Blample Sog

The deci-hic!-der

2006-05-04T19:43:00.000-04:00

What ever happened to those rumours a few months ago about Dubya being back on the sauce?

Damn Swedes!

2006-02-22T20:21:00.000-05:00

The charger on my cell phone broke; a 2-millimetre square doodad on my expensive Swedish cell phone's charger snapped off this morning instead of removing itself smoothly from the phone. My phone was Lorena Bobbitt to the charger's John.

At first I was confused. My phone is European, Scandinavian even. Scandinavia = quality! The simple phrase "Imported from Sweden" evoke images of sturdy milk jugs, stalwart Viking vessels, and ABBA, the group that could do no wrong (except for the insipid "Thank you for the Music").

Dreams of pine trees, reindeer, and lithe, blonde, milk-fed, Swedish lads clouded my brain as I surveyed my Ikea bookshelves that collapsed in a heap after 3 years of service and are now held up by walls and wishful thinking; my Ikea kitchen table that got all permanently wobbly-kneed the first time I put my groceries down on it; my Ikea bed that collapsed after (during!) only one night that was only slightly more active than all other nights.

The realisation was slow in coming that I shouldn't be too surprised that my Sony Ericsson Z500A - that is, by the way, spectacularly user unfriendly - should snap into pieces. I mean, the Swedes and their quality, eh! Aren't they also responsible for Ace of Base? A pox on you, Sweden!

But instead of taking my anger and frustration out on an entire Scandinavian country - and perhaps its neighbours (I have my eye on you, Finland) - because of a few individuals - because it would be just nutty to blame an entire Scandinavian country and perhaps its neigbours for the actions of a few individuals, I decided to trek to the people who sold me the shoddy falling apart Sony Ericsson Z500A cameraphone that takes tiny, pointilist photos that look like a Georges Seurat on a bad day. I may as well have been speaking in Swedish to them, or perhaps Finnish.

Even though I am a "valued customer" who has never paid a bill late even in the roughest days of unemployment/no freelance with a piece of still-waranteed merchandise they sold me, Rogers were unwilling simply to replace the silly little charger and instead lead me on a "compromise" that has left me phoneless for eight weeks. Because of a 2mm square piece or plastic, my entire phone has to be shipped away. The wonders of modern technology and the corporate approach to client services (or "care", as they refer to it as if we were all in on the joke).

I should never have signed a contract with them. And my friends wonder why I'm afraid of commitment.

Israeli group announces anti-Semitic cartoons contest!

2006-02-14T16:48:00.000-05:00

Amitai Sandy (29), graphic artist and publisher of Dimona Comix Publishing, from Tel-Aviv, Israel, has followed the unfolding of the "Muhammad cartoon-gate" events in amazement, until finally he came up with the right answer to all this insanity - and so he announced today the launch of a new anti-Semitic cartoons contest - this time drawn by Jews themselves!

"We'll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published!" said Sandy "No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!"

It's the Woody Allen/Mel Brooks defense! No one can make fun of as as well as we can ourselves! I haven't been so happy to be Jewish since the first Pesakh (Passover) seder after my bar mitzvah where I got to drink the four glasses of wine with real wine instead of grape juice!

Only the strong can laugh at themselves, and with such chutzpah too!

Cream of ballot soup

2006-01-24T12:57:00.000-05:00

Since I'm a gay, lefty, Jewish Canadian, I suppose I'm obligated to mention yesterday's Canadian election. Here goes. This is my comment on the yesterday's Canadian election. I did not eat my ballot.

It had never occurred to me before that eating my ballot was a possible course of action once behind the voting piece of cardboard. According to Elections Canada's Frequently Asked Questions, a question voters frequently ask is, "Is someone allowed to eat a ballot?" I had no idea Canadian voters would think to ask this - and frequently even - although it does go a long way towards explaining why the Conservatives won. Many Canadians are kind of stupid.

The answer by the way is, "No. It is an act of fraud to eat your ballot." Phew! Good thing I didn't eat it then! I would have been in some trouble!

Normally I have to restrain myself from scribbling, "They're all fucking crooks who should be forced to watch their own campaign speeches over and over and over again!" Either that or I feel the urge to madly draw little happy faces in the circles where we're supposed to mark our "X". However, I believe that voting is a privilege and one not to be squandered, so even though every single politician in the world remind me of that guy from high school who tried very, very hard to be popular, was treasurer of the student council, but went alone to the graduation dance - even the female politicians - I still plug my nose, avert my eyes from what I'm about to do, and vote strategically so that the worst of the bunch can't get elected.

Until this election, that is. This time, I voted with my brain instead of with my fear. I voted for a candidate I didn't think had a hope in hell of winning and for a party I would like to see in official opposition one day. Official opposition standing is a wish I used to wish for the lefty NDPs until they formed a bizarre alliance with the Conservatives to force this election in a cynical power grab. Good thing it paid off for them, eh.

In any case, I don't agree with everything on the Green's platform, but I do agree with most of it. Besides the perfect Blample Sog party - which would make it illegal not to offer me publishing contracts, by the way - does not exist. If I hadn't voted this party, I would have been sorely tempted to eat my ballot. By voting and not voting strategically, I voted for an idealistic party not corrupted by political cynicism (bye-bye NDP!), I didn't have to go home and wash off the slime immediately after voting, and I wasn't arrested after committing an apparent act of fraud.

The Liberals have been chastised, Paul Martin has stepped down as Liberal leader, and the Conservatives have a much smaller minority than expected (translation for those American lefties who pronounce doom and gloom without having the slightest inkling how Canadian politics work: they won the most seats in our House of Commons but they don't have to most seats overall meaning that they are powerless to get anything done without the help of the other parties, which isn't too likely. Therefore, fix your own gutless Democrats and then we'll chat about the downfall of the North American left). They may try to take away same-sex marriage rights, for example, and they may actually be able to shove it through the House, but it'll never get through the Senate and the courts will knock it down. They won't be able to get anything done without the other parties and the Government will fall the second one of the crazies brings up Intelligent Design. I give them twelve months max.

So it may be the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine. I'm quite happy about it all, in fact. But I can't help wondering if ballot goes better with white wine or with red?

There are other movies I'd rather see

2006-01-21T20:48:00.000-05:00

"You haven't seen 'Brokeback Mountain'?" It's the same reaction of shock and lightly simmered outrage I get when I tell people that I - a real live, fully-out-of-the-closet, multiple-hair-product-buying gay man do not swoon for Martha Stewart. Not do I wish I could talk and do dismissive hand movement and finger snaps like Ru Paul. I may have procured myself copy of Madonna's newest, but I still don't think either Bette or Babs have lovely, moving singing voices. I guess that last one makes me a bad Jew, too.

And it's not just other fags (which is, by the way, a word that only we are allowed to use) who give this attitude over the movie. Straight people are taken aback too. Their world view appears to rest on the assumption that different people act the way they had been told that different people act, and this includes what movie you want to spend a week's wages to see: All Jews love "Schindler's List" and anything by Mel Brooks; all Blacks love "Waiting to Exhale" and "Barbershop"; all women love "My Big, Fat Greek, Wedding" and "Sleepless in Seattle"; and all gays like watching two sexy guys have hot, wild, passionate sex in a tent.

OK, so I guess like watching sexy guys have hot, wild, passionate sex in a tent (more than two is fine, even), especially two hot guys like Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Heath's broad, round features are slightly model perfect for my taste, but the sexy Ozzie accent certainly raises up what his thin lips bring down. And Jake! Now there's a nice, Jewish boy I could take home to my mother! But I still don't plan to see the movie anytime soon, just like I never plan to buy a Céline Dion album anytime soon (Ooop! Now I'm a bad Canadian too!). This does not make me a bad fag.

A bad fag claims masculinity and the ability to act straight (whatever that means, since both Don Knotts and Dame Edna are straight) as his highest virtues while ridiculing those ones who are firmly in touch with their feminine side.

A bad queer waits until they are famous to come out (Elton John, Rosie O'Donnell, Ellen Degeneres). They turn their coming-out into such a glitzy media event that the struggle - something the rest of us mortals go through - coming out to our families, friends, and co-workers without the piles of money the stars have to fall back on should something go wrong are about as important as mosquito bites.

A bad fag - who is certainly welcome to his political beliefs - sides with the most extreme members of his side of the political spectrum, such as Jeff Gannon, to the detriment of the rights of all queers and by extension, of his own.

A bad fag gets married and has kids, disappears on the weekend and comes home to give his wife all sorts of enchanting infections because he's not, like, gay n'stuff so he doesn't have to worry about protecting himself from, like, AIDS n'shit.

A bad fag never comes out.

I just don't want to go see an ol' love story. That's all. I'm glad everyone and their eighty-year-old grandmother realise it's an important film and want to see it, and that they seem to like it too. I'm all for that. This flick's for them, not for me. I'm glad they like it. That makes me a happy fag. I'm off to see "TransAmerica".

Neo Zion

2006-01-17T12:06:00.000-05:00

This is the kind of crap North American Jews have to put up with a lot.

Jewish mothers

2006-01-13T20:56:00.000-05:00

Almost half of Europe's Jews are descended from just four women, according to a new study. [...] The four women are thought to have lived in the Middle East about 1,000 years ago but they may not have lived anywhere near other, according to the study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. However, they bequeathed genetic signatures to their descendents, which do not appear in non-Jews and are rare in Jews not of Ashkenazi origin.

I'm sure that close friend and main nemesis AlefAlef - who is Sephardi whereas I am Ashkenazi - is simply heartbroken that he and I are not more closely related.

Much ado about nothing

2006-01-13T11:54:00.000-05:00

LOL! And,like, all the bubbles in my head keep totally popping and stuff! LOL! ;)
Via Mr V

Food for thought

2006-01-13T11:52:00.000-05:00

Cartoon by Bill Schorr.

Go sit on the lawn and do nothing

2006-01-09T10:51:00.000-05:00

I set a deadline for myself so of course I didn't meet it. One thousand measly words were all I needed to write. One thousand tiny, insignificant words in a pretty blurby picture that will dazzle a potential publisher - a biggee in the Canadian market, no less - who had already expressed interest on a book I'm pretending to write.

My self-imposed deadline, conceived on Friday, was today. Therefore, I spent the weekend making out with a cute guy, fighting with close friend and nemesis AlefAlef, making up with close friend and nemesis AlefAlef, playing an atrociously addictive computer game called Civilization (I just defeated both the Aztecs and the English; not even the Spanish can claim that!), singing along with Fiona Apple 'cause she, like, totally gets my soul, man (If there was a If there was a better way to go then it would find me / I can't help it, the road just rolls out behind me / Be kind to me or treat me mean / I'll make the most of it, I'm an extraordinary machine), and reading up on American politics as a distraction from Canada's upcoming election in which the party, whose main platform is to tell me that I may not, in fact, get married after all, seems slated to win.

With the world falling apart and all, why should waste my time writing a novel about young, bilingual, Jews from Montreal trying to understand their murky ties to Quebec, Canada, and Israel when there are kooky American ultra-right-wing sites to both amuse and nauseate me? Why should I flesh out the details of a short story - an adaptation of the story of Job - when there are cities to take over and slaves to capture? Indeed, why should I try and find a way to scrounge up February rent when Fiona warbles at me with her sweet, gravely voice (If you don't have a date, celebrate / Go out and sit on the lawn and do nothing).

The solution is to find myself a good agent and a good editor to make complete nudniks of themselves until I relent and meet my deadlines. I have always been the an acolyte of the procrastinatory branch of the religion of Western work ethic, but if I succeed in turning this publisher away I'll more than likely have to take my vows and become a high priest in the field. No vows of celibacy for me. Non-celibacy is one of the finest manners of procrastination.

When I was in high school I literally tied myself to my desk when it came time to write papers so that I would stay seated. It did restrain me physically but it couldn't keep my brain from taking me travelling through time and space to anywhere but wherever I was supposed to be writing from. And this - get this! - was in the days before home computers took over the Western hemisphere. There was no such thing as email (imagine!). No such thing as Internet, the biggest distraction of them all. Thanks a lot, Al Gore!

Hey look - I've spent almost 500 hundred words in writing this. Time well wasted.

Fun with bedhead

2006-01-08T11:42:00.000-05:00

Winter and cabin fever do bizarre things to one's sense of propriety. I woke up this morning and was amused to no end to realise that with my bedhead, I look like a Dr Seuss character.

When I was a teenager I had hair similar to this, but on purpose ... it was the 80s.

Desperate Housewives

2006-01-07T12:26:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of Mr V

Of mess and men

2006-01-06T19:30:00.000-05:00

A conversation with Dr DG during a commercial break in "Family Guy":

DG: How many guys have you dated in the past couple of months?

Me: Define "dating".

DG: Um ... been on more than three dates with.

Me: Dunno ... four, I guess. No. Five. No. Four. The one with bad breath only got two dates.

DG: God! What do you do to them?

Me: [shrug] Guess I'm not meeting the right guys.

DG: Hmmmmmph ... [takes a sip of beer and quickly squeezes this in just before Peter Stewie says something droll] I think you just keep dumping them so you don't have to clean your apartment.

Am I that shallow? I drink espresso and like classical music. How could I possibly be that shallow?

I have date #4 with a guy who looks like a tall Anderson Cooper with dark hair. I wonder how long I can hold out before I have to clean my dump and invite him over.

Kickback Mountain

2006-01-05T19:46:00.000-05:00

(pillaged from Americablog)

Almost as much fun as watching Jake Gylenhaal bottom for Heath Ledger!

Coulter and flu season

2005-12-27T13:23:00.000-05:00

What kind of an era do we now live in where one friend won't euthanise another simply because it's immoral to kill someone just because they only have a cold? What a world we live in! Next thing you know they'll be telling us that pollution isn't bad and that democratically elected leaders have the power to do anything they like and have absolutely no worried of accountability whatsoever to anyone they may happen represent! Is that where we're headed?

Expecting nothing but pure, unadulterated sympathy from close friend and main nemesis AlefAlef. This, after all, is the man sat all the way through all 46 baffling hours of "Alexander" with me – perhaps the funniest movie of all time – just because I wanted that 1-second glimpse of Colin Farrell's balls (it was worth it!). Such strong friendship. Such camaraderie. Such brotherly love.

Well, I was to be bitterly disappointed when I called him last night. For the past few days I have been suffering from constipation of the head and forest fire of the lungs. Just a cold you say? My sinuses are so stuffed that my eyeballs are popping out à la Quasimodo and my throat and lungs are so raw that I talk like Gollum. It's precious!

My hypotheses on this wretched illness are the following: a) I have consumption and will soon die swooning in morbid romance all over my divan while my lovers kill each other in a jealous rage (now I must acquire a divan and a pair of jealous lovers and figure out how to swoon) or b) Bill O'Reilly is right and this is divine retribution for wishing a "Happy Holidays" to a Christian. Who would have thought that Fox News would get something right?

The phone call went something like this:

Me: Honey, I need you to do me a favour.

AlefAlef: Now?

Me: Well, soon. I need you to come over and kill me.

AlefAlef: Oh honey ... [brief pause while words of sympathy are formed] ... it would be no fun for me if you're already expecting it.

After a long conversation in which it was observed that I was hysterical and feeling far too sorry for myself than the situation merited (come back to me when you haven't left your apartment in 3 days and your bedhead makes you look like the guy from A Flock of Seagulls and we'll chat about who feels too sorry for whoself!) and that AlefAlef is cold, cruel, heartless, and made of stone, I realised that I'll have to go it alone. I would have to get all Ann Coulter on these germs' ass!

Standing up to my full height (I'm actually a little taller than Ms Coulter) I proclaimed, "Microbes! I'd like to talk to you ... with a baseball bat!"

No effect other than that I had to blow my nose.

"Bugs! If you didn't throw like little girls, you'd give me something manly like pneumonia or tuberculosis!"

I coughed a bit. A lot. Now I know what colour my phlegm is.

"Germs! I will take away women germs' right to vote! I will invade you, kill your leaders, and convert you all to ... er ... Christianity ...?" (I'm Jewish.)

Nothing. A microscopic disease-laden wolf howled in the distance. A furball from my cat – who, it would appear, has neither flesh nor blood, only fur – tumbled by.

The germs were obviously ignoring me and so I got bored and went to bed, but could not sleep. We should all learn a lesson from my germs. If we ignore Ann Coulter long enough, eventually she'll get bored and sink into a pit of her own misery. I can't see any jealous lovers fighting for her attention though.

I don't blame Korea anymore

2005-12-23T09:34:00.000-05:00

I don't get nervous about dates anymore. I've been on too many to think of them - most of them - as anything but the last five minutes of that cheezy, over-theatrical sitcom ("Reba" springs immediately to mind) you accidentally turn on early and decide to watch until the show you really want to see comes on; not what you wanted, but it's the necessary lead up that will remind you why you like your real show so much. Besides, there's nothing else to do while you wait.

Even though I don't get nervous, do like to make a good impression and so I spruce up a bit. My normally floppy hair that is exactly the same style as it was immediately preceding that fateful day in the early 80s when I discovered feathering and mousse - luckily that's in style these days - is made to swoop, spike, glisten, and arc gracefully. The clothes I choose are picked specifically for their ability to mask my expanding waistline. Shaving, usually only a thrice-weekly event for me, occurs immediately prior to walking out the door so as to be as smooth as possible. Extra attention is paid to the quality of my breath.

I wish I could say the same for the guy I went on a date with a couple of days ago.

"Hello," he said, turning to me when I met up him in the video store.

"Aaaaaah!" I screamed inside my head, taking a step back as I was suddenly enveloped in a cloud of rancid fumes that reminded me of that time when I was hiking and I accidentally stumbled onto a dump.

I'd noticed it the first time we'd meet but at that time I'd attributed it to the spicy Korean food we'd had the appeared to have been immersed in chilli oil for several months before being served. A couple of those weird breath strips did the trick and our end-of-date, pre-carnal physical relations were quite delightful.

It was clear to me this time, however, that Korea was not the culprit. It was simply that the boy produces his own chemical weapons, perhaps as a natural shield against guys who want him for his, it must be admitted, luscious body.

He suggested a few movies I had little interest in seeing ("War of the Worlds", "Fantastic Four") and I agreed limply, so great was my desire to be out in fresh air. I chose food from a Lebanese restaurant I know has very garlicky tehini so I would have the excuse to pull out the breath strips. However, after a couple of hours of perching on the edge of the couch surrounded by the eternal fumes of Hell, I lost all my energy and made my excuses (man, was I tired/had to get up early the next morning/forgot to feed the cat).

It's not as if he were unhygienic and unkempt. He is neat, his apartment is clean, and the toothpaste tube in his bathroom has those smooth indentations that indicate regular squooshing. And he's kind, sweet, smart, interested in the world, and cute to boot. It's just that he has a rotting corpse lodged in the back of his throat.

It would only take one uncomfortable conversation to clear this up - so to speak - with him. I'm not so superficial that I'd dump a guy I like because of something as silly as a little bad breath.

Or am I? I haven't heard from him since then and the fact that he may not have liked me all that much the second time around comes as a bit of a relief. I feel no rushing urge to get in contact with ol' zombie mouth either. Perhaps this was just the last few minutes of a show that had potential the first time, but the second time was, well, not so hot.

Besides, yesterday I met this really cute guy - taller than me (which is rare), very cute, soft-spoken and a little shy. We made plans to meet for a movie next week. I wonder what will turn out to be wrong with him?

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of Poo)

2005-12-23T09:28:00.000-05:00

I've just heard the new Eurythmocs song. I wonder of this is how the boomers felt when Jefferson Airplane mutated into Starship and oozed "We Built This City (On Rock and Roll)". Yeeeesh!

Back

2005-12-22T09:23:00.000-05:00

...from my fantasy honeymoon with Noah Huntley,

...machete victim in "28 Days Later" and adult Peter (Click; it's a great pic) in that new mediocre Narnia movie. The honeymoon's over and the marriage was a fantasy, but it was a good fantasy.

Very Pretty

2005-12-22T09:20:00.000-05:00

Christmas lights In Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Pillaged from Mr V.

Rosa Parks, February 4, 1913 - October 24, 2005

2005-10-25T08:21:00.000-04:00

"When he saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up and I said, 'No, I'm not.' And he said, 'Well, if you don't stand up, I'm going to have to call the police and have you arrested.' I said, 'You may do that.'"

Will work for glory

2005-10-22T12:18:00.000-04:00

So rarely do I respond to taunts on other blogs - or even use the word 'blog', but Mr V is a unique guy :P

Does basing your music and image on ultra left-wing politics while selling your song about urban poverty to hock Honda Civics make you a player or a sell out? Mr V "loves" M.I.A.'s new gas-guzzling ads (with the profanity removed, of course). I don't care for the ads, still like her albums, agree that she should be able to do exactly as she likes with her creations; but think that an artist who evokes the memory of her Tamil Tiger dad to sell cars to yuppies and guppies who like her stuff solely because it has a good beat is an opportunist.

I used to shiver and fear a little for my life when she chanted "Just like PLO, I don't surrend-o"; now it sounds as harmless as a bowl of lo-fat strawberry jello and makes me chuckle. Next she'll be having lunch at the White House like another former favourite of mine.

Very Pretty

2005-10-22T12:10:00.000-04:00

Brian Mandelbaum from my guilty pleasure, "The Apprentice".

I'm sorry

2005-10-16T10:01:00.000-04:00

- from PostSecret

Breakfast

2005-10-14T10:56:00.000-04:00

I can eat again! The sun set in Winnipeg at approximately 6:45PM yesterday evening, bringing to a close 24 hours of no food, no water, no sex (big deal; I'm staying with my parents), and, bringing me the most difficulty, no coffee. Yom Kippur is the most holy of all the holidays on the Jewish calendar. Because we're Jews, the most holy is, of course, the most difficult.

"May your Yom Kippur be filled with guilt and misery," was my e-mail greeting to close friend and nemesis AlefAlef back in Toronto. "May yours be even worse!" was his response. The greetings were tongue in cheek. No one really wishes anyone pain on Yom Kippur, the day when we atone for our sins from the previous year. But it is a festival with neither rejoicing nor celebration. The most anyone can wish for someone else is an easy fast.

Wednesday evening and all day yesterday were indeed filled with misery due to an incompetent khazan, kind of the equivalent of a choir director but without the choir ... usually. Usually, because choirs are not normally part of a traditional service. This khazan decided to introduce us to an assemblage of dedicated, enthusiastic, and utterly talentless people who screeched and yowled fervently like a crowd of cats trapped together into a cage. Albatrossing above them was the khazan himself, straining every nerve - his and ours - to extend his limited vocal register above and beyond what adolescence had given him. Peace with God was heard to reach through the cacophony.

My parents' congregation is one that believes in a lot of audience participation. Various prayers and readings are assigned to captive congregants to be read to the rest of the crowd. I was assigned an uplifting passage that began "We are feeble" and continued on from that inspirational tidbit, reminding us that all dreams and desires come to naught, that we will all die and be as if we had never been, and that life was one long path of suffering and pain. Party!

A few minutes after the reading, I had an illogical fit of the giggles and had to hunch over and look really really really observant to hide them. It's a good thing I was in the process of making peace with God at the time.

One blast of tekia gdola on the shofar and it finally ended. I could eat again! I abandoned my parents to a break fast at the president of the congregations with the Rabbi and a bunch of other high-up muckety-mucks from the synagogue. I went to my sister’s and we stuffed ourselves silly. Got tummy aches, and watched "The Apprentice". That lazy, snotty Toral deserved to be kicked off. Man, does she ever need to make a lot of peace.

Still alive

2005-10-10T17:47:00.000-04:00

I've just been at my parents' cottage on the shores of Lake Winnipeg. I'd forgotten how pleasant it is not to need my iPod drowning out dirty city noises. It's wonderful to walk and hear the birds, the waves, and the wind through through the trees.

My phone cam takes half decent pictures, although it doesn't do justice to the gorgeous fall foliage. Still, I got some pretty nice shots. Here's one.

Blample Sog

The deci-*hic!*-der

Damn Swedes!

Israeli group announces anti-Semitic cartoons contest!

Cream of ballot soup

There are other movies I'd rather see

Neo Zion

Jewish mothers

Much ado about nothing

Food for thought

Go sit on the lawn and do nothing

Fun with bedhead

Desperate Housewives

Of mess and men

Kickback Mountain

Coulter and flu season

I don't blame Korea anymore

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of Poo)

Back

Very Pretty

Rosa Parks, February 4, 1913 - October 24, 2005

Will work for glory

Very Pretty

I'm sorry

Breakfast

Still alive

The deci-hic!-der