Thursday, March 26, 2009

Nasa is full of shit

It has been awhile since I ventured into the blogosphere, but I've returned and well equipped to deal with fat acne scared folk who haunt this realm looking for innocent and helpless people to "pwn." Don't fret, I have not returned solely to fight the tyrannical uber nerds, but to also deliver you a good heaping pile of funnies from the fourth grade.

This past week my class took a test on the solar system. This was a basic test asking for information on all eight planets, and Pluto who is now treated like an unwelcome step child at dinner after making a comment about the "zoo noises" mommy was making last night. The students were given a study guide that was filled in over the course of the week with a final review by the classroom teacher where they were all given the correct answers. All the students had ample time to study, but a few students went the extra mile and did some historic and scientific re-visioning for us. Here is a list of the new facts I learned today:

1. All the inner planets are not in fact made of rock, but made of Ice and dust. (I knew global warming was a conspiracy made up by the liberals.)

2. The outer planets are giant snowballs, not gas. (God does love giant snow cones...)

3. Saturn's rings are not made of ice, rocks and dust. What are they made up of then? The truth, fire.

4. The first person to walk on the moon was actually Arnold Schwarzenegger, not that phony Neil Armstrong.

According to the logic used to to arrive at the last fact I can only assume it will soon be revealed that it was Will Smith who first flew across the Atlantic. And when he landed in Paris he promptly punched the mayor in the face, stood over him and said, "Welcome to Earth."

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Canada Jackson's Doctoral Challenge vol. II

My express train to failure, poverty, and self-loathing continues to chug along nicely. On this edition of Canada Jackson's Doctoral Challenge we will be discussing Marquette University, located in sunny Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Today, Marquette University wrote to inform me that they could not offer me admission into their Doctoral program.

For those interested, I have compiled some information about Marquette University. From their brochure:

"Marquette University was founded in 1855 by known whoremonger and sexual deviant Herman Marquette. It was originally supposed to be the largest house of ill repute in the country until it was taken over by the Jesuits in 1860. The Jesuits, however, quickly found that prostitution was not a financially stable endeavor, so they turned it into a university.

Here are some quick Fun Facts about Marquette University:
-- Ninety-nine percent of America's serial killers graduated from Marquette.
-- Bestiality is not only accepted at Marquette, but a requirement to obtain tenure.
-- The current president of Marquette University is Robert Mugabe.

Marquette University received world notoriety in 1961, when it was visited by President John F. Kennedy. The young, charismatic president spent around fifteen minutes on campus before, according to his aides, he was so disgusted that he dropped his pants and defecated in front of cameras, reporters, and shocked students. He then ordered his staff and Secret Service agents to do the same. Years later he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, by Marquette graduate Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Marquette University statistics:
-- 67% of Marquette University students are illiterate.
-- The other 33% of Marquette University students are cows.

Marquette University firmly believes in the supremacy of white males of European descent. In keeping with this tradition, every semester one or more of the following classes are offered: Intermediate and Advanced Eugenics (BIO216 and BIO416), Confederate Studies (HUM304), Introduction to the International Jewish Banking Conspiracy (PS263), and/or Lynching Theory (PE101).

Thank you for your interest in Marquette University.
Note: Irish and coloreds need not apply."





I feel better now.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Six degrees of Canada Jackson.

I have, in my long and glamorous life, met two whole celebrities. Well, kind of celebrities. In that if you saw them walking down the street you might say, "Hey, is that that guy from ______?" and then realize that even if it were that guy from ________ it wouldn't matter because they would probably ask you for bus fare if you tried to talk to them.

Oh, wait, I've met three. I once got into a bar fight with Doris Kearns Goodwin. She kicked my ass.

Anyway, these are the true stories of my celebrity encounters.

First, I met Henry Winkler. That's right, the Fonze. The lawyer from Arrested Development. The beleaguered football coach from Adam Sandler's moving portrait of anger and mental disabilities, The Waterboy.

I met him while working as a bartender at the Scranton Cultural Center, which was by far the worst job I have ever had--and hopefully ever will have. There were times when I worked for fourteen hours straight and went home with nine dollars in tips. There were times when I was in real danger of physical harm at the hands of drunken concert goers because we ran out of beer. And, once, while standing outside in the rain, I witnessed a man vomit in the gutter--myself having to take quick evasive action as the currents pulled the former contents of his stomach towards my shoes. The reason the Scranton Cultural Center is called the Scranton Cultural Center is because excessive drinking, violence, and public vomiting are all an important part of Scranton's culture. As my friends and I paraphrase the very misleading TV show "The Office:" There ain't no party like a Scranton party, because at a Scranton party someone dies.

But anyway, Henry Winkler. He was coming to Scranton to hype his children's books about a kid with dyslexia. First there was a little party with champagne on the second floor of the building, followed by Mr. Winkler giving a little talk to an audience of kids in the theater. During the little pre-party I swiped a bottle of champagne, thinking it would be excessively cool to have a champagne bottle signed by the Fonze. Why did I think that? Because Scranton is full of radiation that makes you retarded.

I waited backstage while he was giving his talk to the little tykes. After he was done I asked his manservant (I assume his manager or assistant or sex slave) if he would sign my bottle. Mr. Winkler said, through his concubine, that he would not. Crushed, I decided to have him sign one of his books about kids who can't read.


Even though I spent a good ten minutes in Mr. Winkler's presence, he neither spoke to me or made eye contact with me. Instead he spoke to his manservant about how he was going to sign the books across his picture on the back because no one does that, and how will you know it's really his signature if he doesn't sign it accross his picture? "Why didn't anyone else think of that?" asked. Clearly, it's because Henry Winkler is a fucking genius. He also piqued my ire when he asked me, again through his chattel, to bring him some water. I did so, and received no acknowledgement whatsoever.

But, the life of celebrity is tiring. With this in mind I decided to sign my champagne bottle for Mr. Winkler.
My next dramatic semi-celebrity meeting was at my current semi-job at [Demarcations]. In this case, I met Bronson Pinchot. That's right, Balki of TV's "Perfect Strangers."

Bronson Pinchot on the left.

According to Wikipedia, Bronson Pinchot owns a god damn town near Scranton. He moved there and bought all the buildings with his "Perfect Strangers" and Beverly Hills Cop money. And, for whatever reason, he occasionally relaxes with a warm cup of the distilled, burned offal we call coffee at the Scranton [Demarcations]. How he has not killed himself is anyone's guess.

Now, I should say that in actuallity Mr. Pinchot is a nice guy. When I was ringing him up I didn't realize that he was Bronson Pinchot until he handed me his credit card with BRONSON FUCKING PINCHOT on it. Also, someone behind me asked a manager if he could take his lunch break. This struck Mr. Pinchot as funny, as it was eight o'clock in the evening.

"Lunch?" said Mr. Pinchot. "That train has sailed." I am not ruling out that Bronson Pinchot was intoxicated during this interaction.

Bronson Pinchot on the left. Wokka wokka.

It has occured to me that nearly everyone has some cool story of meeting a real life celebrity or otherwise important public figure. My cousin got to shake hands with President Clinton while he was still president. RJP4 has met several celebrities during his exile in New York City. My sister saw Jake Gyllenhaal and Kirsten "Beastly Whore" Dunst buying rice--and was once yelled at by Sean Connery.

I, however, have been irritated by Henry Winkler over the course of an evening and shared a surreal three minutes with Bronson Pinchot. Clearly I am the winner.

----------------------------------------------------------

PS: Hopefully, children, I will have more time and motivation to post as [Demarcations] continues its steadily more entertaining shit show of a downward spiral into irrelevance and bankruptcy. Rumor has it that the new CEO is randomly visiting stores and firing people. Oh please, Father Christmas! Oh please let him visit humble Scranton, Pennsylvania to find me and set me free! And please, dear Father Christmas, let me tear off my stupid nametag and tell him to take his fraudulent charity book drives and maddeningly arbitrary sales goals and go fuck himself to death.

Cheers!




Wednesday, March 4, 2009

More reasons I hate my job.

1) Thanks to this here recession we got goin' on my hours have been cut to the point of having one day of work a week. Sometimes I have a full 8 hour shift, sometimes not. One week I was only scheduled to work four hours. Somehow this hasn't stopped me from hemorrhaging money like I have the Dollars-Tuberculosis. I cough demurely into a white handkerchief and look anxiously as dimes fall from it.

2) At my one day of work this week I heard two teenage girls discussing me.
Girl 1: Doesn't he look like [inaudible]?
Girl 2: Yeah. Maybe the hobbit version.
[Assorted giggles.]
I briefly imagined myself flagging them down and saying, "Hey, I don't come to where you work and tell you that you are too fat and pock-marked to work the pole while holding back tears of shame and thinking about your step-dad." But I would never do that. Bible says that would be wrong.

3) I had to alert the general manager to a teenage boy walking around the store with a gigantic inflatable cartoon penis.

4) That same night the store was visited by a living, breathing, cautionary tale against drinking while pregnant. This was the clearest and most obvious case of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome the world has ever seen. Eyes spread about seven meters apart, the classic "elfin" features, and, of course, the full house of behavioral problems. He yelled, he screamed, he demanded people help him find horror books even when we were engaged with other customers. When someone finally did free up to help him he was incomprehensible. His sister-mother had the same features and yelling issues. Clearly we were dealing with a multi-generational illness. In the end, she bought him the uncut version of the original Friday the 13th. I should receive a promotion for not immediately demanding to know why the mother hated the world so much as to use her genitals as a weapon against us all.
After they had left the store I went to the horror fiction section to see the damage left in their wake. The child had somehow knocked down a bookshelf. That took me a while to fix. I then went to the horror film section--only to find more of a mess and several empty DVD cases.
"Why didn't your fat ass get an abortion?" Imaginary Jackson asks.
"Because Bible says that would be wrong," says hillbilly woman, as she and her mongoloid son steal DVDs and cut in line in the public sphere. Wrong indeed, you horrible inbred deep-woods nightmare--now stop your walking talking miscarraige from biting me.

And with that my hate catharsis is complete. I will now resume rubbing my cat's belly and telling him what a handsome fellow he is.
Handsome devil.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Super Person

Receiving a drawing or letter from a student is something that all teachers enjoy. This gesture shows the teacher that no matter how many rolls of the eyes, incomplete homework assignment, or total lack of interest in what is being taught, that the student does like you and appreciates the work you put into their education and your high tolerance level. A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be given one of these gifts from a boy in my class. He told me that he drew what was on the paper and wanted me to have it. When I asked him what it was, he replied that it was a comic and that he knew I liked comics so he wanted me to have it. I unfolded the paper to see that he had drawn a very simple comic with only six panels. The comic he drew, to put it frankly, was amazing. In only six panels he had managed to summarize the majority of all comics. I scanned the comic he drew because only taking about it would be an injustice. What good is discussing a piece of art if you can't see it, right? So for your viewing pleasure I present to you, "Super Person."