My Summer Vacation by Canada Jackson

Gentlemen! Pack your tobacco and clean your sidearms for I have returned.

(I would have said "Ladies and gentlemen," were it not for the common knowledge that women are not allowed to use the Intranets.)

I have not found time to bore you with embarrassing episodes of my miserable existence recently because of my increased duties as the weeping dwarf that the universe--like a mad medieval king intoxicated with feudal power, brain ravaged with a timely combination of syphilis and questionable grog--forces to dance in its dining hall, the only thing approaching recompense being the occasional chicken bone chucked halfheartedly at my head.

Ah, Jackson, you readers may say, if you're not viciously attacking random passersby with ad hominem like a hipsterish ancient mariner, you're bemoaning the existential despair of your comfortable, middle-class existence. It's the only game in town, says I.

Recently [Demarcations] hired six new bright-eyed and enthusiastic no-names as grist for the all-hungry soul mill that is their book selling operation. I felt nothing but pity when I saw them in the back room, eagerly absorbing their training. You poor, feckless motherfuckers, I thought. No training on this world can prepare you for discovering a naked, homeless man bathing himself from the toilet bowl in the public restroom. You will never be prepared to have a man--angry about not being allowed to cut the long register line--throw a book at you. But you will most certainly be familiar with being supervised by hill-folk whose knowledge of the product they're selling--literature--is taken up entirely by the crudest of facsimiles--pornography and Glenn Beck.

These delightful young pups are starting off at the registers, as I once did a little more than a year ago. What I was thrilled to discover, however, is that they are somehow getting paid fifty cents more than me. From day one. So, for the slower folks at home: new people, less responsibilities, less knowledge, less experience...more money. I, instead of starting a fire in the stockroom and spelling out "I quit" in urine on the carpet, discussed this discrepancy with the general manager. He was shocked by this difference in pay and said he would try and do something about it.

Apparently "something" is cutting my hours to one day a week. My last paycheck was fifty four dollars. I think I am going to work on my urine calligraphy. Either that or pimp this pitiful blog out in some fashion as to get an insane billionaire to finance the publication of a book--which, due to my brain's inability to (medically speaking) do anything will never actually see the light of day. And I highly doubt there is an audience out there for pompous, obscene rambling on the subject of everyday annoyances peppered with misused, misspelled ten-dollar words. Hurr hurr, beer, farts.

Speaking of not doing things, my good friend in New York City keeps harassing me to update this blog, citing the fact that she knows people who actually read it. Poppycock! It occurs to me, though, that if I mention her in this blog that I must come up with a handle for her, ala RJP4 and Mr. Midnight a.k.a the Food Monster. I find myself unable to do anything with her name, save the fact that her first name is more Irish than drunken morning premarital sex in a sheep pasture with a fiery barmaid named Moira, and her last name is more Jewish than complaining simultaneously about the air conditioning being too high and the soup temperature being too low in a deli in Manhattan. I expect a text message from her any minute ending our friendship. I'm just saying that if you need both a pub and a pyramid built in the same afternoon that I might know someone. Hi-o! Stereotypes.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that I'll try more to keep this damn albatross better fed. I know I say this with almost every post. But this time I might mean it. But probably not. Although now I do have tons of free time and no money to do anything else...

Maybe I'll passive-aggressively turn my posts into a more typical kind of blog in which I detail the horror of my daily activities. For example: "I wake up at eight o'clock sharp and then nap until around 11, when I am awoken by my stocky, homosexual pet cat's effort grunts as he climbs onto my bed. At this point I waste fourteen hours watching youtube videos of animals walking into things. My girlfriend sends me a text: 'What are you doing?' and I respond 'Working on grad school applications.' I eat several doughnuts and lose consciousness in my own filth--but not before a quarter-turn in order to prevent bed sores."

Is this really what you want, America?

Travels: Boise (Day One)

Day One of Boise started with a shower in Stone's basement bathroom. The shower was one of those stand-up jobs. I am what you might call "pocket-sized," and yet I still had a hard time maneuvering in this be-spouted shoebox. (When it came time for RJP4's turn there was only the sounds of muffled thuds and curses.) I also encountered a spider of some significance legging it under the door when I got out. I mentioned this to Stone. His response: "Yeah. We've got spiders here." It was implicit that "here" referred to Idaho. If we had driven to Idaho instead of flown we would have passed the massive welcome sign reading "IDAHO: Yeah. We've got spiders here."

For breakfast we decided to walk down to Elmer's--a diner-type place that Stone had talked up quite a bit. On the way we passed one of Boise's many irrigation sluices. It looked very much like a river, and Stone explained that some people do, in fact, swim in them. Apparently a fun thing that the children do is allow themselves to be sucked into one of the pipes and be propelled out the other side. Problem: sometimes there are grates on the other side. Again we see the invisible hand of Darwin plucking, in this instance, the chaff from the wheat.

Elmer's really was delightful. I got the best steak and eggs I've ever had there--and the hash browns were all mixed up with some peppers and onions. Very good. I also bought a copy of the Idaho Statesman from a machine outside. RJP4 and I compared it to the Scranton Times-Tribune we brought with us (RJP4 explaining his daily purchase of the Times: "It has two crossword puzzles."). Some notes: The Times had the following headline, "ANIMALS: Now We Know Better." The Statesman had excellent pictures--but all of its political articles were from either the AP of LA Times. The OpEd page had a prominently featured letter about tipping buffet waitresses. But then again, as stated, the Times had an article about us not understanding animals. Point, Scranton.

After Elmer's we crossed the road to Boise State University. All bicycles and pleasant people. Stone had to go to some kind of Theatre Person class where I assume they show you how to pretend to be a tree or paint yourself silver and stand still (the finer arts are lost on me). RJP4 and I walked over the "Friendship Bridge." The idea behind the friendship bridge is that if you walk across it with someone you will be friends forever. This is a silly thing, and even the attempt deserves our contempt and derision. I compell all of you to fly to Boise and openly urinate on this abomination. I'm a little worried that because RJP4 and I crossed it together that we are now gay married.

All my cranky cynicism melted away, however, because almost immediately after crossing the Friendship Bridge I saw a giraffe. You'd be surprised what wonders a completely unexpected giraffe can do. If only Hitler had, upon crossing the Rhine, stumbled across the legendary Meandering Giraffe of Gaul we might not all be comparing various American presidents to him completely outside of any historical context. ...I think things got away from me a bit. Anyway, the giraffes were peering over the fences from the zoo in the park across from Boise State. I found myself wondering--as we all do--if it were possible to put a saddle on one and ride it. And if so, what would be the top speed? What kind of obstacles would be neccessary to stop a giraffe cavalry? But the magic quickly disappated when I realized that the ground we were walking on was covered in geese. And their leavings.

While Stone was in class our wanderings were uneventful. We saw Boise State's Taco Bell Arena. I was almost tempted into free chili. We were loudly instructed to vote by a man wearing a homemade t-shirt proclaiming "TALK TO ME." We haughtily regarded an enormous drawing of a snail that was mislabelled as a slug. A few guffaws, upturned-noses, and East Coast elitisms later and we were reunited with our now more erudite travelling guide. And thus we ventured...downtown!

Here is where my remembering becomes fuzzy. Fuzzier. So bear with me. Bare? The following things occurred in some order on that day:

We went to what is basically the gift shop for all of Boise. I bought postcards and Stone bought us all "Spud Bars" because we didn't know what they were and how can you pass something like that up? It turned out to be a weird nougaty-marshmallowy substance wrapped in dark chocolate and coconut. I assume the goal was to mimic what it might be like to bite into a raw potato and perhaps enjoy it. The Spud Bar achieved this goal. I believe this is all that needs be said on the subject.

It began to drizzle, and then rain. RJP4's "solution" to this "problem" was to buy a one hundred dollar jacket from The North Face. It was bright red and he did not regret it: it had technology that caused the rain to simply bead up and wipe right off. Arthur C. Clarke, I think, said that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and clearly this is the proof. In the meantime the rain soaked through my ten dollar hooded sweatshirt. I did not have the aid of sorcery. At this point I threw out the latter half of my Spud Bar.

We visited Stone's place of employment: The Flying M, a coffee shop that is decidedly gay. And by that I mean that it is frequented by homosexuals. It serves many things--including various cereals in bowls--and there is a vending machine that pops out little boxes with art in them. None of the furniture matches and I think the best word for it is "comfortable." It was an excellent place to sit while the rain really picked up.

We visited the liquor store and saw vodka sold in a bottle shaped like a human skull. RJP4 bought some black label and all was well with the world. We trudged home in the rain like immigrants. Stone had to go to a long rehearsal and I put my hoodie in the dryer and fell asleep. Before he left Stone told us that there was a Chinese food place "nearby" called Panda Garden. RJP4 left in search of it. It turned out to be about a mile away.

I woke up when RJP4 returned, and the smell of his veggie lo mein made me envious. I, then, set off for the distant Panda Garden--but without the aid of the magical water repelling coat. My poor hoodie, so recently dried, was soaked through again by the time I returned. Along with most of the rest of me. But there were things to be said about my miserable trek: it gave me a good look at that part of Boise. Three observations: /1. Many houses in Boise are very small and simply do not believe in a second story. "One is enough," they say, believing more to be a sign of capitalist decadence. /2. There is a ponderous amount of classic cars in excellent shape in Boise. (My uncle would later explain that they don't use salt in the winter...which sciences up your car.) /3. The community pool is an above-ground. Who ever heard of such backward and savage ways? My hoodie went back in the dryer.

Later when Stone returned from rehearsal we walked back in the same direction, but past Panda Garden to the Albertson's grocery store. I picked up a package of "brownie cookies." A sticker on the box had a picture of the brownie cookies and read: "Brownie Cookies. It's a cookie and a brownie!" I could not pass this up.

On day one we walked, in total, roughly one thousand million hundred miles. My legs hurt as I drifted off to sleep on Stone's couch--surrounded by my cookie brownies or brownie cookies and the sleeping sounds of my close, drunken friends.

Next time! It doesn't rain, we walk more, and sadly no more giraffes are seen. Tune in!

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."

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.

The Technodrome, Giant Robots, and the Collective Unconscious

On most Mondays during the Summer (and some Mondays during other times of the year) some of the Sports Quiz staff can be found at Cosgrove's--a nice, dark little pub on the edge of Green Ridge. Monday night is Quizzo night, which is fun for the whole family if your little ones enjoy hits of the 80's and 90's played at maximum volume, lonely old men, the occasional hip young twenty-something with nothing to do, and a host with a nearly supernatural inability to ask a direct question in less than fifty words.

I was there a few Mondays ago with my long-time friend and brother-in-arms, the playwright Robert John Parry, IV. As he steadily made disappear two white russians followed by a forgotten number of four horsemen (which would be enough to kill or at least induce considerable vomiting in mortal men), the questions became more and more sports-oriented--which is an area embarrassingly far outside of my expertise, while RJP4 is unmoved by our human proclivities for organized sport. Naturally, the conversation moved to a common topic of ours: namely, what in the crimson April fuck is wrong with Japan.

Well, to be fair, the conversation started out with Ninja Turtles. I am fascinated by the Technodrome, the lair/vehicle of the Shredder. From Wiki:

fig. 1.1: "The Technodrome at Sunset."

Even in this dramatic image, the Technodrome shows itself as an imposing and fearsomely ridiculous piece of equipment. The name comes from the German technodrommen, which means "big metal sphere with tank treads and an eyeball on top." Or, perhaps, is a portmanteau of technology and aerodrome. Which would make the Technodrome a really fancy airport. Or maybe they picked drome because it sounds cool, or because it sounds like dome and the whole contraption is kind of dome-like in a retarded way. The mystery continues.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Technodrome was that it was always spoken about as if it were some hugely important and powerful weapon, but always ambiguously. One got the sense that even those that lived inside the Technodrome were uncertain of what, exactly, it did. Perhaps its greatest weapon was the confusion it would most likely cause upon arrival on the battlefield--its mysterious power being its complete inscrutability. And what, exactly, is the purpose of the gigantic eyeball? The Technodrome spent most of its time underground. The giant eyeball seems like more of a hindrance than an advantage in that situation. I imagine it was constantly getting stuck on rock formations. Or perhaps it was just a functionless hood ornament.

Furthermore, one can clearly understand the advantages of an underground lair. One can also clearly understand the advantages of a mobile liar. However, the combination of mobile-ness and underground-ness mitigates the advantages of both. An underground liar is difficult to get to while a mobile liar could be anywhere. If an underground liar is mobile, you are basically constructing a massive tunnel right up to your doorstep--and it can't really "be anywhere" because all one would have to do to find it is travel in one of two directions: follow the tunnel that goes this way, or follow the tunnel that goes that way. Also, cave-ins would naturally be an issue. I doubt the Shredder was some kind of rock doctor.

Aaanyway, RJP4 brought up that in the Japanese version of the Turtles they have the prerequisite Giant Robot which the Turtles drive or pilot or operate or transform into or whatever (I believe I found some evidence here: wait for the credits for the weird robots to start appearing). I also recalled that the Japanese version of Spider-man has this same confusing and unnecessary addition as well. This naturally brings about the question: why does Japan feel the need to insert the Giant Robot into everything--even places where it would be narratively inconvenient for a Giant Robot to be? If Japan does a production of Hamlet, does he scream into a wristwatch at the end, calling forth an enormous robotic version of himself, garbed in gunmetal with its trademark "ray of metaphysical doubt" weapon? And yet, here is Peter Parker, humble freelance photographer struggling to pay the rent--and also endowed with a robot the size of a skyscraper. With which to fight...gang members? Ah, like opening a can of peaches with a shotgun.

Because of the Giant Robots omnipresence not only in Japan's homegrown cultural artifacts but also being shoehorned into their imports and transliterations--regardless of the appropriateness--it becomes clear that the Giant Robot is some kind of Japo-Jungian archetype. Kind of like how all American heroes are basically cowboys in different wardrobes and situations...which is representative of our unconscious love of gay men.

RJP4 and I then spent the next hour or so trying to decipher what the Giant Robot may mean as a cultural symbol. I think most of Japan's fucked-uppedness in the eyes of the West can be traced back to the whole we dropped the World's most devastating weapon on them--twice. Unfathomable violence and destruction has the tendency to make people a little weird. Is it any wonder that the Japanese culture fetishizes innocence to a degree that would embarrass Holden Caufield? I mean, we disintegrated their children.

But that is really a separate and more disturbing discussion. I think that the Giant Robot fetish can also be traced back to that whole atomic business. It makes sense that a people that affected by devastating technology would in turn attempt to anthropomorphize and redirect that technology as some kind of protector. And who is it that almost always pilots or controls these Giant Robots? At least, in the original Japanese TV shows, it's most often children. Done and done. Another culture psychoanalyzed by Canada Jackson and RJP4, Existential Detectives.

The West has their own cultural warnings against nuclear warfare: post-apocalyptic visions of the future where the land is afire and Mel Gibson wanders in the midst of murder machines or vampires or zombies or vampire-zombies. But all of these are insufficient caveats. The strongest reason why we should never use nuclear arms is Japan. Japan shows us that the atomic bomb is more of a pervert bomb than anything else, and we would only surive through fondling each other on subways and showing hardcore animated sex on Saturday mornings.

"Look upon my works, ye mighty..."

But then, perhaps a couple of 20-something Japanese losers are examining our precious Technodrome and proclaiming how it clearly shows our obscene American obsession with small-to-moderate-sized robots and of-age, consenting human sexual partners. Is there nothing that relativism cannot fix?

The Marty McFly of the digital age

I work at a local book store--shall we call it, perhaps, "[Demarcations]." Now, this being one of the few book stores in the area (draw from that fact what you will) we get some interesting people. Most of them are just unremarkably crazy. For instance, there is a person who regularly vomits in the men's room. This is not really worth much hullabaloo because this person has what we might call brain and behavioral problems, which means he may think that it is OK to purge oneself on the floor of a public place. This is something that everyone knows crazy people do, so why blog about it? It is not blogworthy to say that a crazy person did something that, to non-crazy people, appears crazy. (I imagine that crazy people have a kind of supra-sane communication and understanding, and that other crazy people would respond to a person purposely vomiting in public with sage nods and "good shows" all around. But then again I am not a doctor and am, by most rubrics, mentally retarded.)

But beyond the shuffling and vomiting hordes, [Demarcations] also provides its many services to some genuinely astonishing people. Tonight I had the pleasure of helping a young boy who had clearly traveled through space and time from the distant lands of what can only be called "1992."

(I have done a Google Image Search of the phrase "1992" in order to better show what I mean, but I got distracted by one of the results:This woman, who looks considerably like television's Ricky Gervais. She is also a "traffic manager" from 1992.)

At first I was struck by the time traveler's appearance: light blue tapered jeans; an oversized striped sweater of the colors green, orange, and red; white high top sneakers; a green down vest; and a perfectly shaped blond semi-mullet. Unlike a regular mullet, which was worn primarily by the lower class (a tradition carried on today only by idiot sub-humans), the semi-mullet was the rich man's mullet--being business in the front and slightly more drunken business in the back. For those of us who grew up televisually inclined, think of the blond Taylor child on Home Improvement.

Next came the mysterious time-wanderer's request: He wanted the Simpsons. "Ye Gods!" thought I. Trapped in the confines of the early nineties, this poor soul has yet to see the fate of the Simpsons! Sure that he would not believe me, I--with heavy heart--led him back to the glass DVD cases, where I unlocked for him seasons four and five.

After my brief encounter, I thought that he had gone. But he returned again to continue marveling me with his antiquated tastes and behaviors. He approached me, apologizing for taking up my time again. Can you imagine? A child! Apologizing and being needlessly polite! He wanted to purchase another boxed set--this one of some wrestling business. How can this boy afford all these boxed sets, I thought. But then, slapping my forehead, I remembered: the nineties were times of economic prosperity. Mulleted children with day glow slap bracelets and deep seated fears of a Negro President scampered around buying ridiculous shit all the time. Such a strange and terrifying world this boy had come from: a land where Sonic the Hedgehog is a cultural icon, where the "overall" is not extinct, and Star Wars--Oh! Those beautiful Star Wars!--remains unblemished. He probably still played outside, thought computers were only for doing math problems, and had never called anyone a "gay ass bitch faggot" after they "killed" him in cops and robbers.

As he left the building--surely to disappear in a ball of lightning--I could not help but think of such a brave old world.

But then some crazy motherfucker tossed his biscuits in the bathroom.