Michael Appleby's Theory Of Relativity

Somewhere along the way, culturally speaking, older women got a whole lot sexier. That is to say, you watch television, you watch movies, you put on a Madonna album, or you read something by Anne Rice, and older women seem to be depicted more and more as being sexual deviants. You know the old lady who looked after Tweety Bird in the Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner Show? She probably got her kink on with that umbrella she always seemed to be carrying (the fact that she carried it even on sunny days was a dead giveaway). It's a sick world where old ladies do nasty things that some pornstars probably wouldn't even touch with a ten foot pole or they would touch a ten foot pole sexually, but not the acts that old ladies perform with said sexual ten foot poles. Where was I going with this? I forget in the mental haze that is comprised of pornstars, ten foot poles, and old ladies...

Oh yeah...I was talking about old ladies. Thank god for back tracking.

Don't mention it, Michael.

So anyway, the reason why I mention all these older ladies with their sick, sick perversions is because the other day I saw a man wearing a t-shirt that read: I Love Cougars. I didn't pause to ask him if he was referring to the kind of cougars that play with balls of yarn and eat mountain goats or the kind of cougars that play with balls of semen and eat mountain goats only not in the way that the other cougars eat mountain goats.

Excuse me while I pat myself on the back for that last mental image.

Much better.

Okay, so I took it to mean that he was referring to cougars who were not felines.

Damn it, Michael, would you come to the point already? What do MILFs and crusty, old tavern wenches have to do with relativity?

The guy who was wearing said t-shirt was easily in his mid-40's. Relatively speaking a cougar to him should be eating earth worms instead of mountain goats, or, more accurately, be getting eaten by earth worms only not in the way that she ate mountain goats which was not the way that those other cougars eat mountain goats. Relatively speaking. Did he really love cougars in his mid-40's? Was he, in fact, some sort of necrophiliac? Or was he a furry? Why did his pants have so many stains? Why were his fingernails yellow? How many rhetorical questions can a guy ask in an essay about bingo hussies before it gets annoying?

Two.

The guy really loves his sexually charged dynamos who shopped for support hose and sported the latest kerchief fashions straight from the dollar bin at Wal-Mart or Canadian Tire or wherever the fuck it is that really, really old women do their kerchief shopping sprees.

Mildred? Mildred? It's Mable, I just called to tell you that the pension cheque just came in and I have an inkling to spend it on itchy dresses, fake pearls, and kerfchiefs, lots and lots of kerchiefs. I'll call the geriatric wagon, let's go to Kinko's (or wherever in the hell it is us old ladies like to shop)!

That concludes the role-play portion of this essay, now back to the point.

"Cougar" is a term that is relative like a lot of things. Proof of this resides in the fact that when I was just a young sprout in the world I considered women who are now the age that I am to be cougars. I am the male equivolent of a cougar to young women. I'm sexually charged and I eat mountain sheep (they're female mountain goats, don't you know?) But now that I am the age of what I once considered the cougar cut-off line those women whom young sprout Michael Appleby would have considered cougars are just plain old women (sorry plain, old women, you just aren't that dignified to be labelled cougars anymore). Cougars to me, now, are women who are that age that their teenage children wander the malls and leave their sexy mothers home alone for the afternoon.

But you, sir with the t-shirt, you should probably avoid cougars now because they would be really, really, really old.

Or just buy a new t-shirt that reads: I Am Sexually Aroused By Women My Own Age. And then on the back you can put: Really Old. Ha Ha Ha.

I'm totally going to invent that t-shirt and become rich.

Or maybe you were actually a furry the whole time. In which case, kindly disregard all of this because it was all for naught. And seriously, you like mountain goats for real? Sick. Just sick.

I Have No Clue What To Tell You

Click Here.

You know, I tried to come up with a title for this blog entry that sums up what I found in the linked article perfectly. No matter what, though, nothing I could put together in words communicated it succinctly enough.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

I'll summarize the article for you because the article itself is pretty short and easy to follow. Basically, in Vancouver, the police department has patted itself on the back and said, "Hey look at us! We're a bunch of clever shits!" Well, kind of, but what they did do was, get this, start deploying life-sized cardboard traffic cops on city streets to trick drivers into thinking that their speeds are being clocked. Hey! Look at us! We've irritated drivers without even having to physically be present on the city streets! We're fucking awesome! High Five!

And you know what? Good for them. I think if a person can find a way to accomplish all his/her goals at work by deploying a cardboard cut-out, that person is far smarter than me. I know that when I am at work there are times when I wish I had a cardboard doppelganger to stand in for me and have irrational insults thrown at it in endless barrages that seem to always reach the same points: I'm a crook and casino games are rigged and it's not even gambling unless the player makes money 100% of the time. If the cardboard Michael Appleby, superstud, could just stand there and take the verbal assault on the chin for me I could at ,the very least, double my productivity.

Really, though, I'm not too concerned with the police dotting the landscape with carboard cops. It's a proven fact that cardboard cut-outs increase urban tourism by 1.7% and provide much needed kindling to city transients. What I wanted to really get at with this little tirade of mine, is a quote from the article, which is as follows:

And these mock-ups are so realistic that while being tested on a Vancouver street this week, "a tow-truck driver pulled up and started talking to it," Staff Sergeant Ralph Pauw told a press conference on Thursday.

Really?

Seriously?

You're a tow-truck driver and you see a realistic cardboard mock-up of a police officer, drive up to said mock-up, and just start conversing with it? At some point during that conversation, which undoubtedly would be one-sided, if that sided at all (I like to imagine that the word "talking" referred to monosyllic grunts and the possible flinging of one's own feces), would you or would you not notice the total lack of a third dimension in the person you're "talking" to?

As a Canadian, one thing that I took pride in for a great number of years was our education system. I stood proud as a educated member of society and, given, the proper platform, I would boast about how intelligent and cultivaed we were as a nation. Then I read an article in which an authority figure describes how an average tow truck driver tried to strike up a conversation with what is, for all intents and purpose, a piece of fucking cardboard!

Hey Joe! Long time, no see! How are the wife and kids?

-Distant, blank stare from an image pasted to a sheet of cardboard.

What? Why aren't you talking to me? Was it something I said? Oh my god, it's your wife, isn't it? You got a divorce and it's still a really hard thing to talk about? Oh my god! I'm so sorry man! I had no idea! I feel for you. I went through the same thing not three years ago almost to this very day. It still pisses me off sometimes when dudes are coming up to me at parties without having been in touch with me for so long and they're all like, "Dude, man, how's the old ball and chain lifestyle treating ya? You must be having crazy married sex every day?" And seriously, when they say stuff like that it hurts me a lot. Even talking about it now gets me a little choked up. I'm so glad to have people like you around because you really no how to listen.

-Distant, blank stare from an image pasted to a sheet of cardboard.

Well, aren't you going to say anything? Look man, I apologized for bringing up the subject of your wife. She was no good for you anyway. She was a total tramp. I saw her whoring herself out at that party that one time, going up to guys and like rubbing herself all up in there, you know? I was going around and I was all like, "Hey dude, don't be lured by the va-jay-jay, you know what I'm saying? She's married to Joe! And fucking around behind his back? That ain't right, man! That shit just ain't right! No way! No how! If Joe don't fuck your shit up with some traffic citations I'll fuck your shit up because I'm loyal to Joe!" I did my best, dude, but I mean there's no way for me to be watching out for your lady twenty four seven because I mean I got shit to do sometimes. That's just how it is. But I was looking out for you when I could. I really was.

-Distant, blank stare from an image pasted to a sheet of cardboard.

Goddamn it Joe! Say something! We're bros! Amigos!

-Distant, blank stare from an image pasted to a sheet of cardboard.

Fine be an asshole! You know what? You're a piece of shit! I fucking hate you. No wonder your wife practically raped me at that party! All you do is you sit there what with your radar gun just aiming all the time! I mean, when the fuck do you ever just put the radar gun down and interact with people? Huh? Seriously! This whole stoic officer of the law schtick? It gets fucking old real fucking fast!

-Distant, blank stare from an image pasted to a sheet of cardboard.

I fucking hate you! I don't even know why I took the time to pull over to talk to you. Listen to all these people honking their horns because I'm slowing them down just so I can find out what's happening with big city cop Joe. And what kind of appreciation do I get? None. You, sir, are a big bag of dirty douche! Fucking fall on your taser, you piece of shit!

Then the tow truck driver speeds off and the gust of wind that the sudden departure of his tow truck creates blows over the cardboard cut-out.

And... end of scene.

I don't know exactly where I was going with that one, but I think I threw it out there and somehow managed to bring all right back in at the end. Kudos to me.

I suppose I shouldn't abandon all hope when finding out that a tow truck driver can try to have a conversation with a piece of cardboard.

No wait. Before I continue I just have to say this again: Really? Seriously? A piece of cardboard? And you stop your truck to talk to it? Which cereal box did you get your driver's license from? What was the inanimate object saying back to you? Really? Seriously?

But, like I said, I should be able to salvage something out of this new-found knowledge about where we stand in the scheme of things. Canada against the world. All that sort of mumbo jumbo.

And I guess it's this. Maybe the idea of a cardboard cut-out of Michael Appleby, superstud, isn't such a wacky idea after all.

Semi-New Poem: Every Time You Pass

Okay, so for those of you who were in the audiences at the Raving Poets reading series "Heart Beat" this will probably not be a new poem for you because I read it over a month ago. Mind you, I'm neglectful of my little blog sometimes and so I'm finally getting around to putting up some new poetry and, of my new poetry, this is some stuff that got pretty positive feedback (or at least I thought it did). The poem is called "Every Time You Pass" and it's one that all started with the idea of cupping the smell of a woman with one's tongue for safekeeping. Odd, I know, but it was something that just sounding interesting to me when I tried putting it to words. Enjoy.

Every Time You Pass
I had to hold the smell
of your perfume
in the roof of my mouth,
for fear of losing it
permanently.

Draw in the big breath.

Hold it.

Keep holding
until the room
turns to floaters,
ghost splotches
over egg-shell white,
over off-white,
white noise,
static from a ceiling fan,
helicopter blade beating
drums in circles
into oblivion.

This is how

you

are always fleeting.

I had to hold it
with my tongue
in the shape of a cup
where the red delicious’s
couldn’t drown it out
in apple
and the peaches
couldn’t seduce it
into being something
that it already
transcends.

I ensconced it with
memories of mornings
that hung with
my suit jacket over
the back of your chair
while suns slinked
through your windows
with birdsong.

Your blue leg:
a tattoo of trumpeter swans
taking off
the way rockets do
leaving a visible
spectrum of
tumbling dahlias,
blue as watercolor and
daisies that make
yellow ellipses
between their white petal
sentences
of: “Stay, stay behind my knee.
Kiss my shin
until your lips
are calcified by the bone.”

The whole time
holding it in,
sheltering it,
reveling it

waiting for the room to spin into black,

passing out

every time you pass.

-Michael Appleby
April, 2008

Declaration Of Independence (For Cocks)

Man, you know what I saw on T.V. the other day? Another Cialis commercial. It doesn't really matter how clever they write the ads for any of the boner pills out there, every time I see them I get a little bit angry.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think it's great that I get to see commercials with middle-aged shlubs dancing around in public and singing the praises of their chemically induced hard-ons, maybe doing some sort of trombone pantomime with their penises. What irritates me, though, is the fact that we live in an age of men needing pills to even just be physically able to fuck their wives and/or girlfriends and/or alternative lifestyle partner and/or hapless barnyard orifice (I think that is the first time in human history that anybody has put those three words together). It seems to me that men just were able to get hard-ons without so much chemical dependency. Where along our evolutionary track did we lose that ability? I hate to think that someday I will be relegated to the same fate as some guy who feels it's necessary to Gene Kelly my way into the workplace singing about my schlong to my coworkers and getting high-fives for something as simple as increasing blood flow to my crotch.

I'm sure that those of you out there whom I work with, have worked with, or will work with are probably dreading the day that I twirl into work and fill you all in on how I got it up. Sure, I'll probably get fired for filling you all in on such matters and I'll probably get sued for sexual harassment by some of you sensitive types, but getting a stiffy is worth all the legal hassle and unemployment in the world.

But back to the matter at hand...

So seeing the Cialis commercial the other day made me think about the downfall of man. Quite literally a downfall when we're talking about hard dicks. And after some quiet deliberation and a lot of consideration I think I've arrived at the source of the problem itself. The problem is the hard-on itself. It used to be that back in the day a man could walk around with a hard dick all day long. He'd go into the corner store with his hat dangling from him crotch. He'd go to the supermarket and use it to weigh bananas. He'd prop open doors with it. Essentially, what men had was a fifth limb. And they could use it for sex, which was nature's way of rewarding such a versatile piece of meat.

Then, somewhere along the way, men were taught to be ashamed of their hard-ons. I can't pinpoint at which point in history that it happened, but suffice to say that if you walked into the corner store with your hat hanging on your naughty bit somebody would gasp like you just raped a donkey in the candy aisle. Basically, the world got itself really, really sensitive to the concept of a man having blood circulating to his cock. Years passed and men had to change their way of thinking. Instead of thinking, "Damn it, where's a fucking coat hook when you need one?" they started thinking "Oh man, I hope I don't get a hard-on because that would be so embarassing right now."

Basically our brains started to shut out cocks down.

Now we need pills just to have sex. How sad is that? The ghosts of cavemen, Henry Miller, and James Dean are laughing at us men right now. Some lot we turned out to be.

So, I have a proposal, more of a declaration of independence for cocks I suppose. Men, you have to change your way of thinking about things lest you wake up one day and need Cialis to give you a boner for 36 hours (I'm not even sure why you would want one for that long). If you think something dirty or you see a beautiful girl or you just need a coat hook or a door jam, just let it happen. Societal norms be damned! Fucking political correctness is ruining the species! The less you try to stifle a hard-on when you don't need one, the more likely you'll get one when you want one, and without the fucking pills.

Your cock, the cavemen, Henry Miller, and James Dean will thank you.

One Of The Coolest Music Videos I've Ever Seen

Click here.

The link goes to a site that contains what can only be described as an interactive (go ahead try clicking Win's hands and face while he sings) music video for the Arcade Fire song "Neon Bible." I just thought I'd pass that link along to you because I just watched it for the first time and it blew my mind!

Ghosts I-IV

If you're like me you're trying to buy a download of Nine Inch Nails' latest offering "Ghosts I-IV" today. It's available for download only through various Torrent sites or you can go to the official website and purchase a download for as little as $5.00. Musically, it's 36 tracks of instrumental NIN bliss. Right now I've got it playing on the website's player while I wait for the download to complete.

The reason why I'm writing any of this right now is because the Nine Inch Nails servers are packed to the gills with hungry fans wanting the new albums. Packed to the gills means that the downloads are sluggish to say the least. It took a long time before I even got the download started. It's been downloading the .zip file for roughly ten minutes now and I only have 2% of the thing done. It'll be a bit of a wait before I can get it over to my iPod.

I just thought I would give you a heads up in case you were thinking of getting the album for yourself. Be prepared for a digital line-up at the till. In the end, though, it will be worth it. I'm very excited.

New Poem: "Futility"

On March 5, 2008, the Raving Poets return to their cozy little Yianni's basement, The Kasbar. Details of the next reading series we're doing can be found at the Raving Poets' website. I hope to see all of you there. It promises to be a great feat of literature. In the meantime here's a new poem. It's short and sweet.

Futility
I mailed you a tin can.
It should have arrived by now.

I'm very sorry;

the postman made me cut the string.

-Michael Appleby
February, 2008

It's Official: Everything You Do Is Killing The Environment

Click here.

Government officials are now citing drinking bottled water as immoral. Some of you are probably drinking a bottle of water as you are reading this and, you know what, you are monsters!

It's about damned time somebody came out and said it. Every time I see some jerk cracking open a bottle of water I vomit emotionally because I know that Mother Nature is getting raped repeatedly for her sweet, sweet mineral water.

Okay, now seriously, what exactly can we do that won't destroy the planet tomorrow?

It's getting to a point where I'm thinking that since there's nothing that we can do to promote a healthy viable planet with healthy, happy people we just need to go balls out in the opposite direction. Instead of drinking a bottle of water, for instance, just go ahead and dump used motor oil in your neighbor's garden.

What? What? What? What? How can you promote such a morally reprehensible act?

Oh it's quite simple really, if the state of affairs is so bad around here that we have to dismiss drinking bottled water as being just as evil as arson, puppy dog tossing, and bread-loaf sodomy, we need to start doing things to make drinking bottled water not seem so bad, comparitively speaking. So go ahead, start dumping oil. Go take a dump in the hallway of your nearest hospital. Go punch a baby. Give it a few weeks and your government officials can put bottled water in it's proper moral category.

Sure, a bottle of water may not move you to the head of the line in the Mother Nature gangbang to oblivion, but at least your not out there punching babies or peeing on hobos.

Natural Selection Is Working Just Fine. Stop Screwing With It, Glomobi!

So I was watching television the other day and saw an ad for a Glomobi service. Glomobi, for the uninitiated, offer a range of services for cellular phone users all over the place. Text message the word "JOKE" to blah, blah, blah, blah and you'll have trouble not crapping your pants from getting the funniest jokes in the world sent directly to your cell phone! You know the kind of service I'm talking about. Or you'll get asked a suspiciously easy trivia question for which you have to text a multiple choice answer to a number and you'll win a ba-jillion dollars in cold, hard cash (that's probably even a direct quote from one of their ads). Am I an annoying fuckwit wasting your valuable time with painfully obvious questions? Text A for Yes or text B for No to 55555 and you might win 14 zillion ba-jillion buck-a-roos in solid gold coins!

Anyway, now I'm rambling...

So, there I am watching television and this Glomobi ad comes on telling me to text the word DOUCHEBAG to some number and I would, in turn, be sent the latest and greatest pick-up lines to wow the ladies with. Was I sick of being a dweeb sitting around in Bullwinkle boxer shorts and masturbating to Girls Gone Wild infomercials? Was I ready to (gulp!) approach a living breathing girl with actual breasts and naughty bits armed with pick-up lines that will leave her practically ripping her clothes off before I could finish saying my first sentence? Damn straight I was!

If I could rewrite the alphabet I would put U and I beside each other.

Girl, your feet must be tired because you've been running through my mind all day long.

So just text DOUCHEBAG to some weird phone number that has no area code and make sure you pack lots of condoms!

Alright, that's probably not verbatim how the ad went, but it's pretty close.

The point isn't the commercial itself, though.

So what's the point?

Well, in the natural world we have this thing called natural selection. The best traits you have get carried on and augmented further in the next generation when you reproduce and the worst qualities get weeded out slowly the same way. Darwin came up with this theory and it's worked rather well. So now all those dweeb who sit around in their Bullwinkle boxer shorts and set their VCR's to record Girls Gone Wild infomercials (why do we need so many Girls Gone Wild infomercials anyway? Another topic for a blog, perhaps?) are going out and getting laid, and, probably, reproducing.

This is not a good thing.

The whole notion of the species adapting for survivability is being fucked up by guys who text Glomobi and get the latest and greatest pick-up lines to totally score on unsuspecting women with.

I'm new in town. Could you give me directions to your apartment?

Aren't we supposed to keep these idiots from reproducing? The last thing we need is a new generation with the social grace of wet potato sacks.

And women: why do you go to bed with anybody who uses these lines? And don't say that women don't go to bed with these guys because somebody has to be going to bed with them. If they weren't successful using these lines there would be no return customers to the Glomobi service.

These guys walk up to you, cell phone clutched in their meaty paws and they say, "Hold on a sec." Then they text DOUCHEBAG to 55555, get their opening line sent to them and use it on you. And you sleep with them!

Meanwhile, guys who don't use their cell-phone as a crutch for coming up with conversation openers fall by the wayside in favor of these dorks!

It's enough to force a guy to never leave his house and never change his Bullwinkle boxer shorts.