Proud to be a Canadian

Well not yet, but maybe soon.

Yes that's right. After the Republican convention the unthinkable has happened. John "Old Man River" McCain is ahead in the polls.

I don't understand this country. Over the last eight years, we've undertaken a fruitless, pointless 7-plus year war in which thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed. The economy has taken a big shit and the jobless rate is at an all-time high – some economists call these the worst financial times since World War II. The rest of the world, including old, trusted allies, now hates us. The environment is deteriorating at a frightening rate and we – the world's biggest polluter – have done nothing at all to stop it. All this under the watch of the Republican party and its evangelical idiocracy.

Yet here we are. We've finally made it to the finish line, after all this suffering. Finally we have the long-awaited a chance at salvation, at improving our lives. And half the boneheads in this country are poised to vote the same inept bumblefucks right back into office and head right back into the same old shit storm.

It's almost hard to believe, but then I remember, this is America. Here it is your moral obligation to be ignorant about the world you live in and scoff at science. Here political decisions that affect our collective future are decided by snarky soundbites.

In any other kind of politically oriented country, I'd believe that I should stay and fight for the well being of my homeland. But this is a democracy, where the leaders are only as good as the electorate. And it says a lot about this place that after enduring what we have over the last decade, more than half the population is genuinely stupid enough to even consider voting Republican again.

I know the reasons, but let me preface by saying that if anyone is not voting for Obama because he's "inexperienced" or a Muslim, congratulations, you are a licensed moron, working hard every day to discredit Darwin's survival of the fittest theory.

There are a lot of evangelicals in this country, which is probably a big reason for McCain/Mooseburger's new lead, seeing as that Mooseburger is a big fat evangelical. Well, listen, evangelicals. You have your churches and your pastors. That is where religion belongs. When considering who should be president, you should think about policies that are good for the people of this country and good for its international standing. You should not think about deeply personal beliefs that involve sexuality and reproductive issues. Those are your choices to make, and not choices for your president to make for others. Unless you want this country to turn into a pastier, heavy-set version of Saudi Arabia or Iran under the Ayatollah, or even England under "Bloody Mary" Tudor, you better start thinking about why the founders of this country wanted to keep church and state separate. Your pastor should not be your president and vice versa. If you don't like it, there's this inconvenient fact of life here called the Constitution, so go suck on Ben Franklin's sweaty socks.

I know a lot of you evangelicals let other people (ie. James Dobson) tell you who to vote for. So basically James Muthafuckin Dobson gets to vote like 75 million times. First of all, that's not fair. Second, aren't you ashamed of yourselves? You're like a bunch of obedient dogs, doing tricks when told and slobbering for praise and treats (no offense to dogs). And it's not like you're even being obedient to God, the one you should REALLY be concerned about. Instead you're obedient to some megalomaniac dickhead who pretends like he's God and manipulates your trusting little minds to do his bidding and benefit his fat white rich pals. What if James Dobson is leading your precious souls astray? Grow up already and start thinking on your own. If you believe in God, then you should start wondering whether you're insulting Her by not using the intellectual resources you were given. James Dobson is just a dude like you and your neighbor Al. Religion is man-made. God is not religion. Chew on that while you browse the shelves at Wal-Mart.

Then there are the women voters who were borderline lesbian for Hillary. Some of you people were so obsessed with having a woman as president that when Obama beat her by a hair in the primaries, you got all sulky and vindictive, like a bunch of bratty 12 year olds. Now some of you either don't know who to vote for, or whether to vote at all. Some of you are so spoiled and mindless that you are actually being wooed by McCain's choice of Miss Personality Disorder. Now listen, beeyatches. Listen to me good.

Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton. Clinton graduated from Yale Law School and went on to become a successful trial lawyer. She has two decades-worth of national policy experience. As First Lady she attempted to pass a major, pioneering health care initiative, along with other legislation oriented toward health care and women's and children's welfare. Then she served almost a decade as a state senator for one of the nation's most populous, diverse and important states –New York. Oh yeah, and she also happened to become THE first woman ever seriously considered as a presidential candidate.

Hillary is a proponent of policies that advance women's rights and independence – as is Obama. But Sarah "I-don't-believe-in-sex-education-and-oh-look-my-teenager-is-pregnant" Palin, on the other hand, would set women back to the Stone Age if she had her way. Let us count the ways.

-She's anti-choice and favors overturning Roe v. Wade. Just because her family made the right decision, that doesn't mean the government should trust yours to do the same!
-She opposes birth control. That bitch.
-She is running with a candidate who REFUSED TO SIGN INTO LAW the Fair Pay Act, which aimed to protect women from pay discrimination. I guess she wouldn't mind taking a pay cut for being the first VP with ovaries.
-She's into "abstinence only" education. Yeah lady, it works really well. Ask your kid.
-She believes "creationism" should be taught in schools, because the government needs to make sure your children properly learn the teachings of the state religion. Oops, we're not supposed to have one of those!
-She's against gun control. Your kid's safety aside people, it's moose season.
-She doesn't believe global warming is being caused by humans. Your kid's future might be at stake, but what the hell, let's take a gamble and say the science is wrong. That way we can ignore it. Weee! Global warming is SUCH a party pooper.

So let me say this again. If you are a female, voting for Palin is NOT like voting for Hillary. Voting for OBAMA is like voting for Hilary. Does that make sense? I know it's complicated. Put simply:

Hillary = Obama.
Palin = Taliban.

Palin went to about five different universities before graduating with some bullshit liberal arts degree from the University of Idaho. She worked as a sports reporter and beauty queen, then mayor of a city that only had 1,000 more residents than my high school had students. She's been the governor of Alaska for all of 20 months. As vice presidential candidate she's managed to dupe some particularly dumb Americans – about half – into believing that

A) After attending plenty of Girl Scout ceremonies and prayer breakfasts as mayor of her town of 6,000 and serving less than 2 years as governor of a state that has fewer people than the City of Los Angeles, she is ready to lead what is currently the most powerful and influential nation in the world with a population of more than 300 million.
B) She told Congress "no thanks" on the notorious Bridge to Nowhere, when in fact she was all for it, until it started getting bad press.
C) There is such a thing as a "hockey mom" and there are people that give a shit

Palin is typical dumbass who happens to be a fascist dumbass who could very well become President Fascist Dumbass (sound familiar?). But she has that one quality every American seems to seek in their president these days. "SHE'S JUST LIKE ME." If it doesn't scare you shitless that the average American is going out looking to vote for people just like them, you haven't been outside. And if you really love this country and are proud of its place in the world and would like to see that continue, this thought should reduce you to tears. Now, I am also a lazy, ill-educated, over-worked, intellectually slack American, but I still believe that the president of this country should be nothing at all like me. I want someone who has gone to the best schools and achieved the best grades, and has clambered to the top of the political food chain through force of sheer determination, intelligence, drive and savviness. I want an elite, goddamnit. I don't want to hang out with them. I want them to do a good job in Washington so I can live my life the way I want and not have to worry about some fucking mediocre moron who is JUST LIKE ME screwing up in office and screwing up my life as a result.

Palin is a dishonest, ill-educated, unqualified ignoramus who was tapped because of what she is lacking, so that Americans can confuse fantacizing about barbequeing with their Vice President in their back yards while sharing stories about their pregnant kids with thinking about leadership qualities and important issues. But don't assume poor old McCain is going to live out his term, if he wins.. He's old, and he seems to get older by the minute. So if you're ok with voting for someone who could very well croak and leave in charge a woman no more qualified to lead the nation than your idiot HOA president, I hope you get lost on your way to the voting booth.

Arrowhead bottles stupidity

There it is, hour glass-shaped, shaped like a well-fed woman. It’s the all-new, environmentally amorous Arrowhead drinking bottle. That’s right everyone. There may be a giant fucking island of plastic refuse floating in the North Pacific gyre just off the Hawaiian coast, but if you buy this bottle shaped like a 1940s pin-up girl, you are a squeaky-clean member of Mother Nature’s own personal escort service. If the TV ads aren’t lying (and I believe everything I see on TV), drinking out of one of these will cause a piece of foliage to grow out of the top of my skull.

I’m not going to preach to you people. If you weren’t semi-intelligent you wouldn’t be on my goddamn friend’s list. So allow me to rant slightly about the formidable wall of stupidity that descended upon this country the moment a water company began selling plastic bottles as though they were the answer from heaven on high to everything from global hunger and climate change to male pattern baldness and peanut allergies.

Plastic is a big environmental problem. It is a problem whether it comes in the form of a shopping bag, a cell phone, food packaging or a voluptuously-shaped water bottle. Just ask the sea birdies that die of starvation because they mistook the stuff petroleum shat out for food, or the turtle caught in the ringlets left by Joe Six Pack’s six pack. Or ask the scientists who say molecules from plastic are entering the food chain and wreaking havoc on health.

Drinking filtered water trucked into your local Ralph’s from God-knows-where out of some stupid bottle with a waist made from all kinds of poisonous chemical processes producing all sorts of pollutants is not going to make you Mother Nature’s bitch. For this exact reason, anyone I see drinking out of one of these Arrowhead bottles is an automatic douche. Period. Because if you’re going to fuck up the environment with your wasteful consumer ways, at least do it right, like I do. Be a man and buy a real damn water bottle, you sorry bitches!

Or get a frigging Sigg bottle. If you’re going to go out and buy crap from those shitty Arrowhead douche bag corporate assholes, save your hard earned pennies and buy a non-plastic, reusable Swiss creation or any other stainless steel drinking bottle. You can find them here:
http://www.mysigg.com/
or at Whole Foods.
I got sick of being a wasteful dumbass hypocrite, so I dropped $24 on a 1 liter stainless steel bottle. Not bad.

Don't be a dimwit, greenie

Recently I've been reading about the new "green" trend. That's the hot thing now. Everyone is going green. Woopty doo.

About five years ago, everyone was lining up for gas-guzzling, environment-destroying, polar bear-killing SUVs. These are probably the same dimwits who are now running around buying organic hemp ass mats for the leather seats in their Escalades.

I guess I should be happy about this. In a way, I am. But there's still a problem, and the problem is this: consumerism. Protecting the ecosystem has become a commodity. A free-wheeling capitalist economy that is driving the environment toward collapse is now hawking green this and green that. And that is what we call a paradox, friends. Orwell would smile.

The ever-greedy and money hungry have changed us from human beings, organisms that walk the same earth as bears and snails, into consumers. We are relentlessly marketed to. No matter what is going on in the world, the message comes at us from every angle: buy, buy, buy! We believe the world will only turn as long as we can purchase new things, and that whatever we have is not enough. It never will be enough. There will always be something else we need. Trends change, technology changes, and through many media we are told we better keep up.

That mindset is what got us where we are now. You can go way back to any point in history and see how the need to acquire more than what we have has driven men and women to kill each other, to destroy any and all manner of living creatures. But in centuries past, it was on a different scale. Kings and queens, emperors and empresses have invaded, pillaged, burned and conquered since the dawn of history.

But now, the mad pace of American-style, free-for-all capitalismo has turned each individual into a unit of purchasing power. And it is the rate and volume of our consumption and corresponding waste that is pushing the limits of the planet's resources. Our unwillingness to step back and look at our lifestyles, to make small changes and demand common-sense and moderation from ourselves, our leaders and corporations may be our undoing yet.

And that is where the paradox lies in the so-called green trend. Going "green" does not, should not mean a new way of getting people to buy more shit. You are not going green by going out and purchasing a flurry of needless knick knacks, even if they were made organically. Guess what people, those organic hemp ear warmers made in the ever-dwindling rain forest had to get here somehow....by PLANE, BOAT or TRUCK, all of which are known to cause global warming.

Americans (or American leaders at least) tend to believe in the market's ability to solve problems as though it were another god. The market relies on people to start making certain types of choices to create a trend. But we can't rely on people, who are simply following a trend while continuing their destructive habits, to initiate the dramatic changes needed to bring about true sustainable living. Right now, the mindset is, use, throw away, forget. That needs to change. And we need the help of our government for that.

What we need to do if we are truly interested in going green is start demanding that our so-called elected leaders, hitherto useless in this matter, start implementing infrastructures to help us live more sustainably. Because let's face it. The biggest hoax of the green trend is making us think WE, the everyday citizen, hold the key to saving the world by buying a bunch of "green" shit. That's a big fucking cop-out on the part of the most influential people, ie. lawmakers and super-rich corporate head douche bags.

What we need is for GOVERNMENTS to initiate the meaningful changes. We need regulations and ordinances requiring available, convenient recycling. We need public transportation and to transition off fossil fuels. We need regulations forcing companies to use recyclable or biodegradable ingredients in their products, instead of all this plastic that will be washing around in the ocean for eons. We need bans on pesticides. We need our government to grow a pair, step up and lead. We need them to stop being the whining corporate whores they are now, pandering to their fat corporate johns.

Leaders have been waiting for the market system to come around to start making the changes we need because they are a bunch of fucks who are scared to do anything for the populace, for fear of being red-bated. Big government is communism, it's bad, right? People know how best to spend their own money, right?

Wrong. People are generally dull and easily manipulated. Just look at the drooling dullard we blithely voted into office the last two elections. Yeah, we know what we're doing. Look, we need the government's help. We need them to make the big changes.. Ultimately, most people know it's right to care about the environment. But individuals can't build infrastructure and make laws, and that is what's needed.

We can do our part by recycling, turning lights out when we leave a room, buying locally-grown foods and spending of fair-trade products instead of slave-grown coffee. But the best thing to do is start writing letters to our leaders, and I'm not talking about polite letters either. I'm talking about letting them know they're a bunch of irresponsible, dawdling suck asses who've up till now been playing with themselves and inventing bathroom sex games while the Earth melts, so they better start doing something about the environment, like yesterday.

Do it. Do it now.

shut your pie hole fatty

To my fellow countrymen and women,

Oh my God, you are fat. How do I know?

Everywhere I look, there's something about weight loss. Weight loss this and weight loss that. Ads, articles and commercials abound, touting a legion of new dieting techniques and gruesome, invasive cosmetic procedures.



Recently, I ran into an article about how people are turning to prayer to help them lose weight.

Now lookee here. God has more important things to worry about, like people who are praying because they're STARVING. I can't imagine the Almighty bothering with a bunch of over-indulgent, whining Americans who can't say "no" to super-sizing it.

I'm guessing this is how the "prayer dieting" technique would go at a fast food joint.

Cashier: "Sir, would you like fries with that?"
Fatass: "Oh, dear Lord, give me the strength to say NO to the Satan fries! I REBUKE THEE, FRIES OF HELLFIRE!!!!!"
Cashier: "Sir? Yes or no?"
Fatass: (sweating profusely) "Oh help me, help me Lord!! The golden sin nuggets are calling to me!"
Cashier: "Sir?"
Fatass: (panting) "Y-Y-Y-YESSSSSSS!!!!! I mean, NO, I mean...can't...say....no....can't.........YESSSSSSSSS!!!!!"

Gee, that didn't work.

Here's a better idea. Instead of sitting on your double-wide duffs and asking God to do all the work for you, why don't you take that dripping tenderloin from your gaping jaws, find a hungry person, and give it to them instead? Then, God might see you're finally taking some initiative and help you out by sending a loose dog to chase you around the block a couple times.

I know the only true and proven secret to weight loss, and for $39.95, I'll tell you, cause I know if anything, Americans love to fatten themselves and then do all kinds of expensive, half-wit things to unfatten themselves. Actually, make that $399.95.

There is ONE WAY and one way alone. It's goes like this. Shut your jiggling trap and stop inhaling food like a cosmic black hole. Put that 1/3 pound of carnal McDonald's horror down and get an apple. Or better yet, why don't you skip eating altogether for a couple hours. Yeah, how's that for a revolutionary new diet idea, fatty! STOP EATING!! Blasphemy, you say?

Well who ever told you people that everyone is entitled to exactly three full meals a day, plus snacks in between? There are people all over the place who feel lucky when they get one good meal a day, if that. And have you holier-than-thou lard asses who've been dutifully praying for the courage to say "no" to cheese Doritos and ranch dip ever stopped to think that maybe it's WRONG that while at any given time, you have access enough food to feed a family of orcas for 6 months, people all over the world are dying of starvation? Think about that. Thinking burns calories.

And by the way, the world is watching. Oh yes, here we call it an "obesity epidemic," as though hugeness is something you catch like so much chicken pox. The rest of the world, meanwhile, sees it from a different perspective. Here are a couple of examples that will make us all proud to be 'Murkan.


Oh shit, you mean they don't come to see the Hollywood sign anymore?


WARNING: Extremely gross. Don't watch this while eating or before bed.

easy quiz

"Oh, right there George, a little to the left...yeahhh, right there!"

Here's a quiz. The picture above depicts

a) a couple of dipshits in expensive suits with a combined IQ of 37,

b) Laurel and Hardy in the episode where they clownishly and unsuccesfully try to form a fascist regime and take over the world,

c) two former frat brothers who never grew up and never stopped being a couple of juvenille assholes, or

d) all of the above.

The answer is d, people. D for dumbasses.

nature show

Now here's the thing. I'm a little tipsy and I had a rough day at work, so don't expect anything below to make any sense at all.

Alright bitches. Listen up. Lemme tell you ungrateful leeches a story from two summers ago, when I was taking violin lessons. My violin teacher and his students (yes, including me) all went for a two-week long music intensive at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.

Now let me tell you sissy-ass Southern California city kids something about Alaska. It's a fucking frontier. You think the laws of the city apply, where you can just do your thing and not die in a gruesome wildlife attack? Wrong. You can be walking down the street, minding your own business and BAM, get eaten by a bear. Yeah, just like that! BAM!! You're an afternoon snack, you soft-serve American cream pie!

And one more thing, in Alaska, the bears don't look like normal bears. This is a normal bear compared to an Alaskan black bear:




And here is the Alaskan black bear.


Yeah. Who would you rather to tangle with in a dark alley?

I remember the day I realized I was not the one-with-nature earth mother I'd once fancied myself to be. That day, my violin teacher, Mr. Ferril, decided to pile us all in a Dodge Caravan for a walk in Denali National Forrest. Fresh air! Exercise! Pristine nature, unmolested! We're lolly-gagging along a trail and we see a caribou off in the distance. Ahhh! A deer! How lovely, you say. Oh, rapture!!

Well, a caribou is a deer on steroids, kids. Imagine a Ford F350 with horns. There, you've just pictured a caribou. So there's this big caribou ahead of us, standing there in the road. Then he decides, "well, shit, they ain't made of much" and lowers his horns. We turn around. "Walk away, be calm," Mr. Ferril tells us. The 10 of us, all a bunch of foppish San Fernando Valley musicians whose experience of the great outdoors consists of outdoor malls and the Venice Beach drag, try to control our terror and walk.

The caribou starts to trot toward us with his horns lowered. Then there are two of them trotting toward us. It was all over. No more self-control, no more restraint. It was an all out wuss-fest. "Just be calm and walk!" Mr. Ferril was saying. We were running, gasping, cursing. Well, more like waddling, fluttering and whimpering. We resembled a bunch of frightened toddlers with wet diapers, running for mommy.

At this point, the caribou were starting to think it was all too easy.

"Dude, what the fuck is their problem, we're not even carnivores!"

They go up on a hillside over our heads, out of our sight. At any moment, these mad wildebeests of doom could come crashing down on us. A couple of the guys are almost in tears. Me and my room mate, Michelle, are holding clammy hands and waiting to meet our deaths in a flurry of fur and hooves. My teacher is praying fervently. Then out of no where, comes a bus. A bus, no doubt, from heaven on high. We flag it down.

The driver stops and drawls, "Sorry y'all, I don't have enough seats." Without heeding a word, we clamber aboard. Breathlessly, we try to explain to her that we had almost lost our lives to a couple of caribou with Mad Cow. We find seats and then comes the deluge of Southern accents. The bus, it seemed, happened to be carrying a large group of much hardier people, albeit with fewer teeth.

"Caribou?? Whaah? Well, it's jest ruttin season, they ain't gon hurt ye."
"Now when that happens, all ye have to dew is, grab 'im by 'ees antlers, an wrastle 'im to the ground."
"Stupid know-nothin city folks."

Now look, rednecks. What you said was fine and good, but where were you when we needed you, you useless twig chompers?

kiss my ass Starbucks

This is a rant. I accept no responsibility for the content of this rant because I have been pushed to the edge of my sanity. That's right, I'm crazy. And because I'm crazay I can't help what I say. So if you get offended by any of this you may queue up behind Starbucks and be next in line to kiss my ass.

Starbucks' coffee sucks. They try to cover up the fact that it tastes like roasted hell dirt by mixing it with all kinds of things like whip cream, 16 cups of sugar, caramel, fudge powder, soy, zucchini, Play-Do, whatever. But the fact is, under the layers of whipped fudgey, caramelly soy protein-y nonsense, the coffee aspect of Starbucks Coffee tastes like asphalt mixed with spilled motor oil and acid rain.

As if that weren't bad enough, the company is obnoxious. Their contrived atmosphere and image essentially tries to be artsy hippy/bohemian cafe cool but is really wanna-be pretentious yuppy hollowness. They try to promote an image of being socially conscious, but they rape the Earth, exploit the poor and destroy grassroots culture as much as any other massive corporate bloodclot in the brain.

And what the hell is wrong with the words Small, Medium and Large? Why do they have to have their own symbolic, secret Starbucks parlance? Why is a small-sized drink called Tall? I'm sorry losers, but small and tall don't really have much to do with each other. And why does this Seattle-based company need to use the Italian word for "20" to denote their large size? I know the cup sizes are probably some lame little corporate tactic to make you feel "out of the loop" if you don't know Starbucks super-secret, uber-chic code words. But the fact is, the sizes sound like they were invented by some dipshit. Every time you order a vente this or a tall that (I don't even know what the word for Medium is), you are worshipping at the altar of Dipshit Corporate Americanism. Besides, if you ask the cashier for a "small coffee," they usually get the point. Here's an example of a recent conversation:

Me. Can I have a small coffee please?
Starbucks Drone: You mean a tall coffee?
Me: Yes that's right, you dumbass, a small coffee.

Plus, their business tactics rival Wal-Mart's in soulless sliminess (except that at least Wal-Mart offers low prices for poor quality). Any time Starbucks sniffs competition, the monsterous beheamouth chain throws its fat around and stifles it. They open a store or two a block away, draining much-needed business from independent shops and smaller chains. One example is Deidrich's coffee, a small chain in the OC that actually knew how to brew coffee and roast beans. They closed because they couldn't survive the Starbucks plague. So now, if I want a cup of coffee, I get to choose between Starbucks and, oh damn, Starbucks. That's pretty fucked up.

Who ever told these corporate shit heads that I wanted to see their stupid stores on every corner? Why don't I get a say? I'm not saying Starbucks doesn't have a right to exist. There are people out there that like it and they should have the right to buy it. Fine with me. I'm not saying that when I'm slouched over my desk at work with my tongue lolling out, I won't go to the Starbucks around the corner. But I don't understand why they have to swallow up every other coffee brand and put smaller shops out of business. If they want to have a couple of stores in my neighborhood, I'm not going to complain. But when they start smothering all the competition, that's when I start getting a little crazy. That's when I start boycotting. Because I am tired of these big, ugly, lame corporations taking everything away from me that I like.

Let's face it. We only have a democracy for the super-rich in this country and around the world. As long as enough people buy enough Starbucks to keep them fat and healthy, they get to do whatever they want, and unfortunately, whatever they want means being a bunch of fascist assholes. And the more competition they eliminate, the less accountability they will have. They can sell pool water for $7 a cup and there will be no one around to threaten them with a better product.

Hey, corporate dumb-bots, enough is enough already.