Ode To A Cuss Word

A friend of mine in his early 40's professed to me seeing a recent action movie admitting that he liked it very much. He then punctuated his review not with any interesting anecdotes or particularly flavorful dialogue, but by saying, “and do you know what was really great about it – they did it without having to use swear words”.

I paused a moment.

“Get the fuck outta here,” I said. “Are you serious? You actually noticed that?”

“Yeah, no swearing. It was great.”

“Seriously, who really gives a fuck about that?”

I mean, aren’t so-called bad words the flower garden in the mudfields of our pathetic language? You know a little fucking posie amongst the weeds? If you are keeping a scorecard for cuss words while watching a film, you’re just not appreciating the movie.

Besides, this is 2005. I’ve heard grandmothers dropping C-bombs on their way out of Sunday mass. You can’t tell me this shit shocks you anymore.

Its just a word. Maybe a mighty powerful one, but it’s still just a word.

Just like “darn” or “fudge” or “poopie” or “knobgobbling bumeater”.

Isn’t there something just plain phony about replacing a true “swear” word with a softer, less-effective acceptable cuss word like “fudge”? And how can it be worse? Essentially, it means the same thing.

Get a fucking grip people.

Why Charles Kuralt Was King

Notes to the chick on the TV morning news:

- Jay Leno is not “the greatest”.

- I don’t care whether or not you prefer Renee Zellweger as a blonde or brunette.

- Can you just read the fucking news please.

There Will Be No Saving You After 5pm

So it turns out the little province of P.E.I. here in Canada’r will shut its 24-hour suicide hotline and replace it with one that operates only during business hours, Monday through Friday.

Well, Its about time we got these suicidal people on a schedule. I mean, come on, you don’t wanna die in the middle of the night do ya? Grab yer balls pal, and do it in the light of day for God’s sake. Who wants to kill themselves when they could be sleeping anyway? Shit, do it at work. Hell, I’ll do anything to kill a few hours at the office.

I ain’t got no respect for these lazy people who just can’t kill themselves before 5 pm. Hell, I got to get home. Isn’t Extreme Makeover on tonight?

Practical Advice For Not Dying

Forbes magazine – the journal for wealthy, well-to-do business types – has provided us with a list of the top ten ways to live longer. These include such insightful verses as “chill out”, “eat your anti-oxidants”, “marry well” and ofcourse, “be rich”.

Wow. Thanks Forbes. Such useful advice.

Ironically enough, the lesser-known magazine for financially-bankrupt trailer trash – Jethro’s Photocopied Pamphlet – has also recently published it’s similarly-themed 10 ways to live “real long-like”:

1) When storing your gun on top of the TV, point it away from the couch.

2) Don’t eat gravel.

3) Don’t over-huff the gas.

4) If your dog is foaming at the mouth, let it outside to play.

5) Stay away from Crazy Jimmy. He’s fucking nuts.

6) Point all fireworks away from your face.

7) Eat your canned peas.

8) Don’t get run over.

9) Don’t drink the radiator coolant. No matter how much it looks like Kool-Aid, it still isn’t.

10) Be rich.

On The Subject Of Role Models...

Some people say their troubles start because they had no role models growing up.

I don’t believe that.

I think everyone’s got role models growing up. It's just that some role models are miserable fuck-ups.

*

Notes From A Barstool...

A crazed pit bull has mauled a child to death. Firefighters had to subdue the dog with a fire extinguisher. Hot dog!

A study has found that teams wearing red win more contests. Know what I’ve found? Scientists really need to re-evaluate the things they study.

Some woman infected with HIV has been charged for 5 counts of sleeping with dudes with intentions to spread the disease. So, presumably, she was trying to infect a lot of men by having sex with them. Boy, talk about shooting fish in a barrel.

I actually saw a Conservative M.P. on the news compare Belinda Stronach’s political defection to the Liberal party this way: “It’s just like Judas did to Jesus – it’s the same thing”.
Wow. Jesus never had it so good.

One way to tell the astrologist is full of shit: try using the lottery numbers they pick.

An Uninsightful Observance

by the Saucy Monk


A pigeon will do anything within it’s power not to fly.

But don’t let ‘em fool ya, those fuckers can fly. I’ve seen 'em.

In fact, many times, I've seen these things hobbling around with only one foot. Now that's dedication. I mean, here ya are, a perfectly good pigeon (well, except for one foot missing) and you're still hobbling around on your stump to avoid flying. How fucking lazy does one bird have to be?

Also, who's taking all these pigeons' feet? I mean, it's not exactly something that falls off.

I imagine one day I'm going to be walking on my way to work, and out of the corner of my eye, I'm going to see a dirty ol' homeless dude standing there with a crumpled Tim Horton's coffee cup dressed in a suit made of decapitated pigeon feet.

I also imagine that I buy it from him for $30, patent the design and it becomes the height of couture. Then, in a sudden demand of the newest fashion fad, pigeons all over the world start losing their feet until all of them have nothing left but stumps for legs.

That is the day those dirty monkeys will finally fly once again.

How To Look Like A Million Bucks

Ya know, I just haven’t been feeling myself these days. I think it’s time I go in for a…

Face lift. Neck lift. Brow lift. Arm lift. Ear augmentation. Cheek augmentation. Chin augmentation. Thermage for wrinkles. Thread lift. Upper and lower eyelid surgery. Laser eye surgery. Nose job. Botox injection. Forehead lift. Facial implant. Jaw implant. Lip lift. Lip augmentation. Collagen injection. Tooth whitening. Tooth contouring. Laser hair removal. Hair restoration surgery. Permanent make-up. Fat injection. Hip liposuction. Back liposuction. Thigh liposuction. Tummy tuck. Scar camouflage treatment. Dermabrasion. Chemical peel. Laser re-surfacing. Sclerotherapy. Mole removal. Blu light therapy. Electrolysis. Laser waxing. Skin rejuvenation. Sunless airbrush tanning. Cellulite treatment. Abdominoplasty. Pec lift. Calf implant. Thigh lift. Buttock lift. Buttock implant. Areola reduction. Nipple reduction. Breast enlargement. Breast lift. Breast re-construction. Breast reduction. And ofcourse, a big ol' penile implant.

There. That should make me feel better.

A Fact You Didn't Really Care To Know

Somebody has actually manufactured a prosthetic penis designed to help drug users pass urine tests called The Whizzinator.

Makes ya wonder what could be next…

…hmm, the Dump-o-matic?

First Person On Earth

Once, on a tempestuous day in September, my garralous, schizoid buddy Ginch-Eater took a handful of hard polyurethane-coated goat turds and swallowed them right before he had his nipples surgically removed by a monkey in a lab coat stoned on crystal methamphetamine.

Ya know what? I'll betcha I'm the first person on Earth ever to string that sentence together.

The Sport of Extreme Condiments

So they have finally done it. They’ve made a hot sauce that is so hot that doctors fear it could kill asthmatics.

I’m not kidding.

16 Million Reserve, made of pure capsaicin – which is the chemical that gives peppers their heat - is supposedly 8,000 times hotter than Tabasco sauce.

I mean, this shit is so hot consumers must sign waivers if they eat the crap without protective gloves and ear wear. Ear wear? Hey, I dunno about you, but I’m not putting anything in my mouth that is so hot steam will blow out of my eardrums Elmer Fudd-style.

What kind of macho bullshit novelty food is this? Hey, I like hot sauce as much as the next dude, but the only dull-headed ass-monkeys that would buy this shit are the same jackpots who order the “suicide” wings just to show off what kind of sporty muscle-bound Budweiser t-shirt-with-a-pit-stain-wearing assholes they really are.

By the way, these are the same toilet heroes back in high school who used to eat the “watermelon rind-with-the-cigarette butt-stuck-in-it” because someone dared them. Sure, you may draw a crowd Junior Hep C, but the girls sure weren’t gonna kiss you later.

Which I guess is what it’s all about…drawing a crowd, that is. Why else would you consume something that will likely burn holes in your underwear the next day. It’s not for the taste, mon ami. Besides, it’s hard to taste when your papillae are burned out of your fucking skull.

But I realize there will be some fucktard out there who will buy a jar of the shitmaker and will likely bring it out at some house party trying to impress all his beer-swillin’ pals and amidst their overzealous, rousing drunken chant will ingest a tad too much of the hot stuff, immediately developing respiratory complications and soon after, die a sweaty, painful death and ya know what…he’ll deserve it. For being a show-off with a ridiculous cause.

But while we’re at it, let’s not stop with the hot sauce. After all, if it’s all about showing off, there’s certainly a lot of other condiments we can manufacture for these slack-jawed idiots.

How about a ketchup with bits of broken glass in it?

Or maybe a mayonnaise that lists amongst its ingredients the saliva of a homeless crack addict?

Or even better - what about a jar of dill pickles in which one of the pickles isn’t acually a pickle, but instead a highly-charged explosive made to look and feel like a real pickle and instead of tasting crisp and delicious when you bite into it, it just blows off your lower jawbone?

Now that, Mr Spicy, would grab my attention.

Please Don't Demonize My Underwear Fetish

Out of the headlines...

When authorities caught a Midwestern U.S. teenage boy stealing girls' underwear, they immediately demonized his underwear fetish... Many clinicians attribute the boy's crime more to broken family relations.

Yeah, but nobody said that when Ritchie and Potsie went on a panty-raid.

In fact, aren't the Cunninghams as "unbroken" as family relations get?

Seems to me that a hormone-riddled teen's fascination with girl's undies is as part of the fabric of the Western world as Bill Haley, milkshakes and Arnold's Drive-In.

If your kid is fetishizing on something as innocent as a pair of sexy gitch (which, mind you, would also make a fine name for a punk band if you're in the market), then consider yourself lucky.

Some people are forcing small kitchen appliances into their body.

Grandpa Bling-Bling & His Barbed Wire Tattoo

in Calgary

Beside me on the flight to Calgary, one woman reading a rather ridiculous celebrity-themed magazine showed another a "then and now" photo of former Knots Landing soap star Donna Mills.

"Doesn't she look amazing for 64?" said one.

"Wow, looks amazing." said the other.

But ofcourse, neither of them really mean it.

What they really mean is, "doesn't she look young for 64?".

To be honest, if she is 64, then I'd say she looks terrible. In fact, she looks completely unnatural for someone who is supposed to be menopausal. I wouldn't say "looks amazing" - I'd say, "that's just not right - she's fuckin' 64!".

What's wrong with looking your age? It's only natural. Somehow by avoiding the physical appearance of age these idiots must think the unnatural mannequin is somehow accomplishing the act of stunting their maturity and subsequently death, I guess. Why praise it otherwise? Well, bullshit Grandpa Bling Bling - put down the Rogaine and pick up the prune juice. Face it, yer fucking old. No biggie.

Show me a celebrity at 64 who is fat, out of shape, flabby, bald or blue-haired, wrinkled, forgetful, freckled in liverspots, varicosed veined, flatulant, achy, inflamed, arthritic, wheezy, sneezy, phlegmy, dealing with a cantaloupe-sized prostrate and okay with being a has-been - you know, like a normal person - and I'll then say...

"wow, looks amazing".

The Sexless Lone Star State

What is the deal with all these eunuchs in Texas government who seem to think since they have no use for genitalia, no one else should get to use theirs either?

Now, they’re so sexually-deprived and bitter, they’re rallying behind a bill to ban “sexually-suggestive” routines by cheerleaders.

Hey Dickless, lighten up a little. It’s called “expression”, something that fat, doughy cholesterol-filled face of yours knows nothing about. Just because you’re capillaries are so constricted you have no feeling in your cock anymore, doesn’t mean your kids shouldn’t get to feel anything.

What do these fucking dudes want to see on the football field – cheerleaders doing the foxtrot in ballroom gowns? They’re CHEERLEADERS. That’s why kids WANT to be on the cheerleader squad – to be sexy. If you were gonna look like a fucking frigid young Republican once you made the cheerleading team, no one would even try out.

The real problem with this bill however, is that it doesn't define the behavior it is trying to prevent. It’s just an open ‘no more sexually-suggestive behavior’ policy.

So…what the fuck is the point of that? What kind of drills are we talking about banning here? I mean are there really drills where young, sexy girl-cheerleaders suggestively pull their little mini-skirts up exposing the soft, suppleness of where thigh meets buttock, then drape themselves over the knees of the boys inviting them to slowly paddle her with his palm because she’s been a very, very naughty miss and needs to be spanked…uh…um…sorry, what was I talking about?

No matter. Look, aren’t there a lot of other things our so-called leaders should be concentrating on other than some bootylicious babes getting freaky on the dancefloor.

The rep who suggested the bill even likened it “to risqué television programs and Internet pornography sites”. Come on, internet pornography? Really. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a cheerleader drill where the big finishing move was going down on a donkey. You sure you wanna make that comparison?

Besides, this is avoiding the real issue. Which is, accepting that your kids are now more sexually-explicit than ever before. You don’t want to see it on the football field because you don’t want to accept that maybe, just maybe your precious little Missy who grew up all sugar ‘n’ spice with her Raggetty Ann dolls and tiny tea sets and Strawberry Shortcake could actually be the crowning queen of sucking cock at her high school.

You don’t have to look far to see kids are pretty hardcore on the dancefloor – spend a week in Cancun over Spring Break if you don’t believe that - but as far as these uptight politicians are concerned…just don’t force them to have to see it. Then, they don’t have to believe it’s out there. And then they don’t have to talk to their kids about it.

And then, they don’t have to fight the raging pent-up resentment of their own sterile, sexless existence.

A Kinder, Gentler Graffiti

in San Francisco

One thing I've noticed about San Fran - although they seem to have equal share of graffiti, most of it is fairly benign:

"Brad Stinks"
"Iron Maiden Rocks"

Sure, there's also the usual illegible scribbles of the graffiti artist - you know, the ones that look like the first time attempt of a signature by a 3 year old epileptic having a caffeine-and-crack fuelled seizure. The kind only the artist and his homies understand.

But here, there is also the repetitive marking of:

"Corn and Gritz" - as far as I can tell, this must be some sort of start-up hip-hop act tagging their shitty band name on people's garage doors all over Nob Hill. That's hardcore.

But my favorite is:

"The Problem is Never The Problem" - good on ya, San Fran. What good's a little desecration of public property if it doesn't present me with a philosophical equation?

A Different Kind of Cock-Blocking

So it seems this whole bird flu thing is having an ill-effect on the "sport" of cockfighting in Thailand.

For a while they banned the activity, which is a crime because really, there's nothing more sporting that a couple of roosters pecking at eachother til one of them dies in a pool of its own chicken blood. I just can't believe its not an Olympic event yet. I'm sure it beats that boring cross-country skiing shit.

Still, surprisingly enough it really is a 'sport'. I mean, cocks have their own trainers...who are even willing to suck cock...or I should say, go mouth-to-mouth with chickens in order to suck blood and mucous from the birds when things go bad in the 9th round (and you thought stitching up Rocky's eyegash was ugly).

And all this is for the purposes of a few dollars gambling in a dark alley.

Tell me, has anyone shown these people a pair of dice?

It's one hell of a tool for the same results and no one (or chicken) gets hurt.

The worse thing that happens is maybe a mild case of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Just tryin' to help out.

Blue Light Special On Blowing Shit Up

There's a shop near my apartment called The Spy Depot. In it's window they display a "car bomb detector".

Talk about your specialty items.

Don't get me wrong. Its not that I think said item isn't needed. And I understand that there is a market for it out there. After all, if you are, say, a newly-appointed Iraqi cabinet minister pushing for a bill to create an "American Appreciation Day" who somehow instantly and magically got teleported from downtown Baghdad on Election Day and landed right in front of this store window...I might see how you could have an impulse buy.

However, anyone else who seriously stops to look (or purchase) a car bomb detector in downtown Toronto is completely paranoid and should really lay off the Fox News for a couple of days.

Listen up Commando-Suburbia, somehow I seriously doubt someone's jacked up your Jetta with TNT all Chuck Bronson-like while you were sucking back a calzone at Eastside Mario's.

Lighten up.

Have a donut.

And relax.

Lobsters At 30,000 Feet

I just flew home from Halifax and to my surprise, there were a bunch of people on the plane carrying boxes of lobsters.

I dunno if they’re alive or dead or what, but these boxes almost looked like the kind of containers they give you at the SPCA when you take one of those desperate, smelly cats they like to guilt you into buying by blackmailing you with the threat of euthanization as if you don’t almost immediately regret purchasing the stinky mongrel and secretly desire to strangle the thing yourself…

…so, maybe the lobsters were alive, I thought. It wouldn’t be surprising would it? I mean, they’re alive when you buy them at a fancy restaurant. You know, the kind where you get escorted up to the aquarium and mock the poor, defenceless crustaceans by sentencing a death warrant to one of the lobsters like a post-modern Hitler of the deep.

So, maybe these lobsters were alive. Wouldn’t that be fantastic if they all broke loose of their cardboard confines and starting crawling all over the airplane. People would be screaming and standing on their seats. Flight attendants would be trying to wrangle the clawed creatures into a lavatory using those flimsy little pillows they have as the panicked lobsters pinched unsuspecting travelers’ Achilles heels. And the plane would start to emit that sour, seaweed stink of decaying fish.

Yep, I’m pretty sure that would’ve helped spruce up my flight a little better than the lady who decided to breast-feed her kid next to me.