Bad to the Bone

It takes a certain talent to be really bad at something. It's easy to be mediocre or dull. But to be truly awful, that takes skill.

Maybe that's why William Hung became so very popular in his own way. He was so bad on American Idol, he was more memorable than most of the good singers who made it to the next round.

As Kathryn and Ross Petras put it, in the introduction to their anthology Very Bad Poetry, it takes a certain "enviable confidence that allows one to write despite absolutely appalling incompetence."

The best of the best.

One of the best albums of my generation is Nirvana's Nevermind. Hands down.

And you don't have to take my word for it, Rolling Stone magazine listed the album at number 17 in its 500 Greatest Albums of all Time issue, right between Blood on the Tracks, by Bob Dylan and Born to Run, by Bruce Springsteen.

While there are a number of classic albums on the list, one that's missing is MC Hammer's Please Hammer Don't Hurt'em.

I know there's a lot of you closet case Hammer fans out there. You don't have to be ashamed.

Etiquette

Sometimes there are etiquette questions that can't be answered.

Like, for instance, if you are at a baseball game and you have to get up to go to the bathroom, do you push past the people in their seats with your butt facing them or with your crotch towards them? Which is more polite?

One friend once asked me: “How late can you arrive at a funeral before it’s considered rude?”

I think with funerals you pretty much have to be on time.

Expiry

It's annoying that the food in my fridge has a deadline to be eaten. Eat by August 26, 2006 or else. I already have enough deadlines in my life. I don't need to be told when to eat my food too.

Who makes up these expiry dates? What methods do they use in doing so? What's the margin of error?

I sometimes eat food past the expiry date. I paid for the food, damn it, so I'm darn well going to eat it, even if I die of some sort of food poisoning.

If it smells okay, it should be okay, right?

I know a guy who once left an uncooked steak on his counter for a day or two. He later cooked it and ate it and lived. So what's the big deal?

On faking it...

"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain

Crazy Town

Have I told you lately that I'm crazy?

It's true.

On Friday, at midnight, I got the urge to rearrange the furniture in my apartment by myself. And I did it. I dragged and pushed everything around.

Most 26-year-olds are out partying on a Friday night. Not me, baby. I'm redecorating.

Like I said, I'm crazy.

High Art

"There is no freedom in art." - T.S. Eliot

If you want to make money off your art, then that quote is definitely true. If you want people to respect your art, then that quote is definitely true.

If you make art simply for yourself and keep it in your closet, then you are free and that quote is wrong. Make whatever you please.

If you disagree with me on this, you are delusional, know nothing of craft and have never made money from your art.

Chuck Norris' Bubble

Today, I picked up a postcard of Chuck Norris. There is an empty speech bubble above his head.

I'm trying to think of something clever to put in the speech bubble.

Why is it always impossible to come up with something clever when you need something clever to say?

Yet when the stakes are low, I'm a f---ing comedian.

I also have some police evidence stickers a friend gave me. But, again, I have no clever place to put them.

Thoughts on Pluto

Poor Pluto, it's been demoted. It's no longer a planet, because it hasn't "cleared the neighbourhood of its orbit."

Apparently, its orbit overlaps with Neptune. I guess, also, there are some other large objects in and around Pluto's orbital path.

I don't quite get this decision, since Earth certainly has its share of objects hanging around its orbital path. And Jupiter is surrounded by thousands of Trojan asteroids.

I mean Pluto is a large round rock that orbits the sun. What else do you need to be a planet?

Apparently, if Pluto had remained a planet, there would have been at least three other objects that would have had to have been named to planet status as well. And you wouldn't want to have that. Students can only be required to remember so much. And nine planets were already way too much.

The elimination of Pluto is going to screw up people's mnemonics. Most people remember the order in which the planets are distanced from the sun with the mnemonic: "My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas." Now how is that mnemonic going to work? It's been ruined. No one is ever going to be able to come up with another phrase. That would be impossible.

Poor Clyde Tombaugh, if he was alive, I wonder if he would be disappointed about Pluto's new status. Tombaugh was the one to discover Pluto when he was just 24-years-old.

Apparently, only five per cent of the world's astronomers voted on this decision to demote Pluto. It's kind of like the voter turnouts at university student council elections. Maybe most astronomers don't really care.

Is Pluto really a planet? From what I've read, it's one of those questions that will never be answered with certainty.

Anyhow, I've given this topic way, way too much thought.

An Afternoon Stroll

So I was out taking a stroll around the lake today, checking out the athletes in the national canoe and kayak championships, when I noticed three women sitting in a tree. Upon closer inspection, it looked like they were doing some sort of spell.

That's right, boys and girls. The Witches of Eastwick are rigging the national canoe and kayak championships. Forget steriods and just go for a little old fashioned magic. That's all it takes to win these days.

The Right Stuff

Is it weird that I have New Kids on the Block songs in my MP3 player.

All I'm saying is, if my neighbour is going to play some old Kenny G tunes on his saxophone with the skills of a three-year-old, then I think I'm entitled to blare some NKOTB.

So you better hang tough, because I'm a child of the 80s. I've got some bad sh*t in my music collection. I recently bought the Tears for Fears greatest hits. You got a problem with Synthpop music? Huh?

A Bunch of Words

"We just write down a bunch of words, and pray to God they make sense. And if they don't, it doesn't matter. We're artists.” - Tom Delonge, Blink 182

Glitter on the Highway

Until today, my brother had never heard the song Love Shack, by the B-52's.

How this is possible? I don't know.

For me, the song is associated with a horrible memory of my sister and I being forced to sing it karaokee. We were so horrible, everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and stared.

Perhaps we sounded like dying sea gulls. I don't know. No one said anything. They just stared.

And that is why I will never ever sing in public again.

Aging

Saskatchewan writer Donna Caruso once said she is "aging as gracefully as a gargoyle."

I fear I am suffering the same fate.

Pulp

I just wanted to thank the Black Eyed Peas for ruining the song Misirlou for me.

Thanks to them, whenever I listen to Misirlou, performed by Dick Dale & His Del-Tones, I hear the phrase: pump it.

Here’s a little thing you probably don’t know about the song Misirlou. Before it became a signature song on the movie Pulp Fiction, it was on the 1963 Beach Boys album Surfin’ USA.

But it’s not a Beach Boys original. The song was first performed by the Michalis Patrinos rebetiko band in Athens, Greece in 1927. It even had lyrics, and was performed at a slower tempo.

In 1941, Nick Roubanis, a Greek-American music instructor released a jazz instrumental arrangement of the song, crediting himself as the composer. Since his claim was never challenged, he is still officially credited as the composer today.

In the 60s, the song was rearranged as a solo guitar piece by, the pinoeer of surf rock, Dick Dale after a fan asked if Dale could play a song entirely on one string. It was Dale's version of the piece that introduced Misirlou to the United States.

The Beach Boys were inspired by Dale and thus included their own version on Surfin’ USA.

Misirlou, by the way, means Egyptian girl.

Who knew one little song from Greece could gain cult-like status, not only in rebetiko and surfer rock, but as a popular belly dancing tune that is also heard at Jewish weddings and now in hip hop circles.

As an interesting side note, Dale has been known to keep wild cats, like a lion and tiger as pets.

Apathy or Bust.

The rise in Canadian soldier deaths over in Afghanistan is starting to bother me. Primarily, because I saw an obit for a soldier my age in my own local newspaper. It's beginning to strike a little too close to home.

And that recent Canadian terror plot was a little frightening. It's been a long while since Canada has suffered the wrath of terrorists, which makes me appreciate how sheltered Canadians are. Thank God, for instance, we don't have to live in the Middle East, where your chances of being blown up are significantly higher.

There are a lot of wars going on that shouldn't be going on. Start with Africa and work your way up. It's hard to believe that we as humans are so stupid. There doesn't need to be suffering in the world. There really doesn't have to be. Yet beliefs are so strong and so different. And greed is so powerful. There will always be war and starvation. Always. Because humans will always be stupid and things will always be complicated.

It amazes me that people are so willing to give up their own lives and give up other people's lives. And for what?

I've read too many history books and too many newspapers. I know why the world is why it is. But what can I do, but try not to think about it. Because it's frustrating and angering.

I guess it's better to live in the comfort of apathy.

Where I get it from...

I can seem a bit prickly at times, but it is usually with the intention of being funny. Yes, my jokes are deadpan and understated. If you don't know me, you might have to hit the mental rewind a few times to get my jokes.

But my whole family is like that.

For instance, my sister recently made light of my grandmother's memory loss when discussing what to buy her for her birthday.

Me: "New clothes perhaps?"

Her, straight-faced and serious: "Well, we probably wouldn't have to buy her anything. We could just take the nicer clothes from her closet, wrap those and give them to her."

My mom: "That's true. And she would never know."

Don't worry. We were joking. Although from an outsider's point of view you wouldn't be able to tell, unless you knew us.

What is life, if you can't make fun? Even at the worst of times.

We would never give my grandmother her own clothes as a gift.

Madness

"The courage of the poet is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness." - Christopher Morley

The Infamous Tide Stick

Everyone is raving about the Tide stick. And I must admit it works pretty good.

In fact, for many people, spills are now exciting. Can the amazing Tide stick do it again?

The Tide stick is quickly becoming a hit at parties. A writer friend of mine deliberately spilled coffee on his favourite white shirt and then, later, red wine. He wanted to put the Tide stick up against impossible odds.

"This better work," my friend said. "Mordecai Richler gave me this shirt and he's dead!" (As it turns out, this was a slight exaggeration. Noah Richler gave my writer friend the shirt. Mordecai had once given the shirt to Noah, but it was too small for Noah. And my friend snagged the shirt before Noah had a chance to donate it to good will.)

Anyhow, the Tide stick got out the coffee and the red wine. It's miracles like that that are making the Tide stick infamous.

Recently, I was in Edmonton working on a documentary. The cameraman and I went out to dinner. It wasn't long before the cameraman slopped all over himself. Out came his Tide stick and it was only moments before we had a small crowd gathered at our table oohing and awing over the wonderment a Tide stick can bring.

"Ohmigod is that a Tide stick," people would say, before joining the throng of spectators at our table.

Yeah. I know. It's crazy, but true.

Myths and Lies

I am beginning to understand how the mythology that surrounds real history is created. It's started by liars like me.

As a cruel and distasteful experiment, I told some people that there was an untold story to the World Trade Centre tragedy. There had been a swimming pool in one of the towers. When the towers collapsed, there were people who had been swimming who couldn't get out.

There was no swimming pool in the World Trade Centre. It was a complete fabrication. But people believed me. I corrected them with the truth. But if I hadn't, they could have passed this lie onto others and a myth would have been born.

Life's Art

"God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things." - Pablo Picasso

Surgery

Plastic surgery is pretty horrid. Perhaps, one day, we will look at plastic surgery and see it as barbaric and as stupid as foot binding, or so said Angela Montenegro, a character in the TV show Bones.

According to the latest tabloid magazine, Ashley Simpson had a whole bunch of plastic surgery. She got rid of her trademark nose for a more generic one, even though her nose made her unique.

Screw genetic science. We don't need advances in genetic science to all be born generic beauties. As children, we should all be sliced up and reconstructed to look ideal.

What's a little mutilation for beauty?

Schizophrenia

"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." ~ E.L. Doctorow

Jesus H. Christ

I have been doing some deep thinking lately about the expression "Jesus H. Christ." What does the H stand for?

For lack of anything better to do, I looked it up.

According to some, it stands for "Harold" or "Howard," as in "Our father, who art in heaven. Howard be thy name." Or Harold be thy name?

Some say the H stands for "Jesus Holy Christ" and was shortened to "Jesus H. Christ."

There is another theory out there that says it stands for "Haploid." The haploid is the number of chromosomes found in the gamate of an individual. Whatever that means. I hate biology. Maybe, since Jesus had no biological father, he was shortchanged in the chromosome department.

Others say the H refers to the IHS logo found in Christianity. IHS is an abbreviation of "Jesus" in classical Greek characters. The Greek pronunciation is "Iesous," with the E sound being represented by the character eta, which looks like an H. When the symbol passed to Christian Romans, that eta became an H, which was an H to them.

Or, perhaps, the H comes from the Latin inscription INRH that was tacked on the cross by Roman soldiers: "Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Hebrei" (Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Hebrews). Although that inscription may have actually been INRI: Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum (Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews).

Who knows? Those are just theories I came across.

Drought

I've been going through an e-mail dry spell lately, which is pretty sad.

Over the last few days, I log on and the inbox says zero messages. Even my spam bin reads zero.

C'mon people, what's with the no junk mail? Am I suddenly that despicable that I don't even deserve junk mail? Normally, I get a ton of spam. Lately, nothing. The world must be coming to an end. No junk mail.

Sigh. Okay, I guess I can handle the no junk mail part. I really don't need any new psychiatric drugs or whatever else the junk mail sells. Really, I don't.

Awaiting revenge.

"After scolding one's cat, one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word. And has filed it for reference." - Charlotte Gray, Canadian historian and author.