poutine pizza

i've thought about it.
i've laughed about it.
i've spoken with worldly folk who say they've seen it themselves.
and now i've seen it.
and i've peer'd deep within it's greasy brown heart.
and now i know it's real.
when the shit finally goes down, after the floods and quakes and boiling seas and Bush administrations, there will only be three things left standing.
cockroaches, OT VII Scientologists, and poutine pizza.
i'm all about wacky food combonations. i've eaten Twinkie dogs, Highliner fishsticks mashed into burritos, and almost a waffle cone full of Beefaroni.
silly? yes. disgusting? you'd be suprised.
but this is a step in the wrong direction.
it crosses that fine line between "slightly monstrous" and "absolutely satanic".
because once you make poutine pizza, once you slather those curds and fries and sauce brun onto that hearty crust (that is possibly stuffed with more cheese and maybe some bacon) there's no turning back.
you cannot kill poutine pizza.
you can only eat it.
and even then it does not die.
(though you may. like way later though.)
you could sink all the poutine pizza in the world to the bottom of the sea and go on with your happy and ignorant and stupid little life, but in your heart you'd know that a billion years from now when the Sun goes supernova and dries up the oceans, poutine pizza will be there.
waiting.
and probably pulsating.
i heard once that some French scientist tried to freeze a slice of poutine pizza in Carbonite but the slice only absorbed the Carbonite and laughed.
i heard a grizzly bear can eat one poutine pizza and hibernate for five years but can never run or make babies ever again.
i heard some rebel hurled a slice at a British Mark II tank and the slice eroded through the tank wall and gravy'd up the controls and two soldiers died from curd poisoning.
i heard an armed thief tried to shoot a guy carrying a poutine pizza and the guy was so scared that he dropped the pizza.
if common sense and healthy living are diseases, then poutine pizza is the cure.
sure, i've eaten many a sloppy dish of poutine.
and all they're really doing is taking that poutine and spreading it onto a breaden, doughy crust.
but it's not about what poutine pizza is.
it's about what poutine stands for.
and the effect it will have on our children.
and our intestines and our future.
next time i'm only going to order a small.

the breakdown (of a probable mix given to a lady to incite feelings of lust)

track 1: this song is fun. nothing to heavy and it might get her hips shaking. i like the opening riff; good way to start a mix. a little "toe in the bathwater" action.

track 2: this one's more for me than her.

track 3: the first song that's really gonna grab her will be this one. she'll like it right away and play it for her girlfriends and they'll all put it on their iPods. it will also get her thinking. "will he ever leave me hangin' on the telephone?" and then she'll be like "of course not. why would he do that after putting this song on my CD?" then she'll maybe second guess herself one more time. this will make me seem untamed and dangerous, but in an appealing way.

track 4: this song is just awesome. it's catchy and it's pretty and it rocks. also, it's a test. say a few weeks down the road, i ask her if she likes this song and she says "meh", i'll have to rethink this whole operation.

track 5: the first time she invites me over for dinner and drinking because her bitchy roommate is out of town she'll put on the CD and do a drunken little headbangy air guitar dance to this song while standing on the sofa in her living room. so hot.

track 6: although throughly rocking, this song deals with some deep subject matter if you dig deep enough. this will tell her "i think about stuff sometimes." also it's sung by a chick, so she'll know i'm cool with that.

track 7: ok, that last one was a little intense. let's loosen shit up a bit. this one will bring the fun back. a good song to whistle along to. you can't have two "message" songs back to back. i'm trying to get her into bed, not send her to 'Nam.

track 8: i don't even care. Blue Oyster Cult are awesome. this song will let her know i'm burnin' for her.

track 9: this song wasn't supposed to be here. the other choice was some weird kind of non-mp3 file and i couldn't add it to the playlist because my computer was being gay so i replaced it with this one. i'd rather be making tapes.

track 10: this one's an ass kicker. it's gonna sound awesome when we're tearing down the highway at 140km/h in her car because she's driving me somewhere.

track 11: at the end of this stage of man's existence, when whoever's in charge of such things puts a cap on this whole "music as expression" thing, this sucker will continue to stand above all others as the greatest example of human emotion in song form ever recorded. it will be her "trying on girlie outfits and bouncing in fron of the mirror" song.

track 12: one time i started making a tape for this chick i liked who worked at that coffee place. and on said tape, this was the song that was going to crack her. the one that was going to peel open her heart* and welcome me to nestle inside and repaint it with our shared and mighty love. maybe her eyes would tear up whenever she heard it and she'd call me to come over and hold her while she listened to it on infinite repeat, purring thigs like "it's just like us...it's so beautiful...it's perfect...how did you ever find me?" then i saw her at some show with her douchebag boyfriend. i got some drunk that night.

track 13: hopefully she'll be wise enough to crank this one super loud and let the guitars pin her to the wall. her roommate will hate it and hopefully move out. then i can have my "Nintendo Room".

track 14: this song is one of my favorites, but i'm worried she'll think i added it as some kind of funny 'joke song'. then i'll get all defensive and be all "you don't know what it's like" and explain what the song means to me on a personal level and that i take it quite seriously. did you see the video though? the video's fucking hilarious.

track 15: man, you can't fuck with these old school love songs. no bullshit; they just go for it. come right out and say it. "imagine me and you, i do.." songs today are stupid. i don't know what the hell they're singing about. how some dude's hard drive malfunctions and and make these asymmetrical patterns that are maybe a clue or something, or how some guy let the dogs out or is on a night train or something. music today is stupid.

track 16: i thought that this would be a really good place for this song.

track 17: slick. this track is so fucking smooth man. sex jam.

track 18: at the end of a solid mix, always drop a prog song right after a sex jam. because prog songs are usually really really long. so when the sex jam gets her all hot and shit starts going down you've got all this time to mess around without worrying about having to change the CD and spoil the mood. "well uhhh, why don't you just like, start the disc with a sex jam then?" why? because i'm a classy motherfucker, that's why. amateur.

*[originally i was going to say 'peel open her heart like a warm dinner roll and slather it with my lo-fat love butter' but decided that was maybe taking thigs a bit too far.]

know when to hold 'em/fold 'em; walk away/run

sometimes the world is an awful place.
the second you step outside you're neck deep in a pungent sea of snarling Neanderthals who don't concern themselves with numbers or casualties or circumstance; devouring everything and beating their foes with the limbs of the partially eaten.

but sometimes the world is a wondrous place as well.
a technicolor pasture of unicorns who barf up kittens who shit out hamsters that sneeze perfect little diamonds that spray beautiful panda-shaped beams of light and make a billion wishes come true.

sometimes i just want a fresh bagel at two in the morning but the goddamned all-night bagel place is closed.
what gives?

no more tears*

[* as in "to pull apart or in pieces by force, esp. so as to leave ragged or irregular edges", not "fluid appearing in or flowing from the eye as the result of emotion".]

i always wondered how many more parties that old pair of jeans had in them.
the answer? just one.
that rip across the ass goes almost from side to side.
i blame the dancing.
a case of beer and Michael Jackson's 'Off The Wall' never fail to conjure a mean drunken shimmy, and once i started twisting those pants stood no chance.
i've (my mom has) done a lot of patchwork over the past few years, but this time they're beyond repair. when held up to the light certain stress areas in the crotchal/backside region are almost translucent.
but goddamn i got some mileage out of those fucks.
paint stains. blood stains. Jager stains.
they've slept indoors, outdoors, on stairs and in jail.
they've been pissed upon. (not by me)
they've been puked upon. (probably me, uncomfirmed)
now they join a pantheon of long-ago-mangled but never forgotten clothing that i like to call Hero Squad.
right up there with the still MIA Cariboo-Mainline shirt with Einstein on the front; that striped sweater that got eaten by the barbwire fence; and that 'Check Your Head' tee that i got at The Bay back in '93.
or maybe i'll turn 'em into some sweet cutoffs.

Mastodon - Blood Mountain

first off, i'd like to say that it's been many years since i've bailed early on a night of drinking for the sole purpose of going home and listening to a new album.
secondly, let me tell you what this album sounds like.
imagine Yes at their most proggy-fantastical (circa Close To The Edge and Fragile); now imagine that the members of Yes are angry, fourteen-foot tall Minotaurs who play with the technical majesty of 80's Maiden and the speed and ferocity of Reign In Blood era Slayer.
also, one of them might have a hard on for Lightning Bolt.
never could i have forseen that the record i'd go the most ga-ga for in 2006 would be a heavy metal concept album about a man scaling a mountain in search of a Crystal Skull and chronicalling the beasts and hallucinations he encounters along the way.
absolutely epic.
the song Capillarian Crest contains some the the most mind-bending guitar-o-batics i've ever heard.
toward the end of Circle Of Cysquatch (a one-eyed Sasquatch that can see into the future) we actually hear the 'Squatch's horrible voice, as he warns of the Colony Of Birchmen that lie only two songs further up the hideous mountain trail.
and Bladecatcher? Bladecatcher is just fucked.
but it's not all earth-shattering heaviosity; there are peaks and crests of majestic beauty sprinkled throughout, but it's quite a journey to reach them.
it's daunting, there's a lot to digest here. i'm not even sure how it ends or if it's even supposed to end or if the end is somewhere else completely.
i do know that if you listened to this record for the first time on mushrooms in a dark forest, you would die.
my inner myth-nerd: satisfied!
my inner headbanger: satisfied!
my inner have sex with two chicks at the same time guy: still not satisfied!

don't make me feel weird in my heart

for the record, i didn't lose my iPod.
my iPod wasn't stolen.
it' s in the house, i just don't know where.
i did know where, when i hid it there/wherever during the party last week, in that mindless ether that conjoins Saturday night and Sunday morning, but that information was washed away the second i rejoined the drink-a-thon.
i've torn this place apart, day by day, room by room, and still nothing.
this is not the first time i've done this.
i am, and have been since i was very small, one of the world's most ingenious and diabolical hiders of things.
which is all well and good.
but it can lead to serious problems when i hide stuff when i'm drunk.
the drinking doesn't affect my sublime, almost Satanic ability to conceal things in plain sight, but it does affect my ability to remember where the concealing took place.
one night several years ago, when i thought Daryl might have been involved in petty crime, i hid his sneakers, fearing they could be used as evidence should the hammer fall. naturally, i was highly intoxicated at the time and couldn't locate the sneakers the next morning. or any morning for the next several weeks. (my timeline may be a little garbled, but i believe the only reason i found the crime shoes again was because we were moving out of the house.)
so, exhausted with spending all my spare time searching, i've decided to take the stance of "it'll show up sooner or later".
but man, it's fucking killing me.
i'm 930 songs in the hole.
and all my old fashioned CD's are back in the Maritimes in my mother's garage.
but the real punch in the bag is that Autumn, for me, is the best time of the year for hours long headphone walks.
during my two hour excursion today all i could think about was the lack of music.
fuck.
and that dank, crisp fall air was practically on it's knees, begging for me to fill her with some big, throbbing rock and roll.
anything.
Master Of Reality.
Fear Of A Black Planet.
Hot Rats.
Murray Street.
Double Live Gonzo.
anything.
then, a wet yellow leaf nosedived off a tree and slapped me in the face, making me suddenly and frighteningly aware of how dependant i've become on such a sleek and attractive little piece of technology.
(her skin was like porcelain, and when i touched her sensitive belly, her face would light up and she'd sing to me. i had her in the palm of my hand.)
i'm sure it'll show up.
(don't make me feel weird in my heart.)
now.... to learn how to whistle.