all it takes is a mother's touch

The snow is pretty to look at even if it's cold outside. I've started to drink a chai latte in the morning after work on the walk home. It keeps me warm.

Hopefully when the cold, snow, and chai latte's disappear they will bring with them the homeless they’ve buried beneath them -- things that aren’t so pretty to look at. Or smell. Or be around. Or have to step over.

And then Vancouver will be better. Better too look at.

A higher quality of life for all.

Mother nature cures social despair, cleans the streets and makes us safe.

I raise my chai latte to you, from all of Vancouver.

Keep up the good work.

MICHAEL RICHARD'S REVIEW OF MOVIES ABOUT BLACKS: AMISTAD (Despite his constant error in refering to it as, Slaves on a Boat)

After his bleak realistic take on the Holocaust, Steven Spielberg takes a trip to Africa to shed some light on the darkness with his new film, Amistad.

I loved it. Seriously, I did.

It’s the type of movie that makes you say, “oh that’s kinda awful isn’t it,” and then go into a diner and cry over a plate of poutine.

Really though, if you don’t like this you’re a racist and I love it and am not.

****

page one from the playbill of michael jackson's new broadway play, "If I Did It"

If I Did It
(a tragicomedy in two parts)

cast
Michael Jackson....Michael Jackson
The Youngster......A young boy

Synopsis:
In this ninety minute play Michael Jackson plays himself, reanacting the molestation of a young boy on stage, doing it the way he would of in an attempt to clear his name.

Reviews
"a mishmash between waiting for godot and lolita. a tour de force."- Karla Homolka

"fucking disgusting"- The New York Times

F.A.Q. To Killing Yourself

1. Is it best to handwrite or to type your suicide note.

It depends. How is your handwriting? The personal touch of a handwritten note is often much appreciated by the family members who read it, assuming your family actually cares enough for you to do so. If you’re putting blame on someone for this suicide then make sure you write their name clearly. You don’t want to chance them skipping over this important detail since what’s the use in killing yourself if you can’t make the source of your misery feel like a murderer.


2. I’m having second thoughts, is this life still worth living?

Absolutely not.

3. I’m a bit overweight, will the rope still hold?

Perhaps, though contingency planning is advised. Perhaps place a bed of knives below you just incase.

4. Is killing yourself really considered a sin?
Unfortunately, yes. Though so is the molestation of young boys, so don’t fret. There’s room up there for everyone. Worst comes to worst, you’ll be reunited with your father.

6. I’m in a lot of pain and I’ve heard about something called Euthanasia. Could you elaborate?

I already told you, i'm not well informed on Chinese kids.

7. What is the deal assisted suicide is it any less painful?No less painful then your current existence.

8. My parents don’t love me, is this the answer?
Probably. Yes.

peeing on people

if this is so exciting for some to do how do they do it with an erection?

it doesn't make sense.

just the three of us: cartoon kasel, james and me in a silly hat

om keeping the streets safe

Suspect shot himself in police car while hands were cuffed behind his back

Full Story
I love reading trashy american news!

YAY POLICE

SAGE ADVICE ON ROMANCE FROM THE CANADIAN ARMED FORCES (AND A JOKE)

Love and War don't mix.

WRONG

Now they do.

The Canadian Armed Forces (god bless them) have started to teach classes on keeping relationships alive, even in times of war. With an increased ammount of troops (god bless them) being sent to the middle east (god smite them) there has been an increase in divorce. This is an excert from the lesson book being taught to soldiers in hopes of changing this trend.

“You fall in love with the front end of the puppy,” says one lesson book, part of a file obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

“But every puppy has a back end. Things can be fine on the front end, but if you don’t handle the back end well, the relationship will likely not make it.”

Now I'm not sure how anyone can fail.

Unless of course they get shot to death.

Joke:
What is the best thing about your husband being shot to death in Iraq?
You don't have to divorce him for his pension.

Wikipedia Wandering: Toilet

The "Great Equalizer"
The toilet is noted as one of the unifiers of humanity, as people of all social classes must use it. Simply put, everyone poops, and this factor of biology is seen by some to be unifying.

In Poland, it is reflected by calling the toilet euphemistically as the place, "gdzie nawet król chodzi piechotą" (where even the king walks by himself). A similar saying was used in imperial Germany, and a similar saying is still known in Hungary "ahová a király is gyalog jár" (where to even the king goes by foot).

If everyone, regardless of social class, uses the toilet then somebody should tell this to the homeless man I saw taking a shit behind a dumpster this afternoon.

I'm begining to find it increasingly difficult to critique a few women's work in my creative writing class

Sandra, that piece you wrote last week about your mom dying really touched the class. Nice imagery. It was unfortunate Mr. Jordan gave you zero for being absent during the deadline, but how was the funeral? Sad I bet. About your poem though, I must say that the part when you digress back in time to touch on heritage becomes a bit trite. Holocaust this, dead mother that – a bit of a frown fest, don’t you think? Interject some cheery imagery. Perhaps make it a sunny afternoon rather then the rainy, bleak, freezing winter night you described when talking about the concentration camp. A few smiles will make those frowns more devastating.

Amy, nice haiku about the date rape. Is this fiction? Your misery is really coming through in your work though, so congrats. I'm Sorry Tim laughed during your reading, it was totally unprofessional. The pun just caught the class off guard, thats all. Though, since causing uproarious bursts of random laughter seems to be your undiscovered forte, perhaps when you’re through writing this you could write a humor peice ? Just a thought.

I dug your found poem, Pray the shame away. However, I felt that at times the story and outcome wasn’t quite clear. Did you want the baby, or not? You’re young and moderately attractive so I assumed no, but then you started to cry when you were reading it. It was really inventive though the way you used quotes from the various signs the protestors outside the clinics were holding. I can’t believe that one woman actually had a sign saying, Abortions causes breast cancer. Is that true? If so, looks like you have your next poem basically written. Oh, and I also found the title to be a bit twee.

an amusing aside

There isn't much to write about these days. This isn't recent but it happened a few months ago. It was back when it was still warm. The sun had just set and the crows began to fill the skies and the sun painted the city in sillouhette. I had gone to a play in the early afternoon and then drank a bottle of wine with a friend in the park before I met up with my uncle.

I was most excited.

I was perfectly relaxed, not quite drunk but beyond buzzed, though it would make the conversations roll of my tongue like lies did politicians, so I was confident. This would be great, I knew it. I hadn't seen my uncle in some years, he understood, he knew how things could be with family and how hard it was to see one another even when you were in the same city. Thats the beauty of family though, your love lasts across immeasurable distance, time, and continues after life closes the casket.

So I met up with my uncle. It was in a nice little restraunt, it was quiet, which I liked, though perhaps a little more ambient would be nice. It can be awkward when meeting up with an old relative regardless of how fond you were of him. Having a few drinks helped to a degree, but still, a little music would be nice, I thought.

We were sitting in the corner, the candle light was dancing on his hands as he looked at the menu.

I'll have Meatballs, he said.
Just meatballs?
Yes.
You just want a plate of meatballs. Okay, fine, blast, have your meatballs, I said.

The waitress came over.

He'll have meatballs.

I looked down, took my time, felt the leather binding of the menu in my grip.

I'll have a bottle of your house white. What type is that again? Okay, perfect. And, lets see - eyes skimming - oh yes, here, i'll have the lamb shank please. Thanks.

So, there we were, my uncle and I, sitting. He was looking blankly across the table in great anticipation of his meatballs. He always had loved meatballs, I fondly remembered, letting a small smile slip out the corner of my mouth.

Then he slowly rose up for a moment, straightened his spine, leant over and said:
I have pancreatic cancer.

Borat

May as well talk about what everyone else is. Just when the Rick James' quotes were dying out Borat has come along giving us all a new gem to cherrish for the next year. "A very nice."

Let me say this: I love dark humor. There are shows that touch on the very issues Borat attempts to that suceed, and that I love, but how does Borat measure up? Not well.

The entire film is flawed from the begining. Borat is a fictional news reporter from Kazakhstan who is sexist, racist, and clueless. This is when some some questions begin to arise. I watch on and start to ask myself, "is this really satire?" Satire was used to describe the film in the dozens of positive reviews posted across the globe. Every critic laudes it's use of satire, calling it genious, the funniest movie ever made. Not.

What is satirical about it? The fact that he is exposing the stereotypes of a culture we have no knowledge of? Let me ask: What is a typical person from Kazakhstan like? The only person that I recognize from Kazakhstan is Borat, this fictional character. He is creating stereotypes not satarizing existing ones and in doing so crosses the line from satire to racism.

Borat sets out to travel America to understand the culture, with hopes of bringing it back to Kazakhstan to improve there country. Mr. Cohen (the actor)'s real goal, however, is to use this character to expose America, to call them on their racism towards Muslims, Jews, homosexuals and anyone else that might warrant a laugh from a sold out crowd of morons.

It's also hypocritical.

Was this film made so that our eyes would be opened to things we hadn't seen, or things we didn't know about, such as racism amongst college students? Were we to become enraged enough that we wanted to get up and do something like traditional satire intended, or are we meant to just sit and laugh, only to forget the moment the theatre's closed.

Example:
The village that a part of the film was shot in was a poor peasant village in Russia filled with people who were falsley promised a documentary about their country in exchange for their services by producers. They were paid a feeble 3 dollars a day. In the film these people, these poor peasants who trusted the producers enough to allow them to film in their village were portrayed as retraded, incestuous, racist, sexist, monsters.

But wait? I thought this type of behavior is the thing that satire works towards destroying rather then creating?

I'll admit, parts were funny. We see the inside of a Church and how mad the people inside are. We see some college frat boys making fools of themselves, talking about slavery and women. There is a cowboy that supports Iraq (whoa, i've never seen this done before.) But all in all, the film fails due to the fact that sadly the makers of the film don't hold their own morals higher then the people whom they seem so quick to critisize.

informercials and irony

You probably won’t understand this then, she said, after learning I didn’t own a home.

She could be right. There was plenty of things I couldn’t make sense of, things that I saw on a regular basis. The man last night that was outside, dancing in the moonlight, wrapping himself in tinfoil. Why homeless people like cotton balls and steel wool so much. How two boys could sexually assult a mentally handicapped plummer with a plumming snake in the bowling alley he worked in, like two boys had in a newspaper article I read. Or what about Bill Cosby and the date rape case he is fighting in court.

So, this lady, the home owner might be right. Maybe I won’t understand, still, I humored her. Tell me about it anyways.

So she began:

It’s a ladder, she explained, with a trace of irony in her seventy year old voice. It’s just fantastic. It holds 800 lbs, you could fit your whole family on it, friends too. It’s that sturdy.

She had been watching an infomercial.

The man was flipping it around like a ruler, it was so light. Sturdy too.
It was just four payments. Easy payments.

As she kept on describing the various perks of this amazing ladder my mind began to wander.

She really wanted this, I could tell. She was at first worried that the man on the phone from the Philippines was going to rip her off, steal her bank account number, he credit cards, her life. Now she was growing concerned she wouldn't get her ladder.

There’s something about the elderly that makes me sad and as she kept describing the ladder to me I realized what it was. There was no irony in her words.

a clean bill of health

Disorder	Your Score
Major Depression:	Slight-Moderate
Dysthymia:	High-Moderate
Bipolar Disorder:	Slight-Moderate
Cyclothymia:	Moderate
Seasonal Affective Disorder:	High-Moderate
Postpartum Depression:	N/A
Take the Depression Test

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid Personality Disorder:	Moderate
Schizoid Personality Disorder:	High
Schizotypal Personality Disorder:	Moderate
Antisocial Personality Disorder:	Low
Borderline Personality Disorder:	Low
Histrionic Personality Disorder:	Moderate
Narcissistic Personality Disorder:	High
Avoidant Personality Disorder:	Low
Dependent Personality Disorder:	Low
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:	Low
-- Take the Personality Disorder Test -- -- Personality Disorder Info --