Saturday, March 31, 2007

The Grapes of Bath

Last night I thought about this woman who is doing this thing she can’t afford, but does it still. She bathes in wine - draws her bath and when it’s filled with warmth she pours a bottle of costly wine into the water, then soaks. She hasn’t tasted wine in years but for its sweet vapours that rise and dance in the steam. Soaking until the water prunes her crimson skin and she is light-headed, she rests her hands in the most tender spots and learns the spirit of the bottle…I would love to know her name.

I had written this post in French, but I had no business doing so as I butchered it (French) so badly...so I am told.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Mind With I Today Many So Killed Work At My

What is to be done about people who snarl, or worse, look through you when you try to add some levity to the dreariness of routine and semi-stale air, fend off the quotidian pressures and say hello with a respectful smile? Or who immediately hush up when you walk into a room and cast a nervous grin in your direction. Or those who act like you don’t exist when their friends who hen-peck you are around, but are sweet as pie when it’s just the 2 of you ? Or ask inane questions at awkward times just to see if they could tell by your reaction that you know they’ve been biting at your back. Questions like, oh, what’s that your eating…or, how do you spell this-or-that-obvious-word…or, do you know if it’s supposed to rain tomorrow…or… could you please stop choking me, I can’t breathe…no! please, no more kicking, you’re breaking my ribs…! Hey, what the…my hair, my hair, my eeeaaarrr! Aargghh! You tore off my ear! Aarrrgh! Stop jumping on my legs, my knee is gonna…(pop)yeeeaaaooowwww! no nonononono, no more, not in the face, not in the face…noph ina phace! No! why are you grabbing onto my stomach with your…STOP TWISTING! STOPPPPPPlease! What…oh thank god…where’d he go…he’s coming ba……ah, my back, you broke my back with that…what is it…oh lord, no, no NO! stay away from me with that, that…that is what's to be done about them.

Disclaimer: Any similarity to any person living or dead or kind of living or soon to be dead, real or imaginary, is purely coincidental. Records will be needed to identify fictitious or facetious characters that were used in the writing of this text. Any person wishing to make trouble for me due to blowing off steam needs to blow it up their ass.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

For those of you sending me your "FINAL NOTES" via Email, please just post them as comments for everyone else to read. Unless of course you had intended them for my eyes only, in which case please specify so I don't add them there myself. They are really interesting, by the by...so don't be shy!

Friday, March 23, 2007

Verific or Vindic ?

Remember my friend Goiles? Well he has this really funky roommate named Flavie who writes great entries and articles on this same system. If you get the chance, go to the bottom of the page and click the GIGANTO GIRL link (checkem all out while you’re at it – all great reads) .

Anyway, I had just finished reading her entry about airport security, (right up there with the likes of George Carlin’s rant about the same topic) and wanted to leave a comment. There is understandably a word verification prompt that filters out invasive spy-bots that pirate these systems to provide info about us to market researchers from warm-blooded surfers. This is an actual screen capture of that word verification (all I added was the red arrow and exclamation point) : I don't know if it was accidental, or if some computer geek with a severe lisp who works the airport security decided to slap his two-cents down on anyone who would dare ridicule him. Either way I think it’s hilarious.

Friday, March 16, 2007

HELP WANTED - EARNEST SUICIDE NOTES NEEDED FOR IMMEDIATE COMPILATION

Find the infinitely preferable short version of this entry below in the (SHORT VERSION) section. If you don't have the time or inclination to read the long version, it is highly recommended by mental healthcare practitioners that you read only the short version. However, failing to post a comment about either of the FINAL NOTES versions, long or short, will result in one of the following ailments:
A.) impotence/frigidity
B.) irrevocable spontaneous illiteracy
C.) a sore ass from me kicking it

The good news is you can't
choose between the three.

Final Notes - (LONG VERSION)
Dull teeth and uninspired bites – dry or slobbery lips puckered for some worthless and probably unrequited kiss - scrawny, frail wrists affixed to squelchy knuckled fists that squish on impact not smashing worthy targets into bits, not signaling rebellion, not even punching holes through fake smiles. I have just described this, and every other useless paragraph…in fact, almost every other string of bunched together sentences with very few exceptions… it has to end.

Been writing a while? Tired of relying on bells and whistles to get the job done? Well, the good news is that there is no job to do but for entertainment, and drawing people’s attention onto the pages you so painstakingly craft to be captivating distractions from your readers’ lives is a sham and you know it.
Maybe this knowledge is buried deep, but stop pretending to have important things to say when all of your writing amounts to nothing more than amusement under the guise of artistic or vicarious experience:

Every hour your readers read is an hour that they are duped into believing they have lived something profound when in actuality they have not lived at all. They have sat. Stared at ink and thin rectangles of macerated pressed wood or glaring boxes of radiation.

They should be living their only lives, but instead they read you, unable to turn away from your cleverly constructed cabal, your novel, your script, your article, your blog, your love letter, your email, your joke of the fucking day.

Why not do away with all your fancy talk, your literary devices and techniques, your memorable or zany characters and catchy phrases, your plot twists and surprise endings and never ending rants and tedious tangents and linguistic special effects?

Put an end to your (and our) suffering by FINALLY writing what
you mean and meaning what you write by writing that ONE final note; that ONE last message to the world that expresses your true self and lets the reader know who you really are, and what you really mean, and most important, what you meant and who you were, because try as you might, you can’t fake a fucking suicide note.

To be great it has to be real.
Non-fiction.
Acknowledged as McCoy.
Maybe read allowed by a friend or family member at your funeral or your wake as they stare at your corpse with some newfound opinion of fondness and respect, meanwhile hoping that you (now dead), the author of such a brilliant and inspiring final message, had respected the reader and had deemed him or her worthy of loving while you were alive.

Certainly, a writer worth any salt could manage a reasonable facsimile suicide note - something sufficiently tear-jerking to convince some fools of its saying-goodbye-to-tomorrowness.

Fine, but ask yourself this: what written passion, sorrow, anger, frustration, defeat, emotional insurgence or acquiescence could possibly compare to the sheer power released into the letter you would write moments before taking your own life?

Try faking all you want – you will never write anything as focused, as stirring, or as poignant as your final earnest message to the world.

Having said that…

Writers, listen up: it’s time to leap from the building of this shabby reality; dive off the bridge built between common sense and hypocrisy; slash away at the vein of vanity and carve up the futile arterial insanity that binds us to mediocrity and pretty lies about why our words are supposed to matter because except as distractions, they don’t.

Nothing does. Lol.

Final Notes - (SHORT VERSION)

Hi anyone. I'm looking to compile, for my own zany, fun-luvin’ reasons, imaginary though convincing suicide notes from any writer worth a lick of salt. I would write them myself, but as you can tell, I haven't enough salt to flavour a garbanzo bean.

I need your help in this worthy and charitable endeavour. The notes don’t have to be long. They don’t have to be masterpieces, but some of them will be. Or really funny. It is not a contest, though the prizes include retaining a love of sex and your ability to recognise the alphabets, and not waking up with my shoe up your arse. Winners will be published online in three weeks in big bold letters. Good-luck and have as much fun as I know you're dying to...

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Little Miss Methuselah

Today, Dr. Elena Nicoladis, prominent linguistic theorist, professor of psychology, and fanatical mad scientist turns the great four-OH! Dr. Nicoladis, (in)famous for her controversial research into Forced Acceleration of Linguistic Acquisition For Embryonic Learning (FALAFEL), is quoted as quite jokingly having said, “Some folks are under the distinct impression that forty is an ‘f’ word. Well, even though it is undeniable to say that the word forty does begin with the letter ‘f,’ that simply does not make it a word in any way congruent or synonymous with the other “f-word,” which is both offensive and inappropriate at any celebratory juncture, but more than anything proves etymologically enigmatic due to the fact that the populace at large in both academic and more primitive social spheres is in actuality uncertain of it’s linguistic origins or…(and she goes on and on for another hour or so)…parasympathetic nervous system in speculative conjecture with Dr. Stanford Beer’s educational supposition juxtaposed with other, more contemporaneous generative linguistic theory can bring the sound of this idiomatically recognisable "f-word"…(another ten to fifteen minutes)…and to recapitulate, the apposite, or suitable f-word associated with turning 40 should be that which has it’s earliest origins in the obsolete Middle English verb fonned or fon, which meant to be foolish or to befool, but which we now use more colloquially to signify a sense of whimsical humour-inducing….”

Ok, ok! So, basically, you find that turning forty-years-old is fun?
“Exactly. That’s what I was about to say if you’d let me finish! Geez-Leweez, you can’t get a word in edgewise with this fucking guy…!!”

Happy # Forty Sweetheart!! eXeXeX and OhOhOh

Friday, March 2, 2007

First Blog about a Giant Frog

If you’ve ever seen the classic 80’s film My Bodyguard with Chris Makepeace as the diminutive yet resourceful Cliffe Peache, and Adam Baldwin as the gargantuan Ricky Linderman, then you have some idea of how I feel when hanging with my new French buddy Goiles (the G is like "J", but it’s not his real name. Anyway(s), I’m the only one who calls him that...everybody else calls him “Sir!”) . He’s a whopping 6'5 to my 5'6 and let’s not forget the ¾!! Others also notice us – whether strolling the streets of Montreal or standing in the cafeteria line-up at the school where we teach, people’s reaction to the sight of us is predictable.

This gentle giant has become quite an important person in my life; he’s practically like a “little” brother to me, especially since I've always been the runt. Here are a few nostalgic pics taken over the past few months of me and my friendly giant frog...

<--This is us in the clearing right outside the school on the last days of fall. Notice the look of wonder in Goiles' eyes - he'd never seen the colours of a Quebec autumn. Funny note: I actually got yelled at for wearing that hat in the teacher's room during recess! We had a good laugh about it afterward...right before Goiles crushed a bully-student's fist with his bare hand.


Here we are outside the school again, but this time you could see the dreary building right behind us. It isn't much to look at, especially first thing in the morning after a 2 hour commute! We'd just compared schedules and realised we both had our worst groups first period, and it felt like we were gearing up for war...

<--First real snowfall of the year! As you can see, with exception to the razor-sharp sheets of ice that were flying off rooftops at decapitating speeds, Big-G was absolutely spellbound by the gentle beauty of our lovely Montreal snowfall. You may notice that I wasn't so impressed at first, but soon his child-like captivation spread and I was overjoyed at the prospect of five lovely months of frosty merriment.
Times can't always be joyful, as the next heart-wrenching picture proves:
<--Here I'm handing Goiles a tissue to wipe his eyes. He was really feeling the feeling that day. I don't usually state the obvious, but this was his rockyest time: he'd lost quite a few pounds to malnutrition due to a broken heart. He'd been crying for a few days straight over some romantic bull, and hadn't slept a wink while stewing in his own tears at the bottom rung of desperation.
Many more pics on the way...

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Birth of an(other) Angel...

Richard, Kira Isabelle is gorgeous, and I know you’ll be an awe-inspiring father. I couldn't be more confident about anything. I would love to meet her in person, and I will one day before she can ride a bike, but knowing you and Elena, probably not before she can read which will most likely be any day now. By the way, it might not be obvious, this is a picture of me thinking about meeting her.

I just read that you are looking into a position with kids or the elderly - have you thought about selling diapers door-to-door? I'm really funny sometimes.

Seriously, you got me with that uncle billy and leo stuff. Flooded me. Everyone should know what you have to offer to the world, and since the whole world will be reading my "online journal" due to my uncanny and universal appeal, I'll direct them to you and yours...

KISS THAT BABY

Bullshit Detectors...how good are yours?

Moronic morning radio-show hosts! As if incessant snorts and guffaws to make like they’re funny isn’t bad enough, they also spew optimistic misinformation to the public under the guise of news! Explanation:

Friday morning I was getting a lift to work with my new friend Ahcene, listening to some news about an ex-two-year-old girl whose throat got stuck in the rear-door power-window of a car while her mom was running unspecified “errands” for half an hour, when back to back with the macabre tale of the dead toddler, the host announced a cheerful tidbit of info in the form of this question, “how large are the biggest suction-cups on the tentacles of the giant squid that was discovered off the shores of Antarctica yesterday?
Are they…
A.) the size of an adult male’s hand?
B.) the size of dinner plates?
or C.) the size of tractor tires?”

In my heart-of-hearts I wished for them to respond with C.) they are the impressive circumference of tractor tires, because, as with most sane males my age, I long for there to be monsters on this planet that could massacre hundreds of people in a single ravenous attack. When the host broadcasted the final answer, I came so hard it almost triggered the airbag.

Imagine my delight when they announced that the colossal-squid’s suction cups (or “flat-pads”) were John Deere tire-sized; I felt the glee of a seven-year-old on Christmas morning; the joy of finding a thousand chocolaty Easter surprises; the wide-eyed fascination of watching the likes of claymation marvels such as Sinbad or King-Kong come to life, but for real, in our actual oceans! Vivid images of the Kraken effortlessly snapping yuppie’s yachts in half, or slapping aside ridiculously invasive sea-doos with the leisurely flick a single tentacle thrilled me to no end! For a fleeting moment, I was young, and full of hope and happiness.

The wondrous spell lasted about as long as programming between commercial breaks on cable. My bullshit detectors tingled in at an alarming pitch. There on my lap was the morning paper, and in it was sure to be reference to what would be considered the most important discovery in the natural world since 4:40am MST on Monday, February 19th 2007 when my unbelievably gorgeous niece Kira Isabelle was born.

To my obvious dismay, the story in the paper ran as follows, “…the body (called the foot) of the colossal squid is so large, that if it were cut into classic-style calamari rings they would be the size of tractor-tires…”

Huge, certainly. But hardly monstrous enough upon which to base the childlike hopes for immeasurable deaths and massive natural destruction. Once again the media has succeeded in destroying the hopes of a would-be dreamer. Incidentally, in the end, the photo of the squid revealed the suction-cups were just the size of an adult man’s fist, clenched and aimed at a moronic radio-host's larynx in the morning.

By the horns...


Got me seeing red...
Something is wrong when advances are made on our collective vanities, and against our better judgements we take the bait and bite the bullet or take the bull by the horns in which case turning left or right won't save us from being skewered by the other.

LEFT HORN = NO online presence: we turn left and are left out of touch, out of sync with an ever-changing world in which copious contacts are made or maintained over electronic networks, and new friends and possibilities remain yet undiscovered in intangible, inaccessible, digital domains.

RIGHT HORN = Online presence: we turn right and are caught right between limitless possibilities of freely exchanging ideas, and of ubiquitous, obsequious capitalism. Through our profiles and our weblogs we share our closest feelings, our interests and preferences, our penchants and desires with our families and friends and with the public at large. Together we get birds of a feather to flock while handing over invaluable info about our favourite activities and vacation spots and websites and stars and shows and movies and books and foods and sexual toys - we hand it all over to the ones who profit most by running the whole show, by controlling the code, by steering the bull, in fact by riding the whole damned herd of bulls across a plain that will eventually be left barren by our willingness to be led by our vanity. Or is it fed? ... Bred?

Aw, whatever; I'm just a pain in the fucking arse.