Inspiration

"Shit or get off the pot"

-Ancient North American proverb

Salutations Internet browsers! It's the blogging bastard here to bastardize blogs yet again. How goes it? Myself? PUMPED.

I'll level with you. I've been a wuss lately. A yellow belly. A bona fide grade "A" pussy. Why do you ask?

Because I've been afraid to get off my skinny ass and get down to business, that's why. I've been broke. Stagnant. Depressed. And that is no way to behave in a summer time setting.

Shortly after writing a blog about love, I realized that my optimism of late has been lacking. "I'm so poor", I cry. "I'm in love", I shudder. "I'm a whore", I pronounce.

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa there, grumpy bear! Since when am I so glum? (Not to say my blog about love was glum. Although I did speak at length of my melancholy which is something I experience from time to time. Like now. And yesterday. And last week after some grapefruit.)

NO MORE!

I hereby declare a new Luis, one who isn't afraid to take risks, stare uncertainty in the face and rap his big ol' mitts around Fear's lanky-ass neck and strangle that sum bitch till he's deader then a teenager's first kiss. I've got to rub the stink of defeat off my carcass and inject some much needed chutzpah into my daily diet (which now consists of coffee, a Mcdouble and 3-8 alcoholic beverages). Today is a new day and I'm kicking ass and taking names! The question is: what will I do with those names once I've got them? Publish a Baby's first names book, that's what! (genius)

Ok, I know what you're thinking, "Oh yeah right and how exactly will you improve yourself you slimy Portuguese swindler you." Well first of all, that's racist. And secondly, I made a list.

So without a moments pause for the sake of clarity and reason, I pronounce to you:

10 WAYS TO EUTHANIZE YOUR PET AT HOME!

1. Windex. Syringe. Simple.

2. Grab a cooking mallet and a Phillips head screwdriver. Then...

Wait, wait, wait. Wrong list. I apologize, I apologize. That was the list for next weeks blog. (which will be a huge money and time saver. Join me!)

Alright rewind. Let's try this again. AH-heh. Without further ado, I present to you:

10 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR LIFE!

1. Stop thinking about it. DO IT. I mean what's the worst that could happen? Embarrassment? Jail time? Death? PFfssssst. Whatever.

2. Laugh a lot. I don't know about you, but crying sucks. And yes, the world is a unmitigated disaster. Oil spilling in the waters. People BRAP!BRAP!ing each other with large guns. Children starving. A baseball team in the AL east with no chance of competing (I mean come on!). So what are we going to do about it? Nothing? Then shut your stinking mouth. Then open it. And then laugh. I don't know, watch Friends or something. Better yet, grab a large feather, a pal, and tickle under their arms until they are either crying with laughter or beating your ass down for getting saucy. Either way, you ain't thinking about oil spills anymore and neither are the newspapers. Hahahahahaha.

3. Make like a Courtney and Love I said it once, and I'll say it again. Love is a powerful force that even that guy with the porn stash and heart on his chest from She-Ra couldn't ruin. Love conquers all. And I don't mean just romantic love. Love for your neighbors. For your fellow (wo)man. Love for yourself. Love all the bloody time and you will receive nothing but love back. And if you don't, ask yourself, "Who the hell am I hanging out with?"

4. Don't let others tear you down People can be such pricks. Let's face it, we all could be doing "better." But those who keep a positive attitude, who believe in themselves, who smile when the sun's bright, they are the ones that get pissed on by all those negative souls feeling sorry for themselves. If you want to rock your pyjamas on the dance floor, rock em. If you're a fan of shit music, crank it. If you want to sing, sing 'til your voice croaks. Don't let anyone tell you that you don't shine. Cuz you shine, baby.

5. Don't tear people down I am guilty of this like everyone else. Hey, I'm not saying be a saint. Nothing is better than getting together with an old friend and making fun of your grade 8 math teacher. Or that girl at work with the lisp. But when you're out and about, keep your negative shit to yourself. Fear rules our lives, and we are judged by impossible standards of beauty and wealth. Do we really need to further tear the already downtrodden dreams of others? Check yourself, before you wreck yourself. It's not like you're the greatest thing that walked this planet. Because that's reserved for Kid Rock.

6. Make a plan I'm a scattered brained airhead. But what sets me apart from true uselessness is my ability to grab a pen, make a plan and implement it. You can't build without a road map. Why waste precious energy pissing your ideas into the wind? With a proper plan, you can gather that idea piss, jar it and make a mint off selling it as Allen's apple juice. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone what you did. Caution: Plans, while necessary, rarely go as drafted. Don't be afraid to improvise.

7. Believe in yourself For God's sake, could we all just have a little faith in ourselves? If you don't, no one else will because they're too busy not believing in their own selves to believe in you. So stop thinking you aren't good enough. Now refer to number 6 and then head straight to number 1. Capisce?

8. Be disciplined Alright, so you said you'd hit the gym three times a week. And you'd quit smoking. And you'd stop seeing that guy/girl who keeps punching you in the face for burning the omelettes at breakfast. But its been two months and you still haven't set foot in the gym. And you smoke 2 packs a day. And you stroke your black eye as you crack another egg. If you want shit to change, you kinda have to do something about it. And plans become a waste of time if you spend hours drafting them only to find them a year later underneath a couch cushion. Nothing worth having comes easy. It takes sleep to have a dream. It takes work to make it into a reality. Like Gang Starr says, "....put in work and watch your status escalate". If you aren't going to listen to the wisdom of hip-hop, there ain't nothing I can do for you.

9. Turn your failures into lessons So you fucked up. Again. Why did you fuck up? Identify it and then don't do that same thing again, so that the next time you try to steal a baby panda you won't fall into the enclosure and get your face dashed about. (These get rich quick schemes are starting to kill me). Obviously you can apply this to whatever zoo animal you're trying to steal. Or to any other pursuit really. My point is it's a lot easier to get back on the wagon when you look at the fall you took as a lesson. And when next you try, you'll try with some common sense, the kind of common sense that only falling on your ass can teach you.

10. Write a blog-Since doing this blog, I've really tapped into some of my thoughts and discovered some fascinating things both about myself and those who actually take the time to read this thing. In this one, for instance, I realize I have an unnatural subconscious desire to see harm come to animals. Who knew? Ultimately, I find it a great comfort to write down my feelings and thoughts. Ok, so maybe putting those ideas and thoughts on-line for everyone to read and judge isn't for you. In fact, there are probably people right now calling PETA on me. See? So instead, get out a secret book, write you feelings in them and then find a hiding spot where snooping bastards won't read and squeal. You'll be glad you did.

So there! Eat my dust, World! Armed with these ten points of discovery, we're all gonna get money, power and respect. (what you need in life) Or something wussy like peace and enlightenment. And what are you going to do about it, World? Nothing! That's what! What's that,World? You're sick and dying? Oh. I'm sorry. I was just kidding. Get better.

It's late and I've got way too much positive energy. I'm going to have a martini and simmer down. I hope that today's blog inspired you to get off that lumpy behind and get yourself sum sum. We only got this one life, I personally don't see why we'd waste a single moment of it.

Now I'm going to use this list for the self-help book I'm publishing along with the book of baby names. Sometimes it worth kicking a little ass.

Taking names (and self publishing),

That Blogging Bastard

Love

Considering my last blog had a frank discussion about the show Blossom, I thought it time to start writing about something a bit more substantial. Today's Blog is about Love.

In the brief history of my existence, I have come to learn that love is the most complex, confusing, awe-inspiring, and powerful force in the world. The few times that I have experienced it, it has changed me fundamentally, sometimes in ways I would never have expected.

In some ways I view myself as a rock, unmovable and solid. When there is something that I want, I take it. If there is something I feel, I express it. This has always been my strength, my ability to see clearly how I feel about moments as they confront me. Love has always been the one thing that I don't see clearly, that when it worms its way into my heart and mind, I lose myself completely. For this reason I fear it because I am not in control of it.

I remember when I was in love back in University. Back in those days, I was what most people would consider a douche bag. I had no interest in women other then the drunken sex they may provide. I listened to a lot of mainstream rap back then and somehow bought into the idea of myself as a 'playa'. Bros before hoes; hoes down, G's up and all that nonsense.

There was a girl in my class, a quiet type, who kept to herself and didn't say much. Although attractive, I had never given her much consideration. One day she expressed interest in me and we went on a few dates, and something inside me started to change. I found myself thinking about her constantly. When I'd go to the bar, I wasn't interested in meeting women because I was too busy thinking about where she was. I wrote poems about her. Music reminded me of her. I was falling. Here was my perfect women, the one that would make me forget all others.

Unfortunately, she didn't see it that way. She was from BC and she was going to be gone for 5 months during the summer and didn't see much point in keeping it going. On the final day of our being together, we lay on her bed and kissed. I told her I would wait. She said she couldn't.

When her cab pulled her away, it pulled away a piece of me with it.

That summer was awful. I cried a lot. I listened to Coldplay. I counted down the days on a calendar until her return. Every conversation I had led to her until friends who lent their sympathetic ears started to lose their patience with me. Women, some of whom were quite beautiful, would become intimate with me only to see me break down and talk about her. They didn't last. I would try to call her every now and again but she never would return my calls. When she did, she was brief and cold. Being in BC, it bothered me that when I lay in bed thinking about her in the wee hours of the morning, being 3 hours behind me, she was still enjoying her evening. I had somehow convinced myself that I was the reason she didn't love me back, that I wasn't good enough. I spent four days a week in the gym, in some bizarre attempt to create a better me, so that when she came back I would be more attractive and desirable.

Of course all this was pointless. The facts remained, we were young and she was gone and it had nothing at all to do with me. Women are slow to love, because men promise themselves so frequently that they simply must proceed with caution to protect themselves. And when men experience love, being resistant to feeling anything, they embrace it so fully they make fools of themselves. Being gone for 5 months and having really just gotten to know me, she was the one being reasonable. I was the one acting like an obsessive twit.

When she came back to school in September, we eventually did go out and spent a few years in a relationship. But because of that summer, where my heart literally imploded, I carried a resentment inside myself. In any argument, I couldn't give an inch, because I felt like all my slack was expended that summer in tears and bad pop tunes. The reality was, we weren't that great together anyway and the reality of us did not live up to the idea of us.

And so we fell out of love. But love doesn't go away. It transfers and becomes something new.

I will say this: I hate falling in love. For all my logic and intelligence, I can't get over the fact that from time to time someone enters my life that turns me into a puddle on the ground. I have remarkable restraint and a clear sense of self but when love enters me, all this is dropped to the floor. Suddenly I am whisked away to a place of extreme vulnerability, all my writing becomes mushy and unreadable, and I am seemingly unable to focus on myself which, for someone as self-absorbed as I am, is extremely frustrating. I never ask to fall in love. It just happens.

Why does it do that? When I hate something, its very clear as to why. "This guy stole my girlfriend". Now I hate him. Cause and effect. "My house burned to the ground" Now I'm sad. Again, cause and effect. So what is it about love that takes you by surprise? You can meet person after person, all beautiful in their own ways, and then one day your at work and a new co-worker stands besides you and BANG. You're in love. How?

I have thought a lot about this. For one thing, love cannot be manufactured, and in not being a human construct, has a life of its own. You can't make love in a laboratory because if you could, the USA would be dropping bombs full of it as we speak. You can't will yourself to love, and you certainly can't buy it. This was a lesson I learned, as I've learned many of my life's lessons, from a comic book.

You see, there was this guy named Thanos. He was a big bad villainous bastard from outer space who was in love with death. So in love with death was he, that he searched the cosmos for the infinity gems, 5 gems of power representing the fundamental forces of the universe: Power, Time, Space, Reality and Soul. He who possessed all five of these gems would become a God, for he would have the power to alter the very fabric of existence. Long story short, Thanos travelled the cosmos and found all 5 infinity gems. Upon acquiring them, he became all-knowing and all-powerful. His first act as a God was to meet Death herself, for so powerful was he that he could conceptualize the force of Death as a women. Upon meeting her, he snapped his fingers and killed half of the life in the universe. A gift he said, for his undying love. Death stared at him and turned away, unimpressed. Next he built her a gigantic monument made of bones, a floating shrine in her honour. She rejected it. He took the planets and arranged them to spell her name. She ignored it. Every gesture, bigger then the last, fell on blind eyes and deaf ears. Thanos was confounded. Here he was, the most powerful man in the galaxy and yet he couldn't with all of his power, the very fabric of the universe his to shape, make someone love him. Oh sure he could force her to love him, snap his fingers and create a reality where Death loved him back, but that would prove hollow. She simply did not. Thanos would eventually in jealousy and anger, create his perfect mate, a creature created in his own image. But that too was empty. All he craved was the love of a women.

In the end, Earth's superheroes come, they fight and save the world. At the end of the day, the Infinity Gauntlet story of which I speak is nothing but a big, stupid comic book. But even at the tender age of 11 when I read it, I saw huge meaning in Thanos and his quest for love. Love could not be bought and all the power in the world could not artificially create it.

So looking at it in this way, one begins to realize that love is a fundamental force, greater then all other forces combined. It isn't just a feeling, it is a power beyond human understanding. And that is why it takes us by the scruff of the neck and flings us into the deep end...it's a power far out of our control.

Now I am not a religious man. Being raised Catholic, I have seen all too many times the disconnect between what one believes and how one actually behaves. And I have seen the hypocrisy of telling others to follow a path that they themselves do not follow. And I don't believe in anything that man has written, even if it's a holy text. And I can't be restricted by anything short of the lessons I've learned and the morality that has come with these lessons. So I can't say conclusively that there is a God, a higher purpose, a deeper meaning to existence. If I could, I'd probably be selling it to you in a book right now.

But here is the kicker. I BELIEVE in Love. And love, having nothing to do with anything earthly, makes me believe that perhaps there is an unseen world all around us, something greater then a world filled with automobiles, dance clubs and twitter. There are scents greater then Chanel. Tastes more glorious then Big Macs. Fabrics richer then the paper of legal tender. And it is through love that I have experienced the greatest heights of human experience. Not through drugs, not through money, not through Coldplay, but full out 'shift the very ground you walk on and knock you on your ass' LOVE. And I can't explain it, I can't quantify it and I can't express it. It's there and we are at its mercy.

I wasn't going to write this blog. These days, love is a bit of a joke word. It doesn't titillate the senses like sex and violence. No one wants to see love. When its on TV, in our magazines or on the big screen, we laugh when it happens. "Oh right" we say. "Now they live happily ever after. Puh-leeze." Seeing love sickens us. When a movie ends happily, we roll our eyes. Shouldn't they have died? Would they really have met up in the end? Is anything in life perfect?

Well, no. Life is a great deal more complicated then that. It seems whenever we love someone, they don't love us back. And when we could care less, that's when people start to get stars in their eyes. Love is difficult. And anything depicted in the media that makes it seem simple offends us. But we've gone well beyond that now. Now we have no tolerance for it at all. We would rather see a man beheaded. A persons toe cut off. Two mannequins fucking. Donald Trump wagging his finger firing people. Simon Caldwell making young girls cry. Pain, suffering, aggression. That's the stuff of entertainment.

I was afraid to write this. Love isn't a popular topic and I'm not the man you'd expect to hear it from. You Blogging Bastard is my place to be flippant about the world and air out my completely superficial grievances about being a piece of shit actor in an uncaring capitalist society. And don't worry, it will continue to be. But sometimes I've got more on my mind then how to rip off the TTC, or what's my favorite breakfast cereal.

For you see, I am in love. And it is the greatest force in the universe.

Mushy Gushy

That Blogging Bastard

Many a random thought

Blog. blog. BLog. blOG. blog. blog. blog. blog.

BLOG.

The word blog is a strange one isn't it? Its not a very attractive word. It feels like someone was about to say something profound, but then burped while talking. It sits with booger, slag and flak as something you don't want as a last name. "Mister Blog, your table is ready". Ugh.

I promised I would write this blog on a weekly basis. But I forgot that to write something, you have to be thinking of something to actually write. My mind being a whirlwind of randomness, finding that something is actually pretty difficult. I'm sure with a proper diagnosis, there would be a pill to fix all this. But if I were to fix it, then I'd have money, a good paying job, a proper home, two kids, a minivan, a horse named Wallaby, a ranch full of cattle, a personal gyro-copter, a Blackberry, an underground bunker capable of withstanding nuclear blasts, a George Foreman grill (deluxe sized; two steaks at once baby!), a subscription to Reader's Digest, a billiards room, a flux capacitor, a butterfly menagerie, an open field of wild corn, a swimming pool and a harem of virgin women. And who wants all that?

No, I think I'll stick to being a barely functioning theatre practitioner. Drugs isn't the answer, its just a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

In keeping with this, I've decided to make this weeks entry about nothing in particular. Sort of like Seinfeld, minus a cast of lovable characters, good writing and a viewership of over a million people. Think of it as the Chat Roulette of Blogs: a point by point inventory of the inane clutter sitting trapped in my walnut sized brain. Hey, size only matters in the men's change room. And in the bedroom. And in nuclear armament. And in pumpkin weighing competitions at the county fair. And....OK fine, size matters. Let's move on.

-Chat Roulette- The idea of sitting in front of my computer allowing random men to dance their penises in front of me is not appealing. As much as I love surprises, I feel they come best wrapped in paper. With Facebook, I already have a shit whack of friends who I never speak to. And with life, a bunch of good friends I never see. What' s the point of randomly inserting a man from Peru dressed in a rubber suit into my life? Other then to find true love, I mean.

-Texting-I remember in the old days I thought this concept silly. Here we have a wireless devices capable of transmitting our voices from anywhere in the world via satellites orbiting the planet, and we decide that rather then take advantage of this scientific marvel we'd prefer to go all 1806 and revert back to the written word. Why make a 30 second phone call when you can take 10 minutes sending 25 three word messages back and forth?

-you there?

-Yeah. Who is this?

-Luis.

-Hey!

-Hey.

-What's up?

-Seeing what you're saying.

- Not much. Watching t.v.

-Cool. What you watching?

-Uhh, nothing really. What you saying?

-Nothing. Looking for something to do.

-Yeah, I'm bored too.

-Yeah. Want to go see A Team?

-Naw. I got to work.

-Shitty.

-Yeah.

-Give me a shout. I'm free all week.

-Ok. Will do.

That was 18 fucking text messages! To say what? Do you want to do something? That takes 12.5 seconds in a phone call! So for me, texting was a gimmick used by little girls to pass messages in class. HOWEVER, what I didn't realize was how much people hate being responsible for themselves. Let me explain. I'm chronically late. Often, I find myself waking up with only minutes to spare and a need to inform someone somewhere that I am an irresponsible lout. But to actually SPEAK to them is a shameful experience: you can hear their annoyance with your tardiness, they can hear you stuttering while you drop your bullshit lies; the sounds of your cat mewing in the background at odds with the TTC delay you are supposedly experiencing. With text messaging, lying becomes simple. You see, talking reveals emotion, whereas writing is a premeditated action. With texting, I can tell you that you're dying of malaria without hearing the tears, that I dropped your camera in the toilet without hearing you curse my name and that I slept with your wife without hearing the cock of your shotgun. I want to INFORM you, not TALK to you. And so these days, texting is all right in my books.

-Toronto Post G20-I was leaving Sneaky Dee's at College and Bathurst last week and my friend Joe and I walked by the Scadding Court Community centre. This center holds many memories for me, as it was where my father played ball hockey, where I learned to suck at basketball and it contains the library where I picked up my very first Choose Your Own Adventure novel. You remember those, don't you? They went something like this:

You turn the corner only to find yourself pressed against a large, chain link fence. Trapped, you turn to go back the other way, only to find yourself face to face with Mel Gibson. Do you:

Rant on and on about how the Jews and Blacks are destroying our planet, hoping to befriend him? Turn to page 46

Discuss which was better punishment pornography: SAW IV or the Passion of the Christ? Turn to page 75

Ask him what it was like to work with Danny Glover on Lethal Weapon III? Turn to page 103

Hit him with a large mallet? Page 22

Turning to Page 46.....

Quickly you begin to spout incendiary comments about Jewish run Hollywood. Mel Gibson, unable to contain himself, begins to rant on and on about how they forced his girlfriend to dress provocatively while he secretly wishes to see 'those people' exterminated. Smartly, you record all this on your iPhone, send it over to TMZ and make a cool $2000 dollars for the exclusive rights to air it. YOU WIN!

Man, I miss those books. Where was I? Oh yes. So I'm walking by Scadding Court and we hear the boisterous sounds of play coming from the outdoor pool. Keep in mind it is almost 3 am at this point. Coming to the pool we realize that over 100 people, through a hole in the fence, were swimming illegally in an impromptu pool party. Without hesitation, we ripped off our clothes and with underwear as trunks, jumped in. I don't think I've had that much fun in ages. I even saw my friend Julia there and, putting her on my shoulders, engaged in the time worn Jock game of "knock the broad off my shoulders". It was a four way battle royal, and although I swallowed copious amounts of chlorinated water, I won the showdown. Normally I refuse to engage in any sort of athletic competition that could possibly embarrass me (as I often lose such competitions) but the simple pleasure of trespassing in a large group overrode my need to protect myself from feelings of inadequacy. When the cops showed up, which was inevitable, they merely made their presence known long enough for us to get up and leave. For a man left scarred from the G20 police presence, this simple act of rebellion lifted my hearts and gave me hope that Toronto had reverted back to normal.

Not so.

Flash forward a week, and we again found ourselves at the same pool. This time, I was nursing a bit of a cold and had some female attention waiting for me so I opted to skip the pool party, albeit with a heavy heart. Lucky for me I did because that night the cops were waiting. They blocked off all exits, harassed the swimmers, issued out $150 tickets for trespassing and HIT PEOPLE WITH BATONS. That's right. Somehow the innocent act of swimming at night required the use of force. But who can blame the cops? They saw a fence and immediately fell back into their role as protectors of the world's leaders. I mean they were given the right to use force only a few weeks ago, and as we all know, absolute power corrupts absolutely. At this rate, littering will be a crime worthy of capital punishment.

I think N.W.A said it best, FUCK THA POLICE. Now where are they, this homeless guy is staring at me....

-Twitter-

LUIS397

I'm walking to the bathroom

LUIS397

Im in the bathroom, trying to find a clean toilet

LUIS397

OMG, there are no clean toilets. Going to have to put down toilet paper

LUIS397

Taking a dump.

LUIS397

Wall says, "I fucked your mom" Someone wrote underneath, "Ok dad, you're drunk, time to go home"

LUIS397

LOL

LUIS397

Why do I exist?

This is stupid. I don't care what people think.

-Blossom-Does anybody remember this show? Remember? The one with the annoying girl with the big nose who always wore that weird hat? In its heyday it was as popular as The Fresh Prince of Bel Air but nobody talks about it with the same sort of nostalgic glow. Perhaps its because much like Chernobyl, the vicious scar left by Joey Lawrence still effects us to this day. Whoa.

The room where I write this blog is too bloody hot. I'm going to call this one in. Thank you for reading. I'm sorry I've got nothing better to talk about.

Join me next week when I talk about....meh. I don't know. We'll see.

Mel Gibson is crazy. Lindsey Lohan is in jail. Jamie's got a gun. God is dead. And I'm...

That Blogging Bastard.

P.S. I don't agree with Nietzsche. God isn't dead. He's just ignoring us. Probably on Twitter.

Loss and Abandonment: A G20 retrospective

Greetings from Montreal!

Today is Canada Day or as they call it here in Quebec, Thursday. I am sitting at an Internet cafe, lost in thought, unsure of why I am here and where I will be when I return.

It occurred to me after my third mug of coffee, as sweat beads down my forehead and my heart plays to the rhythm of 2Unlimited's No Limit, that after the G20 stormed our city, I was left disillusioned about my sense of freedom and control. In a sense, we were locked up and shut down with no discourse, voting or any tangible say in the matter. And while many of us have experiences during this crisis, a crisis that saw cops given sweeping power to detain, a huge fence erected in a our downtown core and municipal politicians sideswiped and left out of the matter entirely (like they would have made it better anyway), I would like to share my experience with you.

As many know I am a both a Royal York Hotel bartender and a beer hawker at the Skydome. In other words, I'm a high end booze peddler. Both my jobs can be seen on postcards at any Nicholby's location in downtown Toronto, next to the teddy bear Mountie and maple leaf emblazoned Frisbee disc. Leading up to the G20 both my work places started to get us mentally prepared (IE scared) of the oncoming summit. First, they had us sign a waver giving the summit access to our criminal records and personal information. Then we had to get our pictures taken for badges the size of small dogs that we would have to wear AT ALL TIMES, lest we be mistaken for anarchists, protesters or god forbid, regular civilians. Then the Royal York informed us of the perimeter fence, the access points, the check points, the drug sniffing dogs, the bag x-ray, the metal detectors, the laser grid and although this was never mentioned I believe it,T-1000 cyborgs capable of transforming there appearance due to a liquid metal alloy programed into their genetic makeup.

Meanwhile at the Dome, they had the common sense to just cancel that weekend, knowing that baseball was already annoying enough without being anally frisked at the door. The beer prices had already given our fans that feeling, to literally stick a finger up their asses would prove too much even for a $14 ticket. Of course, life being a series of unfair occurrences leading to suicide or marriage, the weekend that would be cancelled would be the same weekend Roy Halladay would be returning to Toronto to pitch. And of course, this Blogging Bastard would lose a boatload of money and come to Montreal with only enough loot to get him a six pack of Boreal Blonde and a smoke meat sandwich sans pickle (I still don't know how I'm paying for these coffees).

Incidentally, Doc pitched a great game blanking the Toronto Blue Jays over seven solid innings of baseball, an apt metaphor for a city that couldn't hit anything without being sent to an internment camp.

At the same time all this fun stuff was happening, I was involved in a breakup with a long term girlfriend. Now normally this blog is reserved for diatribes, jokes and generalizations, but I think including this bit of personal business will help you understand how I came to be given the unique position of seeing the G20's presence grow.

So I break up with my girlfriend and although amicable, the situation had me living with her for 2 months AFTER the breakup. In order to keep what remaining sanity I had, I began doing the couch tour of Toronto, hopping from friends couch to friends couch, hoping to find one with a softened arm rest suitable for multiple tours of duty. I quickly came to realize that the modern couch is less concerned with personal comfort than it is with looking fab next to the Ikea chesterfield. My head, neck and back aged twenty years, but I remained determined to avoid feeling sorrow at all costs.

Then magic!

A friend was moving and through a bizarre stroke of luck I was able to squat in an empty condominium located in luxurious downtown Toronto! Jacuzzi, balcony, screening room, sauna. All I needed was two hoes and a bottle of Cristal and I was Jay-Z minus the talent. Initially, this set-up was sweet even if I was sleeping on a folded duvet that aged my back and neck an additional 15 years, thus putting my spine at the ripe age of 55, older then my dads. Couple that with my 14 year old penis, and you've got one strange body type. Anywho, I was living the high life and for once I'm not talking about cannabis or a shitty beer made by Miller.

Then the Fence came.

It was deceptively slow moving but gradually, day after day, I would arrive to my "condo" and see changes. First came the construction workers, then came the trucks. And presto chango, I wake up to find I've been literally surrounded by a Guantanamo Bay style security fence. Then came the police. Just a few officers at first, smiling as you walked by. Then came the cruisers. Then motorcycles. By week two, security teams were sweeping the streets in 4 minute intervals. Suddenly, I was being questioned as I came home. "Where you coming from?"
"Do you live in the building? (which technically I didn't)" "What's in the bag?" Soon the smiles went away and you were eyed like someone sneaking a bomb across the boarder. One day I looked down at the down town strip I called home and all I saw was Bosnia. Palestine. Iraq. I saw cops in riot gear. I saw people getting stopped and checked just for walking down the street. Sipping coffee, I could see the shadows of snipers dancing on the rooftops. Notices went up telling residents of the building they would be locked down during the summit. A yuppie couple, having just walked their yipping dog, stood in the elevator with me. I turned to them, after just having my bag checked and said, "how are you liking this security?" They laughed. The man said, "I feel like a monkey at the zoo." Ironically, I had just been to the Zoo and he was wrong. I would never feel as comfortable swinging around in this situation as the Orangutan did in his enclosure. I'd take screaming kids pointing at me over sniper scopes any day of the week. But there was truth in this statement. We were caged.

At work, I met a security guard, some rent-a-cop given a $15 an hour job, who was only too happy to go over the security details with me and my coworkers.

Rent-a-cop: Oh this place is going to be shut down pretty tight.

Luis: Looks like it.

Rent-a-cop: Oh yeah.

Luis: When are they going to start putting us through the metal detectors?

Rent-a-cop: Not sure. Soon. Around the same time as the sniffing dogs get brought in.

Luis: Sniffing dogs?

Rent-a-Cop: yeah. where you guys going?

Luis: Get some dinner. The cafeteria food sucks.

Rent-a-cop: Enjoy it. Soon you won't be able to leave the premise.

Luis: why?

Rent-a-cop: Well think about it. You say you're going for a smoke, then you step outside and someone passes you materials, then you step back in, we recognize you, we wave you in, then BAM! Bomb goes off.

All I could think of was that we were encased in a fence, surrounded by police. Who was passing this bomb? I decided right there and then I wouldn't be working during the summit.

Luis: Will you be using the x-ray machine?

Rent-A-Cop: Naw. I wish. They're training the security team now. They don't respect me and my authority though.

Luis: Really? How so?

Rent-A-Cop: Well, they're all teenagers right? They're hiring teens so they can pay them $10 an hour instead of experienced security like myself. They're always on their cell phones. And I tell them to stop but then an hour later they're back on them, checking their Facebooks.

And this was the vaunted G20 security team. A bunch of hired teens working for peanuts while they searched the bags of employees who had given over twenty years of service. The rent-a-cop would later reveal that he wished for a scooter like Paul Blart Mall Cop and actually fondly compared himself to him. At lease he's close to achieving his dream.

I sat outside the Royal York talking to a beautiful co-worker and as we sat there, people driving up York Street where being told by a smug cop to turn around. Rather then put up a sign they let people drive all the way up the street to be told angrily to turn around, as if they had made some kind of stupid mistake. Even the construction workers, busy fencing us off would chime in, "HEY, DON'T COME HERE!" You could tell they were reveling in there new found power. It was sad to see so many men get consumed with this authority they were given, loving every minute of having control of others. We sat and watched this all while young kids drunkenly stumbled past the security fence, fresh off seeing Justin Bieber performing at the Much Music Video awards. I wondered if they would be doing security at the Hotel that weekend.

And then came the US Marine choppers. I was up in my friends penthouse when we heard a buzzing, as if some large insect from a Godzilla movie was flying through the buildings. And there was. Two twin bladed Marine choppers, straight out of Apocalypse Now, flew right by the building and landed at the Steamwhistle Brewery next door. We were transfixed, I had never seen an aircraft fly so precisely through the city buildings, like something out of a video game. I was rolling a joint at the time, so you can imagine the fear I was experiencing. "What are they doing?" my friend asked. They took off and were immediately followed by a regular chopper with the US presidents insignia adorned on the side. It touched down, and a man with a metal briefcase exited it, handed the briefcase and re boarded. This strange exercise happened a number of times and we realized, it was a dress rehearsal of Obama's arrival. I finished my joint,went up to my nearly empty condo, packed my bags and escaped, never to return. I would rather be locked up with an ex-girlfriend then with the US military.

And so the rest is history. Our media, woefully inadequate and muzzled, denounced "anarchists" for there violence, insisting they were drawing attention from the "peaceful" protesters, the few gatherings of teens singing camp songs at Trinity Bellwoods light years away from the actual action. Those with any balls to use their god given right to dissent in the downtown core, were met with brutality, intimidation and many were illegally detained. One friend sent me an account of his experience in the detention center. He wasn't even protesting, he was just trying to get home. Police arrested the ENTIRE STREET and placed them in a make shift holding facility where 40 men were locked in a room, given one port-o-potty with no door, no access to legal counselling, and placed there for 22 hours. The only food they were given was a Kraft singles slice and two Dixie cups of water. Of course this never made the news. Only the burning police car and masked deviants got the coverage, thus placing the blame on the people for the state of Toronto. And how did that car get burned anyway? I couldn't take a piss without being asked for a urine sample lest it contain radioactive elements, so how exactly did the people get access to a police car? You ask me, its all an elaborate piece of theatre, a way to pull favor to the side of the authorities. All in all, we lost a lot that weekend, and I have yet to fully recover.

So Happy Canada Day!

I'm here in Quebec where Canada is an ongoing joke, and for the first time in my life, I'm not sure I disagree. If people want to shut down our cities undemocratically, then they will. If the world wants to put us in fences, they can. And if you are a barely political, fuck up artist like myself, God only knows what to make of it all.

I just want to be loved.

Please come again when my next blog will be about farts, water pistols and avoiding cover charges at clubs! Now excuse me while I weep.

"Reality is like a fine wine. It will not appeal to children."

That Blogging Bastard