sneakin' out the hospital

closure (the good kind)

2009-05-05T18:01:00.000-07:00

ok.
i haven't been here in eons.
but i should let all of you know what i'm doing now.

visual webcomic!!

multiple daily Twitter nonsense!!

also: the film version of a post that lies within these very pages (Beachcomb Revue)has just been accepted into the Brooklyn International Film Festival. in Brooklyn!

also also: more exciting new projects to come. for upadtes on those, check the Twitter. i think sneakin' out is fine just the way it is, so i'm going to leave it exactly like this. forever. thanks for all your comments, encouragement and high fives over the years.

peace, love and mirth;
Mike Gillis

know what i bet would teach those Evolution hating, extreme right Christians a thing or two?

2008-08-25T18:27:00.000-07:00

fossils of Jesus.

incumbent beware

2008-04-30T15:56:00.000-07:00

City Mayor.
is there any other title that inspires more respect, fear and adoration than that?
of course there is. Galactic Overlord.
but i'm not running for Galactic Overlord.
i'm running for Mayor.
"but how will you win? you have no knowledge of the political process. you don't pay your taxes. you don't even own a suit."
those things are probably true, but they shall not deter me.
because i've already won.
that's actually my campaign slogan: I've Already Won.
todays modern voters dig confidence.
also: people hate taking time out of their oh so important schedule to head down to the polls, or voting arena, or whatever you call it. if they think someone (me) has already won, why would they put themselves through the hassle of pulling a lever or punching a card?
they wouldn't.
that would be crazy.
and a vote for no one may as well be a vote for me.
i'm almost certain that's how these things work.
but a catchy slogan and the possibility of voter confusion aren't always enough. no siree.
i don't want a 'win'.
i want a 'rim destroying slam dunk from center court'.
and that's where my billboards come in.
until now, every election poster ever in the history of recorded election posters has looked exactly the same.
- challenger's name
- smiling headshot of the challenger
- challenger's slogan in a pleasing and easy to read font
the only, and exceedingly rare, variations to this formula are "challenger giving a thumbs up" and a small graphic flourish, like a star or a check mark.
that's weak.
modern voters want a little 'zazz' in their campaign propaganda.
that's why my posters will be gigantic.
i'll still be smiling, but more of a "you know you want it" smile as opposed the the classic "you can trust me, i'm old" smile.
and it'll be a full body shot.
and i'll be wearing a top hat and maybe a tasteful cape.
my left hand will be clenching a large sack of money.
and my right, a long, thick chain. at the other end of which is the Devil, whom i've beaten and captured for the good of the people.
the font? Iron Maiden.
my slogan you already know.
and if you already know it, it must be true.
so vote. or don't.
it doesn't even matter.
see you in October.

three ways to make a not very interesting film more interesting

2008-04-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

1. - add crosshairs. you know in a spy flick, when a sniper looks through his eyepiece, and it shows you what he's seeing with the crosshairs superimposed? do that, but superimpose the crosshairs over the WHOLE MOVIE. even if it's not a spy flick. especially if it's not a spy flick. this will give the audience a feeling of constant anticipation, like, "when's he gonna shoot these people?". but, since it's the audience who are peering down through the crosshairs, this technique may also add an existential element to the picture. like, "when are WE gonna shoot these people?". that's way more interesting.

2. - add a CG ghost of a deceased person. not as a character, and not as a part of the plot or narrative; just have them kind of float by at random intervals. maybe howling and rattling chains if you're feeling dramatic. the trick to making this method work is absolute denial. when people/the press come up to you after a screening and say "man, that CG ghost of John Candy was weird", hit them with a confused look and claim that you have no idea what they're talking about. maybe imply that they're crazy if you're feeling dramatic. after doing this a few times the public will pick up on it and conclude that your film must be haunted. and if i learned anything at Bible Camp, it's that haunted = interesting.

3. - try smoking some weed. and throw some boobs in there.

goth on a bike

2008-04-07T18:08:00.001-07:00

now there's something you don't see everyday.

people who need people are the luckiest people in the world

2008-03-24T20:07:00.000-07:00

i like helping people.
helping people makes people feel awesome, which means more high fives for me and/or me feeling better about myself.
here are three ways i've decided to help people.

1. - dress like Santa
"everyone loves Santa!" not true. only kids like Santa. the problem is, all kids today know Santa is fake. the best time to be Santa probably would've been in the 50's, when kids still thought he was real, (but this is problematic because the 50's were also the time when suspicious parents were most likely to accuse Santa of being a "spineless commie". which he was. [is?]). anyway, i would dress like Santa and entertain not children, but puppies. just hop into the suit and roll around in a kennel full of orphaned puppies for a few hours. delightful. this would actually be a two-pronged attack of people helpage. firstly, the puppies would be happier, having been visited by Old Saint Nick, thus making whoever adopted them happier still. secondly, immediately after the Great Xmas Puppy Frolic, i'd go visit some lonley and destitute homeless folk, cheering them up by a) being Santa, and b) reeking of fresh puppy. i can see them now, huddled around a cliched but moderately warm thrashcan fire, that first wrinkled face looking up and noticing me, seeing the beard and big red coat and happily exclaiming, "hey fellas! look! it's Gary!".

2. - be a 911 switchboard operator
manning the phone lines for 911 is a great way to help in and of itself. but i've come up with a way to help even more. picture an hysterical wife calling. "oh my god! oh my god! my husband is trapped under the mower! please pleaase help!". i understand ma'am. please remain calm. i've notified an ambulance and they're on their way. now go to your husband, and tell him i've also notified Batman. he'll be there shortly. bam. the wife will calm instantly, because she thinks Batman is coming to fix everything. the husband, even if he is seconds from death, will somehow, deep from within, find the will and the strength to hang on a little longer. because he wants to meet Batman. this method also helps the real paramedics, giving them more time to do their job properly AND giving them an opportunity to discuss Batman during a call, which i'm sure they rarely get to do. is Batman even a doctor? i would say yes, he probably is.

3. - always carry a lighter or matches
always carry a lighter or matches in case a hot girl who smokes asks you for a light.

typecast much?

2008-03-04T18:21:00.000-08:00

i've often wondered about the people who answer casting calls for physically repulsive roles in movies and television shows. and i don't mean repulsive roles like "monster from space"; i mean repulsive roles like "morbidly obese herpes lady with no eyes" or "disgusting filth covered wino".
then i started thinking about my favorite cinematic filth covered wino of all time*, Vance Colvig Jr. from "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1989 comedy classic 'UHF'.
then i wondered what other notable roles V.Colvie has graced us with over the years.
so i looked it up on the internet.
i couldn't believe how easy it was!
thanks, AOL.
here is a partial list (pinched from IMDb.com):

One-Eyed Man
Bum
Bum
Old Man
Mr. Ellis
Clownie
Uncle Willard
Hezekiah
Man With Newspapers
Alcoholic Man
Chairman
Old Man
Wino
Bum
Mr. Pechar
Bozo The Clown (!)

that's right kids. the man who portrayed the biggest, most loved non-fastfood clown of all time spent his life portraying bums, winos, alcoholics and Uncle Willard.
suddenly the future's not looking quite so bright for Morbidly Obese Herpes Lady.
hang in there babe. we'll be your eyes.
(we totally don't have to be her eyes. she can't even read this. NO ONE read this aloud to her.)

* -seriously, if you can show me a more convincing filth covered wino (in a film; not for real. i see enough of those) i'll buy you a meal of your choice. from Taco Bell's Big Value Menu.

mom fight

2008-03-01T16:04:00.000-08:00

thursday.
on my way to work, passing the elementary school between my apartment and the Metro station, i heard a commotion.
and i knew it was a serious commotion, because i heard it through the plastic/pleather ear covering of my headphones. and not just through my headphones, but over the glorious din of Faith No More. a noisy commotion indeed.
so i looked to the schoolyard, half expecting to see a gaggle of kids involved in some kind of desperate five-minutes-to-bell-time snowball war.
but that's not what i saw at all.
instead i saw that which we only see on television screens and in our wildest most unhinged dreams.
a Mom Fight.
an honest-to-goodness headlockin' name callin' Mom Fight.
right there on the sidewalk, by the fence, down in a blanket of snow whiter and purer than the most preciously hand-washed bedsheets.
i think i actually yelled the words "Mom Fight!!" as i barreled across the street to snag a position ringside.
now, there's no way i could know for sure what volatile spark ignited this matronly inferno of asskickery, but whatever the trigger, it must've been dire.
these. young. moms. were. pissed.
it was scrappier than a bourbon filled Wolverine taking on a truckload of bourbon filled wolverines.
punching. kicking. grappling.
oh my god biting!
hair pulling!
amazing.
and let me tell you, the kids were loving it.
to them this was probably more exciting than a bourbon filled Wolverine dressed like a flying Santa.
soon a male teacher ran out of the school, taking a place next to me in the good seats. "what is this?! this is crazy!"
"i know!" i said. "why aren't we gambling?!"
i threw down a tenner on the redhead in the blue parka.
teachers cash was on the perm-headed brunette with the foul mouth.
kids were throwing down lunch money and Pokemon cards.
and the battle raged on.
i wrote a song about it.

------

neck grab
throat crunch
from the kitchen to the streets
with a bag lunch tit punch

mom vs mom
fighting for the reins
one mother grab another
toss a mother to the flames

two milfs
getting pounded
write a letter to the book club
cuz someone's getting grounded

mom fight
all night
every fucking thing
is motherfucking alright

(pou)tine hunger force

2008-02-27T16:40:00.000-08:00

you may remember a post from last year about Poutine Pizza. well! here are some other existing recipes that could be enhanced/made retarded by adding Poutine. get hungry!

Poutine Cheeseburger
Poutine Lasagna
Poutine Sushi
Poutine Taco
Poutine Omelette
Poutine Banana Bread
Poutine Stew
Poutine Popcorn
Poutine McNuggets
Poutine Pad Thai
Poutine Rice Krispie Squares
Poutine Sloppy Joe
Poutine Mandarin Salad
Poutine Pudding
Poutine Fries 'n Gravy
also, you could stuff a turkey with Poutine.

the best thing before sliced bread:

2008-02-24T13:55:00.000-08:00

catapult

puppy scratch fever

2008-02-14T15:35:00.000-08:00

"dude, how was your Valentine's Day?"

"you know. it was the usual depressing shitshow that comes with being single on Valentine's Day."

"i thought you said you were going to a bar or something."

"i did. i went to that college bar that all the freshman chicks go to. i brought a shoebox full of puppies with me."

"puppies?"

"yeah. chicks love puppies. puppies are the Lemon Gin of the animal kingdom."

"so what happened?"

"i got swarmed man. it was great. this one girl was all over me."

"what was her name?"

"i dunno. Sandra or Dawnette or something."

"did you hook up?"

"almost."

"what do you mean 'almost'?"

"well, it was all aces at first. she was gaga for those puppies. it was pretty much a slam dunk, but then i botched it."

"how?"

"i said, 'if you like these puppies you'll LOVE my bed. my sheets are made of puppies'."

"and?"

"face slapped. puppies confiscated. ass kicked to curb."

"shitty."

"i know. she must have been vegan or something."

"so...where did you get the puppies in the first place?"

"found 'em in some dude's yard."

"nice."

"thanks."

shut up. shut up. shut up.

2008-02-07T16:48:00.002-08:00

there's nothing like spending a Wednesday night at your local hole-in-the-wall watering hole, exercising (exorcising?) the old beer gland and soaking up some dirty ass rock & roll.
what a delightful midweek social activity.
that is unless, out of fucking nowhere, your hole-in-the-wall watering hole is hosting a Spoken Word Poetry Slam.
more specifically an 'open mic' Spoken Word Poetry Slam.
there's a reason people hide diaries under beds people.
and that reason is shame.
teenage girls know this, why don't you?
i'm as open minded as the next guy. if you wanna yodel while wearing a tampon tophat and have cocaine for breakfast every morning, that's fine with me.
but i have to draw the line at Spoken Word Poetry Slams.
especially SWPS's that happen at bars.
bars are for drinking and loud music. you ruined my bar.
i'm sure you think you're 'expressing yourself' or 'making an artistic statement' or 'are a cool person completely in touch with reality' but the fact of the matter is that nobody, absolutely nobody, in the world, cares about poems about other people's feelings.
arts/entertainment wise, standing on a stage reading a poem about your laminated scrapbook of melancholy is the zenith of laziness.
and anyone who claims they really 'got it' or 'were totally feeling it' are only doing so hoping that you'll maybe have sex with them later. which is also a zenith of laziness, albeit in a completely different field.
unless you're a famous author, a science professor, a really hot chick or Batman, there's a 99.98% chance that no one will give a fuck.
"but they clapped afterwards."
only to relieve the awkward silence.
and maybe pity.
some people are nice.
not me apparently.
i'd rather watch a Mime Show.
"but that mime wasn't expressing anything? he had no message, man."
yeah, but did you see when he was trapped in that box?
"but he got out of the box?"
i know! and did you see how windy it was up there?
maybe i'm being a bit of a philistine here.
maybe i shouldn't knock it until i've tried it.
but if (IF) i ever attempted to walk through the Ring Of Fire that is spoken word, i'd at least have the sense to moxy it up a bit.
an interesting story!
sunglasses!
throw a few jump kicks in there!
adjective solo!
"now you're just trying to be offensive."
yeah, well, you're a retard.
thank you and goodnight.

church:

2008-02-07T16:48:00.001-08:00

crappiest.
book club.
ever.

foiled again. again!

2008-01-28T22:51:00.000-08:00

today at work, while gluing white squares of Lego to the backsides of motorboards, i thought of something magnificent.
Tronald Dump.
i know what you're thinking. omg.
i was too.
because Tronald Dump isn't just a mere spoonerism.
Tronald Dump is actually near perfect. it combines all three basic elements of the Triforce of Comedy.
it's timely.
it's hilarious.
and it involves the toilet.
and for a minute, for one glorious minute, i envisioned a bountiful future.
a t-shirt.
a catch phrase.
tiny little crap wigs.
that is until Jack, quickly and efficiently, Google searched the name Tronald Dump.
throat punch.
i was not the first person to discover the infinitely comedic gold mine that is Tronald Dump.
what's more depressing is that, somewhat suprisingly, the first person to think of Tronald Dump is a dog with a MySpace account.
i wish, oh Wayne and Garth, i wish i was making this up.
but it's too late.
Tronald Dump is a computer literate dog.
a dog who enjoys high fives and human food, and who hates recorder whistles and laser pointers.
a dog who is apparently bisexual, 36 years old, a bodybuilder of African descent and has exactly one hundred friends (several of whom appear to also be dogs with access to the internet).
i'm done.
i can't compete with this.
curse you, Tronald.
curse you, you son of a bitch.

the trials and tribulations of Professor Jump Kick

2008-01-25T12:21:00.000-08:00

here is a brief list of the various Special Powers i have accumulated over the years:

- ability to erase memories (unfortunately this only works on myself and only when alcohol is present)

- unlimited jump kicks

- ability to smoke a cigarette while playing Nintendo and still win

- impervious to: alarm clocks, hot sauce, French

- ability to soar horizontally through the air (only for short bursts and without the ability to land)

- unlimited Simpson's references

- conjure invisible air guitar

- can hide a Canadian quarter in my right nostril

- third degree black belt in making girls feel weird

- ability to drop a "that's what she said" after absolutely any statement made about anything at any time

- advanced barbecue wizardry

- conjure awkward silence

- inability to perform reverse psychology

- spontaneous uncontrollable sneeze attacks

lawsuit pending

2008-01-24T15:37:00.000-08:00

warning labels.
promoting safety? not so much.
protecting massive companies from getting sued by opportunistic morons?
bingo.
or maybe, just maybe, people really are that stupid.
that sticker on your lawnmower that tells you not to put your hand on the spinning blade may seem kind of unnecessary. but perhaps people are practicing this. why? who knows. they're idiots. and idiots are unpredictable.
you know when you buy new sneakers and there's that little packet of silica gel that says 'do not eat'? if it didn't say that, would you be inclined to actually try some silica gel? "hey! my new Pro Keds came with this weird packet of granulated chemicals. i should probably eat some."
me no think so, Tim.
but maybe it's these very warnings that are encouraging people to risk personal health and safety for that sweet sweet negligence claim.
maybe it's human nature (or at least moron nature) to do exactly what we're told not to.
for example: let's say a bottle of window cleaner came with a warning that states 'not for use on babies'. i'd say it's only a matter of weeks before some yokel brings his or her crying but gleaming infant into the emergency ward wondering what possibly could've gone wrong.
people should know better.
fact! people do not know better.
a bottle of motor oil that says 'poisonous. flammable. delicious?'.
well...maybe it is, you know?
only one way to find out.
now if you'll excuse me, i'm going to go stare at the sun through a telescope while aiming fireworks at my face until those cans of forks are done in the microwave.

with grace

2008-01-24T15:27:00.000-08:00

hey baby. let's bang.

that's crude. don't say it like that.

sorry. let us bang.

that's better.

ninja sighting (part I)

2007-12-17T18:03:00.000-08:00

dude! dude check out that ninja!

that's not a ninja.

dude! yes it is! look! ninja!

if that were an actual ninja he wouldn't be just standing there like that. we wouldn't be able to see him at all; he'd be stealthily lurking or something. and he definitely wouldn't be stuffing all that coleslaw in his face.

c'mon, dude. that's totally a ninja. he's just on break or something.

are you fucked? can you even hear what you're saying? ninjas don't "go on breaks". ninjas were a secret society of specially trained feudal Japanese assassins. that's just some guy.

no way man. he's totally a ninja.

where the fuck is his sword then?

i don't know. probably concealed or something?

concealed where?! in his fucking sandwich?

maybe. he IS a ninja.

weren't you wondering like a week ago why you couldn't get laid? this is why. because you're fucked. because you're fucked and because you act like brain damaged preschooler.

listen man, all i'm saying is HOLY SHIT! is your fucking arm sliced off?!!

wha? oh shit, it is!

look! that dude! he totally disappeared! his food's gone too!

holy fuck! he WAS a ninja!

i told you!! i fucking told you!!

shut up. grab your phone and get a picture of this ninja wound before i die from it.

ok. actually, give me your phone, yours has more megapixels.

fine. hurry up.

there. what do you think that ninja's going to do with your arm?

how the fuck should i know?

you're cranky today.

shut up.

an interview with Santa

2007-12-14T17:26:00.000-08:00

Mike: Hello, Santa. Thanks for stopping by and making time for this interview. I know you're crazy busy this time of year, so let's get right down to it. You're no doubt aware of the shift in the general public's opinion of you over the past few decades, and how, in western culture especially, you've become sort of a figurehead of seasonal mass consumerism. Now, do you see this as a reflection of ever changing socio-economic trends, or more of a case of the populous becoming more "symbolically jaded" due to the ongoing dissolution of the traditional nuclear family?

Santa: . . . . .

Mike: Oh, that's right. You're not real. Drinkin' time!

things to consider when purchasing a new winter coat

2007-12-12T18:42:00.000-08:00

* range of agility - not the coat's range of agility, but YOUR range of agility while wearing said coat. if your coat has it's own range of agility, well, that's fucked up sir. anyway, few good ways to test for range while still in the store include: reaching high above your head; running on the spot, furiously; a "squat to pounce-roll" maneuver; dislocating your shoulder and using a wall or door to smash it back into place a la Mel Gibson in the action/comedy classic Lethal Weapon. if a store clerk gives you any trouble while performing these tests look him/her in the eye and say "hey! do you wanna sell this fuckin' coat or not? huh?" if your town only has one coat store and you don't want to cause a scene, maybe just measure yourself before you go in or something. smartass.

* hood to headphone ratio - do you like rock music? through big ass headphones? of course you do. you're a sexy young mover and shaker. do you like having a warm head? the kind of warm that only the hood of a coat can bring? well mon amis, if you like both of these things you're going to have to make a compromise, because most coat hoods fit big headphones underneath them in a manner i can only describe as 'awkward at best'. sure, you could switch to earbud headphones, but make sure you keep them loud enough to drown out the sound of women and children everywhere mocking the fuck out of you. so there's your dilemma. what's it gonna be? frostbite may be cold, but Deep Purple's 'Made In Japan' is cooool as shit.

* mustard resistance - don't even laugh. i could get mustard all over myself eating an apple.

* beer stashage - even the most pedestrian, minimalistic coats have at least two pockets, usually located symmetrically on the lower front area, near the zipper, buttons, velcro, houndstooth, bison cartilage or whatever the hell method of coat fastening you're into. these standard two front pockets are not so great for drinks on the go. they're too shallow too horizontal and are right out in the open. ideally, your coat should have some 'secret pockets' sewn into the inner lining, making them accessible only to you, the Coat Operator. the inner pocket should be able to conceal a standard bottle or tall can. an additional outer pocket that can hold a standard sized can is always a plus. also, if you're in a fix, fill your sleeves (and try to remember not to high five any cops while your sleeves are filled). if your coat doesn't have any sleeves, you've just wasted your money on a vest. chump. see what happens when you go shopping without your mom?

15 totally embarrassing books to be caught leafing through in a bookstore when a friend or aquaintance suddenly appears:

2007-12-11T20:31:00.000-08:00

The Klingon Thesaurus (Expanded Edition)
Crunkenstein
Official Kraft Dinner & Cut-Up Hot Dogs Cook Book
Harry Potter And The Haunted Birth Control
Oprah On Oprah, The Oprah Story: An Oprabiography
Crossing The Streams: Bedwetting, Gay Marriage & You
Days Of Thunder 2: Cole's Reckoning
The NEW Bible
Wuv In The Time Of Cholera
Dummies Books For Dummies (Abridged Edition)
Baby's First Golden Girls Picture Book
N-Word! The Musical: The Novelization
The Unicorn Puppies' Cute-ventures In Ice Cream Land
Lather, Rinse, Whatever: Shampoo Commercials & The Modern Woman
To Phil A Mockingbird

dream club

2007-11-24T14:08:00.000-08:00

Stan: hey gang. welcome to another weekly meeting of Dream Club. i see a lot of excited faces out there tonight, so let's get things rolling. ok, looks like Doug's got his hand up so we'll let him start us off. if you would, Doug.

Doug: thanks, Stan. hey everyone. so, as most of you know i've been going through a pretty rough divorce lately, and the stress has been triggering some unpleasant dreams. mostly involving my wife an-

Jimi: (yelling) ex-wife!

Doug: uh....yes.. thanks Jimi. so, yeah, mostly dreams involving my ex-wife. usually of her taking the kids away or instructing the kids to ignore me. sometimes something more elaborate, like her and the kids transforming and kind of joining together, forming some kind of heavily armed, hovering sentry-bot. i always wake up crying. (long weird pause. someone belches). but, i think the worst is over. the past few nights i haven't been dreaming about them at all. i've only dreamt about a man-sized lamb who walks on his hind legs. he has seven eyes, all of which are hazel, and he washes me with a large triangular sponge. it's really, wow, it's just really really comforting. i really think i've turned a corner here, so, i don't know, i'd just like to thank you guys. thank you.

*clapping*

Stan: alright! thanks for sharing, Doug. who'd like to be next? Jimi? sure, you're up champ.

Jimi: hey. so check this. i've had the exact same dream every night for the past, like, five days. it's always the same, except it gets a little longer each time. but it's still boring, you know? every single night, i lie down, close my eyes, and dream about coming in here and killing you guys. night after night after night. it always starts with me strapping this huge ass knife to my leg; like this, see? (flashes huge ass knife). then i get up here and talk for a bit, and you guys all sit there and look freaked. and i always end up murdering Doug first because he always says something stupid that just pisses me the fu-

Doug: hold on; is this some kind of sick AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Doug's Wife: honey? honey, what's wrong? wake up honey!

Doug: AAHHH...wha?....oh shit. shit hon, i'm sorry.

Doug's Wife: it's ok. you were having a nightmare.

Doug: yeah. it was the one where we're divorced and i'm attending this stupid "Dream Club".

Doug's Wife: oh honey, that's crazy. i love you.

Doug: i know Gladys, i know.

Doug's Wife: kiss me.

*Doug leans in to kiss his wife. they embrace. as they hold each other they realize just how strong their marriage is, and as they begin to make love for the first time in-

Seven-Eyed Lamb Man: AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Hovering Sentry-Bot: *hovering downstairs* what's going on? are you ok? i heard screaming.

Seven-Eyed Lamb Man: yeah. yeah, i'm ok. i just had that dream again.

Hovering Sentry-Bot: the one where the humans are copulating?

Seven-Eyed Lamb Man: yeah, that one. it's probably from sleeping on this piece of shit excuse for a sofa.

Hovering Sentry-Bot: welllll... *smiling coquettishly*...maybe you should sleep upstairs in the double bed. with me.

Seven-Eyed Lamb Man: so you forgive me?

Hovering Sentry-Bot: we'll see, Lopez. we'll see.

The En-AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!

to the q-tip i dropped that rolled behind the toilet...

2007-11-13T08:01:00.001-08:00

goodbye forever.

best ghosts!

2007-10-31T10:39:00.000-07:00

Jacob Marley - this guy used to work for Ebenezer Scrooge but died one Christmas and came back as a ghost (also on Christmas!) to warn Scrooge about the perils of living a life of greed. it's a pretty famous story. also, i've heard the term "smoking a Marley" being bandied about in youth culture circles, so it probably has something to do with this guy.

Candyman - if you live in urban Chicago and say 'Candyman' five times while looking in a mirror, the Candyman will appear and kill you with his hook. i'm not sure why they call him Candyman; he just looks like a black dude wearing a fur trimmed pimp coat who carries a giant hook. i see no link to candy.

Stay Puft Marshmallow Man - a tall-as-a-building logo man made of gigantic marshmallows; actually the final form taken by evil demigod Gozer to destroy the Ghostbusters and most of downtown 1980's New York. prompted Peter Venkman to exclaim: "Nobody steps on a church in my town!"

Blinky - Blinky was the red ghost from Pac-Man. he lived in a maze.

Jesus - Jesus was the main ghost in the hugely popular fiction opus 'The Bible'. he could turn water to wine, come back to life whenever he wanted, and was generally a pretty nice guy. apparently he'll be returning to Earth sometime in the near future. sequel anyone?

Bruce Willis - totally badass. totally a ghost. how can you make die hard that which cannot die?

Captain Awesome - this is the ghost that i see in the early hours of the morning, before the dawn when i'm barely alive. more of an inspirational hallucination than an actual ghost. he said if i didn't include him in this list he'd stop making all the bad people go away and make me "deal with shit on my own". kind of an asshole.

music quiz: which song title is best?

2007-10-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

Crying All Over My Dick For You

Crying All Over My Dick (For You)

Crying (All Over My Dick For You)

Crying (All Over My Dick) For You

(Crying) All Over My Dick (For You)

Dick 4 U (Crying All Over My Remix)

Bohemian Crapsody

overheard at the apartment of the former members of Ugly Kid Joe

2007-10-17T17:30:00.000-07:00

"alright; whose turn is it to buy Cheetos and dog food because we're so broke we can only afford to eat Cheetos dipped in dog food?"

"i dunno, man. but guess what i just realised?"

"what is it, bro?"

"now, in 2007, we totally ARE America's least wanted! for real though!"

"omg!! we totally called it! like 15 years ago!"

"i know! we're gonna be rich!"

(and they cheered an uproarius cheer, one that was heard all through their 8' by 6' living room. and cheering turned to high fives, and high fives turned to bro grabs, and bro grabs eventually turned into the cold, dull, bleak talons of Reality and they sobbed and whimpered as they decided to spend the last of their Cheetos and dog food money on sweet, tartar fighting, despair numbing, antibacterial mouthwash.)

[but seriuosly, they had a song in 'Wayne's World'. did you have a fucking song in 'Wayne's World'?]

more crappy TV shows that'll never exist!

2007-10-17T16:26:00.000-07:00

Welcome Back, Potter
-- the story of an aging, magical man-child who returns to his former High School of Wizardry to become a teacher to a bunch of 1970's looking slacker wizards-in-training. can he help them pass finals? will the Spellhogs show up and ruin Mr. Potter's anniversary plans with his wife in an hilarious manner? will they all learn the true meaning of Lincoln's Birthday? find out this season.

Private Danza
-- the story of an ex-boxer/taxi driver/baseball player/housekeeper who has become a singing private detective. no one will ever watch this.

Who Want's To Marry A Dog?
-- eight dogs live in a swanky hotel on a secluded tropical island. one of them is a millionaire. it's up to one of fifteen cocaine-deluded supermodels to try and figure out which dog gots the riches and marry him. who will win a life of freaky canine luxury? and who will be rummaging for scraps in the meat dumpster behind an unlicenced Mexican butcher shop? tune in and see.

awesome name for a book about home toilet repair

2007-10-11T17:02:00.000-07:00

Fifty Ways To Love Your Lever

an interview with Satan

2007-09-18T16:58:00.000-07:00

Mike: Hello, Satan. How are you?

Satan: Fantastic. Fan-tastic. Any trouble finding the place?

M: No, your directions were fine.

S: Good. I worry people are gonna get lost down here; get themselves all turned around in the Labyrinth, get scalded or something. Just causes me a lot of hassle later on down the road, you know?

M: I understand. So, I guess we should get started.

S: Fire away.

M: Okey dokey. First things first; how was your summer?

S: Ummmmm... it was okay. Pretty relaxed. Worked a lot.

M: Did you go anywhere?

S: Yeah, actually. I went to Sacramento for a few days and i spent a week in Norway. They love me there.

M: I heard. Was it fun?

S: Oh, for sure. I got this tattoo, check it out. (shows tattoo on upper right arm; it's a tattoo of a naked, large breasted Medusa riding a winged bear over a city skyline)

M: Wow. That's awesome. Was it expensive?

S: No. I got a discount. I know the guy.

M: Rad.

S: Indeed.

M: So, it's autumn now and Halloween is right around the corner. Is that a busy time of year for you?

S: You know, it used to be, but these days... I don't know, it's gotten pretty commercial. Besides, there's so many kids out there causing shit I could probably not show up and no one would notice.

M: I used to love causing shit on Halloween.

S: I know you did. I remember that year you stole that scarecrow of that old guy's porch and strung him up on the park monkey bars and torched him.

M: You remember that?

S: Yeah man, that was awesome. I didn't even have to make you do it or anything.

M: Wow, thanks Satan.

S: No problem. (a vigorous high five is exchanged)

M: Nice. Okay, here's one. What's your favorite movie?

S: I don't really have a favorite, but my top five are Amadeus, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Ronin, Scream Blacula Scream and The Fly.

M: I love The Fly! Orignal or Jeff Goldblum version?

S: The Jeff one. So deadly.

M: Shit yeah. What have you been listening to lately?

S: Not too much new stuff. Mostly weird shit from Japan. Pretty stoked for that new Thurston Moore solo joint that's coming out.

M: I've heard it. It's excellent.

S: You've heard it already?

M: Yeah, I stole it off the internet.

S: Atta boy! (another high five.)

M: What's your favorite food?

S: Probably....chocolate. Yeah, chocolate. Chocolate and souls.

M: Cool. Favorite TV show?

S: I don't want to sound vain or anything, but definitely the News. Doesn't matter what channel.

M: Okay, and do you have a favorite word?

S: Right now.....dickbarf.

M: Your favorite word is dickbarf?

S: Yeah,(laughs), it's pretty gross.

M: No shit. I've never even heard it.

S: It's new; kind of a Hell thing.

M: I see. Do you play any video games?

S: Yeah, there's a great one I've been playing for the past couple thousand years. It's called "Human Beings"!

M: Oh snap!

S: Ha! Seriously though, I'm not much of a gamer.

M: That's fine. Here's a spicy one: how's your love life going?

S: Wellll...I've been single for the past year or so, so I've just been enjoying that.

M: Who were you with before that?

S: I'd rather not say. She's kind of famous, and we really weren't interested in being one of those 'high-profile celebrity couples'; adopting kids in Africa and all that garbage. I don't need that. It ended amicably though, we still talk.

M: Was she a "demon in the sack"?

S: (frowning) I'd appreciate it if you didn't use derogatory slurs in my lair.

M: Oh. Shit.....I didn't....I'm sorry if I..

S: Haha! Relax, I'm just fucking with you. She was hot though. Magma from the core hot.

M: Sweet. Well, that'll about do it I guess. Thanks for taking the time to do this and having me down here and everything.

S: Shit, anytime man. I had a lot of fun.

M: Me too. Well, right on ,Satan. I guess I'll see you around.

S: For sure. Take care of yourself.

M: I will. Bye.

S: Later.

things i learned this summer

2007-09-06T18:14:00.000-07:00

- Francais is French for "French".

- CSI is just a sexier/gorier big budget Scooby Doo for adults.

- my "high five" trick; always a hit at parties.

- my "make a quarter disappear in my nose" trick; not so much.

- taking a full can of beer to bed while drunk increases your chances of waking up soaked with beer by 100%.

- Superbad is even funnier the third time you see it.

- awesome name for a rapper: MC Compass, the Freebasin' Freemason.

- if traveling by plane, you can totally pack a hyper-realistic human skull replica in your carry-on; they won't even ask about it. give it a try.

- a mirror with a Quiet Riot cover printed it: one man's trash is another man's treasure.

- you actually can make an omelette without breaking any eggs. it's going to be kind of fucked up though.

since we're already talking about Van Halen...

2007-07-30T23:07:00.000-07:00

so i was listening to 'Hot For Teacher' during my walk home yesterday, and it hit me; (for the one-thousand, nine-hundredth & eighty-fourth time), what a killer fucking rock song.
the super-insano drum intro, Eddie's guitar at Face Melting levels by the thirty second mark, the classroom chatter, that other guitar part, the awesome video; it's fucking perfect.
then i was thinking, if 'Hot For Teacher' really were a "killer" rock song, what kind of killer would it be?
that's easy. crazy ninja assassin.
but then i realized "no. that is incorrect."
ninja assassins, even the crazy ones, require a certain subtlety, a finesse if you will, to silently and gracefully slay their opponent with honor and dignity.
Hot For Teacher is more like a 6'8" two headed Rambo, wearing a neon orange shag carpet tuxedo, with machine gun arms and cherry red Ferrari's for legs.
who is also on fire.
and yells 'WOOOOOOOOOOOYEAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!' a lot.
yeah. more like that.

border crossing

2007-07-30T22:55:00.000-07:00

guard - "do you have any identification son?"

me - "right here."

guard - "and what business do you have in the United States today?"

me - "i heard you guys have awesome burgers."

guard - "son.....is that an unlicenced handgun on your seat there?"

me - "wha? oh, this. haha. no, this is a fake gun."

guard - "a fake gun?"

me - "yeah, it's not real. i carved it out of hash."

plea to the original members of Van Halen

2007-07-30T07:26:00.000-07:00

c'mon guys.
for me.
just like, five songs.
it's summer.
we need you guys.

trespassers will be:

2007-07-20T19:56:00.001-07:00

shot

prosecuted to the full extent of the law

charlie horsed

assholes

haunted. forever.

fondled

delighted

added to "the list"

shaved

filled with childlike whimsy

single?

disappointed

filmed and later masturbated to

surprised when they meet SecuroBot

painted, dried, scraped and repainted

delicious

lesser known summer blockbusters

2007-07-18T17:12:00.000-07:00

Twinjas! - a high kicking, gut busting summer comedy adventure! this is the story of conjoined twin brothers who are also ancient ninja assassins. follow them as they seamlessly blend in with their co-workers at a high stakes New York law firm, hot on the trail of the resurrected spirit of another ancient ninja assassin who wants to take over the financial district AND resurrect more ancient evil ninja assassins! can they find and defeat their enemy? will they fall in love with the same girl and have awkward, not-quite-a-three-way twinja sex? will they decapitate everyone on the sixth floor? twice? there's only one way to find out. Twinjas. three arms, two swords, one mission. funnier than a nunchuck to the face.

Lucia Sexytime: Surf Cop - Wetmound Beach. once a thriving tourist community, now a coastal slum, overrun by gangsters, junkies and ancient ninja assassins. that is until Special Agent Lucia Sexytime gets assigned to take out the beach trash. armed with an M16A2 assault rifle and her trusty surfboard, Pink Splash, Agent Sexytime glides up and down the hot, wet shoreline serving up juicy mouthfuls of beach justice. men love her. women want to be her. criminals fear her but also kind of want to have sex with her. so evil-doers beware: if you bring your crime to the sea, prepare to get blown. right out of the water. rated PG13.

The Fort Polio Portfolio - this one's a thriller or something. bring someone to make out with.

70 years of Bill

2007-07-13T18:15:00.000-07:00

in honor of Bill Cosby's seventieth birthday (which was yesterday, i was busy) i've compiled a modest list of his ten greatest accomplishments. let's all bask in the warm, hilarious glory that is The Cos.
disclaimer: 'Ghost Dad' will not appear on this list.

- The Cosby Show. you simply cannot fuck with The Cosby Show. the first few seasons anyway.

- Picture Pages episode "Animals". you. will. laugh. and no one will learn anything. which is awesome, because this is purportedly an "educational kid's show". enjoy this one with some drugs; Bill did.

- Leonard Part 6. a movie where Bill tries to stop an evil vegetarian from controlling the world. i hear he accomplishes this using some kind of Magic Meat. please please please someone help me find this movie.

- Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. you love this.

- Silver Throat: Bill Cosby Sings. actually contains a song called 'Don'cha Know'. also, in the running for Best Album Cover Ever.

- Phylicia Rashad. goddamn.

- Picture Pages episode "Shapes and Colors". holy wow, he's done it again.

- becoming the first black actor to have a starring role in a dramatic television series with I Spy. helped pave the way for a crappy Owen Wilson/Eddie Murphy movie.

- when Theo wanted that designer shirt to impress that girl at school but it was too expensive, and Bill, sorry "Cliff", refused to give him the cash to purchase it. then Cliff made a copy of the shirt for Theo, but it didn't fit properly and Theo was hilariously flustered. no, wait. Denise made the shirt. Nevermind.

- his years spent toiling in the underground Omega Sector of the Jell-O laboratories, developing a new gelatin sensation codenamed "Jell-O Jigglers". which is just regular Jell-O. in different shapes. good on ya Bill.

assembly

2007-07-12T07:49:00.000-07:00

"so i think i'm going to build a new easel this weekend."

"out of what? out of bones?"

"uhhhhh..nope. probably just gonna make it out of wood."

"ah, wood. the coward's bones."

crappy horoscopes

2007-07-07T16:27:00.000-07:00

Aries - Not a great day for bagels.

Taurus - All of your favorite shows will be cancelled.

Gemini - Run.

Cancer - Bring a sponge.

Leo - They're lying to you.

Virgo - Rash time!

Libra - Because it's haunted.

Scorpio - She's faking it.

Sagittarius - Your fern will take a step closer to death because you never water it and it's all the way up on that shelf and can't get any light.

Capricorn - It's a trap.

Aquarius - You are reading your horoscope.

Pisces - Preggers.

shorn on the 4th of July

2007-07-04T17:09:00.000-07:00

so the other morning, after doing my typically corpse-like trot down the hall to the bathroom, i realized my moustache (that's Mr. Moustache* to you) needed a slight trimming.
so i leaned in with my electric clippers, still bleary eyed from sleep/hunger/seventeen straight days of drinking, to perform a simple, routine trimming procedure that i like to call the Glide Trim.
i don't feel like delving into the logistical dynamics of the Glide Trim right now, but let's just say i mowed a little too deep and completely buzzed most of the left portion of the 'stache.
ouch.
non-fixable.
a write off.
i had only two options.
one: rock a Hitler.
two: shave it off completely.
and since i wasn't really feeling the Most Evil Moustache In History look, i nudified my upper lip.
which is all for the best i guess, being a hairless freak for once.
but in retrospect, i should have kept the MEMIH for at least the train ride to work, so i could just smile in peoples faces, aloof as they gasped and glared and made fists. until of course someone actually slams me and tears my headphones off.
"why are you wearing a Hitler moustache!! you vile prick!!"
"lady...who the fuck is Hitler?"
"oh you..."

* 'Bleach' reference! nice!

if i were in porn, my porn actor name would be...

2007-06-27T16:43:00.001-07:00

- Organ Freeman

rock sauce!

2007-06-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

here's a list of cold and delicious rock-themed cocktails.
drink them!
or just keep being a square, it really doesn't matter to me.

- Cran Morrison
- Cran Halen
- Ginny Hendrix
- Sex on the Beach Boys
- Rum DMC
- Parliament Julep
- Whitesnake Russian
- Big Black Russian
- Rye and the Family Stone
- Guns n' Rosé
- Sparkling White Wine Inch Nails
- Long Island Iced TV on the Radio
- Tonic Youth
- Sonic Vermouth
- Scotch on the Rocks ("Rocks" referring to the title of Aerosmith's fourth album, not ice cubes. there should probably be some cubes in there anyway though.)
- Refill Collins

don't cry

2007-06-08T13:37:00.000-07:00

hey.
hey you....what's wrong?
is everything ok?
are you crying?
don't cry.
come here...don't cry.
it'll be ok.
just let it out, it's ok.
wow, you're really sad. you're snotting all over your face.
don't worry, don't even worry about it.
just let it go.
i'm here. c'mere. let me hold you.
it's ok if you snot on me, that's just how Here For You i am.
what's making you so sad?
woah, now you're throwing up on yourself.
a lot.
i don't care if i get puke on me, i'm here, i'll still hold you.
i care about you more than anything.
i will never let you go when you're in need.
never.
is that pee? you're peeing now?
that's fucked.
yeah...i'm still here...but.....it'll be ok.
i won't tell, you can just open up with me. trust.
we're here For Eachother.
always.
i know you'd do the same if i was how are you still peeing?
fuck.
what is wrong with you?
i think you have bigger problems than being sad.
why are you crying?

-dude, i think there's something seriously wrong with that weird dog.

shhhhsh...don't listen to him.
it's ok...it's ok.
your hair is beautiful.
don't cry.

things Jesus would say if he came back today

2007-06-01T07:11:00.000-07:00

"Heathens everywhere!"

"So, how's Jerusalem doing these days?"

"I can't believe it's not butter!"

"What the fuck is butter?"

"Yes, I understand what you're saying; but I just don't see how having a weird little plastic pump on the tongue of your sneaker is going to improve your game."

"I need some new threads. You can totally see my boner through these robes. Chicks didn't dress like this is my day."

"Why is everyone talking into their hands all the time?"

"Who the fuck is Oprah?"

dear Old Guy

2007-05-04T17:34:00.000-07:00

hi, Old Guy.
you don't know me, but i was on the same train as you today, (orange line, around five-something), and i saw when that dude slammed into you with his backpack and made you drop your McDonald's hamburger.
man, that must've sucked for you Old Guy.
i saw how much you dropped; it was close to a whole burger. you looked so sad, dude. you looked like that was the first McDonald's hamburger you've had in years. maybe it was your first McDonald's hamburger since your daughter married that deadbeat or since you got your new kidneys or since you found out your dart buddies were ganking your heart pills, and this asshole just slams you with his backpack and you drop it all over the floor of the train. and you can't just pick it up and eat it off the train floor, that's like eating poison. not like you care anyway, i mean, it's McDonald's right? it's pretty poisonous anyway. and what the hell is an old dude like you eating McDonald's for? Old Guy, you don't look so hot. not like your clothes or anything; your face. you look ill dude. lay off the McDonalds. (and lay off that hat while you're at it. do you think you're Robin Hood or some shit? stealing burgers from the rich and dropping them all over the floor of the train, like poor people are going to eat your stupid, half-eaten burger scraps off the floor like that? high and fucking mighty, you are.)
anyway Old Guy, i hope you get that mustard off your loafers.
get nuggets next time. seriously.
peace out;
Beard Guy with Headphones.

hints and advice for a smoother Moving Day

2007-05-03T18:53:00.000-07:00

ok, first off, you should sleep late.
it's just much easier on your constitution.
secondly, you're going to need a lot of protein and irons for all the lifting and throwing shit in the garbage and profanity you're going to do all day.
the best possible thing to have for breakfast on Moving Day is the last five bastard fish sticks sitting at the back of your freezer.
the ones you bought like four months ago.
because A) they're good for you, and B) eating old garbage food is kind of like cleaning at the same time. you've just doubled your productivity!
nextly, throw everything in the garbage.
not your bed or your books, but almost everything else.
and by in the garbage i don't mean "in the garbage", i mean all over the sidewalk in front of your house. make some fun piles in case some neighborhood kids or some stray dogs want to play in your unloved rubbish. they're gonna miss you!
post nextly, cut and run.
just go.
smoke a joint or have a beer for sentiment's sake, but then get the fuck out of there.
don't clean, don't fix, don't care; they're never gonna find you.
wash your hands of it.
just break the wrist and walk away.
until, of course, all the landlords you've ever wronged, ripped off, left with hideous mountains of living filth, or just turned their dream home into a "flophouse" get on Facebook and start hunting you down for their "money" or their "priceless antique furniture" or their "good name and respectable reputation about town".
then, cut and run some more.
or stop wasting all your time on Facebook.
get outside; it's a beautiful day.
if you drink in the park with me, i'll help you move.

a series of battle sketches scrawled on scrap paper i found while moving out

2007-04-29T12:34:00.000-07:00

Mr. Dress-up Vs. The Sandworms from Dune
Galactus Vs. Grimace
Uncle Fester Vs. Uncle Fester
Sauron Vs. Ernest's Ghost
Spawn Vs. Short Circut
Krang Vs. Guillotine

i wrote a porno

2007-04-24T18:39:00.002-07:00

Dude: "i have to go to a store."

Dude drives to a store.

Dude: "now i'm in a store. oh, hi."

Chick: "oh, hi. i work in the store."

Dude & Chick get it on* in various retardedly gymnastical positions for like twenty minutes. this is the part of the film where we discover Chick's propensity for profanity.

cut to scene of Dude driving away from store.

Dude: "oh no. i forgot my wallet at the store."

Chick: "i still work at the store. oh, hi."

repeat chorus.

* "get it on" is old school street slang for coitus**.
** "coitus" is book club slang for fucking.

new doctor show

2007-04-24T18:39:00.001-07:00

"Operation: Operation"

nice try, God

2007-04-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

there's nothing like starting your day with a tall, room temperature glass of Moth Juice. waking up, blindly reaching for the mug you know you left by the side of your bed the night before. bringing the rim to your lips, tilting back and glug glug glug glug until you're revived enough to open your eyes and see a recently deceased moth floating languidly just fractions of an inch away from your mouth.
iron, calcium, protein and cholera.
all a part of a complete breakfast.
side effects?
we'll find out at sundown when i burn my face off, overwhelmed with the intense desire to make out with a lightbulb.

you will remember tonight

2007-04-14T17:40:00.000-07:00

there we stood, at the shoulder of the longest and sexiest highway in creation, surrounded by horizon, the sun rising and setting all around us simultaneously.
we embraced and impaled out hearts with my vorpal blade of light, letting our glory spill out all over each other as we grind and writhe and kiss and howl, louder than a thousand hungry wolves on the fastest rollercoaster in the world on their birthdays.
and every car that passes bursts into flames because this is the New Beginning of Time and it's so beautiful and we're so fucking beautiful that all the angels in heaven start masturbating and singing and smashing their harps and fucking so hard the earth rumbles like a Marshall stack and we become the past and the present and the future and the truth.
and as we ride on, atop a solid gold biomechanical unicorn named Captain Galaxy, they'll know we've won and they've won and that the difference between Never and Forever is a lot fucking bigger than you'd think but not as big or as bright as us, because we're made of lightning and we own the sky and we are the sky and when they see us they're gonna shit.

washing yourself with dish soap because you're out of soap soap

2007-04-14T17:25:00.000-07:00

surprisingly effective.

best new computer simulation game

2007-04-07T19:34:00.000-07:00

Sim Horton's.

"hello Cleveland. prepare to be assimilated."

2007-04-07T18:49:00.000-07:00

(what if maybe the Borg from Star Trek were a actually a band and showed up at a battle of the bands rehearsal.)

B.o.t.b. Guy - ok, who's next?

[several Borg borgs walk onto the stage.]

Borg - we are the Borg.

B.o.t.b. Guy - uhhhh, ok. so your name is 'Borg'?

Borg - we are the Borg.

B.o.t.b Guy - yeah... ok.... so are you guys called 'Borg' or 'We Are The Borg'?

Borg - we are the Borg. prepare to be assimilated.

B.o.t.b. Guy - yeah, i'm just gonna put 'Borg'. so...... i don't see any instruments. are you guys a techno band or DJ's or something?

Borg - we are the Borg. we are the instrument. resistance is futile.

B.o.t.b. Guy - yeah. that's really cool. what are you guys gonna play tonight?

Borg - we will perform the audio music patterns of our track 'Assimilate', from our forthcoming album, 'Assimilate'.

B.o.t.b. Guy - ummm, you need two songs guys.

Borg - we are also suitably equipped to perform our impossibly superior cover version of human Earth band Deep Purple's 'Highway Star'*.

B.o.t.b. Guy - alright. awesome. i guess you guys are all set. the dressing room is just backstage there if you wanna chill out for a bit.

Borg - your life as it has been is over. from this time forward, you will service us.

B.o.t.b. Guy - dicks.

*(in the impossibly superior Borg version of 'Highway Star' the lyrics are slightly altered; replacing the word "car" with "cube". because that's how the Borg travel. in a giant Borg cube that drifts amongst the galaxies. usually in and around the Delta Quadrant. no; you're a pathetic nerd.)

new breakfast cereal alert!!

2007-04-07T18:46:00.000-07:00

Intruder Pops!
"We don't care if you don't eat us; we're gonna get inside you anyway."

night train

2007-03-31T18:55:00.000-07:00

it all started when i decided that taking the bus was for losers.
no actually. it all started at Catou's private Kareoke birthday jam.
which was lovely; babes, tunes, booze... the Triforce of Good Times aligned perfectly with our latitude, making the party an absolute success.
the only snag was that the proprietors of Private Room Kareoke Bar did not allow any outside liquor, which we smuggled in by the fuckload.
so, when things began to wind down a touch, i offered up my now empty backpack as a means to de-smuggle the empties and avoid tarnishing our good name.
and let me tell you, this sucker was stuffed. almost un-zip-up-ably so.
leave no trace.
and since empties are pretty light in the weight department; compounded with the fact that i was hosting a healthy level of drunkeness; i hardly even noticed i was trucking around a bundle of stinking, dripping beer husks.
and if i did realize, i almost certainly and immediately forgot.
and that was that.
party over.
get a quick bite with a friendly gal from the party, walk her to the bus depot and try to figure how to get home from this area that i'm entirely unfamiliar with.
it was then, while trying to decipher the matrix of tiny lines and numbers that passes for a bus schedule in this town, that i decided taking the bus was for losers.
it's a nice night, i'll just walk until i see a Metro sign and catch the next train.
finding a station didn't take long, but waiting for the first train of the morning would take some time, since time was just creeping upon 5am.
so, like any good transient drunkard would, i splayed myself across the subway bench and promptly fell unconscious.
i'm not sure how many trains flew past me before i roused up, but i caught one which was mostly empty and again passed out across a couple of seats.
then, after an unknown measurement of negative time, i was awakened by a fellow passenger who noticed i was partially on the floor, sliding corpse-like off the seats, probably because of the awkward girth of my festering booze sack.
i muttered some bestial noises, righted myself as best i could given the situation, and once again comatized under the weight of a long night of alcohol abuse.
when i woke up the next time, i realized i was but a handful of stops away from the easternmost part of the island. i'd hazily drifted across the entirety of urban Montreal an was now impossibly far from home.
this discovery gave me the jolt of energy i needed to sprint off the train and switch directions.
of course, this jolt of energy dissipated the moment i sat on the station floor and passed out yet again.
somehow woke up and got on the right direction, only to discover i was still traveling east, which would mean that when i originally disboarded i wasn't "heading" east, i was "coming back" from east because i had snored and drooled right through the End Of The Line.
i wanted so badly to not be wasted and be home or be able to get home sensibly but the shithammer in my head was unrelenting.
another switch.
another coma.
another wake up call from a kindly stranger.
(it was around this time i realized that most of these early-morning-go-to-work type passengers probably thought i was a street punk, what with my being right out of 'er and my clothes with food on them and my backpack full of empty bottles and cans.)
transfer station.
another wee nap.
another train full of disapproving glares from odor sensitive suit dummies.
when i finally arrived at Mont Royal station i was rudely greeted by the atomically bright sunshine gleaming down onto the escalator.
it's tricky to know when it's morning when you're whizzing around underground and asleep and too liquored to read your watch correctly anyway.
trudge.
squint.
stagger.
stairs.
keys.
home.
sleep.
death sleep.
real sleep.
i was mighty tuckered for a chap who spent most of the past three hours with his eyes closed.
it's night again.
think i'm going to stay local this evening.
lather.
rinse.
repeat.

the hangover

2007-03-31T18:42:00.000-07:00

the light and the noise tag team my brain; the sensation not unlike standing under an industrial strength showerhead that blasts Phillips head screwdrivers instead of dirty city water.
i don't even feel like i'm made of meat anymore.
more like a glitchy piece of computer equipment that's been programmed to feel pain.
there was a hard liquor blackout and Windows did not shut down properly and i lost all my saved files.
but, it coulda been worse i suppose.
i could've gotten my dick punched off by ninjas.

the ten best parts of the Dio music video, Holy Diver

2007-03-26T22:23:00.000-07:00

- that awesome close-up of Dio's sword.

- when Dio slays that weird guy who, when dead, turns into a pile of rats for some reason.

- the big weird evil cat guy who is superimposed over footage of an erupting volcano.

- Dio wailing in front of a backdrop of raging fire.

- when Dio walks into some room and there's a blacksmith guy forging a sword.

- at exactly 2:31 when the blacksmith guy throws the sword to Dio, just as he's singing "life's a never ending wheeeeeeeeeeeeeel!! say!" and he catches the sword. **(note: Dio discarded his original sword shorty after entering the blacksmithing room.)

- Dio doing a confusingly awkward march through some open gates while swinging his new sword, solemnly. as if unsure of the powers it may yield.

- when it shows those three red hooded monk guys sitting in front of an image of the big weird evil cat guy, (still superimposed over footage of an erupting volcano), and the last monk guy looks up to reveal he has weird evil glowing cat eyes.

- Dio wailing in front of a backdrop of raging fire. again.

- at the end, when Dio slowly walks towards the camera, glaring angrily, and just for a second or two they superimpose big weird evil cat guy's face over Dio's face.

the official "The Warriors" drinking game

2007-03-24T00:29:00.000-07:00

rule #1: whenever someone is wearing a vest, drink.
rule #2: see you in jail.

things i would maybe think to myself while brushing my teeth with a live jellyfish instead of a toothbrush, if i had to do that for some reason

2007-03-03T15:50:00.000-08:00

- up yours, Colgate!

- i bet i could floss with the tentacles. i can't believe i didn't think of that until just now.

- ahh.....sweet hydrozoan.

- i wonder if Sandra ever thinks about me.

- what the fuck am i doing?!!

- i wonder if this jellyfish has reached adulthood; or if it'll maybe grow larger and more aware if i stop using it to brush my teeth. also, is this jellyfish a dude or a chick?

- mmmmmmm..... harbor fresh.

- i hope Pam and Jim can work something out. they're so good for each other.

- ahhhh!! oh Jesus!!! oh shit!! this would feel awesome if these poison tentacles weren't so stingy!!

- vertebrates just don't get my teeth their whitest.

- now this is a story all about how my life got flipped turned upside down and i'd like to take a minute just sit right there i'll tell you how i become the prince of a town called Bel-Air.

- i wonder which part is the butt.

sleepless cougar

2007-02-24T14:18:00.000-08:00

the sleepless cougar.
she's the lateshift sorceress at the crackiest all-night greasy spoon in the borough.
her skin like leather and her fingers more deep fried than the perogies.
her cleavage an inhumanly tanned and wrinkly blackhole that only her gawdy streetmarket necklaces can withstand.
she never sleeps, moving mechanically but without grace.
she's steam powered. maybe coal. unthinkable furnace.
her jeans cut from the denim of Plague-era Europe and her top the skinned remains of a helpless sofa she's murdered in the night.
i'd peg her age as somewhere between 39 and infinity.
not so much born as congealed.
prick her and she'll bleed nicotine and old coffee.
she's hard lookin'. and probably hard living.
if she hasn't killed anyone, she's dated a guy who has and it shows.
her eyes and smile are about as warm as the dashboard heater of a 1985 Toyota hatchback in a frozen landfill on a cloudy day.
the kind of woman you look at and wonder if she was beautiful when she was young, but know that she wasn't, which means tonight could quite possibly be the most beautiful she's ever been.
relatively speaking.
she doesn't have a library card but she knows more about processed meat and drunk people than you and your book club combined.
i imagine kissing her neck. i imagine it feeling like kissing a chicken wing and tasting like kissing the skin from a neglected dish of gravy.
i hope she calls.

hey, Internet!

2007-02-08T22:44:00.000-08:00

(walks into room, flips open laptop)

me - hey, Internet!

Internet - hey buddy! how was work?

me - great! i got a lot done today.

Internet - awesome!

me - we talked about you.

Internet - uh oh! all good i hope.

me - of course, dude! we talked about that video you have of the water-skiing monkeys.

Internet - i love that one!

me - me too! thanks for showing it to me!

Internet - anytime bro! oh yeah!....i've got something for you.

me - really? is it more junk mail?

Internet - lol! no way! something cool... the new Dinosaur Jr. album!

me - the new Dinosaur Jr. album!!! omg!!

Internet - i knew you'd be stoked! wanna hear it right now?

me - shit yeah! heeeeyyyyy....wait just a darn second here. i read that the new Dinosaur Jr. album isn't coming out until May. how did you get a copy, Internet?

Internet - (acting all cool)... i know some dudes.

me - Internet, you're the fucking best. i fucking love you man.

Internet - ha ha! it was nothing.

(me and Internet rock out to the new Dinosaur Jr. for a few minutes)

Internet - hey......wanna see some naked chicks doin' stuff?

me - ha ha ha! oh Internet! you're so crazy.

Internet - go close the door.

me - ok.

lesser known mythical beasts

2007-01-30T17:33:00.000-08:00

Duocorn - a two horned Unicorn
Horseicorn - a hornless Unicorn
Diocorn - like the Duocorn except shorter, more evil and with better taste in music (because what duocorns listen to is probably twice as gay as what regular unicorns listen to)
Shiticorn - probably like a donkey or something
Gregasus - a Pegasus named Greg
Mebrucea - a Medusa named Bruce

please god no not like this

2007-01-27T16:48:00.000-08:00

this right here friends, is my dying wish.
(not that i'm dying or anything, or ever will die; i'm just putting this out there so folks know what they're in for.)
after the orc attack or whatever goes down, and after a certified doctor has pronounced my body as no longer living, a group of my closest friends and lovers will be assembled to build my casket.
it must be built only by my friends and only while said friends are heavily liquored.
any so-called friend who chooses not to participate will be made to feel bad by my special Post-Living Project Coordinators.
i obviously won't care what the casket will look like so try to have fun with it.
some racing stripes would be pretty sporty.
maybe drink holders.
a little bird house....whatever makes you happy.
sometime the next afternoon or whenever people wake up from the drinky-buildy party, my non-cremated remains are to be placed in the casket in a hilarious manner (like with no pants on or a wig or something) and dragged into the woods.
the casket is NOT TO BE BURIED.
you guys worked hard on that, let the world enjoy it.
burying is for cowards, veterans and once beloved household pets, of which i am none.
anyway, after the dragging and dumping maybe you guys could say a few words, do a J if you want, you know, just hang out a bit.
ideally, someone would have the foresight to bring a ghettoblaster and a casette that starts with 'Pet Sematary' by The Ramones followed by 'Louie Louie' repeated for however many times it fits until the tape is full.
after the tunes just leave me to rot i guess.
let the city deal with it.

2007 Hot List!!

2007-01-15T19:34:00.000-08:00

what's hot in 2007??
this stuff!!

hot season! - winter!
hot hand accessory! - mittens!
hot scarf! - a scarf!
hot excuse! - wizards did it!
hot carl! - gross!
hot room! - cryogenic chamber!
hot color! - neon grey!
hot sauce! - hot sauce!
hot thing to drink from! - bottles!
hot late 19th Century volcano eruption! - Krakatoa!
hot scene from 1972 Blaxploitation classic 'Blacula'! - when those cops have to fight those jumping vampires that are on fire in a huge room filled with empty cardboard boxes!
hot way to eat soup! - from a bowl! with a spoon!
Hot Hot Heat! - suck!
hot water bottles! - awesome when you're sick!
hot thing to touch! - the top of a lit candle when it's lit!
hot lists! - totally hot!

the zoologist (starring Dr. Artimus Squire & Research Assistant Gloria Alvaro)

2007-01-13T17:05:00.000-08:00

Dr. Squire - (opens door) Research Assistant Alvaro, thank you for coming at such short notice.

Alvaro - no problem Doctor. it is my job. what is it that you wanted me to see?

Dr. Squire - follow me, please.

[they walk hurriedly down a long dimly lit hallway, passing large window panes through which can be seen much scientific paraphernalia. Dr. Squire opens a door marked 'Marsupial Genetic Research Facility' (also known as the MGRF), and ushers Research Assistant Alvaro inside.]

Dr. Squire - (hands Alvaro a print-out of some graph or chart or something) take a look at these numbers.

Alvaro - my goodness. these...are these accurate? are these the numbers for Pegasus? (Pegasus is the female North Tasmanian Wombat that Squire and Alvaro have been studying for the past twelve months, she is the last of her kind).

Dr. Squire - they are quite accurate, i assure you.

Alvaro - do you know what this means Doctor? this means..

Dr. Squire - (interrupting) that Pegasus is pregnant.

Alvaro - Doctor! this is an amazing breakthrough! we can save their species from extinction!

Dr. Squire - i know.

Alvaro - and the scientific community! they're going to be all over this....this...this is huge! you've finally done it Doctor. you're the first to successfully artificially inseminate a female North Tasmanian Wombat.

Dr. Squire - oh, it wasn't artificial.

Alvaro - but..... she's the last of her kind.... and... how did?....

Dr. Squire - (staring intensely into Research Assistant Alvaro's eyes)

Alvaro - .....Doctor?.....

Dr. Squire - why won't you notice me Gloria?

[they kiss, but their love will always be tainted].

fin.

music 2006 (late edition)

2007-01-10T17:21:00.000-08:00

Boris - Pink
Japanese heaviosity supernauts switch from "deafening forbode" to "deafening kick out the jams riffage" on this monster of a rock album. the only exceptions to the garage band on fire rule are the opening and closing tracks, 'Farewell', which sounds like My Bloody Valentine at the bottom of the sea, and 'Just Abandoned Myself', which sounds like it was recorded in a wind tunnel powered by a hundred guitars that's being used for evil instead of science. when i listen to this while walking downtown i half expect buildings to start crumbling around me. wear a helmet kids.

Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
few bands have had as long and varied a career as the Sonic Youthers, and even fewer bands have been able to create and thrive in a 'sound' so completely and unmistakably their own. but in all their years they've never released anything quite like this; a beautiful, shimmering record of 3-4 minute pop songs (this being SY the term 'pop' is relative, of course). the guitars climb and tumble and cartwheel and make out all over eachother and it sounds amazing. at first listen it comes off as deceptively simple, but their tunes have never been tighter, denser or more melodic. 'Incinerate' is hands down the best song i've heard all year (and is certainly in the running for prettiest guitar-pop song of all time), and 'Pink Steam' is a slinky sex-crime that you'll end up asking to stay for breakfast.

Mastodon - Blood Mountain
strong enough for a man, but made for a Lv. 9 ascending Orc Mage. my god it feels good to get excited about metal again. i already raved about this album back in October, so here's a wee snippet of the band's bass player describing one of their songs:
"caught in a blizzard where [he] becomes frostbitten and frozen and [he's] starving and starts to hallucinate. [Then] this snow queen appears before him and tells him it's OK to start eating his own flesh. And then he starts to do that. Then an aurora borealis appears, and he thinks it's God, and it starts affecting this crystal skull he's been toting up the mountain, and it starts to warm his body. That, coupled with the knowledge of the aurora borealis being God, gives him the strength to start to carry on again."
take that Traveling Wilburys!

Madlib - Movie Scenes Vol 1-2
this right here is a sprawling, sampledelic, schizophrenic party record. Madlib's been digging elbow deep in those dusty old record bins and he's trawled up nothing but the freshest of beats. be they familiar, random or impossibly obscure, Lib fuses them together with unparalleled panache. he's divvied the mostly instrumental tracks up into two minute scores for scenes from movies that may or may not actually exist. think of it as a Blaxploitation themed fondue party, with funk instead of cheese sauce.

Buck 65 - Strong Arm
Mr. Sixty Five released this earlier last year as a free-to-download two part mixtape, available solely through the Show and Tell quadrant of his website. what a lovely fucking gift. it's comprised of two tracks, Side One and Side Two, each being roughly twenty minutes long and each being "holy frig there's a lot going on in these here songs!". it's got everything from sketched out gospel chants to wrangling with the devil himself; even a sweet little ditty about newborn babies. if you're a fan of Buck's older, more manic DIY type stuff this is not to be missed.

Comets On Fire - Avatar
blissed out Sabbathian revival record of the year. just as heavy as their previous album, the mightier than mighty Blue Cathedral, but infused with a taste of the uppermost peripheral of modern psychedelia. Cathedral was a ballistic missile fired through a Marshall stack. this time they aimed for the stratosphere. bullseye.

The Advantage - Elf Titled
Nintendocore at it's finest. these guys aren't just doing covers, they're elevating the compositions of the games they love and turning out impossibly tight and completely faithful nerd rock masterpieces. Castlevania 2, Contra, Metroid and my ever-beloved MegaMan 2 are all represented, made gloriously headbangable by these curators of 8-Bit fetishism. put down your controller and pick up that Air Guitar.

Loose Fur - Born Again In The USA
round two of this Jim O'Rourke / Jeff Tweedy side project finds our boys staggering down a song-ier more sing-alongable dirt road. it's a delicious blend of rootsy Americana and weirdo alt-country, more hummable than their last outing and the lyrics are sharper than your grandpas pocket knife. download 'Hey Chicken' and see for yourself.

Beck - The Information
this is what i've been waiting for. after the heart-rippy-outy hangover of Sea Change and the well meaning but awkward sounding Guero, it's good to hear Beck letting loose again. and this my friends, is letting loose in a grand fashion. the production is immaculate, wrapping itself around the jaunty white boy robo funk he hasn't visited since Midnite Vultures and even dabbling in the twangy, found-sound noiseiness of his early days. compound all this with a weird hyper-paraniod futurism we haven't heard from him before and you've got one hell of a Beck album there buddy.

Chad VanGaalen - Skelliconnection
without a doubt the quirkiest, smirkiest and sincerely yet awkwardly heartfelt record i've heard all year. Mr. VanGaalen's got a knack for whipping together insanely catchy bedroom folk (literally) and decorating it with strange, almost whimsical, tweaks and creaks from instruments that he builds himself. but the strangest instrument here is his voice, almost absurdly warbled but always painfully honest, even if he is singing about.....whatever the hell he's singing about. his immune system? probably.

resolutionary

2006-12-29T13:03:00.000-08:00

New Year's Resolution for Myself:
- work hard, eat right, don't waste time or good ideas.

New Year's Resolution for Everyone Else:
- please, don't shit all over my heart.

times are tough all around

2006-12-24T11:20:00.000-08:00

the bored bone is connected to the Inter-bone and the Inter-bone is connected to reading random encyclopedia-type wikis.
because sometimes crawling deeper into the Wikipedia-hole is the only way to stave off the madness of naptime or actually doing something productive
so, here's a brief synopsis of the character Kelly Taylor from popular 90's smutfest Beverly Hills 90210.

Kelly Taylor: Brenda and Donna's best friend; Romantically linked to Steve, Brandon, Colin, Dylan, and later Matt and at the final show again: Dylan; Mother suffered from cocaine and alcohol abuse; Became David's stepsister; Had cocaine and pill problems; Was shot in a robbery at LAX and subsequently got amnesia; Was raped in an alley when attempting to locate Dylan; Was brainwashed and ended up joining a cult under the direction of a rogue university professor; Was severely burned during a fire that broke out at a house party filled with lesbians; Was on show for its entire 10-year run.

how delightful.
they sure don't make helpless blonde female role models like they used to.
so if you're feeling down or blue this holiday season, just think of our friend Kelly Taylor, and be glad that you weren't Brenda's best friend because Brenda was a total bitch.
also be glad you're not being raped by a cult of burning, cocaine addicted lesbians.
happy amnesia everyone!

Teddy Facepuncher

2006-12-02T06:46:00.000-08:00

I was fourteen. All my friends were fourteen except for one who was thirteen. Teddy Facepuncher was definintley not fourteen. He was only a few grades ahead of us in school but dude looked like he was twenty. Maybe he was. Impossible to tell. Not a lot was known about Teddy but these were the facts we had:
1 - He smoked. (We smoked sometimes too, but not the way Teddy smoked. He didn't use his hands, he just put the cigarette in his mouth, lit it and devoured the fumes, exhaling usually out of his nose. It wasn't dissimilar to how Cookie Monster ate cookies.)
2 - He was never more than a few feet away from his dirtbike, which was lime green, had crappily painted black lightning bolts on each side, looked a hundred years old and was louder than Satan's lawnmower chewing marble grass at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
3 - He was rarely at school (even though he lived exactly two blocks from the school.)
4 - He was always, always hanging out behind the corner store (which wasn't actually on a corner, but was called The Corner Store nonetheless.)
5 - He loved, loved punching people in the face.

I've personally witnessed Teddy punch seven people in the face. One was our gym teacher, who Teddy punched outside of a school dance. Most were just guys Teddy fought behind the store. One was my friend Marco, who Teddy punched for standing too close to his bike, (he cried). {Marco cried, not Teddy.} He was a bully and a villian in every sense. His games were intimidation and humiliation, and he played them with ease.

But by far the best/worst thing about Teddy was that his actual, real, honest to God last name was Facepuncher.
I shit you not.
It's in the yearbook.

This was the topic of many a weekend afternoon debate. Did he punch faces just because that was his namesake and he was trying to live up to it? Or was his ability to apply knuckles to the frontside of your head innate? Was he born punching? What if he were born Teddy Treeclimber? Or Teddy Sucksatnintendo? Or Teddy Highfives? Would that change anything?

The usual protocol for us anytime Teddy was near was to give him a wide berth. Cross the street, walk faster, keep your eyes down. It helped that you could hear his bike coming from several blocks away. I wasn't sure if I thought he was cool or scary or both or something else entirely. But that day in November, as we were leaving the store with comic books and matches and Jolt Cola, I became sure of one thing. I wanted Teddy to punch me in the face. I wanted Teddy to punch me in the face for four reasons:
1 - I'd never been punched in the face before, and figured if you're gonna go, go with the best.
2 - So I could prove to Marco that he really was a pussy for crying for so long after Teddy punched him in the face.
3 - Maybe getting punched by Teddy would transfer some of his cool scariness over to me and in turn..
4 - Impress Janine Miller/make Janine Miller feel sorry for me and let me put my hand up her shirt.

We weren't more than a few steps out of the store's entrance when we heard the familiar, mangled roar of Teddy's shitbike. I turned to Marco and asked him to hold my Jolt Cola. Why, he asked. Because I have something to say to Teddy, I replied. He gave me the same yeahwhatever look he gave me a hundred times a day, but he held my stuff for me regardless. Teddy had just zipped past us and was leaning his kickstandless bike against the front of the store. We were about ten feet away, far inside or usual sphere of Teddy avoidingness. I took a step toward him.
"Hey Teddy...", I yelled.
He turned and I assume he glared at me.
It was hard to tell through his sunglasses (that he was wearing despite it being gray and almost raining and November. He raised his arms from his sides slightly, striking a 'What the fuck, kid?' kind of pose.
I inhaled.
I exhaled.
"Eat shit, Teddy."

I couldn't see or hear Marco and the others, but i assumed they had scattered. Jumped the ditch and scrambled a few feet into the woods, where they could watch the murder from a safe distance. I couldn't turn and see for sure because my eyes were fixed on the angrt denim juggernaut barreling towards me. This was it. A few steps more and he raised his fist and I swear to Metroid the second before he launched it he was wearing the only smile I'd ever seen cross his face.

Obviously I hit the ground. Tits up on the dirty pavement. I could taste blood and everything sounded weird, noise warping around my head in some kind of arc like that time i slipped and cranked my head on the ice in the third grade. Teddy was still standing above me. His fist had landed on my left cheekbone/side of my nose. He looked down at me, taking a drag of the cigarette I hadn't even noticed until I was on the ground. Victory smoke. It was then that I realized why he'd smiled right before flattening me. Because I was giving him what he wanted most. A face to punch. I was helping him continue to be what he had always been. Teddy Facepuncher. And it was during this moment of realization that I decided to swiftly and forcefully bury my Velcro-sneakered toe into his nutsack.

Obviously he hit the ground. I hastily but shakily got to my feet and began to stagger away. My faculties slightly dulled and blood dripping from my face. I half thought about kicking his bike over but decided against it. When a warrior hucks a spear at you, do you kill his horse? When a Care Bear touches you in a weird place do you destroy it's cloud car? No. And why turn certain beatings into a death sentence. As I wobbily marched home, collecting noseblood and brainjuice on my sleeve, I knew that I had perhaps set something dreadful into motion. I'd have to be driven to and from school in an armored vehicle from now on. And my friends would probably catch some fallout beatings as well. Maybe Teddy will try to kill me in my sleep. Maybe I was dying right now. Maybe I should go back and call Janine from the payphone so I can touch a boob before I slip into a coma and rot away. Everything was a question mark now. Except for one thing. One thing that would stand as legend in this town for generations. The day the mighty Teddy Facepuncher was defeated by a brave and noble young boy. A boy named Michael Bagcrusher.

2006: live-wise (music-wise)

2006-12-01T18:50:00.000-08:00

Broken Social Scene - this show was in Halifax during the hooplah-cane of Canadian musicality that is known as Juno weekend. which meant that pretty much the entire BSS super team were on-hand to crowd the stage; even whatsher-Feist. they played a pretty long set, including just about every song from their latest album. about halfway through i started playing a little song-by-song tally game. (ok...3 guitars, 2 trumpets, 4 vocals, 2 drummers, etc.etc.etc.). it was a big show in every sense of the word. towards the end i really had to pee but was afraid i'd miss my song so i stayed and squirmed and prayed. this gave new meaning to the words "It's All Gonna Break".

Chad Vangaalen - the first time i saw CVG was at the Pop Explosion 2 years ago; which i assume i enjoyed but barely remember due to excessive consumption. this time i was a little more sensible and it was a slightly more intimate venue. this guy is fucking awesome. strumming and shreiking and harmonica-ing and foot pedal drumming his weirdly catchy little songs all by himself (towards the end he was joined by some other players, but it was his stage, his law). an excellent show with plenty of babes who wouldn't talk to me. (Warning!! to the shitbag scenekids who'd rather stand up front horsing around to get seen than actually watch this guy perform his songs...i remember your stupid haircuts and i will make our next meeting impossibly uncomfortable and morbidly embarrassing. for you.)

TV On The Radio - these guys were great. packed house, lots of energy, great musicianship, interesting banter, catchy songs and even a shout out to Hall and Oates. one of those shows where you leave feeling totally fucking juiced. A++.

the Freaky Blind Guy who was singing "Hard To Say I'm Sorry" by Chicago in the Guy-Concordia Metro station - absolutely mind blowing.

Dinosaur Jr. - i was half drunk, half running, and all the way stoked-as-hell; just minutes from the Marquee Club and Dinosaur Fucking Junior; when i reached in my pocket and realized that i forgot my fucking earplugs. i could see them, sitting on my desk (well not MY desk really because i was staying at someone's place because i was kind of in-between homes at the moment, but anyway). i stopped for a second and weighed my options. go to the show and guarantee myself semi-permanent ear damage? or not go to the show and wake up every morning in a sea of bile and spew and preventable self-hatred for the rest of my days. so i did the responsible thing and stood a foot and a half away from the stage and got my ears reamed by all the songs that my ears have been begging to get reamed by since before i could sprout facial hair. it was feirce. the noise was punching my organs. J looked like a cross between Gandalf the Grey and a guitar with legs. fucking perfect. also, the ringing is starting to fade a little.

awesome name for a bunny

2006-11-15T18:19:00.000-08:00

Dustin Hopman

i'm not even kidding...

2006-11-15T18:13:00.000-08:00

quote:

"In a world he did not create, he will go through it as if it were his own making: half man, half beast, I don't know what it is but it's weird and it's pissed off and it calls itself Slash."
- Axl Rose

end quote.
yikes.
i wish they were pals again.

wait,...no i don't.

jizz land

2006-11-07T11:48:00.000-08:00

bad name for a restaurant - Jizz Land
bad name for an amusement park - Jizz Land
bad sign to put on your bedroom door - Jizz Land
bad name for a suburban community - Jizz Land Heights
bad name for a dog - Jizz Land
bad name for a kid's TV show - Jizzy's Jizz Land Adventures
worse name for said TV show - Jizzy's Jizz Land Jizzventures
bad name for a sea vessel - SS Jizz Land
bad name for a Turkish restaurant - Jizz Lamb
bad name for a dairy - Jizz Land Farms
bad name for a Zeppelin tune - Stairway To Jizz Land
worse name for a Zeppelin tune - When The Jizz Land Levee Breaks
bad name for a public swimming pool - Jizz Land Community Pool
bad name for a book store - Barnes and Jizz Land
bad name for a law firm - Abel, Limmer & Jizz Land
bad name for a film - There's Something About Jizz Land*
bad name for a band - The Rag Time Jizz Land Trio
bad nickname for your girlfriend - Jizz Land
bad name for a Beatle - Paul McCartney

*(unless it's a film of a pornographic nature, which would make it an excellent choice for a name and, doubly, a brief description of the film itself.)

poutine pizza

2006-10-31T09:48:00.000-08:00

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)

2006-10-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-17T10:16:00.001-07:00

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*

2006-10-17T09:51:00.000-07:00

[* 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

2006-10-13T13:09:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-05T12:12:00.000-07:00

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.

poetry heals

2006-09-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
I Hate Mel Gibson
Because Gibson Hates Jews

it's cause i comb my beard with honey

2006-09-26T13:38:00.000-07:00

the sound of dead and dying leaves; the smells emitted by trees and plants slowly stumbling into their winter comas; the sidewalks a sea of sweaters and scarves; the cool mountain air roaming in and scaring the humidity out of town.
it was because of these things that i let my guard down.
and i was because i let my guard down that the wasp attacked me and chased me for two city blocks.
when the temperature dips enough for me to warrant the breaking out of the leather coat i officially stop worrying about wasps, bees, flies, dragon flies and Atlas moths.
but the wasp i faced today was no lazy "i buzz around a trashbin stealing sugar from soda cans" wasp.
it was bigger, stronger, faster.
and probably angrier.
an autumn wasp.
the fact he's even living at this time of the year is a testament to his (or her) awesome strength.
and since i had the guff to stroll around downtown with an "i'm allergic to wasps but what-fucking-ever" kind of look written across my face, he (or she) decided to chase me.
so i walked faster.
still being chased.
so i walked faster while casually swatting (flailing?) my arms all around me.
still being chased, he/she going for the face.
i am running down the sidewalk like an idiot.
flapping my wings.
saying "fuck off!" and "shit!" and "hey, cool belt. Le Chateau?"
when i thought i had enough of a lead on him i ducked into an alley and waited, pretending to tie my shoe so as not to look like i was just kind of lurking in an alley/hiding from a tiny insect.
when i felt safe enough i continued on my way.
if anyone happened to see this go down... i was practicing some new dance moves... i'll show you on the weekend.

everybody's working for the weekend

2006-09-25T12:45:00.000-07:00

[ringing telephone...]
Magnus: hello?
Rexor: dude, what's up?
Magnus: hey man not too much, just trying to get out of here.
Rexor: slow night?
Magnus: brutal.
Rexor: shitty. listen man, are you still coming tonight?
Magnus: to Zordok's party? shit yes, once i'm done here.
Rexor: do you know how to get there?
Magnus: no..i thought i'd grab a lift with you.
Rexor: can't do it, my chariot's fucked. Sherry's going to let me borrow her steed and there's only enough room for the two of us. but i can give you directions.
Magnus: fuck... ok..hold on...[rustling of scrolls], ok, shoot.
Rexor: alright, you know where Hawkblood Mountain is?
Magnus: yeah.
Rexor: it's on the other side.
Magnus: in relation to what?
Rexor: in relation to where you are right now.
Magnus: ok..... so he's on the same side as the Manticore's cavern?
Rexor: yeah exactly, but you have to go around the mountain, you can't take the Tunnel of Thieves.
Magnus: why not? it's like a million times quicker.
Rexor: i know, but the Sorceror's have been busting a lot of those Orcish punks for drinking mead up there and torching some Tree People, it'll be a fucking hassle.
Magnus: ok. so i go the long way...then what?
Rexor: you know where the Emerald Claw Tavern is?
Magnus: yeah i think so...on the old Berserker's Warpath? where they're building that new Starbuck's?
Rexor: exactly....go left when you get to that intersection and keep going till you reach the Well of Confusion.
Magnus: Well..of..Confusion...ok, that's perfect, because i need smokes anyway.
Rexor: don't get 'em there, get them from the Swamp Mage, she's like a block away from Zordok's and they're way cheaper.
Magnus: alright....so where after that?
Rexor: after the Well take another left, go two or three blocks and take a right at the nearest Soul-Chasm and he's right on that street, near the Tree of Eternally Rotting Flesh. if you see the Edge of Time you've gone too far.
Magnus: got it. when are you heading over?
Rexor: Sherry and i are leaving in like twenty minutes.
Magnus: are you bringing your cell?
Rexor: no, it's dead. you'll be alright, it's easy to find. the boys'll probably be jamming anyway so you'll definently hear us.
Magnus: cool man. i'm just gonna finish closing up here then i'll grab some Elixer and head out.
Rexor: don't bother with the Elixer, Zordok picked up like four kegs.
Magnus: four?! how big is this party?
Rexor: it's gonna be pretty nuts man, so don't worry about booze. just make sure you bring some gold.
Magnus: will do. do you uh...do you think Janelle's gonna be there?
Rexor: Sherry was just talking to her, i think she's there already. why? are you gonna tap that?
Magnus: i'm gonna try...she just broke up with Dekram.
Rexor: i heard. i hope he doesn't show up, i fucking hate that guy.
Magnus: douchebag. thinks he's so fucking mighty. do you think i should bring my sword?
Rexor: i'm bringing mine, do it.
Magnus: awesome. so i guess i'll be there in like an hour and something?
Rexor: sounds good man. see you in a bit.
Magnus: cool. tell Sherry to put in a good word for me.
Rexor: will do. later.
Magnus: later.
[click]

reader's poll

2006-09-14T12:40:00.000-07:00

let's say you were taking a stroll down the aisle of your local bookmonger's shop, in the mood for something a little sketchy.
which title would you find more appealing?
(5 free AirMiles for every response)

"Carved In Ancient Rock With A Sword Made Of Lightning"

"Doublefisting"

"The Mannequin's Ass And Other Stories"

untitled

2006-09-14T12:28:00.000-07:00

a year is a year is a year is a year.
i was so out of it, so necessarily wasted, that i didn't even retain what the exact date was, just the approximate time of month.
and let me tell you, the difference between same month and actual day is like the difference between getting whacked with a phonebook and catching a laser guided dart in the neck.

{i don't remember if i was three or four, but i do remember being in the old backyard, surrounded by that tall red wooden fence.
i remember he had a beer in one hand a my favorite ball in the other, the red one with the white dots, and i remember he threw it straight up in the air, launched it, and i thought that sucker was gonna knock out the sun.
and i remember that being the first time i was ever truly and completely amazed by anything.}

cue the laser guided dart.

liquor mcnuggets

2006-09-12T13:10:00.000-07:00

delicious BBQ chicken flavor crystals?
meet ice cold, extra strong beer.
i now pronounce you a New Taste Sensation.
you shall be known as Fowlcohol.
this must be what an angel's vagina tastes like.

train buddies (to the tune of 'hot blooded')

2006-09-08T05:32:00.000-07:00

we're train buddies, check it and see
we met today back on car number three
c'mon baby put your hand in my pants
we're train buddies
train buddies!

Dinosaur Jr. raped my ears and now my brain is pregnant with snarling feedback

2006-09-05T12:39:00.000-07:00

that, my friends, was rock 'n roll done right.
fucking awesome.

boatylicious

2006-09-04T14:49:00.000-07:00

i must say, the best part was when Blake and i had to row back to shore.
but not only did we have to row back to shore, we had to row back to shore in the dark, while being ruinously drunk.
i thought i was going fall into the bay just loading up the damn thing with the leftover beer; and FYI, loading a rowboat is fucking awkward when you are drunk and have only one good arm. almost as awkward as drinking with that chick last week and finding out she was one of the cops who busted me for napping on someone's lawn a while back.
classy.
anyway...the first few dozen meters of our voyage aboard the SS Imminent Disaster were the trickiest, what with the trying to row and drink simultainiously.
our plan had reeked of dangerous assumptions from the beginning and i didn't even consider any of the Maritime Codes Of Operation until we were too far from the Mother Ship to do anything about it.
and it was too dark to see the docks.
and what if we lose the paddles?
life jackets?
nope, those things are for jerks.
luckily i was wearing my heavy leather coat.
leather floats right?
the word "doomed" came to mind.
the headline "Bodies Found On Shore, Partially Devoured By Jellyfish, Suffering From Record Breaking Shrinkage" also came to mind.
what a laughably depressing way to die.
but, in the end, our sub par rowing techniques and ignorance to personal safety paid off and we made it to the docks.
sure we missed the whole concert, and the Shore Club was emptying out by the time we got there, and we didn't know if the others on the ship would be stranded all night, but these things didn't matter.
what matters is that i got to piss in the ocean, i earned my Sea Legs, and my jeans still smell like a bonfire on a beach in the middle of the nowhere in the middle of night.
peace out, Summer.

buying a dog

2006-09-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

finally, an excuse to carry around little bags of animal feces.

beer and loathing

2006-08-29T19:27:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-29T18:50:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-24T21:13:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-15T08:14:00.000-07:00

Snakes On Your Mom

remember that time when it was the Nineties?

2006-08-12T17:23:00.000-07:00

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...

2006-08-08T20:18:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-07T16:22:00.000-07:00

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.)

haiku, for you

2006-07-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

on my patio
a stinking pile of garbage
rotting in the sun

and i contemplate
where has Weird Al been hiding?
...tears won't bring him back

your mother and i
went to the fair without you
hope you like tattoos

that part in Wayne's World?
in the control room, after Benjamin bought the show, and Garth says that haiku?
that's not really a haiku

the morning after
half-full beer on the counter?
there is no excuse

you owe me forty bucks

2006-07-26T13:18:00.000-07:00

hey.
remember *NSYNC?
sure you do.
well, it was revealed today that former *NSYNC'er Lance Bass (the little blonde weiner guy who danced next to the fat guy) is gay.
he came out of the closet in an interview running in the newest issue of America's bestselling all-gay publication, People magazine.
news of his confession have sparked silent vigils in front of little girls' bedroom walls across the country, (or maybe it would have....like six years ago).

shocking new update!!
at a suprise press conference just hours ago, actor Bill Cosby revealed, after much speculation, that he is some sort of "black comedian".
more on this as the story unfolds.
back to you Diane.

glass knuckles

2006-07-25T08:11:00.000-07:00

i've gotten pretty damn sick of telling the same "i was drunk and jumped over a hedge" story 200 times a day to explain this festering, heavily graffiti'd cast on my arm.
so when it's just a random stranger, or maybe a customer at work, i tell them something totally ridiculous.
and they usually believe me.
it's not lying exactly.
it's mischeif.
misleading fictional factualities if you will.
but i'd never lie to you.
you're very dear to me, you know that.
and what a sweet ass.
here's some of the alternate explainations i offer those who don't know any better.

- i broke it during a charity bike-a-thon, the chraity in question was Puppies for Inspired Orphans with Heartbreakingly Sad Diseases.

- i was defending someone's honor.

- breakdancing accident (in Harlem!)

- a motorcycle ran over it.

- i broke it while jousting (for someone's honor)

- spontaneous human combustion.

- let's just say i owe a lot of money to a lot of dangerous people.

- it's from a gangrenous stigmata wound, and i'm feeling much better.

- i fought the law, the law won.

- i take my lovemaking very seriously.

- there was this guy in the park and he was kicking these homeless puppies and screaming "i hate these puppies" so i punched him and broke my wrist but it was worth it just to see all those puppies smile again.

- i was struck with a very small meteor that was going incredibly fast.

- i was trampled during that 'Running of the Bulls' thing in Mexico. is it Spain? yeah, it was in Spain.

- it doesn't matter how it happened. what matters is i love you.

- a severe after effect from a mid-shunt muscle spasm.

- i fell off the monkey bars. i was drunk and unsupervised.

- why don't you ask your mom how it happened.

good medicine

2006-07-20T13:03:00.000-07:00

i have discovered a cure for the hiccups.
that's right. a cure.
a 100% guaranteed fresh everytime cure.
i discovered it accidentally while whipping up a batch of my semi-famous Pork-n-Pepper Hot Sauce Stir Fry (with Hummus!).
cooking for myself has been tricky lately because i'm only able to use one hand, which is why the bottle slipped and dumped and unholy amount of hot sauce into the wok. i knew this would make my meal painfully spicy but hey, eats is eats.
i don't know why, but when i ingest something that is profoundly spicy (like Thai food) i get violent hiccups almost instantly.
and i hate the fucking hiccups.
especially when i'm trying to eat.
or drink.
or makeout on the livingroom floor.
i needed a cure, and we all know that this "drink a glass of water upside down" and "hold your breath for three minutes" business is bullshit.
i do know however that taking your mind of the hiccups will usually cease them, but this is easier said than done when you're hiccuping every two seconds.
then a greasy little lightbulb went off over my head.
here's what you do:

1 - go sit in a quiet room by yourself, preferably in front of a computer that's preferably hooked up to the Internet.

2 - get comfortable, maybe take off some of your clothes.

3 - using the computer's mouse, point and click until you find some pornography that appeals to you.

4 - masturbate. reach for the stars. go for the gold.

i can promise you, by the time you're done doing that thing you do so well, your hiccups will be ancient history.
it's so simple.
feels good and it's good for ya.
fun and easy! with minimal clan-up! (i don't even know you so i cannot fully guarantee that your personal clean-up will be 'minimal'.)
you might want to practice this a few times beforehand, because you never know when the hiccups are going to strike.
you can thank me later.

note:: this also works with manual, magazine type pornography, if you happen to be a connoisseur of such things.

[Surgeon's Warning: this treatment may not be suitable for use at fancy dinner parties or company picnics where everyone brings their families. if you have been handling Jalapeno peppers prior to using the treatment, make sure to wash hands throughly. this treatment may become highly addictive.]