What A Sorry State

About a year ago there was a terrible catastrophe on the east coast of Japan. No, it wasn’t Godzilla, but a massive tsunami caused by an underwater earthquake; a disaster of epic proportions. Surely I, like many others, watched the raw POV footage over and over as coastal towns were engulfed by a wave of death. I can still hear the sound of twisting metal that was never intended to twist that way, locals fleeing to higher ground, some not running fast enough and casually absorbed by the invading blob. Though I don’t speak Japanese fluently, screams of horror are a universal language. In times of tragedy one knows exactly what foreign people are saying from behind the camera. It’s the same thing we’d all say if we witnessed someone washed up by a tsunami: Holy Shit! . . . Fuck, this is crazy! . . . Oh my God! . . .  Run! . . . Led Zeppelin Rules! . . .

But this isn’t what I want to focus on here. I want to focus on the real issue in the grand scheme of things--the bigger (in a fascistic oppression of the population through language to manipulate thought kind of way) disaster: The firing of the Aflac Duck voice, narrated by the inimitable comic Gilbert Gottfried. Gottfried was sacked for his cringe inducing one-liners posted on Twitter mere hours after the tragedy. Well, comedy is all about timing. Gilbert wasn’t fired for his jokes, though. Or the timing of them. If he adroitly dropped lurid lines of scatological humour in a comedy club in North Dakota, or between friends (if Gilbert has any, that is), or even at a private boardroom meeting between Aflac marketing executives, there would be no problem. The reason for his firing wasn’t the cruel sentiment of the jokes in the (ahem) wake of a national tragedy, but the dissemination of the jokes instantaneously to a huge audience. And Twitter is the king of that kingdom. If enough people have access to a message, a small handful is going to get pissed off and make a lot of noise about it, no matter what the message is. Comedy is low-hanging fruit in the professional outrage game.

Maybe it was the quick turnaround, or the severity of the jokes, or a combination thereof that caused Aflac brass to give in to the pressure and drop the hammer on the man who’s voice has simultaneously entertained and annoyed us for decades.

For a short time the issue reached a fever pitch in the media. At its apex, it reached bizarre postmodern proportions: Gottfried’s insensitive tweets about the tragedy of the tsunami had become bigger news than the tragedy of the tsunami itself. It’s like photographing people who are photographing the most photographed barn in the world. Now, some of the jokes weren’t very good at all—mere throwaway’s. As long as we’re alive and events are happening, whether on a personal or global scale, there will be an endless well of comedy to draw from. That is both a comedy fact and a scientific fact. 

A few jokes stirred a chuckle out of me, which you can read out loud or in your head in your best Gilbert Gottfried voice . . .

“I fucked a girl in Japan. She screamed, ‘I feel the earth move and I’m getting wet.’”

 “My book Rubber Balls and Liquor was released in Japan. It’s making quite a splash.”

Okay . . . finally . . .

“Japan called me. They said ‘Maybe those jokes are a hit in the US, but over here they’re all sinking.’”

What puzzles and troubles me about the upper echelons of Aflac, and by extension, the people at the top of corporate culture in general, is that Gilbert has been known for the last thirty years as a comic who is by far one of the most abrasive out there on the national and international comedy scene. Anyone who has a passing interest in comedy knows this. Gilbert’s always the first to go there. He’s a too soon guy. Nothing is out of bounds. I’ve busted many guts watching him perform at roasts. Gilbert blurts things out like a crazy old Jew with Asperger’s.

What did a multi-national insurance company like Aflac expect out of Gilbert Gottfried when he was hired back in 2000? That by lending his voice as a shill, gussied up as a goofy duck, all of sudden his past material is, (ahem, again) washed away? I certainly would not buy insurance from Aflac--clearly, they don’t do diligent research on their animated mascots. The left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing. The only thing these Aflac Asshats heard was Gilbert’s unique, yet recognizable voice--a nasal, gravely whine, though grating, is definitely unforgettable. Did they know that Gilbert is a dirty comic and figure that no one will care? He’s the parrot in Alladin for Christ’s sake! Surely before making a comic your mascot there is a vetting process to check out a funny man’s entire catalogue to see if he’s suitable to represent your company, or at the very least, what his angle of attack is. A cornerstone of GG’s schtick is to say outrageous, shocking jokes at all times, especially right after a tragedy when the snake’s venom is at most potent. Umm . . . hello? That’s Gilbert Gottfried in a nutshell. Three weeks after 9/11 at the Friar’s Club in New York, he was the first notable comic to very publicly say a 9/11 joke. Something about trying to catch a plane, but it had to make a stop at the Empire State Building first. Whatever. It’s Gilbert, not the president, it’s what he does. He didn’t get swept up in a shit storm like the Japanese tsunami, the 9/11 fallout was more like a shit sprinkle. No matter what you say, 9/11 is old news and you can joke about it and get away with it, too. Time heals physical and psychic wounds. The tsunami in Japan is now old news, too, but it most definitely was not just days after the tsunami. The wound is still raw. There is a week or so period where jokes or any making light of are totally off limits in the media, a window where outrage grows, and then blossoms once some comedian jokes about the tragedy.

A mitigating factor that is difficult to ignore is that Aflac is the largest life insurer of Japanese citizens. You can’t deny the jokes landed too close to home, like two nuclear bombs. The usage of words in and out themselves, is meaningless. Intent and context are king. It’s like playing violent video games doesn’t actually lead to real life violence. That’s the easy way out. It’s the Blame Game and a lot of people sit down at the table.    

is compromised when there’s a personal affront involved. If it’s about someone else, well fuck ’em, it’s right there, immortalized in the Charter of Rights & Freedoms goddamnit! Maybe I have no soul but I found it even funnier in a twisted way when I learned that Aflac does most of it’s business in Japan. It adds so many levels of intrigue to the jokes and to Gilbert himself. Did Gilbert know most of the business was centred in Japan? Did he just not care? Did he think it would roll of their shoulders?

On firing Gilbert as the Aflac Duck, the chief marketing officer stated, “Gilbert’s recent comments about the crisis in Japan were lacking in humor and certainly don’t reflect the thoughts and feelings of anyone at Aflac.”

I can’t begin to tell you how many things are wrong and misguided about this statement. First of all, there was about ten jokes that Gilbert tweeted and the three that I have reprinted are actually pretty funny, so the marketing guy is wrong on the lacking in humour part. Secondly, doesn’t it go without saying that the comments don’t reflect the thoughts and feelings of anyone at Aflac? Does the public assume Aflac employees are so morally bankrupt at their cores? Do we need to be reminded they don’t seriously endorse jokes about people dying horrible deaths, crushed by debris, drowning in fetid slew water, their cities and possessions wiped away by an angry planet?  

What comes next is a phenomenon, that although is not new, is more prevalent now than ever before in the media. The forced apology. And so Gilbert breaks gives in. Let the healing begin! I don’t even have to reprint the apology because you know exactly how it goes. I’m sorry if my remarks offended…blah blah blah, doot-doota-doot-doo . . . DOO-DOO. Even after his empty apology, Aflac still fired him. Never mind how disingenuous an apology originating from outside the speaker is in the first place, but coming from Gilbert, it’s even more uproarious. An apology for some Twitter jokes coming from Gilbert has about as much sincerity and warmth as Terry Schiavo.        

These forced apologies light up the media landscape like fireflies, and it’s been pretty bright out there lately. Today, as I write this, it’s Mike Milbury, a hockey analyst/commentator apologizing for his ‘Punk’ rant on Sidney Crosby. Breaking news: Crosby’s camp has rejected the apology from Mr. Mulbury. Somebody call a Wahhhmbulance.

How will we ever go on in the face of such injustice!?

What is insidious about these forced-from-the-outside apologies is that they undermine the very foundation that genuine apologies are based on. It’s the crying wolf effect. Genuine apologies are supposed to come from within; a growing and learning process whereby wrongs are righted and sins are atoned for.  

True apologies don’t penetrate, they defecate.

An apology is supposed to be an expression of remorse for a perceived wrong. It’s also supposed to originate organically from the speaker if it is to retain any integrity. These principles have been usurped by a minority of interweb humanoids that want to build a brand, a public narrative to garner attention and credibility. The FA is now used in the media as a weapon, the lash of a whip made out of the tongues of the infidels, to inflict the sting of the public at large, whoever that is. The pressure from this small minority out there in the ether make the heads  force apologies out of their investments. And so we hear Rush Limbaugh, or Don Imus, or Dean Blundell light up the ‘On Air’ sign, and in a sombre tone, profess their sincerest of condolences; that they regret their momentary lapse of reason. Well hoo-fucking-rah.

Consider if you will Rush Limbaugh’s ‘Nappy headed ho’s’ comment, and the subsequent FA. When it really comes down to brass taxes, the comment is pretty benign. Not even that insulting even if you’re part of the group being insulted. Find any black female college basketball player and she’ll tell you she’s had far worse verbosity slung at her than, ‘Nappy headed ho.’ I’ll leave it up to you to come up with a few examples.

You can be outraged and annoyed at Rush Limbaugh for his comments. You have your right to be offended. But if you don’t like what Rush says than just do what I’ve been doing the whole time during the FA debacles: Don’t listen. Just turn the dial. Rush is only on my radar because of all the coverage, the incessant media clips by all the local affiliates that are regurgitating his offensive comments and apologies. Warning . . . this may be offensive to some viewers . . . but here you go folks, we’ll play it for you anyways, over and over, and vicariously re-offend you.

It’s the mark of a truly selfish and hubristic person to take offence to something and then endlessly whine about it, and more importantly, demand consequences. I’m occasionally offended by pundits/entertainers and their nutty ideas (mainly because the hordes who lap it up can’t distinguish the performance from the actual human being playing the character). But I would never want them silenced or taken off the air. For example, I don’t like Ann Coulter. I think she’s smart as well as an opportunistic, contrarian shill that doesn’t believe the things she says and writes, but does it because of her agenda and to get a rise out of liberals and to keep her brand relevant. She wants power and capital. She wants a voice. I can’t blame her. But here’s how a reasonable, intelligent human deals with this particular offense: Either (a) ignore her completely, or (b) postulate using reason and logic why you don’t agree with them and leave it at that. Hope other humans can relate. Hence unprofessional think pieces like this. I don’t want Ann Coulter fired or silenced. I’m not that narcissistic and selfish to try and impose my will on you plebeians! I realize lots of people are entertained by her, and agree with the gist of her politics. I have respect, which is something that is sorely lacking in our internet culture.  

Ironically, all these people who are outraged by the comments that give birth to the FA’s don’t even listen to the entertainers they’re outraged by. But they know damn well that YOU shouldn’t be subjected to the aural filth, either. They have a worldview they want to impose on you. The folks who are outraged only hear about the outrageous comments because they hear it re-filtered through the news that they do listen to. They don’t even listen to Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern in the first place, but once they’re exposed to the tip, gigantic, imaginary icebergs naturally form underneath the surface. It’s a big bad world out there and rather than being constantly critical and questioning the foundations of our worldy outlooks, we paint ourselves into a corner and then defend that corner as the right way, the just way. Just turn the dial.

Why would you, if you were so mortally offended by a rape joke, or Don Imus insinuating a woman is a slut because she wants the state to pay for her birth control, be satisfied with a simple, short, forced apology? Apparently, this “I’m sorry, I apologize,” fire extinguisher is usually sufficient to put out the raging inferno of outrage. That’s all you wanted!? An ‘I’m sorry?’ That is the only demand from the kidnapper’s!? Come on Imus, all you have to do is give a sweet little remorseful show of humility, just get on your knees for a minute or two and then get back up, wipe off your mouth with the back of your hand, and carry on entertaining. If I’m truly offended by a comment/joke/person/group/etc., I sure as hell wouldn’t be assuaged by a simple apology, even if it did originate from the offender and not their bosses. The healing process would take time. The relationship may never be the same.

Speaking of Don Imus’s recent FA for calling Sarah Fluke a slut for wanting the state to cover her birth control, why is the abortion issue flaring up again in the States like a bad case of genital warts?

Look at the new law in Texas that forces doctors to perform an invasive, humiliating, intra-vaginal exam on women, accompanied by a patronizing lecture before they can have an abortion. Under the new state policy, a woman seeking an abortion must first be subjected to an ultrasound probe inserted into her vagina. Then comes the weird part . . . “She is then forced to look at the ultrasound image of the unborn fetus and listen to its heartbeat while the doctor points out the parts of the body.” Then the woman signs a document, and is sent home to wait twenty four hours before the abortion is performed.  Wha? Come again? This is legal humiliation and state sanctioned abuse. Does the state of Texas think women who get abortions are she-devils with spinning heads, frothing at the mouth, salivating in hungry anticipation of the unformed morsel being sucked out of their vagina? Can I take it home and eat it, doc? Clearly, women want to kill, kill, kill! They enjoy killing the babies inside them.

I don’t even have a pussy and it makes me throw up a little in my mouth. Hey law man, how exactly does forcing a doctor to waste his time pointing out body parts prevent abortions? I’d like to apply to be the speechwriter for the scripted rant that the doctors go through . . . “These are the hands that will one day pull triggers . . . and these are the lips that will one day suck on crack pipes…”

I’m no law expert or politician, but one sure fire way to not prevent abortions is cutting state funding to Planned Parenthood by some 66%, which Texas did in 2011. This law is ultimately benefiting only a select few perverted doctors who are consumed by unnecessary-pre-abortion-intra-vaginal-probing fetishes. Who cares? A fetus isn’t cute at one month anyways, just a gooey mass of nascent semi-formed life matter. Maybe you can make out a toe or two. Big shit. It isn’t going to pay the hydro bill. 

If you want to know how sexist any law on abortion is, imagine if the situation was reversed: After nine months of gestating, babies come out of a man’s grossly oversized and bloated penis, cock veins painfully extended to backyard hose proportions, the pregnant penis resembling a snake with a freshly eaten mouse.

Checking in for dinner at the in-law’s place you give in to the ceaseless prodding from the glowing grandparents-to-be, and whip out your pregnant cock so the whole extended clan, little Patrick too, can marvel at the bulging life inside it. Mom-in-law puts an ear to your shaft and exclaims proudly to no one in particular, “I think I felt a kick!”

The next morning, on a stroll through the park, other parents with their kids in tow notice the sizeable bulge in your Levi’s 501 Preggers©, and a gaggle of moms giggle to each other, hands over mouth’s, afraid to actually ask, only whispering cupped conspiratorial messages into each other’s ears, “Is he pregnant or just big?”

Can you imagine a government passing laws forcing all pregnant men to go through invasive procedures prior to the abortions of their unwanted cock-babies? Not in this lifetime, pal. 

The Blue & White Rose of Toronto

The Toronto Maple Leafs' 2012 regular season campaign is winding down, and the reality of missing the playoffs for the eighth straight year can now can be deduced to nothing more than a simple mathematical law of inevitability. That’s why it is so soul destroying when you see it in the Toronto papers, usually around mid-March, the sports columnists all start wheel-barrowing out the math stats. In particular, the grotesque, all encompassing, dream crushing, boil-a-season-down-to-a-sentence summation, “There are X amount of games left, and the TML’s have to win X amount to make it into the 8^th place.”

This is always the beginning of the end…

It isn’t as if we’re informed of this statistical gem at the twenty eighth game mark because, well, it isn’t cogent; there would be no perspective from which to make a sound judgement, too many variables at play. But when the Leaf’s are almost surely destined to miss out on the dance, when there is nary a niggling shadow of fear of cancelling mid-April tee times, the ride takes the next exit off Faith Freeway and onto Reality Road.

Such a shame, really, considering that only a little more than a month ago the TML’s were right there, reaching as high as sixth in the Eastern Conference, before inexplicably spiralling into oblivion. It’s not like the team was wiped out by a plane crash, yet they have crashed and burned nonetheless.

How cruel and unusual the punishment is to a faltering team in the realm of professional sports when there is no hope of post season drama, but a significant smattering of regular season games still left on the schedule. Essentially, there are two options: (1) Collectively tank so as to end up at the bottom of the standings and draft a potentially very good player, or (2) Keep on truckin’ and playing like it’s all on the line because, after all, isn’t that what’s owed to the sponsors and the fans? To play your best at all times? The goal of the GM or coach, always, and without fail, is to espouse the latter while subtlety implementing the former. You can’t just go ahead and take out the starting goalie and put in a rookie like Joe Shakeyknees now can you?

What makes this season all the more woeful is that this was not a rebuilding season. Burke and Co. have ostensibly iced a team that was supposed to make the playoffs. Note the lack of action taken during the recent trade deadline. On top of this failure, the Leaf’s have a nasty habit of foregoing rules number 1 & 2 altogether and winning like it’s going out of style when it can only do them harm because by finishing 9^th and 10^th the team will not acquire high draft picks. It’s an ironic quirk to the competitive rules of hockey where winning is not really winning, it’s, in fact, losing. It’s like Charlie Sheen circa 2011.

My gosh! To be a fly on the wall as the travel worn and sleep deprived Tim Connolly arrives at the Tampa airport and he gathers up his suitcase from the carousel and is whisked away in the team bus with his fellow sad sack team-mates to the local Hilton, before the utterly meaningless April 5^th tilt against the Lightning, where he will get paid what you make in four months to almost surely score 0.0 goals and end up minus 2. The Horror…The Horror…

Of course I’ll be there to watch that game just like most of the others, if only to see if the Leaf’s can play the spoiler role and ruin some other teams chance at the playoffs. Misery loves company.

This futile end to the regular season calls to mind the analogy of match play in golf. One full point is awarded to the winner of a hole, and half a point if they tie. The end of the match is merciful…If Player A is winning by more holes than there are holes left to play for Player B to catch Player A, then the match is over, and Players A & B shake hands and go their separate ways. If only it were that simple in the NHL--the Leaf’s could be golfing already! In hockey all the hand shaking comes at the end of a best-of-seven playoff series, bearded and bloodied warriors lining up at centre ice and squelching series’ long beefs that have festered for the last six games. The only hand shaking the Leaf’s will be doing this spring are when they’re introduced to the girlfriend’s parents.

Mathematics renders a team’s quest for glory so starkly as if it was written in our favourite players’ blood on the wall in front of us. It is a requiem for a dream. Sports like hockey are the longest running reality shows that t.v. has to offer. What is served up to fans is the hope, the illusion, no matter how improbable, that their team can achieve greatness in any given season, any given game.

As I write this, the TML’s are at a this crucial threshold where they have to gobble up all the remaining points, like a blue whale feasting on plankton, to make it into the last available playoff spot. The tipping point where meaning becomes nonsense. Win every game and nothing less. Such is their insurmountable task. It’s somewhat odd that 8^th place is deified as the holy grail in Toronto. Or rather, it’s quite telling about how low our expectations have become of the team over recent years. It’s Psych 101: Don’t get our hopes up too much because the disappointment and damage to our self-worth will be too severe when the hammer falls. If we keep reasonable goals we have a better chance of meeting them and therefore be satisfied with our lot. In this regard, 8^th place is the goal, our lot. And Lord knows I would stick a Molotov cocktail inside a cop car’s gas tank if the Leaf’s made 8^th. Yonge and Bloor would look like downtown Syria. And the Lord also knows that as I sat in a jail cell awaiting my face time with a judge because some jerk off with a smart phone posted my picture on Facebook, I’d read in the jail copy of the Sun that Boston beat the ever-living shit out of them. Swept. Four and done. Tee it high and let it fly, boys.

As a die hard Leaf fan who bleeds blue and white (oh how I bleed!) my only recourse is to smile fondly on the ghosts of past glories. My televisual memories of Wendel Clark and Dougie Gilmour are too remote to recall at will with any clarity, I was too young, and didn’t watch many games. I was more interested in playing rather than watching, so my warm and fuzzy Leaf memories reside mainly in the Sundin years when I really started to develop a serious interest in the fortune‘s of the team. Plus I could legally drink in bars.

Sundin doesn’t get enough credit in Toronto for his achievements. I will always be able to warm my hands in the glow of Sundin’s Swedish smile. Can you recall any man in recent NHL history that seemed more genuinely happy than Mats Sundin when he put the puck in the back of the net and raised his arms to the rafters where his banner now hangs? It was like he won Lotto 649 every time he potted a goal. The man didn’t have much to work with during his tenure, in terms of fire-power to play off of, so it makes it all the more poignant that he holds the most points, goals, etc., of any Leaf. Ever. If he was from Dundalk he would almost certainly be the most revered Leaf of all time; Don Cherry would surely agree with that. Or perhaps it was Mats’ demeanour that prevents him from being remembered as the best. He wasn’t really suited for the fishbowl that is pro hockey in Toronto. He was a simple guy, not in an unintelligent sense but a man who wasn’t prone to hyperbolic rants. Sundin was a classy, polite to a fault, not a great sound-bite, offering the most standard of sports clichés in interviews, but you could kind of tell that he was an honest and good man who preferred to leave his statements on the ice. You wouldn’t catch Sundin at an L.A. nightclub after playing the Kings, at some Hollywood hot spot, dancing provocatively with some unidentified blonde then allegedly punching her in the face.

You want an important stat: Most overtime goals: Mats is tied with Sergei Fedorov, Patrick Elias, and another childhood hero of mine, Jaromir Jagr, at fifteen. When the pressure of success is at a fever pitch, these men deliver, like winning a crucial immunity challenge on Survivor. There’s just no denying that Mats is a true sports hero in the purest sense.

Aside from his deft hockey skills, I greatly admire him because he’s bald. As a man with a growing forehead myself, it always bolsters my spirit a notch or two when a bald man is extremely successful. Makes the rest of us look good. It’s a pleasant reminder that bald men are not athletically inferior to fully haired ones. Agassi, anyone (post hairpiece, of course)? One only has to look at perhaps Sundin’s most heroic accomplishment as a Leaf to be convinced of his superior prowess: Those playoff series against Ottawa in the early aught’s, when it really counted, and without fail, Sundin carried the vastly inferior Leaf’s to victory. I mean, during the regular season the Sens would beat up on them like they were the Marlies. The kinds of games where you turn it off half way through because the outcome was a foregone conclusion. The death of a hockey game. But come playoff time it was like the captain was out to lunch and the sailors had taken over the ship. Under the direction of Sundin the script was rewritten. Those were some glorious series and they’ll have to serve as the zenith of my Leafdom memories.

After the Leaf’s beat the Sens in game seven of the ’02 playoffs there was an impromptu parade down Main St. in Brampton. I walked out of the bar, fully loaded, with a carload of friends into the clear warm night. I was consumed by the energy of the crowd the way one is when alcohol and adrenalin are doing a dry cycle inside the gut. The hum of incessant honking and chanting--Go Leaf’s Go! Go Leaf’s Go!--was all around us. People stopped speaking a language…communication was reduced to an easy, repetitive rhythm. Policemen were directing traffic. It was a peaceful gathering, no matter how rowdy, but the police didn’t seem prepared for it, didn’t expect the eruption of passione that swelled like a tsunami wave from Toronto and crashed into the suburbs. If the situation got just a little more out of hand, if storefronts were smashed, the police would have been ill-equipped to deal with the madness. In a dream it would have been a mini G20 debacle…with one small difference: The Leaf’s, all sweaty and heroic, would arrive on Main St. riding white horses, the clompity-clomp of the beasts shaking the ashphalt below us. The galloping Leaf's, led by Sundin, still wearing their game jerseys, would lance all the cops with the butt end of their hockey sticks and join in on the looting. And the crowd goes wild!

But it was a celebration that was content in and of itself, and somehow all the booze and energy didn’t spill over into violence. All it takes is a spark and this could have become post 7^th game Vancouver. But I suppose that would be too embarrassing for us, for Brampton as a city to riot that exuberantly, after all, it was only the quarter-finals. And this was only Brampton, the City of Flowers.

I was quite drunk, with a mind for adventure, and as we crawled along in a jam on Main St. I decided to exit out of the passenger door and run down the white line, in between the two stalled lanes of southbound traffic, and high five all willing participants, like I was the Ultimate Warrior running up the ramp towards the ring, arms outstretched to slap the palms of fans on both sides of the partition. I was impenetrable. Immortal. This is what the Gods must feel like when their team wins the Eastern Conference Quarter Finals. Brampton was unified. Most cops joined in with a pumping fist when a gaggle of people walked by mid-chant. Differences of class and race were briefly cast aside. White, Black, and Indian people were all White and Blue on this night. After at least one hundred high fives I doubled back and re-entered the car, which had barely moved since I did my whole price-is-right-contestant routine. Madeleine, the driver had a look of dismay that was wholly contemptuous of the male species. Mouth agape in horror, witnessing behaviour she thought previously impossible. She must have went home and reorganized her whole outlook on the capabilities of men. I could already see the textbook behind her eyes beginning to hastily incorporate new facts for a revised edition.

Now I don’t want to get caught up sentimentalizing the past, but the future hasn’t offered up much. Hey, I enjoy watching Phil Kessel race down the wing, using his other-worldly speed and snap a wrister in off the post--ding!--top cheese, as much as the next fan, but the heart is slow to catch up. Maybe it’s just an overall lack of grit, or truculence as Burke would put it, that the current team lacks. It’s like they don’t want it badly enough, and it’s puzzling. Dougie Gilmour could have been stranded on a desert island in the Pacific for a week after a plane crash, eating washed up first class dog food to survive, and then after being rescued he would definitely suit up for Hockey Night in Canada. He would shit out the dog food and get a steak and potatoes meal, a fresh shave, and tie up his skates. I can’t see Kessel doing that…maybe Schenn would, but he has to. I know he’s not paid to score goals but, man, it’s like he’s allergic to putting the puck into the net. Schenn even gets this annoying, goofy look on his face after he scores, like “Huh-huh, that wasn’t ‘pposed to happen.” Not a good look, kid.

Never mind that the once tall and mighty TML’s haven’t won a Stanley Cup in the average lifespan of a Haitian grandfather. Since the lockout in 2004 the leafs, along with the high-flying Florida Panthers have been the only two teams to be locked out of the playoffs. By the way, there’s only three people in Florida who even know that. Can you imagine if that was the Yankees? Or the Dodgers? Or the Bruins? Or Tiger Woods (okay, he has an excuse for losing because he power-tooled a bunch of whores, and the fallout has been distracting for him) or the Red Wings? There would be bloody mayhem in the streets. Hordes of miscreants with balaclavas wrapped around their faces shattering storefronts and tipping cars. Has the current roster of the Leaf’s forgotten that this is war? The lack of urgency on the ice and the smugness of the players off of it is abhorrent. They should be embarrassed to show their faces on the streets, but since none of them are from Ontario their faces will surely be on other, faraway streets come this off season. They’re safe at last!

It is an abusive marriage, my fandom for the Leaf’s, and I’m stuck with them for better or worse, until death do us part. As a fan I cannot simply transfer allegiance to another team. Perhaps in social situations, on the most visible of surfaces, I could feign a love for another team, to stop an unwanted conversation before it starts, but it‘s not true romance. In my heart I would know. One longs for the safety of the arms of the familiar lover even though they pimp slap you repeatedly for over-cooking the roast. And the TML’s have beaten me silly over and over after promising to never do it again. But I won’t press charges. I’ll tell the cops that I ran into a door.

You’re not reading the notes of some fair-weather fan here. I stand up for my man. Come October I’ll be right there, ass firmly planted in my seat for the first game of the 2013-14 campaign, waiting with bated breath for the first puck drop of a gleaming new season, fresh with unlimited possibilities, and I’ll say, please, please, please, let me get what I want, Lord knows it would be the first time.

The blood of my rose will forever be blue and white. The team is rooted so deep into my subconscious that there is no untangling the knot. There is nothing to satiate the undying love I have for the team and I’ll continue to haphazardly cling to the hope for a brighter tomorrow until the day my life is extinguished, and my soul dissipates into the ether, and I become a translucent shadow of my former self, doing shots at the 4^th Period Bar & Grill with Bill Barilko and Punch Imlach. Until that day I will keep company with these ghosts who are always babbling at the edge of our future dreams of glory. The bar, I’m told, doesn’t have Leafs TV.

Man Boobs, Me & TLC

I have man boobs.

There I said it. Phew. What a load off my chest--or...erm, on it. If you perchance are one of the chosen few to catch a glimpse of my naked upper torso it would appear as though I'm stuck in the body of a normally developing twelve-year old girl. If you were a blind man, your hand would recoil in jailbait horror. I'm scared that any day now my Mom will sit me down and give me the big girl talk. It's just another thing to get hung about. If it's not man boobs it's something else. Worry, worry, worry. So many things to do. There's the money, the womenfolk, the status, the laundry, the car, the friend's wedding, the health, oh the health, don't smoke so much, don't drink too much, for God's sake don't drink that. The whole scam of life can drive a sane man to unleash a hellbroth of destruction unto the whole damn thing. Blow this popsicle stand! What's a guy got to do to have it easy? To have it made in the shade? I want to lay back and enjoy the ride, open a can of beer, thwack, drink my gloriously golden pint with my pinkie up, two Persian sex slaves with lobotomized eyes in tow, alternately fanning me with Macaw feathers, then sucking on my boobs with infantile abandon. Ah! If only my boobs produced milk,--I could make a quick score and cruise on Easy Street. You'd see me on Sunday afternoons in my black BMW convertible winding through back country roads, my golden retriever's tongue flapping in the wind like a worm with a fork in it. Sometimes, Christ, it's like I don't have enough sense to pour piss out of a boot.   

These cursed man lumps are all the more strange looking on thin frame like mine. Usually you see big ol' droopy, hairy man boobs with flapjack nipples on the chests of heavier men--tits in proportion to their overall largeness. Through some genetic quirk, a simple twist of fate, I've got them. You can suck in a gut but try sucking in your tits--it's not easy. 

I play tennis, jog, watch my food portions, and do some light bench-pressing once a week, but no matter what I do I can't get rid of this cursed boobage. Billy Blanks help me! When I'm alone and topless, lifting steel in my bedroom, after a ripping a good set, I'll invariably look at my reflection in the full length mirror and flex my pectorals without moving any other muscle. First the left, uhhh, than the right, uhhh, then both at the same time in rapid succession, uhhh, uhhh, uhhh, etc.  Sadly, vision far superior to 20/20 is needed to detect any movement.

There was a time when I did go to an actual gym with other human beings--a YMCA in dowtown Brampton. It has fake rubber rocks jutting out of the wall for climbing, squash courts, and a wonderful 2nd level gym complete with all manner of modern muscle sculpting machines, spin classes, and about a 200 metre track around the whole thing. Ahh, the track. That was my favourite part. I was a skinny lad and didn't look out of place jogging around, I belonged on the track. Plus, I could look out over downtown Brampton (lucky me!). Turned out I was in pretty good shape, not because I was twenty years old, but because I would run around and around for far too long in an effort to delay the weight lifting portion of my workout. All those intimidating, alien machines that I didn't know how to use silently mocking me, daring me to give it a go; they looked rather like diorama oil hammers. I laid in wait, until I passed by on lap 12 on the track and saw some gym rat with a firm, taut body grinding it out on one of them to figure out how they were actually used before I'd even put forth an attempt. Nothing is more embarassing than using one of these machines in the wrong way and some hard body housewife in spandex walks by looking at you like there's a dick growing out of your ear. 

I remember one of the first times I went to this Y. It was like a first day in a new class--and nobody was showing me the ropes. A stranger in a new land. I could just leave, toweling my forehead, feigning a good workout. But I would only be fooling myself, and that's who I have to live with in the end.  

I finally acquiesce to the call of the weights, of my forlorn dreams of bulging buffness, of walking into a room (most likely sideways) with arms uncomfortably hanging out from my side with nowhere for their impossible girth to go. Like two twin elephants in the room. With these images in my head, I saddled over to the the mock bench-press thing-y, where you sit upright at a ninety degree angle and push outward instead of upward like you would bench-pressing with free weights. It' not for serious lifters, it's for women and dentists and the like. Adjacent to me, there was a gaggle of thick, self-assured, black guys monopolizing the free weights anyways, and in my wildest dreams I wouldn't dare to venture into that dimension of the gym. The five or six of them were dressed alike, like they were on the same football team. There was no one else around--just a noodle armed honky and a group of veiny coloured fellas. I'm white, and over all it's great, don't get me wrong, it would be imprudent to pretend otherwise, like my life isn't ahead a notch or two by default because of the colour of my skin, but when you're pumping tethered iron in close proximity to big tattooed black guys, you don't quite trust the paint job.

I take the pin out of the 150lbs slot and put it into the 70lbs slot. I grip the handlebars, and for a moment it looks like I could be riding a Harley 74 down the PCH, like a righteous Hell's Angel. I start furiously pumping away and simultaneously sneaking glances of how much weight the big black guys are lifting. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice one of them playfully taps his buddies shoulder, motioning him to look at me. Then they both laugh, looking in my direction and I pretend not to notice, praying they're looking at someone else, but there's no one else in the general vicinity. Oh, shit, here we go. At first I'm angry that they just couldn't be more discreet about mocking me, it's not like I inherently care too much about what people think, just please keep it to yourself. But then one of 'em said something along the lines of, "Hey bro, you need a spot?" and they all erupted in laughter. I laughed, too, because the whole thing was kind of funny, even if I was the brunt. Whoever says you should ignore bullies should be ignored. I have to say or do something if I'm being engaged in conversation, no matter how insulting if only to diffuse the situation. A real man doesn't just turn his back. Similarly, I have to acknowledge homeless people when they ask, "...spare a quarter, sir?" I will certainly and without fail try to use another citizen as a human shield and hide behind them while walking by the homeless to avoid the exchange, however brief, but I cannot simply walk on as if a ghost is talking to me in another dimension. The homeless may not always get any change, but they'll always get a half-hearted, 'sorry brother', or a at the very least a sympathetic shake of the head, as if to say, "I see you and the other-worldly suffering you endure, cold and alone on the streets, and it's a shame, I really truly believe it, yet I choose to walk on because somebody else is going to help you, of that I'm sure."

Okay...let's get down to the real issue here: body dysmorphia. Don't we all suffer from this affliction to some degree?  Whether it's bitch-tits, no tits, no hair, too much hair, one leg, acne scars, Chinese people, big guts, jiggly arms, gunjy pussies, crater-asses, hook noses, muffin tops, spare tires, lazy eyes, blotchy skin, bald spots, liver spots, big belly buttons--there's always something wrong that we're dying to fix; doubts about our attractiveness that niggle at us while we lie in bed at night. Not many of us come out genetically perfect. I'm sorry, it must be tough for you. 

The t.v. flicks to life and a booming voice says what the screen reads...

Next on TLC...the premiere of Skinny People, Bitch-Tits.  

Really--what has happened to that channel in the last ten years? They switched from programming firmly rooted in their namesake, with at least a modicum of educational value, to a modern day P.T. Barnum act. I've sat and watched Toddlers and Tiaras on visits to my parents, my mom and I sipping on red wine and laughing at what passes for entertainment in today's culture. Don't get me wrong, it's not like it's not entertaining, it is down right fascinating, in a car wreck rubber neck way, on so many levels: A--How N.A. culture sexualizes women at younger and younger ages; B--Red neck families are funny in and of themselves; C--The incredibly sad beauty competitions and the even sadder attendees; D--The castrated husbands at the mercy of their diva daughters. But these network t.v. reality shows seem to hit a collective nadir on a semi-annual basis. Personally, when watching Toddlers and Tiaras (BEEP-BEEP-BEEP[flashing red lights]--Incoming Pedo Disclaimer: I've only watched it with my Mom, and only twice in total, so get over yourself) I like to scan the meager audience for potential creepoids (I told you, it's entertaining on multiple levels), I look beyond the families introduced at the start of the show for that one creepy guy in sunglasses, alone, sitting in the back of the banquet hall, seemingly well composed, but on the inside of his head I bet there are seven different kinds of illegality going on during the crowning of the winner for the five year old bracket. I can't wait for the Muslim themed knockoff: Toddlers and Hijabs.    

Can it be any funnier that the channel is still called The Learning Channel? It's like buying the New York Times and it turns out to be some porno mag called Laying Pipe. If it were up to me, I'd enlist that Super-Size Me guy, Morgan Spurlock, and get him to make a documentary wherein he subjects himself for an entire month, not to a Mcdonald's diet, but an immersion of a different sort, a televisual diet only consisting of TLC shows. 24/7. No commercials, either. Totally DVR'd. Line 'em up and knock 'em down Morgan. He must watch specials and regular programming alike. Season upon season of Little People, Big World and 28 Kids and Counting, all manner of hour long documentary type shows of morbidly obese human beings being carted out of their homes on forklifts. I've got a better idea: Instead of wasting the tax payers' hard earned money on the forklift and the forklift driver, the doctors, the entire fucking system, man, why not just make free soap for the homeless out of these gargantuans? Welfare soap. Problem solved.

Then at the end of the movie Morgan goes to the doctor to see how unhealthy he's become from this TLC mega-marathon. The doctor places the stethoscope on Morgans chest and has him take deep, measured breaths, then asks him to say ahhh as he peers down his throat, then looks at the dilation in his eyes with a pen light, then grabs his bean bag and makes him cough, and then, finally, places a reassuring, fatherly hand on Morgan's shoulder as he gives him the news...

"I'm sorry Morgan...but you've got CancerAids."

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Possibly Do Again

You ever been in one of these?  

It's 5am and you're wired on E, spooning in bed with a petite brunette, after raving at a club all night, and you have a raging hard-on rubbing up suggestively against her backside (with her panties on, of course), and she seems to be responding positively, grinding back, moaning softly, and you take this to be a sign to go further, and so you start to get frisky with your free hand, first fondling a breast, and then moving down to her smooth stomach enroute to her sinful hole, her apex of desire, and then, (then?) she jerks awake, (awhat?) and groggily says, "Hey! What are you doing!?"

My hard-on disappeared faster than a gram of crack in Whitney Houston's glass pipe. Too soon? 

It's amazing how quickly a girl can come out of a booze and drug laden sleep when she's being semi-molested. Or maybe it's not amazing, it's just what you would expect. But, I too, felt like I was being violated and molested in some way. I didn't act maliciously. Perhaps it's amazing what the body will do while unconscious. How it seems awake at first until you catch onto the ruse; like the cold dead eyes of a sleepwalker looking through rather than at you. My heart was in the right place, as it usually is I'd like to think, even with a fog of illicit chemicals coursing through me. Terrible thoughts of a long prison term a in rural Southern Ontario facility hit me, shitting in front of my cellmate, whose name is most likely Slippery Pete or something, and listening to him jerkoff in the bunk above me. I'll probably have to get a tattoo or two, too. I immediately went into damage control mode: "Shit, sorry, sorry. I'm sooo sorry. Oh my god! I thought you were awake."

And I did. Really.

Earlier in the evening, I was on a double date of sorts, but kind of not. My date, Alicia, was for all intents and purposes a platonic friend; I was definitely thinking that if I played my cards right there could be some action to be had but there are no guarantees. We made out once in my kitchen during a party but that was some time ago. Wedding bells were not ringing. It was a kiss devoid of passion. She did it as a display of her party girl ethos. Look how dangerous I can be. Not too say it wasn't nice on a purely physical level--our tongues were pleasantly slithering and flickering in each others' mouth's but we were both quite sure nothing was going to come of it when our embrace came to an end. I didn't pursue her that night and she sure as fuck didn't pursue me. She ended the kiss and I didn't want to be that guy, the one who creepily persists in ogling and groping when it's clearly over. I'm not inclined to put much effort into romantic endeavors. I don't know--I'm just kind of resigned to let the pieces fall where they will. I'm a proponent of subtle romance--a certain look or comment rather than an elaborate, fiscally intensive charade. Who wants to shovel pitch fork loads of their hard earned cash into the bank accounts of Tiffany's executives. I'd love to be the type of guy, like John Cusack in Say Anything, who shows up late one night under my one true love's bedroom window with a ghetto-blaster held high above my head blasting our song.  But I can't. Just like Stephen Hawkings can't do a cartwheel. Or how the GOP nominees can't convince me they're not half-retarded. Take that Republicans! 

Alicia is a great kisser though, and that's hugely important. No one likes a robo tongue or some weirdo who gives you the death stare the whole time. Thankfully, she let me assume the best possible position there is for a man when french kissing a woman: The double handful of ass. I was squeezing those cheeks like they were full of orange juice. Up and down, spreading them from side to side, then one cheek up and one cheek down. She let me do it all.

On this particular night, Alicia and myself were contrasted by the other two in our double date who had been together for years--Long-termers. Because the male half, my friend Marius, loves techno/jungle/drum n'bass/shit we found ourselves at some club full of jacked up kids dancing in a seemingly arbitrary manner, swinging their arms and twirling about in a way that I'm supposed to believe is hip and modern. I hope that if I have kids they don't turn out like these people is my first thought as we're enveloped by the darkness of the club. Glow sticks, like flying radioactive snakes, are whirling around in a blur. Unlike regular citizens on the street, these denizens have all put an inordinately large amount of time into their get-ups, even the males. Haircuts are gelled into asymmetrical shapes and gelled to perfection, beards are shorn down into pencil thin lines along jawlines. If anyone of the guys at this club were somehow plopped down in the middle of Thunder Bay, I have no doubt they'd be labelled either queer, faggot, or homo--maybe all three. The beauty of diversity, I suppose.

Sometimes, a small cluster in the crowd-at-large will part and form a circle around a particularly coordinated dancer, and he'll shred some tile like nobody's business as us lesser humans marvel at the display of dexterity. Being high on Ecstacy heightens the furious activity around me and adds another element of tension to the semi-confusion and fear of being in an unfamiliar environment. In this case a house club, or dub step club,  or drum n' bass club, or whatever the fuck kind of club it is. I'm not fucking Deadmau5 over here. 

I don't even really like the drug Ecstacy, I wouldn't touch the stuff nowadays, but this was years ago; and besides, if you're going to the rodeo shouldn't you wear a cowboy hat? With Ecstacy I'm a light weight. There are ravers out there who can gobble it all night long. Not me--after swallowing one pill I'm fully loaded, a total dancing queen. It's like being fried on speed and lsd at the same time. Not really my cup of tea anymore. It didn't stop me from enjoying myself though. If you are going to do Ecstacy it's definitely best to do it at a club rather than sitting in a house because your body needs to indulge in action of some kind. It distracts from the dread and paranoia. 

I dragged Alicia out into the throng of sweaty young bodies and we danced for hours and hours, with brief interludes of gulping water (her) and beer (me). I ended up swirling two--yes two!--glow sticks, gyrating my hips like a mental patient, and puckering my lips like Jagger for all the other dancers to gaze at in astonishment. I was dancing as if I was on the fastest setting on an elliptical machine designed by Andy Kaufman. I would oscillate between totally selflessly lost in the moment and totally consumed by the wrath of one thousand eyeballs. I had to get innovative and mimic some of the better dancers' moves, and, failing at that, feebily attempted to blend in. When I did lose myself, I was tapping into some larger communal energy, something inter-galactic. It's amazing what the power of drugs music can do.

Alicia seemed more interested in the better looking club kids but I didn't care--I could dance the night away. "Wait until this next guy comes on," Marius yelled into my ear, "you'll go nuts!" I could give a squirt of piss about who was coming on next because I was on another plane. All the DJ's seemed to have the same move--slowly increase the speed of the rhythm, a burgeoning crescendo that lasts forever until, mercifully, the guy with the mike on stage screams in a jibber jabber non-language (I don't think I would give him enough credit to be called a 'singer') and the beat drops explodes into a dancing frenzy. It's like a wave building up, getting bigger and bigger, just about to break, a perfect curl forming, and then it just fucking CRASHES and you ride that fucker as long as possible. Like your parents, I think it all sounds the same and it's no big deal. I've tried, I really have, to find some redeeming qualities, and I like everything from Refused to Bob Dylan so it's not like I'm narrow minded, musically speaking, but the appeal of dance music is lost on me.

We're back at Marius's apartment. Marius and his girlfriend have retired to the master bedroom and with only one smaller bedroom remaining there wasn't really a decision to be made. I could be a gentleman and offer Alicia the bed on her own and I could lay down on the loveseat with my gangly pasty legs hanging over the edge.

I went to the bathroom for a quick pee and when I entered the bedroom Alicia was already tucked under the covers, laying on her side. I mechanically disrobed down to my boxers and climbed into the bed with her. For a brief moment, a deathly silence befell us as we adjusted to the alien situation. I couldn't tell if she was awake or not, so I mustered up the cajones to inch closer to her body in the darkness. Every little movement was a victory, an advancement further into enemy territory, until I could finally inhale the glory of her dried sweaty essence. I cautiously draped my arm in a bracelet over her t-shirt clad waist, and she emitted a soft moan of delight. How delightful: She's awake and is giving me permission to proceed. I pressed my body up snugly to her backside. My cock was a throbbing jackhammer digging up the Ass Crack Expressway. Her body language was screaming at me to keep going, her ass climbing all over my apparatus. We were essentially dry humping our brains out in the spooning position. And speaking of dry humping, I have this nasty habit of doing that to women, especially if it is the first (and of course, most awkward) encounter, where it's improper to take off your clothes right away. Typically, I don't engage in dry humping because there is no need: I end up dry humping her pussy with my cock, the way God intended. After a few minutes of kissing on some couch or bed, I'm known to start humping at the poor girl like a monkey unable to stop from publicly masturbating. I can't control it, it's simply an evolutionary compulsion.  

Not too long ago I had this one HPOA splayed out vertically on her basement couch and our limbs were entwined, my knee digging into her crotch. I uncontrollably, almost imperceptibly at first, started thrusting whilst on top of this lovely specimen. My primal urges took over and there was no getting them back in their cage. I was going slowly at first but the thrusting generated into a furious ground and pound. 

"Are you dry-humping me?" She asked with a hint of mortification.

I was stunned to a halt, mid-thrust. "Oh, uhh, no. I guess I'll stop. If you want."

She kind of laughed and I blushed and rolled off of her, trying to brace for the oncoming psychic slaughter of a shameful self-pitying depression. Memories!

Anyways, Alicia was cooing, throaty uhhh's and hmmm's radiating from deep within her. I was fairly sure at this point that we were going to copulate and it dawned on me that I didn't have any condoms-- this thought, it's worth noting, rarely dawning on me because I don't usually need condoms when I go out. True story: About a year ago, I actually had a pack of condoms that expired. For a couple years the pack sat in my bathroom cabinet, these neatly coiled up rubber donuts, three quarters full (twelve pack). Every morning when I went for the toothpaste, this box of condoms stood there in stoic judgement, relentlessly mocking my manhood. It's not like a carton of milk going bad. There's a lot more shame to it than that. When the expiry date finally came around, June 2011, I had to begrudgingly toss them out. The last thing I would want to do to a women is put a rotten cock in her cunt. Most condoms out by the dumpster are used, but not mine! But I'm a hopeless optimist--my spirit sings to me, things will turn around.  

Anyways (I know, again) my left hand is moving all over Alicia's stomach and breasts, giving the nipples sensuous tweaks and they harden purposefully into nubs like the eraser on top of a No.2 pencil. I press my body ever closer to her and we are like one being under pressure, giving and taking; my hand glides down the length of her fit thigh and grabs a chunk. I want to just eat her at this point, bite into her haunches and rip off a hunk of chuck. Inevitably, as human behaviour is want to do, since time immemorial, from Apes to Neandrethals, to Insects, and a few North Koreans, my hand moves down to the golden chalice of lust hiding between her legs. The moist pink gates thrust themselves open and rays of light beamed out her oval hole and illuminated our under cover bodies, and I think a fawn went strolling by too. I was in heaven. The glory of vagina!

(I really shouldn't even put this in here, it's a total crowbar job, but it's the only mention of the word 'vagina' in the whole piece and there isn't going to be another one, and also because of my recent un-employment, I have decided to include this...I'm thinking of fresh new ways to generate an income, among them managing a hip new all-girl, all-Chinese pop band, called The VaChina Dollz. Just saying).

My left index finger was fondling her clitoris, and it too, became the eraser on a No.2 pencil. No doubt, that's the sweet spot. Alicia's moans became more guttural, more possessed. Busting a nut in my boxers was fast becoming a distinct possibility so I had to lay it all out there. This is the moment--now is the time--carpie diem--just stick it in her hot wet mess. Somebody's gonna get pregnant, Tracy Morgan bellowed through my head (still high, I guess). I whipped it out, and went to say, "Take your panties off," in as sensous a manner as was possible at 5am after screaming all night, when my bed-mate promptly stiffened up, ice in her veins, and bolted upright, and my left hand jolted back like it was on a hot plate. WHA IN THE FAH?

She then uttered the penultimate phrase, a phrase that no man should have to hear while in bed with a knockout, especially with such emphatic concern. It wasn't a "Hey! What are you doing?" like "I'm saying 'no' but I mean 'yes' keep going." It was "Hey! What are you doing!?" as in "Hey, there's a rapist in my house!" 

I apologized profusely, stunned and disappointed at the same time. Stunned because I thought she was awake and disappointed because there was not going to be any sex. But I was relieved that she wasn't  
infuriated with me.

"It's okay, just let me go to sleep," Alicia said wearily and promptly slipped back into still motion unconsciousness. I rolled over on my back and exhaled, staring at the ceiling. What a life. I tried sleeping, maybe dozed off for an hour or two. 

At about 8am, I was summoned into the stark morning light that's decidedly fetal-position inducing with an Ecstacy and booze hangover. Alicia appeared to be sleeping peacefully on her side of the bed, her body heaving softly, almost imperceptibly.

At some point during the night, I became convinced that I had to apologize to Alicia in the morning for last nights debacle, when our heads were straight. I couldn't just leave without saying anything-- hat would be worse Since I just wanted to go home and lay down in my own bed, I had no choice but to wake her up (again). I jostled her shoulder, "Alicia, wake up. I gotta tell you something."

I began to give her one of those apologies that are prefaced with a sigh and a "Listen..."

She was so dismissive about the whole thing and laughed it right off. Probably shouldn't have even woke her up. I put on last nights sweaty clothes, caught a faint whiff of stale tobacco, and walked out into the hallway of the apartment building. 

I walked like a zombie to the elevators. It was silent and I could hear the gentle hum of life in the building, families waking up to another day. I pressed the domed "L" button and it lit up. I looked back and forth a couple times. Empty. There was no one in sight but I could hear life going on around me. Clanking of plates, children using outdoor voices. A guy laughing, ack-ack-ack at his own joke. The elevator opened and I was swallowed whole. "L" again. I stared forward blankly, thousand yard style. Muzak played from an anonymous radio and I slowly descended until I was no longer there.

What It Takes To Get A Modern Man Through The Day

Lord knows it's hard as the day is long hammering away at this game of life, grinding it out in one of North America's infested sprawling metropolises, and sometimes I need to take the edge off. I need something else to get me through this semi-charmed kind of life; something to chisel down the edge of the blade. So here's to another day! I lift my glass to you, or swallow another pill, or light another cigarette, or maybe all three. At once. Without these crutches you can deal me out--I don't want to be a part of this game any longer.

The tobacco company, Peter Jackson's, should really hire me as a PR guy. I'm passionate about the product. Much to the chagrin of my neighbours, I rarely if ever smoke outside. I want to enjoy a PJ  comfortably and leisurely, inhaling and exhaling luxurious plumes sitting at my computer. A smoker has an inherent mystique, it's undeniably cool in some way thanks to all the cool people who smoke. There is an ancient seductive art to the way a red lipped woman purses her lips and slowly, with lithe fingers, takes a hit, cocks her head and blows a jet stream out into the atmosphere. Can you spell hot? All these anti-smoking groups are teetotaling tittie sucking fools. Look back a generation or two: Were the 1950's-80's not a magnanimous, smoker friendlyepoch in the 20th century? Smoking on airplanes, in malls, in offices. Smokers' freedoms weren't eroded like they are nowadays. Shit, back then you could make out with your girlfriend, a smoke dangling precariously from your lips.

Smoking indoors is best primarily because there's no wind. The cigarette burns symetrically and I'm overcome with a placid calmness, mesmerized by the hot glow of the cigarette, burning down proportionate to the drags, followed by the soothing feeling of a silky mouthful of smoke streaming through my nostrils. What can I say? It's my yoga. 

What it takes to get a modern man through the day (The Morning Regiment [TMR]):

Loratadine...10mgs (allergies.)
Cigarettes...limit of 5 until 5pm.
Coffee...2 cups max.
20mgs of Adderall (not my prescription, never done it before; just experimenting.)
10mgs of Cipralex (anti-depressant, my prescription.)

And to keep the train moving through the evening (The Evening Regiment [TER])...

Cigarettes...5-6.
Beer...3-4 pints.
Finally to top it off...the never ending Glory of God.

I sat down with a pencil tucked behind my ear, drowning in spools of calculator paper with clusters of scribbled out equations, and added it all up: 

Tim Tebow Me.

This cacophany of substances coarses through my blood and I'm facilely transported to the next truck stop on the highway of life where there are decisions to be made and things to get done. Or so I'm told.

I'm thinking of getting a cat. I love cats. I'm a total cat guy. I'm into lazy, snuggly, furry things that require little attention. I have somehow, despite all my pure evil and hatred of the world, still evolved to be overrun by their cuteness. It is a perfect relationship: with minimal effort cats are sustained and happy and gracious with their love, and in return I get an inter-species friend. But I'm having trouble pulling the trigger. I'd take great care of it, of that much I'm sure, but the following through is difficult. I just know that I'll pick a kitten based on it's cuteness, the ahh-shucks factor, and then I'll find out after a week or two of co-habitating, once she's alone with me and her true personality swims to the surface, she's, in fact,  possessed by the devil, hissing and biting me, or is mildly Autistic and hard to read. Well, I'm sure the thing will be okay. My only hope is the animal doesn't mind cigarette smoke. 

"I'll take a smoking cat, please," I proudly declare to the Humane Society person at the desk.

Hey you there, wagging your finger--I had a cat once before. Damn thing inhaled my mother's Du Maurier Milds and my father's Rothman's and occassionally my Du Maurier lights for nineteen years. She probably couldn't run a marathon, but most cats can't. Cigarette smoke isn't really that cruel when you read all the other horrific shit cats, and animals in general, are put through by their owners: physical abuse, neglect, et al. Oh, how I loved my little Ruffy! I would wake up on Sunday afternoon's and wearily stride down the stairs in my boxers to find and pet my kitty. She was always in one of five places, and eventually I'd find her, behind the couch or under a living room table. The longer it took to find her, the nicer our snug-fest would be. I laid down and placed my head on the fluffy lump of her body; not the full weight, that would be too much, of course. I strained my neck and my head was free to snuggle into the white cottony bliss of her belly fur. In this position I could hear Ruffy's inner workings, swampy gurgling's and bubbling's, a factory of organs at work. My cat would purr quietly, regally, a look of satisfaction across her face but eventually Ruffy would grow tired of my face in her fur, hiss and/or swat at me. She was a princess, no doubt. The kind of cat who wouldn't let you touch her paws or rub her belly. If you were a stranger or infrequent guest at my house forget about petting Ruffy! She was no whore! Absolutely not! She was like that skinny golden haired popular girl in high school you could only dream of getting.    

Once Ruffy and myself happened to catch each other while she was about to drop anchor in her litter box, which was like a nice little shit-house complete with roof and all. She looked me right in the eyes as if to say, "you can watch me, but only this once." There was no question--from that day on I would always decidedly walk on, gaze fixed forward (not that I didn't do that before). 

I have a new show idea: Next on A&E: Cat Hoarders. The sad thing is you'd watch it.  

I must admit, somewhere deep inside me, the scientist/experimenter part, I can't help but wonder what it would be like to give a cat some of my Cipralex, or some coffee, or some meth. Now, don't get all righteous on me, all you animal lovers for I am one of you. Even if you're a raging addict, there is some kind of simple pleasure to be taken in denying another sentient being the possibility of addiction. My cat will not become a totally out-of-control, dentally ravaged half-tard meth-head, for I can still control it's intake. I'm the judge and jury. It's rehab for you, Tweaks!

Ahh...me and my cat, lost in a narco-fog, but if we're lost in a fog, we're lost in a fog together. I've already named her: Blixa. I can see her now prancing around my apartment, lithe and goddess-like, but simultaneously I feel sorry for the poor thing. For there is only me to keep it entertained. Me to help it through a tough day, me to be a shoulder to cry on. I don't really need that kind of pressure in my life. I'd always have to be on. I can't be expending all my precious social energy on non-humans. Plus, it can't be that great of a life living with me--can it? 

It must be a female cat. That is imperative! There's no way I'm waking up and cuddling with a male anything. My nightmare is lying there in bed about to wake up, lost in that twilight period before clarity reels my sleepy head in, and I'm thinking about that hot chick at the LCBO giving me a slow, sensual blowjob, taking her time with it, cupping the balls and everything, and then it feels a little rougher and rougher, like sandpaper, "Ohh...Allison...I like it rough," and just when I'm about to reach the point of no return, I look down and there's Ernie licking the head of my penis. Ain't gonna happen to me, pal.

This has nothing to do with anything (I jump around a bit, you'll get used to it). While driving home today from the bookstore, a young light skinned black girl, maybe mulatto, in her cute little jeep, was trying to make a left from a little side street onto Bloor and her stupid jeep was jutting into the road so that myself and the motorists behind me had to slow down. We have a green light and she's forcing us all to come to a screeching halt while she tries to bypass our double lane into a clogged up eastbound lane. I try to switch to the left lane to avoid the front end of her jeep but the cars just keep a comin'. I'm forced to idle and will now miss the light.  

My car's spedometer swung down from sixty to zero and my pyschometer went from zero to sixty all in the matter of a few seconds.

I resort to motioning with my hands to back up a little. I do this condescendingly, like you would to a petulant child, or a half tard. When she looks at me confused, like I don't know how to drive, or live my life by her rules, I yell out, "Move back you dumb fucking cunt! Gee-whiz, lady, back it up a yard or two for pete's sake!" 

And if she couldn't hear me, I made sure to enunciate each syllable, like an enraged Michael Buffer. She looked at me, shocked, unable to fire off a retort of any kind, only a blank stare of incomprehension at the aggressiveness of man, at how wholly putrifying their violent response to provocation is. Indeed, I feel ashamed at what I'm capable of, of what men in general do to the Aphrodites of the earth. I'm so sorry to all the women...mom in particular. This isn't the way I really treat women. It's really not. But she did eventually put the jeep in reverse so I could pass by, whether out of fear or pity or what, the jury's still out.

No matter what it takes to get a modern man through the day, the day invariably gets through with itself. The planet rotates around the sun through space, endlessly blathering about on it's axis, while I whirl through cyberspace, but I could still never commit suicide. My idea of committing suicide is taking an extra anti-depressant pill and waiting to see what happens. Two, three, four pills? Are you kidding me! I'd be waaaay too fucked up. The way to do it, apparently, is to commit suicide like Joe Bodelai--the comedy writer who killed himself recently. A little older and washed up, living out in L.A., he may never have even made it in the Toronto Star, or his death merely reduced to a simple blurb, but he left an intriguing bullet-point suicide note on his blog, detailing the things he was proud of in his life and things he regretted. It was actually quite touching and funny, with the whole macabre angle (this is a suicide note) adding another juicy layer of intrigue. He was Alcoholic. No surprise there. He really did it. Killed himself by drinking Gatorade and anti-freeze. Gatorade and anti-freeze? In our darker moments I'm sure we've all thought of ordering a double G&A from the bar-keep, no doubt, but efffawhh, what's the minute after you chug that down like? Any potential last moments of regret are swiftly rendered obselete by the poison in the belly (why did he choose anti-freeze in particular?).

Any day now, we'll see a commercial from Gatorade, and instead of  the requisite scenes of men behaving athletically, a bunch of ball players dribbling on the court, or hockey players doing some slappers and then gulping down a refreshing mouthful of toxic sugar water Gatorade, it's a man in a robe, sitting alone at his computer in bad need of a shave, with an empty pint glass, first pouring in the gatorade, the camera circling around with lots of quick cuts; it is a blurry mess of action, then he pours in some anti-freeze, and lookout sports fans, it's a stiff one. As the man brings the glass to his lips, a bassy, faceless voice chimes in: Gatorade--It quenches your thirst, and your suicide.

A New Chapter (In My Blog)

I have made a big decision. No, I'm not having gender reassignment surgery...yet. Rather, a new chapter has started in my life while my head is still buzzing from the bells of the new year, like a swarm of angry Africanized bees. My world has been rocked, and if this were the big leagues, my coach, performing a post-mortem for the media scrum would vaguely announce that I have 'concussion-like' symptoms and I'll be out indefinitely, for today I have quit my job of five years.

Everyone always tell me, "You have to have a back up plan before you quit your job." While I understand this concept in theory very well, I failed to implement it. I understand a lot of things in theory but do not implement the knowledge and practicality therein, so I have to listen to people (good naturedly, of course) explain the concept of work. Too much work, I say!

I bought a new pair of shoes the other day (I was still employed), which is no small victory. Must have visited twenty different stores.  A shiny pair of white Lacoste's. When I buy shoes I invariably think to myself, I'm not a -------- kind of guy, am I? My last pair of shoes were Diesel's. Now just going on shoe selection alone, one might think I'm a pumpkin-coloured pumper of fists, but I couldn't be farther away from Tha Shoar, aside from my shoes.  

I'm now sandwiched into a liminal phase, post old job and pre new one; a murky world of endless career potentials. If I can't decide on a pair of shoes, how the hell am I going to decide on a career though? It's a crisis of sorts, no doubt. Figure it out, dummy! That's what your brain is for. Focus on your skill sets. Hmmm...I can say words backwards really well...

rolyaT tibseN. That's me.

asluT. That's Tulsa, OK in case you didn't know. I would tell that to Oklahoman customers on the phone; they usually thought it was funny--if they were younger and male.

"Did you know that 'Tulsa' backwords is 'a slut'?" And we share a little chuckle, and then it's time to get down to business. What are your measurements? Where are your specs? Your shopdrawings? Your photos--they work best. But I won't be telling that to any Oklahomans anytime soon will I? Americans love it when Canadians say, 'No doot aboot it!" Warms the cockles of America's collective beating heart. I don't think it's funny either, but you can't argue with laughs. I'd hyperbolize it, of course. Not too many Canadians really say 'doot' and 'aboot', it's more like a 'boat' sound, but apparently it's funny when hammed up over the phone to a semi-stranger. That's the key, you have to be strangers or it's not funny. If I say, "Noo doot aboot it!" to a fellow Ontarion, they'd look at me like I have a two-headed dick growing out of my ear, but you already know that. 

I had a whole repetoire of stock phrases, phrases which I will never (hopefully) utter again. A part of me will miss my American bretheren. Say what you will about Americans--they're fat, xenophobic, hillbilly rednecks eating McGrittles in their SUV's, but by and large they're good people. Take it from me, I've seen it first hand. I talked to them for hours every day. Shit, I know Americans better than Americans do. Or at least I did. They want to do right by their families and make an honest buck and God bless 'em for that. At first, I was shocked that Americans, mostly in the Southern states deferred to me as 'sir'. The American South is so cordial! I'm no Full Metal Jacket general, I'm just some kid, and now forty year old Americans are deferring to me a 'sir'. I was only sleeping, hard-wired into the dream that is America. But I'm tapped out. I've cut the cord.

One day a locksmith from Florida, West Palm Beach to be exact, lost it on me with almost no provocation. Admittedly, I can be a prick on occasion: Condescending, arrogant, short, patronizing, unhelpful, but this time I was none of those. He just went ape shit because I could not provide a quick, simple answer to his simple question. He couldn't fathom that it wasn't that simple. There are multiple options of which I was trying to politely explain. 

"It will only take a minute," I said.  

"I just want the price of a goddamn gate for a door!" He screamed at me like an axe wielding maniac. I will typically react in one of two ways to difficult people, and I will be so kind as to give you a simple answer: Unfazed or Crazy. You wanna get nuts! Let's get nuts! I can be that guy, but with this particular case I was unfazed. I prefer to match wits or insults, it's very cathartic to call someone a 'dumb motherfucker,' or a 'cock-sucking infidel' but I can't really compete with a seizure-like fit of rage. The guy's filibustering me. I depress my index finger on the volume button until the level descends to a tolerable pitch, and just let him go. I think to myself, as his vitriol spews through my VOIP connection, (that's Voice Over Internet Protocol): America must be really scary with guys like this and easy access to all those guns. That's why Cops will never be cancelled: It is a renewable resource. Whereas sitcoms and reality shows stagnate after a few years, Cops never runs out of material.  

I took out the business card in my wallet, the one I keep in case I lose it, the break-glass-in-case-of-emergency card so that a good samaritan can call me, and tossed it in the trash. The last vestige of my former employer. Where do I go from here?

For a brief while I will enjoy my new found freedom. Wouldn't you? I've celebrated the first week of my unemployment by being a total wastoid. Through the mist on my currently calm seas I'm hoping that I'll see land, or at least an island where I can dock. But I can drift for at least a couple months and live comfortably, with beer in my belly and a warm bed at night. The world is my oyster! I don't like oysters though. I'm the king of the world! Or something like that. I will take a sledge-hammer to the frozen sea of the job market!

Perhaps I'll blow off some semen--I mean steam...go to a strip club, plop myself down on pervert's row, and crane my neck up at the naked women preening about the stage on vertiginous heels. The pleasures of the flesh are always there for you in times of need, like a dog. To sit amongst the sleeze balls with their fixed gazes, silently tuned into their own private thoughts hidden behind their thousand-yard stares, oblivious to the pulsating strobes around them.  

"Baby, you got an hour glass figure," I would coo into the ear of the dutiful stripper on my lap, "and I want to play in the sand."

I would not think about job interviews and office politics with Gia offering me a nibble on her suckle-berry breasts. I'd enjoy her company with a Moosehead in my hand and Kickstart My Heart ringing in my ears. This is an escape. Our very assimilation--commercials, vacations, stripclubs, shopping, etc., relies on the notion of escape. But why do we need to escape so badly? Why is so much effort put forth toward it? What are we escaping from exactly? I can't really stand strib clubs, it's the men not the women. Or maybe it's the sharing of women with the men. Who wants to ogle the same woman as twenty other guys? Forty eyes engaged in the ocular gang-rape of a young woman who happens to be afflicted with beauty and not much else. Thanks, but no thanks. Imagine all those boners she has to sit on every night--Yuckers! 

I must get back to the business of making money for the coach to keep me in the game. What am I doing here typing away, pussyfooting around? There's a lot at stake here. I have to pay the bills. It's all about money and that's what I want...that's what I want. It's more important now than ever. You know, it's kind of exciting--I hoard the pennies in my coin stash, I ration out my soaps, creams and deoderants, I carefully tear two squares of toilet paper at a time for my bottom, I am diligent in turning lights out. I'm fucking Greenpeace over here.  

I haven't eaten the stockpiled cans of Campbell's soups stored in my nether cupboard regions, beyond the easy reach of everyday use, but that day may be coming. I had planned to donate the whole lot, about twenty cans, expiration dates all well into the fall of 2013, (apparently Campbell's doesn't abide by Mayan time) to the Salvation Army, but now I, of all people need them. Precious, precious cans. In a month, like a peasant, the savings account sucked dry, I will painfully slurp at the disfigured vegetable or chicken noodle soup before me, which is imbued with an unearthly orange hue topped with yellowish specks of just-this-side-of-edible detritus floating on the surface. How incredibly unnatural! No wonder there are so many cancers, heart attacks, tumors, respiratory failures, diabetes, BAD JOBS, lurking around every corner. Look at what we eat for Chrissakes! The convenience of efficiency is the king of this land. It just never fucking ends.  Quicker, QUICKER, man! Quickly Nezbit, get back into the relentless machine of economical commerce! It's your duty as a citizen of Ontari-ari-ari-o to contribute, to work those fingers to the bone for it. Or else. Or else what I don't really know. Maybe end up in that dungeon in the old abandoned farmhouse in Pickering that was discovered recently. Did you hear about this? A brand new 'containment' room found in an uninhabited, hundred and fifty year old house. A room, 12' x 8' complete with chains, multiple locks, glass too thick for a crow bar to break, four jugs of water sitting neatly in a row by a white, clinical bench. What was going on, or about to go on there? To quell public fear, I heard on the CBC that the police put forth the notion it might be a movie set. Yeah, right. Saw VIII. Sadly, we may never know because the house burned down sometime during the night of Jan 5-6th of this year. Somebody trying to get rid of forensic evidence? Hiding something?   

So anyways, *cough* please hire me.