Italics Always Swing To The Right

Most people seem to draw inspiration from their surroundings, from the world, from their friends and acquaintances, but not I. I receive stimuli, but they hardly qualify as inspiration. In fact, going online and reading boneheaded drivel (which has become unavoidable these days on the so-called ‘net’) tends to put me in a bleak mood. Instantly. I try to avoid public forums, Youtube comments, and (most) blogs like the plague, but every once in a while I give in to my constant masochistic urges and, rather than self-flagellate with my homemade cat o’ nine, I browse away. These are the only times when I consider all-out nuclear holocaustic oblivion or indiscriminate genocide against the stupid as a potentially positive development for the human race. Reading the comments of the average ignorant, lazy, selfish, hateful piece of shit internet denizen makes me realize how meaningless opinions have become. As such, I can only conclude that everyone on this shit-hole planet is seventeen years-old. But god forbid if you deny someone their opinion. ‘It’s my OPINION, maaaan!’ Well big deal, asshole. Opinions are about as useful as the logic which informs their naissance (see, I’m like smart or something because I know more than one language and therefor my opinion, unlike yours, matters) and most peoples’ grasp of logic and the art of argument seems to extend no further than that of the average grade-school pupil. But perhaps I’m being too hard on the children. I have faith in the young. Well, I did before 75% of them became riddled with pharmaceuticals because their parents are too fucking lazy (or, in all fairness, overworked) to properly, uh, parent them. But Jesus Christ, let’s defend our wonderful culture until we’re blue in the face or low on ammunition — which ever happens first. I mean, who cares if we’re all hooked on legal drugs… look how cheap flat-screen TVs have become.

I’m successful. Don’t begrudge me my success. I love it. I have nice stuff in my nice house. I have a nice car. I have nice sex toys that I slick up with nice lubricant ordered online through successful businesses which assure me my anonymity, thus maintaining my facade of upstanding Conservative-party-contributing morality.

On my way across town, I cross paths with more than one acquaintance, but I have no time for these people anymore. I avert eye contact, I turn my back to them as I pass; dead to me, every last one of them. Who needs friends? The weak of mind and porous of body. And that’s not me. All I require is alcohol and professional sports — the true drugs of any right thinking conformist; like any good man of the age, I’m a shining example of humanity’s progress towards the evolutionary black hole of success.

I haven’t had a meaningful conversation with anyone other than myself since I was ten years old and I’ve never felt the pangs of love or the eventual heartbreak. I count myself lucky, but luck has nothing to do with it.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling saucy, I imagine my Lexus to be an Aston-Martin Virage. Oh, the fun I have. I sneer at pedestrians, flip them off, mouth ‘fuck you’ against the glass of my climate-controlled bubble and imagine what it would be like to shoot them all in the head with a gold-plated Desert Eagle and watch their brain matter atomize in a flume of glorious red and gray against a backdrop of golden morning sun. These are truly life’s little moments that we should all cherish.

What it comes down to is my simple hatred for mankind. Yet, I’m torn: the things I hate about humanity are the very same things that have allowed me to so easily and readily exploit my fellow bipeds. Sloth, stupidity, selfishness — and those are just the S’s. But I could go on all day about the worthlessness of the average human being and where’s the money in that? Nowhere to be found without an army of politico underlings to do my bidding and where’s the fun in that?

The trick is to accept this simple fact about the species (or, as I prefer, the speces – clever, no?) and move on, avoiding disease and filth as best one can. But learn what you can whilst among the rabble, among the poor. They’re so quaint, aren’t they? With their accents and their Wal-Mart footwear. Some of them weren’t even born here. Crazy world.

But it takes all kinds, and I take from all kinds.

Don’t begrudge me my success. That’d be mighty white of you… fuckface.

Another 365

The calendar is funny. Well, our calendar is funny, since I’m not overly familiar with other calendars, but they do exist and this simple fact speaks volumes on the arbitrary ways in which humans break time up into smaller pieces. Existence is a much easier concept to grasp when one can think of their life in terms of a constant multiplied by a variable and different people and different cultures use different constants to achieve this end. Years, months, days, minutes, seconds and so on, in an infinitely decreasing trend which can never theoretically reach zero. But these are all words that don’t really mean much of anything outside the confines of our own skulls.

Until you die, at which point these units mean even less. Of course, there’s an endless birthday party in the sky waiting for you if you’ve led the good life and bought enough shit to keep the economy jumping during your stay in the temporal realm. If not, look out. Fire and other vaguely menacing things await.

Time is everything, though, isn’t it? Well, it sure is versatile.

It flies, it stands still, it disappears. It serves regret, wistfulness and debt.

It serves competition and greed, but is also the handmaid of sloth.

Time is a limited resource, which explains why time is also money — but that’s another waxy ball of constructs for another time.

More than anything else, though, time hinges on perception. When you’re happy it seems as though there aren’t enough hours in the day, but when you’re in the depths of a depression, time is a bitch goddess with extensive cosmetic surgery and expensive clothing, dangling a clock in front of your nose with one hand while shoving you back down with the other.

“Come on” she says, “why don’t you do something with your life? Anything. I don’t care. Just get off your lazy arse and move around once in a while. Hey! What do you think you’re doing? Back down with you now. Can’t have you getting up, lazy arse.”

Time is oppression, but I guess it’s all we’ve got.

Well, time and the weather.

Tase-O-Rama!

Now that it’s that time of season again, shouldn’t you be thinking of your family? Shouldn’t you be thinking of your family’s safety? What better way to protect them than the taser of your choice, now available at your local Taser City.

Sick of lineups at The Gap? Hasten things along with some harmless high voltage.

Kids acting up? Tase them! It’s not just for adults anymore. Everyone likes a jolt now and then to keep them on their toes, especially the prepubescent (unless they happen to be on cocaine, but how many kids aren’t strung out on blow these days? At least more than half of them).

Is there a visible minority or person of lower social class cramping your style with their close proximity? Tase that motherfo and be done with it. It’s not like you have to be a cop.

Boss giving you a hard time? The “taser in the parking lot” is still better than the “sawed-off shotgun rampage”, regardless of what HR might think. Always looking for fresh blood, that bunch.

And if all that doesn’t sound enticing then consider this: the true sadist, the hardcore misery inflicting fundamentalist set, they really go for a taser. Firearms have a way of being so final where a good taser is the gift that keeps on giving. You’re down! You’re up! You’re down! It’s a roller coaster ride.

And everybody knows that roller coasters are fun.

Much cleaner than pepper spray as well.

So just get in the spirit already and buy one. Incapacitate the first person you see, swipe their presents and run off, laughing all the way. But do it for your family.

Don’t do it for me.

Nights

I’m a vampire, baby, suckin blood from the earth - Neil Young

I am a vampire — rather, a vampire in reverse. Instead of staying up all night and sucking blood out of my surroundings, I stay up all night as my surroundings get fat off my blood. I do it for the paycheque, see? Easy. I sit on my arse doing repetitive tasks for an above-average working-poor wage, like we all do sometimes. Right? I have responsibilities to keep me interested, but they’re always the same responsibilities, every single night. On cue, done mechanically. The clerical equivalent of being the foreman’s lackey on the factory floor.

Oh God. I’m turning thirty next week. For real.

People tell me “the thirties are great!” without really elaborating on the source of this greatness. I suppose it is the last pre-40’s decade of one’s life, that last vestige of youthfulness before the unavoidable reality of “this is who I am, regardless of who I thought I would be” sets in for good.

But maybe it’s all bullshit.

Maybe the old adage that age is nothing but a state of mind holds true. Even if the late-teen’s to mid-twenties are the sweet spot for personality molding, we still conceivably change as life goes on. Nonetheless, most of us experience all the usual groundbreaking firsts during this period: death, birth, devastating professional sports team playoff losses and sex (the less said about the lot of these the better).

After that it’s just more layers of bitterness, skin and wisdom (best case scenario). Hair and teeth as well, but they all fall off at some point; we cover them up with reasonable facsimiles, but it’s never the same as the original — doesn’t have that new-body scent we all covet. I don’t mean that in a perverted way. I’m pushing thirty, but not yet a dirty old man.

But I digress.

Turning thirty might not be so bad. I never became a troubled but gifted rock and roll musician so I had no worries of dying at 27. I’ve never had a dangerous job, with the exception of convenience store clerk, so occupational death has never been a big risk.

Heart disease? Maybe. Working nights, combined with laziness, can lead to less than heart-healthy eating choices. Gas station food is not part of the Canada Food Guide, but it keeps me fatted for my nocturnal surroundings. The sunrise is always at the back of my mind.

So bring it on, next decade. You’re not so tough!

(feel free to insert a dance number here, if that’s what you were expecting)

Maybe I’ll write a novel; maybe I’ll go to jail. Maybe I’ll get in a fight and not break my hand.

Maybe not, who knows?

One Dollar Does Not Buy Peace Of Mind

In fact, one dollar doesn’t buy much of anything these days — possibly a shitty cup of gas station coffee, but only if you know where to look.

Of course, if you live near a dollar store (and in the Maritimes, who doesn’t?) you have a veritable cornucopia of fine imported products ready to brighten your home, garden and bathroom. Knockoff toiletries, “Herbal Extracts” shampoo (not to be confused with its orgasm-inducing “inspiration”), foodstuffs of questionable pedigree and all the choking hazards and questionably themed storybooks a morbidly fixated child could hope for (I love Jimmy the Giraffe Gets a Goiter).

All this and still, horizons continue to broaden for eager loonie-laden consumers:

I was in a local Dollarama last night when what should catch my eye but a pregnancy test; for less than the cost of sponsoring a talking-head-approved child abroad, you can now find out whether or not you’re expecting one of your very own. Probably. Well, maybe.

Personally — and I don’t have a uterus so the point is moot — I’d like a bit more reassurance about the whole thing. Like at least two dollars worth… no, make that five — at least as much as the McHappy meals that will, no doubt, become a staple of this prospective child’s diet.

All My Best Childhood Memories Involve Solvent Abuse

At the age of twelve I developed a rabid interest in models of the scale variety. It was a simpler time, a time when all one needed to know was that Monogram was good, Revell was shite and Testors wasn’t kidding around with their “use only in well-ventilated areas” warning. Now don’t mistake me for some glue casualty; it was never intentional, I just wasn’t much for reading warning labels. “Try it out and worry about the consequences later” was — like any other young man with hopes of someday sprouting hair on his chest — my modus operandi for most everything encountered on my daily travels. But this glue, man, was a different ball of wax entirely from the likes of putting Lego in the mouth or, say, developing a fake burp routine. It was wild.

I clearly remember the first time I experienced a glue-borne altered state, which is perhaps indicative of why I’m still around to tell the tale thereof: a half-assembled ‘69 Chevelle in front of me on the table, suddenly so close yet so far away. Ears ringing. Suddenly, I have the urge to run around the house screaming, but in a good way, so I indulge myself. Good times.

Unfortunately I made the mistake of mentioning this to my mother, who promptly opened every window in the house and while I found her reaction to be rash (not to mention a total buzzkill), in retrospect, it was befitting of a community already dealing with the fallout of glue-centered recreation.

We lived in an area that required one to traverse a ferry in order to return to the promised land and it so happened that one of the deckhands on said ferry was a bit of a glue enthusiast. He died. His partner in crime wasn’t so lucky and merely ended up with a form of brain damage that has left him wandering the earth looking like a nightmarish circa-1972 Neil Young. At the time everyone blamed it on “acid” or “drugs” or some other bogeyman buzzword, but it was good ole Testors.

Lately, certain people would have you believe glue is a gateway drug to gas, hairspray, and pretty much every other airborne solvent out there. But don’t believe them. Glue is the Cadillac of solvents, the Hummer of huffing, the Chevette of…uh, nevermind.

I lost my train of thought.