The Bottom Ten, April 2006

8 days until 10,000 Days.

10.) Kissing Time Limits- In Tangarang, which is this city in Indonesia, city officials have imposed a time limit on kissing. Why the fuck would anybody want to do that, you might be asking? Well, it's all part of an effort to curb prostitution in that particular city. Now, if you look past the obvious problem of police officers timing people as they kiss when they could be preventing incidents of rape and murder what you might see in this measure is innovation. So now when you are in Tangerang and you hire the services of a prostitute you can rest assured that she will only kiss you for the allotted time limit, then you can get down to the blowjobs, donkey punches, and bukkake. It streamlines the whole prostitution process, making transactions quicker and more efficient. This could revolutionize the whole industry. Prostitutes everwhere could learn a thing or two from the industrious city officials of Tangerang.

9.) The Mullet- I feel like I've talked about the mullet in The Bottom Ten before. It's like deja vu, but I really have to talk about how perplexing it all is. I think that the mullet is now nature's most confounding hairstyle. On one hand it's the do of choice for rednecks, hillbillies, hockey players, and the illiterati. On the other hand, it's quite possibly the most ironic look that can be worn by somebody who knows better. Now when I see somebody sporting the neck blanket I have to ask myself if I'm looking at an ignoramus or a clever hipster. I hate having to bring a slide rule with me when I'm walking around in public.

8.) Ticket Presales- I get more and more presale offers for tickets to concerts and major events than most people. It stems from the fact that I sign up for all of these different services that offer presale opportunities. That being said, I've found that as more and more presale offers come to me the shittier the seats to these events available in the presales are getting. It leads to a huge dilemma for me. Do I go in on the presale and take advantage of getting to sit in a seat that is less-than-ideal, for lack of a better word to describe it or do I wait until tickets go on sale to the general public for a chance, a slim, slim, sliver-thick chance at getting a seat that won't make me pass out from being at such high altitudes without an oxygen mask? Or maybe I just pay four or five times the face-value of the ticket to a broker to get exactly the tickets I want. What the fuck is a sucker to do?

7.) Carpet Lawsuit Bombing- The RIAA is definitely an organization I've alluded to before, though maybe not in a Bottom Ten list. So welcome to the Bottom Ten, assholes! It's no secret that the Gestapo of the RIAA will sue anything that moves, but, come on, a family that doesn't even own a PC? How the fuck are they pirating music, retards? Do you guys even do any research into the people you sue? Just draw names out a hat? I think it's time to just hold a press conference to apologize to the world for being a bunch of assholes and ruining the music industry.

6.) Star Power- If you read this little blurb about the upcoming release of Clerks II you might notice the little bit about Harvey Weinstein insisting to Kevin Smith that at least one "boldface name" appear in the movie, leading to the casting of Rosario Dawson. What irks me about this is that Clerks II is a sequel to a huge cult classic. It can cruise just fine without any boldface names. It's predecessor is proven. Why the fuck tinker with a winning formula just to incorporate celebrities?

5.) People Cashing In On Controversy- Somewhere a man names the restaurant that he is about to open The Pink Taco. What happens? City officials get angry because it will offend people. Sure, people who get offended at the combination of the words "pink" and "taco" placed side by side in a restaurant name are probably the kind of people you would want to move out of your city, but you just know that the man behind the name is using the name to make a few bucks. I don't see why anybody would have a problem with naming my pizza shop The Festering Ass Boil. It's from the old country; it means "great pizza." Meanwhile, there are probably really good, if not better, Mexican restaurants that will fall by the wayside when The Pink Taco opens simply because they aren't named after vagina. I can understand why somebody would go out and intentionally cause controversy like this, but it still seems kind of underhanded. Damn these ethics!

4.) More Pink Taco- David Roderique, the economic-vitality director for Scottsdale, also giggled when asked about the restaurant. Then he regained his composure.

"While there may be some people who have concerns about the name of the restaurant, we've got a younger crowd who appreciates more diversity and finding ways to slap the establishment," he said.
Yeah, there's no better way to "slap the establishment" than by eating at a restaurant with a name that the economic-vitality director of Scottsdale seemingly finds amusing. Take that establisment! Yep, I can see the militant anarchists lining right up to eat at the Pink Taco already. The Pink Taco: Come For The Controversy Of A Sexual Name, Stay For The Nihilism!

3.) Summer Home-Reno Projects- Say what you will about the nipple-crushing cold of winter at least it didn't inspire your neighbors to start revving up the table saw at 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning as part of garage renovation project.

2.) Putting The Snow Shovel Back In The Garage- Holy fuck! Why the fuck did the garage have to built all the way back there? That's a long fucking way to carry a fucking snow shovel! Fuck it, it's Canada, we'll probably have another blizzard in a week, trust me.

1.) Logic- Logic is such a bitch! Seriously, in an effort to curb piracy of movies in China, Warner Bros. is releasing some of their movies at severely reduced prices minus all the fancy packaging to compete with pirates. You can buy The Aviator for a dollar fucking fifty! Here, though, you have to pay upwards of twenty bucks for the same movie, but at least we get that eighteen dollars worth of packaging, which, as we all know, makes it all worth it. And then Warner Bros. wonders why there is so much piracy going on. It's because people are pissed off that they have to pay $25.00 for a DVD when you're willing to sell that same DVD in China for $1.50. Fuckheads!

Classic Michael Appleby

11 Days until 10,000 Days.

Here's the poem that I performed this week at the Raving Poets show. It was written back in September of 2003. It's one of those poems that was written, performed maybe once or twice around the time of its construction and was kind of lost in the shuffle. It was nice to have a chance to dust it off for the RP audience since I had no need for their votes this week, having secured a spot in the six top vote-getters going into next week's big finale show. Enjoy.

italiana
she’s letting down her hair in dark curtains
a perfect contrast to the stark white of her skin
and the skinny skeleton she makes
becomes more woman
and she’s whispering to me
but i can’t make out what she’s saying
and that’s okay
because it’s a triumph of intimacy
over any need for coherence
the nape of her neck thrown behind a veil
the smell of her jasmine ripe on her wrist
telegraphs from rho in her hip pocket

and

i

don’t

even

speak

italian

the curl of her tongue as she’s mouthing the words
slowly deliberately

i

don’t

even

dare

to

speak

because i might miss the glisten
of the soft act
of wetting her lips
or a quick almost undetectable spasm
in the musculature above her right knee
the lazy preoccupied dangle of the tip of her foot
and the silent speculation of

wondering

if

she’s

as

nervous

as

i

am

Still Believes In Posting

12 Days Until 10,000 Days.

Walking back to my car along Whyte Avenue after the poetry reading at Yianni's Taverna I found myself looking into the various storefronts that I was passing along the way. As I passed some shop that sells bath and beauty supplies I think (you know, one of those shops that if you walk into it your olfactory will explode) I noticed a sign hanging in the storefront window reading, and I quote verbatim: Still Against Animal Testing.

And a couple of thoughts came to me just then as I read that sign.

First of all, when the fuck did they start doubting their position regarding animal testing? To hang a sign stating that they are still against it means that at some point they probably held a board meeting of some sort to see how they felt about animal testing. At that meeting it was decided that the company was still against it, but I think that there had to be a moment of limbo or two in which the decision could have gone either way.

Secondly, a sign that reads: Still Against Animal Testing is clearly hanging there to characterize the store. Sure, you could shop at those other bath and beauty product stores, but we're the one that is against animal testing. And this kind of made me angry because it's rather presumptuous to set yourself apart as the store that's against animal testing. How do you really know that all the other stores are lining up to club puppies and throw kittens against brick walls in the name of bath and beauty products? You don't. In fact, I think I would make it a point to shop specifically at a store that hung a sign reading: Still Believes In Animal Testing just because it's the unpopular position to take. Fuck, I would even tip every staff member at a store with a sign that read; So In Favor Of Animal Testing That You Can Come Right In And Test The Animals With Us Just For Shits And Giggles If You Want because places like that probably don't make a lot of money and if society is ever going to conquer the plague of corporate imperialism we have to start by supporting mom and pop opperations like Seal Clubbers Inc. and the Rabbit Eyeball Injections For No Apparent Reason Other Than We're Totally Fucking Insane Footwear Boutique And Buffet.

Finally, I came up with a edit for that sign that would have clarified things considerably: Still Against Animal Testing, But Still In Favor Of Deforestation To Make Stupid Fucking Signs To Make Our Moneylust Look Ethical. I suppose it's thinking like this that has kept me from being a successful entrepreneur.

And I suppose that if we chopped down all the forests to make stupid fucking signs to state the obvious then the animals that we're saving by not performing inhumane tests on them won't have any places to live, which means we'll have to keep them confined and overcrowded in cramped cages. If that's the case then we might as well just perform the stupid-ass tests because what the fuck else can we do with them taking up all that perfectly useful room in our cages?

The Return Of Placenta Chic

14 Days until 10,000 Days.

Reading Fark today I came across a couple of interesting articles with one thing in common: placentas.

First off, a story out of Hawaii. A couple is currently embroiled at odds with state officials over a law that prevents parents from getting the placenta from their children after the children are born. Apparently the law does not currently allow for parents to have the placenta. The couple in question wants to plant their newborn's placenta with a tree because it represents some sort of spiritual symmetry.

Plus it's been scientifically proven that there's no fertilizer like human placenta. It's an old farmers' trick of the trade, really. Everybody in agriculture knows that if you want high yield on your crops what you have to do is take a one ton truck down to the dumpster behind the hospital and load up on placentas because for some reason crops just love that shit. The first job I ever had, in fact, was placenta wrangler. Yep, those were some good profitable years, elbow deep in fleshy sacks. Yum.

But seriously, folks. Why the fuck is this even something that gets legislated? If I worked in a maternity ward and somebody wanted to keep their child's placenta I'd have no trouble with it whatsoever.

Say, mister, we have this kooky thing where we're making draperies for our apartment out of the placentas of all of our children. Do you think you could find it in your heart to let us have our baby's placenta so that we can carry on the tradition of having really smelly curtains that make people not want to visit us ever?

Sure, I was just going to throw it out into the dumpster out back for the placenta wranglers to have, what the fuck do I care if you want to take what is ultimately garbage to me?

But no, in Hawaii, they have legislate that kind of thing because somebody in that state really likes to collect placentas.

The lesson then is that if you're pregnant and you have some sort of plans to make a cardigan sweater out of your fetus' placenta, don't give birth in Hawaii. If you give birth in Hawaii and you're desperate for that placenta sweater you might want to log into eBay and start bidding like crazy because Hawaii sure as fuck isn't going to give you any placentas for free. They don't care who you are.

And then you have Tom Cruise. Now, most people, when they think Tom Cruise, they think picture of perfect mental health. In keeping with his spotless record of not looking like some sort of superfreak, Tom Cruise has stated that, as per the church of Scientology's rules about placentas and umbilical cords, he will eat the placenta and the umbilical cord of fiancee Katie Holmes' soon-to-arrive baby.

What does this have to do with anything?

Well, I bring this up as part of an elaborate entertainment news headline. Katie Holmes Will Not Be Giving Birth In Hawaii. Now that's a scoop, Entertainment Tonight! Take that!

Because, surely, if the state of Hawaii won't let you plant a placenta with a tree they probably won't let you douse it with ketchup and tartar sauce before chowing down on it either. So put away your fork, Tom, if you're planning on jetting your fiancee off to Hawaii for a Scientology sound birth process.

And don't even get me started on eating placenta. I may have been a placenta wrangler for many profittable years, but never once did the thought occur to me, "Damn, this shit would make a good casserole!"

Finally The Proof That Religion's Been Waiting For

Before I begin, 15 days until 10,000 Days hits shelves

Click here.

I've broached the subject of religion before, but never with a lot of depth because it's a difficult subject to get into really. It's nothing short of enthralling watching the world evolve around scientific advances and seeing the evolution of religion to accomodate those scientific advances. Just when you think that religion has had the last nail driven into its coffin, they adapt their stories to keep themselves relevant to their followers. What's more is that organized religion is still a powerful force in this world despite all of the advances we have made as a species.

Anyway, enough bullshit. The big head-to-head battle in the world with regards to religion is spirituality versus science.

Now, for me, the big problem is that religion's heavyweight champion, the number one poster boy has never materialized to disprove science once and for all. What's odd is that God, the heavyweight champion I allude to, is omnipotent, all-powerful. If God wants to put the smackdown on his opponent it's no big deal, he just bats his eyelash, if deities have eyelashes, and kapowza, you're a corpse! All these years, though, science has been making with the trash talk and the God camp has been pretty much powerless to counterattack because God has never actually materialized long enough to say, "Hey bitches, stop talking smack before I turn your mamas into newts!"

So, then here it is. The WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment for the uninitiated, has plans for God to not only materialize, but for him to face WWE President Vince McMahon in a match.

What gets me, though, is that the religious leaders seem to be against the prospect of God stepping into the ring against Vince. You see, for years science has wanted proof that God exists. Well, there you go, assholes! He exists and he's going to kick Vince McMahon's ass! You'd think that anything that shows God as being capable of wrestling would be welcomed by the church. But nooooooo... Some guy could see a burn mark on a burrito that looks like Jesus if you tilt the burrito just right and the church is all over that saying that it's definitive proof of the the existence of God, but when God wants to beat up Vince McMahon suddenly it's sacreligious.

Is the church afraid that God can't beat up Vince McMahon? Could it be that wrestling is fake? Naw, that can't be it.

But here it is, folks. What I really want to say, if the people who write the storylines for wrestling want to have Vince wrestle God, what's the real big deal? If your god is going to smite anybody who makes a mockery of him what's it going to do to hurt you? In fact, if God did smite the wrestling writers for having him go toe-to-toe with Vince wouldn't it be a great way to say, "I told you so." Secondly, having been an avid viewer of pro wrestling for the better part of my life I can't see God's appearance being a regular thing. As a wrestler, God will probably go the way of the Gobbly Gooker (look it up if you must). 98% of sane people acknowledge that the goings-on in wrestling are scripted for entertainment purposes. Are you really concerned that those 2% of people who believe it's completely real are going to believe that Vince could take on a deity in a wrestling match? Are those 2% the kind of people you want to have in your religion? I didn't think so.

So just let them do what they want to do and if they get smited, roast some marshmallows over their burning carcasses.

Gnawing My Way To Freedom

Gnawing My Way To Freedom
If I had known back then what I know now

I would have double-bagged it with you,
triple-bagged it with you,
sealed the base off with a length of duct tape
from my department of homeland security home starter kit,
established a thirty-foot perimeter of razor wire,
anti-personnel mines,
guard dogs
and short-tempered security guards,
who, in essence, would just be paid to deploy tasers first,
ask questions later.

I would have thrown it in a safe,
hid the safe in a concrete bunker
buried down deep with Jimmy Hoffa bones
and any shred of dignity that I had left.

I would have crossed my fingers,
kissed a mangy rabbit’s foot,
swore to a higher power,
become the devoutest of Catholic sodomites,
praying for you to not breathe on me so much
while we made love
the way zoo animals do or
PCP-crazed chocoholics might,
me, doubled-over, in a pool of my own sweat,
you in your leather harness
and monogrammed rubber gloves.

I would have lopped it off with rusty pinking shears
and made confetti of it with an angry wood chipper
and closed eyes.

Something.

Anything.

There’s a reason why the surgeon general warns against huffing paint thinner with maneaters.

And, trying not to wake you as I escape into the morning,
wondering what my shoulder tastes like
and if I will ever actually need my left arm again.

An Email That I Should Share With You

Today I received an email from the grand poobahs of the Raving Poets that I feel I should share with you, gentle readers in case you were interested in making a trip down to the Kasbar to see twenty kick-ass poets duke it out for a chance to win $300.00 in Canadian money, which, by my calculations, is enough for 7 good lap-dances or approximately 150 really, really shitty lap-dances (not including medical charges for a broken lap and/or emotional trauma). Here's the email...

First, the Raving Poets invented the "Cheap Scottish Bastard Poetry Award".



Then there was the "Golden Fez Poetry Prize", recently awarded in Edmonton, Canada.



Topping those amazing prizes in one fell swoop, and upping the ante to poetry crews everywhere, the Raving Poets are proud to announce "THE RAVING POETS ROYAL FEZ POETRY PRIZE".



Not content to close our spring series with a pathetic, despondent whimper, The Raving Poets (a notorious, financially unstable organization) are giving away 300 clams to one poet. You read that right. And we're not kidding.



Interested? Here's how this cash prize deal is going to work:



The Raving Poets highly successful spring reading series, Rock the Kasbar, comes to a close on Wednesday, April 26, 2006. On that night, we give away 300 big ones to the "best" poet of the evening as voted by our celebrity judge panel.



Simple you say? Not so fast. JUST TO MAKE THINGS EXTRA INTERESTING, we've thrown a little curveball into the mix.



Each Raving performance consists of a 20-reader open mic with readers placed on the performance list on a first-come, first-served basis. At the end of EACH Raving Poets performance in April (April 5, 12, 19), the Raving audience will vote for their favorite poets. The top TWO poets from each Wednesday evening in April will automatically advance to the FINAL EVENT on Wednesday, April 26th, 2006. Those six lucky poets will have "performance priority" on the final night (i.e. – they get to choose where they are placed on the performance schedule). The remaining spots will be filled on a lottery draw basis. And at the end, our "Celebrity" judging panel decides who walks away with the 300 bucks.



Where does all this happen?



The Raving Poets Experience

Open mic spoken word/poetry

Yianni's Taverna – Downstairs Lounge

10444 – 82 Avenue, Edmonton.

8:00 signup; show @ 8:30.

20 readers only; no cover.



Bring your friends. See you there.

Something To Watch

For those of you who appreciate a little synchronicity in your lives, you may want to keep your eyes open for this unique chronological event that will be happening in just a matter of hours.

At two minutes and three seconds past 1:00 a.m., Wednesday, April 5, the time will be:

01:02:03 04/05/06

But you have to appreciate it really quickly because it will be over in just a second.

Stay Away From My Daughter!

Click here.

While browsing on Fark today I found this amusing little story about Basic Instinct 2's own Sharon Stone.

While shopping in Britain one day Sharon Stone happened upon a young girl trying clothes on with her mother. The girl was trying on some rather provocative outfits and her mother was visibly apprehensive of the message such outfits might send about her daughter. Anyway, the mother stepped away for a few moments and Sharon Stone, being the superhero that she is, took it upon herself to approach the young girl and talk to her about sex, advising her to just dispense with blow jobs if she wasn't comfortable having sex yet at that stage in her life.

Now, I admit, I've never been to Britain. I'm sure that in the streets of London it's perfectly normal for 48-year-old milfs to approach complete strangers and just talk about sex. I guess that's what makes Europe so damned progressive. Bam, you're walking down the street one day and some strange woman approaches you to ask if she can shove a dildo up your ass and hang her hat off of it. Those crazy Europeans! Here in Canada we're just a tad on the more conservative side when it comes to talking about sex with total strangers. If I approached a young girl and told her that giving out blow jobs is definitely the way to go in life I'd be updating this blog from jail.

I think that the lesson here is that if you see any sexpot celebrity approach your daughter you should probably just mace him/her first and ask questions later because before you know it you're daughter will just blow some guy who's just walking by. Sure, she might be more popular with the guys who are walking by, but think of her breath at the very least. Is it really in your breath mint budget to have a blow job happy daughter?

Now the other thing that I was drawn to in this article is a comment that Sharon Stone makes about Sienna Miller possibly stepping into the role of Catherine Tramell, Sharon Stone's role in the first two Basic Instinct movies, for a possible third installation of the series. In essence, Stone says that Sienna Miller isn't even woman enough to get sodomized by Catherine Tramell let alone play her in a movie, or words to that effect. Notice I didn't use quotation marks in case you're planning on suing me for libel. In actuality, she called Miller a "silly girl" and incapable of handling a character like Catherine Tramell.

What gets me about that statement is that Basic Instinct and Basic Instinct 2 are not movies that are going to be regarded as classics years from now. Sorry to say it. Ask yourself, if the producers of the series were to remove all the nudity would the movies be as successful with audiences? If you answered yes to such a question, get yourself sterilized because you owe it to the human standards for generations to come. Oh sure, Basic Instinct had that famous scene in which we see Sharon Stone's cooch in an interrogation, but can anybody tell me what the hell happened in the plot? No? That's because the whole movie was built around the crotch shot.

So to say that Sienna Miller is incapable of handling a character like Catherine Tramell stupid. It's the equivalent of saying that she's not able to flash her cooch or her rack in a movie that will ultimately wallow in mediocrity with or without copious nudity.

You know, and maybe I'm wrong about the Basic Instinct series. I just didn't think that the first one was that good to warrant a sequel. Given that I just don't think that a sequel to a movie could be so good that it would warrant a third movie. Which means I could very well be wrong here since the sequel is about to be released and now there's talk of making a third one. If I'm wrong I apologize and I welcome you to defend your beloved movie in the comments section.

The Bottom Ten, March 2006

10.) National Holidays That Just Don't Seem Right- Click here. Terri Schiavo Day? Ahhhh, nothing will make the members of the public stand up against euthanasia than a national holiday. Why is it that when special interest groups want to promote awareness of their cause the plan of attack they seem to always come up with is to petition for a national holiday? Newsflash special interest groups: national holidays are viewed by most of the working class as another day off for drinking and partying and not having to go to work. If you want people to believe in what you believe in petition the government to take away a Saturday as a day off and make it a work day until people start voicing their support of your cause. I guarantee that they'll all be on board after year one of that fiasco.

9.) Competitive Eating- Click here. Okay, I'll admit there is a sort of mild fascination I have with watching gluttony at it's most professional level. But do you ever think when you're watching these guys dunk hot dogs in water and eat, like, 40 or so of them in one sitting, Hey, I wonder if they ever broadcast these eating contests in those countries where Sally Struthers goes?

8.) Those Anti-Piracy Public Service Announcements They Show Before Movies- Okay, sure, it's cool and noble that the major film production companies want to protect their profit lines with brilliant PSA's with awe-inspiring informative missives like "Stealing is illegal." But one obvious thing that those PSA's fail to address is the coolness factor associated with being a pirate. Because if illegally duplicating those intellectual properties is piracy, the people who perform such deeds are pirates. They need to make PSA's that let the public know that pirates aren't cool, but everybody knows that's just a flat-out lie.

7.) Ty Pennington- He's the host of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and he is quite possibly the most obnoxiously enthusiastic person on television. Which is odd because pretty much every family that gets a makeover for their home is some sort of tv-movie-of-the-week tragedy. I think the guy is doing some sort of drug behind the scenes to make him that hyper.

6.) Larry The Cable Guy- A source of pride in my life up to this point has been the fact that I have not been familiar with the work of Larry The Cable Guy. People would come up to me at parties and such and ask, "Hey Michael, did you see that Larry The Cable Guy in concert DVD yet?" To which I would reply, "No. No I did not." Now I still haven't seen that hillbilly comedy DVD yet (another source of pride in my life), but now I have been made somewhat more familiar with the work of Larry The Cable Guy because now he is appearing in a movie named for him! So much for my sources of pride. I used to be able to say, "I don't know who Larry The Cable Guy is, but he sounds like a flash-in-pan lowering of comedic standards if ever one existed." Now, though, I have to say, "I know who Larry The Cable Guy is. He's that flash-in-the-pan lowering of comedic standards that now has his own movie." Why is this so bad, you ask? Now I have to change my business cards.

5.) People Who Park In Fire Lanes- Lazy people in general piss me the fuck off, but I hate people who somehow justify to themselves, and to the world, that they're not lazy; they're just parking in the fire lane because they only have to be inside a given building for five minutes, tops. Ladies and gentlemen, five minutes is never five minutes and parking in the fire lane when there are perfectly good parking spaces that wouldn't block a fire truck trying to get through in an emergency like 10 feet further back from where you parked makes you an inconsiderate, lazy douchebag.

4.) Exploiting Hard Luck Cases For Ratings- Yeah Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, I'm looking at you.

3.) The Opening Of The First Upscale Walmart Store- Wrapping a turd with tin foil doesn't make it candy. If you haven't heard, they've opened a Walmart store in Texas where they serve Sushi and have a selection of fine wines, high end electronics, etc. etc. If there's one thing that I know about rich people it's that they would absolutely love to be able to say they were caught shopping at Walmart. I think that if your niche is a cesspool of savings then you should just stick to what you know instead of trying to dress it up by serving sushi. I think that Walmart has bigger fish to fry right now than trying to find a way to appeal to the upper class.

2.) Nude Photos Of Britney Spears Being Bought By An Online Casino- Click here. In a shocking bit of news, nude photos of Britney Spears not only exist, but they've been bought by an online casino. Now the whole world could potentially see the last remaining 3.7 square inches of her body that haven't appeared in photographs made public yet. What I don't get is why she's so angry about the matter. She been pretty much nude in half the stuff she's appeared in, so what the fuck is left to show that would come as some sort of surprise to people? A nipple? Gasp! Oh god! No! If the public saw Britney's nipple the whole perception of her being an overhyped skank would be tarnished!

1.) Ineffectuality- Do you know that the guy whom Dick Cheney shot in the face with birdshot from a fucking shotgun did as the result of the now infamous incident? He apologized to the vice president. That's what he did. There, that ought to show him. Sir, anybody who apologizes for getting shot should just surrender his testicles because clearly they're only there for decoration.

Hug A Rich Person Day

Cynicism today is so easy. I mean it's easy to be cynical. It's especially easy for me to be cynical of rich people. Why? Because there are so many rich people who are bent on becoming richer. It's no secret that there are greedy rich people. What does seem to be a secret, though, are those rich people who are actually taking measures, throwing their money around and what not, in a manner that benefits not just themselves, but the people around them, the less fortunate, the people of the world.

Click here.

Reading this story actually made me feel good. It's nice to be proven wrong about your cynicism sometimes. I just thought I would throw that link at you. Next time you see a rich person being nice to somebody go on and give him/her a big hug because their income bracket is all-too-often misunderstood.

Roll Call or: Why I Never Went To Many Parties In New Sarepta

Here's the poem that I used to wrap up the Raving Poets show on March 15. It was one that was constructed largely on my lunch break at work that day. It's sort of list poem I guess you could say. This is just a collection of hyperboles of redneck archetypes that I suppose you could say exist, although not so exaggerated as they are here, in many of the small prairie towns in Canada. It also gave me a chance to name drop my old home town of New Sarepta and although it's a poem that probably paints a rather negative view of New Sareptians (?), it was a great place for me to grow up and I wouldn't have changed it for the world. Still wouldn't. New Sarepta, don't you ever change. Ever.

Also I apologize for the formatting here. The lines should be broken in a sort of hanging paragraph format, which is hard to render in HTML.

And remember, none of these people actually exist. I just wanted to work with caricatures of character types I saw around me.

Roll Call
or:
Why I Never Went To Many Parties In New Sarepta
irradiated spermbag walking hard-ons following the weatherveins [sic] in their cocks in
winds of perfume and feminine hygiene products.
slopey foreheads, hairy dragging knuckles who call their lovers "bitch," "slut," or "sugartits."
5'6 mall creatures made 6'3 by baby blue lycra push-up bras, whale-tails indignant at you for staring at their breasts even when their nipples are poking you in the eyes.
militant homophobic single helix primates, lower echelon bottom feeders, testosterone bulls who call their friends "dude," "dudester," and "dudeness." Conversely referring to strangers and enemies as "fag," "faggot," or "cocksucker." Nary a shade of grey to be found.
greased mullets who spit when they talk.
razor-knuckled STD banks in their budweiser thread bare halter tops, masks of near-clown make-up and running open sores threatening to extinguish their home-rolled cigarettes on your forehead for even suggesting you have no desire to have sex with them.
mouths full of chipped chiclets looking for a fight, looking to score, knowing that in a place like this fighting and fucking are one and the same.
puke-stained flannel jackets floating almost disembodied through throngs, wildly gesticulating at this group or that group, tossing out beer from plastic cups until it becomes pale, golden rain.
overbearing glad-hands, complete aliens really, people you can't recall coming at you with "you old son-of-a-bitch" and not knowing if it's a term of endearment or some sort of redneck throw-down.
five ounce brains rattling around in 10 gallon hats.
shitkickers actually used for kicking shit.
belt buckles the size of pro wrestling championships.
wolf whistles punctuated by friendly gropes and innuendo as thick as sledgehammers to the face.

yeah you.
i'm looking at you, new sarepta.

where are the numerators
in this crowd of denoms?
the red-blooded humans
among the cromags?

my mind is starved
and this is a feast of crumbs.

Michael Appleby
March, 2006

What Motomaster Gadget Are You Going To Use For This One, Biatch?

The other day Nilos emailed me a link to a story that he happened upon...

Click here.

That's right folks, the Canadian Tire couple is no more! Canadian Tire has decided to go in a new direction with its advertising, opting out of the "demo-mercials" featuring the smug, condescending couple Ted and Gloria.

I've written about the terrible twosome before on this blog so it's very gratifying to see their trail of destruction come to end.

But you know what? I think that the end is too abrupt.

When I found out that their television days were numbered I thought that it would be best to sort of have a finale for their series of commercials. Over the years one got used to Ted's, "You stupid fucking idiots. If you had just bought Motomaster's [insert marginally useful gadget name here] you would be in such a fucking mess right now. I mean look at me. I'm doing this shit with ease thanks to Motomaster. How many fucking times do I have to tell you, just sell your soul to Canadian Tire and it will take care of the rest. You stupid, stupid fucking idiots." Or something like that. Ted probably didn't actually curse so much, but, hey, if you're going to be a smug condescending bastard to your neighbors all the time, why not be a smug condescending bastard with a potty mouth as well?

Anyway, what I thought Canadian Tire should do with regards to phasing out Ted and Gloria from the pop culture landscape would be to have a demo-mercial where Ted and Gloria are getting a divorce and they're in a meeting room with their lawyers hashing out the conditions. So anyway, throughout the meeting both Ted and Gloria start being all smarmy and smug, talking about Motomaster divorce kits or Motomaster briefcases. And, get this, they keep talking like they do in the fucking Canadian Tire commercials that their lawyers decide to team up and screw both of them in the divorce. So that in the final scene we see the two condescending assholes that are Ted and Gloria living in squalor, having been fucked by their lawyers, and fighting almost to the point of fisticuffs because they couldn't successfully get a divorce. Ted could say something like, "Yeah, I'll start with you, bitch!" putting a spin on the Canadian Tire motto before some more spousal abuse. Then fade to black forever on a dark chapter in Canadian television history.

Knowing how important the past decade of depicting Canadian people as being self-fellating, holier-than-thou jerks, Canadian Tire would probably have to get the rights to run a song like "Time Of Your Life (Good Riddance)" by Green Day or one of those other songs that always gets played when a long running television staple reaches its finale. It's probably the broadcast rights for such a song that is keeping Canadian Tire from actually putting together a demo-mercial for the Motomaster Divorce Kit and thus providing the closure that Ted and Gloria sorely need before they are officially history. Might I suggest to Canadian Tire that they just do away with the whole emotional song nonsense and just show the stuff that the people who despise Ted and Gloria salivate for?

Birthday Wishes

Happy belated 29th birthday to Lori. Your party was a blast this year and all of us should definitely get together like that more often.

The Scourge Of White Earbuds

I am an iPod user. As such I own a pair of white earbuds. The white earbud is the way that iPod users and iPod pretenders identify ourselves to each other. It's similar to a tiger having stripes or a leopard having spots. We spot each other grooving in our own little universes, sporting the white earbuds and nod because we know how fucking cool we are. I mean if you have an iPod you are coolness defined, aren't you? The commercials don't lie, but then again commercials have never lied to anybody, EVER!

No, no. Stop cursing me and calling me a heretic. You can put away your burning effigies of me for now. I admit, I was being sarcastic.

But I do want to talk about the earbuds, though. Those white earbuds. I pay attention to the media around me as much as I can. Sure, sometimes it gets muted to a sort of drone that can easily be tuned out and forgotten, but I do my best to see what's shaking and shaping our world insofar as what goes out into the ether of public consumption. Or something like that. Rereading that sentence even I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.

But I have a bit of a beef with the whole phenomenon surrounding white earbuds. You might not realize it, but they are, indeed, a phenomenon. They're everywhere! You can't escape them. It's not just iPod propaganda anymore. The commercial world seems to have latched on to the iPod staple and turned it into some sort of coolness calling card.

I was flipping through a recent issue of Rolling Stone and noticed that the ad on the back cover was for the Acura TSX, which I discovered with some quick research stands for Toronto Stock eXchange. So there it was, a picture of the Acura Toronto Stock eXchange (worst car name ever!) and its seeming owner, this smug yuppie son-of-a-bitch with, yep you guessed it, white fucking earbuds connecting him to his car, parked somewhere, oh say about 30 fucking feet behind him.

The ad reads: "Your life. Your car. Connected. The Acura TSX is compatible with you. Your mp3 player. Your Bluetooth-enable phone. And just about every other part of your digital life. Man and machine never had so muchin common. The TSX."

And I'm not bringing that up because I'm trying to suck Acura's dick or anything. I just want to point out that I don't want to be on the road with any guy who's plugged into his mp3 player, his Bluetooth-enabled phone, and just about every other part of his digital life. Do you want to know why? Who the fuck is paying attention to the road? Seriously. The yuppie bastard is wearing his earbuds, can he even hear it when I'm honking my horn in frustration, stuck behind him at some greenlight he hasn't noticed yet because he's perfecting his Tiny Tim mix and jabbering at his yuppie scumbag wife on the old Bluetooth? Probably not.

I suppose if there were ever an ad that needed a disclaimer it would be this one. It could read: Warning, do you really fucking need to listen to your mp3 player and talk on your fucking Bluetooth every fucking minute of every fucking day? Wouldn't driving your car when you're behind its wheel seem more appropriate? Don't be a douchebag.

But now I've kind of gone off on some sort of organic tangent because I meant to talk about the earbuds.

So anyway, this Acura ad isn't the only place you see people sporting the white buds. Every time I notice somebody depicted wearing them I cringe. They're becoming a crutch for characters to be seen as hip and contemporary. These are people with modern day crises. They wear white earbuds.

The reason why I cringe is because in my experience with white earbuds so far (they make me a contemporary man, don't you know) I have found them to be really uncomfortable. At least the factory ones anyway. They're too big for my fucking ears, which either means I have freakishly small ears or I bought the iPod For Giants version.

This being said, if I'm a human of average dimensions, then why the hell are so many people sporting uncomfortable white earbuds that pop out of the ear canal every two minutes? Wouldn't people look more hip and more intelligent if they sported listening devices that were more carefully tailored for the human form?

I don't know. It's just a thought. I suppose that it's easiest to depict people in "modern" times if they're wearing white earbuds.

And Now, Michael Appleby Answers Some Hypothetical Questions...

I have a few books from the If series. The premise of these books is to just ask a bunch of hypothetical questions if, when read alone, will lead you down a path of self-discovery (or some kind of bullshit like that) or, if read in groups, should spark a heated debate that will either end in heated fist fights or copious amounts of jizz stains. So anyway, when I feel like the creative well is dry, which it seems to be of late, I'll flip through the books I have and see if I can find a few questions to answer for you people. Feel free to debate me (though you would probably be wrong) in the comments.

Q: If you could decide what will be written on your gravestone, what would you have inscribed?

I should hope that when I die I will still be viewed as a sort of outside-the-box kind of thinker. That being said I would like something simple, yet profound. Hmmmmm...how about something like No Refunds? Yeah, that seems pretty cool. If I have a lot of fans of my work when I die I'm sure that one or two of them might make some sort of pilgramage to the old eternal resting place and if they saw No Refunds they might say something like, "Dude! That is so, like, thought-provoking! I mean, quick, like hand me the water bong for a second, I want to take a great big hit and then just try to wrap my head around that no refunds comment." Of course, my fans will likely be hippy-dippy stoner types. However, I am a bit of a joker, so maybe if my epitaph read, Post No Bills my rotting, maggot-infested corpse can laugh in the afterlife for years.

Q: If you were elected to be the leader of the United States tomorrow, what would be your first act?"

I think that my first act as president would be to make a formal apology to the international community for the foreign policy of the past number of years and promise to repair as much of the damage that has been done as is humanly possible.

Q: If you could pick one famous person to be your neighbor, who would you have next door to you?

There are a number of famous people I would love to live next door to. Certainly names like Maynard James Keenan, Gordon Downie, and David Cross come to mind with just a minimal amount of thinking. But the name that sprang into my mind immediately after reading this question was Chuck Palahniuk. It would be great to live next door to somebody who could talk shop with me as a writer, you know, give me advice and inspire me. Stuff like that for writers is invaluable.

Q: If you were going to turn to crime to support yourself from now on, what kind of criminal would you become?

A politician of some sort. If, though, we take into consideration that I would try to be a more diplomatic, more honest president from the question about being the president, I suppose I can't say that politics would be my choice for criminal activity. Since politics is now ruled out I suppose that I would sell marijuana because it's quite possibly the least morally reprehensible crime I can think of since pot should be decriminalized and/or legalized on the basis that, as a drug, marijuana kills far, far, far fewer people than alcohol or tobacco. I have a heavy conscience so selling pot would be something I could justify to myself.


Q: If you had to describe the single worst thing a friend could do to you, what would it be?

This is kind of a weak question I know. I mean, how do you descibe being kicked in the testicles repeatedly? Sure, it's easy to say, "Kick me in the balls repeatedly," and you can picture the repeated kicking and possibly me hunched over and in pain, but how do you really "describe" the pain of it? It's probably the worst thing that anybody could do to me, not just my friends.

At A Risk Of Sounding Unpopular

You know what really pisses me off? Television commercials.

Wow, Michael, how original. Somebody who is pissed off by television commercials. Why you haven't been nominated for some sort of award for insight is beyond me. Excuse me for being too moved by your revelation to applaud you, you mental giant.

Now, now. Hear me out. I should clarify a bit by saying television commercials that have disclaimers printed somewhere on the screen. You know the kind. For instance, if you're watching a car commercial and you get to watch all sorts of fancy driving, there on the screen, somewhere, it will read something like: "Professional driver on a closed course. Do not attempt." Lately, I've noticed a cell phone commercial with all of these supposedly average people jumping off of bridges and doing flips and shit, playing some sort of fucking, Hey look at me, world, I have a fucking cell phone, game of Marco Polo. There on the screen it reads: "Professional athletes. Do not attempt."

Do you know why I hate these television commercials with the shitload of disclaimers? It's a constant reminder of how stupid people are. Well, not so much everybody, more or less, it's you. You see, I know I sure as fuck didn't do anything so stupid that corporate lawyers felt it necessary to put disclaimers on television commercials to keep me from hurting myself. But somebody did. Somewhere along the way somebody watched a commercial and did something to hurt his or her self and corporate lawyers devised a plan for advertising that would wash their hands of any further responsibility for people's stupidity. Since I know that I have done nothing that was shown in a commercial, by process of elimination I know it's somebody out there reading these words. Maybe it's a bunch of you fuckers. At the risk of sounding unpopular I will say that I hate you people. It's because of you that corporate America treats me like a toddler.

I mean, fuck, did you just turn on the television one day and say, "Holy fuck, that guy doing all those somersaults off of that bridge is so fucking cool! If he can do it then surely I can do it. It's on t.v. it must be feasible." Never you mind that you're lugging around a 170 pound gut full of cheetos and your doctor says that your arthritis is so bad that you're lucky to even be able to walk thirty feet without snapping in half. You are fucking convinced that graceful somersaults off of a fucking bridge are in your immediate future. And then, poof, you're a fucking vegetable in some hospital bed for the rest of your life and your relatives have to sue the company behind the commercial to keep your damn stupid-as-shit brain operating at an even more abyssmal level.

Now, for the rest of eternity, I have to have some waiver flash across the screen every time something even remotely dangerous is being depicted so I don't actually go out and attempt shit by myself.

I wonder, though, if enough litigation goes on will more and more shit be disclaimed as it's being portrayed on the screen. For instance, if, say, somebody is shown tossing a Cheerio into the air and catching it with his mouth, then some asshat does the same thing except he chokes to death, resulting in a lawsuit, will there be a disclaimer about the actors who are throwing food into the air and catching it with their mouths? Why, with enough lawsuits, it'll get to be that depictions of people getting out of bed in the morning will be complete with waivers of liability. Caution: man getting out of a bed is a paid professional. Under no circumstances should getting out of bed be attempted by anybody without proper training and certification.

You know what, you people out there who hurt yourselves trying all this shit because you saw it on television piss me off so much that I wish that a disclaimer appears on everything shown on television. Imagine, a constant fucking disclaimer reading: "You stupid fucking people, don't try any of this shit at home because you're only going t fuck it up so bad that you're going to get hurt. Remember when you didn't have to be reminded that you are a bunch of fucking simps? We do. Fuck it would be great to just have entertainment without having to start spouting off all these legalese bullshit just to keep you morons from killing yourselves. But here we are. Shit happens." I think that a disclaimer like that should be the burden that all of have to bear until every last one of you stupid motherfuckers finally learns that, hey, if you haven't successfully done a fucking somersault off a bridge before in your life seeing that shit on television doesn't suddenly turn you into Mary Lou fucking Retton, you fucking idiots.

Then maybe some of us sane, rational people can enjoy our entertainment in peace.

The Bottom Ten, February 2006

10.) Britney Banning Cletus From Piercing Their Baby- Click here. Oh come on, Brits. Your child is already destined for a life of being psychologically warped, why not at least try for a grand slam of bad parenthood?

9.) Groundhog Day- Here, in Alberta, it would seem that the little rodent's predictions of a prolonged winter have come true, but despite the success of that one prediction, the whole business of consulting some stupid fucking ground-dwelling animal for accurate weather forecasts keeps the whole human race a lot closer to the days when we all had big sloped foreheads, furry hands, and struggled to make fire from rubbing two sticks together. Fuck. Can we please evolve past this one now too, please. I'll just keep living my life despite the weather so I really don't give a fuck what your rodent has to say.

8.) People Who Are Too Insecure To See Brokeback Mountain Because Of The Whole Gay Thing- George W. Bush? He did the same thing in that KSU question period. The White House had requested a copy of Brokeback Mountain for review well before that incident. Then George W. Bush won't even admit to having watched it. Homophobia? Probably. People who avoid this movie like the plague because it depicts two men falling in love with each other irk me. Watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre doesn't make a person a chainsaw wielding cannibal. Watching The Wizard Of Oz doesn't make you a munchkin. Watching Brokeback Mountain won't make you a gay cowboy. Then there are those other people who are angry because it besmirches the archetype of the cowboy. Cowboys aren't supposed to be gay. For those people I submit the cowboy from The Village People. How you like your archetype now, asshats?

7.) People Who Think Too Much Of Canada Being Ousted From Medal Contention In Men's Ice Hockey- There are people all over Canada right now speculating on what Wayne Gretzky should have and should not have done when it came to the assembly of Canada's entry this year into the olympic tournament. The belief is that on any given day, Canada CAN beat any nation in the world at ice hockey. What they fail to see is that it doesn mean that on any given day, Canada DOES beat any nation in the world at ice hockey. The team we sent could have won, but they didn't. There are a lot of good countries out there when it comes to hockey. We'll just have to try harder next time. It's not the end of the world. So please feel free to let Mr. Gretzky get back to his job.

6.) Oprah's Valentine's Day Popularity- Click here. Oprah tied for third with Nicole Kidman and Terri Hatcher as the celebrity that men would most like to send a Valentine to? Women ranked Oprah higher on that same list than Brad Pitt? If this isn't proof that Oprah has entirely too much power in this world than I don't know what is. Seriously, though, guys, Oprah in third place? I could name dozens and dozens of celebrity women I would rather send Valentines to than Oprah. Were you just saying that because your wives would have killed you otherwise? Or does Oprah just have that certain intangible what with her massive ego and never-shutting mouth?

5.)The Resurgence Of Suicide Via Crucifixion- Nothing makes a bold statement that you are, indeed, a martyr suicide like good ol' crucifixion. Just be sure to do one thing if you decide that hanging from a cross is the right way to go for you. Ask for help first.

4.) Waiting For A New Tool CD- This time last year I could comfortably think, Yeah, it'll be a while before Tool is set to release a new album. Now I know that a new offering is just around the corner and the wait becomes its most unbearable because the light at the end of the tunnel is just out of reach. It's like how the wait for Christmas seems to be most excruciating when its just days away as opposed to say in July. That's when every minute feels like eternity.

3.) Pot Flavored Candy- Click here. The state of Georgia is considering banning or restricting the sale of pot-flavored candy. Candy that tastes like pot? Does anybody just look at a bag of pot and think, Goddamn, smoke that shit? Nuh-uh I want to fucking eat it! Nooooo. And why is that? Beause it looks like fucking mulch. I don't think that a candy that tastes like mulch and doesn't actually get you fucked up is really in any danger of becoming the candy of choice among the highly impressionable. If I actually saw kids reaching into bags of lawn clippings for a snack I might reconsider.

2.) Winter Driving- We've had a very mild winter here in Alberta, but the past couple days, as per the predictions of that fucking rodent, we've had a little bit of snow. And what happened? Every fucking driver on the road suddenly starts driving like the conditions are all-to-shit. It's just a little snow. And it's not even that cold outside. Fuck.

1.) The Practice Of Buying People The Worst Fucking Shots Under The Sun For Their Birthday- Okay, this a person whom I respect and I would even consider my friend. What better way than to show this person my respect and admiration than by having the bartender throw a bunch of random shit into a shot glass and make him drink it? Brilliant! It's the drinking equivalent of pot-flavored candy probably.

The RIAA Can Kiss My Skinny White Ass

Click here.

The Recording Industry Association of America now says that ripping CDs that a person owns to his/her iPod is not fair use. How is that for customer service?

Think about it, you buy one of those 60 gig video iPods, like I just did. 60 gigs is a lot of mp3's, it's hundreds of CDs worth. Now, if ripping the music from your CD library to your iPod is made illegal what that essentially means is that in order to fill your iPod with music you have to pay for downloads. Do you know how much money it would cost to buy enough mp3s to fill a 60 gig iPod? At $0.99 per song at iTunes we could be talking about thousands and thousands of dollars all just to play by the RIAA's rules. Sure, you might already own many of those CDs, but it would be illegal to transfer them to your player.

That's bullshit.

I think that the RIAA is still bitter over the fact that they mishandled the emergence of mp3s from day one. They could have done some great things with the technology, but instead they chose to ignore it until it bit them in the ass and now they want to get their revenge on legitimate music buyers.

Bravo, asshats, bravo.

Joey Jo-Jo Come Back!

One of my favorite moments from The Simpsons occurred in the episode in which Homer was tempted to cheat on Marge with his new co-worker Mindy. In the episode Homer goes to Moe's to ask Moe for advice on the situation and asks him in the way that implies it's a friend of Homer's who is having the problems. Moe asks Homer what the name of his friend is and Homer ad libs the name Joey Jo-Jo Junior Shabbadoo. To which Moe replies,"Good god, that's the worst name I've ever heard." And at the other end of the bar a man bursts into tears before running out the door with Barney calling after him, "Joey Jo-Jo come back!"

Thinking about this moment from The Simpsons always makes me smile. Right now I need to keep smiling because I can't go to the Raving Poets show tonight due to illness. I have a bit of a head cold and it's pissing me off.

Anyway, for now that is all. I'll post something more substantial when my wits are back about me.

Not That I'm Trying To Shameless Hype Myself

Today is my 29th birthday.

The Lives Of The Plastic Ones

Click here.

Wow. Barbie and Ken might be getting back together after two years of being apart. No, seriously, folks, this is an actual news story. Alright, calm down. I think you're hyperventilating. Take slow breaths. I know that many of you can hardly contain youg excitement over this latest development from Mattel, but you should really calm the fuck down.

Barbie and Ken might be getting back together.

Holy shit! Saying it again like that just got to me and now I'm hyperventilating. Okay, calm down, old boy. Calm, blue ocean. Calm, blue ocean. Repeat after me. Calm, blue ocean. Calm, blue ocean. Okay, now just give me a second to change my pants. It seems in all that excitement over the made-up bullshit lives of some chunk of plastic and her on-again, off-again fuck-buddy piece of plastic I seem to have soiled myself.

Five minutes later...

Awwww fuck, I did it again. Be right back.

Five minutes later and a third pair of pants...


Ken, who appears to have spent time in the gym and at the stylist, returns wearing a beach-wear ensemble complete with board shorts and white T-shirt.

For her part, Barbie publicist Lauren Dougherty said Barbie "appreciates the new look Ken is sporting. He really looks great. But we'll have to stay tuned to see whether these two will get back together."

At a press conference unveiling Ken, Bloch said the company was going for a "worldly, European thing," and "definitely wanted to be looking hot."

Why the fuck does any of this matter? No, seriously. Who wakes up each day and wonders, 'I wonder if Ken and Barbie are back together yet.' There has to be people out there who do that. I mean you don't just have a press conference and start discussing the lives of pieces of fucking plastic unless somebody out there was actively expressing interest in that kind of shit.

Think about it. There is a significant number of people in this world who are moved enough by the love life of Barbie that they hired a fucking publicist for a doll and had a press conference to discuss it. And you can't just say it's one or two people out there who are affected by it. You don't schedule a press conference and get attention from the media unless the numbers are there.

So, then, with that in mind, knowing that there are a significant number of people who give a shit as to what goes on with Barbie and Ken, doesn't that make you the slightest bit uneasy? Sure, a few of them are probably grounded enough to realize that interest in this bullshit is sort of a lark, but you know that there are probably just as many of those people who are so out-of-touch with reality that they would split your skull open and eat the gooey insides if you try to suggest that none of this is actually real. Maybe some of those freaks are people whom you trust with your life. They could be doctors. They could be politicians. They could be members of the police force. Or firefighters. Or paramedics. You just don't know.

Sleep tight.

And seriously, a publicist? For a fucking doll? I bet that looks great on the old resume. Publicist for a doll. I don't know if I could ever be paid enough to not only pretend in public that my doll client is real, but also that her love life matters to the members of the public.

More Poetic News

The Raving Poets are set to return this week!

Wednesday nights at 8:00 p.m. starting February 8, 2006, the Raving Poets present "Rock The Kasbar," the latest and greatest poetry reading series to hit E-Town's own Yianni's Taverna's downstairs Kasbar Lounge (10444 - 82 Avenue, Edmonton).

This series will pick up with all the momentum built by the end of the all-too-brief previous series to take place at Yianni's and will add to it. By April and the end of the series we're going to be one sweaty, lumbering beast of a poetic community. Once again, each show will be a 20 reader open mic set with ambience and music provided by the Raving Poets Band.

Do check it out!

What's Love Got To Do With It?

Bring a lover, bring a friend and experience provocative poetry in a way you never heard it before, from some of Edmonton's most insightful and daring wordsmiths. Be seduced by urban poetry and the sensuality of East Indian tabla drumming in the ambiance of the Blue Chair Café.



Featuring poetry by Delvina Greig, Laurie MacFayden, Dawn Carter & Michael Appleby.



Music performed by Katrina Campos.



Blue Chair Cafe

9624 - 76 Avenue, Edmonton

7 pm, February 9, 2006



No cover

Classic Michael Appleby

Longitudinals
Right now there is only one thing that I want to ask you

And the telephone is an atlas and an encyclopedia away.
And I don’t want to say this room reeks of loneliness because that would be too desperate.
And I want to tell you that all I smell right now is jasmine from the incense burning atop my bookshelves and when I shamble by them I am really burying myself deep in the mess of hair atop your head and looking for a suitable spot where I can sleep.
And I want to tell you that John Coltrane is playing “Blue Train” and it’s still upbeat and lively in here while his saxophone tumbles down notes that disappear, fall from their longitudinals, dropping out of sight
And it’s all so lovely because the bass strings your skin and I am the bass player and I’m thumping along, keeping up clumsily, dreaming I’m playing you, strumming you; find a rhythm and slither down in heat, beat, push pulses down to the tips of our toes.

Do you dance?
I want to ask.

And I’m tired of being maudlin, it’s one of the worst drug habits a junky like me can ever hope to find; prop your head up against a fire hydrant, drunk, throw out your love blithely and hope that some of it comes back to you.
And the operative wish right now is that I will find you in bed with me in the morning and it’s the operative wish because I know that when I wake up I won’t wish I was somewhere else and I won’t wish I hadn’t just finished making a mistake.
And I want to tell you that all I want is to find that right thing, the thing that feels right, the thing that doesn’t fill me with regret, the thing that just is because it was meant to be. That’s some thing.
And I don’t even know if you could listen to this music or read these words or smell this smell, walk these paces, trace this face, know my name and fall into it
And I want to get up to walk across the world in 276 pages, across the accumulated knowledge of species summed up tidily in 26 volumes I never have the patience to read.
And I want to get up.
And I want to get up
And get to that phone and dial your number and even if it’s really late and I have to wake you up for art.
And even if it’s really late and I have to wake you up for art I still want to ask you for a dance because the drum rolls through “Locomotion” and it’s calling me and I’d like to believe it’s calling you.
And I’m still in my house-slippers and it’s okay. I’m still in a bathrobe and that’s just fine. I’m still waking up as an antithesis to the rest of the sane little world.
And the atlas makes the world seem like a great big place. 276 pages big.
And the encyclopedia is huge, it’s everything that we know.
And if I could just get up right now I know I could walk past it all to call you and ask:

Do you dance?

And there are cabbies who are practically bedding down in their taxis tonight; it’s getting late.
And somewhere far off I can imagine the midnight janitors mopping away wolf whistles, black sky in copier toner; picking up the pages of the written words tossed confetti down the linoleum hallways of our workaday world.
And the incense is burning down to thin stick; the ashes are accumulating.
And I wish that tomorrow wasn’t a part of the financial scheme.
And I wish that “Lazy Bird” drifted along ad infinitum.
And it was you and me and these dying snare drum hits that roil against death, sound out.
And it was you and me and the tumbling and the ease and I want to ask you, if you please:

Do you dance?

Four Things

Since it would appear that I've been tagged by Adam in a recent post to his blog I guess that means I'm it...

Four Jobs I've Had
1. Labourer in a soft drink bottling plant. We bottled mostly store brand soft drinks. Mostly I ran machines that either prepped bottles and cans for filling or machines that packaged full bottles and cans for shipping.
2. Labourer in a juice bottling plant. It was the same company that owned the soft drink plant. In this factory, though, I had a chance to run every machine on their assembly lines at least once. Most of the time, though, I worked as a filler operator. That's the machine that actually puts the juice into the bottles.
3. Sales associate at Mark's Work Wearhouse. Retail is a thankless environment in which to work.
4. Manager in a small-time casino. Probably one of the most colorful jobs a person can have. Long hours and lots of interesting stories.

Four Movies I Can Watch Over And Over
1. Fight Club
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. 40-Year-Old Virgin
4. Garden State

Four Places Where I Have Lived
1. New Sarepta, Alberta
2. Edmonton, Alberta
3. Right Here
4. Right Here

Four TV Shows I Love To Watch
1. Trailer Park Boys
2. The Daily Show
3. The Simpsons
4. The Family Guy

Four Places I Have Been On Vacation
1. Vernon, B.C.
2. Banff, Alberta
3. Toronto, Ontario
4. Calgary, Alberta

Four Of My Favorite Dishes
1. A well-done steak with garlic mashed potatoes
2. Chicken and mushroom fettuccine with baked mozzarella on top
3. A hamburger and french fries
4. Spaghetti and meatballs

Four Websites I Visit Daily
1. Fark
2. Something Awful
3. The Raving Poets Forums
4. Tool Army

Four Books I Wouldn't Be The Same Person Without
1. Fight Club
2. House Of Leaves
3. The Age Of Spiritual Machines
4. The 52nd Poem

Four Places Where I Would Rather Be Right Now
1. In bed
2. In the Rutherford Library
3. Somewhere in the Rockies
4. Toronto

Four Songs I'm Currently Digging Right Now
1. "Heard 'em Say" by: Kanye West featuring Adam Levine
2. "Wake Up" by: The Arcade Fire
3. "Question" by: System of a Down
4. "Helena" by: My Chemical Romance

There's A Black Market For Everything

Just too weird.

Clicking the link above will reveal a story about a recent cheese bust in rural California. No, that isn't a typo. They were producing cheese illegally on said ranch and they got busted. What's more is that it was bathtub cheese and after production it appears that the plan was to sell it.

I know. I know. What the fuck is wrong with the world when a man can't make a batch of bathtub cheese legally?

But seriously, are there really people who go shopping for this shit?

Hmmmmm...let's see. There's a nice gouda, but nah. I'm just not in the mood. I need something that's going to go well with this Merlot. Brie? I don't think so. Limburger? Closer, but not quite. Hey wait, I know. Say Doug, do you have any of that cheese you made in your bathtub illegally last night? I know that it sounds weird being made in some bathtub where your naked hairy ass parks itself in tepid bathwater most nights and all, but goddamned if that doesn't sound delish right now!

Obviously, somebody has to be buying it. You don't just decide to start making bathtub cheese on a crazy whim. There had to be a demand for it, a black market, if you will, since apparently bathtub cheese is illegal. What I want to know is who the fuck are these people?

Think about it. Cheese isn't exactly some kind of luxury that only the rich can afford. Average people buy cheese all the time. So it's not like these people buy the bathtub cheese because they don't have enough money for non-hairy-ass-in-tepid-bathwater cheese. These are people who are probably buying it knowing full well that somebody washed testicles in the same vessel the cheese was prepared in. Somebody probably masturbated into a damp washcloth. But damned if that cheese doesn't taste like a million bucks.

Also, with regards to the busting of the perpetrators behind this most heinous crime, how much of the police resources were expended on this case? The people who were making the cheese are monsters of the highest calibre, obviously, so I hope that the police were able to gather enough evidence and dig up enough dirt to throw the book at these people. I can almost picture it now. All these undercover cops staking out the ranch round the clock, watching, waiting, ready to spring into action as soon as that first wheel of pungent bath-ass cheese is being loaded onto a delivery truck.

All this, of course, while another delivery truck is carrying tons of uncut cocaine on its way to Los Angeles stops to refuel at the gas station behind them.

But fear not, innocent public, we'll get those cheese-mongers.

I'm not saying that it was a gigantic waste of time to harass peddlers of illegal cheese. I'm not saying that the resources spent on busting the culprits could have been used for loftier goals. I'm not even saying, "Why the fuck is it illegal to make cheese in the first place."

What I am saying, though, is that the people who are going to buy cheese on the black market should be smart enough to know that the cheese they're buying probably isn't being manufactured using the same standards as the places that make perfectly legal cheese. If you're stupid enough to buy black market cheese you should be prepared to accept the consequences. I mean, how much fucking money could you possibly be saving buying cheese from a bathtub anyway?

So then maybe I am saying that that police could have spent their time doing something else. Those people buying the cheese probably knew what they could be getting themselves into.

But damned if that cheese doesn't sound delish.

Birthday Wishes

Happy belated birthday to Jeff. He just turned 29 on January 31. No matter how old I get he'll always be just that little bit older.

How Much I Hate Air Bud Movies

Let me start this off by stating for the record that I hate the "Air Bud" series of movies. I really, really hate them.

See what this is here? Michael is discussing Air Bud so that he'll get more google hits from a younger demographic. It's a brilliant strategy to widen his audience. I wonder when he'll teach the youngsters out there about donkey punching.

Bah, fuck you. That's not what I'm doing here.

Just the other day I was about the leave the house and I happened to notice that the Air Bud movie about the dog playing baseball was on. I should also clarify myself a little bit by saying that I've never watched an entire Air Bud movie, not once.

So anyway, I watched a few minutes of it and it seemed harmless enough. Dog plays baseball, plays first base, wins the World Series. I can suspend my disbelief enough to accept the fact that some coach or general manager out there said, "Well, out the vast pool of talent from which I can draw players for my team, clearly, this golden retriever outperforms all of them. I need him for my team!" Okay, maybe the coach or general manager just took a bad batch of LSD and thinks that a fucking dog can understand the game of baseball enough to play first base. Maybe the coach or G.M. was smoking some dope and forgot the physical impossibility of a dog being able to successfully throw a baseball to a target more than a foot or two away. I can suspend my disbelief enough for all of that.

So what's the big fucking deal, hot shot? Why can't you just let the fucking dog play baseball?

I had to think about it for a while. Quite a while actually. Something wasn't sitting right with me. After an hour or so of careful consideration I figured out what was bothering me about the notion of a dog playing baseball for a little league team.

Imagine, if you will, you're a parent of a youngster who has designs on being the next Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, or Alex Rodriguez. Like all kids who want to play sports he has to try out for the team. He looks so adorable putting on his little baseball outfit and you see that glint of determination and hope in his eyes as he steps out onto the field for the first time.

And then...

You hear it. The coach pulls your son aside to inform him that he didn't make the cut. He's off the team. Look at your son, tears in his eyes, a heavy head, that slow walk of defeat that just about every athlete has had to go through at least once in his/her life. And it breaks your heart to see it.

Why did he get cut? Because a fucking dog tried out for the team? What in the living fuck? You're cutting my son, who can throw a ball more than 4 feet and probably hit a ball farther than some stupid simp dog clutching the bat in his big, stupid mouth. My son, cut, while some dog gets drool all over the baseball and keeps pausing to lick his own balls between batters? Fuck you very much. Wait right here, I'm going home to get my machete, coach. Then we'll see who gets cut next.

You see? Sure, the notion of a dog playing a team game sounds cute and all, but nobody who watches it ever stops to think about the poor kid who just had his dreams of athletic glory shattered at an all-too-young age for the sake of cuteness. That stupid fucking mutt.

Okay, so the dog plays so well, he goes on to a lucrative career in the big leagues and he even helps his team win the World fucking Series. Big fucking deal. Think of the children.

Won't somebody, please, think of the children?

Fucking dogs anyway.

Half-Mast Bullshit

Okay, recently while driving past the local firehall I couldn't help but notice that the Canadian flag was only flying at half-mast. For simps who have no fucking clue what flying a flag at half-mast means it is usually done to honor the recent passing of somebody significant. A prominent politician dies? The flag goes to half-mast. A national civil rights hero dies? The flag goes to half-mast. I guess you could say that it signifies mourning.

But I digress. Back to the point of this whole little rant of mine.

So there I was, noticing, albeit briefly, that the flag was flying at half-mast. And you know what? I had no fucking clue whose life was being honored. Not a single clue. There were no huge news stories recently about a celebrity or sports legend dying. There had been no recent genocides, regicides, uxoricides, or fraticides. So what the fuck?

For a second I thought that maybe the flagpole outside the firehall was defective and, had I been so inclined, I would have parked my car, marched right into the establishment, and complain to the firefighters therein to get their fucking shit together with the whole flagpole situation. Then I decided that a flagpole is a pretty simple object. That is to say it's pretty difficult to wind up with a defective flagpole or a malfunctioning flagpole as there are remarkably few moving parts on the fucking things. I'm no flagpole mechanic, but I'm pretty sure it's mostly a pole, some string or chain, a pulley, some other shit, and something to fasten the flag to. Then people stand around and sing national anthems and salute it. So, giving the firefighters the benefit of the doubt I decided that, indeed, somebody must have died who had been of significance somewhere, maybe only to the firefighters in the hall. But it was somebody who mattered.

And then the thought hit me. I pondered for a bit and decided that most days, if not all of them, somebody, somewhere dies. There are 6 billion people in the world and chances are that somebody in the world dies every day. The chances of a day passing in which nobody dies are slim to none. Now, not all of those people are the kind of people who go out and try to cure cancer or win dwarf tossing competitions, but there are people who do some pretty cool shit once in a while and are probably significant to somebody, somewhere. People like that die all the time.

Knowing that, then, why the fuck do we even raise our flags to full-mast? It stops making sense. Just keep the fuckers at half-mast because somebody just died. I guarantee it. Yeah, sure, many of the people who are dying any given moment could be a bunch of shitheads, assholes, and serial rapists, but maybe one or two them made blueberry pancakes for Fred Astaire one morning long ago. Maybe one of them served tea to JFK. Besides that, with all the fucking dying going on all over the place why even expend the effort it takes to raise the flag to full-mast if you're only going to have to lower it to half-mast again as soon as somebody else dies?

But Michael, couldn't you say that about Christmas trees too? Why bother even taking them down in June if you're only going to have to put them up again in November?

Exactly. That's why the entire year is the holiday season around my house. It's not because I'm some sort of gung-ho Christian guy. I'm just a pragmatist when it comes to the effort it's going to take me to disassemble and reassemble a Christmas tree each year. Happy fucking holidays!

So, everybody, I beseech you, just leave the fucking flags down. Like I said there's somebody dying somewhere right now and you should honor them the way you would honor anybody else.

Or, better yet, flagpole manufacturers of the world, why not just make your poles only half as tall? That way even when the flags are flying at full-mast, they can still kind of be half-mast and everybody on either side of this age-old argument wins.

The Bottom Ten, January 2006

10.) Super Bowl Ad Hooplah- Why the fuck does anybody get excited about seeing the new commercials that get aired during the Super Bowl telecast? You're lying to yourself if you think that all the excitement surrounding the Super Bowl has to do with football. I'm not the biggest fan of football, but I do watch it on occasion and I would be personally insulted if I watched a news broadcast after the biggest game of my life only to see the fucking anchors toting out highlights of the best Super Bowl commercials. And they love to do that on the news for some reason. On tonight's news: See the best that this year's Super Bowl telecast had to offer when it comes to corporate propaganda and...if we have time, you know...maybe we'll show some of the highlights of the football game...maybe a piece on that toxic cleaner spill into the city's drinking water. Fucking liberal media, my ass!

9.) Laughter Therapy- Click here. Pentagon officials have decided that one way to help military families cope with the tough times of war and bloodshed is to teach them how to laugh. Laughter therapy is pretty much a practice of laughing for no reason at all. Why no reason? Because the soldiers are off at war and getting injured and killed. But you folks, you go on ahead and laugh because that's one way that the Pentagon feels will help you cope. Hey Pentagon, laughing for no reason whatsoever is all well and good, but did you ever stop to think that what might work even better would be to bring your troops back home and end the bloodshed? I hate to be Captain Obvious on this one, but something has to be said. Plus, it's kind of creepy seeing people laughing at nothing. So much so that it puts me just inches away from calling the men in the white coats to come and take such people away where there will be plenty of meds to help them cope even better.

8.) Irony Being Such A Bitch- Click here. "A political party, in order to be viable, is one that professes peace, in my judgment, in order that it will keep the peace." -George W. Bush regarding Hamas.

7.) My Humps- When you hear stories about songs that get played to torture political prisoners and prisoners of war, do you ever wonder if "My Humps" by The Black Eyed Peas gets a lot of play? I think it's a safe bet that it does. Imagine that song on repeat for two or three hours. If you don't know the information that your captors want you better make some shit up fast! They say 20 minutes of that song is enough to cause massive brain trauma.

6.) The Planned Buttafuoco, Amy Fisher Television Reunion- It's happening. Remember when the public still gave a shit about this saga? Neither do I.

5.) Parents Just Discovering That MySpace.com Could Be Used By Sexual Predators To Meet Young, Unsuspecting Victims- Last time I checked it was still called the fucking internet and sexual predators have been using it all along to meet young, unsuspecting victims. How the fuck does one website in particular suddenly change the rules you should be governing yourselves by, as parents in the information age? Take your heads out of your asses and be involved with what your children do on the internet. Fuck! The emergence of MySpace isn't suddenly like the technology just became available for predators to prey on the innocent. It was there all along. So instead of demonizing the MySpace service why not just do your fucking jobs as parents?

4.) A New Season Of American Idol- Sure, the audition shows are mildly amusing to watch for the sheer ruthlessness of Simon, but you just know that when the season finally wraps up you're going to be left with yet another pop star that you won't give two shits about a week after the last episode airs. Why not just make a show about Simon insulting the fuck out of delusional people for an hour and skip this pop star bullshit?

3.) The Alberta Advantage- A $400.00 cheque is coming in the mail for each and every one of Alberta's citizens as part of surplus that the provincial government found itself. So instead of, say, putting more money into education, or health, or social assistance, just to name a few areas that could always use more money, we all get $400.00 to spend on lapdances and champagne enemas. It's great to be Albertan!

2.) Great Concerts That Sell Out Even Before You Knew They Were Happening- Why, oh why, couldn't The Arcade Fire play a bigger venue? My one regret for the year 2005 was missing seeing that band play live.

1.) Magazine Subscription Forms- One of those fucking things per issue should suffice, publishing world. If I wipe my ass with one of them I'm probably just going to wipe my ass with the other three fucking dozen of them you cram into each magazine. How many fucking subscriptions does one reader need to buy each month?

Shamelessness

Click here.

You have to click the above link this time around. You have to. Why? Because it's a link to a video clip of Kevin Federline (aka Cletus, aka Mr. Britney, aka El Numero Uno Douchebago) rocking out to his musical debut "Popozao" which I believe is a trailer park word for a delicacy made from raccoon entrails.

And the reason why I ask you to watch this is so that you get a good idea of what not to do when you are a creative person who wants the world to take you and your craft seriously.

You see, Kevin Federline, in this video clip, basically introduces the track inside a recording studio and as the track begins to play he proceeds to "rock out" to it. Seriously, watch the idiot go. I swear he practically jizzes his pants listening to his own song.

And one word to describe the song? Forgettable.

You never saw Salvador Dali pause in front of his own works and say, "Oh my fucking god, I'm so fucking cool! Look at this, motherfuckers! I'm a fucking artistic genius!" You never saw John Coltrane pause mid-song and exclaim, "Holy shit, I'm fucking light years ahead of the rest of you motherfuckers. You should be lining up to blow me I'm so fucking great."

Do you know why? Because they let the creative works do the talking for them. They weren't trying to sell themselves as being cool, they let the work convince the world that they were cool. If you have to sell it to the world, it probably isn't worth shit!

Anyway, I just thought I would pass the link along to you. Who knows how long it will be up, but enjoy it while it lasts. Watching it myself it really makes me appreciate the creative folks who I am privileged enough to call my peers because they produce kick-ass work and they're humble about what they do. It also really makes me wish I could punch Cletus in the throat.

What Exactly Is Wrong With Looking Like A Crazy Prick?

Click here.

Jelena Dokic's father is a pretty cool guy. I mean he has a top-ranked tennis player for a daughter, he smokes a pipe, he has a beard, and he wants to drop a nuclear bomb on Sydney, Australia.

Wait! What!?!?!?!

Michael, I didn't know that you followed the happenings of the tennis world too.

I don't, but for me to write about this one little thing suddenly adds more depth to my character, giving me this false sheen of being omnipotent. But anyway, that's an aside.

No wait! He didn't say that, did he? There seems to be a controversy, albeit a minor one, over whether or not Captain Beard-o actually said that he wanted to drop a nuclear bomb on Sydney.

Okay, I mean motherfucking "Wow!" on this one. After reading the article I have decided that Damir Dokic is a kooky kind of cat, in a homicidal nut kind of way. He wants to kidnap his own daughter? He wants revenge on Australia because his daughter lost at the Australian Open? He thinks hot sausages before a tennis match in sweltering heat is bad? He thinks the Vatican and Croatia are in cahoots in convincing his daughter to leave Serbia to move to Australia?

He is clearly a man with a lot on his mind.

But then he denies ever having said that he wanted to drop the nuke on Sydney?

Okay, here's the deal with soccer mom style rants, Damir, or may I call you Captain Beard-o because that is not just a beard, it's a fucking adventure? Okay, then, Captain Beard-o, the deal with soccer mom style rants is that the zanier they get the more memorable they become. Nobody remembers the simple, "The ref made a bad call at yesterday's game," rant. Why? Because those rants are boring.

I mean you are so close to having a crazy rant for the ages from the sound of it. Being pissed off with Australia in general? Check. Accusing the Vatican and Croatia of shit they probably don't even give a fuck about? Check and check. Meeting with high ranking Serbian politicians to plan a kidnapping of his daughter to return her home land? Check. Hot sausages? Oh hell, motherfucking, yeah!

So Captain Beard-o, why even deny making statements to the effect that you want to nuke Australia? You're so close to some sort of soccer mom hall-of-fame rant here and that may just be the ticket to put you over the top.

Besides, who hasn't thought about dropping a nuclear bomb on Sydney? The world's leading psychologists all agree that the thought of dropping a nuclear bomb on Sydney crosses the average person's mind at least twice a day. And we don't even have tennis star daughters who were lured away from us to go live there.

Damn You, George Clooney! Damn You To Hell!

George W. Bush is quite possibly the scariest man on the face of the Earth. Now, now, don't just stop reading right here because you think this is some sort of partisan politics bullshit rant where I go on and on about all the wrong that Dubya has been responsible for over the past five years. Fuck, there are enough rants out there like that. If I'm going to pick on the douchebag I'm going to pick my targets wisely and stick to them. But really, though, there's no denying the fact that George W. Bush is the scariest man on the face of the Earth.

I mean, here you have a man who has access to the largest army in the world and questionable morals to boot. He has clearly exhibited a propensity to go to war and, thus, become indirectly, or directly maybe, responsible for the deaths of thousands and thousands of people.

But George W. Bush is a man of integrity. He stands for family values and is building a better future whether you like to admit it or not, Mr. Appleby. True, he was the president who went to war, but there were WMD's out there and are probably still out there, waiting to be found. He has done nothing that is morally reprehensible in the slightest and my only regret is that American presidents can't serve more than two terms because his is the greatest presidency ever!

Shut the fuck up! Go ahead and believe whatever you want about the guy. He's still fucking scary.

I want to go back to 2004. That was the election year if you'll recall. I remember all year long paying rather close attention to the unfolding of the election campaign for months leading up to November. I would wake up each morning thinking, Oh God, they have to vote somebody else in there. Somebody, anybody. This evil, evil capitalist can't keep ruining the world, can he? Somebody, please, save us!

Then November rolled around and...What the fuck! The tyrant got re-elected! Fuck! Fuck!

And you know what? The Democrats really didn't deserve to win the election. For the longest time I thought it was because John Kerry wasn't a strong enough opponent for an evil tyrant. Today, though, I found out the real reason why the Democrats lost the election.

George fucking Clooney.

That's right.

George fucking Clooney.

You see, apparently during the campaign trail John Kerry was inviting numerous actors onto his election train. I mean, natrually, actors have a lot of pull with the American electorate and George Clooney, being the King of Actors, probably has the most pull in all of America. If George Clooney gets behind you come election time you might ass well get your ass in shape for sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office because Mister, you're fucking elected! That's the nature of George Clooney. People look up to him. He can't help it.

So anyway, back to the train...

John Kerry invited all these actors to ride on the John Kerry Cross-Country Election Express, destination: Washington fucking D fucking C, bitches! I mean, it was a veritable who's who of the silver screen. There was Carrot Top and Rosie O'Donnell and, oh my God, look over there! It's Jane Seymour!

But where the fuck was George Clooney?

He turned down the invitation to get on board the train?!?!?!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

And that's how George W. Bush beat John Kerry in 2004. Oh sure, you might have thought it had something to do with party platforms, partisanship, maybe even candidate personality. But no, you'd be fucking wrong, dummy! It was all because George Clooney turned down a train ride.

Either American voters are really, really, really fickle.

What?! George Clooney ain't on the train?! Fuck John Kerry! Cletus, I'm voting for Bush! Yee-haw!

Or maybe some celebrities should really stop to consider that maybe a presidential candidate is fully capable of losing a damn election on his own. It's noble you want to be the whipping boy for the whole election debacle, but you're premise is just a shade too far-fetched.