Un-Rated, Extreme, Couldn't Show You This In The Theater Versions!

Coming soon to DVD, see the version of the movie that was too extreme to see in theaters. We're talking unrated, over-the-top footage that we could never slip by the censors. That's why this version is UN-RATED!

Increasiningly, I am getting annoyed with words like these being used to describe upcoming DVD releases. When I first started seeing "Un-Rated" DVD advertisements on television I used to think, Wow, that's going to be hot. There's probably going to people fucking and tits and ass all over the place. They'll probably have to end up selling the movie in a porno shop. But you know what? I watched a few of them and I began to see a fucking pattern. The movies were never really that extreme.

In fact, watching most of the so-called "Un-Rated" versions of the movies I couldn't even figure out why censors wouldn't let them run all the "extreme" footage. At most it would garner a movie an R rating, which really wouldn't put it over the top with the censors. It would just be an R rating. Big fucking deal. But you listen to the advertising and you'd think that it would cause most censors to commit suicide for desensitizing them so much to extreme footage that it would jeopardize their careers.

Now, that's not to say that all "Un-Rated" DVDs don't have some footage that would probably get red-lighted by a censor. What I am saying is that there is a trend now for more and more movies that are, for all intents and purposes, tame to get slapped with the "Un-Rated" label when they're marketing the DVD version just for the appeal of looking like a movie with balls.

Will Hollywood listen to me and stop with the "Un-Rated" hype? No, but I can complain about it here. Unless it has Tara Reid's nipple scar up close and personal it's probably not that extreme that I can't handle seeing it. Seriously, she should apply some foundation to that thing and at least try to make it look natural. Guh!

I'm just saying is all.

At Least We Have That Nipple Problem Under Control

Click here.

Yes, that's right. In the news today is Tara Reid who has now gone on record as saying that she has her "hooters under control" a year after inadvertently flashing a horribly scarred nipple on the red carpet at P Diddy/Puff Diddy/Diddy Puff Puff/Puff Daddy Piff/Pufferino Didderino/or that media mogul's current name is (I'll update as his current name barometer dicatates), anyway, that guy's 35th birthday party last year. First off, I need to hire a new publicist because I sorely need a red carpet and nipples at my next birthday party even if they are horribly scarred like from a Frankenstein movie (the nipples I mean, not the red carpet). Secondly, how the fuck does this even qualify as news? Holy shit! Are we so starved for an actual news story that Tara Reid declaring to the world that she's got her shit taped up and her scar tissue won't be haunting the dreams of prepubescent boys who thought googling "Tara Reid naked boobs" would be the source of all that was cool is actually considered a newsworthy item.

Ronny, stop the presses, quick! Tara Reid is holding a fucking press conference about her Frankentits! What's that you got on the front page? Horrible massacre in the Middle East? Thousands dead in flood ravaged and hurricane battered gulf coast? Fuck that, man! We've got a Pulitzer to rake in with Tara Reid's titties! Quick, get me Laurie Garrett on the horn! We need high calibre talent to cover this, stat! Where's my fucking coffee? This is going to be an all-nighter!

Okay, okay, I acknowledge the fact that showbiz news is showbiz news and in the western culture showbiz news if headline news. But, you better believe it that I can bitch about it.

Here in Edmonton, for example, we currently have in our midst Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie! Oh my fucking god! Everywhere they go in this town it's a fucking circus.

Today, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were spotted in a Safeway buying groceries. Check out our exclusive footage of the Hollywood mega-couple seeing the best that our fair city has to offer. Still to come: how photographing Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie with a disposable camera could net two teenage girls tens of thousands of dollars from the American media. Later: thousands dead in huge motherfucking hurricane that has wiped out the Gulf Coast and caused gas prices to rise to astronomical heights, time permitting.

Don't get me wrong, our celebrity worship is great. Hooray for celebrities and their tits and their groceries, but, really, are we that deprived of an exciting world that seeing candid photos of the Crocodile Hunter taking a dump on a $13.00 hooker's chest really that noteworthy? Is it any wonder that so many celebrities go on shotgun murder sprees in crowded shopping malls what with all this media scrutiny that they face with every single thing that they do?

I'm not saying that we have to excise all celebrity news from our media, but we should really examine our priorities. Hey, I love a good nipple story just like everybody else, but come on! Every fucking day?

But Michael, aren't you being a bit of a hypocrite? I mean, you blog endlessly about celebrities when you could be focusing your attention on bringing us the real news in the world.

Well, well, aren't you clever? First off, blogging does not equal news. I'm not a newscaster. I just swear a lot. Secondly, this seems to be all the shit I can find. I'm getting all this shit second hand. If there was more critical news in my reading diet I would write more about critical news and I would find an amusing way to incorporate nipples into it because I don't think we could cut nipples out of our diet cold turkey and I care about the habits of my readers.

Also, Hugh Hefner, you're offering Tara Reid millions to pose nude for Playboy? What the fuck? Did you see the frankentits? Nothing against fake boobs, but you're going to need a bigger Photoshop to smooth those nipples out.

Relegated to the back page? Tom Delay indicted. But at least we have nipple problem under control.

"Reality" Television Part 2

So, okay, there is more that I wanted to say about this bullshit.

I mean can you picture the producers of the reality show in question talking to the families.




Okay, punk family...

We're not punks.

For our show you are. Just act really punk. I mean people have to know that you're the epitome of punk. Say, how would you feel about Junior getting a mohawk and cussing out Jesus a little bit. Our research has shown that people who wear mohawks and cuss out Jesus a little are definitely more punk than just being an aver 10-year-old boy.

But I love Jesus and my friends will laugh at me if I get a mohawk.

Look, we need a punk rock family, are you in or not? There are literally thousands of families who would jump at the opportunity that I am now just placing right in your lap. So you have to cuss out Jesus a little and look kind of silly, big deal. Wouldn't it all be worth it if, say, we gave you jet-skis?

But we don't even live near a lake and I hate the water.

That's great! So I'll just need you to sign here and we'll put you on t.v. just as soon as our image consultant is happy with the punk rock look you're totally going to pull off!

But my favorite is Lawrence Welk; he's not punk rock.

Shut it, kid! Just do this little bitty thing for us and you'll get your very own jet-ski.




But now imagine if they had tried that same shit with a true punk rock god.

Network Executive Type:
So, punk rock family...

Iggy Pop:
We're not "punk rock family". We're family and I'll fucking drink soup out of your fucking skull you shit-stain corporate weasel if you try to fuck with us.

Netword Executive Type
Mr. Pop, we would never dream of "fucking" with you. We just want to make sure that you're up-to-snuff on what we need from you and your family to make our wife-swapping reality based show the best show that it can be.

Iggy Pop lunges across the table and crushes Network Executive Type with his abs.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the network executive types picked for this show what appears to be the most docile family of punks I've ever seen. It's like a friendly, more conformist breed of punk. And that's what makes no sense. How can something be its own antithesis?

Hi, we're the punk family. We've brought you a lovely bouquet of wild flowers and a gift basket filled with jams and jellies from around the world. We hope you love living in our neighborhood. Be sure to watch for us on network television this fall. We're participating in a reality based television show in which we swap wives with a clean-cut family. It promises to be wacky. And we love wacky because we're a wacky bunch of punks rockers, aren't we kids?

YAY!

Bah! They should have put me on the wife-swapping show. Of course, I don't have a wife, but I would make everybody in my surrogate family sit around and bitch about all the shit that they are powerless to change. It promises to be the most depressing, profanity laden fucking show on television. Come on, fuckers, give a guy a chance!

"Reality" Television

So, tonight, I was flipping through the channels on cable just to kill some time before I hit the gym (I'm a late night athlete, don't you know) and I found a reality television show that caught my eye. Basically, it was one of those shows where two households swap wives just to see what kind of wacky mayhem will ensue. This particular episode was one of those ones that really looks for contrast between the two families. One family was the clean-cut, baseball loving loving family and the other one was supposed to be the prototypical punk rock family who live in what appears to be Satan's den. Of course, you just know there's going to be some wackiness ensuing on this shit.

Sadly, I was only able to stomach watching the fucking show for about 10 minutes before it irritated me so much that I had to turn it off. But then I began to think about it a little. Something was definitely bothering me about what I had just seen.

The 10 minutes or so that I watched revolved around the mothers laying down the rules for their new surrogate families. Naturally, the punk mother was bent on getting the clean-cut family to cast of the shackles of conformity and told them that they would be attending a punk rock concert. And, of course, the clean-cut mother told all the punk rockers that they would clean up their act and that junior would have to get rid of his mohawk and black clothes so that he could go to a batting cage and practice his baseball technique. This was totally fucking wacky.

But you know what it was that was bothering me about all this shit? I could not think of any punk rock loving family that would put forth the effort to appear on a reality television show. And not only that, but I don't really know of any punk rock families. That is to say that I know of people who are into punk music, but you don't really see whole families embodying the punk ethos. It seemed kind of surreal. It didn't seem to make sense.

So I began to wonder, then, if, in fact, any of this show was real. Oh sure, they call it reality television and they do all that candid interview shit, but could it really be scripted and performed by paid actors? Of course it can. I would have an easier time believing a script with a punk rock family who would conform enough to want to appear on a major network reality television show than a reality where punk families are clamoring over themselves to appear on network t.v. Doesn't that seem odd to you, too?

Fuck. And the worst part of all of this is that here I am expounding on a fucking t.v. show that I don't even like just because it bugs the shit out of me how stereotypical the people participating it all seemed to be.

But Michael, sometimes the stereotypes are true. There are, in fact, punk families and there are probably punk families who would love nothing more than to be on a wife-swapping television show just so that they can be wacky for the whole nation.

Now I don't claim to be some hardcore punk. If you saw me you'd probably swear that I was exact opposite of a punk. So it kind of bothers me that I would profess to know anything about what the punk rock ethos is. But I was always under the impression that punk was about non-conformity. It was about being the counter-culture.

I'm not sure how appearing on a reality television show helps punks, but more power to them.

Interrogating Brodie...An In Depth Interview With Canada's Sweetheart

Recently, while on a bender in Tijuana I had chance to catch up with Canada's Sweetheart, Brodie Millar. I thought that, as per my promises in the comments, it would behoof me to follow through and provide you, my readers, with the world's first interview with this enigmatic character who had the unique sense of vision to donate 13 dozen boxes of Always Extra Absorbent to the relief efforts in New Orleans. What follows is a shocking dialogue not for the faint of heart.

Michael:
Okay, then. So for the record, what is your name?
Brodie:
Brodie "Sexy Beast" Millar
Michael:
Very nice. So how did you come by the nickname "Sexy Beast" or is it more of a very progressive middle name given to you by your parents?
Brodie:
No, no. My parents would never give me the name "Sexy Beast" - that's just wrong! It was a name given to me by my previous girlfriend Lucia, a 48 year old crack-whore from 97th Street... ahh I miss being 14.
Michael:
Lucia? From 97th Street? I dated her when I was 15! Wow, what a small world this is! To think, all those times that she said she was going to take her "Sexy Beast" for a walk I thought she was talking about her dog and I would say, "Okay then, see ya!" Wow.
Brodie:
Wow, really? I never knew that.
Michael:
Did you ever meet Fernando? That was her pimp for a while? He used to smack her around with ruler for a while.
Brodie:
Ah yes, I met Fernando... what a crazy fellow he was (and still is).
Michael:
So, do you have a personal motto that you live by?
Brodie:
No motto really... I just try to live each day as it comes, always striving to be my personal best and as always keep my genital herpes under control... Damn B-Day present from Lucia! I thought it was cologne!
Michael:
Does it itch?
Brodie:
Only on the first Tuesday of every other month... Other then that it's great!
Michael:
Lovely. Do you have any favorite authors or artists to recommend to your fans out there?
Brodie:
I don't support art or so-called "artists". They are too free-thinking for my liking - propelling the expansion of communism in our society!
Michael:
Those damn communists! So do you have any words of advice for, say, a 12-year-old indonesian boy with dreams of porno movie stardom?
Brodie:
My advice is: Viagra, Viagra, Viagra! Nothing better to keep a young man "going" if you know what I mean... I know from experience.
Michael:
Perfect. I'll let Ping Lau know what you said. So, some of the sexy women readers out there have been dying to know....baked or mashed potatoes?
Brodie:
Mashed, definetly mashed... Much better to use as a lubricant in the love-making process. The baked potato just gets in the way and causes "slippage". But I must say, those bacon bits on the baked potato are something that everyone must experience at least once while fornicating with their respective loved one
Brodie:
mmm... I'm starting to get hungry and turned on... Strange how a mashed potato conversation can do that to someone
Michael:
I'm sure the female readers appreciate it greatly. So do you have any final bit of wisdom to impart on the readers before I wrap this up?
Brodie:
Live long, laugh often and learn to respect the potato!
Michael:
Excellent...thank you very much

Sexiness And Fast Food Commercials Do Not Compute

In the news today was this. Click here. Oh, for fuck's sake, it's just a little tiny article about an ad campaign in Japan for McDonald's restaurants designed to be sexy. I swear, some of you people too fucking lazy to keep breathing sometimes. For those of you who actually took the time to read the article, thank you, for letting me save some time and space by not making me recap it all for you.

So there you have it, McDonald's is launching a new sexy ad campaign in Japan. I'm not entirely sure how you people think about it.

Michael, a hot chick in a dress made to look like Ronald McDonald's iconic costume is still a hot chick. She can dip my Man McNuggets any day.


It's called pornography, people, it's all over the fucking place on the internet. If you're that hard up for some sexy women, many of who don't wear even a single stitch of clothing, look that shit up. It's so depressing seeing people turning to McDonald's commercials for titillation. I mean, seriously, there's not really much that can appear in a commercial that could possibly provide that much stimulation, erotic or otherwise.

Not only that, but consider the possibility that if it comes from McDonald's it's probably swimming in grease, making you obese, and giving you heart disease. Chew on that while you try to ogle the sexy woman in the ad. If you think hard enough you might just hear her arteries clogging. How's that for sexy?

And no matter what, all this seems like some sort of response to a Burger King ad that featured Paris Hilton fellating a Whopper, or, at the very least, dry humping it. She sure as fuck wasn't eating it because I've snapped into Slim Jims with more meat than her. It's kind of like an arms race between burger superpowers. What I don't understand is why the fuck would McDonald's even break a sweat trying to one-up a commercial featuring Paris Hilton. News flash world: Paris Hilton is a media whore and nothing she does is worth batting an eye at unless it's finally to eat a damn sandwich already.

But Michael, Paris Hilton only wants to spread joy to the world through her lovable antics and free spirit.

Shut up. It's people like you who allowed this media monster to become as big as she is. And now we have every fucking greasy ass burger joint paying homage to her bullshit with ad campaigns that have nothing the fuck to do with food. If you really want to impress me, you fucking burger magnates, why not start by paying your acne scarred front line workers a bigger piece of the profits and research better food preparation techniques so that your clientele doesn't have to die young to enjoy your "food"?

It's great to see that the money is being earmarked just right with these greedy assholes.

The Bottom Ten, September, 2005

Here at Michael Appleby Technologies Inc. we are always looking for new and exciting ways to indoctrinate you, the masses. Tonight we present to you the first of what we hope will be many top ten lists. This list, however, is the bottom ten. The bottom ten what? Who the fuck knows. So sit back and enjoy the best of the worst.

10.) Signing one's name with an 'X'- I've come to the conclusion that there is good pretentiousness and bad pretentiousness. Signing your name with an 'X' falls into the latter category because it's been done before and probably by better people. This does not apply, however, if your name is Xavier, Xerxes, or Malcolm X.

9.) Neckbeards- See also: titbeards. I mean, seriously, it ceases to be considered facial hair if it's only sprouting out of your neck and/or man-breast.

8.) Answering machine messages that go "Hello?"- It was funny the first 3000 times this was done by clever assholes everywhere. Now it's time to move on.

7.) Wazzzzzzzzzup- Conversely, this is a fad that died altogether too quickly and I could easily listen to this another 3000 times before I might begin to think You know, maybe it's just not that funny anymore. We really need to bring this one back for an encore.

6.) Rock Star: INXS- Although it's great to see a Canadian guy winning the competition there's a part of me that gets the heebie-jeebies thinking that if Michael Hutchence wouldn't have committed suicide there would have been no justification for the competition in the first place. What's next? Renaissance Man: Leonardo, the reality t.v. show in which we, the audience, decide who gets to pick up where the late great Leonardo da Vinci left off when he kicked the bucket? You see? You can't just have a television audience pick some random fool to take the place of an artist. Once the artist is gone he/she is gone. That's it. It scares me to think that someday after ol' Michael Appleby suffocates while performing cunnilingus for 17 hours straight in a futile attempt at setting a world record some asshole is just going to take over my blog and write bottom ten lists of his own and they'll probably suck ass. Fuck. I've got to make plans to live forever.

5.) Ashlee Simpson- See also: titbeard. It ceases to be considered a singer when it's caught mid-lip-synch.

4.) Hand soap in public washrooms that is dispensed pre-lathered- I can't help but wonder about who is standing on some assembly line in a factory somewhere lathering soap up on his hands, scraping it off with a butterknife into a baggy, and then shipping it off so it can be placed in soap dispensers in public washrooms everywhere. One day somebody is going to find pubic hair in that pre-lathered soap and I'm going to seriously consider giving up the practice of washing my hands entirely.

3.) The television commercial advertising the genital herpes perfume- Okay, this one is obscure, but you can google a combination of the words genital, herpes, commercial, perfume, and bottle together to find a more in depth description of the commercial. Basically, though, some woman gets a romantic gift from her lover and it would appear to be a nice bottle of perfume until you see the label reads "Genital Herpes." First off: Worst Gift Ever! Secondly: The Genital Herpes fragrance would probably enjoy brisker sales if Britney Spears actually made an appearance in the damn commercial. Genital Herpes is one of her products, isn't it?

2.) Remakes- It seems like 67% of major box office releases these days are remakes of older movies. Only 12% of those remakes are actually tolerable. Of those 12% maybe 2 are movies that won't drive you running right up to the big screen and pissing on it out of spite. I swear, Hollywood, give me a million dollars and I'll deliver to you a memorable script about a man who finds forbidden love with conjoined kangaroos. I'll even write a part in it for that delightful scamp Andy Dick; he loves to appear in just about anything.

1.) Nascar- Yeah, okay. I get it, you guys love turning left so much you made a whole sport built around it. You never really get to appreciate just how densely populated (double entendre intended) the south really is until you watch a Nascar race on t.v.

Cockposturing

Listening to Matt calling down after me

in the stairwell.

Matt, whom I came to visit tonight.

Matt, who bawls remarkably fast

for somebody’s who’s permanently numb.

Matt, whose apartment reeks of pot.

Matt, whose front teeth I knocked out

with the base of a lamp

shaped like Elvis.

Matt, whose loud music drowned out the screams.

Listening to Matt calling down after me

in the stairwell,

he’s almost gurgling the words:

You fuck!

You fuck!

You don’t know how to take care of a fucking woman!

You gotta keep that bitch on a leash!

You hear me?

Remember how I told you that I hadn’t seen her in weeks?

Huh?

You remember that shit?

I fucking lied!

She’s come for lines two or three times

and I even gave her a free one

for leaving your psycho ass, you fuck!

And I watch the tiny droplets of blood

being sprayed out of his mouth

rain down the middle of the stairwell

most likely laced with an STD or two.

And he knows that I can hear him

from three of four flights down

from the ceasing of my footsteps.

You fuck!

You don’t know who you’re fucking with here!

Yeah, you fucking hurt me!

But you know what?

I’ll fucking kill you!

I’m Krakatoa, motherfucker!

I’m fucking Vesuvius

all up in here!

You don’t know who you’re fucking with!

You don’t know who you’re fucking with!

I’ll Hiroshima your fucking ass!

Be prepared, motherfucker,

Be prepared.

Listening to Matt’s cockposturing

calling down after me

in the stairwell of his apartment building,

wondering if I should just turn around

and pay him another visit.

System Of A Down / The Mars Volta 09/20/05

Last night I was in attendance at Rexall Place here in Edmonton as The Mars Volta and System Of A Down took the stage in concert. The air was pretty electric last night with a crowd that was going rabid with raw energy. Both bands put on huge performances and I recalled many times feeling like the bass of the drumming was going to implode my chest. I had a great view of the whole crowd and the stage and I especially loved watching all those crazy people jumping over the boards to join the general admission people on the floor much to the chagrin of the event security team, who tackled and manhandled them all. Between watching people getting nabbed by security and the absolutely hynotizing lighting it was a treat. Hands down, for me, though, was when System Of A Down played "Prison Song," which was punctuated by strobing lights and Serj Tankian's bellowing at its best.

If you remember a comment that I had made in a previous post you'll know that I didn't like Daron Malakian's voice very much on the latest SOAD offering Mezmerize, but I have to admit that hearing him sing live has really converted me. What I could hear last night was a nice foil to Tankian's bellowing and now when I listen to Mezmerize I'm not as put off by the screeching of Malakian. Malakian was featured prominently throughout the SOAD set, introducing many of the songs almost like a balladeer were performing classics from their catalogue and even a couple of covers in the form of Neil Young's "Hey, Hey, My, My" and Dire Straits' "Sultans Of Swing."

It was a beautiful night to be sure.

A Very Special Post

Massive Missives has no passed the 1000 pageloads milestone. That's right, 1000 people have loaded up this page (may god have mercy on your souls). A lot of laughs have been had. Tom Sizemore has been berated. We've learned that Kevin Federline is a douche-bag. But, most importantly, you've given me something to brag about around the water cooler at work.

Hey guys, guess what, my blog just passed 1000 visitors yesterday!

Who are you?

Bless all of you who have made this experiment in my own vanity worth it.

Here's to another 1000!

World Records

For me to go on record as saying that many of the world records we read about or hear about in the news are odd, at best, and probably not even worth wasting time in learning would come as no fucking surprise to anybody.

Bravo, assclown, you've just made a revelation! World records are sometimes weird?!?!?! Stop the fucking presses, Michael has made a most brilliant discovery!

Shut up.

Somewhere in Serbia a new record has been set for the world's largest hamburger. How big is the burger, you ask? Well, the fucking thing weighs in at about 62 pounds or at about the combined weight of the Olsen twins.

It's shit like this that bugs me. The world's largest hamburger weighs 62 pounds? Why is that even considered a hamburger? Who the fuck is going to chow down on a 62 pound hamburger? Does he want fries with that clogged artery? Okay, okay, I get it, you've made a giant fucking hamburger and it's pretty much impossible to anybody to fit in an above average mouth. Even the biggest fucking mouth in the world (Joan Rivers according to The Michael Appleby Book Of World Records) couldn't get that down and since it's Joan Rivers she'd probably self-induce vomitting shortly thereafter. The point is, though, shouldn't a hamburger technically be considered something that one person could eat in one sitting, possibly two if he takes part of it home in a doggy bag or shit like that? Anything more than that transcends the hamburger status and becomes...well, I don't know what the fuck it becomes, but it's too fucking big to be a hamburger.

If that can be considered a hamburger I'm just going to slap two sesame seed buns on either side of a fucking cow and call that shit a hamburger, extra rare. There's your world record, bitches, hundreds of fucking pounds depending on how big the cow is.

See? See how fucking obscure and pointless some of these records get? Why the fuck would anybody need to know this?

And the especially sad part is that there are people who get paid way more money than I do to sit around and measure all these world record hamburger attempts and put it down in some fucking book for a year before somebody goes Oh fuck, I can just dump three jersey cows into a giant woodchipper, make a patty out of that shit and voila, my name's in the fucking book. Then the whole process of me getting pissed off about this kind of stuff making the news starts again as the world record people go to some obscure town to verify the existence of a three jersey hamburger and to weigh it all out. And since nobody can eat it because it's too fucking big they'll probably just toss it out in the garbage after a few weeks after it attracts flies by the thousands. And if you listen closely you might just hear the stomachs of, literally, millions of people who can't get a fucking quarter pounder with cheese in their countries.

But at least we have that world record hamburger to ponder for another year.

Corporate Scum

Click here to read an article I discovered while browsing on Fark.

For those of who yet again prove to be too lazy to click the links I provide I'll sum it up a little. Basically, a Winnipeg man is currently perfecting a peripheral that would attach to a car's engine and, through a series of chemical reactions, provide a supply of hydrogen and oxygen to the engine's combustion chamber, greatly improving fuel mileage and making for a much cleaner, environmentally speaking, burn. In fact, the numbers that the man tosses around in the article are so impressive, at least to me, that it almost seems too good to be true. Reading stuff like this makes me very excited and optimistic for the road ahead for humanity.

But then there's the cynical side of me that speaks up. Is better fuel mileage really what the big oil companies of the world want? I mean, could it be that if we could squeeze more and more miles out of a tank of gas that the oil companies would lose money based on the fact that our repeated trips to the gas pumps as it is are keeping them swimming in the moolah?

That's what sucks. We are on the verge of a technological breakthrough and, in all likelihood, the people who profit most from our willingness as a whole to allow ourselves to remain in the dark ages are also the people with enough power to see that technological breakthrough not reach the gas-pumping simps. Are we to have faith in the morality of these millionaires and billionaires? Are they more likely to see to it that we buy more gas more of the time or do what they can to help the environment and pocketbooks of the mass of consumers?

Maybe this is just another sign of how our system fails us.

Remember what it was like when you were a kid and trying to think of what the world would be like in the year 2000? I used to imagine flying cars and people living on the moon. Was I out of touch with reality on that one? You bet your ass I was.

But now I think that it was probably technologically feasible for us to be at that point. We could have had flying cars and cities on the moon. It just wasn't in the best interests of the corporate scum who profit the most from the way that things are.

That's what you get for thinking with your bank accounts.

Time To Weigh In On The Teddy Bear Debate

For those of you who are not from the Edmonton area let me fill you in, first, on what the whole hullaballoo is about the teddy bears.

Michael, what's all this we hear about teddy bears in the Edmonton area?

Calm down. Calm down. Let me get to it.

So anyway, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, or its more apt name The Event That Made CNN Forget About Natalee Holloway, local radio station 96 X decided that the best way for Edmonton to help the survivors of the natural disaster would be to start a teddy bear drive. Are you with me so far? Good. After pushing and pushing this thing for a while Edmonton came up with over 1 million teddy bears to donate to the hurricane ravaged city of New Orleans. The problem is, though, according to a column in the Edmonton Journal by one Paula Simons, is that teddy bears aren't really high on the list of priorities for survivors of Hurrican Katrina. In fact, teddy bears are probably the furthest thing from the survivors' minds. In fact, receiving teddy bears as some sort of consolation prize for losing their houses and their livelihoods might just be enough to send them into a murderous frenzy of cannibalism and wanton destruction of public property. In fact, this is the most I've ever used "In fact" to start a sentence. In fact.

So naturally there is a debate going on in the media. It's 96 X radio versus the Edmonton Journal of the newspaper community in an all-out battle to the death over which medium is more pious than the other. Or something like that.

Okay, maybe not.

But what bothers me is that nobody came to me to ask what I thought of the whole teddy bear debate. Nobody came knocking on my door and asked, "Michael, what are your thoughts about all this teddy bear bullshit going on right in your community? The public has a right to know!"

Seriously, you want to know?

YES!

Okay, here it is. I'm all for the teddy bears, actually. I don't even think that 1 million teddy bears gathered so far is even nearly enough for the affected area of New Orleans. I think we need hundreds of millions before we've proven that we are innovators.

Here's why.

Did you know that the average teddy bear can absorb roughly twice its body weight in water? That's a fact. So try to estimate how much 1 million teddy bears weigh. It's a pretty impressive mass to be sure. What I think we should be doing with the teddy bears is dropping them en masse right into the heart of the flood. Presto! We have instant absorbtion. Why, with enough teddy bears and B-52 Stratofortresses dropping them as super-absorbent payload over New Orleans we'd have that whole flooding problem licked in no time.

You see? That's why I'm an outsider of sorts. That's why I never get invited to all the cool parties. It's because I sit at home and think about shit like this. I'm an innovator, an inventor.

If you bombed millions and millions of teddy bears on New Orleans you could have everything soaked up and then with a team of bulldozers working around the clock you could have all the soggy plush pushed right into the gulf.

This is why I'm never put in charge of large public projects. If I had had my way, I would have had a teddy bear, pancake mix, and Bounty Quilted Quicker Picker Upper drive for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina because once we get all that water soaked up we can begin to rebuild a great, great city instead of engaging in wars of words in the media.

So the message I'm trying to make, then, is that survivors of this horrible disaster are, by and large, faced with a very daunting task of trying to rebuild their lives. How is nitpicking over what is and what is not suitable to donate in the media really going to help them? Last time I checked when you take time to really start debating something like this, it's basically time that could better be spent actually helping the people who need the help. At this point there are people who are grateful to take whatever they can get.

For anonymous:




















For Jordan:
















That'll be $200.00 each, you dirty, dirty people.

Vapor Trails

Stain of last night’s nosebleed

on your pillow.

Sinking.

I was thinking of something else,

dreaming:

awash in light

you and I floating

in a religious triptych

angelic sort of way---

not really choking each other out.

not hung up on mortality.

but perfect holy bodies

making love to eternity.

Wrinkled bed sheets.

Ransacked drawers.

Sinking.

Knowing instinctively

your shoes will have walked away;

your toothbrush

has found its way from my cup.

I let my guard down

just long enough

for you to steal away

and the stealth your steps

were made of

was almost of floating

in a religious triptych

angelic sort of way.

I’ll wash the pillow

and the stains on its case,

stand on my balcony

and look for your footprints

in my morning dew.

No notes.

No lipstick on my mirror.

A half-eaten bowl of cereal.

Just like that

you’re vapor trails.

Gone.

One From The Vaults

Last night at work some coworkers and I began a discussion on the morality of prostitution and since I have very little time to hash out something brand new from my brain for you folks and since I'm also just a generally lazy bastard, here's a rant I wrote on the subject of prostitution.

Prostitution And You:

Why We Smell Ass Every Time We Inhale

It doesn’t take a slide rule to figure out that humans, in general, have their shit all fucked up when it comes to certain facets of their existence. It has been demonstrated, time and again, that sometimes our priorities are completely wrong, that we are capable of making wrong decisions, that we believe some of the idiotic things, and so on, and so on. Really, a person could dedicate a whole series of books to everything that humans got wrong since the beginning of time and I’m one hundred percent positive that even after reading that whole series of books there would still be fucktards who still make the same fucking mistakes because they are just that fucking dumb. One thing that has always baffled me has been the way most of the free world approaches the subject of prostitution.

Prostitution, in essence, is the sale of sex. That’s it. Selling sex is not only frowned upon in most of the free world, it’s illegal. How fucked up is that?

But Michael, it’s an immoral act to sell your body for another’s sexual gratification.

Wrong.

Newsflash morons: if you’re having sex you’re paying for it. What exactly is the difference between exchanging sex for money and, say, exchanging sex for dinner and a movie? What exactly is the difference between exchanging sex for money and, say, exchanging sex for a wedding ring? What I’m getting at here is that directly, or indirectly as the case may be, sex is costing you something. At least with giving over cold hard cash for a fuck you’ve basically admitting to yourself, and to the whole world, that you understand how the sexual world works. It’s very rare to find an individual whom you can just ask for sex in exchange for nothing at all.

You see, nobody wants to look at it that way, though. People want to fool themselves into thinking that they are not whores. To them, being a whore is something filthy. Well, to avoid being a whore, then, you have to just give orgasms away for nothing at all. And, my friends, when you just fuck somebody for free, no strings attached, no dinners at expensive restaurants, no engagement rings, no cab fare for a ride home, when it’s just sex and nothing else, that just means you’re a bunch of sluts. Dirty, filthy sluts. And ask yourself: would you really want to play hide the salami with somebody who just goes at it with no expectations of repayment? We’re talking some seedy, seedy sluts here. You’d probably catch gonorrhea from having one of those fuckers breathe on you. Yuck.

Now I know that there are probably a million internalized dialogues going on here trying to re-establish the who dichotomy between getting paid for sex with cash and getting paid for sex with a fucking wedding band and what may very well be divorce papers a few years down the road given the current social climate we find ourselves in. There might even be a few of you whose minds I just blew because it’s not often when you find out that sex comes with a price tag almost always and that we’re all part of the sex trade even when we say we aren’t. So, fucking, what? Who gives a shit? So we’re not as pious as we like to think we are. That’s not really news to me. You just have to change the way you look at the world.

But Michael, what my spouse and I have is a magical, wonderful thing that goes beyond sex. You can’t equate what happens in our marriage bed with what some filthy whore does for a handful of nickels and punch to the gut.

If sex is part of the marriage, it’s part of the deal. It’s still costing you money, directly or indirectly. Just accept it. I’m a whore. You’re a whore. We’re all fucking whores. Big deal.

So then, here’s a good first question. Why is prostitution frowned upon? Why are we not celebrating the whore as a profession? We’ll give fucking medals to a soldier for napalming hundreds of innocent people in some fucking war that doesn’t make any sense, but what do we do with the men and women who put their health at risk to sell complete strangers the satisfaction of an orgasm or two? We put them in jail. How fucked up is that? We can fucking give a ticker tape parade to hired thugs and murderers for the state, but goddamned if we’re going to buy a fucking cake and throw a surprise party for a hooker. And I’m not saying all this to belittle soldiers or our armed forces because they’re doing what they’re supposed to do, what they are hired to do. I will, however belittle the state that tells them to do some of the shit that they are doing because that’s just fucked up.

But now I’m getting off track. Back to the point.

You know what I would like to see? An international prostitution day. We have days set aside to celebrate just about every line of work under the sun, Secretarys Day, Proctologists Day, maybe even Circus Elephants Ass Wipers Day, but no Prostitutes Day. That’s a fucking travesty. These are people who, as I have already stated, put their health at risk to bring a bit of pleasure into the world.

Which brings me to my next point. Why are so many legal jurisdictions prosecuting the solicitation of sex? Prostitution is known as the world’s oldest profession. Many people know that when you say the words, “The World’s Oldest Profession,” they know you’re talking about whoring. Do you know what that means? It’s been around a long fucking time! So how the fuck are you ever really going to stop it? The civilized world has had thousands of years to brings whoredom to an end and has anybody ever successfully stopped it? No. Will they? No. So why the fuck bother fighting it? Am I the only person who sees a total lack of fucking logic here? I can’t even begin to wrap my head around the sheer ego of any lawmaker who thinks he has the power to wipe out prostitution. What gall! What ego!

Chew on this you egomaniacal fucks who think that one day we can live in a world where nobody sells sex disregarding, if you will, my earlier point about all of us selling sex one way or another. In most of the free world selling sandwiches or bookmarks or toothpicks is perfectly legal. Now if somebody, say, was selling sandwiches or bookmarks or toothpicks at astronomical prices that would be perfectly legal too, but perfectly insane from a business standpoint since sandwiches, bookmarks, and toothpicks are relatively low-priced consumer goods. However, say this certain somebody who was charging these completely ridiculous prices for cheap goods was kind enough to just have sex with whoever would be generous enough to shell out like $200.00 for a sandwich. The way I see it if I ran a business where I was selling sandwiches, bookmarks, or toothpicks for hundreds of dollars per and my livelihood depended on me moving this merchandise I would probably be grateful enough to my paying clientele to have sex with them. And it would all be perfectly legal since I would just be giving sex away for free! Last time I checked there was no law forbidding private entrepreneurs from social fraternizing with their customers. And if somebody is dumb enough or friendly enough to give an entrepreneur hundreds of dollars for a sandwich more power to them.

But Michael what of the children? Somebody has to think of the children!

You know what? Somebody does have to think of the children. That’s why I think the only sane, ethical way to approach prostitution is to legalize it and regulate it.

That’s right. If you legalize prostitution you can establish rules for its practice. You can establish a minimum age for licensed prostitutes.

But Michael, the pimps will always have child prostitutes as long as there is a demand for them.

Yes, but you know what you can do with a regulated system of prostitution? Whatever the fuck you want to kill the competition. It’s a free market system. So, if you wanted to drive the pimps who push the underage girls and boys into whoring undercut their prices so that the demand goes down. Make it unprofitable for them to continue operation. Can those private pimps who abuse children avow for the cleanliness of their merchandise? Most of them can’t. But you can. Give licensed whores health benefits; make STD testing mandatory and regular; make condom usage mandatory. Ask yourself, “If I were a customer looking for a whore to have sex with would I go with the government sanctioned brothel with workers who are STD free, licensed, and as cheap as fuck or would I go to the shady guy in the alleyway who can’t avow for anything regarding his prostitute and charges too much since he’s a private entrepreneur trying to stay under the legal radar?” You’re a fucking dummy if you’d go to the alleyway.

But no, our society maintains its head-up-its-own-ass stance on prostitution and continues to fight a battle that can’t be won since, in one way or another, we’re all guilty of prostitution. What a bunch of fucking hypocrites we make sometimes. It’s all quite comical.

Mehndi Vine Ode

I want your picture down on this page / so

I can veil you in my words, / soft,

platonic words / scrawled

carefully by careful digits /

calculated words / to

make you fall / in

love with / me

Shoulders: / swoon / beneath “swoon”

wilt / most lovely / in my shadow, /

where I scrawl / clumsily, /

tumble

down

noiselessly

between / infinite stalks / of your hair.

Coming up for oxygen.

I don’t want to / breathe,

but blow ink / through henna red teeth

and / paint splotches /

high

on the insides

of your thighs. /

A Rorschach.

Dip nib into / navel /

or moistened / orifice: /

refill.

And back / for another verse.

I want your picture down on this page / or

your nudity / down as a page might be / and

my words, / soft cover

where only / my eyes /

Can pry.

-Michael Appleby

September, 2005

Back To School

Last week I was given the opportunity to take in a few classes at Grant MacEwan Community College here in Edmonton thanks to my close friend Jessica who was rather timid about attending the first day of classes alone. So as a service to my friend I told her that I would go with her for her first day of school to keep her company. I reluctantly agreed to actually physically sit in on two of her afternoon classes that day: a comparative literature class and a statistics class.

The comparative literature class was, as one would expect on the first day of classes, a snoozer. The professor of the class, whose name I really never bothered to learn since I'm not a GMCC student, basically gave a run-down of how the class would be conducted for the rest of the year. At one point, the prof asked one of the students in the class to count off the number of bodies in attendance. There were 31. He remarked that that was odd since the class was only supposed to have 30 students. Naturally, I felt guilty about being the phantom extra body, but because I did not just want to bail on my friend I kept my mouth shut. Towards the end of the class a questionaire was passed out asking what kind of backgrounds in English we had at our disposal and, given my natural perpensity to brag about my glorious history garnering a Batchelor of Arts Degree in English, I told the truth. However, since I was the phantom student I made up an alias and made up my student I.D. number as well as a fake email address where I could be reached. The kicker was that when the question was asked if there were any suggestions for how the class should be conducted for the rest of the year I made a comment along the lines that the room we were studying in was rather cold and while it would be impractical of me to ask the professor to turn the heat up with natural gas prices being through the roof it might behoove him to provide his students with complimentary blankets and/or varsity sweaters from the lost and found (gently worn of course). So if you are attending a comparative literature class at GMCC and you have found an abundance of sweaters and/or blankets awaiting you each time you arrive for class: You're Welcome! And if you're the professor of a comparative literature class who found himself at a loss when it came to explaining why there were 31 students on the first day of class and now there seem to only be 30 it's because I dropped the class when I found out that since I am not a student at GMCC I don't actually get credit for going to your class.

The statistics class was a lot easier for me to blend in and not get noticed as it was significantly larger in size. Just to be sure to blend in, though, I did take notes and as a service to all of you out there currently enrolled in a statistics class and who may have missed the introductory class I will now transcribe my notes from said class as a benefit to you. Now remember kiddies, if I wrote it down in my notes then it has to be true.

My Notes From Statistics Class by: Michael Appleby

Statistics: What the fuck is it, man?
-what the fuck you can say about shit that's like diarrhea because it's all fucked up. I mean you can't even see corn or peanuts, but statistics clears all that up and you can almost see the whole fucking colon.
-the stool that makes you feel most relieved when you get off the toilet.
-statistics is the science of:
1.) collecting shit.
2.) analyzing shit.
3.) applying shit. (i.e. find out how many brits think that Posh Spice is the most unnecessary celebrity in existence as noted here)

Statistics: Why the fuck would you do that?
-so you can be up-to-snuff on porn purchases including abnormally large sex toys and garish lubricants with names like Fric-B-Gone
-making wiser porn purchasing decisions [author's note: there was a whole story that was told to back this up, but it was rather long and I was trying hard not to laugh myself into convulsions since I had no idea that statistics was such a dirty thing, but relaying the story now would prove to be a very painstaking process, but suffice to say it ends with somebody grunting like an ape before rolling over to take a nap]
-evaluate porn from a mathematical point of view. (i.e. decibels of moans, quantities of astroglide, etc. etc.)

Misc. Notes
-there can be more than two variables, but never three because three is a non-existent number in theory. It has been demonstrated time and time again and the number three was officially revoked by the International Council of Weights And Measures in 1918. The campaign to put an end to threes was spearheaded by one Sir Walter "I Hate 3's" Douglas, who had four children, officially, by unofficially it was 2+1
-For example, if you told me to meet you at the pornography store for some official statistical analyses at 3 p.m. what you are actually supposed to be saying is "meet me at the pornography store at one hour past 2 p.m." Never say three. It's completely wrong, statistically speaking. Being wrong makes you look dumb. You don't want to look dumb. Hey, is that a squirrel?
-Also, what is up with neck beards? I mean they're everywhere. Dungeons and Dragons 2+1 edition geeks wear them instead of scarves. See also: tit beards.
-Statistical pirates ruled Belgrade between A.D. 1237 and A.D. 1417 at which time they were ousted by a band of calculus barbarians. Damn barbarians. I said 1237 because three was still considered a real number back then. The 1930's, on the other hand never happened unless you say "1929 and 1+[whatever year in that 10 year span you wish to talk about]"
-Radio stations are dumb, statistically speaking. Possible term paper topic: Why I hate modern radio and all the on-air personalities who have the collective I.Q. of last night's rump roast: a statistical journey of whimsy and delight.
-A sample is what the urine test is so that you can't do drugs and drive and ambulance for a living.
-Nonresponsive people are the ones who don't answer any of the questions in your stupid polls. Punch them in the neck, it's in the name of science.

[author's note: the class ended at this point and I was relieved to be out of there because I forgot how boring it was to take notes]

Okay, I have to admit that towards the end there my eyes could hardly stay open. But now you know your shit for the midterm. I can't avow to how much of this information, if any, will appear on any of the upcoming tests or, dare I say, the final, but it's always handy to have around in case you find yourself cornered at a Hooters Restaurant by a bunch of statisticians and they want to make some sort of "conversation" with you on the topic of introductory statistics.

A Photographic Account Of My Recent Road Trip

Saturday, September 10, 2005:
The trip down to cowtown for this past weekend's poetry reading was quite a harrowing experience. The weather was absolutely not agreeable as you can tell by the picture of the cloud cover over The Donut Mill, which is where I stopped at the half-way point of my trip for an Oreo Donut and some hot chocolate, served by a girl who bore an uncanny resemblance to a very, very young Meg Ryan. Anyway, once I got south of Red Deer the mild showers that plagued the journey from Edmonton to Red Deer turned into full-on downpours. Every time I approached a tractor trailer on Highway 2 (which is now called the Queen Elizabeth II Highway now) I couldn't see but three or four feet in front of the nose of my 1977 Monte Carlo, which has a hood of about 27 yards so I guess I had pretty good visability considering, just a really big car.

Once I got to my friends' Jordan and Lori's apartment the drinking pretty much began since it was already getting on into the evening timewise. Because all I had had to eat up to that point in time was the aforementioned Oreo donut and a handful of Cherry Blasters (yum) getting drunk took no effort at all.

Jordan, Lori, Ian, Heather and I ate at F.A.T.'s Bar And Grill that night after a brisk, wet walk from the apartment. I got drunker and drunker waiting for a decent meal. Jordan and I split one of the best pizzas I've had in a long time.

We played poker when we got back from the bar and had more drinks.


Sunday, September 11, 2005:
Woke up the next morning with bad hangover. I started to flip through my bag of poetry to see what pieces I should present at the reading. The hangover made all my poetry look mediocre at best.

Jordan, Lori, Ian, and I went for some brunch, though I can't remember the name of the place where we ate (sorry whatever Calgary bar and grill you were; I just have a shitty memory sometimes). After that we did some shopping while we killed time before the reading.

In the shops I was able to pick up a copy of Alex Grey's Sacred Mirrors as well as Alex Grey's 2006 calendar. I also bought some kick-ass sunglasses and Skipping Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins And The Pursuit Of Happiness In America by Dan Savage.

Pictured above you can see me frantically trying to piece together a set of poems that could wow the audience gathered, which was bigger and more conservative in their appearance than I had hoped for. Reading from Sometimes Sinister began to seem a lot more daunting all of a sudden because the older crowd may or may not understand what I was trying to work with as far as a concept goes in that series of poems.


Here is me reading to the audience. This picture was taken by Lori at my request. The setlist I went with was a couple of charming pieces followed by two darker ones from the latter stages of Sometimes Sinister. It went as follows:

1.)"Wishing"-a poem I posted here for you a while back and can be found in the archives here.
2.)"Mehndi Vine Ode"-one of my latest creations. I'm not sure if this fits into the framework of Sometimes Sinister because it's more abstract, but I thought it would fit in well with the idea of an idealist being deconstructed after falling for the wrong woman, this poem representing an idealist viewpoint.
3.)"Chewbacca"-One of the funnier pieces from Sometimes Sinister that describes a roommate's wookie-like sex noises. This one shows the pragmatism beginning to rear its head within our protagonist.
4.)"Matt"-A poem that mentions Cleveland Steamers and Donkey Punching. If you don't know what these terms mean you might want to google them, but I'll just say that they are very raunchy sex terms. Given my older, more conservative looking audience, this was the one that I was most hesitant to read.

After the reading was over I was approached by some radio guy who recorded the show and said that he would be broadcasting it at some point, asking me for some contact information. I signed a couple of autographs, and finally met Selina face-to-face, one of the audience members from my Calgary reading two years ago.

It was all a success!


Here you see Pages Bookstore in Kensington where I read. I was up on the second floor it that matters to you. You can even see a few of the people leaving the bookstore who were at the reading. I would like to think that at this moment one or two of them would be turning to a lover or a close friend and asking, "Honey, what's a donkey punch?"

What's a donkey punch, indeed.

When There's No Time For Tits

Okay, first off, read this...

Click here.

Basically, for those of you who can't read the article or are too lazy to read the article or just don't give a fuck about any fucking article and are only here because the word "tits" appears in the title of this post I'll summarize by saying that there were women who survived the hurricane, but not allowed onto some rescuers' boat because they refused to show their potential heroes their tits. Yes, you read that right. Women were asked to show the hillbilly rescuers their tits and when they refused to do so they were not rescued.

Now for those of you who don't know me that well let me start off by telling you that I've been single for quite a while now or I've had relationships that ended quickly, but what's most important to state is that I'm usually in a perpetual state of loneliness. Now, I'm not saying that because I want your sympathy. I'm not saying this because I want some generous woman to read this, come over to my house and plant her cooch on my face. I'm saying it because insofar as non-incarcerated people go, I'm damn near the loneliest man in existence, but so what? It's suited me just fine. I'll be fine just going on being lonely.

Okay, Michael, but why are you going on and on about being lonely after you start talking about hillbillies and titties?

Here's the point.

Thank fuck you finally have a point!

As lonely as I am I don't go about my daily existence asking women to give me a view of nipples for every little favor I do for them. As such I don't ask women to "put them on the glass" when I hold a door open for them and I certainly don't yell out "show me your tits!" when I pull a chair out for a woman to sit on when we go out to eat. Why don't I do that? Because it's fucking rude, that's why! Holy fuck!

There's a time and a place to yell out shit like that and a definite method and a code of conduct to be followed. It's very, very rare to be in one of those situations where it's okay to ask a woman for a flash of her bodacious ta-ta's and I would have to say that the aftermath of one of the most devastating hurricanes in American history, if not the most devastating hurricane in American history, ranks very high on the long list of inappropriate situations in which one can ask a woman for a glimpse of her tits. In fact, I would almost go so far as to suggest that the aftermath of such a powerful hurricane, amid all the debris and rubble, it's probably the exact opposite of an appropriate situation to say, "Show me some titties!" But then again, that might just be me, Mr. Concerned Canadian Guy who got a boy scout merit badge in fucking manners! I would help old ladies cross the road and I certainly didn't ask them to show me their tits when I did so.

Which brings up another interesting point: Why?!?!?! Now, I might not be completely up to snuff on the destructive power of a hurricane the magnitude of Katrina, but I would suspect that most, if not all, the survivors looked at the very least a wee bit dishveled? I mean, you see footage all over the news of these poor victims of the hurricane wading in filthy water without homes and who have probably been wearing the same clothes for a couple of weeks and do you know what comes to my mind when I see that?

Tits?

No!!!! Even if I saw a poor refugee's tits I doubt that it could be a turn on, so why the fuck even ask for a show? If refugee tits were so hot then why aren't there more sex tours to Sally Struthers countries? That's right, because there are settings in which tits are really supposed to be furthest from one mind.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure most, if not all the women in question, are absolutely gorgeous and they must have bountiful racks, but after a hurricane I would go out on a limb and say that they probably don't look their best. Maybe their tits are even a little on the less-than-centerfold quality side, maybe a little malnourished from being stuck on a rooftop for days, maybe dehydrated from lack of drinking water. Something tells me, though, that in non-hurricane conditions these women would look infinitely more stunning. Again, so why the fuck even ask for a show? Why not let the women get some shelter, some rest, some food, some water, and then ask them to show their tits? At least then they'll have all the strength they need to punch you in the testicles for being such a chauvinistic prick.

To the asshats who would refuse women a place on your rescue boat because they wouldn't show you their tits: are you really that hard up for a sight of some titties that you would refuse traumatized women the help that they need? I'll send you some porno mags just get them the fuck on the boat! Holy shit, now is no time split hairs when it comes to tits. There will always be time for tits later. As lonely as I am even I know that. I have a whole retirement plan built around tits being flashed my way. It'll be great!

So I would like to take this opportunity to suggest that we start a Rescuers of Hurricane Katrina Porno Fund so that everybody in the affected regions can be given the proper attention without having to lift their shirts as some sort of primitive payment. I'm putting together a benefit concert as we speak and I hope to have some big name acts on board. Hustler ain't cheap, people, those women need to be saved!

Sometimes Sinister

Tonight's a poetry night for sure. I'm leaving for Calgary tomorrow after I wake up and pack for an overnight trip. The reading on Sunday is filling me with a lot of anxiety because right now I think my goal is to be memorable, not necessarily well-liked, but memorable. As it stands I'm hoping to rattle off some of the poems I've written for my Sometimes Sinister project. I'm pleased to say that at this point in time I definitely do not have enough time to read half the poems I've written for that project so far (and that's not even counting the drafts that I'm not even confident enough to include in the project yet). So I thought that before I head out on the road I would leave you with a short piece from the project. I have a series of short poems written in prose-like blocks that list of ominous concepts and closing with the refrain: Sometimes sinister, like the way I love you. I won't transcribe all of those short poems for you here, but here is one of the ones that seems to have caught my eye just now as I was reviewing my work for my possible setlist for Sunday...

Sometimes Sinister

A bad idea. Nape hairs prickling themselves at premonitions. Feeling the long staredown with death through a complete absence of light. Hearing the axe remove itself from a block of wood. A neighbor's television set turned up too loud and muffled, though still audible: commentary on the latest round of prostitute murders. Creamsicle street light: rain, baby, rain. The semicolon suggesting there is more to the picture that is disjointed, maybe not even there. The way fingers twitch when they've clutched too many knife handles, too many gun butts, and now find themselves without something to hold. The masturbator's posture. Carpal tunnel.

Sometimes sinister

like the way I love you.