HubCityShitMix

Your Reality is Showing

2011-11-29T11:19:00.000-08:00

 Here's some stuff written around some quotes I found on the internet that I thought were pretty great.  I have no idea if they are accurately quoted or attributed, and I don't much care.  Also, it has been pointed out that if I handed this in to a grade school teacher, they would chastise me for having too many quotes and not enough substance.  I hated school.

“The television, that insidious beast, that Medusa which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little.” - Ray Bradbury, 'The Golden Apples of the Sun'

When television was invented, it was a big deal. Everybody had grand visions of its seemingly infinite possibilities. What an enormous step in the annals of humanity!

“Philo began laying out his vision for what television could become. Above all else... television would become the world's greatest teaching tool. Illiteracy would be wiped out. The immediacy of television was the key. As news happened viewers would watch it unfold live; no longer would we have to rely on people interpreting and distorting the news for us. We would be watching sporting events and symphony orchestras. Instead of going to the movies, the movies would come to us. Television would also bring about world peace. If we were able to see people in other countries and learn about our differences, why would there be any misunderstandings? War would be a thing of the past.” - Evan I. Schwartz, The Last Lone Inventor

Philo was none other than Philo T. Farnsworth, ostensibly the inventor of television. His high hopes were subsequently dashed, however, as demonstrated by his policy on television in his home as summated by his son, Kent: "There’s nothing on it worthwhile, and we’re not going to watch it in this household, and I don’t want it in your intellectual diet."

“When television came roaring in after the war (World War II) they did a little school survey asking children which they preferred and why - television or radio. And there was this 7-year-old boy who said he preferred radio 'because the pictures were better.'” - Alistair Cooke, British/American journalist, television personality and broadcaster, 1908 - 2004

More and more, television has separated itself from the grand visions of its birth, and identified itself with a role almost opposite the imagination. Run of the mill, lowest common denominator pablum served room temperature with plenty of cues for when to laugh, cry, rage, or fall asleep.

“If the television craze continues with the present level of programs, we are destined to have a nation of morons.” - Daniel Marsh, President Boston University, 1950

And how. 'Reality' television has become one of the steamiest coils of entertainment ever to ooze out of the pixel sphincter.

image: nate stone

People watch. People watch as some rich douchebag sifts through a pile of desperate women vying for his money. Er, affection. And vice versa. People watch as legions of assholes lie, cheat, and vote their way to the top of some lamely contrived shit heap. People watch as a crackhead former star lives through a trainwreck of a relationship with an alcoholic former star. People watch as has-been celebrities struggle to live together and reclaim some of their former glory. As frat boys/girls degrade themselves (and their viewers) with their very existences. As ugly people get beautiful. As beautiful people get ugly. As fat people get skinny. As mental illness takes its toll. As drug addiction eats them alive.

What fuels this sickness? What draws people into the depravity and rivets them there? Why does suffering have such a magnetic appeal? Why would millions of people prefer watching other people fall apart to building them up? “Entertainment”? Boredom? Jealousy? Greed? Hmm . . . this is starting to sound familiar . . .

It would appear some or all of the seven deadly sins must all be present in order to maximize audience for a 'reality' television show. Indeed, it seems there is audience for little else, these days. And so, I propose a new series wherein they must all reside together in a house, vying for the title of “The Deadliest Sin”. Lust and Gluttony would obviously develop a riveting if unhealthy and somewhat depraved relationship, a real ratings booster. Greed and Envy would bond over their voyeurism of Lust and Gluttony. Sloth and Pride would inevitably clash, creating friction in the house and keeping viewers entertained with their inane conflict. Anger would boil over and win the whole thing, much to the dismay of hippy viewers everywhere who say they hate TV but secretly watched the whole thing online. Probably rooting for Lust and Gluttony to win and have their own spin-off called “Real Housewives of the Apocalypse”.

“In Beverley Hills, they don't throw their garbage away - they make it into television shows.” - Woody Allen

No doubt about it. The success of programs such as “The Surreal Life”, “Strange Love”, “Flavor of Love”, “Gene Simmons Family Jewels” and ominous numbers of other similarly schlocky crapfests give incontrovertible proof that it doesn't matter who you are, but who you were might help you draw millions of people in to watch you plumb the depths of the possibilities of entertainment.

“I wish there was a knob on the TV so you could turn up the intelligence. They got one marked "brightness" but it don't work, does it?” - Leo Anthony Gallagher

See? Gallagher can be funny.

“I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts.” - Orson Welles

In the end, it's all the same as it ever was. Mankind as a whole has always gravitated toward the most base, vicious and degenerate forms of entertainment. Gladiators, bullfights, WWF Wrestling, reality shows. And honestly, it's perfectly all right with me. Partially because I'm as base, vicious, and degenerate as the next guy sometimes. But mostly because it makes morons easier to avoid when they're wearing a t-shirt advertising their favorite shitshow.

“Theatre is life. Cinema is art. Television is furniture.” - Author Unknown

The internet, mankind's glorious information superhighway, has brought to life much more of Philo Farnsworth's original vision, but has also exponentially magnified its shortcomings. On the one hand, it has helped facilitate revolutions overthrowing malevolent dictators and really has brought the world closer together. On the other hand – well, you probably don't want to know what the other hand is doing, Mr. Farnsworth.

"Television? The word is half Latin and half Greek. No good can come of it." - Charles Prestwich Scott, British journalist, publisher and politician, 1846 - 1932

&%$#@!

2011-11-20T09:19:00.000-08:00

I swear like a motherfucker. At least, I presume a motherfucker would swear quite a bit. What's he got to lose? Certainly not his dignity or social standing (Cue angry letters pointing out sensitive origin of the term). All right, more like a trucker. Or sailor (Cue indignant responses from legions of wholesome truckers and sailors). Anyway, I swear a fuck of a lot, and I don't understand why people give a shit. Well, not being a complete idiot, I understand the arguments. I just don't buy them. Except, perhaps, the one that points out that the more you swear, the less power those words will hold. Which brings me to my point: These words should not hold the power to shock anyone.

What is a swear word? What constitutes a word that should never be uttered in proper society, in front of children, or, God forbid, in church? Let's have a look:

George Carlin, rest his soul, pointed out several of the main offenders in a classic bit of comedy, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." His list included: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. Several years previously, Lenny Bruce said he had been arrested for uttering these same words on stage, as well as the culprits ass and balls (I relish any confusion that last sentence may create for the reader). So let's see here – shit, piss, fuck, ass, balls, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits. We left out dick, unless you count cocksucker. Which is not quite the same, really, so let's put our cock in there, shall we? Shit, piss, fuck, ass, balls, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits and cock. Dick? Cock. Let's go with cock, Dick. These are pretty much all the real swears there are, not including synonyms. We'll obviously exclude all the weak-ass near-swears like bastard and bitch and their ilk. And I guess there's always taking the lord's name in vain, but Jesus, that one is just fucking stupid. I just have to assume that after being around forever, God would be a bit more mature than to worry about a little name calling.

So, let's examine these terrible words. Shit and piss can be rolled into one. If you're into that sort of thing. Careful who you let in on that, though. It's generally considered more offensive than swearing, even. Same with balls, ass, cunt and cock. And since this is where all the shit and piss comes from, I guess they're all one shitty, pissy, stinky family. That leaves us with fuck, tits, cocksucker and motherfucker. “But wait”, you might say. “Why is (are?) tits still hanging around? Don't they belong with ass, balls, cock and cunt?” Well, yes and no, I'd say. In as much as they are body parts, yes. But does anyone really use tits as a swear these days? Well, I guess it's just about as bad as balls . . .all right, I guess we can cram our tits into the pile of genitals and what have you over there. Hmm . . . that's hot.

So, here we are, with our pile of dirty parts and the leftovers: cocksucker, motherfucker, and fuck. I'd have to say that the sucker and the fucker are really just derivative and repetitious, and since cock has been put in its place, here we are at fuck.

Fuck. The F-Bomb. Generally considered to be the mother of all swear words. To me, it epitomizes swear words. What does it mean? What does it stand for? What does it do? Well, I think we all know what it means, and how to do it, for the most part. One could argue that it's the whole mission of life, and not just for drunken frat boys. Without fucking, we wouldn't be here arguing about it. Perpetuation of the species, motherfucker. That's what it's all about. It's the goal. And on that note, let's go back and have a look at all that filth we just stacked up.

Shit, piss, ass, cock, cunt, balls, tits, and fuck. The essentials. Not just essential swear words, I would say to you, but the essentials of life itself. The building blocks of life, without which there would be no life.

Check it:

Shit and piss. If you don't shit and piss, you are gonna die. It's that simple.

Ass, cock and cunt. If you don't shit and piss, you are gonna die. And these are the tools of the trade. Also, cocks and cunts are the main ingredients in fucking, and if nobody's fucking, you ain't gonna live to die of not pissing. No shit.

Balls and tits. The dangly bits. You gotta have balls to make the fucking work properly, and once you have, if there's no tits, it ain't gonna last. You dig? Balls make babies, tits feed them. The circle of fucking life.

At the top of the pyramid, fuck itself. Fucking makes the world go round. Without fuck, you ain't got shit.

So, if you have a problem with swearing, tough shit. You're fucked. That's life.

Everything is Broken

2011-07-13T18:14:00.000-07:00

My kid decided to break his arm on the first day of summer vacation. That sucked. I met him and his mother at emergency and after a short wait he was x-rayed and put into a cast by the emergency room doctor, a smooth operator who appeared to be a cross between Matthew McConaughey and Owen Wilson. He assured us that although it was clear from the x-ray that the bones were not quite aligned, we'd be surprised how quickly he healed and that before long it would be impossible to tell that it had ever been broken at all.

Before long, we were back at the hospital preparing for our son to undergo a procedure to realign the bones in his arm. We dressed him in his funny dress with the open bottom, covered him in weird creams and stickers, discussed everything that was about to happen and reassured him that it was all going to be fine. Once he was appropriately terrified at his immediate prospects, we were informed that since had had ingested apple juice that morning, he would need to wait a couple of hours before it would all go down.

Since we were at a hospital, a place synonymous with interminable waiting, there was absolutely nothing in the vicinity for anyone with time on their hands to do while waiting. We decided to pay a visit to the only entertainment in the neighbourhood, a local bookstore. When we arrived, we discovered that it was closed. For good. Maybe the drugstore for a magazine? Also gone. In fact, the entire plaza we chose to visit was devoid of any business whatsoever, except for a coffee shop. The kid did not want or need coffee. The whole thing was a bit of a setback, but not something we were unprepared for. You see, this is exactly the kind of thing that happens to us all the time. Just our luck, one might say. And right now you're saying to yourself, oh this guy is just so negative. Stop acting so hard done by, maybe. Oh yeah? Well, just check out this next bit.

After being stonewalled in our initial entertainment efforts, we decided to doggedly pursue some form of distraction for our injured offspring. We soldiered on, choosing to make the fifteen minute or so walk to some nearby something or other my wife knew where to find. Maybe a park, or a school playground. It doesn't really matter. Because about halfway there, she got a phone call from her father. It turned out that our three year old son, whom my wife's parents were watching while we were at the hospital, had fallen off the bed and possibly BROKEN HIS COLLAR BONE.

Really. That happened.

I crouched down, possibly to get as low as I could in order to avoid any more shit that might be headed my way. Maybe I was about to collapse. Maybe both, and more. Anyway, we admitted defeat, turned around, and headed back to the emergency waiting room at the hospital. In the end, one kid had his bones adjusted and one kid had a fractured collar bone. And it only took six hours.

Workin' in a World of Men – Buddy

2011-06-25T17:07:00.000-07:00

“We tell you what's cool, then play it 'til you like it!”

So I work with Buddy. Buddy listens to the same shit radio station every goddam day. Modern Rock. Fucking garbage, blasting me in the face at full volume, 7 hours a day, five days a week. Thank god he comes in an hour later than I do. Thirty five hours a week I'm forced to listen to the same irredeemable audial waste over and over and over and over and over and over. It's like I'm living the movie 'A Clockwork Orange', only my ears are pried open and someone's pouring shit in them.

Chimpanzee mongoloids call in to this station asking them to play songs that are going to play twenty times every single goddam day like clockwork anyway. The bands all sound the same, like a runny shit sprayed into a Marshall toilet bowl turned up to eleven. Like Nickelback. Even the band names sound the same. Theory of a Dead Man. System of a Down. Three Doors Down. Three Days Grace. The announcers are churlish simpletons with barely a basic grasp of current events, or even their own native tongue. The callers are backwards ball cap wearing armchair athletes wearing UFC shirts who love the Tragically Hip because they sing about hockey and one of their songs mentions a stripper. The advertisements paying for it all are the root of man's inhumanity to man, as well as one of its most potent examples.

So Buddy listens to this torturous affair every goddam day, and I suffer through it every goddam day. Why suffer, you ask? Because Buddy is one of those special individuals you meet who just will not accept that not getting his way is any kind of option. Resistance is futile. One of my co-workers epitomized it with this anecdote: arriving to the job site before Buddy, he turned on his own music. When Buddy arrived and assessed the situation, he BUILT A WALL BETWEEN THEM to block out the music so he could listen undisturbed to his usual shitsong caterwaul. You'd get mighty tired fighting that battle.

So Buddy and I are working together on the roof, and I suddenly notice that I haven't heard any of the usual crap coming out of the radio. In fact, I hear reggae and rap. WTF? I wonder. I ask him what's up, and he tells me he's hooked up his iPod to the stereo. I tell him that's great because even though the reggae and rap he's playing are not my favorite things to listen to, I hate the shit radio station he usually plays. Next day he comes in, blasts his diarrhea rock music station at max volume on the stereo, and listens to his iPod with headphones on all fucking day.

Man's Best Friend Part 2

2011-03-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

People think I hate dogs. This may have something to do with the fact that I'm always bitching about dogs (See what I did there? I'm so proud.). But nothing could be further from the truth.

Well, actually, I guess there are probably quite a few things further from the truth than that. (Does the word 'further' seem like the deformed hillbilly brother of the word 'farther' to you?) The truth is, I'm not as big a fan of dogs as I used to be. When I was a kid, I had a succession of really great dogs, and they were my best friends in the world, to be sure. I would go so far as to say that I am a better person for having known them, and that my quality of life as a child and a young man was greatly enriched by their companionship. And I suppose if I had a place to live that I felt had enough room for a dog to live comfortably, I would have me a dog. So really, I don't hate dogs. Not by a long shot.

I just hate your dog.

God, I hate your dog. Your dog barks all night. Then it barks all fucking day. It barks at you when you tell it to stop barking. It barks at me when I aim my pretend gun at it. It doesn't come when you call it. It doesn't even know that word has anything to do with it. It craps where I step. It just isn't contributing in any positive way to society as a whole, or even in part.. Your dog sucks.

Now, before you go whipping up an angry comment all about how your dog is smarter than every other fucking thing on the planet, and your dog would never do this and your dog always does that and your dog your dog your dog – stop. For just a second. I have two things to say to you.

A) If your dog is the most amazing, well-behaved, brilliant, and utterly worthwhile animal you could ever imagine anybody never having a problem with, I am obviously not talking to you. There is no possible way I could have a beef with your blue-ribbon winning freakhound.

B) It is a scientific fact that nobody who owns a dog would ever believe that their dog could be anything other than the most amazing, well-behaved, brilliant, and utterly worthwhile animal etc. So I probably am talking about your dog and I just don't want to deal with your retard dog owner bullshit.

Renowned local dog owner/expert/cross dressing chanteuse Steve Smard of Big Smoke, B.C., recently rocked the dog hating community with this controversial haiku:

you see a bad dog.

look at the end of the leash.

the end with no dog.

As difficult as it is to swallow, Smarm, I mean Smard, makes an excellent point. The dog isn't the problem.

You are.

I said as much in my first apparently anti-dog post. But sadly, when your dog is put down for being fucked, we can't lie you down beside it when it's buried.

Today, my kids and I went out for a walk with friends at a local park. We saw and did some cool fun stuff, then left. On the way out, we saw a person with a couple of dogs. We told our kids to stay close to us because sometimes dogs get excited and might knock you down blah blah blah, the usual things I tell them when we see strange dogs. What I really meant was “Watch out, these people and/or animals might be completely worthless and/or dangerous”. A sentiment many dog owners are immediately defensive about. Anyway, sure enough, when we get close something or other happens and one of the dogs starts barking and charges at my son who is out in front of us. The person with the dogs grabs hold of the other dog, while I do my best to make the first beast fuck off from a distance with my youngest boy in tow. The other parent accompanying me is livid, and tears viciously into the douchebag dog owner who responds brilliantly with the non-sequitor “It's okay, I have a son!” This indicates to me that the person is a complete moron in a complete panic.

What exactly about you having a son is okay? It's okay because after your dog mutilates my kid I can have a go at yours? It's okay because I can take your son after mine is wrecked by your dog? It's okay because you have someone to carry on your family name after I murder you for this debacle? In fact there is nothing okay about you having a son. You can't even handle having a goddamn pet, you gigantic ass.

While maintaining a tenuous hold on the other now snarling and growling animal, the dolt struggles to come up with something to explain their stupidity. “His collar broke”, it offers, indicating the menacing animal that actually had nothing to do with the attack. Oh, fantastic. Dog A broke its collar, so dog B decided to eat my kid? I haven't even smashed you in the head yet, and you already don't make any sense. While this is happening, the mental defective attempts to distract the first dog by throwing its ball down the path of the park. The attempt is desperate and feeble and results in the ball bouncing in the air above us and heading straight for my youngest son, age 3. I struggle with my homicidal impulses, but move to defend my offspring instead. When all is said and done, we make it past and head for our vehicle. My companion is still spewing vitriol at the nincompoop, and I find myself having to calm him down in order to get a tirade in edgewise. The clown is still desperately trying to defend the situation with some indecipherable and probably inane propaganda. I tell it to shut the fuck up and take responsibility. Instead it takes both its wonderful off leash dogs into the park. I walked away wishing that my children weren't with me so I could follow the shithead in and come out wearing its skin.

Anyway, I guess my point is that I don't hate dogs. I just hate a lot of them. And I know they aren't to blame, but in the end that doesn't matter. They still suck. I hate the vicious pit bull wearing the giant spiked collar, and I hate the muscle bound, shirtless, gold chain and blade style sunglass wearing drug dealing roid monkey who owns it. And it's the fault of his Wal Mart shopping, Springer watching, track pant wearing, Bud Lite guzzling, Oprah worshipping trailer park dwelling parents that I do. And so on. In the end, I suppose we could blame society, but I can't kick society in the balls when it hurts my kid.

It's What's Between The Buns That Counts!

2011-03-23T20:47:00.000-07:00

I just got back from the local Dairy Queen. I like to take my kids there. They have an old jukebox that plays 45's and they change them up sometimes. There's a big display case full of memorabilia and movie props from the 50's. One wall of the place has blowups of pages from a local 1950's highschool yearbook and pictures of the owner of the place meeting the Beach Boys. Almost every time I go there I get served by the same old German woman who always gets my order wrong, even after we go over it three times. All in all, a pretty cool place for a fast food joint.

Today my wife and I both worked and neither of us had the slightest desire to cook. So I gathered up the kids and tromped down to the DQ to pick up some cheeseburgers for the clan. A sign declared the Dairy Queen had a special deal on, two cheeseburgers for $3.99. “Well, that just sounds all right with me” I thought, and figured I'd load up on a bunch of two cheeseburger meals. Then I noticed at the bottom of the sign it said 'add a soft drink and fries for $4.48'. “Well, that just sounds fucked up to me” I thought, and figured I'd do a little addition. Sure enough, shit was fucked up. If you ordered the 'special deal' you paid $8.47. If you did the math and ordered differently, you paid about 40 cents less per meal. Now, you could say “Gee, that ends up being a savings of about a buck twenty on the three meals you ordered. Who cares about a buck twenty?”. But if you did say that, I would tell you to fuck off and never return or I would eviscerate your entire family, because a) it's not a dollar you saved, it's a dollar some motherfucker tried to steal from you. And b) did you not watch Superman III? It's all about levels. They steal a dollar off every chump who doesn't care, all under the guise of implied savings, and make out like bandits because almost nobody will bother to check, and almost no one who does check will bother to care. This is why people like me climb clock towers with high powered rifles.

Did you ever see the movie 'Falling Down' starring Michael Douglas? That was a great movie. Especially the scene when he goes into the fast food restaurant and orders breakfast. After an irritating encounter with the manager during which he is told he is too late to order breakfast, the protagonist pulls a gun, lectures him on customer service, and decides to order lunch. When it arrives, he is angrily disappointed at the dissimilarity between his “sorry, miserable, squashed thing” and the delicious sandwich portrayed on the menu: “it's plump, it's juicy, it's three inches thick”. What fast food customer hasn't had this very thought? Now, granted, when you order fast food, you know you're going to receive a meal which should never have existed anywhere but the most unholy of realms in the first place. But they just out and out lie to you about what you're gonna get. It's bullshit. Many people feel they should be getting the wonderful hamburger pictured on the board above the poor shmuck in front of him, like Foster in 'Falling Down'. But I disagree. I just think they should have to post a picture of the shitburger they're actually going to serve you. And not lie to you about what a steal it is.

I remember when I was a teenager, the Dairy Queen in William's Lake made their employees, who were all teenage girls, wear t-shirts bearing the slogan 'It's what's between the buns that counts!' I shit you not. As distasteful and hilarious as this sounds, it's ringing true today. Because what's between my buns is the Dairy Queen's big old strap on Dilly bar, and she's giving me a real 'special deal.' My King Don for some soft serve . . .

Project Garth

2011-03-22T22:53:00.000-07:00

This post is basically just me stealing something from a friend of mine. I just felt the whole thing needed to be given new life, because when it was happening it was one of the strangest, most bewildering and hilarious things I have ever been privy to.

At the turn of the century, I was often to be found in the company of some of Victoria's finest folks at a little place now known as the Last Resort. My friend Garth Johnson lived in the house at the time, and was experiencing a most perplexing phenomenon: he was receiving letters of reply of a most curious nature from numerous celebrities, politicians and other public figures. Curious, because he had never sent them any correspondence to reply to. The confounding messages were often accompanied by autographed photographs of the principles, and contained references to many strange and varied comments and requests that Garth had purportedly purveyed. Some of the original letters arrived marked 'Return to Sender', thus giving him a glimpse of what he had allegedly written. We would often gather in the living room in front of the fireplace to unveil and puzzle over the latest bizarre communiques, searching for patterns and clues that might reveal the true identity of the perpetrator or perpetrators of this long running ruse. To no avail. For an entire year, the mystery unfolded without any indication of cessation. Until one day Garth received a letter stating that it was over and the person responsible would be at the annual Christmas party, and wearing red! Which was kind of a cruel hoax, because he was really wearing a black shirt with a little bit of red on it and was, as such, impossible to identify. Which I'm pretty sure he realized would be the case, but did it anyway in order to stretch out the incredible tension we felt as we combed the house in search of him. He eventually came clean and we all had a good laugh about everything. And then Garth beat him up.

In the end, Garth received 14 replies from sixty six letters sent, some of them consisting solely of autographed photographs, some accompanied by letters. The replies are wide ranging and hilarious, either by virtue of what the target says about Garth's letter, or by virtue of the fact that they obviously paid little attention to it at all. The stock response from G.I. Joe and the blithe sentiment of Nancy Kerrigan are two personal favorites. Please, enjoy:

http://aperson10.tripod.com/projectgarth.html

Also, visit the perpetrator's blogs:

http://victorfranko.tumblr.com/

and

http://yousaidminkey.tumblr.com/

On The Road

2011-03-10T22:11:00.000-08:00

On the road to Woss.

Lucky Lager, CCR's Green River, 300 metres above sea level, March, 12 inches of snow, three dudes, white truck, trailer full of random shit. Rock and roll is still alive here - the Kinks shout it out of the ipod loud and bratty, snotty fuckers blaze a trail down the graywhite highway heading north on Vancouver Island. Work trucks pass us at 140 km an hour, lucky loggers done for the day and heading for the good times down the road. Down the road the RCMP blaze by us at Sayward junction, heading for the donuts - they always get there, man.

Passing them later, stopped speeders and tickets. Rain. Stories about mushrooms and drunken friends. (That little guy carrying my torso IS MY LEGS!) Thoughts of home and the next worksite. Rain on snow. Drum beats and guitars. Lucky Lager. Laughter and silence. Sunset on the snowy valley at the rest stop. Pissing in the snow outside the bathrooms at the rest area on Hoomak lake. Robyn Hitchcock and the Soft Boys' Leave Me Alone – J__'s mix kickin' ass all the way. Next the Saints. Never heard 'em before, great rock n roll again. My boys would love it. Heading down the highway - straight stretches and mountains, trees and bluffs of stone, sun and cloud and high hopes for tomorrow. Another Lucky and the sun goes down without a fight. Honky tonk piano brings in the evening, the hum of the highway and Professor Longhair. Captain Beefheart tells us all about it as we suck back beer and wish we were there. But here is pretty damn fine with me and the boys drink in agreement. The Band comes on, of course, and we discuss what a dick Robbie Robertson is and how Tolan hates him maybe more than I do. The groove is as sweet as ever. No telling what happened there – maybe he was always like that but it all came out right anyway. It takes all kinds I s'pose. But when he did it right they did it great and what a mix they made for us, god bless 'em. Kids. Kids don't know shit. Mary Weiss with the Reigning Sound.

Caesers and Lucky Lager and shitburgers and hockey on the tv in the pub at Port McNeill, the married men urge the single guy to get with the barmaid but he's having none of it, he makes excuses but he's obviously gay. J__ leaves us almost enough money for his bill and it's off to the room where the computer swears it's connecting to the internet but never does. Wet work gear piled high, heater in the bathroom does it's best to dry us out in time to do it all over again in the morning.

Tiny Montgomery Clift

2011-03-06T10:13:00.000-08:00

This is a story about a dog named Tiny Montgomery Clift. Tiny Montgomery Clift was the luckiest dog in the world. He was the luckiest dog in the world because he got to spend every day with all of his very best friends. His very best friends were all very weird dogs who walked around on their hind legs most of the time, and had a lot of weird hobbies. Tiny Montgomery Clift loved them just the same. His weird dog friends spent most of their days walking in the forest, chanting bizarre incantations and examining the trees very intently. Tiny Montgomery Clift loved to walk, and the forest was full of the most wonderful sticks. Tiny Montgomery Clift loved sticks very much. His weird very best friends also seemed to love sticks, as they had some sticks they carried with them everywhere they went through the forest. Strangely, though, they never asked him to throw the sticks for them to chase, nor did they offer to throw the sticks for him to chase. This struck Tiny Montgomery Clift as very odd. If he could walk on two legs, he thought, he would only stop throwing sticks long enough to chase them.

His very best friend was the weird dog who usually gave him his food. They spent a lot of time together, and Tiny Montgomery Clift loved him very much. The food was very good. Sometimes, he would give Tiny Montgomery Clift a very special treat, but on the condition that Tiny Montgomery Clift do some very specific things before he could eat them. Being a dog, and not speaking very good English, it had taken Tiny Montgomery Clift a very long time to ascertain exactly what set of complex actions his very best friend needed him to perform in order to relinquish the delicious morsels. He had eventually unlocked the code and this seemed to please his very best friend very much, and that pleased Tiny Montgomery Clift very much. Tiny Montgomery Clift loved delicious snacks.

His other very best friend was the weird dog who liked to walk. Tiny Montgomery Clift also liked to walk, so the two of them got along like very best friends. Tiny Montgomery Clift loved him very much. They would walk very long distances in any kind of weather, and this pleased Tiny Montgomery Clift very much. He was also more inclined to give Tiny Montgomery Clift delicious snacks without asking for anything in return. Tiny Montgomery Clift loved to walk and eat delicious snacks..

His other very best friend was the weird dog who didn’t seem to like him very much. He was always telling Tiny Montgomery Clift to go away, and pushing him away, and looking at him as though he would like him to go away. Tiny Montgomery Clift loved him very much. Tiny Montgomery Clift brought him stick after stick, encouraging his very best friend to throw it for him to chase and bring back. His very best friend almost never did, but Tiny Montgomery Clift was certain that the time was coming when he would find the finest stick in the forest and his very best friend would be so pleased that he would throw the stick for him, again and again, until the end of time. So Tiny Montgomery Clift kept on doggedly bringing him stick after stick, day after day, certain that when he found the right stick, their glorious, rapturous infinitum would begin. Tiny Montgomery Clift loved sticks.

One night, Tiny Montgomery Clift’s very best friend (the one who fed him the delicious treats) drank some stinky water and began acting very strangely. He became very loud and it was hard for Tiny Montgomery Clift to tell if he was angry or happy. His very best friend seemed to be focusing his weird behavior on his other very best friend (the one who was waiting for the perfect stick). This friend looked as though he was being asked to throw a stick. Later, his very best snack friend sat up quickly in his bed. It seemed he urgently wanted to eat some delicious snacks he had previously eaten again, because he let them out of his stomach and put them on the floor beside his bed. But instead of eating them again, he made some noises and went to the bathroom. Tiny Montgomery Clift hated to see delicious snacks to go to waste, and since his very best friend now seemed to have decided that eating those snacks once was enough, Tiny Montgomery Clift helped him out by eating them for him. Tiny Montgomery Clift loved delicious snacks.

Kaisun (ky - SOON)

2011-03-05T11:03:00.001-08:00

A little background on this poem: Years ago, a friend of mine took me out commercial fishing with his father near Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands). We ended up taking shelter from a storm in a harbor named Kaisun, a place the native Haida believe to be haunted by spirits. While anchored, we finished off a bottle of rum and decided to write a poem, put it in the bottle, and cast it out to sea. We added the name of our boat and the name and address of the skipper, hoping someone would find it and let us know. Nothing so far . . .

To anyone reading this note:

we hope you will read what we wrote

and remember it well

for it sent us to hell

from the troller on which we did float.

And if you do read what we've written,

try to imagine us sittin'

in a boat with one wish:

to catch us some fish

but upon us Lady Luck has been shittin'.

A-hunting spring salmon we went

and upon heavy conkin' were bent

but quickly we found

there were none around;

we looked until we were spent.

We were sore to admit to defeat,

but were beating a sullen retreat

when up without warning

came seas that were storming

and we found ourselves in the hotseat.

For the only shelter around

was rumored to be on haunted ground.

Or, rather, haunted water,

for in Kaisun harbor

they say ancient spirits are found.

It seemed there was no other way;

in Kaisun we were forced to stay.

although now, looking back,

it seems a much wiser tack

would have been with the storm on that day.

For no sooner had we dropped anchor

than the spirits arose with a rancor

that gave us the sense

that our troller's presence

was about as welcome as salt in a canker.

Those ghosts howled out such a noise

that it curdled all the blood in us boys

and created whirlpools

that sucked us poor fools

down into the seas without choice.

It seemed that we spun for a week;

we whirled until we were weak.

it shrivelled our balls

and coated the walls

with our puke – oh god, what a reek!

When the wretched-go-round finally stopped

we staggered out to see where we'd dropped

and to our surprise

what greeted our eyes

was what looked like a beach in the tropics.

Aye, a beach in the tropics it was

but it was no paradise because

the surrounding atoll

left us no hope at all

of ever escaping our curse.

We searched the small island around

but the only two things that we found

were a dead sailor's shoes

and a shitload of booze -

a crate of rum, half buried in the ground.

There were a hundred bottles in that box

and, after a couple of shots,

we came up with a plan

to get us off of that sand

and back home, safe in our cots.

We'd drink all that rum, really quick,

and into each empty bottle we'd stick

a note that we'd write

explaining our plight

written in the rhyme scheme of limerick.

Well, we ended up breaking nearly all of those jugs -

three rowdy, drunken, fisherman thugs

in a terrible fix

but as stupid as hicks

on our devil-may-care liquid drugs.

And now, as we sit here, so lowly,

our last bottle we've drank, much more slowly

and we wrote you this note

in the desperate hope

that you'll save us from dying too early.

So if you are reading this tale,

we hope you will quickly set sail

and, sooner or later,

scour all the equator

and rescue us from our sandy jail.

But even if you never should find us

we hope that still you will mind us

when to you we say

avoid Kaisun bay

or you'll pull into hell right behind us!

The Future is Friendly. But It's Always a Day Away.

2011-02-23T01:33:00.000-08:00

My cell phone and I are having relationship problems. I guess they started when I signed a contract stipulating that for three years it could treat me as though we were roommates in prison and I was the bitch. Ergo, I now pay through the nose for the privilege of being boned in the ass. The worst part about how we hooked up is the fact that our relationship is based on a lie. A lie told to me by the filthy sow who sold me the contract -- a malignant dungbeetle of a woman who told me that if I signed up for three years, something I would never have done under any ordinary circumstances, my phone would be covered with a full replacement warranty. Extraordinary. Full replacement warranty, the rancid fartsniffer told me. She then went on to explain to me that full replacement warranty meant if anything happened to my phone, they would replace it with no questions asked.

“Anything”.

“No questions asked”.

These were the exact words the leprous hoseclamp used. Stunned beyond belief by the immensity of my good fortune, I took up the unwashed virago's pen and signed my name to the unholy arrangement.

Three years. That's a mighty long sentence for the crime of being a sap.

It wasn't long before I discovered the awful truth. My cell phone was an evil whore. It cost 80 dollars just to hold it. If I wanted it to do anything, the price increased sharply. If I took it out of town, it cost a fortune. It seemed like every time I touched it, it cost me more money, and created feelings of anxiety. It made me feel like Holden Caulfield with his prostitute – even if we didn't do anything, she was going to take my money anyway.

If I had gone the entire three years without ever using it, I still would have paid in the neighborhood of $3000.00 just for the potential to make a phone call.

The acme of the whole horrendous debacle is that ultimately it is my own fault. I believed what the salesperson told me, which history has shown us is the mark of a fool. "Buyer beware", they say, for some reason I've never fully understood. There was a time when it was quite the other way around. If you sold me something and it was bunk, I could hunt you down and make you pay. But now that we've become a nation of bedwetters and crybabies, you have to 'beware' of the lying piece of shit that's going to do and say anything to get you to pay them ten thousand times the actual value of whatever piece of garbage they're selling.

What the fuck went wrong with people that they will pay so much money for absolutely nothing? And while we're on the topic of what the fuck is wrong with people, where did the idea of 'needing' a cell phone come from, anyway? The world got along quite easily without the fucking things. If you ask me, it was a better place without them. Now you have absolutely no excuse not to be available to whomever wants to bend your ear with their unwelcome blathering or assail you with their 'texting'. And fuck me, there's another technological 'advance' I could do without. Really? You're going to type out a message and send it for me to read on a phone? Good thinking. Maybe you should push your car to work while you're at it, dumbass.

Where was I? Let's see . . . the vile bimbo who perjured her way into my wallet, money for nothing, nothing for money, a society full of pantywaists willing to do anything they're told . . . oh yeah. When something did happen to my phone, I took it in to be replaced and was met with incredulity and pity. “I'm sorry, we don't have any such warranty. I don't know where you would have gotten that idea.” I replied that I got it from the tainted slut who sold me a contract with a line of bullshit. Buddy at the desk generously offered me his theory on what had happened:

He figured since there was such a high rate of employee turnover in the shithole corporation he worked for that the person who sold me the contract probably blatantly lied to me in order to make the sale knowing full well that I would be boned, as by the time I found out what a cunt she had been she would have long since moved on to her new career blowing sailors down at the dock or working the donkey show in a back alley bar down in Tijuana.

I had to agree.

I was offered a limp apology and not much else. Pathetically, after several years of interacting with this house of fuckheads, I was willing to accept it. I just didn't have the energy to deal with any more of their crap. And that basically appears to be their mission statement: To just fuck with people so much, so often, and so unbelievably hard that eventually they just cave in and do whatever it is you ask of them due to sheer exhaustion and disbelief. Bravo, (your cell phone provider here), bravo. Check and mate, you cocksuckers.

Sta Uot uv mi HUOS

2011-02-09T22:23:00.000-08:00

My three year old (C__) brought me this today. He informed me that it was drawn by his brother (J__), who is six.

The text, obviously, reads: “C__ – PlEES. Sta. Uot. uv mi HUOS”. To the untrained eye, this may appear a bit cryptic.

The message it is actually intended to convey is this: “C__ – PLEASE. Stay. Out. of my HOUSE.” The house in question being the new condo, constructed entirely out of recycled couch cushions, J__ had just completed in the upscale Living Room district. This note was apparently the security system he had installed to keep out the great unwashed masses. Namely C__. One can assume he and his kind are represented by the blatantly discouraged stick figures in the illustration. The artist even seems to be encouraging violence against these individuals, as one of the figures appears to be exploding and has had its eyes replaced by what appear to be x's. “Man's inhumanity to man/Makes countless thousands mourn! “

On the other side of the note was this:

I at first believed this to be an anthropomorphic graphic representation of the house, obviously troubled by the prospect of being entered by C__. J__ has since enlightened me as to its true message: It is actually a picture of C__, disappointed with his segregation from J__'s gated community. C__ is once again forcefully negated with bold strokes. He was last seen inciting revolution somewhere in the Bedroom ghettos, on the lower south side of the Kitchen Table.

Twit

2011-02-07T09:32:00.000-08:00

Well,  I did it.  I started a twitter account.  It felt like I was pissing  into the ocean and hoping someone on the other side of the world  noticed, but I figure if one person reads my stuff because of it, it  will be worth it.  Well, maybe not one person.  Let's face it, that  doesn't exactly amount to a wave of renown.  But maybe that one person  will be the pope, and he'll retweet it to all his friends, and I will  become the next big thing in catholic entertainment.  The pope will  follow my blog; we'll get to know each other through banter in the  comments section, and the next thing you know I'll be summering at the  Vatican, knockin' 'em dead with my pope jokes:   

“The day pope Benedict was sworn in has been declared an international hollandaise!”   

What  did the pope say when the furor died down over the catholic priest  child sexual abuse scandal?  “I feel like a kid again!”   

Thank  you, thank you, I'm here all week . . . I'll call him Ben, he'll call  me an asshole, and we'll fall all over each other, giggling like school  girls.  Or altar boys.

Anyway,  now I'm trying to figure out how to use twitter to get people to read  my blog, without coming off as an asshole.  Which is tricky, since my  style is basically me coming off as an asshole.  And, since I can't  bring myself to sit around reading random things called 'tweets' for  hours on end, I don't really know what the fuck to do with a twitter  account.  I already tweeted (really?) what amounts to a couple of ads  for my blog, and replied to something some famous (well, Canadian)  celebrity said while I was sitting there.  It all made me feel like a  wanker.  But people use the thing, so I'll just have to figure it out, I  suppose.  Or forget about it and rely on the fact that my writing will  attract an audience on its own merit.  Hmm.

Update:  I haven't tweeted a goddam thing since I wrote this.  What's the point?

“. . . I Just Feel Better When They're Not Around.”

2011-01-28T15:38:00.000-08:00

One night I was on my way to a rock show downtown when I saw a car with its hood up at an intersection.  Having been raised properly in a small town, I circled the block and stopped to lend a hand.  I soon learned one of the myriad reasons why many city dwellers wouldn't have bothered.

I helped out the nice lady with the radiator problem and sent her on her way. Feeling pretty good about myself, I bid adieu to another fellow who had also stopped to help.  I got into my car and . . . it wouldn't start.  Dead battery.  No big deal, I thought.  It's a standard, I'll just get a push from buddy and start it up on the fly.  Which woulda worked just fine.  Except . . .

As we started to push the car, we heard a siren whoop and lights began flashing behind us.

Here we go again . . .

Constable Constipated immediately took charge of the situation.  “WhoaWhoaWhoaWhatAreYouDoingHere?!” he panicked.  “You can't just push a car through an intersection!  It's too dangerous.”  I looked at him like he was an idiot.  Which he clearly was, because he showed no indication of recognizing that I was looking at him like he was an idiot.  I explained to him that if the light was green that everything should go okay.  He had difficulty with this concept, and decided that I was either drunk, on drugs, or had mental problems.  Surprisingly, I was not under the influence of anything, and more qualified professionals than this guy had failed to confirm the latter.  I wondered what they would have had to say about him.   

I had apparently decided to once again abandon my policy of polite interaction with powerful douchebags, as after only a short conversation I found him spraying spittle frosted nonsense at me and pointing his finger in my face.  And that's when things took a sharper downturn.  It was a little like a scene in a film, where things kind of slow down, and you can't really hear what buddy is saying anymore, and you're looking bemusedly at the finger jabbing at your eye in slow motion and a little thought enters your head and you just act on it . . .  I looked at the finger.  I looked at him.  I looked down at my own finger, which was at the ready, like I had just pulled out a switchblade . . . my hand rose up, slowly, as though guided by otherworldly forces, and with comic exaggeration, the finger pointed into his face.

Officer DoAsISayNotAsIDo lost his mind.

He grabbed me with both hands on my jacket front, lifted me off the ground, and slammed me up against a tree.  “That's it!”  he exploded.  “We're going downtown!”  I couldn't resist:  “Um . . . we ARE downtown.  Douglas and Yates is about as downtown as you can get . . .”  My material was not going over with this guy.  He dumped me unceremoniously into the back seat of his squad car and left me there to Think Things Over.

He returned a short time later, presumably  to give me an opportunity to “play ball”.  I wasn't interested.  He asked me again if I was “on anything”.  I said "no."  I guessed he must have been really, really popular everywhere he went, because he just couldn't seem to fathom why we hadn't become the best of friends.  “Then what's with the attitude?”  he asked.  I considered the possible answers.  I was in no mood to pretend I was sorry for whatever hadn't happened to get things to this point, but explaining to him that he was one of the biggest assholes I'd ever met probably wouldn't smooth things over, either.  I went with the admittedly flaccid “I guess it's just my attitude.”  He sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and closed the door.

On the way to the station, I guess I was muttering to myself about what a stupid piece of shit he was, because he interjected:  “Who are you talking to?”  I replied that I guessed I was talking to myself.  “And you haven't been drinking or taking drugs?”  He just couldn't believe it.  “And you say you don't have any mental problems?” I guess to a cop standing up to bullies appears crazy.

After some short thought on this last one I answered, “A guy like you would probably think I do.”

When we drove into the parking garage at the station and the door slowly closed behind us, I felt certain that a savage beating was looming near, but, showing surprising restraint for such an anger management disaster, Officer Clusterfuck got me to the front desk unharmed.  During our time there, I was compelled to make a few corrections to some statements made by my captor.  Not surprisingly, he was less than receptive.  He angrily berated me for something or other.  “Sounds like somebody needs a vacation.” I offered.  “SOUNDS LIKE SOMEBODY NEEDS AN ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT!!”  he expelled, apoplectically.  “I guess that makes two of us,”  I cheerfully replied.  The officer behind the desk seemed to silently concur.  Officer Prickles continued on a lengthy tirade of authoritarian cliches culminating with me being placed me in a cell.  I was released  later that evening with just enough time to make it to the pub for a beer and regale the local drunks with the saga of my misadventure.

The next day, a friend of mine informed me that I could rightfully request the notes of my arresting officer.  I decided to do so.  I went down to the station and made my claim.  “Oh, you can't have those.”  the attending officer assured me.  Confident in my university educated associate's knowledge of our rights, I assured him that I could.  “You won't get them.” he insisted.  I insisted otherwise.  He informed me that I could request them but that they didn't have to, and wouldn't, hand them over.  I informed him that that was what were now in the process of discussing, and that they did, and would.  He returned wordlessly to his previous task of standing there looking stupid.

About two weeks later, a photocopy of the notes arrived in the mail.  There are two great things about these notes.  Firstly, everything in the notes was printed neatly between the margins, (just the way I assume what little goes on inside Officer DumDum's skull is arranged)  except the words 'pushed' and 'hand'; in this context:  “Mr. Lake then poked/pushed Officer LiarLiarPantsOnFire in the chest with his finger/hand.”  I'm fairly certain that if I was testifying as a witness in a court of law about pokepushing people about with my fingerhands, my credibility as a witness would be considered dubious, to say the least.  “Which is it, you borderline retard?” I imagine the judge would ask.  The other great thing was that the officer's name rhymed neatly with Bad Liars.

"I Don't Hate Cops . . . "

2011-01-28T00:07:00.001-08:00

The police and I have not always seen eye to eye.  When I was a young man, I will admit to feeling somewhat at fault for our relationship problems, but as I grew to be a man, I became more aware of their wants and needs, and began to treat them with the respect they seemed to feel that they deserved. It was then I realized: it really was them, not me.  But it did become apparent to me that being polite is generally the best policy to adopt when dealing with assholes whose job it is to strenuously exert their authority over you.  However, they say there are exceptions to every rule.

Let's take a trip back a few years, to a time when I was bartender at the local watering hole . . .

My friend and co-worker A__ and I were heading home in the wee hours after working the closing shift.  I was on foot, while A__ pedaled his BMX beside me at a relaxed pace.  The weather was pleasant and we chatted idly, presumably of ships and shoes and sealing wax . . . maybe cabbages and kings . . . at any rate, we were a block from my house when a city police cruiser slowly drove by us.   

“Oh man.  That guy's going to jack us up for sure.” said A__.

“No way,” I returned. “Why would he?  We're not doing anything. Walking.  We're dressed respectably enough, he has no reason.”

“I'm telling you.  You'll see.”  he replied.

Sure enough, Officer Buddy circled the block and pulled up behind us.  He got out of his cruiser and approached us and asked what we were doing.  I politely explained to him exactly what we were doing.  Finding my direct and obvious answer to his simple question somehow offensive, he lightly pestered us with a couple more inane questions, which we answered obligingly.  He then requested our names and addresses.  I politely refused.  He insisted.  I asked him why he would need that information, and he replied unconvincingly that there had been some 'crimes' committed in the area recently.  I inquired as to whether we were suspects in these crimes, and Officer Butthead replied huffily that he was “Just doing his job.”  But, no, we weren't suspects. By this time it had become apparent that he had really hoped to find something wrong with what we were doing, and was disappointed to be disappointed.

At this point you might well interject and ask me why I didn't just give my name and address to Officer Noseypants and be done with things.  I might well ask myself the same question.  The simple answer is sometimes it's hard to let people get away with being shitheads.  Even people who have proven, time and time again, that they can, and will, always get away with being shitheads.   

I informed him that detaining me without reason was not his job, and he smiled a long slow smile at me, the kind of smile you'd see on an evil clown with a mental handicap, and said “OK, smart guy.”  Turning to my companion, he asked him for his name and address.  A__ respectfully complied, after which Officer Bitchass turned back to me with a malicious smugness I'm sure he felt was clever and said “All right then, A__, I'm going to write you a ticket for riding your bicycle on the sidewalk, with no light, and for not wearing a helmet.  That'll be a $175 fine.”

“You're going to give him a ticket because I know my rights and have a big mouth?”  I asked, dumbfounded and chagrined.  He smiled his vengeful,  half retarded smile:  “Just doing my job.”   

Memory fails me as to what I said to him as we left, but I'm sure it was something about what a fine job he was doing.  I apologized to A__ for what had happened, and we continued on our way toward my home, a block away.  We had gone about half a block when we realized Officer Shitforthinkin was trailing us in his cruiser with his lights off . . . At this point A__ had a wonderful idea.  As we stood on the corner near my house, he asked me if I'd like to stop and have a smoke.  I replied that I thought that was a capital idea.  We smoked a long, slow cigarette and talked about what a dick Officer Bonesmoker was.  He sat in his now parked cruiser like a jungle cat stalking its prey.  Only stupider.

After our smoke break by the stop sign, I suggested we go have another on the retaining wall in my yard.  When we entered the yard and sat down on the low stone wall on the lawn, Officer Sucksadick sprang to life.  He sat up, hunched over, squinted, drooled a bit, and drove his cruiser closer for a better view of our obviously suspicious activities.  You could almost feel his certainty that, soon, we would make some kind of grievous error in judgment, expose our nefarious intentions and fall into his clutches . . . imagining that he'd get the key to the city and a big juicy promotion for this masterful detective work.  Either that or he was jerking off thinking about himself.  Anyway, we sat there for a good long time and it must have driven him nuts.  We were pretty happy with ourselves, but all good things must end, and the charade was actually getting pretty boring.  “Fuck this,” I said.  “Let's go call in a complaint about this prick.”  We strolled around the corner of the house and up the walk to the front door.  I had just put the key in the lock when Officer Chickenchoker roared up in his cruiser and pointed an incredibly bright floodlight out his window at us.  I had had enough.  Leaving the key in the lock, I turned and strode with purpose toward Officer Dimbulb's car.  Placing both hands on the door, I leaned in through the open window.  As I did so, he turned away from me to face forward out the windshield.  He looked uncomfortable, but said nothing.

“Why are you harassing me?”  I demanded.  (This was a great feeling)   

He mumbled unintelligibly . . .  

“Pardon ME?” I demanded, even harder.  (I couldn't believe this was happening!  What the fuck was I doing?)

In a sheepish whisper, nearly inaudible, and almost childlike, he managed: “i don't want to talk to you right now.”

To this day, I have no real idea why he didn't just get out of his car and beat me senseless, but he didn't.  I can only conjecture that at the instant I began to speak, he realized that his life's work had been completely misguided and therefore meaningless, and that he possessed a character composed almost entirely of tragic flaws.  Or, since nobody had probably approached him like that since he became a cop and first put on his spiffy uniform, and I had short hair and was wearing a really nice navy pea coat, maybe he felt that if I was acting like that I must be someone he shouldn't fuck with.  I really don't know.  I really don't care either.  All I know is what happened next:

I lifted my right hand, stretched my arm out and pointed it down the road:  “THEN MOVE ALONG!” I commanded, with the kind of authority usually only dispensed by wankers like him at targets like me.  I turned and walked back to my front door.  Officer FuckIsuck turned off his spotlight and began to scribble furiously in his notebook, probably a bitter note to his mother about how it was all her fault that he turned out to be such a fuckwit.

I never saw him again.

Man's Best Friend

2011-01-22T10:49:00.000-08:00

                   image © perry bible fellowship http://www.pbfcomics.com/

Front page news today in the hub city:  'Buddy, Maggie Top Names For Dogs.”

Because I'm not much of a dog person, I don't really care.

Because I'm an intelligent person, I really don't care.

Here we go.  Let's talk about 'Dog People.'   

1 – You don't know what your dog is thinking. Or 'saying'.

You can guess.  You can pretend.  You can wish really, really hard.  But you don't really know, in the incredible detail you think you do, what your dog is 'saying' to you . . .  You know why?  Because his capabilities of speech are rudimentary.  At best. 
He's lucky if he can howl out something that 3 million people will believe sounds like 'I love you', but the rest of us could have done without being shown on youtube.  And now you're howling yourself, crowing about how you know your dog so well, that you have a special bond that allows you to understand blahblahblah.  You are crazy.

2 – I don't really want to hear about your dog.

Mostly because you're going to tell me what he's thinking.  And you don't actually know.  You are crazy.  Also, whatever thing he's done that is sooooo cute is not going to impress me.  Sorry.  Also, whatever thing he's done that is sooooo smart is not, when compared to almost anything,  actually all that smart.  What did he do?  Work out a complex equation?  Learn to fly a plane?  No.  He asked to be let out so he didn't crap on the floor.  And he didn't do it in words.  By your reckoning, you are a genius because you recognized his frantic scratching as a sign that he wanted out.  Welcome to Mensa, you two.

3 – Your dog doesn't listen to you, or answer to his name when called.

This makes him, and you, extra stupid.  “Titan!  Titan!  Titan, no!  Titan!  Sit, Titan!  Sit!  No!  No!  No!  Titan, no!  Titan!  Titan!  He never does this.  Titan!  Titan!  Titan!  Titan!  Bad Dog!  No!  Titan! Titan!”  Bad human.

4 – You are not quite as bad or crazy as cat people.  But don't let it go to your head.   

They are the craziest people on earth.

5 – You ruined your dog.

I wouldn't be here writing this if you had actually trained your dog.  Because dogs are great pets/friends when properly trained.  There oughta be a law.

6 – Your dog shits on my lawn/sidewalk.

And if I ever catch you letting this happen, I'm going to feed it to you.  For real. Bon appetite, dick.

Spiritual Amway 2

2011-01-21T14:30:00.000-08:00

  After school lets out, many parents take their children to the adjacent playground to shut them up about taking them to the adjacent playground.  This is another place where you will have to interact with other parents, whether you like them or not.  Some of them are great, and it is just like talking to real people.  Others . . . 
  Well, yesterday I took my kid to the park, to find my friend the spamway salesman there with his child.  I successfully avoided contact with him for much of the thing.  I was privy, however, to his conversations with other parents which, of course, consisted of constant allusions to his meditation, breathing, general flakiness and the bountiful health benefits of being an irritating weirdo.  I resisted all forms of assault, and actually did a little therapeutic breathing of my own by sighing in relief when it was time to get the hell out of there.   

Retrieving my children from the park is always a shitshow, with dramatic protests and much advertising of my unfair and dictatorial parenting style.  I really should hand them some placards and a bullhorn when I want to go home.  On this occasion, I got the older boy to comply well enough, meaning after half an hour of arguments and threats he sullenly moped to the car planning my murder, but the 3 year old was not going to go quietly.  In no mood, I resorted to packing him off the playground like an armload of firewood.  Loud, anguished, obnoxious firewood.  I headed for the hills to make good my escape. 
  Obviously, this would be the best time for someone to stop me to blather on and on about some trivial crap they had on their mind, and buddy jumped at the chance.  At first I had no idea what the hell he was saying, and then, just before I could grasp what it was he was going on about, the small part of me that could even be bothered to care died.  I left it on the playground and moved on.  Not one to be deterred by so small an obstacle as obvious and complete disinterest, he began to continue with a new topic.  What it was I have no idea; he was probably still talking as I drove away.

Massive Head Wound Harry

2011-01-17T10:56:00.000-08:00

Recently,  a friend of mine had a terrible scare when she went down for a much  needed nap and awoke to find that her baby daughter was unable to  breathe.  Every parent's worst nightmare, to be sure.  The cause was  decided to be an unknown virus, and baby is on the mend.  But the  feeling it gave me to hear this news reminded me of our own children and  our own hospital encounters.  One in particular . . .

When  our son was 3 months old it was determined that he had a condition  known as craniosynostosis, described by the Mayo Clinic Staff as: “ . . .  a birth defect in which one or more of the joints between the bones of  your infant's skull close prematurely, before your infant's brain is  fully formed. When your baby has craniosynostosis, his or her brain  can't grow in its natural shape and the head is misshapen.”  Which  sounds bloody awful, to be sure.  Our son's condition was (probably) not  going to affect his physical well being, but his quality of life would  suffer.  It's harder to get dates when your eyes are bugging out of a  head shaped like the one on the alien from 'Alien'.

The  long and short of this diagnosis was that he would be going under the  knife, and sooner than later, as it was already later than they'd like.   So, when he was four months old, we took him to the Children's Hospital  and handed him over to the surgeon.  Doctor C___ was a wonderful man  with hands more suited to a trades worker than a neurosurgeon; giant,  meaty things I couldn't imagine delicately poking around in people's  heads.  But that's what they did, and do, presumably daily.  Before we  gave our child over to the sawbones, however, they were required to  describe in detail the procedure they were about to attempt.  Which was  unfortunate for us, as we had barely convinced ourselves that everything  was going to be fine.  So after hearing at length the procedure and its  various steps (including flaying open the skin over the top of the head  from one ear to the other, cutting and removing parts of the skull,  monitoring of blood loss and possible complications) we were required to  – a bit more hesitantly - hand over our kid and hope for the best.  I  think we both secretly feared the worst.  Maybe not so secretly . . . 

After  giving our baby over to the carving committee, we then entered the  world of the waiting room; a disquieting place, but at the same time a  window into the soul, a glimpse of raw humanity and a quantum  irregularity of sorts.  Everyone is there for more or less the same  reason, and you all feel more or less the same sense of overwhelming  dread of the worst case scenario that could be about to play out.  The  levels of these emotions are palpable, the parents of children there for  dental surgery are less on edge than those of the neurosurgery  patients, for instance.  But everyone there is in a similar state of  tentative hopefulness, both for themselves and others in the room.  When  the staff members come through the door with their announcements of  whose surgery is finished, everyone hopes it will be their turn to be  called, but also experiences a sense of relief and happiness for  whomever is relieved of the awful tension of the place.  As for us, our  boy's surgery took far longer than expected, and every minute seemed to  crawl by more slowly than the last until our worst fears must surely  have been realized and we were just waiting for the inevitable,  heartbreaking disaster to befall us, all the while keeping up a front of  quiet, positive calm and taking solace in each other family whose time  had come to leave.

I  think the surgery took about an hour and a half longer than the  original estimate, maybe two . . . there are many details about this  experience that are foggy, to say the least.  Suffice to say that time  continued to slow until it seemed like some kind of torture or  punishment.  But eventually we were called upon to leave, and I at once  felt great relief and a small pang of guilt to be the ones leaving,  knowing that most everyone in the room would be wishing it were them.   For some reason I can't exactly recall (again, many things have been  obscured to memory here) I was the first to see my son after the  surgery.  The surgeon and his staff had warned us that after the surgery  he would appear very swollen and that we should expect to be shocked at  his appearance but that it was all very normal after such a physical  trauma.  But he just looked like a little boy with a shaved head,  bruised eye sockets and a grotesque sutured incision running across his  head.  As awful as he appeared, I was flooded with relief to see him  there alive.  The rest, I thought, was going to be relatively easy . . .   

The  first night after the surgery, I was disallowed to stay at the hospital  and so returned to our friends apartment, lent to us while they were  out of town.  When I returned in the morning I was horrified to discover  that the surgeon's warning had been absolutely spot on: my boy's head  had ballooned to gargantuan proportions, swelling his eyes shut and  pushing his ears forward until he looked like some sort of fairy tale  goblin, his flesh darkly multihued and tightly puffed around his entire  head.  I wept to see him, and we consoled ourselves with the fact that  the drugs might keep his pain a secret.    

After  three days his countenance had not returned to normal and we became  convinced that we had destroyed our child and that he would never look  the same again.  We began to rue our decision and wished we had let his  head turn into the football it was shaping up to be before we meddled  with it.  Better that than the guy from the Goonies, we thought.  Oddly,  although they had warned us of exactly what to expect beforehand, the  reality of his condition was so difficult to deal with I am surprised  when I look back that the staff wasn't more forthcoming with reassurance  of his recovery.  But I nitpick.  The staff at the Children's Hospital  were amazing, and deserve high praise for everything they did for us  during our stay.  I suppose we were more than just a bit panicky.

On  the morning of what we believed would be our last day at the hospital, I  returned the keys to my borrowed flat into the mail slot at the record  store owned by my generous friends.  Off I went to pick up my malformed  offspring and make the best of our tragic situation.  Maybe we could get  him a cool mask . . .  

When  I arrived at the hospital, I was delighted to discover that not only  had his head returned overnight to nearly normal proportions, and his  eyes opened, but he was actually smiling!  Again, tears.  Welcome tears.   This shit was turning me into a real crybaby.   

For  more reasons that escape me, it turned out that we needed to stay one  more night after all.  But I would be able to stay in the room if I was  VERY quiet and unobtrusive.  So we settled down and tried to sleep,  wired awake by our delirious happiness and anticipation of checking out  the next day . . . unfortunately, before I could get to sleep, it  happened that we were required to change rooms in the endless hospitable  bed shuffle so common to cramped facilities, and I would not be able to  stay at the hospital in the new shared accommodations . . . I needed to  go get that key back, and pronto.  Unfortunately, it was Sunday and the  record store had closed early, if it had opened at all.  I had no place  to stay.  The story of what happened that night and where I ended up is  another story altogether.  But in the end, I was well taken care of,  and returned to the hospital the next day less than refreshed but ready  to take my family home.  My son was feeding, and smiling through the  haze of drugs, and that was all I needed.  I took great delight in  parading him around on the ferry home, watching people's smiles slowly  morph into various other expressions when they saw the hideous, blood  encrusted scar across the little tykes head.  Badass.

All's  well that ends well, they say, when things go well enough to say it.   And all things considered, things had gone about as well as they  possibly could.  My son's head looks at least as good as yours, and  probably a damn sight better.  He's a pretty good looking kid.

"We Live In A Society!"

2011-01-15T10:42:00.000-08:00

I am a huge fan of japanese food, and decide that I want to learn how to make it.  So, I procure a cook book and make a list of ingredients.  I venture out to get them, only to discover that the best asian food market in town has transformed into yet another whitey food store.  Disappointed, I trundle off to the nearest alternative, the great canadian s___ store.  I take my 3 year old, because there he is, and leaving him somewhere to fend for himself is frowned upon.  When we arrive, I need a cart, which needs a dollar, which I don't have.  I am forced to go to customer service and leave them my driver's license, for which they'll lend me a dollar to use.  The line is lengthy, but not smack your forehead curse the world and leave in a huff lengthy, so I decide to wait.  

I enter the line, a microcosm familiar to most:  time grinds and slows to a near stop, and each customer ahead of me seems to have some kind of heretofore unheard of dilemma which requires close scrutiny and deliberation by the person behind the counter, indepth telephone consultations, and visits by specialized experts from the furthest reaches of the building.  My place in this milieu is perhaps more frustrating than most, since I am waiting to do almost nothing, and my wait will result in about 5 seconds worth of actual interaction, after which I will have to repeat the entire inane ritual to return the nearly worthless result.  My mind furiously debates the worth of the endeavour, weighing options and considering time invested vs return and the possibility of outright leaving . . . I stay.   Part way through this epic epoch, I observe as an astounding event takes place:  a woman comes out of the cashier lineup, and after some quizzical questioning of the clerks, and some pointing, shrugging and sighing, she ambles over to THE FRONT OF THE LINE and, as though it were NO BIG FUCKING DEAL, attempts to query the customer service representative about whatever sand it is she has in her vagina.  Now, we've all seen this happen before, and certainly, most of us have experienced coming out of one lineup only to be told we need to enter another tedious lineup and have thought to ourselves, “but I just came out of a lineup . . . surely that qualifies me as the next customer in this lineup?  If god was here, he would let me go to the front of this line!  A jury of my peers would surely see the reason in this!  Going to the back of another line is a travesty!  Rosa Parks, goddamit!”  But in the end we all go to the back of the line, because we know it's THE RIGHT THING TO DO.  Not this cunt.  She stands there, avidly avoiding eye contact with me (which would burn her eyes right out of her skull) and my peers, and waits to procure the attention/favor of the employee behind the counter.  Now, as if this FILTHY WHORE and her ilk weren't problem enough in the world today, fate and the odds take an incredible turn when the idiot behind the counter actually BEGINS TO SERVE HER.  My mind swims.  And sinks.  My psyche is sucked down into a primal whirlpool of rage and confusion.  An 'Altered States'-like transformation takes place: my physical person is replaced with a misshapen, howling demon; thunder and lightning create instant chaos and fear amongst the local populace; hurricane force winds rage through the aisles as I descend upon these two fools and their rancid mistakes.  “YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES!”  I bellow.  “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?  I NEED A DOLLAR!!”  Their pathetic fear titillates me as I sink my teeth into their ribs and shake them like a dog with a sock monkey.  As I suck the marrow from their bones, the lineup reforms before me, and people politely wait their turn to shower me with dollars and praise me as the new, true customer service representative.  I don't know what happened to my kid . . .

Spiritual Amway

2011-01-11T12:09:00.000-08:00

  Part of being a parent is meeting other parents and having to spend time with them whether you like them or not. Your kids go to school together, or they're on the same sports team, or whatever.   They become friends.  At this point you begin spending serious time together, all the while trying to find common ground and make conversation. And sometimes, it's not going to happen smoothly.
  Case in point:  the spiritual amway salesman.  My kid makes friends with a kid he goes to school with.  The kid's father phones to see if they can hang out.  No problem.  We go out, they hang out, awkward conversation ensues between us, we go home.  He calls again.  Same result.  Fine.  He calls again.  And again.  And again.  In one day.  Shit's getting weird, but it's for the kids, right?  Buddy phones for the most trivial reasons, annoying the crap out of my wife and I, but what are you gonna do?  Tell your kid's friend's parent to fuck off?  Hmm . . . maybe . . . but not yet.  It's too soon.  I'd feel bad if I did it this soon.  
  Eventually buddy starts inviting himself over and you want to kill him but you can't. Not yet . . . society would not vindicate you.  Anyway, somehow this guy insinuates himself and his kid into a snow day at our home.  Then, inexplicably, they end up inside, where I am obliged to be host-like and offer coffee and attempt to communicate.  But here's the thing about buddy:  he is an idiot who is convinced that he is a genius.  And, like any idiotic genius, he'll refer (endlessly) to his genius and incredible IQ.  
  Strangely, although he is a fucking 'genius', he has terrific difficulty interpreting my body language which spells out, in capital letters, my terrible discomfort with his existence.  He blathers on.  Chiefly about the breathing system he 'invented' and how I should pay him to teach it to me.  I explain that I don't want to.  He insists that it is imperative that everybody do it because it's just like some other weird shit that some expert weirdos do in their weird regimens of whatever he saw on youtube.  He refers to meditation. I explain I don't want to do  that either.  Like everyone who enjoys meditation, it is unbelievable to him that you wouldn't want to partake in what is obviously the most worthwhile pastime in the history of doing stuff.  
  clearly, most people faced with this argument typically respond with some variant of "I've always meant to start meditating, but."  Faced with the unthinkable, his intellectual enormousness wrestles with itself and strains for examples of where I may already be meditating.  Like when I play music, for example.  I respond, yes, I sometimes reach a somewhat meditative state when I play music, but it is a banjo, not a wind instrument, and breathing has never really impeded me on that front.  He reaches for the "know yourself" gambit.  But I know myself just fine, and well enough to know that I don't want to meditate or pay for breathing lessons. Undeterred, he wisely continues.  And continues.  And continues.  
  I eventually reach a point where I am staring blankly into space, responding only with variants of "pardon me?"  and "I'm sorry, I wasn't listening."  It dawns on me that maybe the closest I've ever come to meditating is ignoring this ponce.  
  His vast intelligence sagely sees past my disinterest into the possibilities of the future.   "Give your wife this card, I'm ninety percent certain she'll be interested in what guru blabbity blah has to say about so and so . . ."  In the end I let him show himself out while I make my kids lunch, discomforted by the prospect of future prison terms with this nincompoop.  I love my children, but a man can only be pushed so far . . . 