Sometimes I wonder if my person or anything in my house is infected with an RFID chip. According to media sources whose veracity I have no way of determining, these chips are in banknotes, consumer products, car tires, passports, even livestock. Thankfully I have no cows in my house. Fun fact: RFID-implanted cows are subjected to retinal scans to confirm their identities in slaughterhouses.
Sioux City, Iowa; September, 2004---Eleven hundred pounds of pork shoulder was recalled from retail meateries when authorities discovered a tagged “research” herd had gone to slaughter without notification. Oops. But then imagine they hadn’t caught it in time.
Hey Ned, how’s that research herd coming along?
Let’s see here . . . oh my god, Cyrus, the herd’s scattered all over the place!
What the . . . Just pick a random subject.
Okay, let’s see. Here's one. Subject 2468642, where are you? Let’s see. Oh my god, Cyrus.
What?
Subject 2468642 is scattered all over the place. Possibly in people’s fridges and bellies.
Wow.
Yeah.
I mean wow. We can put readers in people’s bellies now?
Heeeyyy, there's some forward thinking. Speaking of which, what're you doing for lunch?
18.1.09
The Dreamer
Mel’s leaning toward bacon . . . The ceiling fan twirrhhing along his neck, carrying the smell of hot bubbling grease, frying and deep frying . . . Footfalls of approaching waitress . . . Swivels his head on that twirrhhing trajectory, cigarette dangling from weathered Texan mouth.
“I gotta goda sleep, but I gotta do somethin first.”
Middle-aged waitress with thick amphibious features and natural frown line, doing life in lime-green polyester. Alice sewn into heart.
“Sorry sweetie,” says she in husky smoker voice, “no smoking.”
“Am I smoking? Is this cigarette lit? Listen, sugar, blowin smoke outta my ass here, as usual, with no plan or destination, knitting my scale model of the universe without regard for logistics or realism or for that matter my dwindling yarn supply. As though my tepid, unfocused approach to success were a front, a show, a charade, concealing something deeper, something greater, more important, less fatuous. Much less fatuous. Listen, sugar, I want you to bring me food. I am living a charade, yes, but what if I were also living more than that? Unbeknownst to myself? This is the secret fantasy of just about everyone. Myths abound in every culture, told in oral, literary, movie form . . . Listen, sugar, I want you to bring me food. Not a menu, not some stupid municipal bylaw, food. A cheeseburger with bacon, tomatoes, relish, mustard, earwax, toe jam, brain tissue, and mayonnaise on a kaiser bun. French fries with gravy on the side, a glass of radioactive water now and an orange Windex with my food.”
“Comin right up.”
“Because by god I will produce something. Even a deadbeat like me can aspire to greater things. Glory is not impossible. Not when you have an imagination like a horsehoof in the face.”
Some time after she has left, Mel asks, “Did my food come?”
But no one’s sitting with him to answer.
Live your dreams, folks.
“I gotta goda sleep, but I gotta do somethin first.”
Middle-aged waitress with thick amphibious features and natural frown line, doing life in lime-green polyester. Alice sewn into heart.
“Sorry sweetie,” says she in husky smoker voice, “no smoking.”
“Am I smoking? Is this cigarette lit? Listen, sugar, blowin smoke outta my ass here, as usual, with no plan or destination, knitting my scale model of the universe without regard for logistics or realism or for that matter my dwindling yarn supply. As though my tepid, unfocused approach to success were a front, a show, a charade, concealing something deeper, something greater, more important, less fatuous. Much less fatuous. Listen, sugar, I want you to bring me food. I am living a charade, yes, but what if I were also living more than that? Unbeknownst to myself? This is the secret fantasy of just about everyone. Myths abound in every culture, told in oral, literary, movie form . . . Listen, sugar, I want you to bring me food. Not a menu, not some stupid municipal bylaw, food. A cheeseburger with bacon, tomatoes, relish, mustard, earwax, toe jam, brain tissue, and mayonnaise on a kaiser bun. French fries with gravy on the side, a glass of radioactive water now and an orange Windex with my food.”
“Comin right up.”
“Because by god I will produce something. Even a deadbeat like me can aspire to greater things. Glory is not impossible. Not when you have an imagination like a horsehoof in the face.”
Some time after she has left, Mel asks, “Did my food come?”
But no one’s sitting with him to answer.
Live your dreams, folks.
12.11.08
The "Whiching" Hour
Which tastes better: dinner before sex or dinner after sex? Which jokes will I tell? Which parent will die first? Which crap foods won’t give me colon cancer? Which newspaper prints the most truth? Which lung will I lose? Which roast beef sandwich has listeria? Which side will I nod along with, pretending to understand? Which recreational drug costs the least and lasts the longest? Which detail do I expediently omit? Which chick will slap me inna face? Which church finally tells the truth? Which wall will I punch? Which bone will I break? Which of my eyes will I blacken? Which job will I get canned from because of some stupid Peruvian bimbo who only wanted a fuck? Which planet might my abductors be from? Which booze will make me cool and confident and better-looking? Which voice will I use? Which vice will land me inna least trouble? Which repressed fart will finally split me apart? Which crucial Friday p.m. appointment will I miss because of a dwarf carpenter who boarded up my bedroom door and went home early for the weekend? Which woman will stab me inna heart with an escargot fork? Which hockey team won’t win the Stanley Cup this year, just like the last forty-one? Which questions are most important? Which bridges are burned? Which questions are answered? Which whistles are blown? Which answers are questioned? Which atrocities am I responsible for, even inna tiniest? Which way will I die? Which day will I die? Which —
I was gonna — seven more pages of ‘which’ questions — but I can’t. Even I admit, the thing got tedious fast. Sorry, courageous reader. I’ve learned my lesson. Lists can be fun. But the important thing to realize is that lists aren’t real. They’re idealized non-binding itineraries set to theme park music. That means you can stop following them, reading them, writing them any time you want. You mustn’t let them dictate your life. Just remember: The list can be your friend, but it can also be a fascist addictive agent. Play safe, kids.
I was gonna — seven more pages of ‘which’ questions — but I can’t. Even I admit, the thing got tedious fast. Sorry, courageous reader. I’ve learned my lesson. Lists can be fun. But the important thing to realize is that lists aren’t real. They’re idealized non-binding itineraries set to theme park music. That means you can stop following them, reading them, writing them any time you want. You mustn’t let them dictate your life. Just remember: The list can be your friend, but it can also be a fascist addictive agent. Play safe, kids.
11.10.08
We Don't Need No Stinking Hope, Not This Year
Let me make one thing clear: The last thing Maple Leaf Nation needs is raised expectations. Having said that, I now submit that Toronto’s season opener victory Thursday evening was an unequivocal tragedy. Not only did the Leafs shock the champion Red Wings in Detroit on the night the Wings raised their Stanley Cup banner, but they did so with an effort and enthusiasm that may have shocked some fans to death. At least two men were rushed to one Toronto hospital (not so far from Woodbridge) with vital signs absent and similar stories: each had keeled over in his chair while watching the Leafs game. Their wives had called ambulances. Both men died. So. A moment of loud noise, please . . .
Thank you. Now I will rip into the Leafs for raising a certain cultural entity’s expectations with Thursday evening’s victory. Those stupid selfish inconsiderate boneheaded sons of bitches. What were they thinking? Oh, they’ve gone and done it, all right. I see the hope in people’s eyes and sprightly step, I hear it in their voices and laughter, I feel it in their handshakes, the sad cruel hope that maybe this year won’t be so bad after all. Now, hope is never in short supply in Leaf Nation. And hope is certainly not a bad thing. But hope raises expectations. Especially in Leaf Nation. And this year more than most, well, expectations nurtured in Leaf Nation will more than likely be shit on, gang-raped, bayonetted, and fed to the crocodiles. I’m not an alarmist, I’m a realist. Maybe a bit of a sensationalist. Anyway Ron Wilson publicly lowered the bar for a reason. To put it kindly, the 2008-09 Toronto Maple Leafs consist of many unproven parts. How can you expect anything from a club that replaces its core players — core players on a mediocre club, remember — with a bunch of guys no one’s ever heard of? But then they go out and beat the Wings at Joe Louis Arena, thus stirring their masochistic bipolar fans into a flash frenzy of hope and raised expectations. And of course the higher they rise, the farther they fall. Right now, Leaf Nation has been falling for about forty-two years.
Though you know what I can’t get out of my head? The Leafs won by doing something Pat Quinn and Paul Maurice couldn’t or wouldn’t make them do, something I haven’t seen the club do in ten years: base their game around defensive conscientiousness. They worked hard, they checked, they showed speed, tenacity, determination, discipline, youthful hunger, and they protected a lead. They basically erased any memory of the Leafs of the last decade. For one night, anyway. I can’t remember the last game I saw where the Leafs weren’t once hemmed in their own zone for minutes on end. They played enthusiastic, energetic hockey. Trap hockey, but inspired. With the solid if not spectacular goaltending they’ve generally received all decade. At times their forecheck made the Detroit D look bad, for godsake. When did the Leafs last manage that against any team, much less Detroit? Though I wouldn’t start saying “Mats who?” just yet. One huge question needs answering: who’s going to score goals?
You aren’t supposed to be good, Leafs. You’re a flowerbed with all the weeds cleared. New seeds planted, with intentions of acquiring more new seeds. We’ll see what grows. If you guys play inspired like you did Thursday, I’ll actually look forward to watching. The last couple years, I sooner would’ve watched ice melt. And you guys must also do one other thing, in two parts. Make amends by losing your own home opener tonight against Montreal. And please guys, for the sake of Leaf Nation’s fragile psyche, by all means play your games hard and tough and disciplined, make them if not entertaining then at least exciting for Leafs fans to watch. Just don’t win. We need those high draft picks. And besides, you don’t want to kill any more fans.
Thank you. Now I will rip into the Leafs for raising a certain cultural entity’s expectations with Thursday evening’s victory. Those stupid selfish inconsiderate boneheaded sons of bitches. What were they thinking? Oh, they’ve gone and done it, all right. I see the hope in people’s eyes and sprightly step, I hear it in their voices and laughter, I feel it in their handshakes, the sad cruel hope that maybe this year won’t be so bad after all. Now, hope is never in short supply in Leaf Nation. And hope is certainly not a bad thing. But hope raises expectations. Especially in Leaf Nation. And this year more than most, well, expectations nurtured in Leaf Nation will more than likely be shit on, gang-raped, bayonetted, and fed to the crocodiles. I’m not an alarmist, I’m a realist. Maybe a bit of a sensationalist. Anyway Ron Wilson publicly lowered the bar for a reason. To put it kindly, the 2008-09 Toronto Maple Leafs consist of many unproven parts. How can you expect anything from a club that replaces its core players — core players on a mediocre club, remember — with a bunch of guys no one’s ever heard of? But then they go out and beat the Wings at Joe Louis Arena, thus stirring their masochistic bipolar fans into a flash frenzy of hope and raised expectations. And of course the higher they rise, the farther they fall. Right now, Leaf Nation has been falling for about forty-two years.
Though you know what I can’t get out of my head? The Leafs won by doing something Pat Quinn and Paul Maurice couldn’t or wouldn’t make them do, something I haven’t seen the club do in ten years: base their game around defensive conscientiousness. They worked hard, they checked, they showed speed, tenacity, determination, discipline, youthful hunger, and they protected a lead. They basically erased any memory of the Leafs of the last decade. For one night, anyway. I can’t remember the last game I saw where the Leafs weren’t once hemmed in their own zone for minutes on end. They played enthusiastic, energetic hockey. Trap hockey, but inspired. With the solid if not spectacular goaltending they’ve generally received all decade. At times their forecheck made the Detroit D look bad, for godsake. When did the Leafs last manage that against any team, much less Detroit? Though I wouldn’t start saying “Mats who?” just yet. One huge question needs answering: who’s going to score goals?
You aren’t supposed to be good, Leafs. You’re a flowerbed with all the weeds cleared. New seeds planted, with intentions of acquiring more new seeds. We’ll see what grows. If you guys play inspired like you did Thursday, I’ll actually look forward to watching. The last couple years, I sooner would’ve watched ice melt. And you guys must also do one other thing, in two parts. Make amends by losing your own home opener tonight against Montreal. And please guys, for the sake of Leaf Nation’s fragile psyche, by all means play your games hard and tough and disciplined, make them if not entertaining then at least exciting for Leafs fans to watch. Just don’t win. We need those high draft picks. And besides, you don’t want to kill any more fans.
28.8.08
Hilarious and Pathetic
Must be the summer of class action lawsuits. Sunrise Propane Industrial Gases went up in several brilliant balls of sunrise earlier this month, and the surrounding community brought class actions against the facility, the City of Toronto, the Ontario government, and the Technical Standards and Safety Authority. Now hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Canadians have caught class action fever, apparently a symptom of the fear of contracting listeriosis, after Maple Leaf Foods screwed up big time by distributing listeria-tainted meat. Now, I know basically nothing about the legal side of class action lawsuits. Too lazy to do any research. But I know a little bit about the human side, the psychosocial side. I see a class action lawsuit as like the legal equivalent of a pack mentality, with the litigants experiencing deindividuation and embracing a primitive strength-in-numbers philosophy. Thus far the media has cooperated to confuse the shit out of anyone trying to determine an accurate count of confirmed deaths and illnesses from the listeriosis outbreak. Anywhere from five to fifteen people have died, to date, and maybe two or three times that have fallen ill. I suppose those numbers will continue to rise in the next month or two, with the disease’s 30-day average incubation period and all. But I’m guessing they won’t hit the hundreds, let alone thousands. So I find it a little hilarious, a little pathetic, that so many people feel entitled to jump on the class action bandwagon. Listeria hysteria! Oh the mental distress of eating a bologna sandwich and then turning on the news and learning about the listeriosis outbreak and the Maple Leaf meat recall and then wondering if your sandwich may have had a secret ingredient and wondering what symptoms to look for and then learning nausea is one and almost immediately feeling nauseous and dragging yourself to the phone and calling an ambulance and going to the hospital and arriving only to discover that the ER waiting room is filled with people who ate processed meat and now think they have listeriosis. Oh the lost wages from being too distressed to attend work. What’s that you say? Class action lawsuit? All I have to do is sign my name on it and I’ll be part of a big faceless gang led by lawyers going after hundreds of millions of dollars from Maple Leaf Foods? And I’ll get me some of that money? I’m all in!
For better or worse, the class action lawsuit is here to stay. Why not put it to good use? Bring a class action against the Catholic Church. The Pope. Seeking remuneration for lost wages of sin, mental distress (i.e., guilt), and centuries of boys and girls growing up learning very wrong things. The epic battle between lawyers and priests — two thousand years in the making. Watch Holy Water and Habeas Corpus live, only on C-Span.
For better or worse, the class action lawsuit is here to stay. Why not put it to good use? Bring a class action against the Catholic Church. The Pope. Seeking remuneration for lost wages of sin, mental distress (i.e., guilt), and centuries of boys and girls growing up learning very wrong things. The epic battle between lawyers and priests — two thousand years in the making. Watch Holy Water and Habeas Corpus live, only on C-Span.
14.8.08
If---when
“It should not have been there. Nobody did a damn thing. And now the damage is done.”
–quote from BBC News article, Toronto Recovering From Fireball
So. Asbestos I can tell, the air quality following Toronto’s propane explosion is a-okay. This proclamation by no means exonerates any actual threat. Indeed, I’m renowned in certain circles for flubbing air-quality predictions. Who knows what the inevitable if—when cycle will bring. Maybe five years’ hindsight will bring a tear to the eye. Or maybe glaucoma. In the meantime, I’m stayin. I’m finishin my coffee. All right, one more cigarette, said the asbestotic caretaker, wheezing his way up the stairs.
Among the wreckage, a relative absence of bodies. A godsend, if you’re so inclined. Take what you can get, I say.
I need your strength, she said, not your weakness. He wasn’t listening. Instead he was drifting from thought to thought, and most of them weren’t good. Horrorshows and worst-case scenarios.
“It’s been about forty-five and a half hours since the Sunrise Propane Industrial Gases propane repository blew skyhigh in the YouTube event of the year, Melvlem, and most of the evacuees have been allowed back to their homes. And boy I bet I can guess the first thought on their minds as they walked up their driveways: I hope we weren’t looted. Now I’m about five kilometres from Ground Zero, Melvlem, and whether or not there’s really asbestos in the air, lead and silica dust, as many people are speculating, well I really have no idea. But I can tell you this: I’m sneezing, my nose is running, my tummy hurts, I’m having chest pain, not to mention a splitting headache and a fever of a hundred and one and a ruthless case of the chills, I’m coughing up blood and pulmonary fibroids and black cancerdots, a psychopath with a machete is hunting me down, a classified spy plane is shooting at me, a lion is nipping at one heel, a grizzly bear at the other, an alien is trying to get out of my stomach, there's a poison dart sticking out of my neck, a knife in my gut, a spear through my side, a thorny crown on my head, my hands are tied behind my back, my bursitis is giving me fits, my gout acting up, my knees are killing me, and if I don’t run any faster this bullet behind me is going to slam into my thigh any second. Frankly at the moment I could care less about asbestos.”
We interrupt this bulletin to bring you a silly little poem:
Scissors are fun
With them you run
You used to have two eyes
Now you have one.
For Bob Leek and The Other One RIP
–quote from BBC News article, Toronto Recovering From Fireball
So. Asbestos I can tell, the air quality following Toronto’s propane explosion is a-okay. This proclamation by no means exonerates any actual threat. Indeed, I’m renowned in certain circles for flubbing air-quality predictions. Who knows what the inevitable if—when cycle will bring. Maybe five years’ hindsight will bring a tear to the eye. Or maybe glaucoma. In the meantime, I’m stayin. I’m finishin my coffee. All right, one more cigarette, said the asbestotic caretaker, wheezing his way up the stairs.
Among the wreckage, a relative absence of bodies. A godsend, if you’re so inclined. Take what you can get, I say.
I need your strength, she said, not your weakness. He wasn’t listening. Instead he was drifting from thought to thought, and most of them weren’t good. Horrorshows and worst-case scenarios.
“It’s been about forty-five and a half hours since the Sunrise Propane Industrial Gases propane repository blew skyhigh in the YouTube event of the year, Melvlem, and most of the evacuees have been allowed back to their homes. And boy I bet I can guess the first thought on their minds as they walked up their driveways: I hope we weren’t looted. Now I’m about five kilometres from Ground Zero, Melvlem, and whether or not there’s really asbestos in the air, lead and silica dust, as many people are speculating, well I really have no idea. But I can tell you this: I’m sneezing, my nose is running, my tummy hurts, I’m having chest pain, not to mention a splitting headache and a fever of a hundred and one and a ruthless case of the chills, I’m coughing up blood and pulmonary fibroids and black cancerdots, a psychopath with a machete is hunting me down, a classified spy plane is shooting at me, a lion is nipping at one heel, a grizzly bear at the other, an alien is trying to get out of my stomach, there's a poison dart sticking out of my neck, a knife in my gut, a spear through my side, a thorny crown on my head, my hands are tied behind my back, my bursitis is giving me fits, my gout acting up, my knees are killing me, and if I don’t run any faster this bullet behind me is going to slam into my thigh any second. Frankly at the moment I could care less about asbestos.”
We interrupt this bulletin to bring you a silly little poem:
Scissors are fun
With them you run
You used to have two eyes
Now you have one.
For Bob Leek and The Other One RIP
8.8.08
leaders of men
A bunch of European leaders sitting around having a secret summit, a picnic under a cluster of trees in a lush green meadow near the apex of an Alpine mountain. They’re eating cold chicken, ripping apart the carcasses and playfighting each other for the white meat. One of the guys — no women at this here summit — says, “You know, the other day I captured a whole bunch of ants and put them in a glass jar and watched them wander around in there, slower and slower, until they all died. Watching that sure was neat.”
“Heh heh,” everyone chuckles. A few add, “I did that when I was a kid.” A single cloud drifts across a sky so blue and vast and breathtaking that one of the picnickers idly contemplates imposing a sky tax.
“Can you do that?”
“I don’t think you can do that.”
“How would you enforce it?”
“Simple. Every day there’s a beautiful blue sky, collect a dollar from each taxpayer.”
The chicken is gone, lunch ends, greasy fingers wiped on groundsoil and groundsoil on pantlegs.
“So, you guys, what do you feel like doing this aft?”
Frowns and grunts, hems and haws.
“I dunno.”
“Me neither.”
“What about you?”
“Well actually I’ve been kind of thinking lately about — well it’s kind of silly actually.”
“Just say it!”
“Yeah! Out with it you master of suspense!”
“Oh all right. Outlawing freedom of sexual preference.”
Silence from the others.
Hopeful smile. “Heh heh. Silly, eh? Any of you guys ever have silly thoughts like uh, like that?”
“Brilliant!”
“Can you do that?”
“I don’t think you can do that.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Don’t you think it would be nice to be remembered for something?”
A one-and-one-quarter-second pause; then, “I wouldn’t want to be remembered as the guy who outlawed freedom of sexual preference.”
A bunch of American leaders in cowboy hats sitting around a mahogany table in a secret meeting room with smouldering coils of cowpatty incense and high sooty ceilings.
“What do you wanna do today boys?”
“I dunno sir, what about you?”
Mr President chews his chocolate with mouth open and brown drool squirting from the upturned corners of his retard grin. He swallows, twice gulping like a retard kid trying hard to get that big bite of hotdog down. Then he looks up and to his right, the tip of his tongue protruding from pursed lips. Presently he snaps a look straight ahead, at no one.
“Let’s gather up a whole bunch of people,” he says, “and put them in a giant Texas-sized glass jar and watch them wander around in there, slower and slower, until they all die. Wow!” He shakes his head, grinning and panting like a mangy dog. “Watching that sure would be neat.”
“Heh heh,” everyone chuckles. A few add, “I did that when I was a kid.” A single cloud drifts across a sky so blue and vast and breathtaking that one of the picnickers idly contemplates imposing a sky tax.
“Can you do that?”
“I don’t think you can do that.”
“How would you enforce it?”
“Simple. Every day there’s a beautiful blue sky, collect a dollar from each taxpayer.”
The chicken is gone, lunch ends, greasy fingers wiped on groundsoil and groundsoil on pantlegs.
“So, you guys, what do you feel like doing this aft?”
Frowns and grunts, hems and haws.
“I dunno.”
“Me neither.”
“What about you?”
“Well actually I’ve been kind of thinking lately about — well it’s kind of silly actually.”
“Just say it!”
“Yeah! Out with it you master of suspense!”
“Oh all right. Outlawing freedom of sexual preference.”
Silence from the others.
Hopeful smile. “Heh heh. Silly, eh? Any of you guys ever have silly thoughts like uh, like that?”
“Brilliant!”
“Can you do that?”
“I don’t think you can do that.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Don’t you think it would be nice to be remembered for something?”
A one-and-one-quarter-second pause; then, “I wouldn’t want to be remembered as the guy who outlawed freedom of sexual preference.”
A bunch of American leaders in cowboy hats sitting around a mahogany table in a secret meeting room with smouldering coils of cowpatty incense and high sooty ceilings.
“What do you wanna do today boys?”
“I dunno sir, what about you?”
Mr President chews his chocolate with mouth open and brown drool squirting from the upturned corners of his retard grin. He swallows, twice gulping like a retard kid trying hard to get that big bite of hotdog down. Then he looks up and to his right, the tip of his tongue protruding from pursed lips. Presently he snaps a look straight ahead, at no one.
“Let’s gather up a whole bunch of people,” he says, “and put them in a giant Texas-sized glass jar and watch them wander around in there, slower and slower, until they all die. Wow!” He shakes his head, grinning and panting like a mangy dog. “Watching that sure would be neat.”
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