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February 27, 2004
Super Sock Monkey
Posted by ÿ at 05:51 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Glass Tigger
Little did I know, Alan Frew from Glass Tiger has a solo career.
Above is his most recent album cover. Perhaps it's also his moist recent, as my initial typo would have had it.
I'm putting it here to share with y'all. Their image consultants were always just soo... what's that word I'm looking for?... I'm not sure what it is.
Call me silly, but I didn't realize Glass Tiger were a gay band. I mean, I knew they were a gay band. I didn't realize they were a gay gay band.
Am I not right to draw this conclusion? Is there not an implied gayness to Alan's promotional aesthetic?
Lately, everywhere I go, I hear Glass Tiger and I don't know what it's about. "Don't forget me when I'm gone". "Someday". Others.
I just read about how they do re-union tours, and I'm thinking they might be a fun band to go out and support.
I'm not kidding. I really do.
I know: You're thinking I'm extremely uncool right now.
What you don't realize is, I've embraced radical uncoolness to the extreme.
And there is, quite frankly, nothing uncooler than that!
(Gay jokes are wrong - I know, I know. But so are glass tiger jokes! It's, uh, one of those complex double-negative-thingies, see?)
Posted by ÿ at 05:21 PM | Comments (152) | TrackBack
This Cool Kid I Saw
Posted by ÿ at 01:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
On Living Through February 26th
I was in Hamilton this week.
There was no way to make the view from my hotel-window look nice:
We were working on a documentary about babies.
Hanging out with mothers and fathers of the 1-to-18 month-old-variety has done a fair bit to arouse my interest in house-pets.
House-pets are so cute!
The baby-experimenting-labs were full of hand-drawn, laminated posters like this:
Wednesday night, as we were packing up, I passed an HMI light to the key-grip, neglecting to take note of a lens inside. Those lenses are worth like $300. The grip ran the light out of the place, and as he did, glass smashed all over the porch.
When I apologized he said, "don't worry - the porch broke it - not you".
This is the kind of thing that just happens.
an hour later, the cinematographer asked if i'd seen a box of tapes.
Indeed I had - a full one - in the back of the company van.
I reached for it, but there were only 2 inside.
He asked me, "that's great and everything but where's the rest?" and I didn't know.
This is not the kind of thing that just happens.
I remembered how i'd been off-loading equipment earlier in the day, and had left the empty-van's back-door open, expecting to be two minutes - taking more like 40. The only thing in the van that whole time was the full box of tapes. I thought of the people who were smoking nearby, and how they were probably flim-flimers. How could I blame them, really? It was weird to think of them stealing tapes from a box like that, but I'd probably have done the same thing at some point in my life, before i was forced down on both knees to suck the almightÿ dong of karma.
one of those tapes was worth $100.
8 were missing!
All I could do was dread the thought of our impending company party, the idea of showing up and feeling everyone's eyes on me as I radiated "liability."
earlier, my boss had piped-in: "So wait a second-- It was that ÿ-guy who dropped that lens?" to which I'd responded - which I shouldn't have - "Well, I didn't actually drop it." Thus walking directly into: "Right Right!!-- of course it had nothing to do with you, I'm so sure it didn't! Absolutely couldn't have!-- No way!" like - it should be noted - it wasn't an overly-loudish-or-needlessly-hostile expression of absolute contempt.
But really, it wasn't that bad, as these things go: He could have been at me with swear words, as he had been the previous day.
So I cowered about in the van, searching in vain for the tapes, thinking how I wouldn't actually mind quitting. There was an internal conversation about how to do so artfully, as I couldn't be that neutered, friendly-guy smiling stupidly away while strips of flesh were torn from my imperfect soul. I thought up a variety of ways to tender my resignation while driving around (for 2 hours) looking for a good place to park $60,000 worth of equipment, (which - if you live in Toronto - isn't anywhere other than a rich person's garage... And I know not of these Rich People's garages.)
Finally, I went for a drink with tv san, who's in town for reading week. I never see him since he moved away. I was just so angry and pissed about the fact that I was angry and pissed that I could feel myself getting even more angry and even more pissed. I wanted so much to be in a good mood and the fact that I wasn't had me thinking: I should be fired.
Fire me!
$1100 worth of faultage in under an hour.
Just do it. Please. Kill me. Someone. Please! Put me out of my misery! I'm dying over here!!
I took the below picture in tv's (mother's) lobby some 3 hours after the tapes went missing, 10 minutes after I got the call they'd turned up, having been removed in an absent-minded moment by someone other than myself.
Miraculity!!
The taste of sweet relief!!!
So that I could at last enjoy my beer.
Posted by ÿ at 12:02 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
It's gonna take an airplane...
To get my sister photo-blogging again.
Live from Aussie-Land, killer pics!
I miss you so much bëaners - it's hard to accept you'll be gone for years, and when I see you again you'll be talking like a hardened criminal and horking on sidewalks and everything.
I cope with it tho, even as the thought of your absence has my heart feeling sick like fish when they're frying, etc..
Posted by ÿ at 08:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 23, 2004
Shadows Redux
Not only is this positively thrilling news, it makes for a rather marvelous story unto itself.
I mean, how perfect is it, I ask you, that the long-gone version of a ground-breakingly-original-film (yes, I apologize on behalf of this term, but no, I don't apologize for emploÿing it-- it's polite to the middle-manager & never threatens to strike,) should turn up riding the NYC subway, all by its lonesome?
Who in the hair-ball comes up with this shit anyway?!!
Oh yeah: God.
God does.
Er, Thank you, God.
You know, you're very interesting most of the time.
Oh - who my kidding? - you're the best! Even when you make me, uuh, go looking for things to bitch about... in order to find funnies... that aren't even there... as I frankly have no complaints to lodge at the moment, (I'm almost apprehensive to report). Except of course lacking a decent way out of this particular paragraph, or the ability to stay on topic for more than a minute in a row would be nice also - so get on it, would-ja?
Where was I?
Ah, yes: Shadows.
It's a unique movie with a couple of mind-rockingly brilliant scenes. Soon there will be a DVD - I'll bet - that has both the commonly-accepted version, and the original-original, so everybody feel extreme good-fortune at not having already purchsed what's - as of five minutes from now - antique.
Yes!!-- Thank you once again, God. You just saved me 30 bucks, dude!
Also, I'm sorry what I said about you 16 days ago, ok? It wasn't very nice & was probably a little uncalled for...
But only a little, cause the truth is God, you can be a real passive-aggressive bitch sometimes.
But you know that already, don't you, big-shot?
(Muchos Gracias D San, for keeping me in that obsessive-compulsive Cassavetes loop of his. I don't know where I'd be without ya buddy, other than utterly destitute and lost.)
Posted by ÿ at 12:04 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 22, 2004
Meesoo
(clips from satanmcnuggit)
Posted by ÿ at 09:45 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
February 21, 2004
Corrective Surgery
these before and after pics were called to my attention today. I'm posting them for adHominem.
My feeling is the world often seems a sadder place than anyone should be made to fathom.
Posted by ÿ at 02:02 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
Please Don't Throw Items At the Model
Please don't, eh? We're askin' ya nice an' everythin'.
Posted by ÿ at 01:42 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack
February 20, 2004
Greeny-Blue Shed of Our Hood
Posted by ÿ at 09:24 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Friends
Four girls on the Streetcar, two days ago:
I can't believe it's almost over.
I know!
Oh my God! That's right! There's only like two episodes left!
Really? Only two?!
Yeah.
It's so so sad right now.
I know, I know.
I'm gonna miss it so much.
Me too.
I know.
I totally don't know what I'm gonna do with myself when it's over.
Posted by ÿ at 09:23 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 19, 2004
Pocket Bush
Ahh, life.
(via J)
Posted by ÿ at 04:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
TIN TIN TIN
I hereby pronounce Carl Wilson's TIN TIN TIN a smashing success. Got there late, never saw a program, so have little idea who to praise, but Maggie Macdonald's Rat-King Mini-Opera was superbly funny, and made it clear the whole farmer - with - this - hot - daughter - taking - visitors - in - the - night - joke was forever destined to end up high-concept theatre.
Between last night, the monthly smoke-easies, and Trampoline Hall, Wilson & Heiti have proven they're the couple about town when it comes to givin'er.
Lately, it's hard not to buy into the Torontopia-tangent, the very idea of which kind'a makes me quiver - which is what was happening in that last photo.
Posted by ÿ at 11:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Larry David on Bush
I just pee-peed myself reading this
(Thanks to Adam San)
Posted by ÿ at 08:30 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 18, 2004
Readable Science
I love books like this which peruse the nuances of contemporary science while keeping their eye on a spellbinding story.
Here's a John Banville review of a book that is bowling me over of late, in much the same fashion as Updike's. It isn't a work of fiction, it isn't told in the 1st person, and it doesn't take place in the future - so perhaps this analogy is utterly fruity - but Gleick tells the story of Newton's life without shying from the intricacies of his ephiphanies, and - miraculously - does so in a way that's infinitely graspable. Which is to say, this book could provide any ignoramus with the illusion that gravity is something that can be understood.
Here are 3 excerpts from so far, (just cause I have to share this shit with somebody):
Newton entered the lowest form at the age of twelve, lonely, anxious, and competitive. He fought with other boys in the churchyard; sometimes noses were bloodied. He filled a Latin exercise book with unselfconscious phrases, some copied, others invented, a grim stream of thought: A little fellow; My poore help; Hee is paile; There is no room for me to sit; In the top of the house-- In the bottom of hell; What imployment is he fit for? He despaired. What is hee good for? I will make an end. I cannot but weepe. I know not what to doe.
*
Almost recklessly, he stared with one eye at the sun, reflected in a looking glass, for as long as he could bear. He sensed that color-- perhaps more than any of the other qualities of things-- depends on "imagination and fantasy and invention." He looked away at a dark wall and saw circles of color. There was a "motion of spirits" in his eye. These slowly decayed and finally vanished. Were they real or phantasm? Could such colors ever be real, like the colors he had learned to make from crushed berries or sheep's blood? After looking at the sun, he seemed to perceive light objects as red and dark objects as blue. Strangely, he found that he could reproduce these effects, with practice, by pure, willful thought. "As often as I went into the dark & intended my mind upon them as when a man looks earnestly to see any thing which is difficult to be seen, I could make the phantasm return without looking any more upon the sun." He repeated the experiment until he began to fear permanent damage and shut himself up in a dark room. He remained there for three days; only then did his sight begin to clear.
*
"I don't know what I may seem to the world," he said before he died, "but, as to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." An evocative similie, much quoted in the centuries that followed, but Newton never played at the seashore, boy or man. Born in a remote country village, the son of an illiterate farmer, he lived in an island nation and explained how the moon and sun tug at the seas to create tides, but he probably never set eyes on the ocean. He understood the sea by abstraction and computation.
Posted by ÿ at 04:00 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Doctor's Out
So this is how it all ends. Not with a bang, but a "yeah!"
Dean was apparently not going to be nice to Canada - but I doubt it mattered. He would have given the U.S. a workable health-care system, he would have done what little he could to get special interest money out of Washington, and he wasn't made out of wood like Kerry, who's already proven himself sufficiently disingenuous to go the distance in American politics. (Unless it's true he's fucked half Pennsylvania behind his billionaire wife's back, in which case he went overboard, & we're really done for.)
I love this picture. You can tell how much they all want to face-punch each other. I'd put my money on Sharpton, for the record. For the fist-fight that is. The race itself seems long over. We now have the option of a Republican or a Republican Lunatic for the President of Canada - a country that can't vote and has no say in anything anyway.
Thanks a lot guys!
In darker moments, I sometimes wish our country would just fall into yours. Our miniscule population might be enough to come up with the combined 53% of the vote required to win an election down there. But then, given what Canadians understand of all this "electoral college"/"primaries"-stuff, probably safe to say it wouldn't make much difference anyway.
To you that is.
But then, you never really noticed us to begin with.
Posted by ÿ at 03:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 17, 2004
What kind of superhero are you?
Well, I took the quiz, and I guess I'm kind'a impressed.
Apparently, after having been mutagenically transformed by socimic rays into a human torch, I became the hothead of the fatastic four. Often impetuous and immature, I've a talent for tormenting my teammate, The Thing -- when I'm not chasing skirt in one of my souped up hot-rods.
Or something.
Posted by ÿ at 12:36 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
February 16, 2004
This Discourse
Everywhere I go, everyone's always asking me, "Who is this Discourse?"
And my answer's always the same. I say: Discourse is the sweet edge of youth in the kingdom of Sankey. Genuflect. Express eternal graciousness that he's joined in our crusade. Be patient. Know your patience will be rewarded. We cannot expect to know what we are not yet ready to.
But then I caved & snapped this pic of him anyway.
In this picture, he is in the Tailor for short guys, listening to Outkast.
Note the sublime, positively dreamy, senstivity of his eyes,
Posted by ÿ at 10:07 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack
February 15, 2004
That Blockbuster Feeling
You know it well. You're standing there, staring into the corner. There isn't anything anywhere. It's just you and the wall and you're standing there staring. And you say to yourself, The Medallion. What was that about again? Wasn't I half-asleep on a bus like 10 weeks ago with tiny tvs everywhere - all of them featuring Jackie Chan? And wait, didn't I actually pay for my headset just to hear the same line spoken over and over: "Where's the boy?" "Where's the boy?" "Where's the boy?"
"Where's the boy?"
Posted by ÿ at 09:37 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 14, 2004
Contempt is the sulphuric acid of love
The secret to long-lasting love: Don't roll your eyes
(thanks tv!)
Posted by ÿ at 04:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Spaced-Out Romantic
Two of my three roommates have bailed on our house.
One of them was actually never here, and never made rent.
The other realized living alone is easier, and way cheaper than relying on untrust-worthy dork-wads who call themselves "roommates".
The result is, for the next 2 weeks - and for the last 4 - roommate numero uno and I have more space than we know what to do with.
Which suits me fine, as I love emptiness. For instance, I just spent 70 minutes staring at my ceiling, sprawled on my floor, listening to guarapero.
There's an album with emptiness.
I know, I know, Will Oldham.
An empty room.
Valentine's Day.
My bad.
Posted by ÿ at 03:16 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
bob dylan mirror
when i got this poster i was 14. my dad said, 'great picture of dylan - he looks so young.'
i'm way older now than dylan was when this picture was taken. i've learned to avoid mirrors, preferring instead to catch my reflection this way, in the great one's impenetrable hair-line*.
*Not all Canadians use the term 'great one' to denote Gretzky.**
**Some Canadians can't skate.
Posted by ÿ at 02:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Lorettalux
(via Mighty Girl)
Posted by ÿ at 02:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Liberal Plunge
Yeah Paul, basically, that's what you say. You can just hear the "wishful" creeping into his "thinking". It's looking more and more like Martin's campaign promise should be "to resign" before he does to the Liberal party what Kim Campbell did to the PCs.* The good news is, he's already become PM, thusly doing what every shit-eating politician hailing from great wealth wants most: surpassing the Cold Dead Patriarch in their closet. Only problem now is that 'stepping-down-in-disgrace' bit.
I remember thinking at the time of their first meeting that Martin was only pretending to like Bush "for the sake of Canadians". After Chretien, it seemed a wise move, even if it did involve the "nu-cu-lar-iz-ation" of space, in the parlance of our times. (Funny how if Bush actually knew how to pronounce that word, instead of "Q-Lar" he'd say something that sounded like "clear-eye".)
The more I think about it, these two have a lot in common, what with their mammoth Daddy-complexes eroding away at Western civilization and everything.
*While it obviously had more to do with Mulroney than Campbell, this might not be such a bad thing. If the Libs were to disappear from the landscape, it would be the NDP vs. CRAP (Canadian Reform Alliance Party), and NDP would win. They would then devastate our economy with incompetence for a term or two, after which they might be able to realize some of the good will they have toward the geeky people of Canada.
Posted by ÿ at 11:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 13, 2004
How Lame It Is
that Don Cherry and Mike Bullard, our National Losers, have banded together, on National tv, to take pot-shots at Sir Conan O'Brien.
Bullard - an impoverished, emaciated, border-line comatose, deaf, dumb and blind person's Letterman - should be holed up in his Brampton lair studying tape. But that would imply he knew what was good for him, and he - if you've ever heard him attempt a joke - doesn't.
Cherry - who has, adorably, never parted with his conviction that irony is an alloy - actually turned Conan's invite down, and went on Bullard to make his feelings about the matter public. There, contained within the aura of Bullard's ground-breakingly deficient energy-field, he had the audacity to belittle those who would welcome to our country a Harvard man who is - alongside Jon Stewart - the funniest mind in late night.
Why?
Because "we're supposed to hate the Americans" Cherry chortled, full-on retard-voice ascending. But no, Don, we're not. We're not supposed to hate Americans, or the French - or all of continental Europe in general, for that matter, and if we were, it would be for better reasons than their feelings about protective safety gear. Protective safety gear, Don, is what prevents people from ending up like you.
That, and a little something we like to call "grade 10" - ba-da-boom!
Sorry, they're both just totally delusional - the two of them. Do they actually think Canadians are at home going "Hey yeah!-- Why is Conan here when we got Bullard on the tv, eh?"
Conan is here, people, because we have Bullard on tv.
Were Triumph The Insult Dog unleashed within fifty kilometers of either one of them, something tells me they wouldn't even realize they'd crapped their pants.
Posted by ÿ at 03:12 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Residual Ottawa Dream
i went to ottawa last week-end to get some perspective on life.
For some, ottawa is known as "the town that fun forgot" - a conception I shared until recently.
There are lots of old people who really care about ice sculptures there, and after awhile, i sort of did too.
the notion of a transparent, frozen transformer, for instance, is pretty neat, even if (and perhaps because?) it doesn't photograph well:
when i got off the bus back in TO, i took pictures of store-front windows on the way home, just 'cause I could.
in the below-picture, the lady behind the counter had just turned her head away from me - i thought, at the time, "distainfully" - but from this angle it's hard to tell.
Looks more like stoically to me.
The Thought of the Day in The Globe and Mail was: "Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more".
I don't remember who said it, but that was it.
"Love is worth fighting for."
That night I dreamed there was a stampede moving through my bedroom shaking the walls & deafening me with force. While this was happening, I lay there trying to open my eyelids in vain. I kept thinking: "ÿ-dude, you really can't afford to be sleeping right now!!" until it occurred to me it wasn't a stampede shaking the house - it was my downstairs roommate enjoying nooky.
Then I woke up like that - no problem.
I sat up and strained to hear the ruckus, but heard nothing. Then the stampede returned in full force, barreling through my walls like Time Bandits - it was even more paralyzing. I found myself literally prying my impossibly heavy eyelids open with my fingers, enough to allow a slender little slit of vision into my mind's eye - but it was ineffectual.
I knew my head would imminently be mashed into my feathered pillow by the hoof of some unseen beast were I not able to wake up fast.
I came to when my roommate burst into my bedroom. I said, "I thought that was you down there!" and he fell over almost instantly as our house started jumping up and down and then jogging through our neighbourhood with the lights flickering and the windows shattering and him shrieking "What the fuck is going on?!" repeatedly, until I was 'awake' again.
This time I really was awake.
It took me a few minutes to deduce my house hadn't just run a city-block, nor was it about to.
I'm not sure what it was about, but it was one of the better dreams I've had lately.
Posted by ÿ at 03:12 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
February 12, 2004
Conversation With Sound Man
O: So, when do you turn 30?
ÿ: End of March.
O: How you feeling about it?
ÿ: I'm a bit freaked.
O: Yeah.
ÿ: How old are you?
O: I just turned at the end of January.
ÿ: How was it?
O: I got really sad and depressed.
ÿ: Yeah.
O: I realized after it was cause my life was half-over.
ÿ: What are you talking about?
O: Just that.
ÿ: You don't think you'll live beyond 60?
O: I honestly think that what happens after 60 has more to do with reflecting than living.
ÿ: Oh.
O: Know what I mean?
ÿ: I dunno. My grandfather did his best writing in his 83rd year of life.
O: Well, ok.
ÿ: I think you can still have a lot of fun when you're old.
O: I don't.
ÿ: Hm.
O: And I was depressed because I thought I'd have all sorts of things figured out by the time I was thirty that I don't have figured out. I thought I'd have a wife and kids... And I realize these are things I really want.
ÿ: Oh.
O: You don't?
ÿ: I don't, particularly, yet, no.
O: I just think it would be nice to have someone to visit me at the home.
ÿ: Jesus, man!
O: It's true. I used to visit my aunt, only like four times a year, because she lived two hours outside the city. And she always was just sitting there by the window just looking off into space.
ÿ: Dude.
O: And I'd sit down and start to talk, and after ten minutes she'd be like - 'thank you for coming sweetie.' Almost like she didn't even want me there anymore.
ÿ: But she did.
O: I think she wanted her kids there. She wanted someone close to her there. I don't want some nephew I barely know visiting me out of guilt. I want someone I raised - someone who actually wants to give something back, you know?
ÿ: I don't know... I hear ya, but I don't feel like that's really any reason to have kids.
O: Oh I know that. Doesn't mean I don't still want them tho.
Posted by ÿ at 01:36 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
February 11, 2004
Timberlake
Timberlake is kind of funny. I like that he and Britney were friends as children, and are now on top of the world. I like that it's public knowledge she lost her virginity with him, and shortly thereafter started deriding his schlong in the press. What a generation the baby boomers have spawned! I like that it was Justin's grandmother who rose to his defense, apparently without possessing the foreknowledge she wasn't in any position to help his cause. What an interesting inter-generational conflict is this? Think of it! Having your grandmother rise to your genitalia's defense, warding off an attack by the likes of Britney Spears?
Sheesh.
I hate to say it, but I kind of like that he used the phrase "wardrobe malfunction". I think he might be a little bit funny. I like that his revenge on Britney has entailed sleeping with arch-rival, "Christina Aguillera", if indeed that's how we are spelling her name. I like that Aguillera can actually sing and that she's so ridiculously over-the-top in the wardrobe malfuncion department that no one from Justin's grandmother's generation can probably take the sight of her for more than a 24th of a second. I like that Timberlake's other conquests have included Cameron Diaz and Alyssa Milano, just cause you know he used to beat-off watching The Mask and Who's The Boss? re-runs in his Mikey Mouse Club days.
I like this whole trend of guys younger than me sleeping with the sex symbols of their thirteenth year - my sixteenth - Ashton Kutcher style. Kutcher actually said, "I used to fantasize about her as a boy, and now I actually get to have sex with her!" in a magazine. I like this quote.
Apparently Timberlake's relationship with Milano deteriorated when he insisted she share him with other women. What nerve!
I like that I somehow know all this stuff.
Justin has a new movie coming out that I was reading about the other day. He plays a reporter in search of the truth. He's aided by a wise and all knowing Morgan Freeman character who helps him get at the real facts. There should be a scene where there is an unusual noise in the darkness of a newspaper office hallway and Timberlake looks around all paranoid. It should be good.
I have to say, I find the idea of sex with Janet Jackson more absurd than what Timberlake's grandma was saying. To me, she is not a sexual person. This is ok. It was recently pointed out to me that we have a chunk of the population that is gay, and a chunk that is straight. We have a chunk that have low sex drives, and a chunk that have high sex drives. Why shouldn't we have a chunk that's just into sitting around and talking about pretty things and stuff while wearing tight leather outfits? Or, you know, having a teen idol expose one's nipple ring to the world while making one's best "I've-been-shamed-publicly" face. For some reason, I buy that that turned Janet on a bit. A tiny bit. But the idea of her on top of someone in bed, like, moaning and stuff... I'm sorry... I almost lapsed into trying to visualize Janet Jackson having sex for you.
Newton never had a lover in his life. Churchill lost his virginity when he was 34.
Of course, they had better things on their mind.
Posted by ÿ at 02:05 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Make Me Gagliano
First off, I agree with D. Canada is a righteous being and Conanomania is proof of this. It's a little odd to think he'll be front page news all week simply for being here - but I understand. It was genuinely entertaining watching one of the US's finest comic minds go to work on our culture last night. The fact that none of these jokes will play well in the States, and that O'Brien himself looked utterly lost in the midst of all the hollering around Mike Myer's Scarborough-rant made the whole thing that much more enjoyable.
But friends, I have to say, I'm scared. Paul Martin is playing with an awful lot of fire at the moment. The whole CSL "I don't own the company, my kids do" wink-wink nudge-nudge thing seemed a brillaint and bold gambit at first, but it's starting to seem about as smelly as this.
On top of that, another scandal - this one potentially more disastrous - promises yet more ammo for that sickening Harper/Clement/Clinton's new girlfriend Alliance. Or - depending on who you think is the bigger threat - more ammo for Mr. I-like-sleeping-with-21-year-old-girls-&-my-stance-on-Iraq-is-so-grotesquely-
pedagogic-you'll-want-to-bomb-Baghdad-yourself-after-listening-to-me-talk-but-- 'I'm with Broadbent so don't criticize me' - Jack Layton guy. No, of course I can't back any of that up. It's more the feeling in my gut I'm interested in. Have you listened to Layton talk lately?
My feeling is, one scandal's just fine. "I had no idea my sons and I were benefitting from government contracts to the tune of 200 million when I was finance minister" - that's so cute. But "advertising contracts" and "fraud" are two words that might just make Canada - which is already bending over backwards to turn a blind eye to Liberal corruption - erupt into a backlash positively Deanian in scale.
What's crazy is that Martin seems to have no idea how to deal with anything. All he does is fan the flames. His present strategy, which seems to be to insinuate that Chretien's at fault, would work, only he forgets that unlike himself, Canadians are loving Chretien almost as much as Conan right now. So, the whole "Yes, I was finance minister, but no, I have no idea about anything" approach makes him look as out-to-lunch as... well... Paul Martin himself.
Posted by ÿ at 01:44 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Bush & Turkey
I can't get enough of this picture.
Posted by ÿ at 11:56 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Shot-blocking Ostrich Joins NBA
tv's been writing fake articles for his school paper. Needless to say, they're quite funny. Here's the latest:
Shot-blocking ostrich to enter NBA draft
Sports superagent David Falk announced Monday that Ethiopian basketball sensation Tena Balema will enter this spring’s NBA draft. The 8’7” ostrich is currently in her second year with Makedonikos of the Greek League, where she is averaging 0.7 points, 3.5 rebounds and 9.0 blocks per game.
Makedonikos head coach, Athanasios Markopoulos, believes she will have an immediate impact on basketball’s biggest stage.
“Tena can run 80 kilometres (50 miles) per hour, and needs just a few strides to get down court. That’s three or four times faster than guys like (Allen) Iverson and Stephon Marbury,” he said. “She can also jump unbelievably high, so there is no doubt in my mind that she is ready for the NBA.”
Despite using her head to handle the basketball, Balema’s beak does not get in the way.
“I have never seen her puncture a ball,” said Makedonikos teammate Giorgos Pantazopoulos. “She’s really well-behaved and her teammates all respect her game. In fact, we often forget she’s a girl.”
NBA scouts are already drooling over the prospect of a skilled 8-footer entering the league.
“It’s hard to say how much teams will value a purely defensive player with no college experience, but she’s a lock to get drafted in the top five,” opined one Western Conference scout. “If her (pre-draft) workouts go well, she could even go one or two. Tena is very territorial and can be pathologically protective of the basket. With each block it’s as though she is saying, ‘Not in my nest, girlfriend.’”
Balema has become a ubiquitous presence in Greek advertising in the past year with endorsements for the country's largest snack food company and a chain of finishing schools. Her agent David Falk, who is best known for helping turn Michael Jordan into one of the world’s biggest sports stars, is confident that Balema will be similarly embraced as she steps into the American spotlight.
“I think Tena’s a marketer’s dream. She wouldn’t be the first 8-foot bird to be loved by the kids, so there’s definitely some precedent there. And though she probably won’t get a shoe contract, I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities to sell the Tena brand,” he told reporters.
Despite the widespread excitement surrounding Balema, the draft announcement has not come without some acrimony. WNBA player Allison Curtin of the Detroit Shock recently complained, “We’re struggling to stay afloat as a league, and the best female prospect ever is going straight to the NBA. It's disappointing.”
Posted by ÿ at 10:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Searching For Spalding
I went looking for a picture of Spalding Gray just now and decided on this one. As I uploaded it, I discovered it moves. This is creepy to me.
If, like me, you're feeling Februaried out, you might want to hold off on this until June. I went against my better judgment - which is practically what I'm famous for at this point - and read it anyway. It confirmed for me that Gray was one of the most unique actors of his time, and that Tim Burton should have given up on his maudlin brand of movie-making sometime before Edward got his Scissorhands on.
For some reason I couldn't get the idea of Spalding's final moments out of my head for the better part of last week. It was so haunting. Not to sound callous, but I kept thinking what a monologue must have lead up to it, and culminated with it, and I have to wonder how the experience compared to his expectations about the moment itself.
Anyway, looks like I'm going to be around my computer today, finally. I plan on posting many happy things in a vain effort to make up for the bleakness of this link, but I had to mention it. He's someone whose originality I've admired greatly, and I can't help feeling he'll be more missed than he was maybe ultimately able to grasp.
Posted by ÿ at 09:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 07, 2004
joep van lieshout
the more I learn, the more apparent it becomes that joep van lieshout's my new hero
(thank you thinker)
Posted by ÿ at 07:32 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack