Oh Canada

Just walked past a travel agency and saw a brochure for Canada in the front window. Stopped and took a hard look. There were three pictures - guess what they were.

Picture #1: Snow covered mountains
Picture #2: Mounties on horseback
Picture #3: Three grizzly bears, standing, facing camera

I thought, wow - no Toronto, Montreal... nothing urban. Makes sense though, Europe has no nature. Aside from the Alps, it's just a collection of quaint towns and cultural or industrial cities. There's not even any squirrels or raccoons. Anywhere. There's no wildlife, no "cottage country", no nothing. Just cafes, ashtrays and fuckheads in expensive scarves.

A merde

Just got back from the pizza shop, which in no way shape or form is Italian. When did pizza cease to have anything to do with Italy? Pizza Pizza - I'm looking in your direction. And would it kill these guys to cut the pizza slices somewhat evenly? It's like that kid in The Royal Tennenbaums that thinks squares are circles. How did so many people that are "shape blind" find jobs in the Kobenhavn pizza business?

I asked for a bag to carry my pizza box, in English, and the guy was kind enough to tell me the Danish translation. I thanked him and said, "jai sprek in lille Dansk", which means "I speak a little Danish" - except "sprek" is fucking Dutch, not Danish. I somehow managed to combine two languages I don't speak into one sentence. The squishhead looked at me like, ""what kind of idiot can't remember five words". A guy who can't cut eight six even slices in a ten inch circle just made me look like a moron.

Reminds me of the time I was working at Angels in Montreal. Was in the washroom when a drunk French guy started yelling and screaming like mad at me. Didn't understand a fucking word he was saying. He finished and stared hard at me waiting for my response, which was, "a merde". He paused, then almost fell over laughing.

Frankly Scarlet

Love the way people kiss in old movies. Almost as realistic as the way they die, shot fifteen times with no blood. You could knock someone out with a chop to the shoulder. Must have been easy to write.

What's strange is how we've gone from unrealistic, basic and simple portrayals of action and intimacy, then paused for a cup of coffee on "realistic" and shot like a hollow-point bullet to cinema and TV so gritty and harsh there's nothing remotely realistic about it.

Illiterate Jesus

Just figured out why Christianity is more popular than ever in the States. Jesus was illiterate. He's completely non-threatening to a very large number of people, like a few other current popular American figures - Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, Rev. Pat Robertson. Even better for Him - everybody wrote about Jesus, while He didn't write jack shit. Makes Him look great. Like when you talk up a buddy of yours to a girl. Works every time.

No big deal that He couldn't write - most people couldn't at the time. The guy was apparently a great talker and that's gotta count for something. Not sure the people that follow Jesus' teachings are great readers themselves. Looks like they may be missing the point. Try and explain how 99.9% of NRA members are Christian. Don't remember the passage in the bible where He talks about filling people full of lead for stealing. It's staggering how mixed up Jesus' original message has gotten. Perhaps that's because He didn't actually write anything down.

The Angels Forget To Pray For Us

The Vatican recently issued a statement saying they're concerned with the trend of worshipping nature instead of the Holy Trinity. They consider it a dangerous development and condemn the notion of paying homage to something real and vibrant and important versus the blind faith in a particular brand of spirituality. Imagine the consequences of worshipping nature over a made-up story about a man that lived two thousand years ago and had the mental imbalance to claim to be the son of God. In other words, the Vatican is deeply troubled at the growing trend of rational thought. It threatens their business plan.

In recent years, I've come to believe in something, a "force" or "schwartz" if you will - but it's poorly defined and very personal. The ostentatious gall of the Vatican has never given me that itch, but when they go too far, they go too far. Wouldn't it be a great idea for atheists to door to door in a Christian neighborhood?

My Girl In The River

Had some good alcohols this weekend. Plenty of refreshing pilsner and a tip here and there of medicinal liquor. Got into a groove and found a higher plain. Relaxed and social, I discovered a communication level that had eluded me and found myself connecting to the soul of this place and the people around me, but in particular had some good texts with the big fella back home. It's not that booze can solve all of life's problems, but a few well placed libations can certainly put a thing or two in perspective.

Here's what I'm talking about. I'd been struggling of late, not entirely satisfied with my purpose in life. The movie business seemed to be a false prophet. Somehow, buried within my half drunk ramblings on this or that, I found my place as a story teller - not to others, but myself. Not the center of attention, but as observer and participant. Good inner dialogue is what I'm talking about. I found a little of my voice, albeit a sometimes angry one. I found that stories are important. They mean something. Stories strongly suggest that the teller has "lived", which in the simplest terms I can fathom, is what life is about.

A Clean Somethingorother

Just found out the Danish aren't huge on washing their hands. Even after taking a shit. Seriously. One guy said proudly, "maybe if my finger breaks through the toilet paper I'll give it a quick rinse." I think I need to throw up now. It's like a bad horror movie, but instead of seeing dead people, everywhere I look I see feces stains.

Alomar cont'd.

This from the New York Daily News...

Baseball great Roberto Alomar has full-blown AIDS but insisted on having unprotected sex, his ex-girlfriend charged Tuesday in a bombshell lawsuit.

The shocking claim was leveled by Ilya Dall, 31, who said she lived with the ex-Met for three years and watched in horror as his health worsened.

In papers filed in state and federal court, Dall said Alomar finally got tested in January 2006 while suffering from a cough, fatigue and shingles.

"The test results of him being HIV-positive was given to him and the plaintiff on or about Feb.6, 2006," the $15 million negligence suit says.

Nine days later, the couple went to see a disease specialist who discovered a mass in the retired second baseman's chest, the court papers say.

Alomar's skin had turned purple, he was foaming at the mouth and a spinal tap "showed he had full-blown AIDS," the suit says.

Alomar, 41, who quit baseball over health issues in 2005, could not be reached for comment.

Robbie Alomar

Remember the girl with the attitude at McGill that was soooooooo proud of herself for "dating" Robbie Alomar? When he hit that home run off Eckersly and the Jays ended up winning the World Series - she acted like she invented sports and was impossible to deal with. You know the one I'm talking about - she had an ugly sister and we always used to wonder how the hell two sisters could look so fucking different.

Anyway, word on the street is Robbie isn't exactly at the top of his game these days. But let's not hit a man when he's down. But holy shit, I'd like to see this girl bragging now about "dating" a guy who must have about 10,000 notches on his belt. Where's your big hair attitude now sister?

I think I over-think things

I'm not the best gambler in the world, not the worst either. One thing I could never handicap was wrestling. Obviously it's fixed, but the game used to be to guess who they wanted to win. I was always picking the guy with the full name, like "Arnold Lewis" even when he fought somebody in a full costume called, "The Iron Mystery Truck Man" or whatever. I always figured that the WWF knew it was too obvious to have the Arnold's lose every time, which of course they did. Once at McGill I lost $60 to a guy named "Sticks" watching Wrestlemania#69 at Annies. I didn't get one right. To this day I wonder if we were watching a repeat.

Mad World

We live in one motherfucker of a mad world. A friend of mine here in the Dk's Dad just died. He'd been knighted by the queen and given a medal to commemorate the honor. My buddy just got a letter in the mail saying that he is now obliged to return his Father's medal promptly.

At times, I'm convinced this is the worst place in the world. Another guy I work with - his wife just had to quit her job because her boss took pictures of his cock and then made her look at them. Twenty three pictures in all. Brutal.

Other times, I think this is a pretty decent place. Nobody j-walks, or runs red lights. Everything is so orderly. Tipping service staff is frowned upon and considered an insult. Theatre tickets are reserved in advance along with your specific seat. Everything is clean and neat and if I hadn't been here long enough to see and hear the stories that boil up from under the surface, I'd think this is a special place where nothing ever goes wrong, which is obviously not the case. Like everywhere else, Denmark is a mad, mad world.

New And Much Much Worse

Welcome to the new and improved 2010 version of imissthisguy. The changes to the layout took my entire holiday to generate in a sophisticated graphics program I wrote on a cocktail napkin and faxed to Bill Gates sailboat in Tampa. He forwarded said napkin, by way of carrier pigeon to Texas Instruments Key Largo headquarters where fourteen hundred Chinese-Mexicans spent Christmas Eve translating the message to Spanish, for no particular reason. Hope you like.

With the new decade upon us, let us resolve here and now to usher in an era of idiotic behavior and a general lack of courtesy towards others. Let's make the "10's" make the "80's" look like a time of kindness, conservative consumption and consideration. Let's amp up the head butting and tequila snarts. Let's take up fisting as a hobby. Let's get it out of our eco-systems, before we do any material damage. In other words, let the games begin.