Even if this guy wants to take the relationship further, would he do such a thing at this point, now that he knows how many guys she’s been with? This goes beyond playing hard to get. It's virtually untouchable.

The fine art of making CDs:

Let’s assume the boy has got the girl to agree to a first date. With today’s piracy of music, file sharing over MSN (to the extent where you can even see the crap the other person listens to), and the conversation that always comes up about what kind of music the other person listens to, the guy will study, interrogate and pressure the girl into revealing some of her favorite songs/artists, so that he may go home and burn thousands of CDs, in the hopes to finally complete that ‘perfect & ideal’ date CD that will not only impress the girl, but have her melt away in the car, impressed that they’re so in tune with each other as the dream date begins. Screw the idea that he’s burnt songs he would NEVER listen to on any other day, and the fact that’s he’s dropped at least 40 dollars on wasted CDs to get the ultimate date CD right. But it’s worth it, wasn't it?

In the car:

The boy puts in the CD. The first song comes up.
Girl: Oh I was just listening to this. I’m so sick of this song.
Boy: No problem, plenty of other songs. The boy switches to track 2.
Girl: What else do you have on here? The girl begins flipping through every song, unimpressed with all. Finally, she ejects the CD and changes the boy’s radio station to a channel he didn’t even knew existed with music that is usually accompanied by pole dancing.
Girl: Now this is music!
Boy: Yeah, it’s great.
Girl: You don’t know this song.(Keep in mind that the song doesn’t actually have lyrics; it sounds like the theme song to a futuristic video game).
Boy: Not really.
Girl: Oh...well, you could put YOUR music back on if you want. (*Notice the emphasis on YOUR). The girl loses her vibrancy and the date goes to hell from that point.

Making Plans:

So, it’s Friday night. You’re sitting at home, and you’re thinking about all the people you know who you can hang out with. Chances are, you know a few people, but you don’t really like them. So, you’re limited to calling the only person you know who knows other people. Essentially, if you play your cards right, this person will come up with a good plan, and he/she will invite other people along. The plan is set. So, you call up this person and are immediately struck with a problem; what are you going to do? You can go to a bar, a club or see a movie. A movie. What is a movie? Seeing a movie on a weekend is something you do when you have a significant other in your life. It’s also something you do with your parents or siblings or friends during the week, or maybe, just maybe, it’s something you do when you’re utterly stoned and too wasted to go anywhere. It is only a possibility on the weekend if you’re planning on screwing the brains out of your significant other afterwards. A bar. Going to a bar means going to the same place you go to every week or so, with the same people, to see the same people. For guys, the girls all know you because you’ve already hit on all of them and the only thing to do is drink and hope new people arrive. Essentially you are counting on getting unbelievably piss-faced in the hopes of having a good time. Usually if you know everybody there, you won’t return. The bottom line is that you’re going to get drunk in the hopes of meeting a girl who you have no chance of having sex with, unless you look like Tom Cruise and live in an unbelievably sweet pad.Okay, so if you won’t watch a movie and you won’t go to a bar there is only one other thing left for you to do. You’ll go to a club. The first thing you have to do is withdraw your life savings. After all, you’re going to a place that you have to pay to get into. Of course, if you’re a female, chances are that you won’t have to pay. After all, guys are pathetic and will follow you wherever you go. So, you’re down $15 just with cover charges. Oh, the weather is bad. Well that’ll be a few more dollars. Wait, you want to get drunk and none of your friends are driving. Say hello to subway and taxi charges. So, we’re already up to $40, maybe more. Now you aren’t just going to walk into a club in your street clothes. No you’re going to dress up. So you have to shave, shower, remove unsightly body hair and you have to wear your best clothing. Heaven forbid if you need to buy some new clothing. Okay so you’re in the hole financially, but you feel confident because you look and smell good. You stand in line to enter the club, seemingly for no reason. After 30 minutes of standing out in the cold, wondering if all of your body parts are still functioning, slipping various discs in your back shaking like a human bobblehead, you are allowed to enter and realize the only reason you had to wait to begin with was so that the club looked busier than it actually is. You enter the club and are bombarded by a symphony of loud pumping music and people screaming just to be heard. Also the club is now suddenly crowded, which means that getting your first drink will be a nightmare. After 10 minutes of fighting the crowds, you plunk down $7 for a watered down drink of water and some cheap form of alcohol. You can’t drink the drink yet, so you must walk around with it to show people that you aim to have a good time. So you make your way into the mass of people who all seem to know each other and you get yourself in a position with your friends where you can stand and look at the Dance floor. Wait, your drink was really small. Within a few minutes it’s finished. Now you’re standing and not doing anything. What do you do? You pull out a pack of cigarettes, which you just bought for $10 and you use your $1 lighter to light it. Now you’re smoking because quite frankly, everyone around you is doing it, so you really have no choice (even though you don’t smoke and it makes you nauseas). And the night passes. Eventually you make eye contact with the person who will be your object of affection for the evening.

Male: (Looks at girl.)
Female: (Looks at male.)
Male: Hmmm…I wonder if I should go over and say something?
Female: That’s the fifth fucking slob of the night who’s looked at me. He better be dripping rich.

And so, with his chin up and his chest out, the male strides over. If he’s lucky, he didn’t trip on his way to the female.

Male: HEY!
Female: WHAT?
Male: I’M BOB!
Female: JOB?
Male: BOB!
Female: JOB?
Male: (nods his head) YEAH. WHAT’S YOUR NAME?
Female: HUH?
Male: (points and shrugs in a series of primitive bodily movements and facial tics that borderlines on retarded).
Female: KIM.
Male: (smiles) WANNA GET A DRINK OR SOMETHING?
Female: (looking at Male like he just called her mother a whore but actually knowing full well what he said...just stalling for time) HUH?
Male: (makes the sign of drinking something then rubs his belly as though it were delicious then points to Female).
Female: (smiles, knowing she will get a free drink and nods).
Male: GREAT!

How interesting. What happens after the drinks? The male and female dance, with him trying to grind against her and her pretending she doesn’t like the attention. On the odd occasion he says something, which she can’t hear and they continue to dance until the night comes to an end. Here is where the guy asks for her number. Really it’s a silly notion. They don’t actually know each other’s names and don’t even know if they’re compatible, since the only dialogue they’ve exchanged all night has been to scream in each other’s ears. The evening's been more like a masochistic endurance test than the anachronous consorting of yore. Naturally, this is where it ends. We know that the quest for the phone number is one that is doomed for failure. Even if he calls, they have almost no chance at anything because what are they going to talk about – their enlightening conversation the other night? Such is the art of the club.

But guys are fucked up too because they have a completely distorted sense of what a club should be. Imagine this is the male mind:

The guy looks at the girl and she looks back and smiles. He strides over and suddenly the music drops and the crowd of people part for them. A single spot light illuminates them.

Male: Hey, how’s it going?
Female: Great! Male: I’m Bob, what’s your name?
Female: I’m Kim. Would you like to get a drink? I'm buying.
Male: That would be great.
Female: Great. Then we can dance and you can come back to my place. I live on my own in a huge apartment and I love to swallow and have every orifice on my body plugged. I’m open to everything, but I haven’t been with a guy in years.
Male: Wow. Okay then, sounds like a good plan.

Sure, if you’re a guy, this sounds better than the reality. But if a guy believes this, he is equally stupid. 9.9/10 times, a girl who would even say half this stuff right from the get-go is a transvestite. There is no middle ground. The bottom line is this: how much did the evening cost you? Assuming that you had a few drinks and bought a few drinks, you’re down a lot of money. Well, at least you’re better off than you were before you left your house, right? Well the only benefit is that you can tell your friends who didn’t come with you that you had a great time. Obviously you’ll be lying, unless you got really drunk, in which case you don’t remember what you did, but you’ll still say it was the best night of your life. Guys who wanna get laid so badly should take their club money, find a prostitute and a cheap motel and a good AIDS doctor.

What a pathetic existence.

Stonehenge: Mystery No More

How primitive man played Jenga:

"Let's contradict each other"

So says Estragon to Vladimir.

Whatever.

I could care less if Godot ever shows up.

Sushi

I'm gonna throw up. I just finished 24 pieces of sushi in under 10 minutes. I essentially just swallowed them whole. So now the fish have started to congregate in my intestinal organs and are doing their best rendition of "Under The Sea" while my stomach acids painfully dissolve them.