beer and loathing

i was half-blind and smiling when i slammed my last bill down onto the beer-soaked, chipped-varnish, forever-stained finish of the counter.
i don't remember what i tried to order, but the waitress insisted i drink something else; and i'd forgotten what she'd called it a second after she poured it.
i do remember the look she gave me as i tilted my head back and dumped the mystery drink into my throat.
it was a "this'll get yer dogs barkin'" kind of look.
what a sweet gal, i thought.
that's the last thing i remember.
i'm not even going to tell you where i woke up.
not because it's embarrassing; because it doesn't matter.
but when i did finally wake up, after brushing off the sawdust and shrimp tails, i realized what that look she gave me really meant.
it meant "you sir, are very drunk...and i'm about to steal your good mittens."

junkyard logic

one of the bad/really interesting things about working in an empty store in the middle of the night all by yourself is that you get to hear the full-length, un-edited tirades of all your neighborhood sketchies.
and there's really no way to escape.
so you just sit and listen, no matter how awkward or mundane or terribly terribly sad the topic of discussion.
today in the street i walked past an old customer of mine who used to torture me with his ridiculous late-night claims of forgotten mastery.
he once told me he built the very first home computer.
the very first.
out of wood no less.
and he explained, at great length, how the whole computer industry has been backsliding ever since...obviously.
plastic and wires are for idiots.
i used to call him Dr. Wily.
and for a fraction of a second, i almost stopped him in the street.
i wonder what his latest invention is?
nails maybe? a toaster oven? with an easy-set timer?
a bladed utensil that can be used for separating small pieces of food from a larger piece of food?
he was the first guy to ever put a snake on a plane.

the film

i just had the greatest idea for a movie.
unfortunately, i can't tell you exactly what it's about because this is the internet, and i heard that sometimes people steal stuff from the internet.
but i can tell you what it's called and who i'd like in my ideal cast.
i'm sure the rest will be obvious.

Deadly Corpses Of Death

the cast: [in order of appearance]

Stephen Hawking - the narrator
Scarlett Johannsen - Detective Hayley Magma
Larry David - breakdancing teen
Mike Gillis - the Frightened Wizard (young)
Bill Murray - the Frightened Wizard (old)
Leonard Nimoy - wisecracking taxi driver
Tom Hanks - flying werewolf
Three Boobed Chick from 'Total Recall' - herself
Brad Pitt - Herb, the vomiting, SARS having wino
Norm MacDonald - Jesus Schwarznegger
Yasmine Bleeth - the "Gymnast"
Christina Ricci - the Gymnast
Dave Chapelle - the rascist inventor
Maggie Gyllenhaal - hot drunk chick in Spinal Tap shirt
Chevy Chase - crazy deli guy #1
Jim Henson's Muppets - crazy deli guys #2 ~ #14
Paris Hilton - the corpse
Billy Dee Williams - the ghost of Lando Calrissian
Larry King - jaunty mailman
Star Jones - the old abandoned warehouse
Chucky - Freddy
Patrick Swayze - depressing vigilante army guy
Murphy Brown - depressing vigilante army wife
Jeff McCarron - voice of Unicron
Bill Cosby - voice of The Moon Cactus
Jason Alexander - Skeletor Jr.
Catherine Keener - the President's Wife
The Kids In The Hall - the menders/defenders of Time/Space Junction
Jack Nicholson - The Joker
Blue Oyster Cult - themselves
Kevin McDonald - the dirty fetus

here's an idea

Snakes On Your Mom

remember that time when it was the Nineties?

since i'm moving tomorrow i decided to wait until today to do all my packing. about half an hour ago, whilst tearing through the layers of sedimentary garbage i like to call my closet, i stumbled upon something i didn't even know i still owned.
my Jr. High School yearbook.
MacLennan Memories, it's called.
let's take a look at my write up:

Mike Gillis - 9C
"Mick" strolls in from the Village to hang out with M.M.K., C.L.B., and M.C. This Kraft Dinner eatin' guy likes lighting fires and shooting hoops. He also likes the arcade, Zippos, and "Sabotage". He would like to be like Beavis but if he can't acheive this he will settle for a Navy Seal. Have a blast at Riverview and good luck in the future.

some things never change.
but, for the record, i never liked shooting hoops.
i was just trying to be cool.
also, i sucked.
i weighed like eighty pounds.

(warning: if you went to the same Jr. High School as i did, do not anger me. or your write up will promptly be displayed on this website. and maybe your picture as well if you really piss me off.)

i wish, that, i knew what i know now
when i was younger...

good morning, officer...

these were the first words i muttered Sunday morning after being awoken by a pair of Halifax's Finest.
i opened my eyes to see the two of them standing over me, their Chariot of Incarceration idling by the curb.
what have i done?, i thought.
is sleeping in a crime?
well, kind of, yes.
especially if you're caught sleeping in on someone's lawn.
and that was certainly what i appeared to be doing.
flat on my back.
my left arm wrapped in a surgical cast and my right elbow-deep in a mysterious bag of potato chips, the gaseous plumes of whiskey and Jager eminating from my pores probably visible from two hundred yards away.
had they stumbled across me during the morning patrol or had someone summoned them to take me away? was i snoring?
as i sat up one of the officers moved forward...."alright, come with us."
"na nuh occife, im'wa jus stoppn fer a resssy poo...imns goin home nww."
officer: "do you even know where you are right now?"
"surr beh," i pointed up the road, "das werri wrk der beh."
and, through the miracle of some collapsing vortex of geography and lost information mindfuckery, i was indeed pointing to the building where i work.
officer (skeptical as shit): "where do you live?"
"Hollish," i pointed in the opposite direction.
"can you make it to Hollis St.?"
"sure beh," i shakily rise and begin staggering down the street.
they did not persue.
and i'm not 100% on this, but i'm pretty sure i may have thanked them for rousing me before i got a nasty sunburn.
you see folks, i have this disease where sometimes i think something is a really good idea, when it is, in actuality, a very poor idea.
like treating a stranger's front lawn like it's my personal sofa.
another example of this would be the time i tried using my skateboard on a patch of black ice, because obviously zero friction = way easier to do tricks.
that ordeal also left me unconscious on the ground.
but that's neither here nor there.
i'd just like to say that i'm thankful for at least two things.
one: that i finally got to got to camp outdoors this summer.
and two: that the Halifax Regional Police are always on duty, out there cleaning up the streets and risking their lives, making sure no one steals the shoes of those who didn't quite make it home last night.
godspeed, HRPD.
godspeed.

video seriously injured the radio star, who later died from his wounds shortly after arriving at the hospital

here's a list of what i believe to be the 25 greatest music videos of all time. you should believe this too. c'mon.
{if you haven't seen any of these there's a pretty solid chance they're floatin' around this here internet somewhere. dig in.}

Blur - Coffee & TV:
a jaunty little tale about a living carton of milk searching to find a missing guitarist in the dangerous city. he runs into a lovely female carton of strawberry milk who is sadly crushed under someones foot. (if it were my video i would've introduced some chocolate milk cartons and tried to send a message about the growing racial tensions in some of today's cities...but i guess they were probably trying to keep things "fun".)

Judas Priest - Freewheel Burnin':
a young boy is playing a racing game in an arcade when he discovers that Judas Priest are living inside the game somehow. the band proceed to play some lively metal, so lively in fact that lasers begin spewing forth from their guitars, flying out of the machine and filling the air in the arcade. the various headbangers who inhabit the arcade appear to be pleased with said lasers. NOTE: no special effects were used in the making of this clip. the members of Judas Priest were conjuring actual lasers with their instruments.

Beastie Boys - Sabotage:
i do not have to explain this one. best. bass riff. ever.

Michael Jackson - Beat It:
sure Thriller was bigger, and Billie Jean had those light up sidewalks, but this video is almost perfect. who knew you could diffuse and inner city gang war with slick dancing and spazzy leather jackets. an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo doesn't hurt either.

Leonard Nimoy - The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins:
that's correct. Mr.Spock and a gaggle of overeager preteens in technicolor t-shirts sing a disgustingly upbeat tribute to everyone's second favorite hobbit. ....but why?

Beck - Loser:
flaming squeegee? check. Star Wars helmet? check. leafblower? check. cute girls dancing in a cemetary? check. a windsheild covered in blood? check. astronauts in a pickup truck? check. etc. etc. etc.

Coolio - Fantastic Voyage:
Coolio falls asleep on his porch. moments later some sort of "magic pimp" appears, and with one shake of his pimp cane, turns Coolio's bicycle into a phat, low ridin' convertible. the booty-shakenist beach party ever ensues. (but was it all a dream?)

Prince - Batdance:
will someone please tell me what i'm looking at?

Nirvana - In Bloom:
Kurt and company imagine what it would be like if they were a bunch of "clean cut young men" on an old timey black and white variety programme. wearing dresses and breaking stuff ensues.

Dio - Holy Diver:
Ronnie James Dio dresses up like a barbarian warrior and threatens another barbaric warrior in the shell of a burned out church. i bet Dio was the one who burned down the church. he's evil like that.

Radiohead - Just:
i wonder what that man said to make everyone lie down in the street like that. probably something like "everybody lie down". people are stupid sometimes.

Van Halen - Hot For Teacher:
this video gives the viewer an idea of how awesome it would be to go to the same highschool as Van Halen. and guess what; that super hot Phys.Ed teacher...that's Wayne Gretzky's wife. for realsies.

Marilyn Manson - The Dope Show:
and seemingly out of nowhere, Mr. Manson grows some nipple-less boobs, gets kidnapped by faceless scientists and proceeds to skewer the cult of celebrity and poke some fun at the police force as well. also, this is the only music video to visually reference Alejandro Jodorowski's 'Holy Mountain', which is the biggest, most hallucinatory mindfuck of a movie ever created. good luck finding it.

Cameo - Word Up:
painfully ridiculous video about a detctive (played by Levar Burton) who dances and who also watches Cameo dance. Cameo is wearing some sort of 'Road Warrior meets Flashdance' type shits that involve a bright red codpiece. word up?

Smashing Pumpkins - 1979:
yeah. i remember doing stuff when i was a kid too.

Dokken - Dream Warriors:
the good ol' boys in Dokken wrote this tune for the Nightmare on Elm St. film of the same name. so naturally the video is 50% Dokken rocking out and 50% clips of Freddy chasing troubled teenagers. the best part? the end, when we discover the whole video is actually a bad dream that Freddy himself is having...about Dokken! his line: "what a nightmare!....who were those guys?" scary.

Sir Mix-a-Lot - Baby Got Back:
this is the 'Snakes On A Plane' of music videos; you know exactly what you're going to get. or do you? is it just me, or is there and uncomfortable amount of fresh produce for a video about girl's asses. also: stuffed?

Foo Fighters - Everlong:
another dream sequence video. actually, a dream within a dream (within a dream?) video. i don't really understand what the shit is happening, but man it looks fucking rad.

Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized:
so this guy's just walking around talking about how shitty stuff is and how no one understands him and stuff. he seems pretty pissed off. let's move on.

Nine Inch Nails - The Perfect Drug:
Trent cuts a killer 'stache, drinks some absinthe and freaks out in the best looking haunted castle i've ever seen. i wish i had a hedge maze and some abstract sculptures. and a sword. and whatever that elecrto-wheel shits is.

Snoop Doggy Dogg - What's My Name:
one time i hooked up with this chick at a bar and we ended up going back to her mom's place, because apparently mom was out for the night. while we were in her mother's bed, mother decided to come home unexpectedly and i was forced to hide in mother's closet. while i stood there, naked and drunk in the darkness, trying to block out the sound of mother yelling at daughter, demanding to know "whose fucking shoes are these!", i thought about this video. specifically the beginning, where that angry father suspects that Snoop is poking his attractive young daughter. "is that dog in there!? i want that dog outta my house!" i don't know why i'm bringing this up. the important thing is that i managed to escape and Snoop managed to sell about six million rekkids. bow wow.

Basement Jaxx - Where's Your Head At?:
where's MY head at? behind this pillow, because this video is the most terrifying piece of film i have ever seen. and i honestly never want to see it again. shit gives me fucking nightmares.

Aerosmith - Crazy:
when i was fifteen, this was the sexiest video in the world. oh Alicia Silverstone, why couldn't we have stayed young together?

Beck - Sexx Laws:
i know Beck was already on the list, but check this shit out. a haunted kitchen! a refrigerator fucking a stove from behind! Jack Black! a space wizard! a rotating, banjo playing zebra! tassels! this is what drugs should be like.

Guns N' Roses - 3-way tie!!! - Don't Cry / November Rain / Estranged:
jesus, where do i even start. let's see. ok Axl...being naked and twitchy underground in Don't Cry? highly unnecessary! swimming with the motherfucking dolphins in Estranged? double highly unnecessary! and November Rain? Axl...step away from the piano. you do not belong there. (maybe that abandoned ship in the middle of the ocean isn't such a bad idea.)