Mike Gillis: coward

she was right there, standing right in front of me, blinking and blushing and smiling and sucking all the oxygen out of the room and crippling time and space and all i had to do, i had a fucking mouthful of beautiful words and all i had to do was spit them into her beautiful face and bam! the sun would rise, the birds would sing, all the evil would boil and twist and stray dogs would shit money in the streets until the end of time.
but i choked.
i stammered and retreated like a good for nothing coward.
and everyone saw.
and as i walked away meteors of shame rained down, crushing me.
i'd never get a second chance.
i was a tiny disgusting excuse for a man.
and i when i couldn't take it anymore i ducked behind a corner and dropped to my knees and i screamed those fucking words i've been dying to scream for so fucking long, letting it all pour out.
and then, i felt better.
because i realized those words in my mouth were not beautiful.
they were vomit.
and that could've been super embarrassing.

excerpt from This Was Not Supposed To Be An All-Night Thing

all of my tests yeilded the same results.
the Tilting My Hand At Slightly Different Angles test.
the Dropping Tiny Pieces Of Litter From Various Heights test.
the Staring Into My Lighter For 15 Minutes test.
they all proved the same thing.
that the air around me was not moving.
not in any substantial way at least.
this meant that the sound i was hearing, the sound of strong winds howling through a large pile of wet animal bones, was entirely in my head and that i was still very much on mushrooms.
fuck.
it took me two hours to do those tests.
this was not supposed to be an all-night thing.

fact no.736

someday, i'd like to wake up in a different bed, in a different city, perhaps even in a different time, and discover that i'm a popular and influential Jazz musician.
this would be a strange and unexpected (but welcome) gift.
it would be exciting i think, to wake up in a new life, with the means to be heard, to inspire people.
and what would i do with my sudden acclaim; my instant A1 status in the realm of Jazz music and culture?
i'd release an album of course.
called Unprotected Sax.

don't groan.
i was gonna call it Anal Sax.

Steakermeister equals Successermeister

i'd like to announce that the very first Inter-Provincial, Quasi-Annual Steakermeister Night went off without a hitch (except for a few mild cases of Chronic Falling Downism).
for those of you who don't know, Steakermeister is a futuristic hybrid of Jagermeister, food stuff and good hearted social jackassery. what started months ago as a half baked brainstorm grew into a snarling three-headed beast of culinary genius.
i won't disclose the exact recipe here (it's not that i don't trust you, it's that i can't trust you), but i'll give you a little nibble. it involved several prime cuts of the tenderest steak Montreal has to offer, topped with dried apricots, minced garlic, ancient hot pepper oil from another country that you'll never find around here, and about ten ounces of silky, delicious Jagermeister. there might have been more, i don't know, i just barbequed the stuff.
but what i do know is that it was a complete success, digested and enjoyed by all who were present.

here's the Steakermeister 2005 Honor Roll:
Chad and Cathy (Kathy?), aka Team Marinade.
Joe the Butcher, for supplying the meat stuff.
Jim, for use of the loft, the grill and the "dry pasta in lieu of toothpicks" idea.
Dan and Alex and Dave and Simon and Dave Two, for their continuing encouragement of all things Jager.
Tara, for graciously letting us sleep off Steakermeister 2005 on her livingroom floor.
Mari, for accepting us even though we are silly, silly people.
and everyone else who was there for the Post Steakermeister Halftime Firework Shitshow, the All Too Real Whale Impersonation and the Accidental VIP Titty Bar Pit Stop.
we couldn't have done it without you.

now here's a taste of the official Steakermeister anthem, as written by Chadwick Rigamarole "She-Hulk Can Eat Me" DarkWing Burt.
(to the tune of the "Juicy Fruit" song)

Get your steaks shined up,
Grab a quart of Jagermeister.
The taste is gonna move ya!

Take a sniff...
Pull it oww owowow owt...

The steak is gonna move ya when ya pop it in yer mouth!!!

Steakermeister! it's gonna move ya!
The steak is soft, it sticks right to ya!
Steakermeister! The booze, the booze, the booze is gonna moooove ya!!!

love is poop

as most of you know, the theme of Love is certainly not an uncommon one in the feild of popular music. but what would happen to your favorite song titles if someone replaced Love with something entirely different? like poop?
let's find out.

• Can't Buy Me Poop
• All You Need Is Poop
• Poop Hurts
• Whole Lotta Poop
• Crazy In Poop
• Poop Is A Battlefield
• Radar Poop
• What's Poop Got To Do With It?
• Poop Gun
• I Stole Your Poop
• Is This Poop?
• Addicted To Poop
• Poop Rollercoaster
• Can You Feel The Poop Tonight?
• Crazy Little Thing Called Poop
• I Would Do Anything For Poop
• Poop Ain't No Stranger
• Poop Shack
• Poop Is A Deserter
• I Hate The Way You Poop
• Interstate Poop Song
• Poop In An Elevator
• All Is Full Of Poop
• Poop Will Tear Us Apart

Note: this method can also be used for film titles:
• Poop, Actually

and book titles:
• Poop In The Time Of Cholera

my lip hair is a wonderland

and out of nowhere, with absolutely no training, professional or tertiary, i have become a Grand Sorcerer of moustache maintenece.
i even have special little moustache preening scissors.
but even if i didn't have them, the innate ability to sculpt, to conjure subtle beauty from the hair growing out of my upper lip, would still be there.
i can see beyond layers, right into the heart of the root-matrix.
my thoughts are often heavy with concerns like curvature, length, hesh factor and soup damage.
there's nothing i enjoy more than a post-midday comb'n'snip.
if moustache sculpting was an actual profession, i would be one of it's most highly paid and well recognised ambassadors.
the only problem is i find the act of touching any moustache that is not my own repulsive and insulting.
so, if anyone knows of a place or company or co-operative agency that will pay me big bucks to constantly re-imagine my facial hair multiple times a day, send the word.
"but Mike, your moustache, handsome as it is, always looks the same to me. am i missing something?"
yes you are. but it's ok. it's not your fault.

dead leaves and my dirty bed

sometimes i don't like going directly home after the bars. sometimes, while heavily intoxicated, i like to enjoy outdoor activites by myself, late at night, when no one is around to ask silly questions like "why?" and "what the hell?" and "what you talkin' bout Gillis?"
last night i was in the mood for some rolling-around-in-a-pile-of-leaves action, mostly because i like the smell.
there aren't many backyards in my area, so i had to create my own leaf pile at the bottom of the grassy hill by the Electropolis graffiti wall. if i was going to assault these leaves i wanted to do it in an elaborate way. so i rolled. down the hill and through the leaves. several times. covering my clothes in leafy goodness and a little mud. and i ended up losing my keys.
but that's not important.
what's important is the crazy dream i had immediately afterwards.
i dreamt i was in a massive field on a sunny autumn afternoon, assigned the duty of gathering fallen leaves, armed with a high powered leaf blower. the problem was that i had no idea how to operate the leaf blower. adding to this i had no idea who i was gathering leaves for and had no one to ask leaf blower operational type questions to.
then, out of absolutely nowhere, appeared Frank Zappa.
he carried with him some kind of heavily modified guitar and was wearing a portable amplifier on his back. at the head of the guitar, portruding from where the tuning keys should be, were several rake-like prongs. Mr. Zappa then hit a switch on his amplifier/backpack and, holding the guitar upside down but still playing it somehow, proceeded to rake. the prongs must have been wired thru the pickups, because with each rake an incredible squall of guitar feedback would screech from his backpack (which was not unlike a Ghostbuster's backpack). so he kept raking and playing, wringing this insane music from his musical-landscaping-instrument, and no matter how far away he got i could still hear it loud and clear, like through a brand spankin' set of shiny new headphones.
when i woke up there was mud in my bed because there was mud on my jeans because i slept in my clothes.
on my way to breakfast i stopped by the hill to look for my keys, and luckily i found them right away.
because keys cost money people.

a whiff of things to come

ok.
there's been a bit of lag here lately.
i know you can feel it, i see in your tired, bleary eyes.
i feel it too. especially when i'm showering.
so i'm going knock things up a notch.
totally re-calibrate the site.
i'm going to completely maul it, thus killing it, but then conjuring it back as a zombified version of it's former self and teaching it how to love again.
think of this site as a raw piece of meat, venison perhaps. i'm going to take it and place it into a plastic baggie filled with various seasonings, maybe some glitter paint, thumbtacks, the tooth of my beloved dog Nova, the one that i pulled from her mouth just seconds before the waves crashed over her, the sea claiming her forever, leaving me trembling and alone in my shitty little rent-a-boat. i'm going to put the venison/site in with these things and i'm going to shake it, hard and fast and rhythmically, like i'm throttling some evil goose whose snide mocking has gone on long enough.
actually no.
think of the current site as Optimus Prime just as he's dying, handing his inner chest Matrix over to Ultra Magnus. it'll be like like that.
except not as emotional.
and Ultra Magnus is a bit snarkier.
and wears jeans.
no offense to Optimus.
because change is good people.
change is good.
(unless you're Lindsay Lohan. what happened to my curvy, lava-haired, teenage sexbomb? who's this skeletal blond waif? come back baby. we miss you.)
so yeah. changes coming soon.
probably sometime between next week's Montreal Vision Quest and the upcoming holiday season.
let's say New Year's.
post Vision Quest, pre New Year's.
yeah, that's good.