So over the course of my blogging career there have been many posts that have sat half written in draft form. Sometimes for months, sometimes never finished. Usually they end up forgotten and half written and never read. Here are three posts that I started writing at some point over the last year or so but never finished. I know that I’ll never get around to actually finishing whatever I was trying to say, so I may as well post what I’ve got for archival purposes.

 

In N’ Out Burger

I swear to Christ on his Jesus that if I don’t get some In N’ Out burger, like, really fucking soon, bad things are going to happen. There will be blood… oh yes, there will be blood.

I am sick… literally sick… of the lack of decent junk food in this god forsaken wasteland. It’s next to impossible to get a good fast food burger up here. They’ve got no middle ground. You’ve got A&W on one end of the spectrum, with their rectum flavored bullshit burgers and then on the other end you’ve got like, actual restaurant burgers like, Red Robin and Montanas and shit like that.

In between? Not much. There’s Wendys, but really, I don’t count Wendys. Wendys doesn’t count because who the fuck do they think they are making their hamburgers square? What kind of bullshit is that? Do they think they’re impressing people? Make that shit round!

Stupids. Besides, Wendys burgers taste homemade, and while it’s a refreshing change of pace, I can make a burger that tastes home made at home. And their fries taste like butt.

They’ve got ONE Burger King here and it honestly doesn’t taste like real Burger King. It’s somehow slimier and doesn’t taste right. And it doesn’t SMELL like Burger King, which sounds weird, but it makes a difference. I figured that out when we went to a BK in Washington and I was reminded of what it’s actually supposed to smell like. Like raw beef sizzling on a grill. That’s what Burger King smells like. The Burger King up here smells like a hamburger that someone dropped in a mop bucket… after someone just finished mopping the bathroom in a West Hollywood Popeyes Chicken.

Of course, there’s McDonalds. And there’s McDonalds and more McDonalds. There’s a McDonalds on every corner, just like in America.  And I frequent them more than I should. But I do so simply because there is no suitable alternative. I’m so fucking sick of McDonalds I fear I may go mad. McDonalds isn’t even really hamburgers. Yes, it’s fried ground beef in a bun with processed cheese… but it’s just… McDonalds. It’s like everything at McDonalds is made from the same McDonalds flavored paste like Soylent Green. I remember that we used to go to a Walmart that had a McDonalds in it that served Hot Dogs. Like, McWieners or something. I got one once. It tasted exactly like everything else at McDonalds.

When I first moved up here, one of the McDonalds here served pizza. Little individual pizzas. I knew I HAD to try that shit. And I did. And it tasted like McDonalds in a pizza shape. It was trippy.

I’m not just talking about a lack of burger places either. There’s no Taco Bell. No Carls Jr. No Bob’s Big Boy. No Jack In the Box. No Long John Silvers.

Yes, they have fish n’ chips here, and yes it’s delicious. It’s fantastic and I’m grateful for it. But you can’t eat fish n’ chips in the car on the way home from work. And I don’t always want to spend thirty bucks. Yes, it’s great, but it’s hardly convenient. And that’s what we’re talking about here. Convenience.

They’ve got some bullshit up here called White Spot. These people fucking LOVE White Spot. I don’t get it. White Spot is fucking weak. They serve burgers that taste like they were made in a school cafeteria for seven fucking bucks. The fries are bland and basic.

But these fuckers think White Spot is the best thing since Jesus rolled that rock back. I’d like to believe that they just don’t know any better, but I know they do. I don’t understand what’s wrong with these people. I really don’t. They’ve been to America. They know what they’re missing. They just CHOOSE not to get delicious food up here and are content to stick to their subpar Canadian bullshit.

Back to the issue at hand.

In N’ Out burger.

A few years ago, during my little emotional and mental breakdown that resulted in my living in California for three or four months, I ate at In N’ Out burger at least twice a week. It was a fortyfive minute drive home from work and In N’ Out was about fifteen minutes in the other direction, but I didn’t care. It was worth it. The drive through line was always at least ten minutes. I added almost a half an hour onto my drive home from work just to get those delicious burgers and fries. It was heaven.

In N’ Out Burger…

They’ve got the simplest menu you’re going to find at a fast food joint. It’s essentially “Burgers. Drinks. Shakes. Fries.” and that’s about it. That’s all you need to know. They’ve also got this crazy, cult like secret menu that was like, crafted by the Templar Knights or the Masons or some shit.

 

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My New Favorite Porn Star

I tend to rotate favorite porn stars on about a bi-yearly basis. For a while it was Rocco, but then he retired and then I think he’s back again, I don’t know. 

Either way, I got kind of tired of seeing pretty much the same movie over and over again. It started to get really routine and boring. I’ll certainly give Rocco the credit he’s due for reinventing porn, but I’ve outgrown him. Plus, I got tired of having to explain to people why my favorite porn star is a guy. I do still really respect him as a porn star. He was kind of one end of an  aspect of porn he helped popularize, and that dominates porn now. That kind of blatantly misogynistic, male superior porn. Rocco was on one end and Max Hardcore was on the other. Rocco had a way about him that was entirely contradictory to the style of porn that he was making, and that’s what made him interesting. He was very good at acting like he actually cared about the women that he was performing with, even when he was doing things that many people would consider incredibly degrading. There’s an air of “Hey, this is just the kinky stuff we’re into” about Rocco’s movies. Max Hardcore on the other hand does his best to make sure you know exactly what he thinks of the women he’s working with, to the degree that I don’t even watch his movies. Not because I’m offended, but because it goes beyond sexy and into some seriously dark shit that I’m not entirely comfortable exploring. Once a chick starts crying, the mood is pretty much killed for me. I just don’t need to see that. Especially if she’s crying because some gnarly, leathery old Hunter Thompson looking fuckhead in a cowboy hat is plowing her ass much more intensely than she expected. And the chicks pretending like they’re twelve is just… creepy.

But this post isn’t about Max Hardcore.

So yeah, I liked Rocco, but when I grew tired of him, I moved onto Belladonna.

 

I was way into Belladonna for a long while. She had a very different vibe to her than other porn stars I was familiar with. For one, she didn’t look like a porn star. She’s covered in tattoos, she has a big gap between her two front teeth (not like, missing teeth, just a space) and she wore her hair short. She was the total opposite of what the traditional porn star looked like. Best of all, she came across like she really enjoys what she does. There’s a part of me that still holds onto that myth that women in porn are these lonely girls who want to be “real” actresses and just got caught up in the dark and seedy world of porn. I don’t rationally believe that to be the case for mainstream porn, but on some level, I still feel kind of bad for female porn stars. On the surface I know that the porn industry doesn’t actually work that way. They don’t want anyone there who doesn’t want to be there. Porn is under way too much scrutiny to try and get away with exploiting anyone. And female porn stars are the ones who make the money. With the exception of a very select few, male porn stars don’t make shit. They’re a dime a dozen and can be replaced at the drop of a hat… and they rarely have to do anything except have a decent sized cock and the ability to cum on cue. It’s a thankless job, being a male porn star… unless you’re Rocco or Ron Jeremy or Peter North or John Stagliano or someone like that… and all of those guys make their real money behind the scenes. But a successful female porn star has it made, financially at least, provided they’re smart enough to manage their money correctly. Jenna Jameson is a multi-millionaire many, many times over. Marilyn Chambers is insanely rich, and she was only in like, five or six hardcore porno movies in the seventies and early eighties before retiring… and then her “come back” in the nineties. And those are just a couple of extreme examples. Porn can be an incredibly lucrative business for a woman if she’s got what it takes.

Anyway, back to Belladonna… aside from her interesting look and her apparent joy in her job, she also, surprisingly, fit quite well into this male dominant style of porn that’s been the trend. It was weird because she fit in on both sides of the equation. She was fully capable of being submissive for male dominated porn, but in the next scene, she played the male with another girl, and treated other female porn stars the same way that the guys were treating the women. And it worked incredibly well. It was hot. It worked so well that she went a good three or four years doing nothing but girl-girl porn, usually playing the dominant role.

Belladonna’s role in porn was almost like a feminist statement. It was like the old song “anything you can do I can do better” and it was true. Watching a Belladonna movie you’re struck with two very firm facts. Number one: she knows exactly what she’s doing and she enjoys it. And Number two: She’s in complete control of the situation she’s in. It isn’t a prima donna thing or a sense of entitlement… it was simply a matter of that she is was very good at what she does and she knew it, and everyone else knew it as well. She was respected by everyone involved. The people she was performing with, the people she working for and the people that worked for her. When Belladonna enters a porn set, you know that you’re about to be schooled on how to make a good porno movie. Every aspect of it. Which is, I’m sure, why she started her own production company and started writing and directing her own movies, sometimes not even appearing in them.

Unfortunately, she seems to have lost a grip on what she’s doing. At least, that’s how it seems to me. She had a baby and shaved her head and got married and things just seemed to change. I’d like to think it’s a good thing… that maybe she’s just settling down a bit, but I know that’s not true. She’s still making movies and still very active in the business, but I get the feeling that she’s lost the inspiration for it. Reading her Myspace blog, I kind of get the feeling that her husband doesn’t treat her very well, and I think that’s also part of my disillusionment with her. Of course, I could be completely wrong, but either way, the magic is gone from Belladonna in my eyes, and I’ve moved on.

So who’s my favorite now? I’ve auditioned a few potentials, but Joanna Angel has won by a landslide.

In many ways, she’s like a much more user friendly version of Belladonna. She’s like a cross between Belladonna and like… Lady Aberlin from Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. She’s got the tats and the penchant for making more “alternative” porn. Like Belladonna, she doesn’t look like someone that should be in porn, and like Belladonna, she seems to have an intense love for her job, and she’s very good at it. Unlike Belladonna though, she never comes across as intimidating or untouchable.  She’s got a very “girl next door” vibe to her, providing you live next door to a tattoo parlor/dildo shop. And unlike Belladonna, there isn’t a sense of a dark undercurrent. Watching Belladonna’s movies, I always got the impression that she probably has some serious issues brewing behind those intense eyes. She seemed like she has much darker fantasies than anything I could ever handle, and while that was hot, it was also kind of scary as well. With Joanna Angel, it’s like she’s doing exactly what she enjoys and wants to do, and that’s it.

She comes across as totally approachable and cool. With Belladonna, I could never imagine sitting down and having a conversation with her. Not because I think she’s super important, but because she seems to live in a completely different world than I do. With Joanna Angel, it’s surprisingly easy to imagine getting coffee and talking about whatever movie we just saw or whatever book we recently read. There aren’t many porn stars I can say that about.

I think there are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that she’s Jewish, which is surprisingly incredibly rare in porn. At least in female performers. There are tons of Jews behind the scenes, but only a handful in front of the camera. Especially women. There are a few, and most of them are incredibly successful. Ron Jeremy is the obvious success story.  Randy West and Adam Glasser (Seymour Butts) are Jewish. But you could count the number of popular female Jewish porn stars on one hand. Jenna Jameson is apparently Jewish, though I’d have never guessed it. That goes to show that in the porn business, like in mainstream Hollywood, Jews seem to know what they’re doing.

It seems that the most successful people in the porn business are Jewish. It also should be mentioned that the most successful people in the porn business are people who had a good grasp on what they were selling and how to sell it. These are people who understand that porn is one of the biggest markets on earth, and that it will never, ever dry up.

Look at Ron Jeremy.

 

Well… maybe don’t look directly at him… but look at his career. Here’s a guy who dedicates his entire life to marketing  himself. He’s barely in porn movies anymore, but works behind the scenes and in other aspects of media. He’s a guy who spends almost all of his time selling himself as a product, and he’s been extremely successful because of it.

The same goes for Jenna Jameson. She’s arguably the most popular porn star in history. That’s not because she’s particularly attractive or amazing in her films. It’s because she understood very early in her career that she was a product and that she needed to market herself as such. She got in very early with her website and production company. She understood that if she wanted to be successful in this industry, she had to market herself the same way you would market a Corvette or a candy bar. She reached out beyond the porn world and garnered attention anywhere she could get it.

And she, like Ron Jeremy, looked at porn and then looked ahead in porn. She anticipated trends and was sure to be the first to ride them. She was smart about her career, and it worked out for her.

Now, does this have anything to do with the fact that she’s Jewish? The knee-jerk PC part of me that still hasn’t quite died yet wants to think no, but realistically, I think it does. It might come across as anti-Semitic to assume that someone is a good business person because they are Jewish, but I think that there is something to it. Some people, because of their culture, history and possibly even their genetic make up are sometimes inherently better at something than others. Is it racist to suggest that black people are better dancers than white people? Or better basketball players? I don’t think so. Yes, there are plenty of good white dancers and basketball players, but some things seem to come more naturally to some people than others. It’s just worked out that way.

Now, before I paint myself any further into the corner with the Jewish thing, I should probably get back to Joanna Angel.

Joanna anticipated a trend that has become particularly popular now, and she got in on the ground floor. That’s what’s being called “alt porn.” It’s porn with a kind of punk rock, almost pretentious sensibility, made extremely popular by the website Suicidegirls.com.  Belladonna really kind of got the ball rolling on that one, because she looks so drastically different from your typical porn star. She has a kind of punky vibe to her with the tattoos and the the spikey hair. But the attention on Belladonna seemed to focus a lot more on “what kind of crazy shit is she going to put in her ass this time?” rather than the style of porn she was making. It became about trying to top the extremity of whatever she’d done last.

With Joanna Angel, she seems to be comfortable letting other porn stars like Belladonna and Sasha Gray and Taylor Rain work out the extreme submissive aspect of porn and has focused her attention on creating a sort of middle ground between “extreme” porn, traditional porn and this “alt porn” style. For one thing, she’s taken the Suicide Girls format (which is essentially modern pinup and a Playboy-on-a-budget style photoshoots, with that punk style mixed in) and applied it to hardcore pornography. She’s very invested in the internet and blogging and keeping herself approachable and relatable. Fans of Joanna Angel know what kind of music she likes and what kind of movies she watches and books she reads. She doesn’t build herself up to be a fuckable Barbie doll or a porn celebrity. She keeps herself totally on the level with her fans. And her fans seem to be people who share a basic interest in the things she’s interested in outside of porn. Metal heads and movie geeks and book nerds. That’s on top of people who just like to watch her fuck.

Watching porn got to be pretty monotonous after a while. It was all just these interchangeable plastic women with big poofy blonde hair and the same goofy fuck faces. These are women who I don’t know anything about, nor do I care to know anything about them. I don’t know their names or where they’re from or what they’re interested in, because they don’t give any of that information up.

With Joanna Angel, I knew all of that stuff before I ever even watched one of her movies. I stumbled upon some pictures of her and thought she was interesting looking and started looking into who she was. By the time I actually watched one of her movies, I knew what music she liked and what she read and where she was from and what exactly she does in the porn industry. It was completely refreshing. It helps that we have a lot of shared interests. I mean, hell, one of her many tattoos is of a Kurt Vonnegut quote. It’s the line “So it goes” which was the line Kurt Vonnegut used repeatedly in Slaughter House 5 when someone died. How could I not get into that?

  

And she’s obviously got good taste in movies because of the parody porn movies she’s made. Rather than going with the obvious stuff like Edward Penishands and Forest Hump, she’s made movies like The XXXorcist and The Re-Penetrator (a parody of the movie The Re-Animator, which was based on an HP Lovecraft story.) That says it all right there. One of the things she’s tried to do is make “horror porn” which is an incredibly odd experience. I mean, watching a porno movie based on The Exorcist is just… weird. It’s weird and fun. It’s weird because, well… I’m not used to seeing people fuck while wearing Linda Blair Exorcist make up and puking pea-soup all over the place. I’m also not used to seeing priests performing “sexorcisms” and watching characters that are mother and daughter eat each other out. I might not be used to it, but damn if it’s not entertaining.

 

So aside from the tattoos and the style she brings to porn, the real draw is the personal level she interacts with her fans. That’s what really sells her. Watching a Joanna Angel movie is like watching a really hot friend getting fucked.

 

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The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

So I finished one of the few Stephen King books that I never got around to reading the other day. It was called The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. I never read it because it came out in that wave of really REALLY shitty Stephen King books in the late nineties. That wave of estrogen filled female centric books that I’m about 95% sure Tabatha wrote for him. Books like Gerald’s Game and Rose Madder, Bag of Bones and the incredibly girly forth Dark Tower book, where a story that was carrying on just fine as a killer post apocalyptic western and then abruptly changed into a crybaby fruity love story and a completely ridiculous Wizard of Oz thing that made absolutely no sense.

So yeah, when, around that time, he put out the book The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, I didn’t even bother. A story about a little girl lost in the woods? Pfft. Whatever.

But after reading Blaze and getting borderline obsessed with The Shining again (which I seem to do once a year or so) I was looking for something to read and picked it up.

It was surprisingly much better than I expected. It certainly wasn’t his best work, or even close to his best work, but it was halfway decent at least.

Something I hadn’t considered when I first rejected reading it, was that two of King’s strengths are writing about kids and his non-supernatural stories. And this book fit into both of those categories.

The story itself is incredibly simple. It really is a story about a girl lost in the woods, and pretty much just that. We follow around one character (a nine year old girl named Trisha McFarland as she veers off the path she’s walking with her mother and brother in the woods to take a leak, and then gets progressively more lost for the duration of the novel. There’s very little more than Trisha’s internal monologue through the whole thing. That’s the novels real strength.

Like most of King’s stories that focus on kids (The Body and It stand out as the best examples. The Body, of course, was the basis of the film Stand By Me) The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a fantastic example of a writer treating a child as a fully realized character. Rather than using kids as a prop or plot point, King actually treats them as real people with their own strengths and weaknesses. Trisha is both smart for her age and incredibly naive in the way a real child can be. She isn’t a miniature adult posing as a kid or a smart aleck know it all punk. She’s just a regular little girl desperately trying to deal with an incredibly difficult situation. She infuses her surroundings with the kind of imagination and semi-magical perception that only a child can do.

Reading this book you actually root for Trisha not only to make it out of the woods alive, but to do it by the strength of her character. She’s resourceful enough to keep barely scraping by, but she’s naive enough to make huge but understandable mistakes. As things get more and more intense for Trisha, she delves into reserves of strength that I believe most adults wouldn’t expect kids to have. People tend to forget that kids deal with a LOT of intense shit, and more often than not, they persevere. This story is in part a tribute to the resilience of childhood.

Huh…

Somewhat unrelated…

I just spent about two hours reading a shitload of Wikipedia entries about various Stephen King stories (which linked to entries about HP Lovecraft stories, movies based on King books, George Romero, EC Comics, Lord of the Flies and Edger Alan Poe among many other things… I get distracted so easily) and I just finished the entry about Creepshow. Remember how I posted about Joe Hill, Stephen King’s son who is now a successful writer himself?

Well, I just found out that he played the little kid in the wrap around story in Creepshow.

Neat.

Anyway…

Uh…

Oh yeah. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.

The book is also a pretty blatant religious story. Religion is a fairly common thread in most of King’s work. This time it’s almost a little TOO blatant. Trisha is obsessed (the way many little girls are) with her celebrity crush, Boston Red Sox closing pitcher Tom Gordon.

Trisha has issues with her faith in God. Her father believes in something he calls The Subaudible, which is basically a cold, unfeeling, indifferent force that encompasses everything. Trisha doesn’t really buy this, but as things start to get dicey for her, she tries various forms of praying to get out alive. None of this comforts her, but as she progresses through the story, her faith in her hero, Tom Gordon. As she starts to somewhat lose her mind in the woods, Tom Gordon begins to appear to her and keeps her company and guides her at crucial points. This is all well and good, I guess. It’s an interesting idea at least, that God shows up in whatever form you put your faith in. The choice of Tom Gordon is perfect for this both because of his (very real) signature move of pointing up at the sky after he saves a game, as well as the letters in his last name. By the end of the story, Trisha accepts Tom Gordon as her saviour, and subsequently, I guess, her faith in God in general.

If this aspect of the story had been slightly more subtle, I’d probably dig it a little more. It doesn’t feel like preaching or Christian Rock in novel form, but I think it could have been a little less obvious.

But whatever. It still worked alright.

I imagine that someone that doesn’t know or care anything about baseball (or even more specifically, the Red Sox, King’s favourite sports obsession) might get slightly bored by the reoccurring baseball theme. Being a Red Sox fan myself, it didn’t bother me at all, but I could see where someone who didn’t give a shit might not be able to relate.

One thing that did bother me was King’s need to insert the supernatural into a story that really didn’t need it. He tends to do that. Anyone who has read The Body can, I’m sure, remember scratching their heads when the boys are about to find the dead corpse of Ray Bowers and suddenly a massive fireball flies over their heads for no reason whatsoever and then is never mentioned again. I was like, twelve, when I read that story the first time and even then I was like “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?!”

In The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, in the last half of the story, she’s being stalked by some kind of beast in the woods. It’s very Lord of the Flies, and like Lord of the Flies, the beast turns out to be the evil within us all or some sort of silly bullshit like that. Either way, this thing is essentially The Devil and there’s a very forced confrontation at the end of the book. Again, like with most King books, the story is fine until the last five percent or so, when everything falls apart. Steve seems to have a real problem ending his books. It’s almost like he gets tired of writing and he just goes “And then… uh… like… God comes down and blows up Las Vegas and kills Randall Flagg and all the bad guys die and like, yeah, that’s it. The end.” or “

 

So I had no interest really in seeing Beowulf. I just didn’t care.

Then I found out it was in 3D. I got slightly interested. I dig 3D movies.

Then I found out that Angelina Jolie gets way naked in it. I suddenly HAD to see this movie. Absolutely HAD to see it. 3D naked Angelina Jolie? I mean, COME ON!

Sure, it’s a digitally enhanced 3D naked Angelina Jolie, but whatever. I didn’t even realize that it was a kind of cartoon until like, halfway through the trailer. And it’s not really a cartoon REALLY. They filmed it and then ran it through a computer and kind of like rotoscoped it, like they did with 300. So it’s still real people… just highly stylized real people.

So I made it my mission this week to go see Beowulf in 3D with naked 3D Angelina Jolie breasticles.

BUT IT’S NOT PLAYING IN 3D ANYWHERE IN THIS CRAPASS PILE OF CRAP TOWN!

Goddamn this place.

And I also just found out that it’s got Crispin Glover in it.

Goddamned this goddamned place.

So I didn’t go. I’m not gonna go watch some not-3D cartoon when I, as an American, am ENTITLED to the RIGHT to see it in 3D if it’s available in 3D.

PS
I don’t want to hear a bunch of you commenting with stuff like “OMG BEOWULF IS TEH SUX!!” I figure it probably DOES suck, but I don’t care. You might have thought it was crap, but I don’t give a fuck. It don’t matter to The Jesus!

Most 3D movies DO suck, but they’re awesome too because they’re in 3D so shutup.

Fucking Canada.

You know, I’ve always said that the song lyric that best describes me is “They say I’m lazy but it takes all my time” from Life’s Been Good to me So Far by Joe Walsh.

I think I’m going to change it to ”Did you exchange a walk-on part in a war for a lead role in a cage” because, well, here we are. In a cage. A cold ass, no 3D naked Angelina Jolie having Canadian cage.

PSS
It was just Thanksgiving. Apparently. I forgot because I usually know it’s Thanksgiving when my belly is full of delicious turkey. That didn’t happen so I didn’t know. Stupid Canada.

Dear Canada, eat a dick.

Later,

Joe

Cher Canada, Manger un pénis.

Plus tard,

Joe

Currently Listening: Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

So I was at Walmart today buying birthday presents for Sandra. Her birthday is tomorrow. Yeah, that’s how I roll. Buying presents at Walmart the day before her birthday. I’m a P.I.M.P.

I was in the electronics section and this song was playing. The Bangles cover of Hazy Shade of Winter by Simon and Garfunkel. It’s fucking great. Even though parts of it sound like Enya or something. Not that I have anything against Enya. She has a job and she does it quite well.

As a matter of fact, there are certain moments in my life when I really fucking dig Enya. I don’t care what you think. For instance, if I’m doing some serious house cleaning. Playing Enya towards the very end of the cleaning process is very refreshing. Especially when you’re done, and like, go through and light some incense and candles and shit and the house is all clean and nice and peaceful and smells like a metaphysical book store. All of the DVDs are all organized and the computer desk is all clean and shit. It’s fantastic.

But only every once in a while. Like, a few times a year.

Now that I mention it, I should probably do a decent clean on this place. Like, one of those cleans where I rip everything off the shelf and actually put it in some sort of order and throw out the shit that I don’t need or pack it away or something. My desk is a fucking disaster right now.

Part of that is because I had to pull it away from the wall earlier today. At later today. And this evening.

One of the things I bought while I was out today was an amplifier for the cable. You see, the main cable outlet is in the bedroom for some stupid ass reason. Then it’s wired through the wall and spits out in the living room, split off of the outlet in the bedroom. Then THAT outlet is split again, one side going to the computer and the other running along the wall and around a couple corners for about twenty feet to the TV. Well, to the VCR and then to the TV.

As you can imagine, my cable reception is shit.

So I bought this amplifier and put it on the source outlet in the bedroom. The picture suddenly looked fantastic. Channels that we couldn’t even watch before were coming in crystal clear. Channels that we didn’t even notice were somewhat distorted before were suddenly pristine and almost superhuman.

But, unfortunately, it totally fucked up my internet. With the amplifier on there, the internet didn’t work. It took me a while to figure out why my internet suddenly didn’t work. I had to pull my desk out from the wall to get to where the cable comes in from bedroom to the living room and splits into the internet and cable for my TV. Now, you have to understand that I bought this desk at a government surplus sale. It’s fucking HUGE and it’s solid. Like, you could put up an entire model train set on this thing. I’m dreading when we have to move. Chance are I’ll just leave the desk last, and then go at it with an ax.

Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not dreading it all. Chopping it up with an ax might be kind of fucking cool.

So yeah, I had to pull it out from the wall to dick with the cable outlet. Then I had to push it back. Then I had to pull it out again. Then push it back. And then pull it out again. Then push it back.

Tomorrow, when I pick up another coaxial cable from the dollar store, I’ll have to pull it out again.

My point is, that when I pulled it out, I found a million dusty and cobweb covered relics from the past few years.

Like my 2004 Elvira Calendar, which I can only assume fell back there sometime soon after 2005.

There were also a few action figures, a million CDs, a fair bit of garbage, some kind of squishy, sticky rubber scorpion among other random toys and a bunch of various computer components and cables and mouses and various other bullshit. I pulled a couple of interesting things out (like said Elvira calendar) and the rest of it? I pushed it right the fuck back there.

Out of sight, out of mind. That’s my motto.

One of the many wonderful and amazing things that I saw in California was a TV show called Meekcat Manor. I imagine you’ve probably seen it or heard of it. I had never seen it before. I got to watch three or four episodes in the evenings after Disneyland. I was hooked. It’s like, the best show in the history of anything. I got so friggin invested in these little fuckers. It’s like The Real World: Kalahari. It’s what happens when Meerkats stop being polite, and start getting real.

It’s on a channel called Animal Planet. I’ve also never seen this channel before. I was instantly sold on it. You see, I love The Discovery Channel. But mostly I just love the animal shows. This is like, a whole channel dedicated to Discovery Channel animal shows. It blew my mind. Of course, I don’t get Animal Planet up here in Suckada. I mean Canada. I’m sure it’s available on like, satellite or digital cable or something, but I don’t have those, so I blame Canada, and not my own cheapness and unwillingness to play assloads of money for better TV.

But yeah… it’s fucking awesome. And it’s narrated quite competently by Sean Aston of The Goonies fame.

That’s all I have to say for now. I rented a bajillion movies today. Five I believe that are supposed to come out on Tuesday. I don’t know if I’ll get to watch more than one or two.

Currently Listening: Bangels – Hazy Shade of Winter

So yeah, the city of Victoria is proclaiming March 21st Nelly Furtado day, which in and of itself makes me sick. Here’s the kicker… it’s the day after Oshawa, Ontario’s Stephen Colbert day.

If Canada had ANY integrity what-so-ever, they would proclaim March 20th Stephen Colbert day for the ENTIRE COUNTRY rather than just one goofy town and skip Nelly Fruitardo day entirely. Celebrate a REAL cultural icon rather than some dipshit pop/dance singer with an obnoxious voice and looks like she smells bad. Like armpits and bad wiping.

Fucking Nelly Furtado. I wish she were dead.

The City of Victoria recently announced that March 21st is “Nelly Furtado Day.”

I have to get out of this place before it fucking kills me. I’m half tempted to just cut and run right fucking now.

I talk a lot of shit about Canada in my journal, mostly because Canada is way gay. But, there are a few amenities that Canada has that aren’t as readily available in the states. They are as follows:

#1. Fish n’ Chips. Pretty much the only bonus to Canada’s constant sucking of England’s dick is the presence of delicious Fish n’ Chips. This is truly a wonderful thing and something I will miss when I leave here. Fish n’ Chips should be an American food. It should be American because it’s what America is all about. Take a healthy food like Fish and then dip it in a batter made out of beer and fry it in oil until everything wholesome is boiled out of it. Then serve it with french fries. I can’t think of anything more American. It’s a paradox.

#2. Good Weed/Alcohol. This is a no brainer really. The weed up here has super powers. I’ve gotten higher off of one joint here in Canada than an entire night of weed smoking in California. It’s cheap too. I don’t drink beer, so I can’t vouch for the beer here, but I do know that the hard lemonade is crazy better in Canada. In the states, Mike’s Hard Lemonade is made with malt liquor. In Canada it’s made with vodka. Not much math needed there. Booze is way cheaper in the US though.

#3. The strippers. I haven’t been to many strip clubs in America, but I’ve been to a few up here. In Canada the girls are not only hotter, but more natural and friendlier than in California. And in Canada (in BC at least, I don’t know about the rest of the country) the girls get fully naked and down right nasty at times. It’s awesome.

#4. um… I think that’s it.

Current music: Classic Rock – Roth, David Lee / Tobacco Road

From a post on a message board about Canadian cinema and why it sucks.

You make a good point. I live in BC and I know absolutely nothing about any other provinces in Canada. Hell, I know very little about what’s going on on the eastern side of BC.

I think this is partially related to Canada’s philosophy of a “Cultural Tapestry” verses America’s “Cultural melting pot.” Canada prides itself on the fact that it doesn’t expect it’s people to integrate the culture of it’s immigrants into one big Canadian culture. America says “You live in America, be American” and the influence of external cultures gets mixed into the identity of America. Where as in Canada, they just end up with a hodge podge of a bunch of different cultures celebrating their own personal identities rather than a singular national identity. And everyone else (IE, people that are second or third or further generation “Canadians”) don’t have anything specific to latch onto, culture wise, so they just take on whatever culture happens to be most abundant around them, which is typically American culture. So what Canada has ended up with is a bunch of people representing the external cultures that they came from (or, in the case of native Aboriginals, the culture that was there before Canada was formed) or people who feel comfortable with taking on the American culture that is so easily accessible in Canada.

There is very little incentive for Canadians to develop their own cultural identity. Yes, Canada has a few slight philosophical and political differences. But those philosophical and political differences aren’t something that can be easily defined and packaged as a cultural identity. If Mike Myers goes on TV, the only thing that can really make him stand out as Canadian is if he’s waving around a Canadian flag or wearing a hockey jersey.

The only part of Canada that has it’s own distinct identity is Quebec, and I think that’s mainly because unlike the rest of Canada, Quebec is region of the world that identifies itself with anger and rebellion.

Okay, America, like most countries in the world, was founded on war and anger. America was founded by pirates and thieves and murders and religious fanatics. It is a country that exists for the soul purpose of telling the rest of the world to go f*ck themselves. It is a country founded in war and rebellion and anger and defiance. America’s attitude in the beginning (and now as well) is that if want to live in America, you better be prepared to BE an American. Between the American Revolution and Slavery, America has a culture that very defiantly and rebelliously dismisses other cultures. America is a land of pissed off people rebelling against everything they came from. America is the place where slave owners said “You name is what? Shaka Zulu? Well, your name is John Henry now. Go pick some cotton before I whip you.”

Canada doesn’t have that motivation to create it’s own culture. Canada is content and happy. People who are content and comfortable don’t need to create their own culture. They do whatever is easiest and leave it at that. Why should they, really? Canada has no need to develop it’s own culture. Canadians aren’t trying to spite anyone. They aren’t trying to rebel against anyone else’s culture or defiantly prove to anyone that they’re different from where they came from.

The only aspect of Canadian culture that IS distinctly Canadian is Quebec, and that’s because people in Quebec ARE pissed off and rebelling and discontented. They make their own cultural identity out of spite and an effort to distinguish themselves from their surroundings.

Canada is like the weird kid.

Okay, if the World is a family and all of the countries are sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and uncles and grandparents and whatever.

America is like the asshole popular jock older brother. He gets the girls, he’s got the money. Everyone pretends to like him because he’s successful and can protect you should you need protection (and you have something he wants, like, say, oil.) People are impressed by his abilities, but get sick of his bragging. He’s gotten a few girls pregnant and then paid for the abortions. He’s also a bossy son of a b, and likes to tell everyone else how to live their lives and that they should aspire to be just like him. Everyone else resents that but rarely tells him so because it wouldn’t do any good and because they don’t want to lose him as a friend.

If that’s America, then Canada is the weird younger brother that people generally don’t notice because he sits up in his room, smoking pot and listening to Rush albums. He’s typically quiet and unassuming. He has his opinions and world views but no one really knows what they are because they don’t really care. He’s kind of a hippy and tends to follow his older brother around, tending to the losers of various fights that his brother has gotten into, giving them a band-aid and 20 bucks for some aspirin and apologizing on behalf of his brother. And most people suspect that he’s probably gay.

America isn’t overly intelligent but is quite successful and what it wants to be in life (Alexander the Great) due to an intense amount of ambition and an unwillingness to take “no” for an answer, occasionally resorting to brute force to get what it wants. Canada gets good grades but has no idea what it wants to be when it grows, nor does it spend much time thinking about it.

America is a sociopath. Disinterested in how it’s actions effect those around it, only caring about what it wants and how to get it. America is unable to comprehend that other countries have their own ideas and beliefs and desires. It’s America vs the rest of the world and so far it’s worked out fairly well for America. America gets what it wants from the rest of the world.

If America is sociopath, then Canada has multiple personality disorder. It can’t move forward because it’s constantly changing who it thinks it is. It’s easier for Canada to sit and stew in it’s own identity confusion rather than attempting to merge those identities into a singular personality with it’s own goals and ambitions.

So why doesn’t Canada have it’s own thriving film industry? Because Canada simply doesn’t have the incentive or desire to so. Canadians are content to simply go to work, come home and have a beer and watch the hockey game on TV. There’s no reason for Canada to define itself because it’s comfortable with the way things are.

The gods of smoking have either smiled on me, or smiled as they unleashed a terrible curse on me.

They now sell Marlboros in Canada.

As anyone who smokes in Canada knows, you could never get real American Marlboros up here. Some chucklehead a hundred years ago patented the name “Marlboro” in Canada before the American Marlboro company started selling cigarettes up here. So they were never able to bring up Marlboro cigarettes. They have a brand up here CALLED Marlboro, but they aren’t real Marlboro cigs. They’re some Canadian cigarette calling themselves Marlboro.

Well, today I went to the local Chinese convenience store that I’m in pretty much every day to buy my two Black Stone Cherry cigars. I’ve been smoking cigars instead of cigarettes in an attempt to cut down on my smoking, with the plan to eventually stop entirely. It’s been mixed results. I am spending less and smoking less, but I’m also walking around in a perpetual state of tension because I’m not getting as much nicotine as I used to.

So I go in and talk to the guy, who I usually hang out and talk with for at least five minutes or so. I buy my cigars and he says “Hey, guess what.” And I say “what?” and he says “We got Marlboros now. AMERICAN Marlboros.” And I’m like “You’re a fucking liar.” And he grabs a pack of smokes from his smoke shelf and he’s like “BAM!” and I’m like “HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!”

It was, in fact, a pack of Marlboros. The classic white and red pack. White triangle up the front.

The only difference is that there is no logo on them. It’s the same package with the same crest and everything, it just doesn’t say Marlboro on them. In fact, it doesn’t say ANYTHING on them. No logo at all. I’m like “What gives?” and he says that the way they got around the whole trademark thing… simply don’t call them Marlboros. Don’t call them anything. Trust in the consumer’s abilities in brand recognition. I didn’t even notice at first that they didn’t say Marlboro on them. I saw the pattern and the colors and knew right away what I was holding.

He tells me that it’s the same tobacco and the same manufacturer. The same EVERYTHIGN as American Marlboros. Just without the name.

GENIOUS!

BUT… I didn’t buy any. I wanted to, desperately. But I didn’t.

BUT WAIT!

I did buy some. Sort of.

He had an open pack of actual American Marlboro 100s that a friend had left up here. He doesn’t smoke. He asked if I wanted to buy the American pack for 4 bucks. There were like, four gone out of the pack. I was like “Why yes. Yes I do.”

I went outside with him and I smoked one. Jesus Christ do I love American cigarettes. They’re SO much tastier and potent and awesome. Canadian cigarettes are weak and pathetic. Especially compared to Marlboros.

So now I have an almost full pack of Marlboros. And my two cigars. Sandra is worried that I’ll go back to smoking cigarettes again. It’s a valid concern, but I don’t think it’s an issue.