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Stop wondering why you're not number one. Start feeling the bottom of the sun. The things you think you deserve, you didn't create the earth, you didn't build your car from scratch, you couldn't start a fire without a match, so many generations came and went so you could own a couch, I didn't know it was an evolutionary trait, you know, the adaptability of the slouch.

Make me more like screen-mediated teen idols, make my mind like guinea pigs tossed into a snakepit of marketing gurus, make my taste portable like a digital tongue, sell my preferences to Google and say it's good right in front of the UN.

Kim Jong Il's son is set to be number one, nepotism yet again, mediocrity throughout the 'Stans, leave your country to a kid who thinks a thermonuclear toy is his birthright. What can the North Koreans do for you? They can put away their blackmail, they can turn tales through their brainwashed wailing, they can dig themselves an economy, they can resign themselves to the worst part of the Old Testament -- you know, all the circumcision and concubine stuff in the less quotable parts of Deuteronomy.

We don't ask what we don't know anymore. Siri doesn't have an answer to the question you don't ask. I could have hired a secretary instead, she'd have worked hard, you know, like everyone else in Saskatchewan. Now she's stuck in Moose Jaw, ll'never know the joy of working for the man, for me, she might have an extra three kids out there, all that space out on the plain.

Have you ever sealed out the air, with a plastic sheet, against a glass wall, on a Monday evening, just to save a few bucks, because YouTube showed you how? That's the kind of universe that's happening right now.

15 lacklustre scintillating pronouncements

1. Cardigans are totally unnecessary.
2. Warm winter wetnaps are useful for three w-words in a row.
3. When we think about the piling on of popular opinion, we may as well soak our heads in a tile bath.
4. Would it not be strange to unlock a locket and see that it was full of shark teeth. That means you were actually in love a shark, or you were a shark dentist (that is, a dentist for sharks). Or your lover got eaten by a shark, and you decided to avenge her. That is the full set of solutions.
5. I was sitting in a restaurant and the waitress came up to me and asked for fifty cents. I said 'are you really a waitress' and she said 'please sir, get into the movie theatre.' I forgot to add, this took place in a movie theatre, and the first part is made up.
6. Nothing exists that does not exist. 
7. That is: Nothing is that isn't
8. Existence exists
9. Farmers farm
10. And yet, words don't always mean what they say?
11. Ok back on track: if you are ever in Toronto I can recommend an excellent sandwich.
12. When I get like this, and I'm NOT in front of a keyboard, there's a lot of lousy dancing.
13. My problem is I can remember almost everything I've ever said. Repetition is the enemy. And yet, the underlying form is not to be touched. Form over content.
14. I could have a niche covering all the people who kill bats for a living, who need cheap Rx pills mailed in five business days or less, who polish saxophones for military marching bands; these are important segments.
15. Ever get frustrated by the keyboard or the mouse? I mean, have we ever blamed QWERTY? What would literature be like if we had the Dvorak keyboard? I know I would probably be a Romanian count.

Jumping jacks

I was wondering: will you let me stay. I have a couple things to say. Can I offer you raisins? They come from northern California. I've never been to California. Can I call you tomorrow? Call me anytime. I'll sign you up for favours if you speak a word my way.

No time.  Sir you are sliding away. I read in his book that he struggled every way, became himself each day. Take pain as part of the package. Don't let the 21st century trick you into numbness. We traded technology for profound dumbness.

I walked with an exchange student, wondering what she saw in my country. From a land of crushing humanity, I'd pay my leg to breathe free. The most honourable people. The devils slip among them. It's a numbers game. We are orders of magnitude  from an agreement. You see the forest, they see a dream. You see empty land, they see a promise. You have a loaf of bread, while they will work for the crumbs. You haven't got a chance against their suffering and their love.

I dare myself to show. I have no need to control this; no desire to know. Every time you sit that same fountain showers cold; I have never checked the plumbing; you were born on a mountain of gold. You have treasures in your toetips. You are young yet to be sold. The day you count backwards from the price you named to frame your game in blameless numbing riskfree bliss is the day your scent went cold.

Competitive advantage

I can only do what I do better than what I shouldn't do because I don't do it as well.

She's only nineteen. Away from me. She's a screamer, a scheme dreamer, talked all kinds of Mr Clean, she had that teenage sheen. I don't mean to be mean. He claps and he claps, made lean by private trainers and the 1% VIP scene.

Television makes me dumb. I don't need a bottle of rum. You're so special - I'm so honoured, I'm so grateful  you're on the show. The only opportunity, you were great, now the hardest decision I've ever made. You won't last long enough to get paid.

I admire your big lungs. I envy your big leaps. There's a certain kind of people who were meant to drive a Jeep. You are young. So bungee jump. I am grey, a withered grump. You need me. I mean, without people like me, who would drink your precious calorie-free Pepsi?

Sulla sua cattiva strada

I was working on the railroad, I was toasted by the fire, like a marshmallow man, sitting on a toothpick. Out and out we shouted, we wanted more motions, less thought. We need another round of whiskey to numb last night's gut rot. Why not sit and swig with us? Why not crash and stay? I know, you could never act that way.

Overboard I fell, overlong we dwelled. I was lifted up in the arms of that strong one, lifted up into his cape, too tired to thank the man, I spent a month harvesting his grapes. When he let me play with his children, when he let me sit at his table, I gained a position, small bit of dignity in the household a go to child when a salesperson dropped in from town. "Please sir sit down and let me pour you green tea." Please sir, I would think to myself, can you tell me what happens in town? I was thirteen and heard of the glass fountains in the main square, covered with lights in spring evenings.

16 things I just gotta tell you

1. There are people out there who have written entire books about lactic acid. And molybdenum. I bet they wish people had more than two eyeballs. Especially now that attention spans are directed centrally by Evan and Biz from Twitter.
2. Baseball players get to work in pajamas. Before you boo me off this blog for a non-innovative thought, remember - this is a sign they find baseball as sleepy as you do. 
3. All this technological innovation, and we still have HR recruiters out there who hire based on 'handshake quality'. Glad I went to university but too bad I failed the course on 'handshake confidence' that is a mark of preparedness for the digital workforce.
4. I eat a lot of refreshing yogurt products and still I don't get silky-smooth skin. What gives, lifestyle ads?
5. Also, I have an appetite for dried figs, but I have never eaten a dried pineapple. Dried citrus doesn't seem to work.
6. When things are going bad, consider the Kurds. They haven't given up. Although, maybe they should.
7. Someone told me I wrote dark humour. I said, "That would strain your eyes," and I apologized. He said "don't take it literally" and I chided him for littering in an alley. He said "no pun intended" and I told him that ignorance of the law is no excuse.
8. Sing after me: "Turn around, bright eyes". Great song. But now stop and consider how creepy EYES TURNING AROUND IN THEIR SOCKETS would actually be. Clearly Bonny Tyler wrote this song for the undead. It's disgusting.
9. When I look at Google Earth and consider the vast expanses of undeveloped land in the New World, I feel that my bid to conquer the Antarctic still has a chance.
10. Weird expression, "drowning in tears." You can't drown in your own tears. Unless you save them for later, and compile a reservoir of tears. But you are more likely to suffocate in your own hair, or fall down a hole while being chased by your dandruff.
11. With amazing advances in prosthesis, an amputee may get an artificial limb and live a mostly normal life. But when my favourite wallet gets stolen, why can't I get an artificial wallet? Hey, that wallet was one of a kind.
12. Public drunkenness is far more tolerable if you are the drunk.
13. Don't be angry if your bus is late. Be angry that the bus has a lousy farebox recovery ratio, and future taxpayers will have to pay a subsidy. Remember that Ayn Rand never took a bus, and built a flying contraption not unlike a helicopter, fashioned out of old bookshelves and a shard from her cold iron heart, all powered by an invisible hand.
14. It's weird that young people think that adding powdered cheese to a bag of baked corn chips is 'the new normal'. Not to mention, if cheese can achieve a form so powdery fine that I could just inhale it, then let's skip the corn chip step, and just charge me monthly per cubic foot of powdered cheese.
15. Calling someone you dislike 'crabby' does almost nothing to improve the odds that they will get tossed alive into a pot of boiling water. You may as well call them 'lobstery'. 'Hey, there's Lobstery Joe!' You could even call them that to their face, and they would be none the wiser. There's an upside to everything.
16. We expect people to cover their mouths when they yawn. We expect people to cover their nose when they sneeze. Can you see where I'm going with this? Why should I be ridiculed for selling a new line of vomit-suppression scarves. Also, why don't people cover their hands when they tickle?

Time to move

Dragged from under a rock, I finally learned to talk. Eaten by the river in his underwear, chalk river radiation or abnormal solar flare. Crow pizza parties for the doughty and the hearty, we're lucky to have roadkill, times are tough, don't be a buzzkill, don't make me get rough. Sign your union card, get your brother Marty too, he's only twenty-one, he can work for thirty or thirty-five years until his back is done.

I was away at the beach when I found out about the quake. The sand shifted, dunes by the dozen and so it was the same. The roads were all wrecked through, my Bug fell in a pothole, flushed by the tidal wave, just another Tuesday in the Maldives, an underwater Atlantis with downgraded credit rating, a small island paradise with a minor plague of race-baiting, work-hating, subsidy generating, midnight gyrating sugar-daddy-babies, ladies looking for young lambs with rich wool scarves, tarted up trollops with coco scented arms, fixing gyroscopes to throw their silken poison darts.

Mellow my memories, chilled in the fridge, time slows down when you stare at a crib, the orbit doesn't budge, not even an inch. (I miss that veal sandwich at Keele just south of Finch). We got a big dumb leader you just have to see. He can't read. It's obscene; you won't believe what we've elected, I think it's 1933.

What do we do in the face of such ooze? We don't huff the glue. We got to unpack the boxes. We got to tear down the drywalls, save what we can use. We got to live, me and you, and to do we got to move.

Lifestyle micro- tips coming soon to a YouTube channel near you

• Fastest way to fill in a scantron bubble
• Fastest way to put mail inside a mailbox
• How to dodge a stroller on a narrow sidewalk
• Best way to ascend a winding staircase
• How to button up a shirt
• How to hang toilet paper
• Best way to put cream in your coffee
• Fastest way to dry your hands
• How to roll out of bed without injuring yourself
• How hard to push a stapler
• How to unwrap a dry cleaning bag
• Fastest way to draw a stick figure
• Best way to unwrap tape
• Where to put your shoes at a house party
• Least messy way to squash a spider
• Fastest way to light candles on a cake
• The fastest way to remove sand from your sandals
• When to eat lunch at the office
• Which urinal to choose (during a power outage)
• Fastest way to gargle
• How close to wait behind the other person at the ATM
• How to find the exact middle page of a book
• Fastest way to remove flyers from a magazine.
• How to quickly tell if someone has removed the Sports section from the newspaper.
• The best angle to hold your pen
• How to quickly find the right house key

Outside they are handing out free deodorant

Wonder weird in a ketchup beard, dripping with the three Ps and the gravy knees, sang sweet songs to a syllabus-screener, solved a million messages with a bathtub cleaner. Odious men don't try my shoes, never asked long and tried freehand, longhand, scrawled marathons ran in underwear; might I wonder where you hide the booze? Long ago I was promised a peach, so I asked you to marry me on the beach; I wandered in and struck a leech. Which lake was it? Probably Meech. I owe my audience an hour each. My sister-in-law says I should teach.

I'm against laws and all for freedom

Turning tongue-in-cheek into an extreme sport on the comments board re "Per-vote subsidy on chopping block in Flaherty’s June 6 budget":

I'm against the vote subsidy. My tax dollars shouldn't go toward funding political parties I don't agree with.

I'm also against health care for people I don't like. My tax dollars shouldn't go toward my neighbour's lung cancer surgery if he is a smoking jerk.

I'm also against free roads for people who drive dangerously and cause potholes. Why is the taxpayer subsidizing roads? Road use should be measured and each individual driver charged a monthly fee. And if someone really needs a new road that bad, they should take an ad out in the newspaper to explain why it's important, and then maybe people will pitch in and help buy some of the tar or gravel.

I'm also against my tax dollar going toward jets I don't want and that may never be needed to protect my town from invading Russians. If the jets are so important, maybe someone should start a war with Russia, then Canadians will see the need, be convinced, and want to fund the jets. Besides, defence spending doesn't protect all Canadians from being invaded. It only protects the parts of the country that might otherwise appeal to invaders--all the rest of us get along fine. Why should my tax dollars subsidize people who live in parts of the country that are just asking to be invaded? If they didn't want to be invaded they should have moved to Moosonee.

I'm against government forcing me to pay taxes. If the government has a good argument for why taxes need to be collected, because it thinks it might be good for the country, they can try to convince me to donate to the tax fund without picking my pocket.

And don't get me started on laws. I'm against laws. If someone has a reason for why I shouldn't be setting a dog on fire, then maybe that person should write me a letter, explaining why it's wrong to set fire to a dog, and maybe offer to sell me his hose, so I can put out the fire, then THAT makes sense.

Foot Hockey

This is foot hockey. And here are the rules.

When I was six years old

When I was six years old the other kids would make me the unofficial referee in the foot-hockey games we played. I always felt weird about that.

We played with a tennis ball, on an asphalt surface, between two chain-link fences, about 200 feet apart. I usually played defense. I was the last guy between them and our goalie, who protected the net (the fence posts) wearing his jacket off his body on his arms like an apron. There are tens of thousands of kids who grew up playing goalie this way. For all of us, tennis-ball soccer was real hockey.

I was good at defense. Especially blocking shots and picking the ball off the forward. A lot of the time there was dispute over whether someone had actually scored. Everyone on each team would argue for their side, that the ball definitely did go in or it didn't.

Except I could never bring myself to argue for my side if I thought we were wrong - that, as far as I saw, our guy's shot did not go in the net. The thing was, I wish our team did score, so if we in fact did not, I was always reluctant to tell what I saw. I wanted those guys to settle it  themselves. But eventually one of them would ask what I saw. I hated that.

How could my teammates not be honest and just let it drop if we didn't score? Why did I have to come down against my own side? But I had this reputation, see--that I wouldn't take advantage. That I wouldn't lie. As soon as I told them what I thought happened, the argument was usually over. Everyone would repeat what I said about the ball going in or not going in. The game would go on. Some of teammates would be upset that, because of me, we didn't score, but they didn't seem to argue.

To this day I think about how bizarre that was. I was six years old and I had this quasi-judicial authority. I loved foot hockey. I guess I should have felt complimented they relied on me to be the ref and make the call. Instead I felt annoyed, embarrassed, and alone.

Stop arguing, be honest and solve your own problems, people!

Why do I ask so many questions?

Could it be that history is a lie?

Could it be that what survives isn't what's good? Are cockroaches good? Were dinosaurs bad?

Could it be that there is no Plan? Is that a narrative fallacy? Do you believe in progress? Do you believe in chaos? Do you really think it could have happened by accident?

Could it be that, in the face of randomness, you could still choose something good?

Could it be that you can choose something bad, because you know it will turn out right in the end - because you believe there is a Plan?

Is religion for simpletons? Is atheism for the smug and the dejected?

Do you care about getting the credit? Do you just want your descendants to survive?

Have you ever thought about this--even for a second? Were you drunk?

Do you wonder why people need to take drugs? Have you ever tried connecting the dots? Is it any wonder we're tortured by sociopaths?

When was the last time you voted? Is abstinence the answer? Do I have a selective memory?

Seriously what is UP with this shit??

Pledge

[more nonsensical than usual]

Got drain leavings to declog. When I'm done you'll hear me every day for a month. Acid builds up in the soul's muscles. Massages hurt the next day. Another twisted neck, case of heartbreak, gut rot. 

Put yourself on the line and things get interesting. Stake your rep on a promise. You won't let down the fans. I mean, if you had fans. I mean, whatever.

We want myriad things, too many to encyclopedize. The massive gut wants more.

Building a tent beside the highway to Dubai, the most overbuilt shitstorm on the planet.

"I just came to say hello." ~Martina

I'm a master mummy; fully drained of fluid in my rocking chair, dessicated but with useful anecdotes. I told the one about the tortoise and hare, and the kids got bored. I said 'ok check out my art exhibit'. I try not to make children scream, but they get lollipop fingers on my knitting needles.  Never mess with a middle-aged man's makework project.

Reconstruct awareness. Reconstruct ray of consciousness. Reconstruct the last authoritative version of your hopes and dreams- -a narrative to disguise your personal chaos. The trackable tale convinces passersby. Need a copywriter to tell the story of your olive oil, pressed from virgin trees in a small town in Abruzzo, so it'll be worth a 500% markup on the big box stores. One taste and you know what your tongue was for.

What words wind from mind, and what from keyboard rhythm, product of muscular bias--easier to spell depending on spacing of keys? Whatever became of the random flight of bumblebees?

Anarchy won't let you be. Sid Vicious, a bassist dead from an overdose, a '70s badboy with BO and sweat stains, blew his brains out on fame. I wanna be, the prince of malarkey. He never know God though. The mass is too predictable, too slow.

No matter what you say, people need to tell you later. Everybody wanna step on their creator.

Climbing Lou Reed's mountain of feedback - he powers his soul with battery acid. Don't be part of the scenery, step out from the machinery, grab your things, I've come to take you home.

Sooner or later you face off with bananas or booze. You've got the love, the handshake, the warmth, you've got the what-to-keep and what-to-cut. Though don't preface with hurried praise - you're telegraphing 'but'.

Radiation release valve activated

Semiotic rifle, spoonful of trifle, we carry our cups to the dishwasher, rinsed, tossed, sealed, it's a cutlery holocaust. Tempers flare, totally tequila, bees in bonnets, nightmare sonnets:

Of his soul, it is dead, he buried it quickly with strokes of lead.

Bottle vapour is tough, but you'll be so high when you dig this stuff.

Be careful what you write: it might come true. I've been thinking about that since 2002.

There's no conspiracy - just fear and apathy. The stats are gnats; I count just fine. You can't predict a series in time.

Distrust what you know. You'll thank me later. Defeat him now - a reluctant debater.

Invisible hand removes the deadwood. Capitalism, man, it cuts down redwoods. Public institutions full of private people, bowing hypocritically for posts of unimportance? Inequality erases over time. My neighbour is starving, reeks of slime.

A reliable form of morality

A fairly reliable form of morality requires no holy books or eternal truths. If a question of right or wrong arises, simply ask yourself 'If everyone else I know did this thing, would I like it?' Saves a lot of time and gets pretty good results, in general. There are always exceptions.

Leggo the Lion

[sequel to Tony the Tiger]

Give us potato hash, and ready for the backlash. We want coiled licorice strings and fast-food onion rings. We want everything on our list, boxed and delivered and rung up on the exchange. Then the devil readies thugs to de-liver deadbeats, shivering and hungover waking in a bath of ice, and missing key internal organs - or so I've read once or twice.

Tall men in suits chuff effetely on the flute, lining up for coffee instead of kneeling in a pew. Why not be a coffee bean and never wonder why? I get steamed, I get drunk, I have swimwear in my trunks. I have a bank right in the clouds -- too bad the interest rates are junk.

Try to relax as the keys get stuck, the mind in muck, the wherewithal just out of plucking range, the chi, the Clear, the dianetical celebrisphere. Why not dabble in a bit of Scientology? L Ron's alright? Give new religions a chance, if we have no use for God, we gotta have SOME sort of crazy dance.

Leo the Lion wrote an airtight business case for getting the hell out of this place: to rent a forty-foot canoe big enough for him, me, you and half the local zoo. A simple fifty bucks a head; that is, unless they're two by two.

Obadiah Smith and Jersey Pocahontas, tied together on a raft, forced to agree while Ms. Rhythm had a laugh. She put a waterfall + jagged-rocks right where they shook hands, then she'll pile their shattered souls to blackmail the Pelican man.

Grow nuts! Yes, to plant seeds, you dig up dirt to build a tree. I never smiled at a toddler reading, seems so unfair -- I had a thirty year head start to also sit and stare, wonder what I was needing, to find a decent patch of air.

Ozark Ike and the TSX, robber barons merge agendas while a man in Muskoka builds a deck. In the June air above water 'round dusk you can only hear ducks. "I don't believe in boardrooms when my teenager drives a truck." Okeeochobee in Florida, palm trees ye high, I got no patience for humidity, and cockroaches creep by. Did you call the exterminator? He's got a hot date on the playa; men with blue collars have thick brown wrists, I'll put out the ant traps myself just this once - that guy deserves a filthy tryst.

Mona Decadona has cleavage she bought in Arizona, loaned $50K to wear her dreams in silicone, or silicon, body porn or cyber porn just makes another yawn. How can we afford to pay? We got money marts poppin' up like crickets off a log. I got facelift grannies melting in Phoenix in a slow midmorning jog. I got fatass secretaries poppin' Skittles I got human-as-dogs at forty bucks a kibble, getting groomed and massaged more than a man with a sledgehammer stance and cigarette breath ever will and you wonder why the onlines seeth with despair, every thought you ever had will splat against the stare, at forms you fill in, it's never enough, you are like me, guaranteed to leave - we got a forty-foot canoe, just me and you and Leo wishing he never learned to read.

Frances the Snark (or the Tower of Deafening Daredevilry)

[stretch old dusty limbs]

In the town of Ocanonda in the north-northwest part of Pitzmiel, on the coast of the Glaylish plain across from the Buntish Ocean -- where water bubbles of its own accord -- lay a snark den full of snarks. One snark in particular is the subject of this tale. Not just any snark. The snark was four-legged, hairy and tough, with an aardvark's disposition and a man's grasp of physics. Not just any man, but something like Niels Bohr's or Richard Feynman's grasp of phyics. Not just any physics, but quantum physics.

Now the town of Ocanonda was not of this Earth, but thanks to transdimensional teleportation and fibre optic spacetime-shifting the men of Ocanonda -- even ones who would mate with a snark -- had access to iTunes. This would mean nothing, of course, without an iPad. For Feynman in this universe was known only through the digital medium. Books of course, meant nothing along the coast of the Buntish Ocean. And all the better for the trees, particularly the knobblish and the punter trees, which heavily populated the Glaylish crescent, planted by colonial thrompets centuries before, during the Golden Age of Slag, the wanton trade of which conspiracy theorists believed made the Buntish waters boil. Of course, not many worried about such theories five furlongs deep in the lagoons near where our snark did spend his middle decades - at the edge of the waters that touched Ocanonda and made her snark-maidens (fully snark and in no way human) moist-eyed with romance and other rubbish rot. A rather picturesque place - worthy of a postcard, if punter trees indeed had ever been felled for such an industry.

The snark we will come to know -- though only those inside his mind could say so -- was nicknamed Franny and realnamed Frances. He was a solid Glaylish plain-snark who moved to the seaside for opportunity, to work part-time in the Slag mines, and be low-level PR flak for the sub-prefect #4 of Ocanonda, aka His Honour, Commodius Flatus, who was appointed to the post for no other reason than his seaside land holdings which yielded 5% of income (much less than the usual 15%) to the Ocanonda-Pitzmiel SupraRegional Treasury. Commodius Flatus' vast and wind-stubbled homestead included forty hectare fruit-groves of wannabi-dates, but was in no other way extraordinary except for its peculiar road-side construction works that included a tall thin tower of frozen mud which housed a wizened black-nosed Slag-monk who was nicknamed One-Eyed Cecil and realnamed Snert Cecilius.

[unfinished of course]

Should it concern me...

That I had all my good ideas seven years ago?

When the Internet reinvents itself, I'll be waiting.

Maybe I just need more of this.

The cupcakes are burnin

Trying to think of reasons to keep blogging. I may need to declare another hiatus. The pointlessness of it all is overpowering at the moment. Let's see how I feel tomorrow. In the meantime, check out this.

"Some swarthy sonufabitch scattered slurpee sauce up my sneakers!"

We grow fat at a magnificent pace, in this, the donut race, a cycle ride from Leaside up to 905 and back again - it makes  a man. Now I swallow mounds of fried magoo, as only I can do. An about-face, all about timing, pace, the business case. An obsession with a grand 'a-ha' makes magicians vanish senza trace. Prophalaxis upon members of the Axis would attract some serious debate. [Even Hitler bowed and scraped at Eva Braun's father's place??] Do I snicker when I say 'Djibouti', or a keep a straight face for 'Clafouti' - your snobbery eventually lands in a glove that only fits your hand.

Verbatim

Exercise
Write
Act, no plan
Read
Rent
Invest
Organize
Gather
Cultivate
Network
Get born
Flower
Flourish
Take stock
Account
Develop