Searching for Criminal Masterminds

I would like to take this opportunity to call out to all budding criminals everywhere to step up their fucking game. I mean, a combination of anti-ADD drugs, food additives, lack of understanding of the fundamentals of birth control and poor parenting should have us surrounded by flesh eating sociopaths who communicate entirely through emoticons or Internet speak in just a few more years. Soon we'll have the pleasure of watching the little bastards kick us to death as their speedy little fingers text away (Dy u fukr!). Can plans for world domination be so far behind? Dream bigger little thugs, dare to dream bigger.

While we're waiting for supervillians we can be entertained by this guy. Clearly Blofeld here is a bastion of the old guard, and one from my hometown. (thanks Boing Boing)

Geeks will buy anything

People have heard me rant about this before, but it's worth mentioning again. The action figure market has created what is, without doubt, the greatest action figure ever. It is certainly the only one that I would ever consider buying.

I never got into the toys. You can't spend any amount of time in most comic shops in Vancouver without coming across guys who are just scary crazy for them, and mercy knows I've spent far too much time in comic shops. Those people have always left me scratching my head a little. Perhaps I knew that I already spent so much damn money on the comics and that if I started buying toys it was a slippery slope towards becoming one of those fanboys who live in small basement suites and dine nightly on Mountain Dew and Ramen noodles while cackling with joy at the latest posable Mr. Frodo toy (push his tummy and he cries real Hobbit tears). In honesty I think it was just never my thing, until now.

Yes, the good people at Jakks, in an effort to sell off more plastic shards of the childhoods of 30-somethings who should know better have created a toy that belongs in every home. Sure it's clearly intended for movie geeks and the irony obsessed, but why shouldn't it be in the toy box of every child? It's part of the Rocky action figure set and whoever came up with the idea deserves a big prize. It's... Meat.

Yes, your very own plastic replica of the side of beef that helped Rocky train for the big match...and not win (sorry, should have warned about spoilers there) can now be yours. Comes with a bloody butcher apron, Rocky figure not included. Batteries are also not included, which is a good thing I think. I believe that to market a toy like this to kids you should try to emphasize the joy of imagination that can only be inspired in a child by a plastic side of beef.

Just putting out a toy like this isn't enough. Time has rendered Rocky a little played out as a franchise character. It's time for a spin-off. It should be treated as part of a big 80's/90's throwback of toy marketing. Let's get Marvel to put out a comic about The Meat and give The Meat it's own cartoon series. "Evil PETA hoards are attacking the city! Jesus, who can save us now? Somebody light the Beefsignal and summon The Meat and his Side Order The Fries before it's too late!" Nicholas Cage can play The Meat when they make the live action adaptation of the comic book too.

I miss John Peel more than ever

The lady who sits next to me at work is truly a kind person. When I went away to Spain last year she tutored me in Spanish during the lunch hour to get my high school level of communication up to a standard where I could speak with the people of Barcelona on my and my girlfriend’s behalf. She is sweet and professional, friendly, and is a member of the “fun club” that tries to keep us all mollified with ice cream socials and tea parties with wacky hats.

Sweet lady to be sure, however, if I had the ability to kill using only my mind she would be nothing but a bittersweet memory and it’s all because of our local Lite FM station. I know that every city in the western world has one of these stations. The kind that plays music that was once described by someone wittier than me as being “for people who hate music but love to shop”. She plays this station at a discreet volume that guarantees that you can’t ask her to turn the radio down any further, because that will mean just turning it off altogether, but still means I can make out every single word and discern every limp, accessible melody.

This music is making my life a misery and yet if I smash her radio into little tiny pieces I would be seen as the bad guy. The songs drill into my brain, the inane banter of the DJ’s kills your soul faster than watching any sex scene described by Takeshi Miike as “tender” and the radio call sign (which sounds like it was sung by a choir driven to unemployment when Laurence Welk died) haunts my dreams. I’ve never regretted being cubicle veal more in my entire life.

It’s not just that the songs are awful, trite and yet memorable at the same time. It’s that they play the same songs over and over again, day after day. Every day without fail I will hear a cavalcade of songs that I hoped to never hear again after the first time they pissed on my eardrums.

Despite my plentiful suffering it’s really the DJ’s that I feel sorry for. At one time I’m sure they listened to mainstream radio and dreamed of charging out of DJ College to join in the wacky hi-jinks of the Morning Zoo’s in their town.  They wanted to pummel listeners with that classic “old car horn” sound effect, make limp innuendos and interview Gene Simmons or the drummer from Limp Bizkit. Instead they get to speak in measured tones so as not to upset anyone on their morning or evening commute who’s awaiting another replay of ‘Mambo #5’ with bated anticipation. They have to pretend to be excited at the prospect of playing the Pina Coladas song or anything by Shakira.

It's not like they can quit. All they have to fall back on is playing the chicken dance for drunk assholes at weddings. The DJ suicide rate must be higher than dentists, either that or they have on site psychiatric staff that talks them in off the ledge every day before the commercial break ends.

Here is a small sample of the artists or songs that haunt me, every day. This is the magic that happens when white meets bread:

Matchbox 20
Goo Goo Dolls
Maroon 5
Whitney Huston
Billy Joel’s “River of Dreams”
Corey Hart “Sunglasses at Night”
Bryan Adams
Yet another cover of “Son of a Preacher Man” that’s so bland and obscure I have no idea who’s responsible for it. Have mercy, I think it’s Bonnie Raitt.
A-Ha
Have You Ever Seen the Rain – the stunning new cover version by Rod Stewart
Everlasting Love
Believe – Cher
My Heart Will Go On
Your Song – Elton John
More Shania Twain than any one person should have to endure
Sometimes When We Touch
Break my Stride
Drift Away
Africa by Toto
I also think I heard Jamiroquai once but I fled the room screaming

House Hunting Sucks

Finally the noise of the condo construction has driven us back out to drift through the rental market. Saw a giant house yesterday that had been converted into apartments. The landlord/owner looked like a badly aging Steve McQueen who'd had all the moisture scientifically removed from his body. Evil house dwarf tried to rent us an apartment without toilet or shower for $1025. Another suite in the building had a small bathroom but that cost an extra $100.

For this I shave on a Sunday. Bastards.

Dreaming of a Softer World

I was reading the "Comics Should be Good" blog over at Comic Book Resources today (an indespensible site for all nerds who want to get their comic shit correct) and they reminded me about how good A Softer World is. A Softer World is one of my favorite web comics but I haven’t checked up with it in ages. It’s a righteous on-line comic strip that uses photography in the panels rather than drawings. It is by turns funny and sad and is a treat to read. I will be perusing the archives over the next few days so I can get caught up. Make with the link and check it out for it is superb.

Shaking some action

Aaaaand we’re back. I guess nothing worth writing about here happened in the last few months huh?

So my friends and I started playing music again this evening. That’s right, we’re putting the band back together. I don’t know if we’re going to keep it up long term, but we are playing once a week all month long and seeing what happens. We wrote together for a few years until all musical creative urges fell comatose and we started playing the same songs over and over. Just like that, playing a song that you helped write and used to love became something to be avoided; all the songs suddenly reminded me of someone I owed money to. Picture five guys standing in a smelly room staring at their shoes waiting to go home. Maybe that was just me that wanted to go home.

Still, when we first started out, helping create new music and playing it real loud was exhilarating (the first half a year especially). Gigs were fun too, although I’d rather be given a killer bee enema and then have my asshole sewn shut than play that shitty jock bar out on Broadway again. Picture tequila vomit in the urinals and and a guy in a backward baseball cap who called me a fag and tried to hit me with a beer bottle after our set. Those images sum the place up nicely.

Lo and behold, tonight was fun again. I’d forgotten how hilariously hard it is to harmonize with the other singer in the band and how unique an opportunity it is to watch Kris jump out of the way of clichés while playing lead guitar. I’ve got much respect for him for suddenly remembering the chords for Teenage Kicks too.

Standing in the Way of Control

Hah. My job is trying to kill me but I elude death once again, for I am made of stern stuff. I fear no workload no matter how overwhelming. Short-staffed, underpaid and over-caffeinated, I’m taking on all callers like Jack Johnson.

Bring on the criminal youth clients who are caught masturbating over the body of a small cat that they just finished mutilating and then set on fire, throw your dysfunctional families or desperate immigrants fleeing death squads into the mix. It’s all under control. Deadlines? All I need is a day to work my magic you bastards. One day.

I spit my broken teeth into your eye and shout “is that the best you’ve got?” There’s no stopping me.

New blog person trudges to work, tries to write about it and avoid cliches

Another one of those Vancouver mornings where a.m. blue sky and weak p.m. starlight the day before gives way to slate gray skies and weak drizzle. People march across bridges clutching travel mugs full of cheap coffee looking miserable. Lady on the bus today, expensive suit, unopened paperback clutched in her lap, simultaneously scowling and fighting back tears. Office drone sits in traffic in a shiny rain-repellent SUV with Pink Floyd blasting through open windows, checks his hair plugs, scratches himself and sets the controls for the heart of the sun. I liked the older trolley buses where you were a little bit above the traffic and couldn’t see into the cars.

Another morning commute spent resisting the temptation to get everyone on the bus to join in a rousing rendition of Whistle While You Work. I get to count myself as a member of this-blessed-plod, these proud few, these happy few, this band of brothers (and sisters).

Today’s Music so far:
Tom Waits: Low Down
TV on the Radio: Blues from Down Here
Coleman Hawkins: Picasso
Clap Your Hands: Some Loud Thunder

Sit Right Down My Wicked Son....

So I get a day off on a beautiful day like today and all I can do is peer suspiciously at the sun through the blinds. I should get my pale self outside.

There's a construction crew demolishing the last of the building just a ways down the alley to clear space for more condos. The sound of grinding concrete as they sweep away 70's eyesore to make room for 21st century eyesore has the cat trembling under the bed. Vibration travels through the floor to raise more nails through the aging hardwood to assault my feet. As good a time as any to greet the day.

(Brings LCD Soundsystem, TV on the Radio, Thelonious Monk and that Kings of Leon album that Steve got me that I haven't made my mind up about yet. Exit wringing hands, searching for coffee.)