More Than Meets The Eye

Click here.

There are a lot of people who, like me, got really excited when they heard the news that there was going to be a live-action Transformers movie going into production. And there are probably many more of you who don't have a clue as to whatever the fuck it is I'm talking about. You're sitting there, just scratching your head, probably dressed in ill-fitting boxer shorts and saying:

Michael, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Transformers. You know. Those toys from way back in the day. You'd see a car or a plane or a dildo and then KABLAMMO! it's a fucking fighting robot! And, holy shit, did those robots have some adventures. Really, it was all subject to the limits of a child's imagination what those toys could do.

I made my Transformers engage in heated debates over existentialism. Starscream would quote Sartre and Optimus Prime would offer his rebuttal in the form of a gun blast right between the fucking robot eyes. Optimus Prime was never much for debate.

Anyway, I'm veering off topic with that. Back to the task at hand. So there you are, probably giddy trying to imagine what a Transformers live action movie would look like. Or, if you've just found out what a Transformer was you're probably changing your boxer shorts after shitting yourself because, brother, those little robots are everywhere. They could be right behind you right now. Made you look.

So, then you find out that Michael Bay is the man who's directing the movie and your expectations go from, "Oh my god I could just shit my pants I'm so excited to see this movie!" to"Oh my god, why, Michael Bay, why? Couldn't the producers hire somebody competent to direct this movie?!?!?!"

And then....

Why reading a little blurb about the upcoming Michael Bay movie "Transformers: The Movie" on CominSoon.net (Please, Michael Bay, don't fuck it up like you did everything else you've directed) I stumbled across news of a contest that the screenwriters for the film are having in which random assholes and idiots get to submit lines that Optimus Prime should say. The winner, of course, will get to hear Optimus Prime utter the winning line next summer when Michael Bay potentially disappoints all of us into a homicidal rage.

Okay, I can deal with the fact that it looks like at lease 0.02% of the dialogue in the movie will be written by somebody who probably has no business owning a computer or any sort of writing implement. Good for him. I hope he's enjoying being the proud owner of opposable thumbs.

What bugs me, though, is that without actually seeing the movie how the fuck would anybody know what Optimus Prime needs to say? I'm no expert on continuity, but you can't just have Optimus fucking Prime blurt out, "Oh Bumblebee, fuck me with your robot cock!" if the Transformers movie has no robot-on-robot sex scenes. I have a feeling that half the lines I've submitted already have probably been eliminated from the contest because the film isn't going to be pornographic in the slightest. But then again, I have about as much of a clue as to what's going to happen in the movie as anybody else at this point.

So not only does it look like there's the very real possibility that Transformers is going to be a huge let-down at the box office next summer, but it also looks like 0.02% of the dialogue in the movie won't make any fucking sense at all and could possibly involve the words: "robot cock." My fingers are crossed for all the right reasons.

Portrait

Portrait
A man has jimmied
open the door of the
janitors’ supply closet
in the men’s room.

A bottle of the blue stuff is missing.

The man
hunched
over one of the sinks,
scrubbing

the way a meth-head
might clean house

or an O.C.
checks and rechecks
door locks

frantic.

He’s scrubbing
because before this
he shit himself and
now it’s time
to deal with stains
to deal with odors
to deal with
one’s nagging humility.

The look on his face is
that of pure, fucking, torture.

Enough to make one wonder
whether it’s most appropriate to

laugh,

cry,

or vomit.

Ten Guests Over For Dinner

Okay, here's the deal. You get to throw a dinner party for ten people, living or dead. Those people can be anybody of your choosing. Want Napolean over for a fat, juicy steak? Done. Want to show Gandhi a thing of two about gorging one's self on mashed potatoes? Done. So who would those people be? This is not a new concept. Mike Gravel's old Dirtpuppy website had this topic before, but it's something interesting to talk about. I'll post my list and why the people are on that list. There is definitely a comments section, though, so please post who you would want to have a meal with.

So here we go (in no order of importance)...

1.) Chuck Palahniuk- Those of you who know me will find the inclusion of Chuck P's name of no surprise whatsoever. He is one of the most dynamic writers out there in the sense that there is a certain lyrical quality to his prose that cannot be denied. So while he is writing a great story like Fight Club or Choke there are just so many passages of those books that can be read out loud like good poetry. He is one of my literary heroes.

2.) Maynard James Keenan- Again, a no-brainer. Tool, being my favorite band, needs some representation at the dinner table and who better to represent them than their vocalist? His presence at the party would give me a chance to ask him for some of the meanings behind some of Tool's more abstract lyrics.

3.) Gordon Downie- When will I take some chances with this list, you ask? Maybe in a number or two. Gordon Downie, the lead singer of the Tragically Hip, as well as a sorely underrated solo artist, is a national treasure. He is one of the few singers who could release a book of poetry that doesn't make me shudder. He also seems like a good guy to just have a beer or two with, which could definitely come in handy at this dinner party.

4.) Allen Ginsberg- I imagine Mr. Ginsberg would have some of the most amazing stories to tell. The Beat Generation is full of names one could feasibly invite to a dinner party like this and no matter who you get you're going to get to hear stories that will undoubtedly become American legends. Ginsberg, as a man, seemed to be incredibly open to experiences so I doubt that there is one topic of conversation that he couldn't expound on at great length.

5.) Henry Rollins- Another man who can tell some incredible stories is Henry Rollins. If you've ever been to one of his spoken word shows you know exactly what I'm talking about. He's a cultural juggernaut, really.

6.) Bill Hicks- There is so much that I would love to talk to Bill Hicks about. He was a brilliant comic and social commentator who was shuffled off the mortal coil much too early in his life. More than any other dead hero out there he's the guy whose observations I miss the most every time I watch the news and see all the sad shit going down in the world. I have to listen to his CDs just to have him remind me that it's all "just a ride."

7.) David Cross- Maybe I'm loading up on comics and social commentators too much for one dinner. I imagine that with all the joking and such going on a the dinner table I would be launching food and beverages out my nose at an alarming rate.

8.) Wayne Gretzky- I suppose this is sort of an oddball selection to have on this list since he seems to be the only athlete, but he was a staple of my youth. Again, it would be great to just get some of his stories from the glory days of the dynasty Oilers. Not just the stories about what it was like on the ice, which seem to come up all the time, but the stories about what the team was like off the ice, what it was like to be a young phenom, what it was like to be the king of the world.

9.) Sarah Polley- Canadian eye candy who has a ton of brains to boot. Smart. Sexy. She's a total package. I think it would be great to get her and Gordon Downie to duet on "Courage." If you ever get a chance to check out her rendition of the Tragically Hip classic you should definitely do it. She took a great rocker and turned it into a haunting balad.

10.) Ray Kurzweil- He'd be there to tell us that no matter how bleak things look in this world of ours there is always the promise of a glorious future. He probably has the lowest profile personality on this list, but that doesn't diminish his role at the dinner table. He's a futurist, the best kind of futurist, an optimist.

So there you have it. Probably not a surprising list to most of you out there. Do take the time to come up with your own list, put it in the comments section, or, better yet, post it on your blog (if you have one). It's a good way to get to know each other.

Baby Tool

On a recent perusal of the Toolarmy website I found myself in the message boards. At that time I found a link to Baby Rock Records and, more specifically, an upcoming album of Tool songs redone as children's lullabies. In fact, they seem to have a healthy catalogue of similar albums set to be released, each dedicated to many popular mainstream rock acts, acts traditionally not associated with children's songs.

And all I can say to this discovery is: Holy fucking shit! That is so fucking cool!

It sounds a bit strange, but there were always songs in the Tool catalogue that I could imagine getting treatments as full-on lullabies. Naturally, I never actually expected an album with such treatments to get made.

Oh come on, Michael, what songs of Tool's could you possibly have thought would make soothing lullabies?

Well, first and foremost, I always thought that "Third Eye" off of 1996's Ænima would make a great lullaby. With lyrics like "So good to see you, I missed you so much. So glad it's over, I missed you so much," it has a certain soothing quality about it. Definitely songs like "Parabol" and it's follow-up "Parabola" off of my favorite Tool album, Lateralus, could be envisioned as lullabies very easily.

Unfortunately, because this album, and all the other albums in the Baby Rock Records catalogue still awaiting release, I haven't actually had a chance to hear what the final product sounds like. I'm very hopeful that they will come out sounding nothing short of amazing, though I'm guessing that the lyrics to many of the songs in that series will probably be omitted and there will be no vocals at all. That's just a guess and I hope that I am wrong because a lot of these songs have such powerful lyrics, which I think might account for why they lend themselves to lullabies so readily. I guess time will only tell what the albums sound like.

I'm pretty sure I'll try to track a few of these albums down nonetheless. Not so much for my own listening pleasure, though I could probably derive great pleasure fom being lulled into sleep to a lullaby Tool CD or a lullaby Radiohead, or, hell, just about any album out of that catalogue, but rather because someday when I'm a father myself I will want to teach my kid a thing or two about good musical taste and what better way to get them some proper musical appreciation than to start them out listening to a Tool CD geared toward children? How fucking cool would that be?

So, thank you to bastardometer for bringing this unique Tool CD and, indeed, a very unique catalogue of albums, to my attention.

The Rockabye Baby: Lullaby Renditions Of Tool CD ships on September 19, 2006. Other albums in the series drop throughout the fall and into spring of next year. Tool will be playing live at Rexall Place here in Edmonton on August 25 and if you look at row 27 on the floor at that show you just might see the happiest Tool fan in the world that night.

Humidor

It's been a while since I've posted any new poetry to the blog. So after so long here is something new. I actually had the first draft of this poem done a while back, but I've finally had a chance to sit down and revise it. I think it reminds me a lot of an earlier poem of mine called "Human Hot Box" in that it deals a lot with the same subject matter, but this poem "Humidor" takes that same topic, the smell of smoke in one's clothing, and romanticizes it. Anyway, enjoy.

Humidor
The smoke from your
cigarette isn’t the
smoke that haunts my clothing;
chokes, stifles, and drips misery
from coalminer lungs
like charcoal briquette flavored cola.

I’m in love with your smoke.

Every time you exhale in
wafting plumes,
blonde-haired, bespectacled mushroom cloud
erupting in
loveliness, a
figment of a steadily disappearing peacock.
Poaching Diane Fossey’s gorillas in the living room.
White stream meandering
up and over bulb of nose,
down the bridge,
into nothingness and
good thoughts

--seeming.

It tickles the
hairs inside my nostrils and ears,
fills me with old Europe or
what I imagine old Europe to be,
character-actor-type old men who
talk strictly en français and play chess,
pretentious artistic types who minimalize
facial expressions as effectively as
they do details,
broad-shouldered German ladies who
belt out tunes to
packed houses and
ask,
nay,
demand a hearty sing-along from a
receptive audience.

I don’t even know your foreign tunes.

Bar rooms suffocate;
casinos are nauseous, a
rainbow of stale odors and
creeping death, the
looking down the dark hole of
one’s own mortality.

You, I could sleep
inside your cloud and
feasibly dream of long
steamboat trips or
making love on the Seine, the
way it cusps and hangs in
wreathes
through these years in
your cosmopolitan sheath
can kill and
probably will;

call me a dead man.

Give me a tumor;
terminally in love with you.

The Bottom Ten, July 2006

10.) Carnies- What is a carnie? Well, traditionally they're sketchy looking meth addicts who always appear to be suppressing constant shrieking disorder. Right? Right. You go to the fairs and carnivals and they're supposed to reek of body odor and and they're supposed to have problematic body hair. Capital Ex recently happened here in Edmonton and I had a chance to check it out. And you know what? The carnies were actually people who didn't look like they were going to stab you while shrieking constantly; they actually looked like normal people. I don't know about you all, but to me that's a sure sign that the low unemployment rate is hitting businesses hard. Carnival companies can't even attract proper carnies; they have to hire normal decent-looking people. Part of the thrill of going to carnivals is not knowing whether or not some carny was going to shriek at you while picking at his/her face; it was a scary, thrilling experience. Now, not so much.

9.) Old People- One thing that the hot weather that always irritates me is that it inspires old people to get out of the house and go to air conditioned environments (i.e. where I work). Have you ever walked behind a pack of old people? Like creeping slowly toward the grave it is. And can you pass them? Oh fuck no! There is such a thing as courteous walking and old people have no fucking concept of what it is. They walk three or four abreast and passing them is impossible because they form this sort of solid wall of vericose veins, wheelchairs, walkers, prosthetic hips, and motorized scooters. Fuck! Single file, people! Most places of business would benefit from hiring a team of professional movers whose job it would be to spot geezers and cryptkeepers as they enter the building, pick them up and physically carry them to where they need to go, walking at a normal human gait. Insurance companies won't cover shit like that. I know because I've checked.

8.) Insurance Companies- Seriously, insurance companies, you have no fucking clue what it's like to constantly have to walk behind a flock of geezers. Please reconsider.

7.) That Guy With The Light Bulb Up His Ass- To kind of get back to the story I linked to quite brilliantly in my tirade on the media's handling of depictions of people flipping the bird, there was a prisoner in Pakistan who recently had to have a light bulb surgically removed from his ass. He claims that he had no idea how it got there; that perhaps his fellow prisoners drugged him and inserted it while he was unconscious. Yeah right, buddy, you run with that story. Anyway, if that is true it is my theory his cellmate did it to him because I believe if you insert a light bulb up your ass and then shuffle your feet to build up a static charge, said light bulb will actually light up. I believe the man's cellmate did it as a means of constructing a crude, but effective reading light for when he wants to read after lights out in the prison. Those prisoners, they're industrious like that. Somebody get that inventive man a job in the real world. We need people who think outside the ass like that.

6.) Firing The Technical Virgin- Click here. Years back a video made the rounds on the internet. In the video a woman made a joke public service announcement about how you can still technically call yourself a virgin if you only take it up the ass. It was pretty fucking funny. So anyway, the girl who appeared in the video went on to become the host of children's television show on PBS. She was recently fired because her bosses found out about the video, a video she made years ago. If you ask me, keeping the girl on the show would have only improved ratings because preschool children, the target audience of the show, are oblivious to the concept getting poked in the winking brown eye and many adults would tune in because they are fascinated by the that same concept. I'm many adults, aren't I? Seriously, though, there is a petition you can sign to help the girl out. Here's a link.

5.) The Madden 2007 Pay-Per-View- Click here. You mean I can pay $20.00 to watch a pay-per-view that previews an upcoming $50.00 video game? Where the fuck do I sign up? There's a new Madden game every fucking year and that's all well and cool, but do we really need a $20.00 preview of a game that is essentially the same as last year's version except with an updated roster and a scarier looking John Madden featured in the game? Fucking rights we do! Anybody who shells out $20.00 for this pay-per-view is a knob with too much disposable income and they should pay me an additional $20.00 for getting a chance to learn this fact from me. Contact me for my PayPal info, idiots!

4.) People Who Complain That It's Too Hot Outside- Okay, I'll accept it when somebody makes a passing comment about how it's hot outside, but leave it at that and only that. I fucking hate listening to people go on as nauseam, "Ohhhh, it's soooo hot outside. Tooooo hot." Spare me your complaints, fucktards. You're the same people who complain that it's too cold in the winter. Realize that complaining about the weather will get you nowhere. So why the fuck bother? Exactly.

3.) Banning Nudity On The Seine- Click here.

City hall has issued a decree banning indecent clothing to preserve the tranquility of the sandy beaches created on the banks of the River Seine every summer since 2001.

How the fuck does indecent clothing destroy the tranquility of sandy beaches? Last time I checked it's volume that destroys tranquility. Indecent clothing just gives men boners. I suppose it might create a lot of divets and such in the sand what with all those boners poking holes into the sand, but that's why God created rakes, assholes. Just rake that shit over. Don't take away our titties!

2.) Hangovers During Heat Waves- Worst fucking feeling the world, ever.

1.) The General Voting Public- Click here. This is why I don't take part in calls for the public to name shit. A bridge in Budapest might be named after Chuck Norris thanks to a website set up by Budapest's Economy Ministry. Okay, I dig the Chuck Norris jokes; they are pretty fucking funny, but come on. You're going to let a bunch of internet geeks determine how landmarks in your area of the world are going to get named?

Why won't they name a bridge after me?

The Weekend Summed Up In One Picture

I did survive.

Happy Birthday

I just wanted to say happy birthday to Jordan. A little late, of course. As is my custom.

The Shock Of The Finger

Watching MuchMusic tonight I happened to catch the video for the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Can't Stop." I know what you're going to say and, yes, I swear I saw an actual fucking music video on MuchMusic, which is an anomaly given their round-the-clock schedule of playing second-tier reality shows and filler material that is thinly veiled attempts at fellating which ever pop star happens to big at a given moment. So, yes, I did see an actual music video amongst all that other shit and, while I was naturally in shock and finding myself having to stick fucking toothpicks in my eyes so that I wouldn't miss a single frame of one of the last music videos to ever play on a station that seemed to have a mandate to play music videos, I noticed on strang thing about the "Can't Stop" video that kind of bugged me afterward.

The video itself is actually quite well-done and has a very distinct visual appeal to it. What bothered me was one scene in which Flea, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist extraordinaire, wearing an oversized purple plush hippopotamus head, gives a hand gesture, which is digitally blurred out. The hand gesture, I can only assume, is the extended ring finger, standing alone and proud which means, "I just had anal sex with your mother." I know, it's pretty shocking. I don't make up what these hand gestures mean, I just play along. Everytime I fuck somebody's mom up the ass I am, in observance of proper etiquette, required to flash the hand gesture of extending my ring finger to them and, usually, sticking my tongue out and leering at the same time. It's quite the sight to behold.

But, in all seriousness, the hand gesture, though could not be seen by me through the digital censoring, was quite possibly, the bird. That's right, the middle finger standing alone on one's hand, proclaiming to the world, "I'm mad as hell and fuck you, and fuck you, and fuck you, and fuck you over there too, you motherfucking fuckheads! Go eat a bag of bull semen!" Or something like that. Naturally, it's a good thing the hand gesture got censored out because I just don't think I could handle seeing that. It would just be too much.

Does anybody actually get shocked any more by the sight of somebody giving the finger? I mean, we live in a world where violence is in the news, it's on t.v., Dennis Franz showed his bare ass on primetime, Dr. Phil continues to have a career, and Barbara Streisand threatens world peace with the promise of a comeback tour. Is somebody giving the finger really that much of a faux pas that it has be digitally altered?

Well, yes, you stupid shithead, we have to censor that because we really need to protect the impressionable children of the world.

Wrong. You know what? There are probably some children who would see an image of somebody giving the finger and try it themselves, probably at very inopportune times too, like when they're taking communion in church or when they're servicing their priest (interpret that one how you will), or when an international dignitary decides to pay a surprise visit to their town or to just pop over for dinner out of the blue. And you want to know something else? Big fucking deal. It's a fucking hand gesture. Those same kids who are in that monkey see, monkey do mindset are too fucking ignorant to know that it means, "Fuck you, you fucking douchebag. Go shove a lightbulb up your ass!" You gotta love how I was able to work that link in. But back to the topic, it would then fall on the parents to make sure their children are properly educated as to if and when deploying the bird is appropriate. The kids are going to learn all about the finger by time they're in elementary school so, really, how long do you expect to keep them in the dark through censorship?

Secondly, the whole censorship of a stupid hand gesture becomes more a double-edged sword in the sense that when one is confronted by an image that is censored there is an added level of attention drawn to whatever piece of the puzzle is censored out. People expound on it. They go on the internet and find the uncensored, unedited image. They write a fucking blog entry about it. By censoring the image we are added emphasis to how important, cool, edgy, etc. the hand gesture is. Right now as I am writing this I'm flipping you off because it's just too fucking cool! I can't stop!

And finally, is there anything more adorable than a wee child flipping you off? Even when they're gesturing to me, "Fuck you, you fucking failed cumstain! Go fuck a giraffe!" even I can't bring myself to say anything other than, "Awwwww, isn't that just precious? He thinks he's big people!"

It Can't Be Said Enough

So today I kind of made a rediscovery. I say "rediscovery" in a very loose sense of the word because, really, it was a discovery that never left me. In fact, I've probably been blathering on and on about this so-called "rediscovery" to just about everybody I talk about music with. That "rediscovery?" The Arcade Fire's Funeral.

If you haven't had a chance to check this album out you have to do so.

What really struck me this time as I listened through the album was how this was an entire album of potential singles. I hate saying shit like that because when a person is a fan of a band or an album, I mean a real fan, they tend to have a bias when they make bold statement such as calling each song a potential single. But really, folks, as I was listening I found myself able to hear it as a song that could be played on modern rock radio until the public got sick of hearing it. I really believe that in four years time when everybody is doing that "Top Ten Albums Of The Aughts" or whatever else they call their list, Funeral is going to be one of the albums that becomes a staple for listmakers.

That's really all I wanted to say. I'm listening to the whole thing again. I'm obsessed right now. I'll post something more substantial later.

Until then.

Go buy the fucking album all ready, jerk-asses!

R.I.P. Syd Barrett

R.I.P. Syd Barrett.

Maybe Arranged Marriages Aren't The Way To Go

For those of you out there who are single, for those of you out there who kind of just bounce from lover to lover like an endless game of hot-sweaty human pinball with all that bumping and dinging of bells and climbing scores, what with that coy pillow talk and long licks with hot, wet...ahem....ummmm, where was I again? Oh yeah, for all of you out there who aren't married, but spend considerable time wondering why you aren't married, why it can't be as easy as just having your parents arrange for you a spouse with a hefty dowry and all your problems solved:

Read this.

A Springfield, Massachusetts man is suing family friends (well, I suppose they probably won't be family friends after receiving the lawsuit) who had arranged a marriage between the man's son and their niece. Why is he suing his friends, you ask? Well, to put it bluntly, their niece is an eyesore while his son is handsome. You just can't have a handsome man marrying something that looked like it just walked out of a Hindu sideshow. When the marriage was being arranged the uncle and aunt of the blushing bride-to-be didn't string together the sentence, "Oh, by the way, our niece is a homely, homely girl and by saying this now it is our disclaimer that your handsome son stands a 50% chance of fathering some of the ugliest babies that ever popped out of a human vagina." They didn't say that. Not once. So, naturally, by failing to say those aforementioned words, the couple is clearly guilty of fraud and worthy of a lawsuit.

Now, I will admit that I'm not an expert on the ins and outs of arranged marriages. My parents repeated tried to marry me off for $200.00 and three fourth round draft picks and a conditional fifth round draft pick, but thankfully the other team declined the offer. But in all seriousness, the girl had "protruded bad teeth, and couldn't speak English to hold a conversation," and to top it off her complexion was also brought into question. Woof. Throw the dog a bone. Fuck.

But here it is, why not let her meet your son, buddy? They might hit it off. They might not. Maybe your son likes the uglies. Some dudes are down with that sort of stuff. I mean I see guys with ugly, ugly girls all the time. Conversely I see beautiful women with ugly, ugly men. It leads me to believe that we all march to the beat of our own drummers no matter how fucking homely they are. Sometimes we just see past the barbecue stains, the gangrenous left hand, the cleft lip, the thinning hair, the ingrown fingernails, the superfluous third, fourth, fifth, and sixth nipples, and whatever else they have for maladies and we still get hard-ons and wet cooches.

And, hey, if the son is really that repulsed by the sight of the ugly fiancee all he has to do is reply "I don't," when the priest or minister, or whatever official oversees the ceremony asks him if he takes her for the rest of his life. I know that for an ugly enough woman I would definitely be willing to say, "I don't."

I mean, what the fuck were you expecting your friends to say about their niece, really?

"Oh no, you don't want to wed your son to our niece because she is like looking at a horse's ass right after explosive curry diarrhea. She's a fixer-upper and he'd best start by installing a paper bag over her homely head."

Seriously? That's what you wanted them to say?

Maybe you should have asked for a picture up front. Maybe then they'd still be friends.

You don't keep friends by filing lawsuits against them.

Battle Of The Cultural Monsters

Click here.

Have you ever seen one of those movies the revolve around a fight between two sides that you don't want to see win? A good example is a movie like Freddy Vs Jason or even any number of those Japanese monster movies where the two larger-than-life monsters square off in a fight that brings nothing but distruction to the Japanese countryside. Ooo. Ooo. Or how about Alien Vs Predator? The point is that I'm describing a movie where two evil, evil forces square off against each other and you just don't know who to cheer for or even why for that matter.

That's the story I have for you tonight.

Two sick, twisted, evil, revolting entities are, quite possibly, getting ready to do battle in a courtroom setting. And you know what? Much like the tagline for the aforementioned Alien Vs Predator movie: Whoever wins...we lose. The combatants in this fight for ultimate evil? Barbara Streisand and Barbara Streisand fans.

That's right Barbara Streisand. Barbara Streisand fans.

Whoever win...we lose.

Okay Michael, we get it. That crusty hideous 'diva' Barbara Streisand is evil incarnate. But her fans? Why, they're just a bunch of yuppie diva wanna-be's. Ohhhhhh, I see where you're going with this. They're evil because they're a bunch of yuppie diva wanna-be's.

Wow, you're getting good at this.

But no, not all of Bab's (I should almost punch myself in the testicles for referring to her as 'Babs') fans are yuppie diva wanna-be's. I'm sure there are fans of her work from all walks of life, but this story concerns a specific sect of her fans. The fans who could not only afford to throw away thousands of dollars to see the last shows she ever performed live back in 1999, but also afford the thousands and thousands of dollars it will take to sue the retired diva because she has just announced a new tour, thus negating those "final" live shows as being "final" live shows back in 1999.

So, there you have it, a bunch of Streisand's fans are threatening to sue her because they spent all that disposable income on tickets to her last shows ever just so that they could brag to friends that they got to see her last shows, which I'm sure led to numerous punches to the testicles and/or beef curtains because there is nary an evil force more annoying than somebody who brags about getting to see a Barbara Streisand concert.

On one hand, if Streisand wins the threatened litigation a bunch of people with too much money and who, for some insane reason, like Barbara Streisand, lose even more money, which is good because it would teach them all a valuable lesson about tying up the legal system with squabbles over what constitutes a "final" concert. On the other hand, if the fans win this battle, maybe Barbara Streisand will be forced to cancel her tour (it couldhappen!) and I won't have to listen to people at parties bragging about how they saw Barbara Streisand in concert, and it would probably cost the diva a lot of money, which she definitely has too much of.

So who the fuck is a guy supposed to cheer for here? Does my desire to see a bunch of yuppies humiliated in court outweigh my desire to see Barbara Streisand humiliated in court?

Whoever wins...we lose.

I'm Sure This Matters

Click here.

A movie that is getting set for release, "Facing The Giants," is being bitch-slapped by the MPAA (the Motion Picture Association of America) with a PG rating because it was rife with religious content.

And the movie's makers? Pissed off.

Why are they pissed off, you ask? Well, the MPAA rated the movie PG instead of G. PG implies that there is material in a given movie that would require parental guidance whereas a G rating implies that any simp can go watch the fucking movie and there's absolutely no danger of being warped from the experience. As you can tell I was raised watching many G rated movies.

So there's the flap, the legal squabble. You have two sides splitting hairs over PG and G ratings.

Okay, picture it, if you will, you're a 5-year-old kid out on the town with your best buds, cruising the mall and picking up hot-looking toddler chicks and then you decide, Holy shit, dude, we should totally hit up the multiplex because I really need a darkened theater to put the sweet, sweet moves on this three-year-old nympho! So you go to the theater and, because you're only five fucking years old, you have a decidedly reduced choice of movies that you can get into. On one hand you could probably go to see "Cars" or you could go see "Facing The Giants" except that.... Oh what the fuck, man, that fucking movie's been slapped with a PG rating. We're going to have to sneak into that one! Fuck! And then, by that point, your plans of sneaking into the steamy PG rated movie as opposed to, say, its G rated counterparts, has taken so long that the three old nympho that you met at the food court has left to hook up with somebody who is old enough to get into PG rated movies with the parental units. Aw fuck! When will the MPAA ever learn?

Now, did you notice anything wrong at all with the previous paragraph? That's right, the last two sentence should have been italicized to keep in tune with the internalized voice I established before. Oh, and also there aren't many five-year-old fucking kids who cruise the fucking mall looking for three-year-old nymphos to hook up with at screenings of a PG rated Christian movie! It should pretty much be a given that if you aren't old enough to get into a movie by yourself you're probably going to be accompanied by an adult, thus satisfying the silly requirements of the almost entirely bullshit rating we know as P-fucking-G. In this day and age you mean to tell me that there are parents who would let little children just blithely wander into darkened movie theaters all by themselves when they're not old enough to get into PG rated movies on their own? With MySpace users and other sexual deviants comprising 73% of the general population? Are you people insane?

You're splitting hairs on a fucking rating that is useless. Way to go morons. I'm sure there will be a ton of parents who are going to be holding their kid's hand outside the multiplex looking at the movie poster and seeing that demonic PG rating and going, "Hmmmm, I wonder if little Sally is going to want to see a religious movie about a football coach or if she would rather see an animated movie about talking cars."

"Any strong or mature discussion of any subject matter results in at least a PG rating," Glickman said. "This movie had a mature discussion about pregnancy, for example. It also had other mature discussions that some parents might want to be aware of before taking their kids to see this movie."

Ahhhhhh...so the whole religious persecution was just a figment of the fundamentalist right wing's imagination. Those stupid idiots. All along they were crying persecution for their religious beliefs, but they failed to make a note of the fact that when the subject of pregnancy comes up in the movie there might be more than a handful of little five and six year olds who want to know about the mysteries of life, love, and donkey punching.

Do I intend to see the controversial "Facing The Giants"? No. And it's not because the religious themes don't mesh with my sensibilities. It's because it just doesn't sound that interesting to me, which I am suspecting is how a lot of little kids are going to be seeing this movie, especially when you put it next to movies about talking cars and forest animals with witty retorts to everything that comes their way.

Religious persecution indeed.

The Bottom Ten, June 2006

10.) Window Coverings- Civic politics, man, civic politics. Euclid, Ohio, is finally tightening the thumb screws on those fucking asshole dickheads who hang blankets and bedsheets in their windows as window coverings. Those fucking monsters! I think it's about time some town council somewhere in the world whipped out testicles big enough to bring a law against this tasteless, vulgar display of interior decoration. I can just imagine the courtroom crammed with lawyers trying to defend these amoral, sick, sadistic window covering fuckheads. If I were living in Euclid, Ohio, I would definitely be one of those people willing to let rapists, murderers, serial jaywalkers, and child molesters rule the streets just so long as those hideous, hideous bedsheet-hanging pissflaps are finally, finally brough to swift and decisive justice. Hang the fuckers! And, yes, I do, in fact have a blanket hanging in my window, but that's I fled Euclid. I'm an outlaw and an exile. Fuck you!

9.) Menudo- Didn't the 80's end 16 fucking years ago? "If I wind up the next Ricky Martin or Marc Anthony, that would be great!" he said with a winning smile. Wow, that would be great! Holy shit! I take it all back about Menudo, folks. I mean, I thought that by saying that the 80's ended 16 years ago it meant that the shitty music of Menudo should have been over 16 years ago too, but then I had to take into consideration that Menudo launched the careers of not only Ricky Martin, but also Marc Anthony. Well shit, now I have to stand corrected because the 80's didn't just end 16 years ago, they should have been erased en masse from the collective human memory banks because we're still paying for our mistakes of letting Menudo fester in that decade like a cauliflower head of genital warts that also sings obnoxious pop music. Sorry, I was just looking for an excuse to use the analogy of a cauliflower head of genital warts and Menudo, for some reason, fit that analogy well. I mean Menudo does sound kind of like that STD we caught back in the 80's and we're still trying to forget. Looks like it's flaring up again.

8.) Bong Laws- So let me get this straight....you can't break into a tomb and decapitate the corpse that rests inside of it so that you can make a bong out of its skull? What the fuck is the world coming to when you can't desecrate a grave for the purposes of smoking weed, man? Fucking fascists!

7.) Age Of Consent- And then you mean to tell me that I can't cruise junior high schools looking for sweet, sweet poon tang with a 14 year old girl before going to desecrate graves so I can make a bitchin' bong out of a decapitated human skull? Are you guys trying to make a joyless robot out of everybody? Seriously. I had my heart set on doing the daytime talkshow circuit of Maury Povich and Montel Williams when they do that "Human Skid Mark Has Knocked Up My Daughter And Decapitated My Grandfather's Corpse" topic. They do that topic like once a week, but still. I had my eye on making a career out of bongs and banging 14-year-olds. Sigh.

6.) Britney Spears The Magazine- Britney seems to finally be at work on getting her own regular publication to newsstands everywhere and it's about time. If there's one thing that has been dominating my thoughts over the past number of months and leaving me sleepless over many, many nights it's that the former pop princess has yet to set the record straight regarding her marriage to K-Fed-eroo-dawger-snipesta or whatever the fuck that hillbilly she married is named. Yep, issue after issue of reading about the dynamics of the relationship between two of the most phony, one-dimensional celebrities out there. There is a god. Holy fuck, there's still time to get on board with a lifetime subscription to that one!

5.) Rush Limbaugh And Viagra Appearing In The Same Paragraph- Rush Limbaugh was caught in possession of somebody else's Viagra prescription. Limbaugh joked aout the search on his radio show Tuesday, saying Customs officials didn't believe him when he said he got the pills at the Clinton Library and he was told they were blue M&Ms. He later added, chuckling: "I had a great time in the Dominican Republic. Wish I could tell you about it." Ewwwwwwwwww! Does anybody else feel compelled to drink a cup of bleach when they imagine Rush Limbaugh with a Viagra hard-on? There are times when I think there are certain people who are so sexually unappealing that it should be a criminal act for them to engage in anything remotely sexual. Rush Limbaugh probably has to take Viagra because he gets to see himself naked. That would kill Michael-Jackson-In-An-Elementary-School-Strength Erections.

4.) The Food Shortage In Germany- Food is at such a premium in Germany right now what with the World Cup going on that Victoria Beckham can't even afford a sandwich. Okay, seriously, I think she's disappearing. I think that the world needs to intervene and start sending Germany emergency supplies of food lest the British affluent wither and die. We need a fucking Farm Aid concert or something.

3.) Ten Years Too Early- Ashlee Simpson to pose for Playboy? Not yet! I don't know who fielded the offer of $4 million to Vanilli Simpson to pose, but they forgot that the rule of thumb for pop princesses is that they don't pose until ten years after people have forgotten them. This fucks things up a little because this news keeps the lip-syncher in the spotlight into the 16th minute. So I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand it keeps Ashlee Simpson in the news (if you call declining an offer from Playboy news) meaning I have to hear about her, but on the other hand it means that I won't have to see her nude in the pages of Playboy, which I read strictly for the articles and witty cartoons. So it's a mixed blessing.

2.) Getting Old- I really felt old tonight because I went to see the Wilco concert at the Jubilee Auditorium. The Wilco show itself didn't make me feel old. What made me feel old was the Jube. Fuck that place has changed. Not only that, but it's located right near my alma mater, the University of Alberta, and fuck that place has changed as well. Just walking from the parking lot to the Jube gave me a bit of a trip down memory lane because I used to park behind some of the dorms at Lister when I was still going to school what seems like eons ago. Sigh. Fucking age is catching up with me.

1.) Rush Limbaugh- Wasn't this pervert all for the impeachment of Clinton? I think that thinking about Rush Limbaugh having sex has given me a sexual disfunction.

And Now, The Bad News...

Last night the dream of a Stanley Cup being won by the Edmonton Oilers in 2006 came to an end.

For those of you out there who read my blog and are from the Edmonton area you are more than likely familiar with how the playoff run affected the city. Sure, there were riots and beer shortages and arrests and fights and just general mayhem, but while all this was going on, there was a sort of comradeship that bloomed here. It's really hard to describe. On one hand there was an almost tangible electrity in the air and just about everywhere you went you could just see how excited everybody was, especially these past couple of days.

More than anything else that is what is sad about the Edmonton Oilers cinderella Stanley Cup story coming to an end. Now the little microcosm of Edmonton devolves back into its normal state, people generally alienated from everybody else, loneliness, directionless. It's not that we are a people who are desperate, it's just that we will likely return our respective focuses to the other tasks and interests that consume our time. The playoff run was more of a thread that sewed all of us together, a sort of flag for us to collectively rally around.

And now that flag has been removed.

Even if the Oilers had won the cup the magic would have only been prolonged for a while longer. All magic like that is fleeting.

There is also some sadness I feel for the Oilers. Our city's boys put up a hell of a fight. For those of you not in the know on what was transpiring with the NHL, the Edmonton Oilers were the bottom-seeded team in the Western Conference going into the playoffs, meaning that they were underdogs insofar as the standings were concerned and, as such, we never had a series where we had home ice advantage. However, our team played like contenders throughout. They made believers of not only our city, but the whole hockey world. So yeah, I can be sad for our boys because they got so close. A one goal loss in the seventh game in the Stanley Cup Final is as close as it gets. But because nobody expected them to even get out of the first round, let alone get all the way to the finals, I am proud of what they were able to accomplish. So sadness, yes, but hope and optimism for the future always. Our team will be back. They will kick more ass. They have no reason to be down for too long.

The Civil Service: The Sexiest Line Of Work Around

Click here.

Okay, today I have a strange one for you. Somewhere over in England there is an office in Newcastle, the Rural Payments Agency office to be precise, and it is the sexiest office in the world.

To borrow a few words from the linked article here's what's been happening in this sexy little government building:

"The agency said it was investigating claims that staff leapt naked from filing cabinets, had sex in office toilets, held break-dancing competitions during working hours and fought in a reception area."

My first reaction after reading this was Sign me up. I'll move to England, just get me a job in that office because that's where I want to be.

But then I thought about it some more and now I'm not wanting to move to England so much and it has little to do with the British Dental Association's care for its country's citizens or the fact that they speak English over there and yet there are numerous Brits whom I can't understand in the slightest. No, it's none of that.

What is keeping me here in Canada is the fact that this sexy little office is being investigated, most likely to curb any further shenanigans.

And that's what pisses me off about this whole matter.

You want to curb this kind of behavior from your government employees? What the fuck is wrong with you?

I mean seriously. Have you ever had to go to a government office for anything? I'm sure that there are many of you out there who have. What did you think about the experience? It was pretty fucking dull, wasn't it? You go and you sit and then some jerk in a cheap suit and reeking of B.O. takes you to his office where he sips criminally bad coffee and pores over a computer to review whatever file they have on you and it takes forever. Almost literally.

Now, if you had to, say, go to some office where all the workers were parading around naked, having breakdancing competitions, fistfights, and fucking like sex-crazed teenagers, would you find that dull? Do you have a fucking pulse?

I don't know about you, but I only wish the civil servants around here were that cool. Some buxom receptionist just typing away topless and I could gaze longingly at her heaving breasts. Meanwhile, some lowly mailroom clerk is breakdancing and these two other clerks are duking it out Muhammad Ali style. And naked diving off of filing cabinets? Brother, you ain't seen naked dives off of filing cabinets until you've seen these plucky Brits doing it.

That's civil service, fuckers!

If you ask me, they should be investigating that office to see how other offices should be run to make them just as exciting.

Not only that, but if I were the British government I would look into marketing that shit properly. I'd put out a line of DVDs and call it "Civil Servants Gone Wild." How fucking cool would that be? Just 2 hours of naked clerks and office shlubs filling out paperwork and breakdancing.

So, governments of the free world, take note of this sexy little office in Newcastle. If you want to lure people to join the civil service or even if you want to improve the dreary experience of having to go to a government office make like the civil servants in Newcastle and bust a move, bitches.

Incidentally, where I work people have sex in the toilets all the time. We even have this one employee we call Betty Blumpkin, affectionately, I might add. Our breakdancing isn't quite as good, but we do manage to spin and twirl fast enough that our wangs make that slapping sound good and loud. Sounds pretty cool.

That's because I'm not in the civil service.

The Hottest Fashion Accessory For Your Ass Is Now Available

Click here.

Renova Black.

That's right, Renova Black.

What's Renova Black, you're wondering?

Well, idiot, Renova Black is quite simply "This season's must-have" according to the New York Times toilet paper critic. But what the fuck is it, you're still wondering.

It's black fucking toilet paper.

That's right, black fucking toilet paper.

All you chump sucka fools using three-ply white are all chump sucka fools because black is where it's at when it comes to toilet paper. This is a technological breakthrough. Finally, the tyranny of white toilet paper has come to an end, ending hundreds of years of apartheid in bathrooms across the world. Finally, the technology that allows us to have black toilet paper has been perfected.

Okay, first of all, why the fuck is this even considered groundbreaking? For years and years we've been able to put all kinds of shit on toilet paper, pun intended. We've had the faces of presidents we desise, names of countries we hate, and even Michael Jackson. Hell, I've even had a roll of toilet paper with pages of Mad Magazine printed on each square. You mean to tell me that with all of this great toilet paper being created we haven't once stopped to think, Hey, wait a second, why not black toilet paper?

But here's what really bothers me. The New York Times. Seriously, how fucking slow does a news day have to be before the New York Times exclaims, "This season's must-have" about black toilet paper. It's fucking toilet paper, morons, wipe your fucking ass with it and call it a day. It doesn't matter if it's white, black, purple, blue, or green, just wad up a fistful of it and start wiping before the diarrhea hardens.

Iraq?

Naw. Too ho-hum.

Our lunatic president?

Naw. Too predictable.

Brangelina?

Naw. It's been done.

Hey wait, I know. Let's get all over that black toilet paper craze that's sweeping the nation! Now that's newsworthy. Bump the impending nuclear armageddon to the lifestyle section and let's get that fucking black toilet paper page 1, front and center. Here's the fucking headline: Newspaper Editor Goes Batshit Crazy.

And, "This season's must-have"? What the fuck is that supposed to be? Does this all mean that next season there's going to be another hot toilet paper? Paper for your ass? Paper to wipe shit off your ass? Who the fuck goes to the toilet paper fashion shows? Who the fuck is a toilet paper designer by trade?

Awwww Crap, I Spoke Too Soon

Click here.

This weekend it is predicted that there will be a nuclear attack, which makes the number of the beast 696 or possibly 6106 depending on how you carry the remainder and/or apply the exponents.

I propose a week of binge drinking and/or whooping it up on Whyte Avenue as long as we can keep the Canadian Armed Forces from nuking us.

The End Is Nigh

Some bookies are offering 10-1 odds that the world is going to end tomorrow.

Click here.

The above link goes to an article that offers some insight into the true meaning of the number of the beast, 666.

And the one thing that I can't figure out after reading the article is why there is such a fuss over the date. Yeah, okay, 6th day of the 6th month of the 6th year past 2000, 6/6/06, I get it. What I don't get is why didn't the world come to an end on June 6, 0006, or June 6, 1006, or any other combinations that come up with that same "mark of the beast."

Anyway, I just thought I would bring this to your attention.

See you on Wednesday. I'll be the one in the festive hat that reads "See You Again In 1000 Years." Tools.

And Now, Michael Appleby Answers Some More Hypothetical Questions

Once again, from the book of If.

Q: If you were suddenly naked in front of everyone at work, what would you say to them?

A: "Suddenly naked"? I hate to answer the question with another question, but I take it that by "suddenly naked" it means that I wasn't expecting to be naked in front of my coworkers as though it was some sort of freak accident that robbed me of my clothes or some ninja sliced my clothes off with a kitana or something. There's such a wide array of instances that would render me "suddenly naked" and I doubt that many, if any of them at all, would be so seemingly normal so as to let me say to my coworkers something banal and obvious like, "Yes, this is my penis. Now get back to work before I slap you with it." Hmmmm...this is a good question because now in my mind I'm going through more and more occurrences that would make me naked suddenly. I think that my best remark about being rendered naked by a twist of fate in front of all my coworkers would have to be something impeccably timed and funny so as to draw attention away from my penis that would undoubtedly be reacting in its own way to the shock sudden and unexpected exposure and the casino's air conditioning. Then I would probably pick up the nearest phone, calmly dial a lawyer and get the wheels turning on a law suit against the casino for having the fucking air conditioning turned up so high that it robbed me of my dignity. Air conditioning does that to penises.

Q: If you were to be any famous person's personal masseuse, whose would you like to be?

A: There are a lot of possibilities for this question. On one hand I could go with the obvious and start naming all of these starlets with sexy backs. On the other hand I could name a whole list of morbidly obese celebrities (okay, the three or four of them who actually exist anymore) just so that, as a masseuse, I could make a better living because with a bigger back comes more overtime, and with more overtime comes better pay cheques and a better quality of life. Decisions. Decisions. Well, most starlets wouldn't give me the time of day anyway. I'm not saying that because I'm trying to be Mr. Oh-Isn't-He-So-Adorably-Humble, but because, come on, I'm a freakin' masseuse and since when do you see starlets dating masseuses? That's like dating a maid or a butler. Sure, there might be a starlet or two who could be desperate enough to have sex with a masseuse just to make their male celebrity love interest jealous or for headline fodder, but how often, realistically, is that going to happen? Nope, I'm going to have to choose to be the masseuse of the fattest celebrity around. But who would that be? Louie Anderson? Those world's fattest twins who ride motorcycles guys? Somebody like that. It doesn't matter who. I'm a masseuse by trade, not for the socializing. Hello pay cheque!

Q: If you could have hit any homerun in baseball history, which one would you choose?

A: Barry Bonds' #715. If I could be Barry Bonds, having spent most of my professional career juicing up (allegedly, he says *snicker*), I would have done #715 with a bit more bitterness. I mean, since you're all ready despised by everybody and made a villain by the media, why not go into the insane level of villainy and rip up a picture of Babe Ruth right at home plate as you cross it? That would be so cool. Because if everybody is intent on putting an asterisk beside your name you should do something else to make them remember you for more than just your footnote.

Q: If you had to go tonight to be tattooed, where on your body would you have it done and what image would you select?

A: I'd want to get Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" tattooed on my back. Since it's a really long poem it would have to be done in really small lettering. Does that count as an "image"?

Hockey Town

Click here (Not Safe For Work)
Click here (Safe For Work)

Above I've posted a couple of links to websites that are doing a good job of documenting the mayhem that is happening in Edmonton's famed Whyte Avenue party district during the 2006 NHL playoffs. BlueMile.ca is the not safe for work site and CopperMile.ca is the family-oriented site.

Anyway, Saturday was kind of a peak insofar as the rampage goes, with rioting on Whyte reaching a seeming apex what with the Oilers securing their spot in the Stanley Cup finals.

The best way to put, though, has to be the way that Mike Gravel put it here.

After reading his accounts of the frenzy I think that I might just have to go down there to Whyte at least once just to say that I was part of it. The planets are lining up for my little burg and if you blink you might just miss it.

I just hope that the crackdown in response to Saturday's festivities isn't too severe that it would prevent me from experiencing some of the madness firsthand.

It makes me wonder how much louder we can get if, nay, when we win the Stanley Cup.

The Bottom Ten, May 2006

10.) Capatin Obvious- Click here. And click here. The media has become aware of MySpace. Apparently, MySpace is a haven for sexual predators and terrorists. Gasp! Newsflash, fuckheads in the media, I bet all of those same sexual predators and terrorists have probably been to Google too! Oh my god! People of all kinds use the internet! I even have sneaking suspicions that terrorists and sexual deviants have access to email and telephones! How's that for scary news, morons?

9.) Energy Drinks- I haven't had that many energy drinks since they've become so popular so I'm not speaking from a huge amount of experience here, but is there one energy drink that doesn't taste like cat piss? Not that I know what cat piss tastes like, but come the fuck on. Every energy drink I've tried tastes terrible. I think it's that putrid fucking taste that gives people the real energy. Sure, you can blame it on the caffeine all you want, but that fucking taste alone will wake me up every time because immediately I need to clense my palate with something that doesn't make me fucking gag.

8.) Fucking Taxpayers' Whining- Okay, I know that I'm a taxpayer and I'm whining with this one in a way, but click here. 72-year-old mayor exchanging water bill discounts for sex? Fucking rights! I say that if you've put in the work to become the mayor of some shitwater-burg you should be well within your right to give out water bill discounts, sex or no sex. Not only that, but the geezer is 72 fucking years old, any woman who is willing to fuck him should get a water bill discount and a fucking sympathy basket for having to try to get off while looking at pasty old man flab riding you like some sort of palsy-ridden life-size statue of skeletor wrapped in a sheet of cookie dough. I don't know where the fuck I was going with that simile either. But fuck! 72-years-old! He probably had to have his viagra on some sort of IV drip and his personal nurse there to encourage him on:

Good job, sir. Awwwww, who's got a stiff wee-wee? That's right, it's Mr. Mayor! Be gentle with her, sir. Who's a stud? Who's a stud? Peek-A-Boo!

7.) People Who Talk To Geezers Like They're Toddlers- I know that when I hit the twilight of my life I sure as fuck don't want some hairy-moled nurse babbling at me like some kind of drooling fucktard. Just change my geezer diaper and get the fuck out of my sight. I want to watch daytime talk shows and bitch about celebrities all afternoon and you're cramping my style.

6.) Congress- Click here. Can't leave MySpace alone, can I? Apparently not. Neither can Congress. Seriously, though, it's one fucking site on a network of millions. It's like trying to bulldoze one part of town because a few bad people have been there. Bad people have been everywhere and we can't bulldoze the whole fucking city. Why not put more effort into proper education? An informed child is a safe child.

5.) Paris Hilton- She's definately an easy target, not only for me, but for anybody. Easy, that is, that target. Click here. Anyway, she apparently has a video game coming out. If there's one thing that should get the video game geeks of the world to buy that product it's the chance to be like Paris Hilton. All video game geeks would kill to be her. I'm all ready looking into pre-ordering that shit right up because I've always wondered what it would be like to be useless.

4.) Tampon Commercials- Okay, I've resigned to the fact that women have periods and, as such, there are corporations who have the tampon for them. Naturally, when you have shit to sell you need television commercials. But have you ever noticed how the women featured in the commercials are never appear irritable or moody? I'm no expert on women (amen to that, brother), but last time I checked quite a few women get irritable and moody around that time of the month. I'm not saying you have to have a thirty second commercial with a woman yelling at the cameraman that she's bloated, but, at the same time, don't bullshit the world into believing that all your customers are walking on cloud nine. But, then again, maybe I'm wrong. I'm no expert on women. And seriously, do you need that many commercials? They're all over the airwaves!

3.) The Beer Shortage- The outlook is getting quite grim around here? Have you made your pledge yet? If things keep up we'll have to resort to (gulp) hard liquor.

2.) Barbaro- The sports world was rocked by the news of racehorse Barbaro getting surgery done to repair broken bones in his ankle. I think this is clearly a marketing opportunity missed. Do you know how much you could ask for a bottle of glue made from Barbaro? A lot. I can see why you want to keep him alive for breeding and whatnot, but fuck, that would be some expensive glue. Think of the possibilities, people!

1.) Clueless Columnists- Click here. I'm all for the legalization of prostitution because it's easier to regulate who and who does not participate in the sex trade. This columnist suggests that legalization won't happen because the fun of prostitution stems from the fact that it's illegal. That's pretty dumb. If breaking the law was really the fun part of prostitution why would one go out of the way to spend money to break the law? People can "walk on the wild side" for free by breaking other laws. Steal a car. Pirate a stack of CDs. Go on a killing spree. You can call sex the fringe benefit all you want, but in reality it's the product for sale.

A Desperate Cry For Help

Click here.

As many of you know I live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. In fact, I've lived in the Edmonton area for all of my life. As such, the professional sports team that I follow most closely is the Edmonton Oilers.

Now, there may be a few of you out there who follow the National Hockey League with some interest. There are probably a few out there who follow it marginally, say, when they talk about scores on the local news or they catch headlines on the sports page. Then, there are probably a few of you out there who don't even know what the Edmonton Oilers are, what hockey is for that matter, where Canada is on the map, and, hey, what's that thumb doing up your ass?

Anyway, it's playoff time in the National Hockey League, and the Edmonton Oilers are going deep in the playoffs for the first time in a long time. It's been exciting watching the whole city rally around the home team. The air is electric. It's refreshing to watch Edmontonian riot in celebration with fellow Edmontonian. Edmontonians getting pepper-sprayed and stabbed with Edmontonians. The paradox of a huge ball of chaos, unified around a love of hockey and the Oilers.

Now, if you read the article I linked above you will see that our fair city is in a critical situation. The beer supply is running out. I never thought I would live to see the day that a beer loving burg such as ours would ever find itself running low on beer.

So I'm posting this with the hopes of calling out to all of Edmonton's neighbors, not only in Canada, but abroad. We need beer. Lots of it. Stat! If you have beer to spare please donate. For the cost of only pennies a day you can help ensure that Edmontonians will continue to revel in beer-fueled mayhem throughout the NHL playoffs and beyond. The city your money can help destroy may just be our own. Please donate.

Operators are standing by.

Please give.

Seriously, though, I couldn't be prouder to be an Edmontonian right now, riots or no riots. Kick some ass, Oilers!

You're Never Too Young To Start Manufacturing Crack

Click here.

Yep. Somewhere in Pennsylvania, some elementary school students have been suspended for the manufacturing and distribution of "Happy Crack." What is "Happy Crack" you ask? Well, it's Kool-Aid crystals mixed with sugar by these enterprising junior Tony Montanas and distributed in plastic bags.

Wait a minute. What the fuck?

Kool-Aid crystals? Perfectly legal.

Granulated sugar? Perfectly legal.

Kool-Aid crystals And granulated sugar? Suspension material.

What the fuck?

Okay, sure, one could argue that meth is manufactured from a lot of perfectly legal components, but come the fuck on, Kool-Aid crystals and sugar? I could probably inject that shit raw into my veins and maybe, just maybe, I'll be a bit hyper for an hour.

What's the street value of that shit anyway? Maybe $0.50 for 30 lbs? I'm just guessing here, but this certainly is a very poor drug dealing operation at best.

And I know that you're probably thinking that I'm admonishing the educational system for suspending students for this. But you know what? I'm all for the suspensions.

You have to teach kids right and "Happy Crack" just isn't going to ween addicts off of their other joneses. It's a slap in the face for the education system when they can't even get their students to start a profitable drug distribution ring. You have to suspend those little bastards so that next time they'll get it right.

Classic Michael Appleby

Broccoli Farts
“Starting a poem ‘Love is’
seems just so…so…so…
unoriginal,”
I say.

“Stop worrying about it and
just do it. Who gives a fuck?
You’re the artist, it’s your art.
Do what you want,”
She replies.

I love it when she swears,
but I haven’t told her that before.

And she lets one rip,
long and loud, thick like I can see it,
a fart with dreams of world domination,
a war trumpet of the intestinal tract.
Giggles, then starts to billow the sheets
‘til we’re bathed in methane.

And really, I’m not reminded of dinner.

I’m imagining the scents of jasmine and lavender.
Detections of red rose,
white oleander.

Okay, maybe not.

But I abide. I don’t care.
I’m used to her scent by now.

And I let one roar of my own,
deep like a foghorn,
cutting through bedding
like an ocean liner through the mist.

She groans
and I reciprocate
by billowing the sheets some more.

“Take that,”
I quip.

And before I know it
I’ve rolled over to turn on the bedside lamp,
letting me scratch in my notebook:

Love is the broccoli farts
we feel wash over our skin
as welcomed matching
one piece footy pajamas
and we don’t care.
We’ll wear them with pride.

-Michael Appleby
October, 2004

But Is It Art?

Britney has spoken up about the sculpture in the picture above. Yes, it is a picture of an actual sculpture of actual Britney fucking Spears giving actual fucking birth while clutching a fucking wolf's head, which, if all the accounts of the birthing Baby Cletus Federline Jr. I've read are true, is, in fact, how it happened, Britney on all fours, clutching a wolf's head and shooting out spawn like a potato gun. The sculpture is supposed to be a pro-life artistic statement of some sort and can be seen at the Capla Kesting Fine Art gallery in Brooklyn. So if you're interested in seeing a very unusual piece of art do make your way to Brooklyn to check out "Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston."

Britney says that she was "dumbfounded" by the sculpture and I'm going to avoid any clearly obvious jokes about Britney being "dumbfounded" by anything because that's just too easy.

I will, however, ponder this thing as best as I can from only having a picture of the actual piece as opposed to the piece itself.

First off, why Britney to make your pro-life statement. I mean, if you're so interested in jumping on the "every sperm is sacred" (god bless you Monty Python) movement bandwagon, why do it with a sculpture of Britney Spears giving birth? It seems to me that if you wanted to make people viewing your sculpture think that preserving all the sperm and eggs you can is the way to go you'd be better off to depict a woman whom people revere giving birth so that you can think, "Holy fuck I'm glad that woman didn't abort when she had the chance." Maybe the artist views Britney as being that woman worthy of reverence. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I really don't have a lot of respect for any work that Britney has done so I'm probably not going to look at her ejecting another materialistic celebrity baby out into the world as being a pro-life-sculpture-worthy-event (is that even a proper word with all those hyphens?).

But what do you think? When you look at that statue (is it considered a statue?) do you suddenly feel compelled to want to hug a fetus? Maybe you do. I think the message is lost on me because of how I regard the pop princess. Is that the point?

I suppose this makes it a very good piece of art because it's doing its job. It's provoking people to think. It's definitely a provocative piece.

And does anybody else wonder if it would be at all possible to get a coffee table made out of a replica of that sculpture? That would be a fucking thought-provoking surface for any living room or den.

Yep, just go right on ahead and set your beer down on Britney's back there. What? The spawn crawling out of her gaping vagina is ruining your appetite, you say? You're supposed to look at it and think that life is great, Dave. Hey wait, were you brought up in a fucking barn, asshole?! You gotta use a fucking coaster for this shit. It's a replica piece of modern pro-life art coffee table, not some milk crate from out of the dumpster. Show some fucking respect to the biological processes! Fuck!

10,000 Days

So yesterday, as many of you may or may not have known if you are regular visitors to this blog, was the official release date of Tool's latest album 10,000 Days. As you may have guessed from my semi-regular countdown leading up to the release date, I was the kind of Tool fan who had to make his way down to Best Buy the day of to get my grubby little paws on the new offering.

After having listened to it I can say that, musically, it's unlike anything else I've ever heard. You know what? The texture of their music seems to only get richer with each album. The massive sound that four guys can produce never ceases to amaze me. I do think that from my first experiences with this disc that the song structures are the most non-traditional song structures they've ever done. It's just amazing to listen to.

I'm still on the fence as to whether or not it tops Lateralus, if it will top Lateralus, or if it even should try to top Lateralus.

You should definitely check it out if you get a chance. It's a powerful piece of music.

Also, before I forget....

Happy Birthdays Nadine, Darcy, Ian, and Cory. See you soon, hopefully.

Peace out folks. Will post more later.

Confessing The Miracle

10,000 Days is tomorrow!

I thought for a change we would take a trip down memory lane. It's also somewhat of a confessional for me so that you can get a better idea of the kind of man I am.

Now I wasn't always the metropolitan cultural demi-god that regularly updates an internet blog with stories of donkey punching, mushroom stamping, and Cleveland steamers. Once upon a time yours truly found himself growing up in a very small town in Alberta that shall go nameless for the purposes of this post. Why nameless, you ask? Really, this is a story that could come out of just about any small Alberta town, so keeping my hometown nameless makes it just a bit more universal. Secondly, by "universal" I mean "universally shameful." Many of you who know me on a personal level know which town I'm from and can probably remember this story. For those of you who absolutely have to know the name of my town and if there are any corroborating photographs documenting the following you only need to ask and I will most likely provide you with all the answers I can give (well, not so much with photographs because that would just be sick on so many levels as you will soon see).

In my high school days I was quite a scholar. As such I earned a lot of credits toward my high school diploma early on, which meant that I didn't have to take as many courses in my later high school years, meaning I ended up with gaps in my school schedule, which we called spares, all the time. One year (I can't remember which year it was exactly as it was, indeed, a long, long time ago and seemingly in a galaxy far, far away), during one of my spares, I found a source a secret shame, not so much for me, but for my hometown. I didn't really realize how profoundly it would affect my life from there on in.

I want to tell you about the Miracle In Stall 1.

See? Now while many of you out there who visit this site might not get an instant mental image of where they were when the Miracle In Stall 1 happened, I bet there are probably a few of you out there who recall it like it was only yesterday. It's funny how some things just become a part of your identity that you never thought could become such a defining moment in your life.

Back to my spares. So there I was sitting in the school's student lounge. To give you an idea of how big my school was, it was educating 248 students from grades 7, through 12. A lot of graduating classes in urban areas were bigger than the entire student population in our dinky little backwoods school, but that's more of a descriptive aside. And I was sitting with Larry and Martin, a couple of buddies whom I was fortunate enough to have spares with at the time and Larry excused himself to go to the washroom as he was wont to do when he had to perform bodily functions because even though he was from a dinky little Alberta town he wasn't incontinent.

After a minute or two an exasperated Larry ran back to the student lounge to inform Martin and me of something he had discovered floating in the toilet in one of the stalls in the washroom. He had found what would later be referred to in hushed tones of reverence and marvel around my town from then on as The Miracle In Stall 1. Now, when I had first heard of the miracle I actually could not bring myself to actually go and view it, but from how Larry described it, it was, indeed, a piece of human fecal matter that was about the size of a baby's arm, and thick like a deli salami. The reason why I couldn't bring myself to go and view the miracle was partly because staring at somebody else's shit makes me want to gag and, more importantly, it was a piece of shit and really not something that should be held in such high regard as to turn it into a public exhibition.

So anyway, I could overlook the fact that there were already a few people who were gathering yon washroom to take a gander at the huge log left behind by some anonymous gargantuan of a man, but it got to a point where classes were getting interupted as kids just had to go and see this huge piece of shit that everybody was talking about.

That's one of those moments when I decided that I was going to evolve into somebody rather scholarly. Because there I was, a resident in a town that would, in all likelihood, bronze a large piece of fecal matter, mount it on a plaque, and turn it into some sort of point of interest for locals and tourists alike.

[insert town name here]: Home of the Human Miracle in Stall 1!


Larry talked of giving sober consideration to rescuing it from its toilet prison and preserving it for posterity. The school janitor spoke of how badly it clogged the toilet when at last the novelty of a huge piece of shit in a toilet had worn off and the curious bystander traffic to the boy's washroom had diminished somewhat. I suppose it doesn't matter what actually happened to that huge, huge turd. But it was kind of an earth-shattering moment if you think about it. If it had never happened I probably would not have been as put-off by small town life as I was in the aftermath and you might never have seen me move to the city. If that had never happened I might never have really learned to do something with the English language (sure, I wrote a lot back then, but not nearly as well as I can sling words now), and, if that had never happened, I probably would not have started this blog, or if I had it would probably be some kind of internet shrine to a huge steaming turd that's been bronzed and mounted on a commemorative plaque over the toilet in Stall 1.

Somewhere in a parallel universe that is exactly what happened in my hometown. In that parallel universe the town stopped championing cartoons and it started championing fibre diets, staying regular, larger toilets, and distended rectums. Elsewhere, in some other parallel universe that piece of shit was flushed successfully, got lodged somewhere in the sewer system and became a sort of niche for millions microbes, becoming, in essence, a living organism unto itself, maybe kind of like the Great Barrier Reef of shit, or maybe sprouting legs and evolving into some sort of entirely new organism, making the man who took the giant dump in the first place a sort of catalyst for new life forms to emerge.

And sometimes, and this is in this universe, you can sometimes go to my hometown and utter the words Miracle In Stall 1 and somebody in your vicinity will not only know what you are talking about, but they will probably acknowledge it with their own tale of where they were when they first heard that it happened kind of like people remember where they were when they learned JFK was assassinated of Lady Di died in a car accident. Except it would all be about somebody's giant B.M.

And, begrudgingly, I owe a lot of who I am to that lump of human misery. In a way it made me who I am today.

So whoever you are, mystery layer of said baby's-arm-long, thick-as-a-deli-salami, piece of shit, you have my gratitude for making me want to flee to the city all those years ago.

Thank you.

Thank You

4 days until 10,000 Days.

This is just a brief post before I go to bed. I just wanted to quickly write a note to all the people who have given me their support during the latest reading series put on by the Raving Poets, "Rock The Kasbar." The series finale was last night and it was one of those rare instances in which a cash prize of $300.00, known as the Golden Fez Award, was up for grabs to the best poet of the night according to a panel of celebrity judges.

In the weeks leading up to the finale the top two poets of each reading, as voted by the audience members, were given guaranteed spots in the final show with a choice of where on the reading order they wanted to appear. I secured my spot on the first night of audience voting. The other poets who secured spots were J.D. Lavender, Phil Jagger, Aaron Evringham, Jadon Rempel, and Michelle Rempel. I got third pick of where I would read in the order and, seeing that the last spot, a spot that has been notoriously lucky for me through the years, was open, I took up my favorite spot. It was actually very intense for me to sit through the rest of the reading order because every poet was bringing out these amazing poems. In my mind I was pretty sure there was no way that I could possibly win and in my mind I still can't figure out how I did it, but I did it.

So, thank you to everybody who showed their support of my work. It has meant a lot and always will. To the other poets who were part of that show, it really could have been any one of us receiving that generous cash prize at the end of the night. Like I said, I was pretty sure that I was beat even before I got up there behind the mic.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you all.

As for the poem itself. I have to do some brushing up on it and my plans are to put it up on my little corner of the Raving Poets website. The title of the poem was "King Handlebars" and it was about a man and his moustache and so much more (or at least that's what I was trying to do with it).

I'll resume my normal posting schedule. Thank you once again.

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!