 |
|
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Why I Couldn’t Sleep Last Night:I came to the sudden realization that my boyhood consisted mostly of idolizing grown men with such superhero fashion convictions as wearing their underwear over their pants. Saturday, April 19, 2003
I stumbled across this site. I hate political humour for the most part. But this is an exception.
Thursday, April 17, 2003
All I have to say is I love mainstream music in all its half-witted lyrics and cotton-candy fluff. It is seriously an art.Songs nowadays may seem stupid, but it’s really not. Of course, if you break down the lyrics and separate the words from its bathetic melody and formulaic chords, it may seem even more stupid – but, again, it only seems like a bunch of stupid words strung along by a crackhead. Some of you may remember a hit R&B song, by Tyrese, called “Sweet Lady”, (thanks to Amos for his database-like recalling of artist and title). In one verse, it says: “Late night phone calls, on the telephone.” It seems redundant but only if one follows the very cynical line of thinking that the lyricist is an idiot. However, if you keep an open mind, you may see that it is simply genius to stipulate that it wasn’t simply a phone call, but, specifically one that’s peculiar to a telephone. It matters not that ‘phone’ is already the short form for ‘telephone’. It’s imperative the lyricist bang home that idea. You know, so that you don’t confuse the word ‘phone’ with a car muffler or something. As contemporary pop music would have it, true poets should leave nothing to the subtle nuance. Take the Backstreet Boys for instance. “Tell me why, I never wanna hear you say, I want it that way. Cause you are my, fire, The one, desire, Believe, when I say, I want it that way.” There is no way we can parse together any logical line of thinking in these words, not to mention a complete sentence. But who cares? Making sense has never been a high calling in art. Voltaire, a supposed great thinker, a false prophet, jaded by epochs of thinking, since this was in fact written in the 16th century, wrote: Anything too stupid to be said is sung. This was reiterated and reinforced by another French thinker, Pierre Beaumarchais, another century later with: If a thing isn’t worth saying, you sing it. These pessimistic French really get to me. They’ve got it all wrong. What do they know, anyway, writing this five hundred years ago? I mean, what could they possibly know back then? They didn’t even have telephones then. In response, all we die-hard pop music lovers can say is, “I am a walrus! Coo-coo-ka-choo!” Related Thought of the Day: Pop is sugary soda. Pop also means popular. Pop is a sound that doesn't last long. Hm.. Related Redundancy of the Day: "[I'm] always timeless." - Jay Z Monday, April 14, 2003
This day, 91 years ago, Titanic struck the iceberg, and that fat guy made a terrific, tinny bong when he flew off the ship and hit one of the steamers. Great movie.In related news, on February 26, 1975, the world saw its first televised kidney transplant. Who said this site isn't educational? (Email of the Week: "To Adrian (a.k.a. 8W) My son spends hours reading your site. I find this entirely too much. As I cannot get him off the net, please write something that's beneficial to his learning, as I see that you have influence. B.M. from Massachusetts") Wednesday, April 09, 2003
Another Benefit Of A Perfect-Pitched Roommate:"BBBBbbbrap!" went a gaseous eruption from across the room. Unusually trumpet-like, I inquired, laughing, "Yo, what note was that?" Without a missed beat, Jon replies, "E-flat." (Note to Mom: I am garnering a multi-faceted education out here.) Sunday, April 06, 2003
I must have been, I don’t know, six. After seeing the umpteenth Maxi-Pad commercial, I wondered what was the problem.So I asked my mom what this ingenious and lovely concept people called tampons, or pads, was. I believe she hesitated for a moment, possibly considering and re-considering several approaches of explanation suitable for my six years, and concluded that they were a little bit like ‘diapers’. This made all the sense in the world to me, since I had seen my fair share of Pampers commercials and, much like Maxi-Pads, it featured a lady pouring test tubes of blue liquid onto the product. Six years of age isn’t the best time for fruitful thought, as I concluded that pee was blue for some people. I had heard gross elementary school limericks which stipulated that pee was also yellow – so that put me under the safe umbrella of the majority. I maintained in my mind, however, that some people peed blue, since, as we all know very well, television never lies. As the school year went by, I was consistently ridiculed for preaching the beautiful co-existence of these two types of people. After all, some people have blond hair, others have brown hair, and still others have red hair. This meant, to me at least, that some people pee yellow; others, blue. As opposition became more widespread, I insisted that we shouldn’t be ‘racist’. I urgently appealed to those who peed blue to back me up. I insisted that it was nothing to be ashamed of, that human beauty is rooted in diversity (okay, not that, but something to that effect). Yet nobody would stop laughing at me. The whole class decided to take the discussion to Mrs. Tebo, my first grade teacher. Mrs. Tebo, whom I remember to have had a very special affinity for writing out the alphabet, settled the matter. And she did so in a way that seemed to mock me with her special brand of man-chuckle. “Adrian’s just joking with you, you bunch of silly-willies. Anybody knows that’s not true! Adrian’s just having a little fun, right?” I should have reminded her that her job did not entail editorial comments – that, and the fact that she was our English teacher, and ‘silly-willy’, however endearing, would tremble for its life in front of a dictionary. Alas, I was not blessed with my wits that morning. I went home enraged, licking the wounds of my bruised ego. I believe it was my sister who broke it to me. If not, a thoughtful aunt. Or maybe it was my grandmother. For my memory’s sake, let’s say my sister, as she was slightly more acidic back in the day (a shock, I know, to any of you who know her now, a cuddly ray of daisy-loving sunshine). In short, she told me, at the age of six, everything I had never cared to know about the menstrual cycle, adding that I’m absolutely braindead to have thought that some people also peed blue. I remember referring to the Maxi-Pad commercial, “But it was blue! It was on television!” “That’s so people don’t think it’s gross!” was the retort. Ah, unheeded words of wisdom. Years passed and I never forgot about the incident. However, over dinner at a friend’s house, the subject somehow got brought up. I told them all my heart-felt story that led me to be infuriated at the outright lies in commercial syndication. “If your product protects against pee,” I reasoned, “it should be yellow. And if it’s a period, use.. (I was losing steam now) chunky tomato soup.” Several of my beloved friends slowly put down their eating utensils. I realized what a disservice I had just done to Spaghetti Night. Someone piped up, “No, I think it should still be blue.” Suddenly, I found myself in total agreement. Thursday, April 03, 2003
I don’t like pigeons. I’m scared of them. All of them. I admit it.Sure, when you look at a pigeon they seem harmless. But my fear of pigeons operates on the premise that a living creature, being approximately the size of your foot, would only strut up to you with such brash bravado if it knew something that you didn’t. In short, you simply must rethink the possibility that, in a struggle to the edge of death, you could take him out. His confidence is too much. Honestly. I’m also scared of swans. Swans are endowed with surprisingly long necks; somehow something so seemingly disproportionate is scary. A neck that can be so easily tied into several knots is scary. Basically, to me, something so easy to kill is scary. Anyway, so I’m walking to school today. Lately, the Montreal weather has been acting much like an evil hormonal imbalance and showered us with all the love and hate of bitter nights and beautiful mornings. On the warmest of these days, the pigeons are bolder than ever. Today, and this is a true story, on Sherbrooke, I was walking along and minding my own business. In front of me, I saw a lone pigeon, his friends flying in circles further down the street, walking straight towards me. I thought nothing of it, as I am gigantic compared to this ugly chicken-thing. In fact, if I was the size of someone else’s foot, I’d be terrified. So, pigeon? No big deal. What a strange sight, I thought to myself, as I slowed my pace. This pigeon was walking straight, and I mean, straight at me. As if I ate his friend at Kam Fung the other night. As if he had a bone to pick with me. As if he had his friend’s bone to pick out of my teeth. His peculiar, cocking head made me feel suddenly inferior. He was now but a foot away. Was this thing blind? We’re going to collide! I’m going to step on him. His vengeful friends are going to poop on me. Before I knew it, I had side-stepped and stood by as the pigeon Egyptian-danced His Royal Heiney passed me. I looked on as he proceeded to walk down the middle of the sidewalk in this same manner of self-importance like, well, an Eighth Wonder. As I walked on, I realized that I had just been upstaged by a pigeon. 
|