I hate the men's room.

The men’s room is a horrifying place.

When women visit a public washroom they often go in groups and spend an inordinate amount of time in there chatting, applying makeup and doing whatever else it is that women do in the ladies room. When a man has to use the men’s room, it’s like a mission behind enemy lines. Go it alone. Don’t be spotted. Touch as little as possible. Get in and out quickly and stay alive.

File Photo: Alternate Men’s Room sign

Men’s rooms are gross. That’s because men are gross. I’m in no way one of those obsessive compulsive clean freaks but after the things I’ve seen, I can fully understand why someone would do everything in their power to avoid public bathrooms all together. You want to know? You really want to know? Ok, I’ll tell you. But you’ve been warned. Where do I begin? Let’s start with…

Urinals

The urinal is about the only thing I’ll use in the men’s room. The stalls are just too scary (I’ll explain later.) There are essentially 2 types of urinals:

The high.

And the low.

Possibly the inspiration for Ah Ha’s, Hunting High & Low album.

Bonus: What’s that one guy doing with his ass?

The low type is the rarer of the two and by far the worst. Sure it makes it easier to aim so there’s less pee on the floor but unless you make sure to aim for that sweet spot somewhere in the middle, you’re going to get splash back on your feet or even worse on your pants. And the sweet spot on every one is different. I swear these things were designed by those carnys that run the ball in the peach basket scam game.

Step right up to the urinal! Don’t get piss on yourself and win a feathered roach clip or an Ah Ha decorative mirror!

Even with the high urinals you could still wind up with back splash as they tend to suddenly flush on their own when you’re in mid stream. Oh and sometimes they’re full of pubes!

I don’t know how this happens? Are there men out there that unzip and just start shedding like dogs? Or do they stand their finger combing their gorilla salad into the urinal while they whizz? I don’t even know why I’m asking these questions because frankly, I don’t want to know. And that’s another thing, this whole Willy Watcher bogeyman that everyone is afraid of. So many men think that someone is going to look at their junk when they’re taking a leak. You see them cupping their hand to hide it or forgoing the urinal all together and pissing in the stall. Some urinals even have little dividers.

These one’s feature smoked glass, allowing your penis to be well lit but still maintain its privacy.

I’m not sure if it’s feelings of male inadequacy (the money generated annually from products related to small wiener worry must run into the billions) or homophobia (you’d have to be a pretty hard up gay guy to resort to scoping wangs at the urinal) or both (I don’t even want to know about the inner turmoil of a homophobic man that’s worried some homo is going to think he has a small penis). But you know what? I don’t care. If someone is going to steal a glance at my junk while I pee, so be it. I won’t know because I won’t be looking at him. But try as you might, there are certain men in the men’s room that are pretty hard to unsee. Like the toddler pisser.

Now I’ve never seen the full on pants and underwear down variety of toddler pisser but I know someone that has. The worst I’ve seen is pants down with light blue Fruit of the Looms. It doesn’t sound as bad until I tell you I saw it about once a week at a place I used to work and the man looked a lot like Gene Shalit.

Worse than the toddler pisser though is the gunslinger. This is the guy that already has it out when he’s about 12 feet from the urinal. You zip up turn and BANG! I got hit with one of those a couple months ago and the guy was like 80.

I still get flash backs at the 7-11 counter.

But all that aside the urinals are still your safest bet. And it could be worse. In the UK a lot of places have those troughs.

I heard a story once about a boy lighting a paper boat on fire and sending it down one of these when everyone was lined up after a football match. Classic.

Or how about Bangkok?

Scary!

Speaking of scary, cue the voodoo jungle drums because it’s time for number  part 2…

The Stalls.

My advice to you is don’t. Just don’t. But sometimes when the lineup for the urinal is too long or you really have to go, a man’s gotta suck it up and be a man in the men’s room. And let me tell you, preparing to enter a men’s room stall is like a detective preparing to enter a murder scene. You hold your breath and pray it isn’t too bad.

File Photo: Too bad.

To those men that have no qualms about hankering down and dropping them off, see that handly thing up there to the left? That’s the flush. Use it. I don’t want to be greeted by that pile of bangers and mash you’ve so callously left to disintegrate in the bowl.

The men’s room daily lunch special.

But honestly that’s the least of your worries. There can be poo on the floor, poo on the seat, poo smeared on the walls. Anything goes in there. Men’s room stalls offer up that public anonymity that let disgusting people be disgusting. The men’s room stall is like a prototype for the modern internet comments section. This reminds me of the one lighter side of entering a stall, the  bathroom graffiti. Sure you get your usual suspects. You know, so and so sucks dick, so and so is a slut, the odd racist comment and crude depictions of the female anatomy. But sometimes you come across some real gems. Here are a few of my favorites:

Show me that smile again! (surrounded by music notes)
- In the stall of the now closed Tap bar in the Annex


Free cowboy hats.
- Below the seat cover dispenser, don’t remember where.


A detailed drawing depicting a man with 3 dicks and sperm with wavy lines coming out of them. The caption underneath read, Man of the future.
- Burlington Leon’s men’s room.


Welcome to a dumping experience.
- I want to say the El Mocambo but I’m not sure.


Here be Ghoulies.
- Stall in the Skillet Zellers restaurant, Applebly Mall Burlington circa mid 80s.

That last one always scared me as a kid because I was afraid of monsters in the toilet after seeing Ghoulies.



But you don’t have to enter the men’s room stall to live in fear of it, oh no. Much like the urinals there are a few special types of stall users that can bring the experience to you. Like the J. Edger Pooper. Legend has it that J. Edger Hoover the infamous head of the FBI used to like to hold meetings in the men’s room while he was taking a shit.

By the looks of him, those were looooong meetings.

Now with the never ending use of the cell phone, Poopers can pay homage to Hoover by conducting their own meetings while on the can. And if you’re in the men’s room you get to overhear every word of it. If you listen carefully you can hear the audible strain and lowering of tone in the voice as he dispatches a particularly vicious dead otter into the bowl. Or worse yet is the assassin. You think you're alone in the men’s room until you hear the faintest of shuffles or catch the reflection of feet in the men’s room mirror as you wash your hands.

The assassin doesn’t make a sound while anyone is in ear shot. But don’t linger by the door on your way out. For as soon as he feels he’s alone, he’ll let loose mercilessly. But worst of all is the Dumb and Dumper. He just doesn’t care. He’ll burst through the men’s room door and head for the stall at full hustle. (This is top speed for the D & D.) Your final warning might be an inarticulate below or a revolting declaration (Something along the lines of, I gotta shit large!) before he just unloads.

This type of man epitomizes the horror that is the men’s room experience.

And that’s it. I’m done. I’ve dwelled on this for far to long. Smell you later. Hopefully not in the men’s room.

P.S. An honorable mention goes to the drunk guy that pisses in the bathroom sink instead of waiting in line. You truly are a retched human being.

I hate hot tubs.

Ugh! Just look at that boiling caldron of disgustingness.

The bubbles keep it from forming a skin!

Now I like baths. A bath is great when you’re not feeling well or you’re cold or your muscles ache. There’s nothing I like better on a cold winter evening then grabbing Mr. T Duck off of the shelf,

climbing into a hot bath and splashing around for a while listening to Jawbone on the hifi.



But hot tubs, that’s a whole different story. First of all I don’t like being hot for any extended period of time. A 5 minute hot shower every day and a 20 minute hot bath every couple of weeks is good enough for me. If I had a hot tub I’d feel the need to justify it by sitting in it all the time and I don’t need that. As a human being I am warm blooded and can generate my own body heat. I am not a Snakeman.

Hope you brought your trunks He-Man. We might go in the hot tub later. Hisssssss. Hissssss.

The next problem I have with hot tubs is the whole sharing thing. People that have hot tubs always want other people to get in it with them. Even at hotels and spas complete strangers sit around in these giant baths together. That’s weird. It’s one thing for a couple to spend a romantic evening in a hot tub (though if you really want romance I’d opt for a tub that includes a toilet for two)

but I’m not getting in a hot tub with that bald business schlub I saw in the hotel lobby on his cell phone telling his wife about the sizzling plate of fajitas he just had for dinner.

Hey, don’t mind me guys. I’ll just slide over. Squeek Rub. Rub. Squeeeek.

But it’s the people that have hot tubs in their homes that creep me out the most. What do you see when you picture the kind of guy that owns a hot tub?

Yep, me too.

Those gross swinger types that look like their whole body is just a shiny, greasy extension of their genitals.

Sometimes they advertise these hot tub expos that go on for a whole weekend up by the airport. Once I get over the disbelief that the demand for hot tubs here in Toronto is big enough to even sustain an event such as this I just picture them as swinger conventions. Do you think the people that go there to look at hot tubs wear their bathing suits so they can try before they buy? Do you think there are salesmen decked out in budgie smugglers sitting right in the hot tubs waiting for customers? What could a life time of sitting in and selling hot tubs do to the human body? That’s probably what happened to Jack Nicholson.

That and his all gas station hoggie diet.

Do you think they have vendors that try to cash in on some of the other things hot tubers need?

Does Zima has a booth there? You betcha.

Medalion tables? For sure.

Degreaser? Stacked in pyrimids.

If Muc-Off really want to make some cash at the hot tub show they need to invent Pubegone.

Well one thing you definitely won’t find there is me. I want no part of that human soup.

File Photo: My personal hell.

Yep, I hate hot tubs. Just thought you might like to know.



3D: the man, the plan & Calibos' spray tan.

I love watching movies but I hate going to the movies. That’s because the movie theatres are full of annoying disgusting teens.

I hate the way the male ones shuffle and shove each other in line. Calling guys they hate bitches and girls they like bitches.

(They should hand these out at prisons.)

I hate the way the female ones shriek when they see one another and that they actually display attraction to the male ones. When you’re in the theatre with them there’s this permeable stench of raw pubescence marred in a swamp of sample size fragrances. I wouldn’t be surprised if after a block buster weekend there was pubic hair growing on the theatre walls. They should get a bunch of balding guys in there to see if it has any effect.

(Front row before and after sitting through the opening weekend of Saw IV.)

And finally when the movie’s over you have to endure the mass calling of the parents to come pick them up followed by the drawn out, awkward good-bye rituals. It’s like spending 2 hours of your life in a Zits cartoon.



That’s why I was so happy to see signs that the theatre industry was dying out. Soon new movies would be released straight to DVD and I could enjoy them in the comfort of my own home right away. Which would be great as I’m having a very hard time enjoying the current crop of straight to DVD releases.

Then movie theatres decided to fight back. They turned to  Hollywood and said,  What do we do? We’ve tried everything to get people to come see your crappy movies on the big screen but they’d rather wait a month and own it on Blue Ray. Hollywood thought about it for a moment (while doing a line of cocaine and getting a blow job) and said (or twittered), Well when we run out of ideas we just take an old one and redo it. Hell that’s all we’ve been doing for the past 20 years or so. Our well of originality is drier then this blow job.

(See? Seeeeee!)

So that’s what movie theatres did. They teamed up with Hollywood and came up with a brand new concept. Three dimensional movies!

Does it make the movies better? No. It makes them worse, much worse. Now people will see anything as long as it’s in 3D. It’s like the first time I experienced HD television and found myself watching lady wrestling just to marvel at the detail of their meaty, veiny arms and legs. Or I’ll give you an even better example. The new Clash of the Titans movie.

I loved the old Clash of the Titans and even though its special effects were essentially claymation it was still better then this piece of shit.



In the new Clash of the Titans they don’t even fight the giant Scorpions, they ride them around like horses. That’s bullshit! And that creepy guy with the frizzy hair and the bad spray tan…

The one that kind of looks like our old mayor Mel Lastman.

Yeah, that’s Calibos. One time I found a Calibos action figure out of the package at Zellers.

(It was just like this but this is in the package.)

The Zellers manager said that if no one claimed him in a month I could come back and keep him. Well guess what? No one did. Free Calibos for Johnny!

I won’t be finding any Calibos figures out of the package for the new movie though. He’s not even in it! Once again, bullshit. I’ll tell you who is in it though. Sam Worthington as Perseus.

(Doesn’t look anything like him. Where’s his 'fro?)

His previous works include Avatar, Terminator Salvation and Rogue. He also can’t act his way out of a wet paper Mad TV sketch. I think it’s because his past films have relied so heavily on CGI that he’s never actually been on set with another human being. You know who they should have gotten to play Perseus. This guy.

Casey Siemaszko! He’s Polish which is a lot closer to Greece then Australia. He was in Stand By Me so he knows all about epic quests and most importantly he played 3D in Back to the Future.

Considering all the research he probably had to do for a character whos entire personality was based on wearing 3D glasses, Casey has probably forgotten more about the technology then Sam Worthington will ever know.

(I’ll bet he had a hand in this Jaws 19 bit from Back to the Future Part II as well.)

Sigh. Oh well. Maybe I’ve been a little hard on the youth of Today. I mean Casey Siemaszko was a teenager once. And at least today’s teens are only wearing their 3D glasses in the theatre. They’re not wearing them while riding around with Butch, beating up kids from the future and calling black people Spooks



And maybe I’ve been a little hard on modern movies too. I’m hardly what you would call a critic. All my favorite movies were made 25 years ago and were considered as terrible then as they are now. Hell even Bachelor Part had a scene in a 3D theatre.

Maybe I’m just grumpy because this post is so long and retarded. I know what will make me great… a trip to Pizza Hut!



Mmmm, future grease. Smell you later guys.

P.S. I hope they never have Sarah Jessica Parker star in a 3D movie. Can you imagine that hatchet face coming at you? Brrrrrrr.

I hate art students.

This past year I went from working down in the financial district to up near a local art college.

(War of the Worlds meets Screech’s wardrobe)

I don’t mind the change of scenery. Instead of looking at ruddy faced business men with their starch-shirted guts hanging out like a bag of milk,

I now get to look at Lady Ga Ga angled haircuts and guys wearing girls pants.

(I see a lot of this)

Nauseating? Yes, but at least they have an excuse. Cutting your bangs every day and dressing like Pee Wee Herman in Star Wars is just an expression of their artistic individuality. I mean how can you be a great artist if you go around dressed like a bore? Hell, if I was an artist I’d make sure everyone new it. I’d wear this.

Then I saw some of their art.

(Artist’s rendition of typical student art)

Every day I see them lugging their masterpieces to class. I see half-painted fantasy dragons too poor to make it onto the back of a 1970s jean jacket never mind a boogey van.

I see graffiti inspired canvases so uninspired they could have been in a Fresh Prince Video

I see portraits so void of basic artistic skill that they wouldn’t even be displayed in Value Village.

And these are just the students that are trying to go the route of the technically gifted artist. It gets even worse with the conceptual or contemporary art students. A while back I saw a 4’ x 6’ colour painting depicting Beethoven with large stylized black and white ears side by side with Stevie Wonder with large stylized black and white eyes. Just thinking about it even now makes me want to bash my own head with a rock.

I just don’t understand the concept of the art student. I don’t think being a good artist is something you can teach. Breakdancing maybe but art no.



I think being a successful artist is a combination of talent and marketing. Neither of which you’re going to obtain from attending art school. Who’s teaching those classes anyway? I’ll tell you who, failed artists. And their students are going to wind up just like them. They’re essentially paying the school money to prolong their failure.

(You don’t see Keith Haring teaching a bunch of scrawny little hacks the finer points of art and design… and not just because he died of AIDS 20 years ago.)

Look, if you want to be an artist you don’t have to go to school to do it. If you want to be a painter, paint. If you want to be a sculptor, sculpt. If you want to be whatever makes this…

You get the idea. Here I’ll even get you started with a conceptual art project.

Step 1) Go get $240

Step 2) Eat it.

Step 3) Digest.

Step 4) Shit in a jar.

Step 5) Call it Purple Ugg Boots

Ta Da! You’re an artist.