Am I a narcissist?

Each time I do one of these posts someone tells me that I am a narcissist. I guess because I am doing a post about it I must be? Or is it the fact that I have this blog that makes me one. Tell me something, all 3 of you: Are you all not the superstar of your own feature film you call life? Are you not the superhero of your own comic called your idiotic life?

Well I am. Each day I get up, take a shit and strap on my super outfit and go out there and save the day. I leap tall buildings and move faster than a speeding bullet while my invisible entourage of worshippers and fans cheer me on. I can hear them right now inside my head. I can do anything I want at any time - why? Because I am the main event in my life. The big man. The super coolest. The best. I have the biggest dick and the largest brain and shit yeah I am the best looking. Sure some of you may have kids and think - oh you selfish old kidless fuck - you really have no clue. Well I bet your kids do a great job of making you feel like a super star huh? Isn't that why you buy them everything they ever want and wipe their asses and clean up their puke?

So yeah I guess I am a narcissist - Shit someone has to be a fan of me.

How much is the dolly?

Very well then - here is an interesting image. A very firm looking image wouldn't you say? I especially adore the photo inset showing just how supple things are. Can anyone get me a cost on this thing? It would make a great gift for an uncle of mine.

What does the big "F" stand for?

Not unlike yesterday.

Sometimes things seem so simplified. Most of the time things seem simplified. Usually there isn't much to things at all. We just make complications for ourselves. We make everything see so insanely tragic, or over elaborate. I do it too. My wife calls me a narcissist; I think we are all narcissists, but I guess a narcissist would think so.

I look at my hand and the simple act of its motion connected to my thoughts can seem dauntingly complex. The way it moves almost like an animal of its own volition. It creeps me out. I makes me see things I don't normally want to see. How parallel we are to things like snails or slugs - moving along in unconscious method. My hands have a mind of their own. They move when I sleep. The move when I drive. They take a million different positions over the course of a day without me thinking about it.

One day it will all just rot. Things will break down and stop, but until then the simplistic beauty of my ability to move could be taken as a fascination that could consume a lifetime.

I can't focus anymore.

So it's Sunday and my ears smell like mold. I feel like I need to scrub myself with a pumice based soap to help slough off all of the grease and buildup of mess I have collected over the past week. Yes things build up and you need to have them removed. Your eye glasses get grimy and it makes it harder to see if you don't clean them.

I think old people stop washing because they just don't want to think clearly any more. Everyone ignores them so they just let the buildup congeal until they have a thick layer of sense-numbing barrier to keep them safe. I have no idea what all of this means, but I am sure it is important. I notice it ever so slightly when I look in the mirror. I can feel it deep inside me - I am just not as sharp as I used to be. I have to look a little harder at things to make them out. I have to pay a little closer attention. I miss things I normally would not(or never used to miss). Driving takes more concentration. Is this what it means to get on in years? Is this the first stage of me sensing that maybe keeping things clean will not keep me seeing and hearing clearly? I can hardly see without my glasses. I don't go to bars any more.
Fuck.

Bad Poetry

There once was a woman who had an affinity for cats.
She stroked and she pet them in all manner of lust.
Entangled and lost in act and in trust.

Purr little one. Purr little one. Purr.
Backs arching each stroke, teeth gnashing and white.
The woman and feline seductively fight.

Marble eyes roll like planets in space.
They tangle and mingle and bare teeth as to bite.
The coo and they mix in each others delight.

A fishhook. Unexpected but known of.
Things tighten and flex until harm finds its way.
Both animals struggling no longer in play.

Flaring heat and blindness. Taffeta and silk gape, and pull.
Claws tighten and lock in the smallest of seconds.
Time stops until things are soft again.

It's night in my mind all of the time. I can't do anything without turning on a light beforehand. It makes me feel dead inside when the lights are off all of the time. People tell me to trust myself, but I just can't. It terrifies me to think that I might one day have to. The dark can be a good place to be. It can help. But it is still terrifying.

Wow, get a load of me.

Inside things feel different lately. Inside things are changed. I think that maybe i am transforming into something else. I feel lately like I could just change my shape or maybe in a few weeks or so I might wake up one morning and just be a different person. It has nothing to do with me not liking myself - oh not a thing to do with that. I am still the biggest narcissist ever. I still love to look at pictures of myself and rub myself for pleasure. I still love to take long walks down mirrored hallways and pretend that I wear a size 30 waist. I still love to think that all of the 22 year old women pine over me as soon as they lay their eyes on me. As a matter of fact i am sure that all women love me unconditionally - the world is my convenience store and I can pick whatever I want, whenever I need it.

My wife tells me that I am amazing. She tells me that the sun beams out of my anus and that i am a super hero in disguise.

Yeah - I guess I am pretty good. If you don't believe me just ask someone that knows me - they will tell you how amazing I am - as a matter of fact I will just come out and say it - fuck man, am I ever amazing.

Mother do you think they'll drop the bomb?

In the late '70s and early to mid '80s I remember loosing sleep over the end of the world. I remember watching all of those really bad apocalyptic films like Def Con 4 and Solient Green. I was sure everything was going to end at any minute. I would wake up and everyone would be dead and I was going to have to run over their dried out corpses in shopping malls to escape the rabid nuclear fallout maniacs that wanted to eat my sweet flesh.

Well I guess it is about what - 26 years later and we are all still here? There doesn't seem to be any real media attention towards the chance of the world exploding any time soon. We just hear about how we are killing each other - terrorism has replaced Armageddon.

I wonder if everyone worries about the end of the world the way I did in my early teens or if it was just a cultural stage I lived through. I surmise it was the latter because I don't see much hubbub about anything like it any more. There are no double album releases about the toils of war or death by draconian empire and a lout of mutants. It's all just about getting that sweet o'le honey pot and a bag o'cash so you can represent. Or the inner angst of the self and how it tears you apart. I miss the idea of us all getting blown to bits and then slowly dieing from fallout and tainted water. Somehow that notion seemed a little more sophisticated then the fears we see rumiating in this decade.

Radiation makes me horny.

I don't understand much any more. Most mornings I wake up with at least one why going through my head and I guess that is what keeps us going. I find that lately my writing is the only logical thing in the world. I am tired of getting caught up in the status race and loosing perspective on my own motives for doing things.

Whew - this is a heavy one huh?

The photo works for me on so many levels and I don't know why and I can't explain it to you. I was just drawn to it. For some reason it makes me think of radiation. It looks to me like she is basking in the glory of the atomic age.

If I see another GAP window display I think I am going to puke. The cycle of the consumer machine is starting to get to me - even if I still want to buy everything I see. I hate the higher level of it but still want my stuff. Give me MORE stuff. This woman has everything - don't you just know it? and If I am wrong I know one thing - she sure has a great set of tits. Whatever. I can't seem to focus today. I can't seem to get anywhere without looking at something to buy. I would like to see 1000 women standing like this one on the beach of Lake Ontario all at once. Basking in the glory of our filthy society and taking in all of the poison we have made to create things like Zip-Lock bags to take our lunch in. I hate the way we have made this planet, but it still makes me horny.

Please help me.

Oh god these empanadas are killing me - the farts are enough to remove the paint off of antique furniture. Kensington market really makes some anti-social food. Good on the going in and hauntingly disturbing on the way out. How do all of those hemp toting dreadlocked, pierced, anti-offshore, free trade coffee drinking activists put up with it? I have to confess most of the things, or places that I have eaten that are quoted as healthy or organtic all end up just plain giving me the shits.

Now you may say that it is just my gentile nature or more to do with my delicate costitution but I don't buy that at all. For me black bean soup should be classified as a hazardous material. Tofu is license to drop bombs on all of those innocent bystanders at the Carrot Common.

And why does free-trade coffee taste like creek mud?

Oh, there I go again - ewe. Is there any way I can get away from myself?

I'm feeling a little fetid.

Yes my concentration is wavering and my libido is plummeting. There seems to be this hankering odor that I can't get off. It leeches out of my skin like tree-sap and I watch myself slough off repeatedly. I have blisters and welts. I have eruptions and lesions. Oh dear. Oh no. I'm feeling a little tough today. I'm feeling a little like I have been soaked in brine.

Oh dear.

My nipples are scorching.

No furnace on, and I had to break the ice in the toilet to take a dump. Dalbir and I have secretly been seeing each other and it has been great. Last week I lost my baby son at Walmart and we still haven't found him. The cops are telling us that there is a cult going around and stealing babies, cooking them, eating them. They seem to not give us much hope of finding him. Oh well we are supposed to be optimistic in life right? So I say at least there is one less mouth to feed. Today things are going a little better for me. Today I only had one episode. Yesterday, three of them in a row. My wife had to change my diaper three times. She says sh has never seen so much shit come out of one person - I tell her that it doesn't matter what I eat - I have been full of shit my whole life. It's nice not hearing the baby. My hands are cold but my nipples are scorching. Daniela keeps putting her cigarettes out on them - but it is fun to pick at the scabs.

wwwraaaaa

Sitting on a night-train chewing on a jelly roll... Sitting on a night-train chewing on a jelly roll...
Ah yes antoher day of what the fuck to do now. Just so you know I love Karoake! Another day of pull my finger and sniff my ass. Here pull it. Go ahead and pull it you fuck.

......................eh.......................

September 5th and the weather is grey. Grey is a good way to describe it. There is a cat sitting on my lap as I type this and I feel like my guts are made of plasticine - is that how you spell it? At times I want to open the second story window of my office and puke out of it. At times I want to run out into the middle of the street and tell everyone that they are all liars. At times I want to get an RPG and clear out the houses across the street from me just to change the view. I need to cover myself up; I need to get underneath something and feel warm and dark. If my mother was still alive I would try and crawl back into her womb. Fucking stupidity, all of it is just stupid; including me. I am such a fucking narcissist. It's nauseating.

The Website - shameless advocation.

www.explainit.org
Well after two years of pissing around I have finally put my website back on the roster. There is a larger picture in mind here but it is a much more well rounded start than before. Some of the content here shows up there and vise-versa. Have a look at it and if you want me to add you to the links section let me know - I just might do it. So have a look at it and let me know what you think of it - The photos section is not done so most of the content is writing.

Calm - Everything is Calm

The leaves on the trees rustle. The birds sing. The grass is cool underfoot. Everything is calm. I love calm. It makes me so - calm. It's nice to be somewhere that makes me - lets say tranquil.

Ahhh. things are much better now. Yes. I have arrived. Oh where am I again? Right - I am in my "magnificent morning" happy place, that's it. You know - the one that lets you rule your day in a happy way! Ah don't you just love those magnificent mornings. Fuck I sure do. They let you take on the day. They let you shine at whatever it is you do. Simply put - magnificent.

Now I'm Really Fucking Angry....

Hi all - I guess I only write this blog when there are crisis in the air. Well there are crisis again, but it is good times still. It seems that my venture of employment has again taken a downswing and I am left standing in the middle of the road with my pants down. Just four days after my grandfather gasps his last breath - the kind, integrity-driven, people caring, company that I worked so hard for have decided to "Let me go."

After weeks of praise, admiration, assurance and reverence, they pulled the rug out from under me and I didn't have any clue - or see it coming. (Yes this entry is therapeutic.) As they lead me into the office I was expecting an increase in salary or some sort of recognition.

There reasoning was that "they" were sorry but they had hired the wrong type of person for the position - not just a week prior the founder of the company told me that I was the perfect person and that they had all of their faith in me. There were no warnings, no offers, no signs; just a big vat of smelly fly-covered bullshit that said I was amazing over and over and how I was their savior and doing an amazing job. Talk about mixed messages. Oh well say-la fucking-vie! (I know it's spelled wrong - but I need this rant.)

I would not be so angry - if I had screwed up or I had gotten warnings - and I conclude that they all might as well take the last 10,000 charter cards that I ordered for them and wipe their asses with them. They are no different then McDonalds, Enron or George Bush for that matter.

Hilarious really; and quite interesting. The deception that the almighty dollar can inspire never ceases to astonish me. It's ok though, I will be fine, like they say It takes a long time for a person, or a company to realize what "they don't know they don't know."

I have returned.

From the depths of oblivion. From the pitch of all conscious mire. From the blanket of iniquity. I have returned. It is time to cast the first stone upon those that have abandoned me. It is time to distinguish the things that make us aspire. Behold I am one and al that there is and behold I have returned. I am unscathed and live with a pre-determined abandonment of all inhibition.

Ok, I'm just back is all.

Yea - The Seniors "Just Roll" with it.

So I had a trip to Shady Lanes rest home a few weeks ago. It's the new place my grandfather and his wife live now. It used to be a hotel but they rennovated it into a seniors resort. Each room door has a mailbox and the seniors decorate the door and the walls beside the doors like it was the outside of their houses. Their names are on the doors too - I guess in case they forget where they live.

My grandfather and his wife have joining rooms - each with a single bed, TV, loveseat and a few other things. There was shit on my grandfather's bathroom carpet. He uses a walker with wheels to get around when he has to - but spends most of his time in a chair napping.

When I got there it was about 80 degrees farenheight in his little room - he was wearing a cardigan and complaining he was cold. Needless to say it was a different kind of experience. It made me feel mortal to say the least. But the seniors they just seemed to "roll with it" - shit and all. I wonder often what they think deep, deep inside. What is really going through their heads? Is it any different then ours, besides maybe just a little bit more foggy?

Don't worry - if we are lucky we will all get a chance to find out.

The intercom goes off and a woman's voice greets us: "good afternoon Shady Lanes residents dinner will be served in fifteen minutes - there is a choice of roast chicken or teriaki beef, thank you."

On this que my grandfather begins to prepare for the ardorous task of getting himself out of his big chair and over to his wheeled walker. He totters around a little burning away the next ten minutes while we all just stand around waiting - sweating in our clothes. Finally his shit is in gear and we are out in the hall. As my grandfather makes the turn out of his room and into the hallway other patrons slowly diffuse into the corridor and it is soon filled with hunchbacked blue-hairs riding hard and senior-fast, on their wheeled walkers. As slow as the process is you know they are all rushing. You know they are rollin' with the shit so they can dig down on the free eats in the nearby cafeteria.

Yea - from what I can tell the seniors they just roll with it. I guess the little things become the big things when you get tired just trying to get your leaky ass down to the Shady Lanes cafeteria. There is knitting displays and other crafts for sale on the trip to the slophouse. I try to convince myself I should buy something - but there isn't anything worth while. My grandfather ambles along in tandem with other members - he doesn't talk to any of them but they all seem to share some sense of silent camaraderie.

Once we get seated teenagers start to bring out the food. They are removed from their task and there doesn't seem to be any human element in what they are doing. The clash of the emotionally stunted teens and the seasoned aged gongs at my senses as I watch them interact. The food is hard to swallow but the gang of geriatrics seem to take it in at break-hip speed. The coffee is weak and tepid, the decor garish colonial, ala silk flowers and pastels.

Yeah - the seniors they just roll with it. They just keep on keeping on I guess.

The experience is a sour one and the whole time I'm there I wanna leave. I wanna just get out and hope that I never end up here - but I know I will. I just roll with it and take one for the team. I just roll with it and tell them It was good food and a great place. Just so it helps them to think it is. Just so I do my part to make things a little better for them. I will go back a hundred times and I will hate every second - but I have to go - I want to go. Just to give them something normal. Just to let them know that I know, I too, am going to be there - with my shit on the bathroom carpet.

Well it's Thursday and I have four days left before I start my new career as Creative Director for an International Multi-Million-Dollar Corporate Coaching Company.

It's funny how, you know, I was just pining for the position - agonizing over getting it, and then when I got it, it was euphoric and it still is - but now I am counting the days prior to my start date. Hilarious really if you think about it - I have had lots of time off - more than enough - but now I feel like I am running our of time. Gee like five months isn't enough of a break? Well the pain is over and I feel really good about everything again.

I feel grand. Like any minute a rainbow might just shoot out of my ass.

Thinking = Feeling = Action = Result.

We are what we think (most of you should know this already). I have been pre-occupied with getting myself warmed up for the "future". The great thing I have realized is how much I really did hate that "other" job. How it was like dipping myself into a coating of lead each day I walked in there. How oppressive the management was and how completely barbaric their management style is and was. There are a thousand other places just as bad - most places have their bugs - but some of them make it hard to stay positive and make sure that our thinking is thinking good things - not bad things.

If we think bad things we feel bad things and then we do bad things and then we get bad results.
Toxic environments breed negative thinking and be-little the concept of reinforcing self esteem. To rule with an iron fist is an arcane practice and it can only harbor resentment and a lack of respect.

There is a high percentage of people that work for superiors that have a 60 point less IQ. This is stated as fact and it is a common challenge to have to learn to work around such hurtles.

I remember being so terrified of loosing my job, or getting in trouble, or saying the wrong thing, or maybe not doing what was expected of me. I remember constantly having to watch my back, wondering if there was a conspiracy, did I take too long for lunch, did the last project not really go the way "they" wanted it to, was there something that I did wrong, does everyone hate me?

Sure, sure I know all of this stuff is just thinking and we are what we think - or at least we can control what we think. But a toxic environment will wear down your positive nature. It will make you loose your work valued candor. Slowly your guard will rise and you will fall victim to the messages and messaging that surrounds you.

Essentially there is no way that a person can hold on that long trying to keep a faithful and positive attitude if their environment doesn't reflect it. Power is a sacred and noble chair. You can look at it two ways - is your boss the good witch of the east or the wicked witch of the west? Each one has equal power and each one chooses to use it in a certain way.

I had no idea how programmed I was. I had no idea how oppressed I was. I had no idea how miserable I was. I had no idea how afraid I was. It was almost as if I had taken on the personality of my rulers. They had changed me into a different person.

But now I have been set free. I have had the time to get myself back. To be able to center my core and look at finding a way to start to grow again as a human being. To be able to marry my career back into my life and have them work in harmony together. No longer does my life consist of a full day of nightmares and an escape route home to heal and feel better.
Now I have it all back, and then some.

Sure this is an optimistic post - one of the first in some time. There is always room for a little optimism and there should be room for a whole hell of a lot more. So if things are getting unbearable get out of what you are in. Get out before your life is over. Get out before you get so damaged that you won't be able to fix yourself.

Your life is yours and the only thing holding you prisoner is yourself (I know easier said than done). You've got kids to feed, bills to pay - but should the cost really be painful? Are you willing to spend the balance of your life in a bad place just to pay the bills? I used to think so. Ah well - the paycheck is good right?

I will end here. I could go on for hours because I guess I am getting a little of my thunder back. 12 hours of motivational life coaching can do that to you.

I don't think that earning a living has to be a painful venture - and if yours is, get out as fast as you can. Take the risks and be terrified for a few months - it will pay off in so many ways.

At least it did for me.

Might as well jump.

Ok here's another subway story - another true story without the condiments of embellishment. A week ago today I decided to take another subway ride. Nothing out of the ordinary - just to go and meet a friend of mine for a few drinks on a Friday night. I get down to the platform of the Main and Danforth station and take my place to wait for the next westbound train.

Through my pensive boredom I notice a tall lanky middle aged man bobbing and weaving to the tune of some strong but unknown narcotic. This guy is high, sky-high, higher than the moon or the CN Tower. He is mumbling a little bit and making eye contact with things hovering invisibly above and around him. The man is a little grimy looking, but not destitute. He is sporting a three quarter length military coat covered in a green camouflage pattern, bluejeans and hiking boots.

On most occasions I am fascinated by such characters and spend a good part of my down time gazing at them. They seem to pop up in the strangest of places and populate the entrails of the Metro system. I took my place a little further from him - out of his line of sight, and kept my eye on his every move. He did his contortions and gestures pretty much keeping to himself for a good five minutes and then something changed. A switch went off, a light came on, his milk spilled, or maybe his brain just exploded.

At once the man tensed and held his arms at his side. His spine straightened and his head wobbled wildly, like that of a freshly killed bird. I raised an eyebrow, tuned in my focus on him, and just as I got a perfect angle of view he catapulted himself out and off of the subway platform and landed flat on his face with his arms still fastened to the side of his body. His form raised into the air like a salmon would spring out of a river and waggle upwards to its destination.

Then in what seemed like an hour of silence we all gazed at him laying still on the tracks. His nose and forehead were covered with the black carbon that blanketed the floor of the pit that had consumed him. He kept his body rigid and just moved his head. It was as if he had been bound or mummified and could only move his scull to try and access his "situation".

I viced my teeth into my bottom lip and gazed at the dream-like scene. There was a live man laying across the subway tracks and for sure the train would be here any minute and squash him. For sure I would see him get cut into three. He would turn inside out in front of me and everyone else on the platform while we stood there frozen and watched.

The man stood and looked around. It worked out that his shoulders were level with the top of the platform that we stood on so when he came over to the edge just his head popped over the top. A young man hurried over to help him up and onto the platform but struggled a few times with his weight so I unconsciously ran over and grabbed his other arm to help hoist him up and out of harm's reach. As we got him half way up there was a loud clang against the tracks and to my astonishment a large silver meat cleaver bounced off of the tracks and into plain sight.

A young woman screamed "Oh my God He has a butcher knife!" We were still holding the man and finished heaving him up onto the platform. I swallowed a dry panic and backed away from him. "I. I dropped something." The man gestured to maybe jump back down onto the rails but the light of the oncoming train was in sight. The young woman spoke again. "No you didn't drop anything, there's nothing there."

The man looked around and then broke into a run away from the platform and up the stairs.

After the train had stopped a few of us went to speak to the operator and the cops showed up to take descriptions. The train was delayed and I had to spend time discussing the events with the police. The cops were rude and impatient.

So the moral of this true story is this. No more mister fucking nice guy good Samaritan help the world save you from yourself bullshit attitude from me anymore. If you want to jump off of a fucking cliff go ahead and do it because who knows what's on your mind and what you will do if I do help you. No not me I don't need a meat cleaver lodged in my scull because I helped pull you off of the subway tracks. If you want to jump be my fucking guest.

A work in progress....

Here is a little rough excerpt from something I have been working on for a few months now. - More details on this later - It is the next project after Mors Volintaria gets put to bed.

I wake up behind the city hall and it feels like a hairbrush is lodged in my back-side. One of my teeth are chipped and both of the palms of my hands are scraped off. There are little stones stuck in the palms of my hands, and dried snot on my face. My mouth tastes like American cigarettes and blood. Every inch of me aches and I begin to wonder what the hell happened to me. How is it that a man of my age can travel this far in life down the wrong path? Didn't I see it coming? Didn't I know that things would turn out this way?

Why did I decide to do this? What did I expect to find out by giving up? I try to stand and slowly push my legs straight. I feel like I could tip over any minute and have to wait for a few seconds to get a little balance. My stomach rolls over on itself and I immediately want to smoke a cigarette regardless of how bad I feel. A half of one flattened on the pavement catches my eye, I work at making it round again, light it.

The smoke thickens my chest and for a few seconds I listen to the robins and the sparrows celebrate the morning. They celebrate the fact that they are still alive, that they have survived the night. The dampness that has stiffened my joints is slowly dissolving and I can feel the warmth of the day starting to sink in. I wretch and heave a few times, careful not to drop my smoke. A long string of mucus and bile ribbons out of my mouth and catches on the side of my face. The birds keep singing and I start to shuffle my feet slowly in the direction of the park. I want to find Amber, maybe get a coffee and shoot the shit with her about the night before. A smile pulls my face back and it feels tight against my scull. All of this pain and still I feel more alive than I ever have.

I went to the Rep-Cinema on College Street last night thinking that I could see a movie for cheaper than the regular theatres. Now I usually could give a shit how much things cost - but when you find yourself on a limited income things change. I remember when the Rep-Cinemas were cheap and held kind of a cult status in Toronto - but now they seem more mainstream then ever before. You are forced to by a membership so the movie cost 9 bucks each and popcorn and drinks for two was 13 bucks. So We opted out on the popcorn and payed way too much just to see a movie that will be released on DVD tomorrow. Seems everyone is out to fuck you over these days - even going against the mainstream is turning into a ripoff. (We could of gone to a first-run film for a dollar more each and the popcorn is 11 bucks at the Aliance with drinks.)

So I sat there brooding to myself about how nothing ever seems to cut a working or non-working stiff a break these days. Maybe I am just lost in the past like every other 40 something on the planet - stuck in the eighties remembering when everyone still smoked in the rep-theatres and smuggled in booze. You could go there and hang out for two hours to get warm in the winter and shoot the shit with the other goons doing the same thing. Well the vibe is gone - at least for me. As one ages things seem to just keep watering down into pure boredom. It's the same old same old over and over - Make way for the new generation so that they can spend their 20 bucks without conscience and get their spot to experience everything you don't get off on any more.

Oh now don't jade yourself Derek Keep positive - why are you always such a downer - nothing ever gets you excited anymore ... Well lots of things do still get me up but they are just different ones like fluffing my pillow and deciding which one of my 500 novels I will read, or going to the Tulip and having a slice of coconut cream pie and tea. Yes these are the senior years - it looks like soon I will be put out to pasture. I am just too much of a pessimist to be able to socialize anymore.

Well no - I just don't like getting hosed every time I try to have a good time - eight dollars for a special coffee? Go fuck yourself next time I'll bring a flask and use my own brandy. Moan, whine, complain, it's all a waste of oxygen.

Just shut up and be happy your not in some hospital bed with your face rotting away.

Go Ahead And Jump (the not so happy post)

There is something in a Sunday that makes the body feel alone, but today isn't Sunday and I don't feel alone. If I feel anything its crowded. I am standing at the edge of the subway platform at Main Station looking at the black rails and carbon covered garbage. I'm wondering what I'm doing and where I'm going. I'm wondering what the point is, but I don't really know which specific point. So I try to shrug it all off and get lost in my surroundings - right - stay creative, stay distracted, stay focused on something else besides the here and now. Live outside yourself and hope you find what it is you are or, the meaning of "you".

O-Oh, here I go again. It's starting. The open drop and still air of the station seems to help me loose my feeble grip on reality and I start to wonder what it would be like. To - you know - do it. I think that maybe I know what goes through people's heads just before they jump. Maybe it is the same stuff that is in my head. Maybe I am just one instance away from it just like they were; just before they jumped and turned themselves into a knotted rag of flesh and bone. To turn into garbage. To turn everything into nothing in an instant.

The air is always so warm and thick in here with echoes of sour milk. Fuck If I could just puke. The day seemed to be starting out ok - but now all of this. Was it something I ate? Did my over-priced bacon and eggs cause all of this? I wish I could spit them up all over the mosaic tile. Shoot vomit to try and balance out my equilibrium. No I don't want to kill myself and I am sure everyone thinks about it - wonders about it - toys with the sinister thought of it. Let's face it we all have the power. My problem is the aspect of want. No I don't want to kill myself. Why does everyone always want something. I have never met anyone that didn't want. Whether it be love, money, sex, Pepsi, God, or baseball cards. There is no person on this planet that is without want - don't lie to yourself.

The eggs churn in my gut and bile swells up my throat into a bitter acrid palate. I know all of this stuff already. These moments will pass. Just ride the wave. Everything will be alright in the morning. The difference between coping and plummeting into despair is thinking too much. Stop thinking, buy a pack of gum, get a magazine, hurry you need a distraction, you want a distraction. You want. You want. You want.

There must be something to fix this. I must need something. Yes that's it I need to find out what's missing. I need to find out what it is, and then get it.

This is an outfit for sale in a retail store on Spadina Avenue in Toronto (Chinatown). I imagine it would fit a three or four year old male child. I wonder what would possess someone to dress their child in such fine textiles, and furthermore what would motivate a retailer to display it in their window if there was no demand for such an outfit? It looks to me like some sort of concierge or baker outfit - I don't know any pre-school door men do you?

When I'm not dreaming about the demon feral felines from hell I see this image in my unconscious. This child stands at the foot of my bed and is biting my ankles. He takes chunks out, my flesh not unlike an apple's. There is a little drop of blood on his tiny lapel and he smiles as I watch him. He bites off large chunks that free easily. There is no pain. He looks exactly like the photograph. A little man made of clay or flexible plaster. Why does life have to be so creepy all the time?

The Demon Feral Felines From Hell...

It was late and I came out of the bathroom after taking one of the best dumps in my life. One of those after shower all-relaxed ones with a lot of volume. It was then that I saw that The Demon Feral Felines From Hell had overtaken my apartment.

There were too many to count and they all looked exactly the same - like some kind of resident evil throwback to the mid nineties. Zombie cats in my house is almost as traumatic as finding out Debby Travis has shown up and painted your favourite room green. Well actually maybe they are a little worse because they want to eat your face off. There were so many climbing, growling, clawing and The Demon Feral Felines From Hell paced around me in circles and grew in quantity. They were spilling through the windows like pails of orange rags, their four twigged paws thundering on the hardwood. Some hacked and spit up what I thought at first to be furballs but they were live black hairy spiders. The cats lurched and gagged and the spiders dropped out like spitballs and scurried under furniture.

I pissed. I just stood there and pissed. They wanted to eat my face and there were so many of them that the apartment seemed to be warming up. They moved in a wave of glowing eyes and Halloween fur. Each of them looked as if it had been licked by a cow. Their mouths rotted and billowing the stench of death. Their staggering feline ballet. I tried to back away from them but they began to pounce. One perched on my shoulder and held itself there with its talons as it yanked and jerked at my ear. They raked my scalp and pushed their noses into my eye sockets. Sandpaper tongues opening my skin. Cold velvet noses searched for hot blood as I strangled and snapped the necks of as many as I could. The Demon Feral Felines From Hell were getting the best of me and my hands swept to and fro colliding with their quantity in vain. I was sure to die by the claws paws and jaws of The Demon Feral Felines From Hell .

But then I heard a light switch and the scene changed. My wife stood looking at me confused and drawn to all of the racket that I had generated. At her feet were the two of them. The two felines that I knew to be safe. The ones that I slept against and trusted to leave my eyelids in place. The six eyes looked at me in unison and question as I cleared the sand from my own in an attempt to awake quickly. And in an instant I was sure that I saw the glint of hell within the eyes of my own felines and wondered to myself if they too were The Demon Feral Felines From Hell .

Now all of you can post comments without the hassle of having to register so go ahead and comment away - if the spam gets to be too much I am going to change it back so get all you have to say in now.

Introducing - Vikky - our blog mascot.

I am in love with Vikky and that is why I made her the mascot. I don't want any shit about it. From now on without her there is no Blog and what she says goes. Just so you know I am going to let her run the show from now on. I rescued her from some egg and had to put her legs and arms on. It was the polkadot bikini and her little belly that really made me love her more than oxygen and I don't care if you think I am acting like I am 15. This is my shit and you are just here to take a look.













See how cute she is? She tells me secrets and little dirty things that make me blush. Oh I am so ditry! Vikky giggles a lot and eats pink ice pops while she suntans on my router. I keep asking her to take off her top but she says she can't because it is stuck on.
Keep your eyes peeled because Vikky will show up now and again, but only on her terms.

The soap is in the orange jug.

Alright wait a minute I have to open my flask. Good thing brandy goes with coffee.
It's early today - or it seems early here in Toronto. I think in one of my dreams last night someone was hitting me with a baseball bat because I feel sore all over. It must be the weather or something. Maybe after being unemployed for a certain time Mondays even begin to suck when you don't have to go to work? No, no. Don't start. Stay positive. Keep things going like you planned, have another swig of brandy and push on. Oh yeah and by the way that isn't my urine in the toilet. I always flush my garbage, and wash my hands.

So a few things this morning to talk about. The first one is Found Magazine - http://www.foundmagazine.com/ This is a very interesting magazine and I keep wondering if it is all legitimate. They have five printed issues available and a comprehensive website.
I am sure you figured out the premise - collections of found objects and notes to help define our humanity. As one moves through some of the collections you can't help but feel like you are infringing on someone's most intimate secrets. Its a magazine posing as a reality TV show. Have a look at it if you haven't already.
















I took this photo at Pacific Mall - an all Chinese Shopping mall in North Toronto. It seemed the most interesting thing in this washroom, besides all of the gum in the urinals. The washroom was dirty and it smelled like dirty sex organs and shit. There was no paper towel and each urinal had a puddle of urine overspray underneath it so if you were going to take a wiz you had to spread your legs and piss in a stance that made you look like you had grapefruits for testicles. Either that or get piss on your shoes.

Change means shit happens differently.

So I took a few days off, so what. I needed to stop thinking for a while, and besides I had to peddle my white wax coated ass on the street to cover my mortgage this month.

Now all of you can post comments without the hassle of having to register so go ahead and comment away - if the spam gets to be too much I am going to change it back so get all you have to say in now.

I like the dots don't you they make me feel more contemporary, more leading edge.

For the next few posts I am going to be showing you some of my favourite places to shit. I felt the need to share this with the world because I know everyone always chooses there depository destinations with intense thought. And as an aside those of you that will only shit at home well, get some fucking backbone. Grow up and start shitting like a real human being, not like your trapped in the back of your daddies station wagon holding that railroad spike in until you get home - we all know who you are - you are the ones that can't sit still for two seconds.

Yes the first post out of the turnpike and I am talking about defecation - it seems like it is going to be that kind of year. Oh and as a reminder, all of those people that fucked me last year can eat my shit! - and those that didn't well, please ignore the last comment.

So tomorrow is Monday and I have quite a few resolutions set up. You see unlike most people I give myself a week off after January 1 - then I hit the self-deprecating critical phase that brings disappointment and loathing. It seems this year I have a new image of myself. One that entails a pretty severe transformation including the removal of my left thumb. Oh and as a reminder, all of those people that fucked me last year can eat my shit! - and those that didn't well, please ignore the last comment. I bought myself a flask today and filled it with Stock 84 brandy. The flask has a picture of Jesus on it and it says "What wouldn't Jesus do?" Ah shit I know, sorry, I always seem to be on about Jesus and the Virgin Mary - but the flask really does have that on it. So you see I figure each morning or whenever I sit down to write this blog that I bring along my Jesus flask and get a little lubricated. I'll see how it goes. My wife says that she doesn't want live with a drunk so I have to watch it. But I figure I'm safe because it's only a six ounce flask, and I am sure that each time I see Jesus on it's going make me feel guilty.

Most writers are drunks so I figured I would try it out for a few weeks and see what happens. It's an interesting twist on the whole New Years thing don't you think? Kind of like a Leaving Las Vegas type mantra? Oh and as a reminder, all of those people that fucked me last year can eat my shit! - and those that didn't well, please ignore the last comment.