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.

Dolly want a cracker? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

What scared you when you were a little kid?

When I was a kid I was scared of all kinds of things. That is one of the problems with having an overactive imagination. I mean sure it’s great now. I can use it to write this amazing blog that gets me all the chicks.

Not as many chicks as the band Imagination gets… but pretty close.

Back when I was a little kid though, my imagination was doing its best to scare the shit of me. Let me give you an example of some of the strange and irrational things I was scared of.

The Basilisk.

The Basilisk is a mythical creature with the head of a rooster, the body of a lizard and the tail of a snake. Supposedly it’s hatched from a snake egg that is incubated by a chicken and it can cause death with a single glance. When I was a kid I had this book of mythical creatures that I got at Coles book store. I don’t know who did the illustrations for that book but I think at some point they had a glimpse of hell. There were a number of monsters in that book that scared me but none more than the Basilisk. The picture of it in that book makes the picture above look like Barney. And it was looking right at me! I was convinced that if I looked at that picture for more than a second I would die. I was also convinced that these creatures were real and that one was going to come in our backyard at night and I would see it and I would die.

There was only one thing I could do. It said in the book that Basilisks were afraid of weasels. So when our local church had its rummage sale I bought up as many of those ratty old mink stoles with the heads on them as I could find.

I thought they were weasels.

And I wrapped them around myself at night to ward off the Basilisk. Funny, now it’s looking at those minks that gives me the heebie jeebies.

Escalators.

Yep, I was afraid of escalators. It wasn’t so much the height thing it was the disappearing steps when you reached the top. I was sure that a stray shoe lace or rugby pant cuff was going to get caught in there and I would be sucked in and slowly ground into hamburger, my high pitch death screams echoing throughout the mall and settling in the nightmares of the other shoppers for all eternity.



That’s why whenever we went into Eatons at the Burlington mall I always insisted that we take the elevator. Even though Eatons only had 2 floors their elevator had elevator music. If you were lucky you could catch the opening base line of Another One Bites the Dust. For some reason that song always used to be playing in the Eatons elevator. Hey remember that Coffee Crisp ad with Another One Bites the Crisp?

Yes!

The Album for Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of the War of the Worlds.

My Aunt & Uncle used to have this record and it scared the shit out of me. Not actually listening to it. The record its self is more weird and bad than scary.



It was the album art that scared me. First there’s that horrible robot spidery thing on the front flame throwing a ship. Then when you open up the album you get a picture of this quaint little seaside village all destroyed and flooded with bubbling guts!

What the fuck is that?! Not only do these big robot spidery things have flame throwers but they also have human liquefier rays or something! You can’t put pictures like that in records for unsuspecting little kids to find. Adults always kept their records low down too. Right in the path and eye level of children. And if you think the liquid guts village is the worst picture in that album, you’re sorely mistaken. The picture that creeped me out the most was this one.

All the robot spidery things are dead and having their meaty insides pecked out by crows! How fucked up is that?! I think the guy that drew these is the same guy that drew that Basilisk. This image has stuck in my head for over 25 years. I actually kind of like it now. If I had this picture now I think I’d frame it and put it on my wall. Not the Basilisk though. That still scares me.

The Vacuum Cleaner.

I’m still kind of uneasy around vacuum cleaners. But I have reason to be. When I was young I used to follow my mom around while she vacuumed. Every once in a while she would run over a marble or a screw or something and the vacuum cleaner would grind to a halt and make this horrible jarring noise. I hated it. Once she ran over a rubber band and not only did it make the noise but it also filled the room with this disgusting burning rubber smell. I hated that smell too. But that’s not even the reason I’m scared of vacuums. When I got a bit older my parents would pay me to vacuum the house. One day I was vacuuming the living room in my bare feet and I accidently rolled the vacuum cleaner back over my foot and my toe got stuck in it! That vacuum cleaner sucked the skin right off my toe! If I hadn’t switched it off quick I would have ended up like this:

To this day I will not vacuum unless I’m almost forced. I also don’t like being in the room when someone is vacuuming and I don’t like having my feet on the floor when someone is vacuuming. I’m basically the opposite of that little creep that collects vacuums.

What a weirdo!

The Movie Maniac.

Yes, I know horror movies are supposed to be scary but I think this was the first horror movie I ever watched. My cousin and I rented it from Video Flicks when I was 7 or 8. There was something wrong with the tape so it had all these weird lines in it and the sound was all warped which made it even scarier. The part I was most scared of wasn’t even the shotgun scene.


The Maniac Headshot
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I was into action movies and ninja movies that had all kinds of good stuff like that. It was the weird conversations that the maniac guy had with his human scalp wearing mannequins and dolls that scared me.



Yeah, the video store guy never should have rented that movie to us. I think if that happened now he could probably be arrested for some form of child abuse.

So there you have it. A bunch of weird stuff that scared me when I was a little kid, some of which still scares me today. What were you afraid of as a little kid? Praying mantises? I bet it was praying mantises. They’re the only insect that can turn its head.