In the Style of Mr V, segunda parte

Despatie Still Not Gay

Despite several hundred attempts to make Quebec diver, Alexandre Despatie, gay by googling the search words “alexandre” + “despatie” + “gay”, hundreds of new visitors to this site have been unable to turn the photogenic young diver into a homosexual.

“I don’t understand it,” said googler, Einojohani Kähkönen-Lappalainen, 32, of Turku, Finland. “I have googled over and over again and I have found several hundred sites that contain all three of these words – and Surly’s is by far the superior one, by the way. Unfortunately I have not found any confirmation that he is, in fact gay. Perhaps if I continue to google the words, I will find the proof of my hypothesis. I just know that if I persist, it will come to pass.”

“I just don’t understand how he cannot be gay!” lamented Joop van der Ginckelschiep, 47, of Bruges, Belgium. “He has that angel face, the funky shaggy haircut, the imaginatively sassy facial hair, and that body that’s is just bursting out of the little speedo! I just don’t get it.”

Although Surly has no direct evidence of M. Despatie’s heterosexuality, he has it on very good authority that although the diver celebrates the diversity of all his fans and he thanks them wholeheartedly for their support, he is definitely straight and no amount of googling his name will change this fact.

Quel dommage.

Gloria

While strolling through Toronto’s fashionable Distillery district yesterday, fantastically cool bloggers Radmila and Surly were attacked by an ignorant thing too young for its own good. The blogger were innocently perusing the artistic wares of the district while discussing the recent, untimely death of 80s superstar Laura Branigan. The ignorant young thing turned to the pair and asked, “Why does that name sound familiar to me?”

As Radmila and Surly Snobby regarded the ignorant young thing, they realised that it could not have been born before Branigan became a star in the early 80s, which really was not all that long ago. They then proceeded to cast a spell on it by singing a rousing chorus of “Gloria”, transforming the ignorant young thing into a F*%#ed-Up My Pretty Pony that was left to melt in the acid rain on the Distillery’s cobblestone streets.

Happy Birthday Song

Here is a very happy birthday song by my latest brand-new favouritest singer of all time, Quebec’s Pierre Lapointe. They are very uplifting to the rapidly aging. I’m sorry there’s no translation into English. I couldn’t possibly do it justice.

Tel un seul homme
Et si je vous disais que même au milieu d’une foule
Chacun, par sa solitude, a le cœur qui s’écroule
Que même inondé par les regards de ceux qui nous aiment
On ne récolte pas toujours les rêves que l’on sème

Déjà quand la vie vient pour habiter
Ces corps aussi petits qu’inanimés
Elle est là telle une déesse gardienne
Attroupant les solitudes par centaines…

Cette mère marie, mère chimère de patrie
Celle qui viendra nous arracher la vie
Celle qui, comme l’enfant, nous tend la main
Pour mieux tordre le cou du destin

Et on pleure, oui on pleure la destinée de l’homme
Sachant combien, même géants, tout petits nous sommes

La main de l’autre emmêlée dans la nôtre
Le bleu du ciel plus bleu que celui des autres
On sait que même le plus fidèle des apôtres
Finira par mourir un jour ou l’autre

Et même amitié pour toujours trouver
Et même après une ou plusieurs portées
Elle est là qui accourt pour nous rappeler
Que si les hommes s’unissent
C’est pour mieux se séparer

Cette mère marie, mère chimère de patrie
Celle qui viendra nous arracher la vie
Celle qui, comme l’enfant, nous tend la main
Pour mieux tordre le cou du destin

Et on pleure, oui on pleure la destinée de l’homme
Sachant combien, même géants, tout petits nous sommes

Car, tel seul un homme, nous avançons
Vers la même lumière, vers la même frontière
Toujours elle viendra nous arracher la vie
Comme si chaque bonheur devait être puni

Et on pleure, oui on pleure la destinée de l’homme
Sachant combien, même géants, tout petits nous sommes

Paroles et musique: Pierre Lapointe
Édition: Éditorial Avenue

mother gives birth, eats children

An onlooker watched in horror as a mother gave birth and proceeded hunt her own infants and eat them. AlefAlef, 972, of Toronto watched Pearly-Jean Pnina, 6 months, his mother-of-pearl swordtail give birth to several offspring and then devour each and every one in the fish tank on his desk.

“It was horrible,” he exclaimed. “The little ones tried to hide amongst the plants and gravel, but she found them all. She was relentless! And she’s still giving birth. How am I supposed to do anything with all these high-pitched fish screams distracting me from my important work?”

Police have not indicated whether they intend to press charges against Ms Pnina.

Thanks Mr V.

Dommage

C’était dommage hier, mais ce n’est pas la fin du monde. Aux prochains jeux, alors!

Bonne pré-fête

In exactly one week it is my birthday. I will transform with a little puff of smoke from the handsome, vibrant, active, vivacious young man into a dilapidated old man with perpetual bowel irritation and dentures. If only it were that simple.

The slow, steady decline of my body is subtly terrifying. It’s a little like watching your house fall apart around you with the contractor telling you that “that’s just the way it goes, eh”. Granted I’m only turning 34 and that isn’t that old (is it?), so it’s not as if I have to replace the shingles, replace the boiler, redo the plumbing and wiring, undergo major foundation work, and build a new chimney. For now all I have to do is patch up the cracks, touch up the paint job on the front door, and maybe wash the front windows. That doesn’t seem so bad. However, there are a few things I miss about the days when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and I was younger:

1. Being able to stay out until 5AM and still be relatively functional the following that day, or rather, late that day. Come to mention it, I miss having the desire to stay out until 5AM;
2. Eating food so spicy I cry – believe me, no one wants to be around me after such a meal nowadays (see above for “bowel irritation”);
3. Knowing where little aches and pains come from;
4. Feeling invincible and optimistic about where my life is going;
5. Trusting people I’ve just met in social and/or romantic situations without automatically looking for faults and weak points and without wondering how I could possibly fit a new person into my busy, busy oh-so-cool life;
6. Answering, when asked by friends what I want for my birthday, as happened yesterday evening, “Socks. Sheets. Underwear”. Socks? Sheets? Underwear? For my birthday? I admit that this request is partly inspired by poverty, but it is not the case that nothing screams love! like having a dear friend say, “Here! Please accept an acrylic sheath for your stinky feet”. And then, as if to underline the inanity of my request, my friend and I ran into linguistic difficulties and I had to explain what boxer briefs are exactly. (How does one say “boxer briefs” in Hebrew? בריפים הבוקסר ?) Forget that crap! All I want is a two-four of Keith’s and a stack of gay Brazilian porn and to be left alone! (Hi Surly’s cool and open-minded parents who occasionally read this blog! Don’t forget to wish me a Happy Birthday!)

Of course, there are advantages to aging as well. And if anyone can remind me what they are, that’ll be birthday enough for me.

And to the scores people coming to my site by googling “Despatie” and “gay”, I’m sorry that I have no good news for you. Despite the fact that I have proclaimed him one of my future husbands, he is straight as far as I know. If in the course your searches you happen to find out differently, please come back and let me know. That would be a pretty good birthday present too.

And now I’m practically a p@edophile. At my age I find myself lusting after a 19-year-old, born when I was already almost an adult already. Vive l’âge d’or!

Marine Biology

We all know how amusing illness is. I myself adore that mix of claustrophobia and cabin fever swirled in with the lovely aroma of approaching death that wafts through my apartment as my fever climbs ever higher. The taste of chicken soup never gets old. A steady stream of orange juice down my throat is bracing and revivifying. The deliciousness of Tylenol crushed to powder because swallowing is agony is indescribable. Every second of a sick day is an adventure because I can never tell from moment to moment whether I will feel a shivery Antarctic chill or sweats from the Amazon. Exciting and new! I am incredulous that the calcium on my bones actually seems to contain nerves because I can certainly feel the things. The human body is an amazing thing. The past couple have days have been a total blast.

One very hilarious friend opined that my sick days can’t actually be too different from my healthy days. After all, all I do for the entire day is sit in front of my computer, typing whatever comes to mind and screening my phone calls (if my phone is even on). Yes, of course. My life, and writing for that matter, is just that simple.

There is some truth to it however. My living room is my office and my computer knows all my secrets. It takes a herculean effort to convince me to leave my apartment and I do avoid the phone as much as I can and. Despite my apathetic, antisocial tendencies I somehow still manage to have a healthy romance and sex life and, much more importantly, quite a number of friends who still want to spend time with me for some reason. But that’s not the point. I challenge anyone to sit up straight all day at a computer and be stupendously brilliant while your internal body temperature is approaching 50,000 degrees Kelvin and you wish your flesh would just slide off your bones already so they would stop aching so much, and then say such things to me.

But at least I don’t live in my friend AlefAlef’s fish tank, and not just because you would have to remove my bones to stuff me inside it. I am glad that I don’t live in it due to the ichthyoid version of the bubonic plague that appears to be sweeping through his little marine community. Around 60% percent of his fish have succumbed to this pestilence. While this would be a disaster for humans, it doesn’t appear to have affected the survivors in any enormous capacity – except for one gorgeous male betta who has been banished forever to a separate vase for, as I understand it, munching on the dead and dying. The affliction causes fuzzy white mold to grow all over the fishy body, inside and outside, until the poor creature suffocates. What a terrible way to go.

I cannot imagine a more nightmarish scenario to live through. You flutter from water plant to water plant, dodging zombies covered in white slime begging you for aid, their eyes glazed over with pussy white cataracts. A giant glowing ogre roams to and fro like the Angel of Death looking for corpses on which to feast. You are terrified he may mistake you for one of the infected and start with your fins so you can’t get away as he slowly consumes the rest of you. All the while, AlefAlef’s giant net ploughs through the water chanting, “Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!” Horrific. I am certainly glad I don’t live there.

So I’ll stick with my little fever and weird dreams and pump the liquids through my system until I feel better. I’ll fight through the invisible clay that has settled on my limbs until it cracks and falls away. The next time I go to AlefAlef’s for supper, I sure hope he doesn’t serve me sardines.

Pax romana

Children who cannot behave in public should be locked in their rooms until they know how to behave. The parents of children who do not know to behave on five- to six-hour train rides should be cast off the train along with the shrieking, screaming children as soon as the train slows to a velocity such that no one be too damaged when they are tossed off.

Teenagers who have just two seconds ago reached the drinking age who are on their first trip to another city where they can learn about all the potential colours and textures of alcohol vomit should be encouraged to take Mumsy and Papa’s limo rather than torment peaceful passengers. Barring that, they should be tied to their chairs with adhesive tape on their mouths, forced to watch reruns of “Lassie” and “Father Knows Best” until tears sun down their cheeks.

The problem started when my walkman battery had decided to end its short life three hours before the train was to depart and I had to resort to the plugs to keep me in the sweet, calm, totally non-volatile disposition that I’m renowned for. I had put them in to block out all the possible annoying noises public transport has to offer, one-sided deeply personal cell phone conversations going on five rows back, the sound of tinkle and too much spicy food from the rest rooms, etc. Well, I learned on my seventy zillion million mallillion hour train trip yesterday that the only sounds that cut through earplugs are the sound of a two-year-old-screaming, the sound of Beavis and Butthead sniggering in the seats behind me, and the sound of Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie screeching in the seats across the aisle from me.

It was as if I were trapped in the scene in The Blair Witch Project where the three losers are lying in their tent terrified at the sound of laughter of approaching children who then – EEEEEK! – bang on their tent and cover everything with – * shiver * – blue slime! Only in my little choo-chooing scenario, I wasn’t trapped in the doomed tent with two Kurt Cobain wannabes; I was trapped with two televisions that broadcast “Beavis and Butthead” and “The Simple Life” over and over and over. All other sounds, the train chugging, the drink cart squealing, the chorus of walkmans just loud enough so that you could hear only the bass and cymbals and the occasional wailing guitar solo, faded into a beige void that echoed only screeching, screaming, and piercing giggling. Just before the earplugs popped out of my head due the raging torrent lava that was about to erupt from my entire body, I removed them. If I were going to be engulfed in sound, it didn’t have to be maddening sound.

The fun began when the screeching two-year-old realised that if she ran up and down the aisle screaming at the top of her lungs (years from new I’ll be able to say that I once met the Whitney Houston of her generation), her very passive mother would have an even harder time catching her and disciplining her by completely ignoring the fact that she was disturbing everyone else in the car. As her shrieks echoed up and down my spine in minute waves of shattered glass, I was very tempted to trip her and watch her fall on her pretty little dimpled face. Luckily I realised that that would be mean and that the real culprit was her lazy, inconsiderate mother. Fortunately for the mother, someone else asked her to rein the child in. I wouldn’t have done it so politely.

Next came the attack of the rocker bimbos on their first trip away from home apparently. At first it was funny when they read the sex advice columns of their various fashion magazines so that everyone in the car could hear. By the time one of them head a screaming match with her boyfriend on her cell over whether or not he was going to pick them up that the station if the train were late, their charm was wearing thin. When one reached across the aisle and punched me in the shoulder, saying “Where the f*$% is there to go out in Toronto”, I had had enough; I assessed their neo-grunge, multiple-pierced look, decided that the area they would hate the most for going out would be Wellington Street, and promptly showed them where it was on the map. Have fun, girls! When the conductor came by and told them in no uncertain terms to clam it, they swore loudly but remained silent afterwards.

By the time the teenage boys behind me decided to fight over who should sit in the window seat, my nerves were a little frayed. When they began kicking my chair, giving me an unwanted roller coaster ride, I somehow transformed myself into the kind of late-early-thirties guy I mocked when I was much younger, wore plaid and ripped jeans, and had hair that went past my titties. I turned into one of those conciliatory adults trying to act all good-natured and hip and with it and cool (do the kids still say those words?), saying totally wussy things like, “I know you just wanna have fun, guys” and “I don’t wanna ruin your fun, guys”. It was a perfect example of the material teens and tweens mock. I am so looking forward to my birthday in two weeks.

Predictably, Bill and Ted just laughed at me. I sat down feeling old and ridiculous. However, when my chair suffered the first of a series of kicks and blows that were obviously not by accident, I transformed into the other kind of adult I can be. I rose from my chair like the demon from “Night on Bald Mountain” and fixed them with a stare that comes very naturally to me. I then let loose a string of swears and threats of bodily harm in French. Quebec French is far superior to English in the effect its swears can have because it is rocky, melodic, and faster than any manner of English that can be spoken. After a couple of seconds of silence, one of them responded the way most unilingual English Canadians respond when confronted with a bilingual Canadian and they can think of no comeback (unilingual Québécois just swear back in English). He haughtily said to me, “I speak English” as if it were an accomplishment along the lines of “I invented email”. I knew I had won. And I responded, “You speak nothing for the rest of the trip” (which was greeted by a smattering of applause from other passengers as close to the edge as I. And they spoke nothing for the rest of the trip. Old age, here I come!

And because life sometimes often works the way it should, there was something to cut me down a peg or two from my dizzying military victories. Next to me was a young man from Sri Lanka with a name similar to Augustus, first Caesar of the Pax Romana. While I sat in my self-righteous state of spoiled desire to meld my immediate surroundings to my wishes, he told me all about his trip to the various churches of Montreal, his pilgrimage up the St. Joseph Oratorio. Even though I had already eaten and wasn’t hungry, I shared his meal with him because I could tell his feelings were a little hurt when I refused the first time. His offer to share had less to do with food and more to do with sharing. He told me about his house in northern Sri Lanka that was blown up with him in nine years ago in the hostilities that country has endured for decades and how he can’t rebuild (he and his family still own the land) until the hostilities finally end. He has the scars on his face and arms to prove it. I heard all about his family and girlfriend still in Sri Lanka he hasn’t seen in eight years. He showed me the thick packet of photos of them he carries with him everywhere. He told me that he’s here trying to save enough money to return to Sri Lanka, buy a house for his parents and his girlfriend whom he will marry, and buy a house. With such problems, such courage and such optimistic dreams within him, I felt like a petulant little child whining because I don’t wanna go to school today.

He gave me his phone number when we parted ways, saying that he knows Canadians are busy and don’t usually make friends with immigrants, but that we should stay in contact a little bit so that he can say goodbye before he goes back to Sri Lanka and invite me there should I ever want to travel to his beautiful country. And I do want to travel to his beautiful country, and meet his girlfriend I heard so much about on that long train trip. And I’ll wear my walkman for the long plane trip.

Still in Montreal

My old place:

Bonne fin de semaine à tous

I’m off to Montreal for a few days. Just some alone time for the husbands and me. All 12 of us (meet husband no. 11, Quebec Olympic diver Alexandre Despatie) should have a wonderful time together, all except Alex who’s competing in Athens right now. Go Alex!

Here they are (all except Massimo and Billo, who are still too shy for me to post pics) in all there clickable thumbnail glory.

It should be a great weekend!

In the Style of Mr V

Not the Gay Olympics?

Greek divers win gold.

Pillaged from Mr. “Rose Nylund” V

Signs

“The Crop Circle, which appeared near Silbury Hill in England last month, features a Aztec/Mayan calendar.”

Pillaged from 2012

Roots Angers Both Sides of the Border

“Roots is a Canadian brand for Canuks, not for our Olympic athletes.” — MattyG

And Canadians resent the rows and rows of Team USA paraphenalia in our stores. No one is happy on either side of the border and we should all let Roots know.

הראלים

Pillaged from 2 כוכב נולד

Jaws in 30 Seconds . . .

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Moyal First. Skaat Second

מזל טוב , הראלים

Congratulations to both Harels, especially to the Harel Moyal, the winner of 2 כוכב נולד.

Birthday

Once, when my sister and I were much younger, she and I had a colossal fight over a very serious issue of the utmost importance – who got which burgers for lunch – that resulted in her doing heavy damage to my bedroom door. I was, of course, entirely innocent and blameless in the whole matter, as I was in every single altercation throughout our childhood and adolescence as you may well imagine. Ô, the heady days of childhood!

Now that we’re both all grown up, according to our birth certificates, I simply pester her on MSN while she’s at work so often that she is simply unable to perform her tasks. This is a much more adult way of torturing your siblings, although I should seriously rethink my strategy if I’m ever going to get her to reimburse me for that bedroom door . . . and those burgers

Happy Birthday, Surly Snobby’s Dear Sister! Pull out your old Laura Branigan albums and have a party!