Upon this pebbled beach is where our story ends. This is where I hang up my langseax knife. Now am I housecarl. Now have I earned mine spurs. July 1066 was a cruelly hot summer by all accounts. July 2008 has proved itself to be anything but. Yet we have persevered. Yet we have remained resolute. Men of great spirit stand either side of me. These proud men of the Shires. These plucky sokemen. This brave Band Of Brothers beneath the banner of the wyvern. No hairy star hangs overhead this night. No portents of doom. Only a silvery Hay Moon rising high above the salty whale-road. Illuminating the great chalk spur of Flamborough Head. Reflected in the faces of those warmed by campfires. I shall fight to the death for my king. If my king or my earldorman shall die, I shall take his place and fight just as he would have fought. If any man here see me taken with weakheart, and run away, he shall remind me of this pledge made here before my kith and my kin.
When I was small, I wrote to Sir Jimmy Savile three times. I asked him if he could fix it for me to play drums with Adam & The Ants. I asked him if he could fix it for me to pilot the Millenium Falcon. I asked him if he could fix it for me to visit the offices of Marvel comics in New York City. Sir Jimmy never wrote back. I don’t hold it against him though. He was a busy man. He had shellsuits to dry-clean, Cuban cigars to smoke and lank hair to get platinumized. A member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire and a Knight of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory, Sir Jimmy is an esteemed Friend Of Israel, an Honorary Royal Marine Commando and a Freeman of the Borough of Scarborough. He claims to have invented both hip-hop and rap music. He also claims to have raised over £40,000,000 for charity. Which, whatever you choose to look at it, is a lot of sterling. On Boxing Day 1994, Chris Morris announced live on BBC Radio One that Sir Jimmy had collapsed and died. As it happens, it wasn’t true. It was just a joke. And to this day, Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile remains the only still-living person in the free world to have a commemorative bench dedicated to them. Seriously, how’s about that then?
I dedicate the following blogenstein to Matt Dillon circa Rumble Fish.
Matt's been coming up a lot in my life lately and he's been my inspiration and guiding light and for that I give him snaps.
I thought we'd start things off with one of my old-time faves and conclude with some hot new scoop.
Now if you want, you can be a son-of-a-gun and choose your own adventure and skip to the end for more sassy Diora Baird. But I recommend you stick with me so you can get some hot ideas of what to put on the summer mix tape you make me when you are bored...
In honour of how I reached Ottawa in the wee hours in order to spend a lovely Sunday poolside with my family, I thought I might consider some of my fave poolside jams of days gone by that still make me go "Aaaah..."
The Jungle Brothers' Done by the Forces of Nature is an album that I can listen to over and over and over again and not get tired of.
The following jam, SUNSHINE, is particularly close to my heart as it has never failed to lift my spirits when I'm feeling like a downer.
The same goes for this De La Soul number that reminds me of driving around with my first love rebound boyfriend in his shitbox while he drank hard liquor before noon.
This might not seem like a great thing to be reminded of, but really, it reminds me more of first date butterflies and those are always fun to reconsider, especially in the sun by the pool when your biggest worry is burning your nipples.
Beats, Rhymes and Life goes well with breaststroke and backcrawl. And here is one of its great sexy summer jams that reminds me of being a teen.
From the same album, this jam cannonballs fresh.
And this is what it means to relax...
This one, on the other hand, is totally TOTALLY played out and I don't know if I just find it annoying because it reminds me of this one mind-numbing summer I spent working at Bluenotes in the Rideau Centre in Ottawa where I heard it WAY TOO MUCH, or if I never really liked it to begin with.
I think that the video is fun to watch though, so maybe one could mute it and play a more awesome song...
Anyways! This hasn't been very funny but you can't win 'em all and so, I leave you with the knowledge that SUMMER LOVIN is one of my most despised songs of all time and it got that much more grating when manipulated by Diplo for Bonde do Role and I really REALLY do NOT like GREASE, it's a terrible nuisance of a musical as are most in which Julie Andrews or Barbara Streisand do not feature prominently.
So let's say sup to the moment you've all been waiting for...
UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH DIORA BAIRD'S PORNANI!!!
Psych, we lied.
If you feel let down and like you were kept in the dark all this time, that's exactly how I felt after I went to see Young People Fucking on Wednesday afternoon. It was everything I hoped it wouldn't be, from the moment I bought my ticket.
First, I went to the interac booth and tried to buy my ticket there because I didn't have my student ID and thought that way I could buy a student ticket without someone getting all up in my ballsack about how I didn't have student ID. Then the interac booth was being a biatch so I had to go to the real human booth. But not before I saw the film listed simply as "Young People" on the interac booth. And so, I had been really excited to say "FUCKING!" to the real human at the real human booth but in the end I was a fucking pansy flower and just said "1 for Young People, please."
I never saw a preview for this movie and read brief lack-lustre reviews of it but on Wednesday at 3:37 I was really at loss for what to do with myself and I really quickly checked what movies were playing and I saw YOUNG PEOPLE FUCKING and DIORA BAIRD and jumped on my bike and I really shouldn't have made it, considering how far it was and that it was starting at 4 but I was given supersonic energy at the thought of seeing Diora Baird naked in action, she who I've been a fan of since she graced the cover of Playboy in August 2005 as well as its insides.
She also did a fantastic Guess campaign that knocked the socks off Paris Hilton's and arguably pales in comparison to Drew Barrymore's??
Onward and upward. Diora Baird's Guess campaign caused a record-breaking and load-blowing number of car accidents in the days following the giant billboard installations in LA.
She is a Catherine Deneuvian sex bomb and we all want to paint her naked body with paint.
Her rack is frankly off the charts and her 2 seconds in the Wedding Crashers "SHOUT!" boob montage kind of blended in with all the other topless honeys up in that shiz and so we blame no one for not remembering her name either.
And so, you can imagine how super-vexed I was when I realized that I had spent nearly two hours watching a terrible movie I knew would be terrible, only to realize that Diora Baird is trying to become a "thespian" and I need to put my "lesbian" fantasies to rest, seeing that I haven't tangoed or nipple-rocked a girl in about two years and I'm sorry to say, there was always a boy nearby...
Feigned bi-curiosity aside, not only did I not see Diora Baird knocking anyone out with her 40 pound rack, I didn't even get so much as a slip of the nip. Oh, there were breasts, sure, but they belonged to some unknown dishwater blonde with boring nipples and cankles.
Therefore, don't go see Young People Fucking unless you're going to say "FUCKING" to the boothperson or even better, go see the new Batman movie but buy a ticket to something else just for the fun of feeling like you're sneaking into Scream and you totally shouldn't do it.
And by that I mean, say "1 for Young People Effyouseekaying, please." and I bet you'll get a funny look that will make your no name red licorice taste a lot better than it would otherwise.
So let's give three cheers to our dear friend Elizabeth Berkely for being a true thesbian and taking it all off in the name of making it bigger than breast implants!!!
Lastly, today my dad said "wigging out" and what's more perfect than that??
The term “Faded Glory” probably best sums-up Scarborough’s Grand Hotel. Its austere brickwork the colour of nicotine. Its mismatched carpets pre-decimalisation. Completed in 1867, it looms large above the seaside town, casting long shadows over the harbour and the South Bay. The Grand boasts 2 Restaurants, 3 bars and the most cases of food-poisoning of any hotel in the North Yorkshire area. Its 4 towers represent the 4 periodic seasons. Its 12 floors represent the 12 months of the year. And its 52 chimneys represent the 52 calendar weeks. Jack Torrance, an aspiring playwright, is in the room next door. Marion Crane is taking a shower in the room right across the hall. The emergency number to contact reception is 6666. (The Number Of The Beast, plus an extra 6 for good measure). I’m trying hard not to think about how many people must have died in the bed that I’ll be sleeping in later tonight. Check-out, it’s worth noting, is 10am sharp.
Cambric shirt freshly laundered and packed, I’m ready for my journey to Scarborough Fayre. Via Peter Sutcliffe’s old semi-detached home. Via the nerve-centre of Hallmark Cards. Via the silk mill, where Frederick William Jowett founded the Independent Labour Party in 1892. Leaving behind this Throstle’s Nest of Brontë Country. Past the building site of Europe’s largest mosque. Past the site of the world’s first Morrison’s supermarket. Past thee John Smith’s brewery in Tadcaster over yonder. Parsley, sage, rosemary and seagull guano.
This recreated Dark Age settlement just beyond the walls of Jórvík took volunteers 9 years to construct - using wattle and daub and plenty of elbow grease. Today the dwellings are standing-in for the hamlet of Crowhurst; an insignificant boghole, 8 miles from the beach at Pevensey, where William The Bastard and his conquistadors first put ashore. Crowhurst and the hinterland surrounding it were razed to the ground. Its tiny population put to sleep by sword. And borne to their Maker. Today's a Sunday, and the abattoir next door is closed for business. Now, I’m not an expert on these things, but it certainly smells as if a couple of cadavers may have been left to rot overnight. The fetid aroma, it has to be said, only helps add to the authenticity. It’s just a shame about the constant rumble of traffic pounding the A64 dual-carriageway. I’m not an expert on these things, but I suspect I'm right in thinking that this vital trunk road wasn’t quite so busy back in yee olden times.
I've been on hiatus on a majestic beach in Thailand, far removed from cyberspace and tabloid fodder.
It's been real because Tilda Swinton wasn't even all that crazy in retrospect, eventhough she has quite prominent cheekbones...
...and slapped me around a few times when I called her Cate Blanchface and yeah, she wasn't really that crazy eventhough I felt physically pained when she rolled her eyes harder than eyes have ever been rolled before after I told her she needn't be so icy and conniving outside of Narnia...
Then came the dirty look to soil all dirty looks...
And THEN Tilda rose up from all that jiggy stardust and we actually horsed around a bit and it was kind of sweet and romantic like Scottish countryside...
Enough about the beach.
It's great to be back in the real world now, eventhough I'm still a bit off from when I went a little bit nutso and started living my life like a violent video game but it happens to the best of us but what can you do, eh?!
I'm cybering it up and I just got an awesome e-mail of a happy picture of me and all those people on that majestic beach in Thailand before shit went batty and I lost my marbles and my beach cred.
More importantly, these days my pockets are filled with more than pocket lint and I got to money jane my steady a bit this past weekend with some shine and dine action and some spying on a middle-aged couple making out like teenagers after dark by the fountain at Carre St Louis.
There's nothing like falling for the first time...
I'm moving along with the world and I know have this mini computerish device that allows me to go on the internet and create word documents and that is cool because I am sick of the library and my apartment and I hate being that person who is checking their e-mail at house parties or that person who writes a blog when they go home to Ottawa for Canada Day where the internet runs free, instead of eating paella in the garden with one's family, and SO...maybe I will be more vicious with RAID THA FRIDGE now that I have this mini computerish device that I can take with me to the beach even!
Thattagirl.
I have yet to figure out how to do FRENCH ACCENTS and if my fingers were any fatter, it would probably make for a problematic relationship with this dwarfified keyboard....
Other big news includes the sweet fact that I am riding Tia Carrere again and loving every soft-core minute of it.
Tia Carrere being my turquoise bicycle that answers to the name of Tia Carrere.
Just like Tia Carrera!
She has yellow and pink accents that make for semi-exotic romps and a big black box to put my junk in at the back, which comes as a surprise, all things considered.
The best part was when my mom asked me what I decided to name my bike and I told her Tia Carrere and she thought it sounded nice enough but asked why.
And then I said "She's kind of like, she's like this B-list actress sort of, well...B list?? She's in some soft core and ummm, you know the movie High School High??"
Blank stare.
"Or remember that time we were in that hotel that time and we got the Playboy channel in our hotel room in that hotel??"
In retrospect, I only watched it when they left the room...
I'm getting cozy enough with one of my coworkers that it seemed fit to disclose to one another our "number" and thoughts on "doing it".
One, of course, is not the loneliest number if you happened to find true and lasting love as a teenager, as did one of our Ben and Jerry's elders, he that will be married next July to his girlfriend of like 9 years.
Back to my Ben and Jerry's equal. If anyone is 19ish (or into 19ish guys) and brunette and into microbiology and down for kinky shit and not just kinky during phone sex and totally lame otherwise, kinky all the time, and owns their own whip (because he doesn't have the cash for a good one right now because he blew it all on "good ropes" and "safe harnesses"), well I've got the guy for you and he's smart and well-travelled and quite possibly well-hung considering his particular racial hybrid classification...
I'm also taking a creative writing class that I'm having fun with and my steady just found an apartment on Mount Royal with a private rooftop terrace fit for a friendly game of GERMAN HANDBALL and if they approve him, then I'll be set for three awesome outdoor 23rd birthday parties, not unlike when Paris Hilton turned 21 and rocked that shit in Tokyo, New York, Las Vegas, London and Hollywood (but oddly enough, not Paris...) or the time Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale got married twice in one month in two different continents like it was no big whoop.
No big whoop. You know, like going to jail.
Maybe John Galliano will throw in a gown in exchange for publicity and street cred...
If anyone talks to him, let him know I don't MIND something floorlength but I'd kind of prefer to show some thigh, I mean I know it will be late August and possibly chillier than it is today but ask that John Galliano bear with me considering all the free publicity he'd get for giving me a free outfit for my birthday party/parties.
The world sure is a big place; full of many people seeking an escape from the pressures and anxieties of everyday life. Some choose to play World of Warcraft. Some choose to learn Klingon (or tlhIngan). Others still choose to dress in chainmail and spend their weekends bashing 57 shades of Living History hell out of each other in muddy fields the length-and-breadth of this Merry Olde Kingdom Of Enga-lond. With a worldwide membership of around 600, Regia Anglorum are one such organisation. They're like the Sealed Knot "on acid". Or maybe bogmyrtle. There’s Nigel and Roland and Big Joe. There’s Johannah and Christine and Grace. There’s Mike the field-archaeologist from South Wales. And there’s Wōden-lookalike Kim, their self-appointed Eolder (who doesn’t fight anymore, but takes 40% of all earnings). Head shots are strictly banned in re-enactment combat. As are all strikes to the hands and the feet and the joints. When not skirmishing, members like to whittle wood, drink mead and sew inside seams and undergarments in a manner entirely appropriate to the period. The gentleman playing King Harald Hardraada of Norway is a systems-analyst from Nuneaton back in the “real world”. He’s taken the day off work today. Platted his hair before calling in sick. Painted the skin around his eyes black with grease whilst drinking a cup of tea from a polystyrene cup. He’s promised to take a look at the stunt coordinator’s broken laptop when we break for lunch. But first, the small matter of the Battle Of Stamford Bridge...
