Sunday, December 12, 2010

Turbo Homo Bang Gang

There was this guy I once knew, Marty, used to have a band back in Brampton called Turbo Homo Bang Gang. On stage he wasn't Marty though, he was Tony Spigoni, his rock n' roll alter ego. He'd play these mad live shows at all the tired old bars and some of the lively ones, the few that there were.

He showed up at the clubs as Tony, decked out in snake skin boots, leather jacket and a tight fitting collared shirt only halfway buttoned up thus exposes a lean muscular torso and taught pecs to go nicely with a thick thatch of hair sprouting from his head. It was the kind of hair God himself would bequeath upon his own head. Tony snorted a gorilla finger of cocaine just before each show to get him pumped up, a line the size God himself would put up his nose. A bottle of Jack later and he really became
Tony Spigoni.

On stage the crowd provoked him because they knew Tony had a short fuse and also because humans enjoy swilling booze and provoking violence. But he provoked the crowd too; not afraid to say anything to anyone. The way a real man doesn't take shit, never backs down from a confrontation. Maybe his confidence was propped up by indulging but so what? The crowd seemed to love Sammy Sosa and Mark Mcguire hit it out of the park.

After the first couple songs Tony began hurling obscenities at the crowd in between--and sometimes during--songs. He didn't give a shit if he forgot the lyrics, just soldiered on. Coldplay he was not. His lips were red and licking wet with booze and vitriol:

"Look at you two fat fuckers," (He targeted a couple of regulars near the front who obviously had never seen a THBG show). "You both got belly buttons like BOMB craters! I'm gonna come down there and slap all four of your BITCH tits!"

"Yeahhh?" One of them countered, "Why don't you meet us outside in the parking lot after the show and I'll show you something alright!"

"Yeah, like what? Your stamp collection, or butterflies under glass?"

And with that these two fat drunks rushed the stage and tackled Tony. Fists were flying like napalm. Tony landed a couple good ones but ended up on the wrong side of the beating. Security pulled the two heavyweights off and kicked them out of the club and the show continued, as it must.

Blood was dripping off Tony's face and pooling onto the stage below. A huge welt was already bubbling up on his forehead, his left eye bruised, soon to become technicoloured. The crowd was ROARING asking for More! More! More! Go! Go! Go! You could really feel it reverberating through the audience. A feeling of pure excitement. We go through our days filling up calendar squares with appointments/dates/meetings/birthdays and then it's over. Life just burns away and there's not much to remember most by.

"Next month I'll be on the cover of Town & Country," Tony remarked to the crowd before cueing the band into the next riff rock sludge tune. Something about zombie chicks on the moon in bikinis struggling to build a spaceship to travel back to earth to exterminate the male species:

Just another show, par for the course. The lights went up and the stereo started playing music softly, almost imperceptibly; you thought you knew the tune but couldn't be sure. As Tony settled down for a drink Jerry Stone, a crazed out hanger on to the scene came up to him and said, "Hey man, great show...as usual." "Yeah yeah, alright man."

Jerry Stone was one of those guys who was always around at every show. No one really knew where he came from. But like when neighbours describe someone after they commit a mass murder, he seemed 'odd'.

"Aren't you curious about the dreams of Amazonian tribesmen who have never ventured outside the jungle or whatever? You know, the ones you see in National Geographic documentaries?" "Sure, sure man," Tony said, looking around somewhat disinterested.

"Sometimes," Jerry continued, I dream that I'm a Brazilian tribesman who lives in the rainforest, one of these Arapaso people with poison tipped arrows and all that jazz. Then I fall asleep in the dream as one of these guys, ya know, just a regular hunter or whatever. But I can never remember those dreams. If I could, man I'd have it ALL figured out."

Jerry shuffled out of view and then some sunglass lowering caliber girls made their way over to Tony and now his attention was focused on them. Just because the band had the word 'homo' in their name the only thing homo about Tony was the milk in his cereal. He liked pussy--all kinds of it. Damaged goods were all good. Groupies mainly. Shit, why do you think he started a band in the first place?

One night while I was on assignment doing a write up of one of THBGs' show for a local paper Tony confided in me. We were always fairly close, got along pretty well, known each other a long time. We knew each other before he became Tony Spigoni. I came to the realization he enjoyed my company; we were drinking buddies even though I was a journalist. I saw him do some pretty wild things but he trusted in me, or perhaps, he wanted me to see him as some crazy rock n roller and write about it. Do some myth building for him. Sometimes we went to an after party together and it was at one of these after parties he solemnly related to me--perhaps as Marty--that he had an acute problem of a sexual nature--all that coke and all that booze, he could rarely keep it up when he was with a woman. He feared that there was talk going around amongst his groupies that he was a bad lover. Definitely wasn't Tony Spigoni in bed. Couldn't go all night. Shit, couldn't even go once.

"Man, it's no good. I'm all jazzed up and wasted, I just don't even care about fucking these beautiful women. Even if I DID, the bathroom is out of service Jake. I can't get the motor revving. And hey this off the record, huh?"

"Yes, yes for sure man, don't worry. Well," I said, a little stunned by his ED confession, "maybe you should try just staying sober, at least until after you know, get your rocks off."

"Yeah, I know but it's always after a show and poppa needs his meds before he can go on stage. The meds make me impotent. I mean, the irony just kills me: The very thing I need to perform is the very thing that won't let me perform."

"It's a wicked world isn't it?"

"It's getting to the point where I don't want to even go home with anyone. I'm actually in the middle of writing a song right now called, " Lately, I'm Only Writing Rain Checks". It's a real departure from my usual stuff. A real tear jerker. I'm sick of this shit, night in and night out. these bars Jake! I'm telling you, it'll be the death of me! All these distorted guitars ringing in my ears all fucking night. And for what? A couple hundred bucks? A night of cheap pussy? Do you even know what I do 9 to 5? Fucking manual labor. I got a head full of bumble bees. Assembly line bullshit. Well pretty much-- unloading containers full of all sorts of shit--mushrooms, spaceship parts, keyboards, humans. Why do you think I'm in such good shape? In ten years I won't be able to stand up straight."

"I always wondered what you did," I said.

"It's our dirty little secret," He said.

Just at that very moment his pocket vibrated. He pulled his phone out and unclamped it: 'INCOMING CALL FROM ALLISON CHAINS' the screen read.

"Oh hey, I gotta take this. I'll come back in ten minutes. Remember," Tony said, walking away, "Off the fucking record!"

"Do you even have to ask?" I said.

Tony came back to me and clam shelled his phone shut, put it in his tight leather pockets. They were so tight I didn't know how he tucked the phone in there but somehow everything fit just right. "This chick, Allison I think I really like her, and not in that pump and dump kind of way. The true test of love is if you don't hate her guts after you bust a nut. I can lay there peacefully with her without a care in the world and watch the smoke from my cigarette curl up into the bedroom. I tell ya that's when I'm at peace Jake. No boss man telling me to speed it up, no band bitching at me to get to practice. Life consists of humans grabbing at your hours to give themselves more.

"Ain't that the truth."


"Allison picked me up a few weeks back in Guelph to take me home after a show. I hadn't seen her in a week. I missed her and was surprised by how emotional I was when I met her outside the club. I didn't want to let her know I was overcome so I kept a front of cool indifference. During the drive back to Brampton I stole glances of the way her hair just rested softly on the back of her neck. It just gets to me sometimes--but, you never let a girl know you love her too much Jake or then she'll kill you. You don't want to get caught in her trap."

At another show, Tony got a midget, put him in a cage and fed him booze, ecstacy, and cocaine throughout the set. But not necessarily in that order. He was trapped right in the middle of the stage. He was male, thirty-ish, with one of those goofy oversized heads and stubby limbs. Gods little joke. He went by the name Stephen Dwarf.

Tony bent down beside Stephen's cage and offered him a bump of the devils dandruff, "It's feeding time!" he exclaimed.

Stephen sniffed it up. Just another cranked out midget in his underwear, confined to a cage, forced to take drugs and vomit all over himself for the crowds amusement. You don't notice it sometimes, and it can happen when you're not looking, but Christ, life can get away from you. What was I doing here watching this atrocity? I suppose it beat watching American Idol.

God is a madman with an AK47 firing indiscriminately into the crowd. Stephen wound up getting hit--most don't. Be thankful for that.

At one point he was lying on his back convulsing in his little bird cage. There he was, barely enough room for him to writhe around in for chrissakes; rolling back and forth his flesh screaming against the cage wires. Eventually he found his wits and the show continued...

The guitarist began swaying to the groove in time to his chunky power chords and Tony turned to him and yelled into the mic, "Don't you show an emotion! You show an emotion and I fire you!"

Jerry Stone came up to me and started spitting in my ear about some bullshit dream he had: "There I was having sex with this girl. I was sitting down and she was riding me, her back to me. My cock was so overstuffed and HUGE in her tight pussy I was afraid every time she came down on me that it was going to bend in half and snap like a twig! And you know who was right beside me? That fucking douche nozzle from The Jersey Shore, The Situation. He was crouched down beside me with his immaculate hair and bronzed awesomeness just watching me fuck this girl. I had to be careful because his hair--it was so gelled up it--it was like there were thousands of pen knives jutting out of his skull. Weapons of mass seduction I'm telling ya! Ha! Ha!"

"Right, Jerry sounds great," I said sucking on a bottle of Moosehead.

"Then The Situation told me I had a nice spoke. That's the word he used for my cock: Spoke. I've never heard anyone call it that before. I thought it was a little odd."

"Well dreams usually are."

Back on the stage Tony pulled the key to Stephen's cage from an ass pocket and held it up for the crowd. The band laid down a slow groove behind him. Stephen looked at Tony menacingly and shook his hands to say, No! No! No! but Tony swallowed the key and chased it with a swig of Jack anyways. They had been through this routine before. Tony gave him a cut of the door. It was all for show but the next day Tony really did have to shit the key out, fake or not. The bartender had the real key and took Stephen out back after the show and released him into the night like a dove on a wedding day. The barkeep was a guy everyone called Base Pipe Billy. Pulled a quick beer so he was good in my books. Apparently he tried to cop a feel on a few of my friends late at night when not many people were around. Lured them in with the promise of free booze. Some part of me was a little disappointed that he never tried to fondle me, it would have been good for my self esteem. Maybe I wasn't there too often or he didn't know me well enough, the hermit that I am. Yes, once he got to know me he would most definitely fondle me.

Right after the show ended, with the distortion still gnawing at my brain, I went out a back entrance to grab my pack of cigarettes. I stood outside the back door and lit one up. At that very moment Base Pipe Billy came out holding the cage with Stephen in it.

"Christ, get me outta here!" Stephen demanded.

"Yeah, yeah yeah." Base Pipe knelt down , placed the cage on the ground and unlocked it. His joints cracked, he was getting old.

"Hey Jake you gotta smoke buddy?" Stephen asked me, stretching his miniature limbs, free from his cage and into the prison of the world. "Sure, here ya go," I said fetching one out of my pack. "You want one to Billy?"

"Sure, thanks Jake."

The three of us stood there--Base Pipe Billy, Stephen Dwarf, and me smoking in total silence as the night surrounded us.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Teens Do The Darndest Things

Since Terrorism is in vogue I thought why not detail my one and only experience with the genre.

My name is Taylor and I firebombed a major street from my backyard with a Molotov Cocktail when I was fourteen years old.

My punishment: I had to write two short essays about how I could of really really hurt someone. It was like my parents scolding me for being a foolish child. I'm certain things have changed now, fifteen years down the line with the rampant government induced terrorist paranoia and all. In these post 9/11 days I would be water boarded somewhere in the bowels of the Don Jail for tossing a Molotov Cocktail. Your last name is Nesbit you say? You don’t look English. More like a rogue Syrian chemist who has been hiding out in basements wearing custom made baby blue contact lenses plotting out the death’s of every North American one by one by poisoning the Great Lakes. The suburbs of Toronto seem like as good a place as any to get this Jihad thing rolling.

I was kind of like a terrorist before it was cool, before everyone jumped on the IED bandwagon. But you gotta be careful when you jump on the bandwagon that the road the bandwagon is going down isn’t full of IED’s. The first--and only time--I tossed a bomb it didn’t even clear my fence and it lay there in my backyard with the cloth burning, mocking me, daring me to pick it up again and send the infidels on a highway to hell. I thought about it for a split second and convinced myself that hell yeah I’ll pick it up I can’t leave a perfectly good Molotov Cocktail burning in my backyard. What would my parents think? I’m a no good quitter who can‘t see anything through? I remember sharply when I had quit piano lessons some years back when I was twelve. The Royal Conservatory of Music--isn’t that superfluously opulent? The day I expressed my disinterest in the formality of learning piano it was a feeling of supreme disappointment; you know when your parents are mad but they're so mad that there's an eerie calm about them? I tried to explain it wasn’t the instrument itself it was just the conditions: This stupid fucking class where I learned with these kids that I didn’t know and didn’t want to know. I don’t like being put in those situations. But the disappointment was etched across my parents faces, it screamed out to me like a 40 foot billboard on the Gardner Expressway of a father suffocating his child with a pillow. The kid frantically flailing his arms and legs violently in every direction, yearning for a pocket of air, gasping for life, and then slowly succumbing to the inevitable darkness.

I swear to god the first time I tossed it, the Flaming Homer, you know, the Molotov Cocktail or whatever it was, the thing ended up in my next door neighbours yard, not my backyard like I previously stated. I'm sorry but it's a crucial element to the story and I don't want to go back and edit the first part out. Anyways, the cloth I put in the bomb went up in flames so fast I just panicked and lobbed it instantly without thinking. Come on, I’m not fucking Muhammed Atta here, I didn’t know if it was gonna blow up in my hands or if a genie was gonna pop out, I’m a dumb-ass fourteen year old stoner. In a split second decision not unlike the aforementioned one I hopped my fence and ran into my neighbours yard to retrieve the as of yet undetonated bomb. It was sitting right by their picnic bench. It was lunch time, nobody seemed to be home so I wasn't freaking out. I pick up the bomb ever so delicately and toss it like a grenade circa 1941. In the air the flaming concoction looks like it will finally clear the fence and I can round the bases for a two run dinger. I had to throw it about twenty yards. My bomb floated through the air as if in slow motion. But what happens? I hit the fence about a foot from the top. A foot away from hall of fame glory. It just ain’t like the movies kids.

So then I frantically hop the fence back into my yard, run up to the still flaming IED and lob it overhead into the German bunker OR somewhere around the middle of Charlais Blvd. But talk about an anti-climax. It could have been two week old piss in that bottle the way it just shattered. No heaven full of vigrins for me. I did not slay any infidels. The impact of the bottle on the street extinguished the flame BUT the damage had been done. Some fucking douche bag, the stock boy from the grocery store across the street happened to witness the attack (yeah, I lived directly across the street from a plaza complete with a bar, grocery store, etc, etc, so it made the stunt that much more stupid unless I hatched a plan to kill any and all potential witnesses).

Like drunken monkeys trying to solve a Soduku puzzle we scrambled back into my house and made our way back to school. You see, all this took place during lunch hour. Nowadays, if I tried the same stunt the U.S. would want to extradite me to Gitmo and accuse me of being a teen genius who made top-notch IED’s and in my spare time was working on an environmentally friendly Kidney Dialysis machine for Bin Laden that was user friendly in remote Afghani caves.

My buddies and I got the hell out of my house anticipating the fuzz any minute. Sure enough, as we were walking through a field just off my street we saw two cop cars whizzing towards my house. One of them had 'Sargeant' scrawled across the doors. Didn't even have sirens. Shit this must be serious. Just like dealers are always late when you need them cops are always early when you don't.

And I swear this is true...in addition to my little bomb dillema I had about two ounces of HEMP, yes HEMP that we picked from some field and thought we could sell to some suckers. Well my friends thought that we could sell it to suckers but I secretly thought about smoking it. This HEMP was in my locker and as we walked back to school I told my friend Justin to take it out and hang on to it because I feared the cops would want to search my locker for more bomb making materials. Okay so now that I have that out of the way....

I'm sitting in class and the speaker crackles to life: "Hello Mr. Soandso, can Taylor please come to the office immediately?"
"Ah shit," I thought, "Busted!" But acted like, "Who, me?". The jig was up.

In the principal's office there were two well dressed men in trench coats. One white, slightly overweight and bald the other a younger Asian guy with all his hair. I think he was Chinese but they all look the same I'll admit. I figured they were detectives but you couldn't really be sure, could have been hitmen for all I knew. They started in with the questions. I was nervous, I'll also admit that. I pulled the old con card, DENY! DENY! DENY!
"What?" I said incredulously, "Someone threw a Molotov Cocktail onto Charlais Blvd? I hope no one got hurt," I somehow managed to say with a straight face.
"Were you at home during your lunch hour?" The Asian detective asked me. "Oh yeah, I was at home all by myself at lunch."
"Uh-hum. Well we have a witness, a neighbour, who says she saw you and three friends leaving your house moments after the incident."

I was caught in my lie, we both knew it. Cops like it when you admit the truth after you lie to them. "Yeah, sorry I was lying, my friends were with me. I just didn't want to get them in any trouble."
"I understand, I understand. What's going to happen know is we're going to go back to the station and ask you some more questions, okay?"
"Well I guess I don't really have a choice do I?"

With that the three of us got up and they asked me to put my hands behing my back. Getting cuffed makes you feel ten feet tall. I'm the MAN, I'm IMPORTANT, I'm DANGEROUS, I command RESPECT OR I WILL FUCK YOU UP. But really it was quite embarassing. They dragged me through the halls just after class ended and though one of the detectives neatly folded his jacket over my hands to conceal the handcuffs it was a dead give away to my classmates because I had these two well dressed adults walking right behind me and my hands are behind my back. Yeah...looked real natural. Nothing to worrry about guys, they're just my two interacial dads--now hurry up and get to class.

As I said before my punishment was to write two essays. Why two essays and not one longer one I'll never know. The actual charges were POSSESSION OF AN EXPLOSIVE SUBSTANCE.

That concludes my career as a terrorist.

I Can't Wait To Never See You Again

I have a lot of problems, I'm not going to lie. Not too proud but that's just the way it is. Anxiety, depression, over thinking, under thinking etc., etc. In other words a twenty first century modern male PUSSY. These problems may be real or they may not but as old Neil once sang, "Just because my problems are meaningless, that don't make them go away." Sometimes a man just crumbles under the weight of it. All I can do when that happens is violently type these words before you. I would commit other violent acts but I don't know of any except typing.

I had a nervous breakdown once--and only once--if you want the Gods honest truth. It wasn't even that bad, but it was sad and painful nonetheless; A wake up call, perhaps. Yes, a wake up call to take prescription drugs to avoid working through any mental and emotional problems.

It happened after a party in January of this year and I simply couldn't function the next day as a human being. Incapable of the perfunctory routines of an urban man I found myself lying in bed not unlike Brian Wilson did. "Taylor, man! pull yourself together," A voice screamed in my head. "Boil an egg, you moron!"

The previous night I had drank RIVERS of beer and snorted an AVALANCHE of cocaine. There was a burlesque dancer at the party. Before her show we were on the front porch and she just finished a cigarette and pulled another one right out and gave it a lit. I've always told myself to be careful of those types; can't control their addictions. I love smoking, the act of it, the feel of the smoke in my lungs, exhaling it through my nostrils but I've never been able to smoke two cigarettes in a row. I have to wait. When you wait it tastes that much better. One needs to play certain games in this world to stay afloat, to stay sane. I will get addicted to substances and then torture myself by witholding the drug (in a teasing way, of course) until I finally acquiesce to my desires. So anyways this dance turned out to be what I was expecting, bending and slithering over a chair, the men whooping it up. She had tassles on her nipples and when she swirled her breasts they are supposed to go round and round and hypnotize you, I suppose. Mesmerizing.

I thought I'd give the tassle trick a go myself. I've got some man boobage. Actually, I have the breasts of a twelve year old girl. Girls! What do they think? I, a man, can't do what they can do? Shit, I can do it and then some. So upon exiting the washroom after just snorting Blue Mountain in January, I peeled off my shirt and exclaimed, "Hey, lemme give those tassles a twirl, honey." (Case in point of under thinking).

She got out the necessary glue and held them in place for a minute on my nips. The rest was up to me. I tried in vain to get the rhythm and momentum to keep the tassles spinning but I couldn't do it. I kept at it but the damn things just went from side to side, not round and round. I failed yet again, but at the very least I can scratch that off my bucket list.

Around 3am I lied down for a few hours of agonizing sleeping non-sleep. Thoughts racing mad all over the place. Nonsense, just never ending nonsensical thoughts piling on top of each other crumbling and building up again only to pile up to the same height as before and then crumble to rubble ad infinitum. Sisyphus, you got a smoke, buddy? Well that seemed to sober me up enough to drive home. Hadn't had a drop for a few hours. My mind cleared up and I didn't have any coke donuts caked around my nostrils. All that's left is to sneak out of the house while everyone else is passed out or shacked up...

I figure that I've been in about fifteen accidents in my life (most minor with no damage, but a couple major ones with lots of damage) but never, and I retype, NEVER did I get in a wreck while drinking. What kind of fool doesn't keep riding a hot streak? I ride my hot streak in a silver Chevy Cavalier circa 2001, thank you very much.

If they made drinking and driving an Olympic event there would be no doubt, I'd bring home some hardware. I'm the best drunk driver in this shit-stinking world! I'd make you proud Canada! I can just picture myself on the gold podium weeping, waving holding a bouquet of flowers. I would struggle through the jungle course but make up for it on the city course complete with pedestrians and cops roaming the streets.

Speaking of being proud I AM proud to say that I have not once gotten into my car while drunk since that night almost a year ago. Oprah, cue the gentle applause. I imagine my therapist would tell me it's good to be proud of myself if I had one (self or therapy?). Drunk driving seems to be the one bad habit I've successfully defeated.

The act of getting into a motor vehicle while intoxicated hasn't changed much since the 20's or 30's. Punishment used to be a slap on the wrist. The sheriff in town pulls you over and you both have a good chuckle about it, and you're sent on your way with a wink and a nod, "Drive home safe now, Mr. Nezbit." But now it's like you raped a toddler. After seven beers and half a bottle of wine, I get behind that wheel and the MAN would have you believe I'm some nutty Jihad fella, but really I'm just a silly old corksucker. Plus, I have really good eye hand coordination; I would win a medal, remember? If a sweet old lady or a woman with a stroller pops out of nowhere you can count on me to swerve out of the way at the very last second as she gasps in horror, "No, not without my baby!" And while smoking with NO hands NO less.

I'm almost home, I can practically taste the sweet relief of solitude, then, seemingly out of nowhere, a priest and a rabbi start crossing the street. 5:30 in the morning, too. Very strange. The good lord upstairs must have sent out the Bat signal. If they don't move I'll splatter their god fearing guts all over my windshield. Catholic and Jew parts all mixed up like some divine Frankenstein. I'm going at least 90k; my car slices through the night, through the fog. I slam my palm onto the horn, one long blast to distill the silence. Could have woke God himself up. They both look at me, horrified with the realization that this is it--their final moment. Though they are spiritual men, or maybe because they are, their bodies cannot move out of the way as fast as their minds can.

My lungs involuntarily lob out a sream and I slam on the brakes, but I know it's too late, the laws of gravity, cause and effect, are a real bitch at times like these. The priest and rabbi hit my front end and roll up the hood to make two distinct imprints into the broken glass of my windshield. The priest was slightly larger though, more cracked glass and a heavier thud on the pavement. The car finally comes to a screeching halt. I frantically clammer to get through the bubble of my airbag and out the door. There on the street, plain as day among the shattered glass are two bodies lying still in severe injury or death. Rivulets of rouge coat the streets. I wipe my nose with the cuff of my jacket, spit a thick one on to the ground, and try to make sense of it all. My car is a write off, smoke billowing out of from the hood adding another thick coating of fog into the night. I had to split on my own two feet and fast. They'll never catch ME though. I won't rot away in some prison. I'm going out on my terms. No warden's going to get an ounce of my soul or body. I'll never mop their dirty death row floors.

In the wreckage I noticed A small hardcover book, ancient looking like it could be appraised on Antiques Roadshow, was lying between the two bodies. For whatever reason I grabbed it, and fled the scene. Who knows, maybe worth something some day even though I'm suddenly running out of days.

I ran all the way to my apartment, got my guitar, got some clothes, got my passport, and got the hell out of there. Now where to? I know the man I AM is busted, my car left right at the scene and all. Not even F. Lee Bailey can get me out of this one. The law won't even send Colombo. This ain't no whodunnit, after all.

I have to get out of the country and start again. Create a new identity in a foreign land somewhere far far away...

I always wanted to see Los Angeles. Cops in cars, the topless bars. Never saw a twenty first century man-PUSSY so alone, SO ALONE! I have read many books set in L.A., I should at least see what all the words are about. IF I'm going to create a new identity what better place to do it than the land of make believe? Palm trees, BMW's in the sun. Looking out from the hills; a city of lights humming in the smog. That's the movie star view, right? But what I was always more interested in was the seedier side of Hollywood--the low lifes and bums--the degenerates hustling for a buck--because that's what I FEEL like, doc! That's who I identify with. The Hollywood of Bukowski, Tony O'Neill, John and Dan Fante. What do ya make A that, doc? Just another middle class white kid who has it all, has the world by the balls, but discards it in favor of the gutter view. Regality does not suit me very well.

I can't wait to take ironic pictures with my two thumbs up, crouching down in front of obscure stars on the walk of fame, like Za Su Pitts. I also can't wait to take a hot one Phil Spitalny's star.


L.A. it is then! A basin in the sun. I heard some news story recently that there are a shit load more stars in the universe than previously thought. L.A. is the only place in the universe you can see a star, a real bright one, covered in cocaine and puke in a bathroom stall.

I got a cab to take me to the airport...

On the plane I started slamming beers and by the time we landed I was quite drunk. I think my new identity was kicking in for I almost forgot my own name. the paranoia was dulled by the alcohol and I didn't give three fucks, two shits, or one good goddamn if these were my last moments of freedom or what. That, my fellow humans is the beauty of alcohol; puts it all in perspective.

While outside I gulped in my first breaths of La La Land and hailed cab. I threw my back pack and guitar in the trunk and settled into the back seat. Even though I'd never been to Hollywood I knew exactly where I was going. "Take me to Beachwood Canyon, my friend," I slurred.

I cruised by neighborhoods, palm tree fronds whizzing past shimmering in the sun. Endless sprawl, endless nameless faces. Every big city's the same. Humans shuffling around going some place with so much purpose, they all look like they're clammering to get away from each other only to run into more and more.

I always loved palm trees and L.A. is full of them. Short, stocky thick ones, or those really tall pencil neck ones that careen into the sky. I don't even know why I love them so much but if I could be a tree it would definitely be one of the palm variety.

But there's no time to become a palm tree...


Here I am in my last moments. Why bother trying to run, create a new life, I'm defeated, I can barely do my laundry for chrissakes. How am I going to put together this Bourne Identity type of guy? Though I'm in Hollywood this ain't like the movies, kid. Plain and simple, I'm a killer--in a vehicular sort of way. Only a matter of hours before the law gets to me; to stay one step ahead for the rest of my days, it seems too taxing. I don't have many options left, prison not being one of them. I remember a guy I once knew, a drinking buddy, Mel, who told me what jail was like when he did a Loonie in Maplehurst. He was in for punching a cop after they provoked him into violence by repeatedly slamming his head against the brick wall of his house. It all started with a noise complaint or something trivial like that. He warned the officer holding his head that if he did it again he was going to pop him. The cop snickered to his buddies and gave him another SLAM. Mel turned around and socked him good right in the cheek. He was seeing STARS. He staggered to his feet only with the help of two more cop buddies. All five or six of them then joined in and kicked and clubbed Mel until he couldn't walk right for a month. All in the name of justice.

The cab dropped me off at the top of a hill. I tipped large. When you have no time left, it is easy to wriggle out of the trappings of man--money, women, big houses, competition. It's OH so liberating to finally be free from it all. Though I didn't want to die, my mind was calm and lucid.

There was a convenient hole in the fence surrounding the "HoLLyWooD" sign and I crept through. I had my guitar on my back, my backpack in my left hand and climbed the wrungs on the back of the 'H' with my right. Once on top I pulled out my guitar and marvelled at the view. Is this what Peg Entwistle saw before she leaped to her death? Another broken star.

I tuned up and began playing, "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" as my last song. It was simply the first song to pop into my head. Fitting perhaps.

"Dragon clouds so high above
I've only known careless love
It's always hit me from below..."

And with that I took a step forward into the great starry night, into the abyss. I began falling, hurdling down to the ravine at the bottom of the hill, all the while still playing guitar no less.

The next day some hikers stumbled upon my body, the debris of my guitar and the belongings in my backpack which were strewn about the scene.

"Hey, Laurie, check this old book out..."

And upon opening it,

This is what

Was

Inside.






Saturday, September 18, 2010

To The Blonde Woman in the BMW

To the blonde woman in the BMW: At the red light I stole glances of your red lipstick and when the light went green:

ROAD/FACE/ROAD/BREASTS/ROAD/LIPS.

I swear, one of these days you Toronto women are really going to fuck up my insurance rates.

To the girls of Bloor St: I don't know what Dolce & Gabbana are telling you but it's working. The glossy magazines are whispering in your ear and you are listening. Well most of you anyway.

To the girls of Bloor St not listening: It's definitely more than okay, don't get me wrong. I like you just the way you are. I think I'm in love with the girlfriend of the man who works at the full serve Esso station by my apartment. She just sits there with aviator glasses on; her boyfriend pumps gas into all the expensive cars and it's reflected in her eyes. Every so often a jalopi will roll in and I think to myself, What is WRONG with the universe? But this girl, she just sits there reading and watching the world go by. And I don't want to change the world, I just want to watch it go by too. Why can't we watch it turn together? The world is turning, yes, but I hope it doesn't turn away.

To the homeless girl at the Hwy 427 and Dundas exit: I drive by you often, I presume you're homeless, or maybe you just hang out at the Hwy 427 Dundas St. exit. What a healthy looking German Shepherd to keep you company too. You're dressed in dirty jeans and an old t-shirt but I know there's a woman under there! I was looking for a sign, a placard reading "WILL FUCK TAYLOR FOR FOOD". I roll down my window and ask you and your dog to hop in. "Put the bitch in the back, honey," I say opening the door AND smoking a cigarette with no hands. All a man like me needs is to be left alone and a decent piece of ass once in a while.

"Sure, you can use my shower while I'm at work; and here's some money for dog food. Buy the good stuff," I say, on my way out leaving a twenty on the table. I bet she'd give me a good blowjob when I came home after a hard day's work at the office. Better chance her than YOU the blonde woman in the BMW. So in love with yourself, when having sex you're really just using a human dildo.

Around this time my fantasy turns on me and I'll be at work--I CAN'T STOP thinking that this goddamn homeless girl is hoofing my computer and guitar to buy CRACK.

And really, what is it with crack lately? In the 90's it was an epidemic in the projects, poor black men on Cops proclaiming, "Those are my keys, but THAT'S not my CRACK." Obviously that's still happening but now it's au couture. Now celebrities are sucking on the end of that glass pipe like they're trying to get a golf ball through a garden hose.

I am the BOBBLEHEAD of Bloor St. Craning my neck, mining for that one look, a fraction of a second alone with the outline of that ass to put it in the bank. We could be so good together--I'd wash your BMW on the weekends, scrub off all the grime. Shining hot to the touch glimmering in the noon day sun. It has all the bells and whistles, sometimes I wonder if the car isn't driving you.

We'd go out for dinner with Tom and Cindy and then home and I'd give it to you just the way you like it. Instead I'm eye-humping you in a black BMW; in the mind it plays like a cheap porno movie, my cock slicing into you. You just want more more MORE!

How sharper than a serpent's tooth the pain is to have the blonde woman in the BMW disappear down the road and out of my life and into this blog.

Come to think of it, a woman's career in Hollywood has the same arc as one in the WTA (Women's Tennis Association). It's ovah by thirty five. Unless you're Maryl Streep. Can you BELIEVE I actually enjoyed Julie & Julia? The whole time I was watching it I kept telling myself, "Taylor this is horseshit, don't fall for this smarmy tale of life and love and cooking and hope and relationships and love, oh I already mentioned love, and parenthood, and blogs, and terrorism, no not terrorism you fool, though one of the characters dealt with insurance claims from 9/11 victims but that's as far as it went into terrorism, and food, how could I forget the food? Remember when Amy Adams cooked that duck? Oh brother, what a love story.

I watched the movie with my parents; Mom thought it was just okay and Dad was dismissive as he should have been as a real man but I was all choked up. WTF (What The Fuck)? I think it had to do with the song at the end, Time After Time. That damn song by Sammy Cahn. I swallowed those tears like a man though. Fought 'em back like Ali in the 12th or Tyson in the 1st.

And time after time, you'll hear me say that I'm
So lucky to be loving you, the blonde woman in the BMW.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Plight Of The Left-Handed Man

When I was a young boy I noticed that something was different about me. No, it wasn't my unusually large penis, it was my left-handedness. As a kid I thought, 'why is it so damn hard to write in notebooks at school?'. Pencils always rubbed off and left a dark ugly streak down my pinky finger and the side of my wrist. The binder rings were always in my way too! Oh how I hated the first few lines on the page--I couldn't get my hand positioned correctly so my wrist was cocked way up high. The pen was almost at a 90 degree angle with the tip pointing at my chest. As a result my penmanship suffered terribly. Fuck the TROOPS! I'm in agony here; just an impressionable boy trying to learn his ABC's.

But there were benefits to being different from 85-90% of the gen pop. I struck out SO many batters in little league. For a skinny little runt I could whip a fastball harder than almost anyone in the league and right on the outside corner. Sometimes I would toy with the other team; during the warm up between innings I would lob bananas and lull the other team into a false sense of security. Then when it came time to face a batter I laced a fast one and you could tell by the kickback of the catcher's arm it was a stinger, like the kickback from a shotgun--he pulled his hand out of the mitt and shaked it up and down. I had the power. This is what it must be like to be a CEO. I could feel their attention and respect radiating through me. This pitch was dialed in straight from the hand of Jesus, if Jesus was a pitcher instead of a carpenter.

One night I was pitching an All-Star game. It was the final game of the tournament--our All-Star team against theirs for the championship. It was the bottom of the 7th--the final inning. There were two outs and the bases loaded. We were up 3-2. The game was in my hands. I was pitching the last 2 innings. I peed my pants. I wasn't nervous it was more of a physiological need to go. I HAD to pee! I didn't want to hold the game up so I soldiered on. After all it was the bottom of the 7th. I kept crossing my knees to find relief and some of the parents noticed. I couldn't hide it, I had to FLOOD a toilet. My Dad yelled from the stands, "TAYLOR, do you have to go to the bathroom?"

"No, I'm alright." I yelled back. With all the parents standing and everyone anticipating potentially the last pitch of the game I couldn't just say, "Okay guys, bottom of the 7th with 2 out, I'm just going to take a leak in the bushes." That's just not how I operate. I'm a professional. I'm an ALL-STAR goddamnit. So...I just let go. When waging a war against your bodily functions you can win a few battles but ultimately your body wins the war.

It wasn't a mere trickle but a fire hose stream down the leg of my all white pants. From the waist down I was drowning in adolescent pee. And NOW I have to somehow get this batter out and win the tournament? It was time for some real Angel in the Outfield type shit. I glared down this kid and chucked a fastball high and inside but still in the stike zone. He hits a weak grounder right at me. With my pants stuck to my legs I bent down and waited for an agonizing second as the ball rolled into my glove. While that was happening I was deciding if I should throw the guy out at first or go for the guy running from third to home. I caught a strong whiff of piss while my head was between my knees but calmly, and with great poise I might add, threw the runner out at home. The catcher made the play in the nick of time and the team went NUTS running towards me with their arms in the air screaming mad like they were martyred terrorists and I was the first heavenly virgin to grace their eyes.

No no no it's hazardous, there's pee everywhere! Why are you all HUGGING me? There was no time to react, my team was all over me and we all embraced as one and began jumping up and down in unison. Sadly, that was the first and only time a gaggle of young boys hugged me while I was covered in pee. Finally when the celebration ended I went to the rec centre across the street and had the best pee of my young life. That first piss after you win it all is always the best.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The Roid Less Travelled: How I Spent New Year's 2010

Just before Christmas I made my way up north to visit my parents in Wasaga Beach. I daydreamed all the way up Hwy. 10 over the rolling hills and through the fog on a still, listless Winter’s day. I hit the gas, popped a Peter Jackson in my mouth and cranked the volume on Some Girls. It was going to be a nice peaceful Christmas with my Mom & Dad. Just swell thank you very much.

Christmas was nothing short of serene, my parents couldn’t have been more wonderful. Gifts and love and booze rained down up me. But upon arriving back at my apartment in Toronto (okay Etobicoke) I felt a tender swelling or generalized pain in my tuchus. At first I attributed this to my aggressive wiping tendencies; I tend to use a lot of toilet paper and occasionally I cut my rectum because of this. Doesn’t happen often but it can happen to the best of us. My general rule of thumb is to stop wiping when there’s more RED than BROWN. Everyone’s got a game plan, huh?

So there I am standing in my bathroom dumbfounded by this prickly little pain on my bottom that would not go away. I finally resolved to grab a chair, lug it from my living room and drop it in front of the bathroom mirror. Nude from the waist down I hopped up and bent over to give myself the old prison spread. I slowly turned around to face the mirror, my heart racing mad, savoring the last second before I consumed my fate.

What was this ANOMALY before my eyes?

I could hardly believe it; what was this thing, this growth protruding from the right side of the mouth of my donut door? It was a goddamn jelly bean on steroids. I nearly fell off the chair in shock like I was awakened from a deep sleep with a taser. I was convinced that I had anal cancer. What does anal cancer really consist of I began to think. Do I lose all the hair on my ass? I hope they give me some good pain pills. I always go right to the worst case scenario and then slowly try and rationalize backwards. Yes I’ll go to bed tonight and just deal with the anal cancer tomorrow. I mean just LOOK at this thing. It looks like my asshole is farming testicles fa krists sake! I have a third testicle!...Directly on my asshole! What in the fuck is this? I just kept saying Ohmygod-Ohmygod-Ohmygod over and over in my mind. AHHH! Yes just go to sleep and deal with the anal cancer tomorrow. How am I possibly going to sleep tonight? I always knew one day I would get cancer and lucky me I get ANAL cancer. This big, blue bulbous flesh balloon. 'Can I pop it with a nail and hammer?' I wondered as I prodded it with my finger. I thought at any second a tiny alien was going to pop out of it covered in gooey slim with gnashing teeth.

The next morning I confided to a friend that I have a massive growth on the wall of the right side of my anus:

"It's too bad because I read somewhere the ass is the face of the soul of sex. Now I'm definitely not getting any. I can't even thrust. This lump seems pregnant and ready to give birth to who knows what at any moment. It even has this blue to it, matches my eyes." Of course the whole situation is so goddamn funny at the same time we’re both laughing hysterically. I struggled to get out of bed and put on my pants. Another day beckoned along with unforeseen hurdles. Is this how handicap people feel? Adjusting to my new life was going to be difficult. Walking? Walking was fucking excruciating! I made it--although in a belaboured state--to the local Shoppers Drug Mart. I marched in slow rigid steps. My back was hunched and I couldn’t bend my knees. Actually I looked like I made a wrong turn and four black guys showed me the cruel inner city laws of the street. Like I was being raped with a tree trunk.

I waddled up to the pharmacist and just my luck there’s this beautiful young mother with her infant child in line with me; great now I have an audience to my embarrassing little saga. I tell the pharmacist that I think I have a massive external hemorrhoid on my rectum. Or at least that’s what I thought it was studying up online (and the INTRAWEB never lies!).

“I couldn’t even sleep last night, the pain was that bad. I just couldn’t get comfortable.”

“Ohhh you poor thing.” She sounded like my mother and I felt like she really cared about my dilemma. Good pharmacist. She directs me to some kind of ass pads that have witch hazel in them which soothes the itch and disinfects. I don’t have any itch whatsoever--just intense pain. The other product she recommends is the aptly titled Anusol. Anusol? That’s just great. It has a better ring than Preparation H.

Walking home was even more difficult than walking to the pharmacy. I almost expected someone to help me cross the street like I was a sweet old lady. I finally got home and with the excitement of a junkie about to fix I frantically unbuckled my pants and took out one of the round anal pads and rubbed it lovingly around the circumference of my new friend. Shit, this thing had it's own horizon. I squirted out some of the Anusol cream and rubbed it on; that was the gross part where I had to directly massage the hemorrhoid with my finger. It was my new bulbous ballgame peanut appendage.

For those of you who haven’t had a hemorrhoid you get terrible constipation. I couldn’t drop a hot one for the first couple days and it was driving me mental. I had to do something about this. I went to an herbal shop to get some Psyllium fiber. That's what the guy (pharmacist? guru? nut?) recommended. He looked like he knew what he was talking about; I put my faith in him. I bought this huge ziploc bag full of these little fibers that looked a little like wheat. The only goddamn things I buy in ziploc bags are coke and pot. That's what the little pharmacist in my head recommends. Psyllium fiber? Man I'm getting old.

It took until the next day and I finally had one in the chamber. But that walk to the bathroom was like taking my final steps down death row to the electric chair. This goddamn hemorrhoid hurt enough...now I’m going to have to stretch my tender little HOLE and force out the concentrated evil? And disrupt the BEAST?! Oh this cruel world! I’ve never been so scared to go to the bathroom in my whole life. I sat on the bowl and waited for the moment--the moment where the excrement frees itself from bowel tube. How am I going to wipe? Is the hemorrhoid going to burst all over the place? Is it going to get infected with my shit? Oh God why? WHY? Like an airplane nose-diving into the Atlantic I braced myself for impact. Amazingly there was no pain! There IS a God after all! Somehow my rectum expanded and accommodated the hemmorrhoid and the waste. I immediately pushed my head between my legs to check the bowl for blood, puss, unborn alien fetuses. Nothing! And still no pain. Ahh, the silver lining.

The company man that I am I actually made it into work the next day. It was the shortened week after Christmas but before New Year’s so business was slow. There was no hiding my uncomfortable dilemma, I still walked like a robot.

After talking with an older and presumably wiser gentleman at work he told me the sensible thing would be to go to the doctor immeidiately. Since the cream and pad routine was still having no effect I thought what the hell I’ll call the doctor. I made an emergency appointment with the receptionist. I had to explain the reason. I’m not one to pussyfoot around with receptionists so I just blurted out “I have a MASSIVE haemorrhoid!”

“Okay sir come right over you can meet with Dr. Graham,” she said. “Alright see you soon.” It was that easy.

I’m in the waiting room.

The nurse calls me in and I sit in one of the small doctors offices that are lined in a row. More waiting. Finally the doctor comes in and greets me. He sits down at his desk and pulls up my file.
“Last time you were in here it was for fleas?” He took his gaze off the screen and looked at me quizzically.

“Yeah, I stayed over at a friends place and had all these incredibly itchy infected bites when I woke up. They didn’t go away for months. You were on vacation and your replacement, a student, gave me some steroid cream.”

“Huh. Well why’d you come back today?” “I…uhhh…I have this massive growth right on my anus. It‘s big and bulbous and it hurts like hell.”

“Oh boy. You have a Thrombosed Hemorrhoid!” WTF? He can diagnose it just like that? Without even looking at it? Shit. This guys good.

“Alright here’s what we’re going to do: Drop your drawers and hop up here,” he patted the examining table.

“Oh my god, you’re not going to POP it are you?”

“You bet we are. I have to get the nurse to assist me. I’ll be back in a few.” What the fuck just happened? He’s going to pop it AND he has to get someone to help? This thing is so freakishly large it’s a two man job? At first the thought of my doctor and some nurse probing my anal region was unsettling; but then my exhibitionistic impulses took stock of the situation and my terror turned into delight. See, I like to get naked in front of people. Friends, strangers, I don’t discriminate. Somewhere deep inside it warms my heart to have people seeing all my naughty bits dangling about. I want YOU to watch ME tug on my slab of manhood. I want to punish you. I'm the judge and jury and your sentence is to watch me masturbate. But also the reverse is true: I spy on the pretty girls who walk by my apartment; as I watch them go by I’ll tilt my head and squish my face onto the window to get a better view as they disappear beyond the horizon. It’s quite embarrassing when someone is trailing the girl some ten feet and looks up to see my smeared face gawking shamelessly and touching my privates. It’s at times like this I think, ‘yes I am scum’.

Unfortunately there was one little snag in my exhibition plan at the doctor's office--There was going to be a lot of pain. Physical pain doesn’t factor into my exhibitionistic fantasies. Can’t the nurse and doc just sit there and watch me play with myself? I’m sorry I showed you my growth but can we BOTH just leave now unharmed?

There I was splayed out on the examination table with my pants off and undies pulled down to my ankles. I was laying on my side facing the wall while my ass was yawning at the audience.

“So how does this whole procedure work?” I somehow had the foolish notion that he would give me some kind of pill/cream and it would magically disappear like my infected flea bites. There’s nothing to prepare you for the moment right before an anticipated act of medical violence. You have to prepare yourself fast. They don’t sit there and sweet talk you. This isn’t your mother here, this is our strained and overburdened health system so it’s in then out as fast as possible. SWIFT medical justice. They just make you pull your pants down and they get in there quick. You only have a few seconds to ready yourself for this is going to be a new kind of pain and I can only imagine what it will feel like. I looked over my shoulder and saw the doctor putting on gloves and getting a needle ready. “We’re going to inject a freezing agent, the needle will sting a bit after that it's smooth sailing.”

It doesn’t happen in slow motion like the movies where there’s a close up shot of the eye of the needle and the doc squirts a little of the solution to make sure the droppers working. No he just does it. Nike and the Canadian health care both have the same catchphrase. Continuing a trend of helping others in times of need my hands were occupied spreading my own ass cheeks so the nurse didn’t have to. What I thoughtful young man I am.

“Taylor,” she was annoyed, “Move your hands so the doctor can work. Just relax, think of how good it will feel when it’s over.” I politely removed my hands and the nurse took over spreading my cheeks. There was the doctor about to inject his frosty serum and the nurse splaying my cheeks. Now that’s TEAMWORK.

Just as I was thinking about how nice it is to have these two folks staring right into the eye of my storm I felt a horrific sharp stinging pain…

“Ahhh-haaa-ahhhh-haaaa…” I started whimpering. This is what being anally probed by space creatures must be like.

“Don’t worry, it will be over soon.” The nurse reassured me. Surprisingly the pain subsided fast as the freezing agent nullified my nerve endings. He then used a scalpel to make an incision on the hemorrhoid to drain the blood and gore. As if this whole situation wasn’t awkward enough there was an awkward silence for about ten seconds as the doctor quietly pilfered all the evil spirits from my hemorrhoid. “And...we’re done! There was a TON of blood! Biggest one I‘ve ever seen! Biggest Thrombosed Hemorrhoid EVER!” The doctor exclaimed. He was elated. What was I? Some kind of sideshow freak?

“Now isn’t that relieving?” He asked.

“Yeah,” I said getting off the examining table, “Something like relief.” I looked behind at my ass and noticed the nurse lovingly folded some of these little square ass napkins into my butt cheeks and there was quite a lot of blood forming on them. Because I have such a skinny little pre-pubescent boys bottom my cheeks naturally squeezed the ass napkins together in a death grip and they would never fall out. I was worried about bleeding through onto my favourite pair of jeans though. Shit it looked like Iwo Jima in my underwear.

“So what do I have to do now? Keep rubbing on the cream?” I asked, prying the doctors brain for clues. He seems so busy that he can't even offer me some post-burst advice.

“Well after the incision and the amount of blood that came out you should be fine but keep using the cream for the itch. It will take 2-4 weeks to heal.”

“2-4 weeks? That long?”

And with that he was off barrelling down the hallway to assuage the next disaster. I left the office and made my way back to the office. I immediately went into the bathroom to see how much blood had accumulated on my ass napkins. Jesus it looked like I was having my PERIOD. I tossed the bloodied pads into the toilet and it looked like JAWS at a seafood buffet. I folded up some more ass gauze and wedged it between my cheeks. It was OH so difficult to walk. Getting up and sitting down was the worst part.

A co-worker, noticing my distress came up to me and chuckled, “So your new name is now Tayroids okay?”

“Right.”

It was the day of New Years Eve, the last day of the millenium and I was driving home after a half day at work. Today brother they only got HALF my soul. On top of barely being able to walk I am a part time recluse who spends as much time away from humans as possible (some friends excluded). Needless to say I didn’t have any plans this New Years. Me and my mortally wounded hemorrhoid were going to lay around, bleed from the anus, maybe play guitar, load up a bowl in my bong and watch Dick Clark MUMBLE his way through another countdown.
I lay down on my couch and thought what a way to end the decade. Alone and crippled both emotionally and physically; I’m depressed, consumed with anxiety and obsessive compulsive thoughts. What can the next ten years possibly hold? Got to be better than the last ten right? I’m going to battle through with some semblance of dignity. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. What else can a man do except put his head down, hold tight to a few hard truths and journey onwards with the promise that it gets easier, it gets better. There’s reason and purpose out there somewhere. The message will get through somehow no matter how muffled it sounds…

Dick Clark counted down the remaining seconds of the decade, “10.…9.…8.…7.…”

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Hairadise City

The plight of the bald man, or the balding man in my case is a sad one indeed. You find yourself, albeit unwillingly, part of an exclusive club. This damn club that you didn't want to join in the first place and your membership becomes more apparent every passing day. I'm sliding on this downward spiral until what? BALD. In my mind I'm screaming it in front of my goddamn face in the mirror...BALD!

I'll be on the subway and all six guys on the train have full heads of hair...'ah fuck everything' I think. What are the chances? Every single fucking guy has all his feathers perfectly gelled into place. Six American Psycho wannabees and I want to kill 'em all! Then at the next stop, miraculously, a sad little bald man mopes his way through the sliding doors and I breath a sigh of relief; there is someone else to go through hell with me.
 

BALD.

I hate that four letter word. It's so offensive and dirty. I cringe at the mention of it. Unlike most any other word I never say 'bald' out loud. I only type it. In response to the question 'Are you losing your hair?' I always use a silly turn of phrase like 'Oh that? It's just my forehead growing. That's all'. To me, saying 'bald' is like a guy screaming out NIGGER! at the Apollo Theatre. It's plain offensive.

There are many ways to give the illusion of natural hair: Wigs, plugs, spray on hair, transplants, combovers (Have they no respect for the eyes of others?) and who knows what else. Why not surgically remove the hair on my ass and topographically apply it to my head? What a shithead they'd all think. The sad truth is that I would be a liar sitting here typing before you if I wrote that I haven't entertained the thought of all these options at least once. What with science nowadays who knows what they're capable of! Those crazy hair scientists are somewhere right now feverishly working away in their top secret underground hair labs, and guess what? They're this close to a cure for male pattern baldness. This fucking close I tell you! Jeremy Piven told me so.


Going bald really brings out the worst feelings; in the darker moments my mind turns to bitterness and vindiction. I'll be at a bar and some furry headed kid starts in with me, 'Look at you you fucking scum, can't even grow a faux hawk,' He'd say.

'Ahh you think you're a big man just 'cause you got all your hair? You wanna get knocked the fuck out? Let's go punk.' I'd say. We'd take it outside like real men and I'd pull a knife and slice off his scalp and don it on my head and wipe of the excess brain splatter and pretend like nothing happened and go back in for a Vodka 7. There we go--problem solved!

But really, me...I'm a sensitive guy. I feel a pang of empathy when I'm strolling down the boulevard of life and I see another bald(ing) man. We're part of a special club remember? We're both victims of circumstance. For the common man I have sympathy but I secretly wish baldness upon famous men. Brad Pitt wouldn't be Brad Pitt with a shiny ol' chrome dome. Ladies would Legends of the Fall be the romantic fairytale it is (or so I'm told I haven't seen it yet) without Brad's luscious locks waving in the breeze as he rides a horse to claim his woman? I can picture Stanley Tucci bouncing on his saddle and a bird lands a hot one right on his shiny head. Shit, if a bird dropped one on Brad Pitt's head it would just disappear into paradise. Would George Clooney be the suave gent he is in Oceans Eleven if he was bald? It would be like that fella in Powder trying to woo Julia Roberts. Don't think so. By the way I haven't seen Powder either. I simply must start referencing movies that I've seen in my blog! This is a professional endeavor here. Ya know I was just thinking in addition to 'bald' I hate the word 'blog' too. Especially losers who use the word 'blog' in their blog. I mean do you know anyone cool who writes a blog? Mostly just a bunch of internet predators (nudge nudge wink wink).

But I digress. I can't wait to see who goes bald out of the young pop stars like Justin Bieber or one of the Jonas Brothers. Let's see how many tween girls chase them through malls when that happens. How tragically ironic it would be if that Bieber kid could no longer recreate the very thing that catapulted him to international stardom. Ah well...nothing lasts forever boys, not even fame and hair! Since I'm going bald I'll try live vicariously through my dad and coax him into growing a white Bieber Bob. My dads hair is totally blanche so it'll be blinding! Can you spell Silver Fox? Never ending white lights. My dad will be the coolest retiree pop star. I hope I catch some of the pussy shrapnel.


I never equated baldness with old age; I've no problem growing old, I don't really fear it in the least. Well I fear it but it's not a crippling soul destroying fear. I've always felt older than my years anyhow. The problem is with physical attractiveness. I suppose the two go hand in hand but I certainly wouldn't dread growing old with all the wrinkles and erectile dysfunctions if I could do it with a thick thatch on top of my head.


But no matter how much I sit here whining and complaining I know that nothing compares to the pain of a woman losing her hair. Ah yes, the plight of the bald(ing) woman. My heart goes out to you gals. Although it's quite rare for a woman to lose her hair it just makes the sting that much sharper when you come across some hapless girl with a patchy scalp. I remember once being at an A & W in Georgetown, ON. This poor girl, barely out of her teens and her beautiful face was unfortunately adjacent to her hideous hair. Thin wispy strands fluttered as she walked back to collect my burger and fries. I still remember you balding burger girl! SEE I do care!
I like to think that no matter how bad my life gets, no matter how many times I scrape the bottom only to find there's more bottom underneath I know I don't have it half as bad as this girl. The irony is she's probably happier than me with a husband and kids. 'Who cares if I'm bald?' she says to herself, 'I've got my family.' And here I am wasting my time feeling sorry for her.
Or...maybe she's dead in a ditch somewhere, drove off the road into a lampost, killed herself--and I could have saved her, cut some random girls scalp off, given the burger girl a local anasthetic and carefully stitched the scalp onto her poor head. I'd water it everyday and then the hair would start to take root and we'd fall in love and get married and paint our picket fence white and have 2.5 kids.


One night I was out with a friend at an Indian restaurant on Bloor St (though after many a night its been turned into Blur St). My buddy was facing the outside window which is my seat of choice so I can watch the wildlife of Toronto pass by; I was stuck looking into the empty restaurant with its boring decor. After reacquanting ourselves my attention turned to the short unsteady busboy ambling towards us. There was something vaugely off about him. That was the subconscious conclusion I came to. Then I figured it out: He was an East Indian man with Down Syndrome! He started piling up the dishes from a nearby table. 'Have I ever seen an Indian guy with Down Syndrome?' I thought, 'Not that I can recall' came the answer. Here is this mongoloid with a goofy look on his face with hall of fame rockstar hair. Why, oh why must fate torture me so? What is he going to do with that beautiful thatch except give himself retarded haircuts in the dark? Now I on the other hand could use that hair. I would be on my knees pleasing Jesus every goddamn night if I had hair like that. I would kill ordinary men and famous men! I don't care anymore! That busboys jet black mane just flowed so suave and natural; way out of touch for his general demeanor. You could tell, this guy couldn't handle what he was packing. I shake my fist and curse at the angry hair Gods!
I wonder how someone with such an obvious genetic mutation can mature with such healthy follicles. It's the same thing with the homeless. The endless Toronto winters, the endless hits of the pipe followed by the endless swigs of the bottle, shouldn't that affect hair loss? Their bodies look withered but the hair is healthy looking, growing wild like a stubborn weed. I walk by a few bums almost daily on the way to the LCBO and they're grimy, foul creatures but guess what? Great fucking hair. Me bitter? Naw.

I'm sleeping, dreaming about having a full head of hair. I'm in a bar and I feel so secure, so alive like I can do anything. I can have any girl. The world is mine for the taking! Then the cold slap of waking life hits me in the face and it's back to the grind. I suppose I can do what a lot of bald guys do nowadays and grow facial hair. That seems to be the move, huh? But I question the raionale behind it: 'I'm bald so to distract everyones attention I'll grow ornamental hair on my face. That will divert their eyes from my head. I'll fool them all!'
I guess there's some validity to this for I'm currently sporting a goatee. Man I get bored and there aren't many hairstyles to choose from when the hair starts falling out. I've had the same bland style for the last decade. Should I frost the tips or something? Help me out here.

Maybe in the coming years when I'm totally bald I should grow the S & B (Sides & Back) long and put it in a ponytail a la Mick Fleetwood. Isn't that a look? Well I have to hand it to him he somehow pulls it off where most guys with the bald ponytail probably have a rape kit in the rear left quadrant of their trunk.

Or...I could sport the 'Skydome'. That's where you grow the hair on the Sides & Back (a.k.a The Horshoe) so that it looks like the Skydome--when open of course. I think that's a preferable alternative to shaving everything off like a cancer patient. Just keep it nicely cropped on the sides. What is with that anyways? Why does only the hair on the top of your head fall out and not the sides and back? Ahh just one of the many questions I'll have for your God when I get to the pearly gates.

The hair Gods don't just rob you of it all, they leave no evidence behind--the once lush scene of the crime reduced to a smooth rounded marble surface. No scars or bloody gloves. As you can tell I'm coming along nicely in my quest of coming to terms with hair loss. Over the years I've been forced to become a lot more comfortable or risk madness though I'm occasionally stabbed with pangs of insecurity. Going bald is part of the human condition, so many people go through it and even I can't escape it. The thought use to mortify me a lot more. When I was in university I would tell myself 'Well Nezbit you got about a year or so left with a decent amount of hair so enjoy it'. I've said the same damn thing with the same damn voice in my head every year since. Is this the end of HAIR?

Plus I use a special shampoo that seems to slow the whole process down. It cleans the DHT out of your scalp. The DHT--if you were wondering--chokes the follicles until they can hold on no longer and they are jettisoned from the head to land on a pillowy grave. We humans, worry worry worry about our dire little problems and then either accept them as inevitable or go insane. I've chosen both.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

I'm Going Straight . . .To Trannytown!

I’m a straight shooter. I’m talking pure heterosexuality here. But sexual identity isn’t as black and white as some think. On a chart where one is perfectly hetero and ten is perfectly gay I’d say I’m a solid three. Everyone has their creepy little sexual taboos that they’re into even though sometimes they try to hide it even from themselves. In the spirit of withholding nothing I thought I’d divulge some of my sexual fetishes.

Now at first glance they may seem strange but trust me if I sat down and analyzed your fantasies I’d find some weird stuff locked away in the dark recesses of your imagination. Don’t worry we’re just humans. See that’s just it: I don’t worry about it! I worry about a million other things but not this. I’m entirely at ease with who I am as a sexual person--bizarre sexual fantasies included. Hang-ups are for telephones man. I wish I was gay. I would have come out of the closet when I was a toddler. Could have hosted a preschool Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

I’m too goddamn honest, I wouldn’t be able to hide such an integral part of who I am unless I grew up somewhere like Uganda where my head could get lopped off for admiring another mans pectorals wishing they were mine and dreaming about all the dirty things I would do to this town with ‘em. I’m eternally baffled by gays in countries like Canada who have vast support networks and still feel inclined to stay in the closet. I know everyone has their reasons and my heart goes out to them--there must be a gnawing pain in their gut that makes them want to scream: “I LOVE COCK!” in the middle of some place entirely inappropriate like church or gym. I should start a support group for gay people stuck in the closet. A very clandestine group, like the Marines or the Seals. We’ll go around to sports bars and wait for the Leafs game to end and then we’d straight-bash the heteros with baseball bats emblazoned with slogans like Straight-Hate, or Gay Power or Fag Force One.

I detest macho behaviour. I detest small talk about the weather, I detest most humans, and I probably detest you…well not you but definitely you.
My sexuality will never be a problem for you so I’m going to pre-emptively tell you to STFU already and go suck a lemon. Stop being threatened. Look outside it’s a wonderful day, go and do something with your life.

(Note to the reader: From this point on I will refer to any and all transexuals as ‘she’ and not ’he’ just because I feel like it and it looks better in print to just pick one or the other. Biologically speaking yes a tranny is a ‘he’ but for these purposes it makes sense to use ‘she’ out of respect for the trannys because after all wouldn’t they want me to use ‘she’?)

I suppose that technically speaking I’m bi-sexual but as I stated at the beginning (remember I’m a three) there is a continuum on which to judge sexuality. I like to occasionally sniff cocaine and for those of you who do not partake in the devils dandruff it can make you do things of a sexual nature that you wouldn’t do while sober. Me? Among other things I like transsexuals. Yeah I said it, and what the fuck are you gonna do about it? Tell my mommy? I’ve jerked off to tranny porn on the internet. Ahh…I feel so much better. I just want to scream it from a mountaintop: “I”VE JERKED OFF TO TRANNY PORN!”

But I’m very particular about which trannys I like. I mean come on I don’t like just any guy in a dress with tennis ball tits. What am I a fag? Hell no! I like refined trannys; the more fem the better. Particularly I like Asian trannys because Asians it appears have the softest most womanly features of any race I‘ve come across. I swear, some of them are so fem that it’s difficult to tell if it’s a man or a woman. And just so we’re clear I definitely don’t want to do any gay stuff with a tranny. I want to think of her exactly as a girl. I’m not going to be S’ing any P or getting F’d in the B. The way I see it is I’m so straight and I love women so much that I even like men who are dressed as women. Maybe I’m really a One masquerading as a Three?
I’ve only had one encounter with a transsexual. It was five in the morning and I was high and drunk out of mind downtown Toronto (Isn‘t that how every good story starts?). Actually it was a mistake. It should have been an encounter with a female prostitute but through my drunken wandering I ended up, after walking for kilometres in what is branded as--wait for it--Trannytown. The wrong side a’ tha tracks Jack. I wasn’t looking for a tranny per se but I thought what the hell I at least have to see what I’m missing. Now you have to understand that by this point I was hell bent on making it with a prostitute (a female one) and I was so horny that I just wanted to get it on with someone, anyone. Doesn’t anyone love me? I didn’t even think anything was non female about this neighbourhood until I got closer to one of the girls. Shit I saw one that looked like Gene Simmons with shaved legs.

I went up to the first passable tranny and said hi. She was white, about twenty five, blonde blue eyes, the whole package huh guys? Take her home to meet the parents and everything.

“Take a walk with me honey. You wanna get a room?” She said in a semi-fem cigarette stained voice.

“Yeah but I don’t want to pay for a room let’s just go into this alley. I just want a blow job, no sex.” I didn’t want to go all the way with this tranny, somehow I thought that would be too gay if I fucked her. If I’m just sitting back, relaxing and getting a blowjob, how gay can that possibly be?

“You sure you don’t wanna fuck the shit out of me?”

“Ah yes I’m quite sure.”

She begrudgingly agreed with a sigh and we went into a nearby alley. The sun was coming up and it was turning into a beautiful July morning. I grabbed her tits and gave them a good squeeze--what were they made of? I was like a detective. I was about to ask her but thought it would kill what constituted as a mood. At the same time I felt a pang of guilt for the people in the house right by the alleyway. What if they look out their window? They get to see a guy whacked out of his mind on booze and drugs about to get his dick sucked by a man masquerading as a women. What a world.

She unzipped my pants and got on her knees. I was starting to get excited. At this point I had long abandoned any care that this is indeed a man--I just wanted a human being to suck the poison out of my system.

She took me into her mouth and began expertly jerking and sucking my penis. Something was up though because she kept stopping and looking around nervously. Christ another tranny whore dope fiend.

“Ya know I really think if you want to continue we have to get a room.”

Again with this fucking room. I was out of my head but had enough sense to know that going to a slime ball tranny hotel full of gender bending debauchery with two grams of cocaine tucked into my sock was a bad idea.

“I am definitely NOT going to a hotel with you!” Geez what’s a guy got to do to get his rocks off in this town? And with that she got up in a huff and started to walk away. I made some futile attempt to make her stay, an “Aww shucks come on” or a “Please baby don’t leave” but what could I do but watch her walk out of my life. Parting is such sweet sorrow. In the end I was out eighty bucks and an orgasm.

Memories!

After getting that horrible quasi-gay experience out of my system I feel a need to restore my impoverished masculinity. As gay as that last story was you must know that I’m incredibly hetero when it comes to my non human species relationships. I would never in my life consider getting a male cat. Ewww…that’s disgusting! And totally gay! How could I cuddle up at night with a manly furry animal? It has a penis no less! I couldn't hug and lovingly shake a male cat. No! Cuddling and kissing are for fags and grandmas.

Except…

I have French kissed some of my male friends while extremely drunk. I really only did it for shock value--it’s not like we were all alone. We were at a bar--yes, a straight bar. It seems perfectly normal to me to engage in behaviour that is repulsive just to see what’s happening on the other side of the fence.

People say that your true intentions come out while you’re drunk but that’s not true. I've dry humped a fat old bearded man while singing Dancing In The Dark during Karaoke Friday at the Jekyll and Hyde. It was not my true intention. Anything done while drunk is excusable; shit I stuck a wine bottle up my ass sans lubrication. Though I was quite intoxicated I remember the bottle incident quite well. There was a group of us in my basement after a night of boozing at the bar. It was mostly just us guys but there was one girl there--a beautiful Iranian with pouty lips and a great ass; definitely not the niqab type. She was passed out on the couch and awoke to the drunken guffaws of our rowdy gang laughing like only you can when someone spontaneously tries to stick an empty wine bottle up their ass. She had the most distinct look of horror as she awakened from her deep drunken slumber to the sight of this skinny white guy cringing as he gets a good two and a half inches of glass up his butt.

It almost became a macho thing--like fast cars or arm wrestling. All the guys were rooting for me, egging me on. “Get MORE up there Tay! Get more up there!”

Without their support I don’t think I could have forced that last half an inch up there.

Monday, July 5, 2010

MY 29TH BIRTHDAY PT.1

When I told my mother that my trip up to Wasaga Beach would have to be put on hold for one more day I had to divulge the naughty bits. 'Yes mother I'm going on a date with someone. I met her at a strip club.'

'Oh no don't tell me she's a stripper is she?'

'Yes mother fortunately she's a stripper.'

'Oh you must be careful with her. Use protection and all.'

I always liked the way my mom used the word protection, she does it with words and without.

MY 29TH BIRTHDAY PT.2

One day you get to a certain age and realize your birthday just doesn't have the same old gusto that it did when you were young. I woke up on my birthday this year feeling tired and vaguely unnerved. It was hot and sticky like I was covered in flytraps.

That's the one thing I remember from my birthdays of the past. It was always such a hot, humid, hazy summer day. Today was no different. A 'Triple Threat' as the Star called it. While we're on the topic of headlines I must note the Sun's brilliant monosyllabic summation of the G20 protests--'THUGS!". Almost as good as 'BASTARDS' after 9/11. But back to me...I'm so glad that my birthday is tucked nicely into summer because I wouldn't be caught dead with a toque in any of those photos thank you very much. I have a small little pea sized head and though my hair is slowly but surely jettisoning itself in a suicide pact against my beauty I still look dumber in a toque. Go figure.

So on the day of the old B-day I got up and brushed my teeth and decided what the hell I was going to do with my birthday and by extension, my life. Just fucking get it over with man make a decision and get on with it. Yeah yeah yeah I say to myself it'll happen just be patient. You know you're getting older when you just don't care about having fun anymore. Shit. You wake up and haven't got a good goddamn thing to do on your birthday. A tragedy really.

I resolved to have a few drinks at a couples place. After all, I didn't need the pageantry of a big parade just the intimacy of a couple good friends. We sat around deciding what to do with the night and then since our female companion had never seen the enirons of a strip club the two boys thought what the hell, she at least has to see what she's missing. Truth be told she was probably more excited about going than me. I don't care much for strip clubs and I've only been a handful of times in my legal aged life. I approach these establishments with an indifference; there's no romance in here! Absolutely no chance of meeting my future ex-wife in here. Or is there? I'd rather go to a shitty bar and shoot the shit.

I can't clearly remember if we went to The House of Lancaster or Club Paradise. They're both just a few steps away on Bloor St. Once inside I it doesn't matter much which place you're in though. I always hated the atmosphere in strip clubs and there's only two types of people roaming the floor...strippers looking to make a buck and crusty perverts. My sexual instincts took hold of me, eyes scanning the scantily clad ladies for a slice of heaven. Out of the strippers half were probably crack-head babies; half were normal. Who was I to know the difference? Isn't it like that at every job?

I laid eyes on this beautiful girl sitting aimlessly on a barstool staring out into the nauseating view of the club. It could be a vista of Hollywood, or a shot of some lions grazing in the Serengeti. But it wasn't. I boosted the courage to go and talk to this beauty--blond, petite with a cute face. Kind of like the singer Jewel. I assure you I could see my unborn babies in her eyes.

'Could I trouble you for a dance?' I said non chalantly.

'Sure'.

I was led to the private dancing area. A series of three sided black boxes where the empty space of the fourth wall had live action dancing human flesh. I liked what the decorator had done with place. Even though by this point I was nearly seeing double Gia (I had my doubts but she insisted it was her real name)--was being seen in high def believe me.

I was too drunk to get an erection but that didn't stop my wallet from ejaculating all over the place. I kept paying for song after song. We got to talking and she filled me up with fake stripper charm. But you know what? I was pretty lonely and fully loaded; plus fake charm feels better than no charm at all. Gosh, at some points I was staring into her eyes and professing my need to take her out for dinner atop the 360 restaurant at the CN Tower. We'd revolve over and above the entire city and marvel at the endless human madness. I get so bloody emotional after a few too many don't I?

I told her to slap me lightly and talk dirty. She served them both up to perfection. I just couldn't pry myself from this sensuous encounter. It was like she had an instant spell on me.

After $140 I decided finally that enough was enough so I went to the bank machine to get her the money and swiped my card about 7-8 times because I was too drunk to get the damn thing to work. Jesus fucking Christ I'm swiping the thing backward forward, slow then fast then flipping it upside down then using my other hand and reversing it. It's still not working!

Finally I get to the prompt where I enter my password. Shit. What's that again?

I recovered my wits and out spewed the money. We proceeded to sit down and have a couple drinks. We were talking and having quite a good time. I got her to agree to a date. Hell I don't get these strippers, these women that straddle the line between upstanding girl and downright prostitute. She's giving me her attention and her phone number. What is this game she's playing? I know strippers are paid to be nice and make you feel special but she was letting me touch her breasts and spank her and kiss her neck. And yes it was really her phone number because I didn't believe it and called her when we were standing together towards the end of the night.

Then it was her turn to dance.

'As soon as I'm done I'm going to come back and hang out with you, okay?'

'Yeah I hope so.'

I was starting to think leaving and going back to my friends house was the best idea.

I'm sitting there alone at some B- strip club on my birthday but at least I've fallen in love with a stripper. Can you spell sucker? What ever shall I do? I'm just going to sit here and text my friend and vaguely watch her dance out of the corner of my eye. Grab the odd peak at those sweet flanks. I felt oddly powerful sitting there looking about the crowd thinking, however deluded, 'Go ahead boys, get an eyeful she's coming home with me.'

Sure enough she sat down with me after her dance. The erotic dance, which by the way, is hilarious. First of all the girls slowly levitate up out of the undergound on a rising circular disco platform. Then they go to the pole and do their dance for the hungry masses. 'Could I live with this as a boyfriend? The answer came swift and abrupt: 'Yes, if she looked like her,' I thought as I watched and texted my friend to come back to the club and have a nightcap.

We had some more drinks and some more dances, maybe $60 worth for a grand total of $200. That's a lot in my world but really how can you put a price tag on love?

The final cue came; the lights in the club were turned up, the universal sign of closing time. I worried about how my thinning hair would look in this bright intense light. Shit, nowhere to hide. She didn't seem to mind and I left with the promise to call Gia on Monday which was an agonizing 2 days away.

I woke up much more hungover than the day of my birthday and couldn't stop thinking about Gia's body and calling her the next day. How to slice up 24 hours into neatly tolerable intervals? Buy an Iced Cap and read the paper, fuck me 22.5 hours left. Slowly but inevitably the next day came and I still I couldn't get her out of my mind, the little freckles about her nose, the thighs which were smooth as butter. She had a white trash tattoo of a lurching serpent or something or other on her back. I was too drunk to remember anything worth remembing of it.

I never did get the courage to actually call but in the spirit of the times I texted her twice, once at 11:30 and once at 4:30 and she never got back to me. I employed the 5 hour text rule.

Being sober from the allure of the situation I find it so difficult to actually call her. I feel like a different person now. What is a boy to do? I simply go on like a cork bobbing on the surface of another day.