Be affraid. Be VERY affraid. Black pink, black pink, black pink.

A while back I was talking about some of the things that scared me when I was a little kid. I don’t think any of those things I mentioned still scare me now, except maybe the vacuum cleaner. Both Mutton and I still feel uneasy around that thing. But it could be worse.

Yes. It could be much, much worse.

But today I wanted to talk about some of the things that scare me now as an adult. Some people might think that as you grow older your irrational fears ebb. But I feel that as I’ve aged and gained a greater sense of the world and its revolting contents, my new found wisdom has only replaced my childhood fears with ones that are very real and very scary. Fears such as...

Flash mobs.

Have you ever seen interpretive dance?

If I was their parents upstairs I’d rather imagine they were down there having a round-robin HJ contest than this.

It’s awful. What makes it even worse is that the people that do it think it’s important, that it’s art and that it means something. It means about as much as the worst episode of Blosom and by that I mean it’s a horrible uncomfortable jheepsfest!

Jheeps off to ya!

But the good news is that we don’t have to watch this. How many of you stopped that video after about 30 seconds? I know I did. But these flash mob things could happen anywhere and at any time.



Could you imagine being caught in the middle of that?! Fuck! That would be the Jheeps equivalent of being publically gang raped. I really don’t think I could handle it. I think I’d just have to point myself in the direction of the nearest exit, close my eyes and just start running and swinging.

Being pushed in front of a subway train.

Don’t ask me why but I think about this nearly every time I’m waiting for a train.

I guess it’s because every city with a subway system seems to have a few stories about some crazy man that pushed people onto the tracks. And Toronto is no different. Normally when I wait for the train I stand near the wall. But if I do that during rush hour I’m never going to get on the train. So I have to stand there in a state of tensed up, cat-like readiness. Eyeing the people around me and trying to decide which one looks the craziest and vowing to myself that if I can’t stop him, than at least I’m going to take him down with me.

Yep, I’m gonna die.

But if there’s a flash mob on that platform… push away Nicholas. Push. Away.

Seeing homeless people masturbating/doing it.

Someone once said that the greatest fear is the fear of anticipation or the fear of the unknown.

WRONG!

I have had the misfortune of witnessing both of these events listed above and I never, ever wish to witness them again. The first such incident was back when I was in my teens and used to be into Graffiti. There used to be a roof top somewhere around Yonge & Bloor that a lot of people used to paint on. It was nicknamed AC Gardens because of all the air conditioners up there. One night we were going up there to check it out and we were faced with the eye bleaching sight of a homeless couple going at it on an old office chair. We couldn’t see much in the dark but it was more than enough. Sort of like a collection of rags and pale body parts. I’d liken it to when you’re shown a picture of an accident victim and at first you’re thinking, What is that? What am I looking at? And then it all comes into focus and it’s, Ohhhh. Oh god. Oh god no!

Welcome back ever body and if you’re just joining us, let me recap what you’ve missed. I’m getting it in!

And as for my other traumatizing experience…

It was a Saturday afternoon, late spring. A friend and I had just been at the Madison watching a soccer game. Since the weather was nice we decided to take a walk over to the Duke of Gloucester for some post-match libations. It was around College and Huron that tragedy struck. There was a phone booth  with a homeless man sitting in it. His legs splayed out onto the sidewalk. As I moved to side step them I heard a low, groaning giggle. I looked down and wished I never had. The munchkin was out and it was being thoroughly punched.

To this day I can’t walk through that area without feeling uneasy. Sometimes I wonder if the wanking hobo has passed on and that it is his ghost that now sends a shiver up my spine?

Wooooo! Black, pink, black, pink, black pink. Wooooooooo! Black, pink, black, pink, black pink.

Having a kid that’s into bad music.

I’ve always said that if I have kids, I’d like them to be free to grow up into what they want to be. But I think I’d have a really, really hard time if they grew up to be into bad music.

Now I don't think I could ever raise a Juggalo.

I'm pretty sure it takes some serious child abuse to wind up with something this retarded.

But what if he gets into new country? Or what if for some unexplainable reason Billy Joel gains a cult following among the youth of tomorrow?


If I have to hear this blaring out of my kid's room every day I may very well start a fire.

Or what if my son becomes one of those horrible generic gangster rap loving beater kids?!

File Photo: My personal hell.

Blasting his horrible rap music all day or his horrible R&B out of his phone. Buying cheap cigars and filling them full of cheap weed because Dr. Dre or someone mentioned it in a song 20 years ago. Telling everyone they're a bitch through his headset while he plays Call of Duty. Fuck!

And the pants thing.

And the stupid giant t-shirt thing.

And the Scarface.

The god damn fucking Scarface!

I just don't know if I could take that. And there's nothing you can do. They want you to object. You know what? I'd have to join him. I'd have to get my own baggy shit. My own stupid walk. And shame him into changing. It's the only way.

That's it. I'm going to look out my old Funk Doobiest CD right now. Good luck sleeping tonight adults. Woooooo. Black, pink black, pink.

Ask the Magic Internet a Stupid Question No. 0002

Welcome to the second installment of Ask the Magic Internet a Stupid Question. For those of you without the ability to scroll down (I’m talking to you hook hands!) AMISQ is a new weekly feature where I put forth a stupid question and use the magic of the internet to answer it. I learn something. You learn something. But we don’t notice it because we’re having so much fun. It will be like a pool party for our brains.

Come on in. The water’s cold but the women are hot!

So on to today’s question.

Question 2: Did poor people ever actually wear barrels instead of clothes?

You used to see this in cartoons and comics a lot. When they wanted to show that a character had no money or was a hillbilly or that they’d simply lost their clothes, they’d have them wearing a barrel.

Now I can understand the part about losing your clothes. Anything to hide your shame, right?



But being forced to wear a barrel because you’re poor? Did that really ever happen? I mean aren’t barrels expensive? They’re made out of wood with metal rings and they’re hand crafted by coopers. That’s a highly skilled trade. Wouldn’t it be easier and more economical to wear a potato sack instead?

Back in the 40s and 50s the only way for a woman to tell if she was attractive was to see if she looked good in a potato sack.

I’ll tell you what though. If I had to wear a barrel I’d try to get one of the ones with the straps. That would leave my hands free for begging, discarded stogie smoking, moonshine swilling and snapping the necks of delicious rats.

I could even build a little shelf on the inside to put my keys on or to put my cell phone while it’s charging.

You can’t have a shelf in a garbage bag. Nope. No siree.

I think I’d also paint my barrel. Maybe I could paint a double breasted suit on it and people would mistake me for some fat cat like that guy on the cover of that Warrant album.

Or I could paint muscles and a Speedo on it like one of those really bad aprons.

Like this but with a waaaay bigger package.

And you know what the poor white trash guys around my neighborhood would be painting on their barrels.

So tell me Magical Internet. Is it true? Did poor people really wear barrels?

Beep beep, boop boop, zzzzttt .

Magic Internet Answer: Highly unlikely. As you mentioned barrels are not as cheap as clothing and one would have to remove the barrel rings in order to take the top and bottom out, thus destroying the barrel. Wearing a barrel was used as a form of punishment in Elizabethan times for things such as public drunkenness and crimes considered too petty for the courts.

This was often referred to as dawning a barrel shirt or the drunkard’s cloak

Also some gamblers may have been forced to wear a barrel home after losing their clothing in bets. This may have attributed to the stigma of poverty associated with wearing a barrel. One could say that the modern day equivalent of wearing a barrel would be when judges force criminals to wear signs informing the public of their crime.

Or to a lesser extent, when other drunks cover their passed out friend in shit.

Wow, thanks Magic Internet!

Magic Internet: Saright!

Scarface update 2: I stand corrected.

A while back during my Scarface merchandise/lifestyle choice rant I suggested that Scarface lingerie doesn’t exsist

Well as you can see by this Smoking Gun mug shot, I sadly stand corrected.

This means that today’s post will be a short one as I’m off to move the Doomsday Clock forward a couple of dots.

Smell you later.

Scarface Update/Happy New Year!

There’s a cologne. Repeat a COLOGNE!!

When will it end?

What do you think it smells like? I’m going with gasoline and Chinese dog pee.

Oh yes and Happy New Year.

Not a Nice Place to Visit & I Wouldn't Want to Live There.

So I got the movie The Hangover on DVD for Christmas. It’s a funny movie. I like Zach Galifianakis. He’s funny. I like Ed Helms. He’s funny too. The movie reminded me of something though. How much Las Vegas sucks and how horrible it must be to live there. Giving someone a ticket to Las Vegas is basically like handing them a license to be a complete and utter douche bag.

You know what it’s like to live a typical day. You get up. Have breakfast. Hit the pavement. Maybe you drive to work, maybe you take public transit. You work your day (screw you artist types reading this that spend all day at home doing practically nothing and then complain that you have no money). On the way home maybe you need to stop at the grocery store or do some shopping. I’m talking about one of those days that isn’t your worst day but it’s far from your best and when you get home you’re glad it’s over. Got a good picture of it in your head? Well if you lived in Las Vegas you’d have to live those days, all of them, dealing with this:

All over Las Vegas there are these roving bands of pumped up shit heads all dressed up in various outfits they believe to be “money”. They’ve been watching Casino, Swingers, Fear & Loathing, Scarface and yes now The Hangover all week in preparation for their trip. If you live in Las Vegas there’s no escaping them. Although they might only be in town for a few days StretchUVs are trooping in hundreds more to take their place.

The worst part is that not only does the city condone them, the city encourages them. They’re always advertising Vegas as “Sin City” and throwing that tired old phrase around “What happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas”. (God, it physically hurt me to type that. It’s like the literary equivalent of leather pants, worse then the line from Fight Club even.) If you live in Vegas not only do you probably get to hear that every day but if you go out you get to hear it being spoken dead serious by some alpha chimp to his horny loser friends before they all cheers and make a bro-pact. (If you’re a half-way decent looking girl living in Las Vegas it's probably best that you just don’t leave your house). Hell, never mind hearing that stupid phrase. If you physically stay in Vegas you get to witness first hand all the gross bullshit that stays in Vegas.







Then there are all the Douche Bag celebrities that live there.



Chris Angel

If I ran into this guy even once at the corner store I’d have to move. Knowing that his greasy stripper fingers may have touched something I might eat would be too much for me.



Carrot Top

Knowing that he’s even on the same planet as me already gives me screaming night terrors.



Siegfried & Roy

I don’t want to be out walking my dog one night, happen to glance up at their bedroom window and find out the real reason that tiger went nuts.



My heart goes out to you citizens of Las Vegas. You have it even worse then New Yorkers. At least they can revel in the knowledge that they’re expected to be an asshole to anyone that visits their city.



The only Vegas Vacation I’ll be taking is with Cousin Eddie.

"Say Hello to My Little Friend" (yea your wang, buddy)

On a scale of 1 to 10 how much do you like the movie Scarface?

If you said anything higher then 7… you’re an idiot.

Seriously, what is it with this movie? It’s not a terrible movie but it’s definitely not a good movie either. Scarface didn’t make much money and was panned by critics when it came out in 1983. Today It’s badly dated and with Al Pacino’s awful Cuban accent and over-the-top acting it borders on camp. There are some decent lines in it (although I’ve heard them out of the mouths of so many homie/guido douche bags over the past few years that I’d just as soon listen to the mermaid from Splash read me the entire script from Kazaam in her native tongue). Many of the scenes made for good missions in GTA: Vice City and unlike many people I like the music of Giorgio Moroder but that’s about it. Scarface is a movie that I’d happily waste an afternoon watching on Showcase Action but some people have some kind of mental dysfunction that causes them to base their whole life on it?

Most of you are going to say, “it’s a hip-hop thing” (Or should that be “thang”? Let’s add dyslexia to list of dysfunctions too and move on). I guess that’s true. I think the Geto Boys were the first rappers to sample Scarface back in the late 80s. That was followed by every single rapper on MTV Cribs playing Scarface on a giant television when they showed off their ugly, beige walled, hotel room like mansions. If MTV would have allowed them to snort cocaine in a bubble bath while they did it they would have.







Now given that rappers can convince your average young male to dress like this:

It was only a matter of time before we started seeing this:

Look at that jacket!

LOOK AT IT!

It’s like a ghetto friendly NASCAR jacket. It’s worse then walking around in one of those leather sleeved jackets from the musical CATS for Christ’s sake (and those cost $300 AND you had to sit through CATS)!



That’s nothing ladies. Wait until he takes you back to his crib and you see this on the mantel:

Or when he takes you upstairs to the boodwar and flicks on this:

So you can get a better look at this:

Before he asks you to lay down on this:

Before you know it you’re going to be rolling around in your underwear ( I tried to find a picture of some Scarface lingerie but it doesn’t exist. That should tell you something guys.) laying on that hideous bedspread while he showers you with a filthy wad of one dollar bills and takes pictures on his camera phone. Get out. Get out now.



Or the next night he’s going to show up outside your window wearing this:

And wailing away on this, ala Say Anything:

Seriously guys. What are you 8? Is Scarface like the ghetto trash Star Wars for you? Do you and your buddies argue over who is going to be Tony Montana( Luke Skywalker) and who is going to be Manny Ribera (Han Solo) when you go out to play? Grow up.







P.S. That Cribs video was done using images from the Scarface video game. It picks up where Scarface the movie left off (What the fuck? Didn’t it leave off with him dead?). There’s a button you can press that makes him swear at people and there’s a balls meter that when you fill it you can go on an indestructible rampage. (Again, what the fuck?)