Category Archives: Uncategorized

14

Mar. ’12

It’s March 14, Don’t Blow It

 

Today is March 14, otherwise known as Steak and BJ Day. There is a Facebook page. I thought I might have dreamed this so I asked my neighbour if she had heard of it and her gag reflex came up:  “IT’S THE WORST DAY EVER!”  She is a vegetarian.

Legend has it that this day has come about to reciprocate all the men because Valentine’s Day is such a big brouhaha of diamonds and cunnilingus. As though it’s that hard to throw money at a day and perform the alphabet with your tongue.  Waaaay easier than a blow job, sir.  What a weird concept.  From a man’s perspective, I can’t help thinking that it must be one of those things that looks better than it actually is, like marzipan:  It’s icing! *takes bite* Oops, no, it’s shit.  Aren’t getting blow jobs a big lunch bag let down?  All that effort, slurping, gasping, dying, and don’t teeth get in the way?  These are not rhetorical questions, I really want to know.  Some women I know claim to be champions and yet get all tight-lipped when it comes to sharing techniques.  I guess it makes sense in this dog-eat-dog world of survival of the fittest.  If I was the Mighty Queen of Cabeza, I would probably keep it to myself and whoever holds the scepter.

As for making a special day of it, I have to say, I think it’s kind of sweet idea.  I picture all these Mad Men-type ladies planning this day down to the details, writing a shopping list in the morning and then heading out to the market where they buy canned creamed corn, string beans, and stuff to make a pineapple upside down cake.  Then off to the liquor mart for Canadian Rye (Don Draper’s drink…okay, let’s be clear, I’m having a “Me and Don Draper-specific” fantasy here), and wine for me to loosen up my super tight jaw muscles that I have gotten from grinding my teeth at night.  In real life, seriously, I grind so hard my jaw cracks when I pronounce a vowel.

Then I go to the butcher shop for the steak.  Now as you know, I like my real-life Danforth butcher shop but since I’m in fantasy mode and I’m channeling Donna Reed in a girdle and a puffy dress, I cannot be caught dead in there dressed like that, so it’s off to the Bronx I go.  The butcher is Marty, played by Ernest Borgnine.

Marty:  Why, hello, Mrs. Draper, what can I get for you this fine day?

Me: Good morning, Marty!  It is a beautiful day, isn’t it?  I’m looking for your finest cut of steak for Mr. Draper this evening.

Marty:  Oh, sure thing, Mrs. Draper.  Is there a special occasion?

Me: Of course, Marty, it’s Steak and BJ Day!  Didn’t you hear on the radio?

Marty:  Ooooh, right, I don’t pay much attention to these things, Mrs. Draper.  I’m not very popular with the ladies.

Me: Oh, that can’t be true, Marty, you’re a sweet man.  Surely any single girl would love to go out with you.

Marty:  I’ve never had a girlfriend in my entire life, Mrs. Draper, even the homely ones won’t give me the time of day.

Me: Don’t be silly, Marty, if I was a single gal, you’d be in big trouble, and call me Betty.

Marty:  Really…Betty?  Gee, that Mr. Draper sure is a lucky fella!

Betty: Well, he does work hard, Marty, and sometimes he doesn’t get home until very late at night.

Marty: You must get pretty lonely, Betty…

Betty:  Oh, Marty, I sure do!  I’m so lonely! What about you, Marty, you must be lonely too?

Marty:  I told you, Betty, the dames all look at me like I’m a big, ugly bug!

And that’s where the fantasy goes awry.  I feel sorry for Marty and I give him a mercy hummer in the back of my Cadillac, and Don calls later saying he’s staying in the city and of course I know he’s with that beatnik ho, Midge. So much for March 14.  But stay tuned for March 25 for Madmen Season 5.  THAT is something I will sink my teeth into, here are some snips.

FYI, in real life I’m having chicken tonight.

And here’s the trailer for Marty, so cute! I guess I would hit it, I do love a butcher after all:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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07

Mar. ’12

Fat Man, Little Hope

It seems like Mayor Ford has hit the dreaded plateau in his weight loss regime.  Last Monday when he had his weigh-in, he didn’t lose anything for two weeks in a row.  Anybody who has watched “The Biggest Loser” knows that the fattest man will lose the most weight initially and then when the plateau comes, and it always does, he is the one laying awake, fighting sleep apnea, while his team-mates are snoring mightily to the tune of Rocky’s Theme Song.  He sneaks into the kitchen, not knowing there is a hidden camera on top of the fridge aimed point blank at his fat face inhaling Reddi-Whip straight from the can.   He only feels guilty the next day when he has to step on the scale.  Then his team-mates vote him off.

Torontonians wish they could vote Rob off, his perceived douchebaggery is well on the rise, while his weight remains stagnant.  Since January, Rob and his brother Etobicoke councillor, Doug Ford, have been on a weight loss challenge, Cut The Waist, with the mayor’s goal of losing 50 pounds by June.  As a point of reference, this is what 50 pounds looks like on a fish:

So far he’s lost 20 of those pounds, who can tell?  When it comes to weight loss, it’s the last one hired that is the first one fired.  It seems like a lot of his fat cells are employed in his belly and based upon the look of this fish, he probably only lost a fin’s worth of moob.

Maybe Mayor Ford should worry less about losing weight and concentrate on some other damage control.  “Cut the Waist” might have been a good way to seek public approval if he wasn’t  so obviously cheating on his diet.  So why not just embrace the fat, Rob?  Overweight politicians are perceived as more reliable to the public according to an American study in 2010.  Maybe we’re conditioned from youth to believe this because Santa Claus was a jolly fat man who gave us what we asked for once a year.

Morbid obesity might be unhealthy but there have been plenty of fat men who rocked the chunk and died despite their heft: Burl Ives of mouth cancer, Luciano Pavarotti of pancreatic cancer, and Notorious B.I.G. of a drive-by shooting!

Historically, there have been fat men where their size has enhanced their power. Here are my top 3 favourite fat men of history, Mayor Ford could take a page out of their books:

1. The Corpulent Orson Welles

Welles is still considered one of the greatest film-makers of all time.  He wasn’t always so fat and was an accomplished leading man type of actor, known for his voice and his personality.  He became famous for his broadcast of H.G. Wells’ (no relation!) War of the Worlds which scared the bejeezus out of the country, as some people actually misunderstood and thought space aliens had landed.  He starred and directed “Citizen  Kane,” which some say is the greatest film of all time, at least according to Mike and Gloria Stivic in my favourite episode as a child of “All in the Family,” You know the one where Gloria puts on a black wig and Mike gets all excited and pretends he’s having an affair with another woman?  When I finally saw “Citizen Kane” in my twenties, I was like “Seriously?” But then I saw “A Touch of Evil” and all was redeemed.

As a 400 pound fat man, he married Rita Hayworth, who later dumped him because she “couldn’t take his genius.”  If “genius” is a euphemism for overhanging gut, who cares?  He married Rita Freaking Hayworth.

2. The Portly Sir Winston Churchill

He led the British troops through WW2, he was one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century.  He was also an artist, a historian, a writer, and won a Nobel Prize in Literature.  He was the first person to be named an honorary American citizen.

He also said the darnedest things.  While he was drunk:

Bessie Braddock: “Sir, you are drunk.”
Churchill: “Madam, you are ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober.”

For more gems, click here

3. The Girth-tastic Diego Rivera

Rivera was a prominent Mexican painter known for his wall works in fresco and the Mexican Mural Movement.  He was a communist, an atheist, and an outright womanizing pig . He had an affair with one of his students, Frida Kahlo, who became more famous than him.  They had an turbulent relationship, they got married, cheated on each other, divorced, then married again.  So, so, sooooooo romantic!  If it wasn’t, they wouldn’t have made a film about it.

If he could have bottled his pheremones, he would have made a fortune.

As Einstein said:  “The devil has put a penalty in all things we enjoy in life.  Either we suffer in health, or we suffer in soul or we get fat.”  Best not to worry about it, history has a way of making a joke out of everything.  I’m looking at you, Rob Ford.

 

 

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28

Feb. ’12

Freud and Jung Make a Porno

Last week my daughter and I went to go see Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method.”  Normally I am a walking Flixster /Zagat guide but for some reason this movie escaped my radar.  The title is generic and I must have instantly dismissed it, thinking it was some lame Nicholas Cage vehicle where he “does his own stunts!” and saves the planet.   But as soon as I found out it was about Freud and Jung, I plotzed!   I love psychoanalysis! Dreams, hidden symbolism, and genitalia! And when I found out Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen were in it, I vajazzled and high-tailed it over to a matinee at the Scotiabank Theatre.

I still haven’t gotten over Michael Fassbender’s penis In “Shame,”  just saying.  I owe you interloping Googlers a link and here it is all NSFW.  You’re welcome.  Here’s Viggo, too, full monty....not the same, but jaunty nonetheless. I’d smoke it for a dollar.

Anyway, a brief historical synopsis:  Freud developed the “talking cure” to help mentally disturbed patients in hospitals.  In case you didn’t take Psychology 101, Freud is the one who coined the term “penis envy.”  Everything is penis-based, whether you like it or not.  I can get behind this.  In his early career, he studied, observed, and dissected eels for 8 years to figure out their reproductive system.  Can you imagine looking at eels all day?  There’s a dim sum restaurant at Gerrard and Broadview that has an aquarium of eels in the window that gives me ants my pants just glancing at it. They intertwine and slither and slide in and out of the castle, no wonder he was so phallic obsessed. As a lady, am I jelly I don’t have a penis? Damn right.  I’m bored with my box, it has no personality and all it does is cry.

One of Freud’s followers was Carl Jung who later challenged his theories in his text books.  Jung was all about mysticism and believed in psychic phenomenon. He didn’t believe in coincidences. I can get behind that, too.  I think we suppress a whole other layer of consciousness because we can’t see it and if we allowed our instincts to govern us, we would be a more harmonious world.  Penises wouldn’t hold so much power and those havenots wouldn’t be so jealous and spiteful.  We would all love each other and fill each other up with our  symbiotic energy. Craigslist personals would have no reason to exist and nobody would be forever alone.  Yes, it would be a giant non-stop orgy, nobody would get any work done.

The film depicts Jung and Freud striking up a friendship through their letters. When they finally meet, they yap for hours while stuffing their faces with food and cigars.  At first they respect each other and Freud sends one of his followers for Jung to help, a Dr. Drew triple episode, a bipolar, coked up sex addict who treated his own patients with his healing penis. He’s played by Vincent Cassel who has artfully mastered the combo of sexy and sinister, he tries to convince Jung that boning patients is the way to go and is actually a valid method of therapy.  Jung is adverse initially but starts to think:  Why deny one’s basic impulse? Blahblahblah, the rationale of every man on the planet.  The simple answer is:  BECAUSE IT TURNS TO SHIT REAL QUICK.

This is not a buddy film, Jung and Freud never resolve their proverbial sword fight that inevitably happens because their theories clash.  It is a cautionary love story and with some insight as to why married men are unfaithful. It’s more or less the result of impulse and opportunity giving each other a nod and a wink. Okay, nothing new there.  But it’s just confirmation that men will eagerly cheat and there’s not much you can do about it.  The antithesis of their wives is their porn.  Men rarely marry their whores, they like their wives to be an extension of who they wish to be perceived as by society.  Just look at any politician, his wife dresses in Talbots and his mistress is a pole dancer. Luckily, one man’s whore is another man’s wife, case in point:  Ice T and Coco. The porn theory is the same: I bet if you checked his google history, you would find a lot of Martha Stewart YouTube clips of her baking bread from scratch.

Why Keira Knightley didn’t get nominated for an Academy Award, I have no idea.  She plays Jung’s beastly Gollum-like crazy bitch mistress, Sabina, in stark contrast to his refined, impossibly beautiful (and rich!) wife who actually apologizes for being constantly pregnant and even more apologetic when she births out girls.  Not that Carl cares, he’s busy  mentoring Sabina.  With a paddle, smacked in the ass.  Again and again, Daddy.  Not sure how historically accurate that part of the film was but it worked for me.  Frankly, I’m getting bored with the usual cinematic sex scenes where the lady is on top licking her lips and whipping her hair around like a shampoo ad.

People and their fetishes never cease to amaze me.  Until I meet the freak that unleashes mine, here is the trailer, I hope you groove to it as much as I did:

 

 

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22

Feb. ’12

It’s Kate’s World,We Just Swim In It

Faak!  The other day one of my Facebook cronies had a status: “Bikini season is coming!”  You know the type, the one that always posts that they are at the gym and what they did: “Burpees, squats, and lunges, OH MY!” And then tell you what they eat: “Quinoa is yummy!”  Quinoa is one of those “superfoods” that all the gym rats seem to have in their diet.  It’s magical only because it’s so labour intensive. By the time you figure out what it is, where it is on the grocery shelf, haul it home, figure out how to cook it, boil it, put it in a bowl and make a face, chew it, digest it, explode it out, you have lost 5 pounds.

Dr. Oz is all about “superfoods.” Everyday he has something you are supposed to eat to boost your metabolism:  “DRINK APPLE CIDER VINEGAR EVERY MORNING AND LOSE 6 POUNDS!”  I tried it and lasted 3 days.  I think it works because your colon puckers up and gets all uptight and won’t let anything make its way through casually anymore, you know, let’s wait until after the morning coffee to drop the kids off at the pool.  Cidered-up colon becomes a GTFO super efficient drill sergeant pushing every half-chewed nugget out the back door almost as soon as it goes in.  There is nothing worse than a wild army of poop going headlong in the middle of the afternoon and having to find a public washroom.   Do not like.

Anyway, bikini season is no joke.  Must take it seriously. The good people at Sports Illustrated have generously given us some swimsuit suggestions. Those bikini designers are so innovative. It’s all about geometry and knowing how to work a couple of isosceles triangles with some string. Two Toblerone-sized pieces of fabric can restrain an avalanche of tit flesh…sheer wizardry! I’m not going to say anything about those bikini bottoms because I have been to Google Beach and I have seen much worse.

I’m a Lady of a Certain Age…I could have given birth to this Kate Upton character, put her in a bacon bikini for all I care, she is no threat to me. I need a suit that holds it all in with more than prayer.  Oh, how I laughed when I googled “swimsuits for cougars” and this came up.  I have been waiting to work this into a post for weeks, it’s my screensaver.  In fact, it’s been my inspiration for bikini season all along:

This cannot be unseen.

So for me, maybe it’s the Land’s End catalogue.  It’s not as Amish as it used to be, some of the suits have a retro-Hollywood glamour, if you squint and conjure up an image of Ava Gardner in your head.  In fact, there’s a scene in one of my favourite movies of all time, “Little Children” where Kate Winslet orders a red one-piece suit from a Lands’s End-style catalogue before she embarks on her steamy, hot affair with the stay-at-home dad, aka The Prom King.  I’m going to peruse the interwebs for more swimwear and leave you the trailer which will get you in the mood for some summer extra-marital affairs at your local public pool:

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24

Jan. ’12

Smoke and Mirrors: The Only True Hollywood Couple

When my friends and I were kids, before the interwebs fed us knowledge, we had to fork over our hard-earned allowance for magazines.  We were obsessed with the goings on in Hollywood and we would walk a mile in the snow to the depanneur to get the latest Tiger Beat or Rona Barrett’s Gossip just to find out who Leif Garrett was boning.  I will never forget the utter disgust and disappointment when he was “romantically tied” to Kristy McNichol.  On what planet would that ever happen?  She wore overalls and looked like a boy! How could such a magnificent male specimen date Kristy McNichol when I was available?  Then when she hooked up with Matt Dillon, I began to suspect that Hollywood was trying to scam us. But when Leif and Nicolette Sheridan became an item, I gave up hope for myself but started to believe again if just for this one photo.  This made more sense, when this first appeared in Tiger Beat, I think I cried.  Now, I’m convinced there is actual penetration going on here:

In any given couple from the perspective of an outsider, there is usually someone who seems like the one who got lucky. In Hollywood, any discrepancy seems monumental. There is one who is better looking, richer, smarter, more charismatic, or more famous.  This is why Hollywood types stick together, not because they “understand each other”, it’s because when a big movie star marries a mere mortal, his or her stock goes down significantly.  They need each other to keep up the illusion.  Inevitably, a marriage of egos will implode because it’s exhausting putting on a show. I’ve watched the glitteratti crash and burn for decades and one thing I know for sure, nothing lasts forever.  And it’s better that way.  Keep it moving, spread the love, and the bodily fluids.

But they seemed so happy!  Don’t be fooled again, here are 3 current case studies analyzed by moi:

Seal and Heidi, Hollywood Breakup Case Study #1.  There was a major red flag right from the start. Seal proposed to Heidi when she was pregnant with Italian douche-a-bagga Flavio Briatore’s baby.  Some men actually fetishize pregnant women which makes sense why she had so many back-to-back Seal pups.  More likely Seal, like all modern men, has a Victoria Secret model fetish.  Let’s face it, if Heidi Klum was slinging pints of Heineken in a beer garden, dude wouldn’t have looked twice at her. I’ve seen her without makeup and she’s not all that. The fact that she was pregnant made her vulnerable enough to overlook the fact that dude is super scary looking.  And what if Seal didn’t sing sexy songs, instead he was Randy Newman?  There is no way she would put out for him. The biggest red flag of all was that they renewed their vows every year.  How tedious it must be for their friends and family, one wedding to endure is bad enough. And who over the age of 20 can handle a Halloween party?  Their elaborate annual costume parties was just another disguise or diversion, what were they really trying to hide?

Conclusion:  They say he has a “bad temper” and if that’s the case, who wouldn’t if you had all those children and all those weddings to parade around?  LOOK AT US AND HOW HAPPY AND FABULOUS WE ARE!  Smoke and mirrors.  Truly happy people don’t like to throw parties and wear makeup. They like to stay home and argue in their sweat pants. You know I’m right.

Case Study #2:  Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis.  I know what everyone is saying:  “But they are such a cute couple, and they don’t live in Hollywood, how could they not stay together?”  And my answer here is a brutally honest no, there is nothing “cute” about these two.  They both look shockingly homeless and without le Photoshop, this woman is just not good.  Especially naked and unshowered on a farm in France. That “jolie-laide” thing doesn’t translate in Hollywood.  Le smoke et le miroir crackay.  There’s the inequality of  all the elements of the glitteratti at odds here:  Looks, money, charisma, and fame.  Duh. Don’t make me say it.

Conclusion: Johnny, call me.

And then there’s these two:

Dear Hollywood:  Stop the fawning. Remember if something seems to good to be true, it usually is. “Mirror, mirror on the wall” and a bunch of pot smoke is what we have here.  Case Study #3:  Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.  You don’t need me to tell you that The Brangelina is a ticking time bomb.  I can envision some time in the near future, she gathers enough strength from eating a breath mint and with her spindly, chicken-scrawl tattooed arms, she picks up a cast iron frying pan and whacks him over his dumb head.  His greasy hair makes the pan slide and creates only enough impact for him to come to his senses and have an Aha! moment:  Juliette Lewis!  She was the one that got away!

Conclusion:  Don’t get me started.

On on that note, I leave you with a clip of the ultimate Hollywood rebel, Jessica Lange as Frances Farmer, and a cautionary tale of what can happen if you don’t comply with rules of Hollywood:

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17

Jan. ’12

Meh…Can’t Be Bothered to Make a Title

Meh…what exactly is it?  Urban dictionary: “Don’t care.”

Me. unshowered after a work out, trudges over to the restaurant at the gym to see what’s the soup of the day.  “Meh,” I say out loud to no one in particular, not even bothering to read the sandwich board. Mulligatawny, minestrone, what’s the difference?  On normal days, that are not in January, mulligatawny makes me shriek with glee as I cream my jeans, and minestrone sets me off into a murderous rage.  But January is “meh” month, and nothing seems to matter. But luckily, “meh” is just a gateway emotion. “Meh” should not be confused with the divine detachment that the elite Buddhists have mastered.  A truly pure “meh” is the perfect storm of disgruntleness combined with a low-level frustration that creates a palpable, gelatinous, balloon of boredom which lasts an entire month. As you can see by my rage comic calendar prediction, it breaks in February, when despair takes over.  Thank God!  There is nothing worse than the January “mehs.”

Watching television simmers a meh mood and caramelizes it so thick, you become inert and catatonic on the couch. It’s a vicious cycle. You might want to jostle yourself out of it by taking up an extreme sport. But if that’s too rad, I have 3 suggestions, all involving needles:

1. Give blood.  When you are laying there with a needle in your arm, squeezing a wad of paper towel, imagine you are ridding yourself of meh…you can’t pee, poo, splooge, or even blow it out in a lame yoga class, you have to go to drastic measures to bleed it out, like they did in olden times when they leeched out the consumption. It’s just a metaphor for you to wrap your dull mind around, but ultimately your crappy blood will be going to someone who actually needs it. And that should make you feel at least like you did something good. Smug happiness is better than no happiness.

2. Get Botox.  We’ve been through this before, Botox is not going to make you look like the Joker, those are fillers.  Botox is going to wipe that meh expression off your face, the one that makes your brow furrow and you won’t have to squint when the stupid sun comes out and makes that annoying glare on the salty roads. Fuck the sun. It’s so stupid.

3. Get a tattoo.  You know the tattoo you get when you’re in a meh mood will be the one you never regret because the upside of meh is rationality.  Last night, I dreamt I got a tattoo of a purple owl on my back and when I woke up and realized it was real, for a second I never felt a twinge of smug happiness.  Then I rolled over and went “meh.”  But still.

That’s all I got, just ride it out and wait for the up-beat months like June and October.  Until then, here’s Johnny with probably a worse case of the mehs than you or me:

 

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07

Nov. ’11

November Treasure Trail

Turn the clocks back, November is in full swing. Some of you fellas are growing moustaches for prostate cancer awareness and I want to thank you for that. Me likey. Manly hair is the best. I hate when men shave their chest hairs or get all insecure about back fur. Some deluded dudes shave their legs thinking it will make them run or bike faster. Stupid. Men usually have spindly skinny legs and the hair provides some volume. No one wants to see smooth twigs in Spandex shorts. And as for the male torso, stop waxing it! Have you ever heard of a treasure trail? No woman wants to put their hands on an ice rink with pimply ingrown bumps and flail around, like we are trying to read Braille tattoos. The fuzzy path provides guidance. Preserve the forest alive, men, and stay hirsute. And keep your moustaches for winter. Makes y’all look debonair and let’s face it, most of you are dumb asses and need all the help you can get.

November, aside from moustache growing, is also a self-imposed frugality month. Christmas is coming and money is tight! Food prices! Hydro! Gas! Everything is going through the roof! I haven’t had a haircut since January, I’m on a hair strike anyway, I’m going to grow it until I can swallow it whole, digest it, and then the bikini waxing lady can take care of it. Kill two birds with one stone! Ha! I am also doing my own mani and pedis. Lately I have been taking the streetcar if I can’t have free parking downtown. Yesterday I went downtown to meet a friend for a movie and then a drink afterwards. I took the Queen car there, without incident, enjoying the scenic sea of humanity and all its diversity. A veritable salad of dander and germs!

After the movie, and having consumed a barrel of Diet Coke and 2 pints of Stella, I broke the seal before taking the streetcar home. You know how once you take the first pee, the bladder becomes Boss. “I have to go,” it says. “Yes, I know, just wait a minute. We are on the streetcar, we have 6 stops until we cross the bridge and you can go at Prohibition. We love that gastro-pub and maybe we can stay and have bison burger and duck frites!” You realize you are talking to your own bladder so try and diffuse the crazy by pacing up and down the aisle.

No way is the Boss letting you get away with that trick. It releases 1/8 of an ounce of hostage urine. “GET OFF THIS STREETCAR NOW BECAUSE THERE IS MORE COMING!” Bladder screams. “I can’t!” you hiss back, “We are at Church and Queen, any washroom we need to go to from here to the bridge will be under lock and key. This is vagrant territory. HOLD YOUR HORSES!”

“I CAN’T! I HAVE TO PISS LIKE A RACEHORSE!” Boss is trying hard. It’s bursting and lazy, flaccid old Captain Kegel is trying to support this mess. But it’s like a tarp in the storm, something is going to give. Make a decision. Quick.

There is no way I am going to pee my pants on a streetcar. I am a lady. I hop off the car and lo and behold is a Popeye’s Fried Chicken at the corner of Queen and Sherbourne. I hightail in the restaurant and pretend to be interested in the menu and not just the toilet. Who am I kidding? Of course, I am interested in the menu. Fried chicken is my fantasy, my last meal on death row. But I have to ask for a key because it is Moss Park after all and heaven forbid if a homeless person should use the washroom, maybe they redecorate in there and claim squatters’ rights, I don’t know, but restrooms are for “customers only.” So with my promise to order and even though I might look slightly homeless with my shaggy hair, chewed up”mani” and a wet spot, Popeye’s employees don’t let on.

I peed, barely making it. Best feeling ever. I think this might how men feel when they jizz. I wish I knew. Men never seem to have the bladder issues we do, maybe because they secretly pee in tubes under their pant legs. They can do it more discreetly in public, standing and aiming, their clothing is designed just for the purpose of urinating and the possibility of impromptu public fornication. Imagine a man in high-waisted trousers with a side zipper! And women, who have to urgently pee all the time, are encumbered by undergarments that don’t swing open like a fly. Fruit of the Loom, you have some inventing to do.

Anyway, I ordered a three pieces of spicy chicken without a drink, duh, I still have to go back on the streetcar for possibly more bladder sass. I do love Popeye’s, I must say. It’s really the first batch of fast food I have eaten since the Righteous Teenage Daughter made our household all about organically grown local farm animal meat. Don’t get me wrong, I am into it but sometimes you need to answer the call of the wild. As much as I love the chicken, though, Popeye’s should not bother with their ridiculous side dishes. Just give me the meat. Weird mash potatoes and strange gravy are not treasure trails. And I have no time for that biscuit as it is just lard filler. Let’s not kid ourselves. Such superfluousness gives fast food a bad name. And that is all I am saying about that.

The rest of the streetcar ride home was pleasant enough. Another Saturday night under the belt, home by 7 pm, turned the clocks back so I wouldn’t be confused in the morning and asleep by 11! Or was I? Stay tuned for Part Two: Driving The Drunk Neighbours To The Emergency Room In The Middle Of The Night!

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03

Nov. ’11

A Lesson in Karma From A Post-It Note

“How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.”. ~Wayne Dyer

Last weekend when I was visiting my brother, my sister-in-law had a bunch of post-it notes in the kitchen with various affirmations. I like people who are conscientious and strive to remain Buddha-like as it is so easy to get sucked into vortex of petty resentment and super-inflated hate-ons for our fellow humans. This karma quote got me thinking as I rifled through their kitchen looking for cookies and a bottle opener. I think about karma a lot and wonder if certain people in my life have “gotten theirs.” It comforts me to think that the high school bully is rotting in prison, even if I just made up that story. But reading that little kitchen post-it made me think I’ve got the concept all wrong.

Take Bernie Madoff, for example. He scammed thousands of people of all their savings and ruined their lives. His son killed himself. His other son hates him. His wife is in pill popping purgatory. Here he is in jail, lounging on his prison bed, looking ever so slightly bored but without any remorse. His life is like a long, dull, train ride which isn’t all that bad. What up, Karma? What’s your plan here?

And that’s just it, Karma has nothing to do with crime and punishment. That’s a man-made justice system. Karma is not magical either. The Universe is not sending out pigeons to shit on your car because you cut someone off in traffic. If you cheat on your wife and tell your mistress that you are leaving and you never do and then develop testicular cancer, that is poetic justice, not Karma *per se.*

A few years ago, when my marriage went tits down, my husband and I sold our very awesome house to a developer because he bought the rest of the block which was going to be perfect for a series of town homes. Our house aside, the rest of the properties were dodgy so it was like making a sacrifice to the gods of real estate. No one hates new developments more than me, so I knew there was some dealing with the Devil about to take place. But I had no idea how bad this person really was. He kept postponing the closing date because his permits were never in place. We were the only people still living in our house while the rest of them were boarded up and broken into by the crackheads. We had to live in this environment for months, calling the police every night because our house kept getting broken into. When we finally left, we took our the appliances that were kind of new and didn’t clean up because we were told the house would be torn down in a month. Dude ended up suing us for $25,000 for lost income that he could have gotten renting the place out because once again, he didn’t have his demolition permit n on time. We had to go to a judge and settle for giving him $10,000. A couple of months later, the house “caught fire,” and as Serendipity, Karma’s slutty sister, would have it, he could accelerate the demolition.

I knew where he lived. I collected little baggies of my dog’s shit and every so often I would place her little logs underneath a leaf and put it in his path on the way to his car. Serves him right, I thought. I would obsess over it, sometimes waking really early and making Betty poop fresh so he would get a steamie on his shoe first thing in the morning. I never actually saw him step in the load but with or without shit on his shoes, he ended up going bankrupt and the people who bought his town homes wound up getting the shaft. He never paid the construction workers so they went out of business and they had to pay the rest from their own pockets, and when some of the units had faulty plumbing, the warranties were invalid. Through the real estate grapevine, I heard that Dude moved up north and then later fled the country. This summer while interweb trolling, I found him on the Facebook and his profile pic is of him driving a speedboat on what looked like the Caribbean or the Mediterranean. Who’s laughing now, bitch? His smirk seemed to say.

“How people treat you is their karma; How you choose to react, is yours.” It’s an unsettling concept, I think, because Karma doesn’t know right from wrong. The only ones with the judgements are us. Karma is just a mirror of our actions and reactions. And it’s probably best not to waste time worrying about the douchebags that fuck us over. If they are okay with stingray bites and anal fissures from bending over in the prison shower, then Godspeed! Karma might not be a bitch, but I am!

And with that thought, I leave you with Radiohead:

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21

Oct. ’11

The Art of Eating and Drinking

On the right is my nephew, Arne aka The Secret Chef and on the left is Miss Conception (as Julia Child) aka the hottest piece in town. If you have a party you definitely need to be inviting both these bitches. The Secret Chef cooks for you and you can pretend you did it all yourself, check out his Facebook page here. Miss Conception can come as your date, Adele, check her gallery here. It really is all about Adele, isn’t it? I love her so and really do hope one day she finds some bone that doesn’t let her down so much.

Last night my sister brought us to The Delicious Food Show opening night gala at the Better Living Building at the CNE. There was all sorts food sampling and booze offerings of which you had to work a bit in order to score for free. We did a fine job. Arne has vulture blood and got us to the right station at the right time. The three of us bounced around the venue like we were in a pinball machine. Grape stomping here! Wine tasting over there! Find the stage, the show starts in 10 minutes! There were dancing-girls and boys wearing nothing but underwear and aprons! At one point, Arne got up on the stage and performed Dinner Party Wars with Chef Corbin as host while my sister and I ate pizza and drank wine just like Friday night only with live theatre. I feel like it was all a dream and there really wasn’t free-flowing champagne on a scoop of sorbet with a dollop of bacon jam on top. But I tweeted it out and took a picture so it must have all really happened. I think mixing all the booze made everything seem surreal. I do remember at one point I had a pumpkin flavoured ale in one hand and a honey-infused whisky drink in another. Good times.

This is just a shortie as I have to prepare for my weekend trip to Montreal. The goal is to eat at Joe Beef. They have a new cookbook out which is almost the title of the book I am writing, “The Art of Modern Living” but theirs is called “The Art of Living According to Joe Beef.” I will forgive them after I have consumed their bacon. Here they are. Of course I have a wicked crush on the big one:

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30

Sep. ’11

Drive: The Satin Jacket Rules

This isn’t a film review *per se* so don’t get anxious, I will turn this off into a tangent that we can all enjoy. But I did see “Drive” and I am obsessing over it. I’m not going to give stuff away even though you probably will never see it and if you saw it, you scratched your head and said: “Meh! It wasn’t all that!” Or if you were like my friend, Sean, you tweeted out into the universe: “#Drive was shit!” But I loved this movie in an “anchovy way”, and I will explain this metaphor. There was weirdness, it was awkward in parts, and clichéd with all the obvious character archetypes, but it had style, heart, and a mission. The heist-gone-awry genre never gets old. It can be comedic or film-noir. This movie was a bit of the latter and completely mirthless. Normally I hate dour films: Black Swan, Blechhh-erinas. But Drive stars Ryan Gosling: The Panty Creamer of the Decade, maybe even the millennium. He is different in everything he does but he always oozes coolness. EVEN WHEN HE IS WEARING A WHITE SATIN QUILTED BOMBER JACKET WITH A SCORPION EMBROIDERED ON THE BACK! What was up with that? And when was the last time you went to a movie and said to yourself: “Why is the font on the credits so inappropriate?” THE FONT! You shouldn’t really be noticing font. But it was pink, girly 80s style (see movie poster above), as was the bomber jacket. And so was the soundtrack. If it weren’t for the cars and the cellphones, I would have thought it was a period piece and Eddie Murphy would appear. The retro vibe of this movie was almost too distracting, but who am I to judge? I am right now wearing a dolman sleeve sweater with rhinestones on the front. The fact that the white satin scorpion jacket kept getting bloody and clean again made me start thinking that it was more a symbol, a hero costume of sorts. At one point, Driver brings up the tale of the scorpion and the frog but doesn’t elaborate because he is mostly mute and barely strings two sentences together. Aesop Fable Wiki recap: The scorpion negotiates a ride on the frog’s back to get him across the stream but stings him half-way, putting both their lives in peril. “Why did you do that?” asks the frog, and the scorpion replies, “Because it is in my nature.” Is Ryan Gosling the scorpion with the stinging nature or do we take it literally and he is the frog with the scorpion on his back? I THOUGHT ABOUT THIS ALL THE WAY HOME!

So many things about this movie bothered me that I had an epiphany. Why do we have to “like” things? And why does everything have to be so pleasant? Do our lives just have LOL along without conflict? When I first time I had an anchovy, all bare naked out of a tin, I thought it was out-of-this world disgusting but it had such an impact on me that I thought about it long after I ate it. The strange hairy texture, the extreme saltiness, and how it was dry and oily at the same time, I had to have it again. In the right context, on a Pizza Neapolitan sunk into a bed of mozzarella with some black olives on the side, an anchovy is a two thumbs up. Anchovies are bacon of the sea. You can quote me.

I thought more about the anchovy theory and how it applies to relationships. The other day, a friend told me I should try on-line dating with a certain dating site that we might as well call “eNo-Anchovies-Please.” eNAP, for short. If you have been following this blog, you might know I am part dog and only interested in the sense of smell (not just the anus!) when picking a mate. But my friend said: “No, eNAP is different, is based on compatibility and they match you with people with the same traits and values!”

“So it’s a Sure Thing?’ I asked.

“Pretty much. They ask you a bunch of questions, and through the magic of science, they send you only people who are suitable,” she explained. This is how she met the dude is seeing right now (it’s been 2 years!) and even though she has a job where she meets hundreds of people a month, her sense of smell didn’t do the trick. She seems happy with this guy but she is one of those women that anyone would want to be around. In fact, I love spending time with her, that I would be more than thrilled to be her anchovy. It might be too salty at first, but we’d get used to it.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I had already tried eNAP last year, when they had a free Labour Day weekend (eNap costs money, which makes it more legit than the free dating sites). My matchups were really uninteresting to me. It was a depressing reflection of myself, perhaps. If I wanted compatibility, why not just stand in front of the mirror, eat a Pizza Neapolitan, and then do that secret thing I like to do with my ears when I’m alone? Do I want sameness? Or do I want someone who irks me enough to say “Why are you wearing that stupid satin jacket?” I think I’d rather be part of a scenario that was not so contrived, and more incongruous, like maybe a frog with a scorpion on its shoulders windsurfing on an anchovy’s back. In any case, it’s all about getting out of your comfort zone, I guess.

Enough of my ruminations…just go see “Drive!” Let me know what you think!

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