The Cheese Ball Ending.

Why does every movie insist on having a cheese-ball ending? The good guys always win, the guy and the girl get passed their fight and kiss, and the fat kid finally ends up being accepted by his peers. Fuck it, that's not what life is like. I know, a movie is emblazoned to make you forget about your problems, to lift you into a fantasy world and leave you feeling happy and care free, but just once I'd love to see the bad guys win. I'd love to see the guy pick the wrong girl, and I'd love to see the fat kid get tormented until the end of the movie. Boom, credits.

I suppose this is why I prefer documentaries. They sometimes try to give their story a happy ending, but it's a lot tougher when you're dealing with the real world.

Fake Shopping.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this...

So you're at the grocery store, looking at food and you see a guy who is so obviously not there to shop, but more so to fake shop and try and bust shop lifters. No big deal, that's his job, but for some reason these guys always have two things in their basket. Paper plates and a bag of Doritos. Come on now, nobody eats Doritos off a paper plate. So he starts lurking you like you're gonna steal something, and all I can think to myself is, 'damn, am I the shadiest looking dude in the entire store?' And then I quickly get over it and decide to fuck with the guy, therein becoming the shadiest dude in the store.

First you start looking over your shoulder a lot, trying to see who's watching you. Then you stand really close to the shelves and act like you might be putting something in your coat. His interest is sparked and he thinks he's caught someone in the act. Then you look over your shoulder twice more and quickly take off right by him and to the next aisle. Once you're out of eye shot you quickly turn around, standing at the very end of the aisle and wait for his head to slowly emerge around the corner. And this is about the time I would point and laugh while saying, 'you suck at your job!' The closer you are to him the funnier it is. And for about the four times I have pulled this off flawlessly not one of the dudes has said a word to me. Most of them just put their head down and slink away quietly being all secretive about getting back to their fake shopping. So I guess it kind of sucks being the shadiest looking dude in the grocery store, but it would be worse if I sucked that bad at my job. People are stupid.

If I was one of these dudes I'd be lurking around the self checkout stand. Who's going to steal something from a grocery store when you can just pretend to pay for it? An idiot that's who. And at least if you get busted there you can plead ignorance and say you didn't know how to work one of those damn things and no one was around to help. I don't know who came up with the idea of self checkout but poor people owe him a big thank you.

Mexican Jumping Beans.

Have you ever seen these things? Quite possibly the best thing to come out of Mexico other than tacos.

After a trip to Mexico my dad brought me back some Mexican jumping beans. He thought they were hilarious and knew that I would get a kick out of them. He was right. They were little brown beans that you would put in your hand and watch them move about as if by magic. Strangely as a kid I never really questioned anyone as to why they moved the way they did, I was happier just to watch them do their thing. I even found a nice little case to put them in that was one of those ring cases you'd keep an engagement ring in before popping the big question.

Every day after school I'd run home and up to my room and pop open the top of the case to see the Mexican jumping beans bouncing around and it would bring me joy. Then one day the question I never asked was answered. I popped open the lid of the case to realize my jumping beans were no longer jumping. Instead each bean had a little hole in the side and laying on the bottom of the ring case was a few dried up little wormy looking things. There was little bugs in those beans, and the poor buggers were making the beans bounce by trying to get out. I don't think they would have been trying so hard if they knew what was going to happen to them once they did.

It's definitely a tough life being a mexican jumping bean. You spend your whole life trying to get out of the bean and before you realize you've accomplished what you've been trying to do for days on end, you're dead.

Dirty Pockets.

Below is a video of my band Real Problems playing in a bar the Friday before last. We're playing the first song I ever wrote solely by myself. It's called Dirty Pockets. The lyrics are simply:

Dirty Pockets - Dirty Pockets
Picking up cigarette butts right off the ground
Dirty Pockets - Dirty Pockets
Keep them in your jeans where they'll be safe and sound.

And then cue some sort of phlegmy hacking sound.

WARNING: If you watch this video you will never get the 1 minute and 21 seconds of your life back.



I'm kind of proud of this song, because it hasn't yet become boring to play, so part of me thinks it must be a real banger. And for a first effort that ain't half bad. Also it is short. I have always enjoyed a short song. And there is a fast part. I have always enjoyed a fast song. Also there is a groovy part. I have always enjoyed...well you get the point!

But did I mention headbanging? That's the sole reason I haven't gotten a haircut yet this year.

Cowboys ain't what they used to be.

When I was younger a cowboy was a sort of heroic figure that shot guns, finished bar fights and saved small children from bad dirty people. But as I got older cowboys seemed to become less and less cool.

There is nothing manly about riding a horse. I'd assume it was more of a ball crushing experience than anything else. There is nothing heroic about a rodeo either. They rope and drag cows to the ground just to tie up their feet. Seems like the equivalent to beating up the fat kid at school. And don't even get me started on the wardrobe and footwear.

I think a big problem with how people perceive cowboys these days started with the Village People and ended with the movie Brokeback Mountain. Neither of these things helped the cowboys heroic image, and we all know their music stylings weren't gonna save them either.

I think if I was a cowboy I'd be right pissed off about that movie Brokeback Mountain. Well either that or I'd be right pissed off about the flattened testicles.

Ghosts.

My house is apparently haunted. A few years back the people that lived below us said they were getting bad vibes from an "evil" spirit, so they called up some weird people that claimed to be ghost watchers. These people showed up, set up infrared cameras in separate spots of the house and stayed overnight while quietly watching for any spirit activity. They didn't find anything major, but did claim to see some spiritual activity in the corner bedroom's closet but it quickly rose up to the top floor, which would be my bedroom. Even the Metro newspaper reported on a story of these very incidents. It must have been a very slow news day, or close to Halloween or something. All I know is that I laughed my ass off as I read about my own supposed haunted house in the newspaper at work during my lunch break.

Now don't get the wrong idea, I'm not a non-believer, I just prefer to not make a big deal about such things. I'll let the ghosts go about their business while I go about mine and both our lives will prove to be better because of this. I'm not going to stir anything up, make a stink and eventually end up seeing some creepy little girl standing behind me in the reflection of a window at night. No thanks, that's not for me, but there have been a few instances that come out of nowhere that remind you there may be ghosts around. On a hot day I've felt a strange chill blow up my back that even had my t-shirt moving. There's also the strange mornings where I try to wake up, but it feels as if someone is pushing down on my chest leaving me completely frozen and unable to rise. However this latest occurrence is by far the strangest.

My radio alarm clock has been set to the Fox radio station since I've lived in Vancouver. Every morning that it wakes me up it plays the Fox morning show and hopefully a jam by Rage Against The Machine or Sublime. So it's safe to say I was a little perplexed when I woke up yesterday to the Rock 101 morning show. And then even crazier this morning when I woke up to the Peak radio station. Just a weird crazy thing that can't be explained other than the ghosts having a good old laugh at me in the morning while I lie there with a stunned look on my face. More stunned than usual I mean. I've always been scared to set my alarm at night because of what it's going to do, but now I'm scared to set it because I don't know what it's going to do! I have no other explanation to this other than ghosts playing pranks. Tis the season I suppose.

I still listen to Nirvana.

I hate it when people call Nirvana overrated. It's not Nirvana's fault that Kurt Cobain died and people insist on putting dead musicians on a pedestal.

Dead or not dead, no one can deny that they left behind a legacy. 'Nevermind' is one of the biggest albums of all time and the main reason why I refuse to listen to anyone who calls Nirvana overrated. It's not 'Nevermind' that makes me think this, but 'In Utero'. Look at it this way; the band released an album that exploded and turned 3 struggling musicians into bon-a-fide celebrities. This album put them on the map and people were losing their shit over it, so when it came time to write, record and release a follow up there was some major expectations to live up to. This is where a regular person would crack under the pressure, write a couple of amazing songs and back it up with a bunch of filler. But not Kurt Cobain and the boys. They came back guns a blazing and released an album that was (in my opinion) better than the album that shook the world's core in the first place. This type of thing doesn't happen in the music industry. Ever.  

And this is why I believe that, even though people put a dead Kurt Cobain on a pedestal and worship him like he is some sort of god, Nirvana is not overrated. Anyone who can follow up one of the biggest albums of all time with something better deserves every bit of credibility they are given. 

Sometimes I play the game 'I wonder what kind of music Mr. Cobain would be making if he weren't dead?' I think he had some major issues with the whole celebrity part of being in a popular band, so even if he were still alive I don't think Nirvana would still be a band. I bet they would have released another couple of amazing albums and broken up leaving Kurt Cobain to fade away into obscurity. Either that or he would be making music so weird and unlistenable in an attempt to drive people away. Whichever route he may have taken, I know one thing for sure, he died too soon. His legacy will live on forever with his music, but I would sure give a lot to hear a follow-up to 'In Utero'.