Let's make a deal!

For this blog entry, I want to get serious. There are serious matters at hand, and I want to discuss them in a no-nonsense, rapid fire sort of way. It's me and you right now, kiddo.

One on One.

Face to Face.

But let's stop looking at each other in the face because it's awkward.

Besides, we've got to dig deep into the hardened top-soil of lies and stare dark truth in the face instead. Oh yeah, this is SERIOUS BUSINESS, baby. So sit down with me, and maybe we can strike a deal....

First off: I love Count Chocula. What's that you say? Too sugary?

I'll level with you: the shit is as sugary as a Meg Ryan flick, got more marshmallows then actual crunchy cereal AND it turns the milk into chocolate. So yeah, it's Perfect. Sure your bones won't get stronger, your teeth will hurt and your skin will start to look like a pimply ol' ass.

That's because it's just a big candy bar you pour milk over.

Look, no one eats a breakfast that is healthy, we eat HEALTHY breakfasts. Come on, we're all eating bacon, eggs, toast, cereals , COFFEE with sugar and/or cream , cereal bars, Pop Tarts, waffles with butter and syrup, sausages, muffins, hash browns ...everyone indulges when they are half awake and barely cognizant. What's that mister moneybags? You eat berries and granola for breakfast right after your morning jog? Well I'm sorry that we all can't afford berries and live in a happy cocoon where you don't have to steal transit and delay rent payments and eat bowls of 100% Our compliments refined sugar and chocolate pieces left over from Christmas with milk as a simulation of your favorite breakfast cereal! Maybe you just....just...

(breaking down in tears)

I miss my cereals.

(Wipes tears, collects himself, and grabs a cigarette. Lighting it, he....wait, why am I narrating this?)

Alright, let's cut to the chase. Papa Louie needs to come up with a little scratch, see? Or else Papa Louie is going to be dining at your local dumpster. No, not the Golden Griddle, I mean a literal dumpster. This is getting serious now. Just got off the phone with my agent (acting not secret) and he's saying that McDicks ain't sending me cash til after the first of April. So now using our collective minds on the blogosphere, I write to you in hopes of striking a deal.

Brass tacks:

I'm an energetic, hard-working, and work (relatively) cheap. I'm fluent in the English language, I can deliver a line (IE I can bullshit) and I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. I'm a great companion, love to cook (but can't) and have an extensive knowledge of eighties to early nineties X-men comics.

I can clear most video games in under 10 hours, got a few dance moves in the ole derriere , can kick a funky rhyme and know where all the cheap spots in the city are. I can edit, revise, collate and copy. Basic Frolf skills, Mac skills, Microsoft word skills, Settlers of Catan Skills and skills that pay the god damn bills. I'm a rare find, a diamond in the rough like Disney's white Aladdin. Right now I'm a free agent, and I can be yours for a very low price.

That brings me to you.....

What do YOU need?

Maybe it's as simple as a coffee brought to you in the morning or having your dog walked while you work. Maybe you'd like someone to prepare a meal, do chores or entertain for guests. Or perhaps a bitter rival has gone too far and only the cold blade of a masked assassin will teach him the error of his ways....with LUIS FERNANDES you get quality work done at an exceptional price.

Between March 24-27 and March 29-31 LUIS FERNANDES is for hire.

Contact me on Facebook or here at youbloggingbastard@blogspot.com or email me at luisfernandes397@hotmail.com.

I will do all the dirty work. You? Relax.

So that's my final offer. Take it or leave it. In truth, I'd rather work for you then McDonald's anyway. No pressure, but if you don't hire me, I'm going to start dealing Meth to your young family members.

Now get me to paint your back yard fence already and keep me off these ever-loving streets!

Professional as all hell,

That Blogging Bastard

BROKE. no joke.

Well fuck me: its still March, I'm still broke and God of War 3-less. I have no upcoming shifts at work, and the money Ronald McDonald owes me has yet to surface.

Many would think that being on television pays a lot of money. While this is not necessarily untrue, one thing many do not know is that unlike most jobs, there is no designated "payday". The money just sort of comes when it comes. Could be in a week, could be in three months. So every morning I wake, get dressed, and run to the mailbox only to find I owe FIDO another $91.08. Much like the Ancients prayed for rain to fall on their crops, I pray to the Canadian God of Post to send me with haste a banquet of cash.

There is nothing like the feeling of knowing you have money coming to you while being penny-less.

Friend: Hey Luis, want to grab a coffee?

Luis: Well you see, I can't cuz I have money but I'm broke.

Friend: You have money and your broke?

Luis: Well, you see I've already worked, so I'm owed the money... so technically I've MADE it, I just don't HAVE it.

Friend: But you've made it?

Luis: Yeah. I just don't possess it.

Friend: If you don't HAVE it, then you don't have it.

Luis: Right...

Friend: So your broke.

Luis: Right.

Friend: So just say that your broke.

Luis: But it's not like I haven't worked. Broke people aren't working. I've worked.

Friend: You're broke. Who cares if you worked?

Luis: But I'm saying I'm not a bum. I'm owed. I'm a victim here.

Friend: You worked and you never got compensated?

Luis: Exactly.

Friend: Then you're an idiot.

Luis: .....

Friend: Right?

Luis: I guess.

Friend: Get an actual job, and you'll get actual money.

Luis: Yeah, I've got to figure out something. So can you spot me for a coffee?

Friend: Sure, I guess.

What you've just read is how I get free coffee. It's also how I get free beer, cigarettes and soda pop.

And these are the tactics one resorts to in a time of great economic duress. And times of great economic duress seem to be coming at me with alarming frequency. I am reaching levels of poverty not seen since my late teens. When you start saving the night stamps on your streetcar transfers, you know things are getting bad.

Two years ago around Christmas I was about to hit rock bottom when I magically found a $4000 camera lens lying discarded in the trash. It was a miraculous of stroke luck if you believe that I found it. If you don't, lets just say its none of your god damn business how I got it. Either way, I sold it online and saved myself a few months grace.

But I can't always find $4000 camera lenses. And I can't always mistake tripods for trash cans. It's time to take action and make some downgrades!

Effective immediately:

-Carlsberg Tall cans -----downgraded to-------Pabst Blue Ribbon Tall Cans

I still refuse to drink Lakeport honey because it tastes like Winnie the Pooh's piss when warm and I'm not man enough to go back to malt liquor. It looks like six packs of Bavaria will no doubt come into play and sadly, when it gets really bad I'll have to resort to (wretch) Old millaukee Ice. After that....paint thinner? Maria Christina? Toilet Duck?

Frosted Mini Wheats------downgraded to------Wheat Mini's with Frosting

Cereal has long been one of my most costly luxuries. No longer can I go for brand names when Our Compliments has such cheap rip-off brands. So now instead of Frosted Flakes, I'll eat Tiger Sugar Flakes. Instead of Honey Nut Cheerios, I'll have Honey Crunch Rings. And instead of Count Chocula, I'll have Our Compliment's 100% Refined Sugar.

TTC Metro Pass-----------downgraded to------stealing

This is my most risky endeavor but one I have mastered from my youth. It requires low morals and a heart of steel, and while my heart may only be a strong aluminum, my morals are low enough to compensate. First off, it helps very much that I live off of Queen Street where thePOP (Proof of Payment) system is in effect. Bascially, you can walk on through the back doors without the teller checking your fare. The idea is that randomly, you may be asked to show your proof of payment. This happens once every 20 rides or so. I'm not embarrassed to play the odds and risk having to say, "Oh, I must have dropped it" and step off the street car if need be.

As well, the street car transfer is an easily forged document. Basically the transfer has numbers running along the side that represent hours. The driver rips it at the correct hour to mark the time it was given. Have you ever noticed that sometimes you get a really long transfer and other times you get a super short one? It's all dependent of the time you entered the streetcar. At night, rather then print out a separate evening transfer, a night stamp is placed at the top of the transfer; a colored rectangle that says NIGHT. These stamps are color coded to the transfer of that particular day. What I like to do is collect night stamps of every color. On a day where I must use the TTC, I scour for a long transfer so that when I board, I can rip off the correct time and add a night stamp from my stash. Pathetic, yes. But effective. Paffective if you will.

Or I could just look for a job. I've got three as it stands, and not a single one of them is giving me shifts. One of them is slinging beer at the Skydome, which used to be quite lucrative. There was a time when a Tallboy cost $8.50. People would give you a $10 and you'd keep it, meaning you walked off with $1.50 per beer. Sell six cases and you were sitting pretty. Then they moved it to $9. Walked away with a buck per beer. Then $9.25. Then $9.50. If you can believe this, word on the street is they're actually going to sell it for $9.75 a can this summer. At that price point, I'm lucky to walk off with a quarter instead of a punch to the face. Plus with the Blue Jays looking like contenders for shittiest sports club in Toronto (not an easy award to win), I'll be lucky if there are any patrons in the building to slug me in the face.

Let's face it, I've been vending at the Skydome since I was 16 years old. When the Raptor's played there. When Joe Carter was still a Blue Jay. When two dollars was a bill. Maybe its time for something NEW AND EXCITING like....

Ok I got nothing. But as always, necessity is the mother of all invention and right now necessity's water just broke. I'm going to wet nurse this sucker and get back to you.

Theatre degree afflicted, please send drugs.

That Blogging Bastard

Being a Whore: The actors true gift

WELCOME TO MARCH!

It's that blogging bastard back with a bountiful bunch of boisterous blogging!

I've been away from my computer whilst wretched poverty hath slapped me in the wallet but today is ye' ol payday, and I was able to procure a two-liter bottle of Labatt Strong from yonder LCBO kiosk.

Three swigs in and BAM! Here I am.

The Olympics, eh? What a crazy few weeks, no? Gold medals just littering the floor, am I right?

Someone else: Is that yours sir?

Luis: What? This gold medal by my foot?

Someone else: Yes. I seemed to have lost mine.

Luis: Nope, no. This is my medal sir, I'm sorry.

Someone else: Oh! Never mind. I just found mine in my back pocket!

Man, we got more gold then Leo DiCaprio's pubic hair. It just shows you: pumping ludicrous amounts of money into something IS the fastest way to get results. I'm just glad we spent it on winter sports instead of hunger and affordable housing....what a waste that would have been!

I won't lie, I did enjoy Vancouver 2010. With no fear of lost masculinity (for I have none to lose), I teared up when Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won the gold medal for Ice Dance. Upon winning that gold, Moir apparently told Virtue who was too scared to look at the final score that they had won silver when they had actually won gold. Then when asked how he was going to celebrate his winning gold, Virtue screamed out with mock white boy swagger: "YOU ABOUT TO FIND OUT!" . I can't wait to see him on Intervention.

Shaun White, the american celebrity snowboarder, proved that he does indeed deserve a video game bearing his name. I hadn't seen moves like that since watching circus pornography. If he didn't look like Carrot Top's retarded brother, I'd have sex with him.

HOCKEY!HOCKEY!HOCKEY!HOCKEY!

Sidney Crosby has now replaced Dudley Do-Right as most brazen Canadian stereotype. Not only does he win the Stanley Cup but he also scores the game winning goal at the olympic Gold medal game. When I was 22, I was too busy prematurely ejaculating to get that much accomplished. Expect to see Crosby on television hucking Goldschlager, Gold Bond Lotion, Golden Grahams, Golden Honey Tim Bits and Yukon Gold Potatoes like a real Canadian hero!

Speaking of Commercials:

I just landed a role in a McDonald's commercial. For a man with little income, this is great news. As an artist, it is the beginning of what I see as a gradual decline into whoring. Yes, believe it or not, there was a time when I thought myself above money and was prepared for a life of desperate artistic integrity. It was after eating my millionth can of Zoodles that something changed.

Perhaps you have heard me say this lately:

"You don't have to wait, they're here now"

It was with these immortal words (verifying the sound design and excellent value of Ford vehicles )that I entered the world of commercial acting. The fact that I have never driven, have no drivers licence and know absolutely nothing about cars is quite an irony considering I'm on television telling you otherwise. And that's because (spoiler alert!) commercials are false.

Everyone who has seen a Menthos ad knows that the scenario depicted is a heaping load of malarky. But we hope that once in a while a real person might just show up. Like the doctor on the Government ad preaching flu injection or the women on the Acne medication who's life has changed from its use. Even if it's scripted, even if we know they were paid to say it, we take solace in the fact that at least they are who they say they are. And sadly, they aren't. Most of the time it's just an actor reciting script. I even know of an actor in a WSIB ad who played a wheelchair bound man who had lost his legs in a horrible factory accident.

He was a jogger off-camera.

And that is the inheirent problem with commercial acting: It is devoid of any real meaning, therefore its participants are unable to extract any true meaning from it.

For me it will always be a pay cheque.... a pay cheque I need so, so, so fucking badly.

God of War III is coming out and I'm eating ketchup sandwiches here! So give me your Nissans, Coke and Pepto Bismal! Sidney Crosby can do it and so can I! Go Canada!

The one thing that peeves me? I've been telling people I'm an actor for over 10 years, and it was the Ford commercial that finally made people believe me. I've performed in countless plays and comedy shows but it was a two-second close up of my face talking about the Ford Taurus that got me the most praise from family and friends. Couple that with the three-seconds I'm going to get in this new ad, and I'm heading into full blown celebrity status here.

Watch out Listerine Man, there is a new player on the thirty-second stage!

Now if I can just find the time to take all these Gold Medals lying around over to Oliver Jewelers for some quick cash (OH YEAH!) I might be able to afford my rent next month. Or at the very least my next bottle of Labatt Strong.

Blah,

That Blogging Bastard