January 13, 2004
A public service
This is an ugly time of year, when New Year’s resolutions start to unravel.
Ex-smokers light up again with renewed fury, hacking all the way. Aspiring joggers respire profusely, get halfway down the block again and say f*** this s***. They walk home and light up a smoke.
Our own family has a new resolution – to go for a walk every day. Already we have modified this to five times a week, and then three times a week. I suspect by next month we’ll just sit on the couch and watch other people walking on TV shows. That’s something we can do every day.
It’s not for me to say which resolutions are attainable and which ones aren’t. I’m feeling smug, only because I have one resolution that I have stuck to now for 16 consecutive years.
At some point in every calendar year since 1989, I have struck an a capella singing group with my car.
Well, let me be completely honest here – I have stalked, hunted, and run over (then backed up and run over again, and again, until every last death rattle has ceased) each and every member of one of these groups, one group per year, since the late eighties.
Nobody likes a capella singing groups. It’s the Christmas fruitcake of music. Too frequently, people started breaking into song back then, as if we had been living on the set of West Side Story. And they received applause for their efforts, which only encouraged them to keep singing. When I heard some group called The MellowTones butcher Guns ‘n Roses’ Paradise City, I snapped, lost my grip on reality. Even in the fog of madness, I knew what I had to do.
All a capella music, every a capella singer, had to be eliminated. With my speeding car.
My kill count stands at seventy-one. I’ll show you my scrapbook next time we’re hanging out in the crawlspace under my stairs. You’ve never been there? It’s a place I go to reflect, talk to myself, and drink wood grain alcohol. Good times…
And what a ride it has been! I started out small, like anyone should when insanity has driven them to take on a new resolution. For the first few years I went after seniors. The very first group I bagged, The Crooning Arthritics, never saw it coming. I got them in a church parking lot as they were helping one of their members load his walker into the trunk of his Buick LeSabre. It was so easy, all four of them in a nice tight circle, hunched over the metallic burgundy fenders, straining. It was like a polyester and cardigan bomb went off.
As I gained more skill and confidence, and lost my grip on reality, I went after more elusive prey: high school students. Now you might be saying How can you possibly run over our youth? They’re so quick and agile! Ask any successful psychopath how he does what he does, and he’ll tell you a) by using superior equipment and b) with regular pep talks, from the voices in his head.
In case you’re wondering, I’ve always done this in broad daylight, partly because I'm batsh** crazy, but's that's not all. I have never cared about witnesses, mostly because I believe I’m performing a community service. Each and every time I eliminate another group, I go straight home and wait for the police to arrive. I sit there at the front door with my wrists out, ready to be cuffed. But they never come. Perhaps the witnesses are too shocked by the audacity and brutality of my crimes.
I prefer to believe they are just grateful.
I really made progress in the early years. In fact, there was a brief period of time in the mid-nineties when the media declared a capella music “dead”. Nobody thanked me for it, but I don’t do it for the recognition. Just knowing that nobody ever had to hear Smells Like Teen Spirit or Buddy Holly belted out by four enthusiastic and gender-confused boys’ choir rejects was all I needed to keep the fire burning.
Up until this weekend, I really thought my work was done. But then I found out that a capella music is thriving thriving?! at Yale University. At last count, over three hundred students are willingly doo-wopping, skatting, and snapping their fingers on campus. I saw a clip of some undergrads harmonizing old Bon Jovi songs, and sprung into action.
People are s***ing their pants over SARS and BSE, but if these groups start performing off-campus, well, do you remember the Great Mime Crisis of 1978? The Ventriloquism Epidemic of '81? I do, vividly. The voices never let me forget…
I have booked myself a flight to New Haven, and I’ve rented a huge diesel-powered pick-up truck, with a cattle catcher. You can thank me later.
This is an ugly time of year, when New Year’s resolutions start to unravel.
Ex-smokers light up again with renewed fury, hacking all the way. Aspiring joggers respire profusely, get halfway down the block again and say f*** this s***. They walk home and light up a smoke.
Our own family has a new resolution – to go for a walk every day. Already we have modified this to five times a week, and then three times a week. I suspect by next month we’ll just sit on the couch and watch other people walking on TV shows. That’s something we can do every day.
It’s not for me to say which resolutions are attainable and which ones aren’t. I’m feeling smug, only because I have one resolution that I have stuck to now for 16 consecutive years.
At some point in every calendar year since 1989, I have struck an a capella singing group with my car.
Well, let me be completely honest here – I have stalked, hunted, and run over (then backed up and run over again, and again, until every last death rattle has ceased) each and every member of one of these groups, one group per year, since the late eighties.
Nobody likes a capella singing groups. It’s the Christmas fruitcake of music. Too frequently, people started breaking into song back then, as if we had been living on the set of West Side Story. And they received applause for their efforts, which only encouraged them to keep singing. When I heard some group called The MellowTones butcher Guns ‘n Roses’ Paradise City, I snapped, lost my grip on reality. Even in the fog of madness, I knew what I had to do.
All a capella music, every a capella singer, had to be eliminated. With my speeding car.
My kill count stands at seventy-one. I’ll show you my scrapbook next time we’re hanging out in the crawlspace under my stairs. You’ve never been there? It’s a place I go to reflect, talk to myself, and drink wood grain alcohol. Good times…
And what a ride it has been! I started out small, like anyone should when insanity has driven them to take on a new resolution. For the first few years I went after seniors. The very first group I bagged, The Crooning Arthritics, never saw it coming. I got them in a church parking lot as they were helping one of their members load his walker into the trunk of his Buick LeSabre. It was so easy, all four of them in a nice tight circle, hunched over the metallic burgundy fenders, straining. It was like a polyester and cardigan bomb went off.
As I gained more skill and confidence, and lost my grip on reality, I went after more elusive prey: high school students. Now you might be saying How can you possibly run over our youth? They’re so quick and agile! Ask any successful psychopath how he does what he does, and he’ll tell you a) by using superior equipment and b) with regular pep talks, from the voices in his head.
In case you’re wondering, I’ve always done this in broad daylight, partly because I'm batsh** crazy, but's that's not all. I have never cared about witnesses, mostly because I believe I’m performing a community service. Each and every time I eliminate another group, I go straight home and wait for the police to arrive. I sit there at the front door with my wrists out, ready to be cuffed. But they never come. Perhaps the witnesses are too shocked by the audacity and brutality of my crimes.
I prefer to believe they are just grateful.
I really made progress in the early years. In fact, there was a brief period of time in the mid-nineties when the media declared a capella music “dead”. Nobody thanked me for it, but I don’t do it for the recognition. Just knowing that nobody ever had to hear Smells Like Teen Spirit or Buddy Holly belted out by four enthusiastic and gender-confused boys’ choir rejects was all I needed to keep the fire burning.
Up until this weekend, I really thought my work was done. But then I found out that a capella music is thriving thriving?! at Yale University. At last count, over three hundred students are willingly doo-wopping, skatting, and snapping their fingers on campus. I saw a clip of some undergrads harmonizing old Bon Jovi songs, and sprung into action.
People are s***ing their pants over SARS and BSE, but if these groups start performing off-campus, well, do you remember the Great Mime Crisis of 1978? The Ventriloquism Epidemic of '81? I do, vividly. The voices never let me forget…
I have booked myself a flight to New Haven, and I’ve rented a huge diesel-powered pick-up truck, with a cattle catcher. You can thank me later.
January 07, 2004
Finally, our hero has arrived!
(cue credits, theme music)
Paul Martin to the rescue!
Shizzle fizzle…
Paul Martin to the rescue!
Once destined for greatness, our hero was banished to the backbenches by his petty and jealous rival. From his perch in the cobwebbed rafters of Parliament, Paul Martin Jr. put his exquisitely manicured finger on the pulse of average Canadians, becoming one with their worries and concerns.
From the shadows, he quietly delegitimized the Liberal party’s membership recruitment process, then patiently steamrolled his way to power, summoning Bono from the potato fields of Ireland, and placing his rival’s head on a metaphorical pike (we have strict gun controls, but we’re fairly loosey-goosey with the metaphorical pike controls), as his supporters roared with a fervent bloodlust normally reserved for the final episode of Canadian Idol.
Now, with his country’s dictatorship, er, leadership firmly in his grasp until he retires, dies, or is the victim of a palace coup, Paul Martin has itemized his agenda and set his sights on priority number one, the issue that threatens to tear this country apart: the decriminalization of marijuana. Let’s watch our hero at work!
Today’s Episode: Reefer Gladness!
Vancouver
Greenpeace Rally
2:56pm PST
-Friends, fellow Canadians, as your prime minister-elect I have come here today to right a terrible wrong…
-You’re going to divest yourself of Canada Steamship Lines?
-A salient observation, my friend, but one that is not germane to our discussion here and now. I thank you for your candor, but we must move on. (nods to security detail, questioner is dragged away) My friends, keeping in mind that I believe marijuana is bad for you, and not an appropriate lifestyle choice in my view, I announce that your government will decriminalize marijuana anyway, very, very soon!
-Awesome! So, like, I could blaze a huge fattie on the street corner and it would be legal?
-Well, no, my friend, that’s not quite true. Smoking your “big fattie”, assuming it (and any other part of your body) contains no more than 15 grams of marijuana, will not be legal, but it will no longer be treated as a criminal act, very, very soon.
-So, like I said, toking will be legal. Hola, my amigos! To the hydroponic grow operation, post haste! No longer must we use an environmental lobby group as a front for our pot smoking!
-No, I’m afraid you don’t understand my meaning. You see, to decriminalize means to remove the punishment, but please keep in mind this only applies if you limit yourself to a small quantity for personal use, with no intent to traffic said quantity…
-So what if I have a big quantity, but I only want to share it with my friends? (crowd cheers)
-Um, well, um…
-Or what if I had one of those big Cheech and Chong-size joints, the kind that takes you three days to smoke, would you arrest me for that? (crowd roars)
-Well, um, well…I support gay marriage! I’ll preserve universal medicare, even when it no longer makes sense to do so! We’ll always have a budget surplus, in theory! Jean Chretien strangled kittens for fun! I…I’ve got pictures! Here, look…
-Boooooooooo! (crowd throws Timbits at stage)
Tune in next week, as our hero offers Sheila Copps a diplomatic post in Bam, Iran, then reconsiders, and appoints her to the Senate…
Paul Martin to the rescue!
Shizzle fizzle…
Paul Martin to the rescue!
(cue credits, theme music)
Paul Martin to the rescue!
Shizzle fizzle…
Paul Martin to the rescue!
Once destined for greatness, our hero was banished to the backbenches by his petty and jealous rival. From his perch in the cobwebbed rafters of Parliament, Paul Martin Jr. put his exquisitely manicured finger on the pulse of average Canadians, becoming one with their worries and concerns.
From the shadows, he quietly delegitimized the Liberal party’s membership recruitment process, then patiently steamrolled his way to power, summoning Bono from the potato fields of Ireland, and placing his rival’s head on a metaphorical pike (we have strict gun controls, but we’re fairly loosey-goosey with the metaphorical pike controls), as his supporters roared with a fervent bloodlust normally reserved for the final episode of Canadian Idol.
Now, with his country’s dictatorship, er, leadership firmly in his grasp until he retires, dies, or is the victim of a palace coup, Paul Martin has itemized his agenda and set his sights on priority number one, the issue that threatens to tear this country apart: the decriminalization of marijuana. Let’s watch our hero at work!
Today’s Episode: Reefer Gladness!
Vancouver
Greenpeace Rally
2:56pm PST
-Friends, fellow Canadians, as your prime minister-elect I have come here today to right a terrible wrong…
-You’re going to divest yourself of Canada Steamship Lines?
-A salient observation, my friend, but one that is not germane to our discussion here and now. I thank you for your candor, but we must move on. (nods to security detail, questioner is dragged away) My friends, keeping in mind that I believe marijuana is bad for you, and not an appropriate lifestyle choice in my view, I announce that your government will decriminalize marijuana anyway, very, very soon!
-Awesome! So, like, I could blaze a huge fattie on the street corner and it would be legal?
-Well, no, my friend, that’s not quite true. Smoking your “big fattie”, assuming it (and any other part of your body) contains no more than 15 grams of marijuana, will not be legal, but it will no longer be treated as a criminal act, very, very soon.
-So, like I said, toking will be legal. Hola, my amigos! To the hydroponic grow operation, post haste! No longer must we use an environmental lobby group as a front for our pot smoking!
-No, I’m afraid you don’t understand my meaning. You see, to decriminalize means to remove the punishment, but please keep in mind this only applies if you limit yourself to a small quantity for personal use, with no intent to traffic said quantity…
-So what if I have a big quantity, but I only want to share it with my friends? (crowd cheers)
-Um, well, um…
-Or what if I had one of those big Cheech and Chong-size joints, the kind that takes you three days to smoke, would you arrest me for that? (crowd roars)
-Well, um, well…I support gay marriage! I’ll preserve universal medicare, even when it no longer makes sense to do so! We’ll always have a budget surplus, in theory! Jean Chretien strangled kittens for fun! I…I’ve got pictures! Here, look…
-Boooooooooo! (crowd throws Timbits at stage)
Tune in next week, as our hero offers Sheila Copps a diplomatic post in Bam, Iran, then reconsiders, and appoints her to the Senate…
Paul Martin to the rescue!
Shizzle fizzle…
Paul Martin to the rescue!
