I don’t go to Whyte ave. Well I do during the day if I’m going to dadeo’s or something like that. But unless I’m going for work I won’t go at night. Why? I have an alergic reaction to douchebags. When I’m near a douchebag my immune system causes me to become rather irate. I get annoyed and find it difficult not to urinate on their shoes.

Behaviour like this isn’t good, cause it can:

a) get your ass kicked

b) make a mess and get on your own shoes

c) get you a ticket from the cops for indecent exposure

The other night one of my friends had an altercation on Whyte Ave in a bar witha major douche. I won’t mention what bar it is cause we do a lot of business there through the radio station, but what I will mention is how important bar security is and how brutal the security there is.

My buddy Deener saw a girl on the verge of being raped in the middle of the bar. The guy was dragging her off into the corner and trying to do who knows what to her. Bear in mind this is INSIDE the bar and there is no security anyhwere. So Deener steps in and drags the girl away. Fortunatly the guy didn’t freak out off the bat and shank anyone, but don’t worry. We’ll get to people bringing knives into the bar later on.

The night moved on and this guy (who by the way was wearing a wolf shirt . . . yes a shirt with a wolf on it) came over to Deener and the group she was with and started trying to fight everyone. You know the guy, he didn’t get laid and so now he’s bent on trying to fight every person in the bar so that everyone else can feel as annoyed as he does.

Fortunately none of the poeple with my dear buddy Deener are prone to fisticuffs. They use an ancient technique known as “talking” to solve their problems. In fact “talking your problems over” as the habbit is known is a great way of solving conflicts without hurting each other, you might remember this from when you were a child and you did something wrong. Remember how your dad didn’t punch you in the face when you didn’t know how to tie your shoe? See that’s because punching you in the fact wouoldn’t have helped the situation.

However in some sort of strange way this guy felt that fighting a bunch of people trying to have a good night would increase his odds of getting his penis inside of a vagina.  I really don’t see the logic train on this one, but who needs logic when you’re high on blow and wanting to punch someone?

So no one wanted to fight the guy, and you’d think everything was gonna be peachy keen, however that’s just not the case. Ya see in outer space two objects will naturally attract themselves to each other. Assholes in a bar are no different. They tend to attarct other assholes. This time it happened to be a lovely gentleman with a knife. It’s not enough that he snuck a knife into the bar. But he felt the need to declare it Deener and her friends, then ask one of them if they, “wanted to die”.

Yeah he threatened to stab them. Since he was extra tough he grabbed the smallest guy in the group by the throat and tried to drag him out to the dance floor to insert c’est knife into his stomach.  Fortunately the group opted to grab their friend and leave.

At this point the guy with the knife, or as we shall call him from now on “Captain Stabby” decided to follow them to the coatcheck. Ya see he stood there just waiting for them to leave so he could take his desire to proove how macho he was outside.

Now you would think at one point in all this security would have gotten involved and doen something, but that’s just not the case. Nothing was done. So Deener and company just went to the car so they could just go home, having had their evening ruined by a guy who probably didn’t eat enough vegetables as a child. However when they got to the car they realized they were one short. Namely the wee-est member of the group who was almost drug onto the dancefloor and stabbed.

Naturally there was a bit of tension in the car until they saw him running towards the car. The door was opend and he said, “let’s get the fuck out of here.”

It turned out captain Stabby had followed him outside and began chasing him with his knife. This was happening ON Whyte Ave. The guy schased him into an alley with his knife in hand. Fortunatley our wee friend was fleet of foot and able to get away and criss cross through various alleys until he found his way back to the car.

See I stay away from Whyte becasue of stories like these. Stories that you won’t see in the newspaper. Stories that happen every single night on Whyte ave. Fortunately for me I don’t have to worry about Saturdays cause I’m always at Union Hall. I work there on Saturdays, and stuff like this never happens there. I’ve been working there for three years and the  worst thing I’ve ever seen was a woman who looked pregnant in the wet t.

So if you want to avoid getting shanked by a douchbag on Whyte come to 99th and Argyle.

And voila!

 

It’s all over! This soiled cloth of dry hump holiday action has satiated itself on the blood of my paycheck and moved to Brazil for another 11 months. That’s right fucktard Christmas is over! I for one couldn’t be happier. I have been unable to enter a grocery store in two months, for fear of the vicious middle aged cart cruiser and her nigh shoulder high pile of festive foodstuffs. Some of which are generic brand canned vienna sausages! You can’t give the food bank name brand stuff, the hungry aren’t pretentious snobs!

 

I suppose it is nice that at this hallowed time of year when we pray to a plastic Jesus that people are kind enough to drop off a can of food. Even though they threw out more food from their fridge this year than bothered to give the food bank. Yes it is the time of giving my friends! The time of year when hearts are open, and wallets go along accordingly. Provided it’s for a family member and not someone who hasn’t eaten today. Get a job stinky!

 

Mouths too are open to yell obsenities and sprew forth verbalk fecal matter as folk jostle in lines and search high, low and bitchedly for a parking spot two feet closer than the one they passed over five minutes ago. Yay Jesus! (and his latter day saints)

 

But all that has passed! It is dead! Over! Now instead of saying we’ll help the less fortunate and doing nothing we can skip the middleman and just do nothing! What’s to feel guilty about if you just ignore it!

 

I shall ignore it! I’m gonna ignore it and get a pair of jeans, a nice pair of Jeans with fresh stiching woven with care by a five year old hepped up on speed to work an extra nine hours. I mean that kid better take care he wouldn’t wanna make a mistake and get beaten!

 

Boy if it wasn’t for the glitz of the wrapping paper people might actually think about the implications of their savings! But who cares? It’s all dying down. The Season of self centred bullshit wrapped in red and green is coming to a close. Now we can get back to normal. Where self centred bullshit is just wrapped in green.

So today I spoke to another class of kids. Wee kids. Little ones, grade niners. Ironically when I was in Grade nine I didn’t think of myself as wee, and when I was in grade seven kids in grade nine were immortal gods who donned armour crafted of the finest mythryl, forged in the armoury halls of nordic dwarves. They truly were a subspecies of immortality.

 

However now that I have breached the staggering heights of 5′9 I look down on them with years of book learnings.

 

In short I was at a school speaking for career day, and I felt like a mental giant. I’m not the smartest cat on the block but I like to think my ability to maintain a somewhat open mind to the world around me gives me a solid ground to speak to kids of the importance of sticking with your goals.

 

I don’t know how many of you know this, but it wasn’t in any way an easy path for me to get where I am. I got fired, I ate no name egg noodles, and even bought plenty of “juice mix powder” from the bulk bins at Superstore in order to have more to drink than tap water. Times were rough, and rougher still when my friends who all worked in trades had money to smoke mucho doob, and drive cars.

 

Still now I can say it was all worth it cause I like what I do, and I enjoy my lifestyle. That’s basically what I tell kids when I talk to them, “it was all worth it”. All of it, the stress, the chronic masturbation (brought about by female’s inability to date someone who can’t buy them more than a value menu cheeseburger, don’t fucking lie ladies, your vagina’s greed for cock and diamonds controls every facet of your mind), the constant walking, and the embarassment of being fucking broke all the time for four years was worth it to be where I am now.

 

I suddenly realized this morning while standing in front of thirty 14 and 15 year olds that some of these kids had ZERO consequence of what I was talking about. How fucking sad is that? Is that common? Is that the way things had always been? Is that the way things will always be?

 

It breaks my fucking heart. I try to be as hopeful as I can be, but it’s getting really fucking hard for me. I looked at the eyes of these kids and told them that integrity to yourself is really all you will ever have, that desire that nests deep in your head to be something more than your expected to be. To be the dark horse in the start of the race only to finish first. All of us have had them moment when you realized you’d win, be it a game of BINGO in grade two, or a spelling bee in grade five all of us have had a moment like that.

 

Don’t sit there and say, “no I haven’t” cause if that’s the first thought that comes to mind you’ve obviously spent too much time suckling on your television trusting it’s notion that a mere twenty dollar purchase can solve all your woes.

 

Integrity to yourself I said, “is to never let anyone or anything allow you to forget you’re always the dark horse in every race”.

 

I know I sound like a motivational speaker here, but there’s a reason I’m so disturbed by my day today. Some of the students were rowdy. It’s true, and there were times where it really was necessary to address their rudeness. I didn’t tell them to “shhhhh” I’m pretty sure they’d heard that enough times already. I talked to them about what they were discussing amongst themselves. I brought their corner gossip to the centre of the classroom, and joked with them.

 

I was generally impressed by the wit some of these kids had. They were actually kind of funny, in a rather purile manner of course, but inside I was chuckling. Mostly cause I am rather purile myself at times. It turns out a few of them were in a band, and that’s really what these kids cared about, so that’s what we spent the rest of the class talking about. Music.

 

I told them that every band that really did something, that really made a difference spent hours pouring through books desperately trying to find a way to see the world from a different perspective. I told them that in order to be a truly great musician they’d need to be able to see the world through an other set of eyes. Those were the building blocks of a truly timeless band. I asked them to name the most famous bands they could, and every one they named featured a tres eloquent front man.

 

I asked them if they wanted to be a flash in the pan band, or a band that made a mark on everyone that heard them. A band that wrote lyrics with deep seeded metaphoric tone, words that bounced endlessly through your head until you found layers of symbols that could give birth to a remarkable realization. The kind of band that would have fans coming up to them twenty years down the line and say, “Man that line you wrote changed my life, I saw the world entirely different after I heard your albums.”

 

When I told them the only thing they’d need to do in order to accomplish their goal was to read, it seemed like they were amazed.

 

Really? They asked.

 

What should I read?

 

Anything.

 

I had a great teacher in grade nine who taught me that English was more that a method of writing. She taught me that English was a way of communicating, and if you learn to use it properly you can litterally change the entire world around you. It would appear that far too few people realize this and as such “God help us, cause we are in a lot of trouble” - Howard Beale

Thank you Mrs Bluett.

 

These children weren’t so lucky, the teacher they were endowed with told me directly after class that the children I was talking to were smart asses who weren’t to be taken seriously. She proceeded to tell me their band was terrible because they were loud and screamed.

 

The vehemence that spewed forth from this woman’s mouth made me truly ill. Does she at all realize what she’s doing to these kids? She wasn’t educating, she was regulating, and if that’s what education has become then we truly are in a poor perdicament. The one person who is supposed to guarentee these kids believe that self integrity is the most important thing we have, has sold them up the river because they’re not playing the right kind of music.

 

You know why shit is peddled as truth across the media? You know why stores like Wal-Mart can put an entire town out of business? You know why wars that kill thousands and millions go on unabated every day?

 

Because the people that are supposed to tell us to read between the lines, are telling us to think and dream within them.