Rotating Pineapple

The old poet was drunk and the young poet was listening to him. "I will tell you why life is worth living," said the old poet. "It is because the world is filled with beautiful women." The young poet looked confused.  The old poet waved a hand at him. "Go on, if you don't believe me. Walk any city block on a Saturday evening. You'll see no fewer than a dozen beautiful women before you can count to ten. Make it a point to look upon them, gaze upon them, commit their every feature to memory. Those memories will warm you when you become an old poet like me." "Are you married?" the young poet asked. "No," the old poet said. - It was their second date. He'd made reservations at Mico's, one of the finest steak houses in the city. He got to the restaurant ten minutes early, wanting to receive her. She came in just as he ordered the wine. She was wearing a yellow dress, the same one she was wearing in her profile picture. He com...

When I was in my early 20s, I fell into the stupid (and destructive) habit of going to nightclubs and trying to befriend people by doing magic tricks. It rarely worked. I was too stupid to realize that I was just a fleeting novelty, that young drunk people had more important things to do than watch me turn the five of clubs into the Queen of hearts. One girl, Belinda, asked for my phone number. Belinda was about five years older. She did not want my number so we could date. She wanted it so she could hire me to do a magic show for her daughter's birthday. Gail lived in a house in the northeast part of the city . She had a roommate named Julie, who was very drunk on this particular night. She told Belinda that maybe the magician could also come to her, Julie's, birthday party the following month. This I agreed to do. And so I found myself pulling into the driveway of the house of Julie and Belinda on the evening of Julie's birthday. The driveway was filled with pickup trucks...

Tell you what, friends and neighbours, we were preparing for a major ice storm last night. We filled the bathtub with water in case we needed it to flush. I had my power bank fully charged and was mentally preparing myself to throw out everything in the fridge and freezer. But it wound up being for naught. Our friends at the weather network told us we were in for a doozy - something that had the potential to knock out power grids and turn this stretch of Ontario into a massive skating rink. That didn't happen. We escaped the worst in this corner of Ontario. Looking out the window, I see a coat of ice on my car but that can surely be removed with a few minutes work. Even now, the temperature hovers around zero and the normal mid-afternoon traffic can be heard on the highway below the window where I am typing this. We might have dodged a bullet. The CBC headline reads that "a mix of freezing rain, ice pellets, sleet, strong winds underway as power outages spread" and that ...

 "The loveliest lady that ever I saw in my life." Hey, that might be a compliment if you were a comely young woman looking for a suitor. But it might be an insult if you were a boy. And such is the case. The above quote is ascribed to the English diarist Samuel Pepys, who was describing the boy actor, Edward Kynaston, who plied his trade in the 1600s. It was the era of Elizabethan drama, a time when women were forbidden from acting on the stage. And so, prepubescent boys were tasked with portraying Juliet and Ophelia and Desdemona and - God save the Queen - Lady MacBeth. Oh how awful to ask an 11-year-old to reach into his soul and pull out such black hatred. It is a terrible shame that women were forbidden from the stage, but it was a time when women were expected to exist only in the domestic sphere - it would have been scandalous for her to perform in a play. Indeed, it would have been akin to prostitution. God bless the brave soul who exposed that for the stupidity that i...

 I have this idea for a novel where the government suddenly decides that society's biggest problem is overcrowding. Sprawling metropolises like New York City and Los Angeles do nothing but fester crime and loneliness. The solution is to outlaw big cities and randomly reassign everyone to different villages spread throughout the continent. Today, you could be a resident of Atlanta. Tomorrow, you and your spouse are packing your bags en route to your new home, Marchandville, a village between Port Hope and what was once known as Toronto. Like so many of my ideas, this one stalled at the concept phase. It's a bit like Kurt Vonnegut, who explored a similar premise in Slapstick, but I have to admit that the premise intrigues me. The sudden shift in geography would be good for so many of us, though it would upset a few. - Let's take some imaginary guy in New York City - we'll call him Leon. He's not well educated, came from a broken home, drug addict. He can't find me...

 1. I usually wind up doing something with my son on Boxing Day. That’s because by the time that day rolls around, we’ve usually been cooped up in the house for at least two or three days. Last year, we went for pizza and watched a world, junior championship hockey game. Today we’re at the trampoline park in Ottawa. 2. There is a world junior hockey game being played tonight. I think Canada is playing someone in a couple hours, but I doubt I’ll have the opportunity to watch it. 3. Today I found out what a gainer is. It’s a running backflip. They are forbidden at this trampoline park. 4. The trampoline park is not as crowded as it usually is, which doesn’t surprise me given what day it is. There are some birthday parties and I happen to glance at a couple of the birthday party tables. One of the birthday boys is named Alexander and he’s turning 10. There is a present on the table and there’s an envelope on it that says merry Christmas and happy birthday. Poor Alexander is suffering ...

 ...somewhere in new york city, two goth girls decide they're going to have an anti-christmas. one calls herself death head. the other calls herself no mercy. as christmas eve bleeds into christmas day, the two are walking down a street in manhattan, buzzing on marijuana. the two will spend christmas day in death head's bedroom. her mom will be out with her new boyfriend. her dad is dead. they will listen to the cure and marilyn manson and talk about how much they hate school, their families, the government, society, organized religion, basically everything except each other. around two in the afternoon, they will light another joint and laugh at some cruel joke. no mercy, whose real name is karen van estabrook, will suddenly remember a christmas memory from before the accident that took both her parents. dad had made her a dollhouse. he'd worked secretly in his warehouse for months, and little karen was delighted with her gift. i wonder where the dollhouse is right now, sh...

Ezra: Hey Uncle B? BMan: What's up, little buddy? Ezra: Can I ask you a question? Bman: Sure, little buddy. Ezra: Am I cuter than you?  Bman: No, sorry. Ezra: Oh. - Bman: Hey, dad? Shteevie: Yes? Bman: Am I cuter than Ezra? Shteevie: What would make you ask me that? Bman: Well, when I was a baby, you used to tell me I was the cutest kid in the world. Shteevie: Very true. Bman: Then doesn't it stand to reason that I would be cuter than Ezra? Shteevie: Son, you have to understand that beauty is a purely subjective thing. All parents think their kids are the cutest kids in the world.  Bman: Does that mean that Kelsey thinks Ezra is cuter than me? Shteevie: Probably. Bman: Oh. - Ezra: I sure am having fun at the Williamstown Fair with you, Uncle Bryson. Bman: So am I. Ezra: That magician was amazing. Bman: Sure was. Ezra: Hey, what's that? Over by the agriculture booth? Bman: It's the Cute-O-Meter. It analyzes two people side by side and uses a whole bunch of scientific and...

Both of my best friends dealt with addiction. They are dead now. One died despite his addiction; the other may have died because of it. "You should get down on your knees every day and thank God that you don't have an addictive personality," one of them said to me. I don't thank God every day - mea culpa - but I understood the sentiment. He was saying that for some people, it's easier to fall into addiction than most. I myself have experimented with nicotine. I have been drunk a handful of times; I am ashamed of this. But have I ever been addicted? Not a chance. - From the National Institute on Drug Abuse: Many people don't understand why or how other people become addicted to drugs. They may mistakenly think that those who use drugs lack moral principles or willpower and that they could stop their drug use simply by choosing to. In reality, drug addiction is a complex disease, and quitting usually takes more than good intentions or a strong will. Drugs c...

 We had a family zoom chat tonight. At one point, dad asked us kids if we had any happy memories of childhood Christmases. He asked it in a roundabout way, telling a sad story about how neither he nor my uncle had a whole lot of happy Christmas memories from when they were kids. Indeed, their happiest memories of December 25 mostly involved fleeing the house after what passed for good tidings of comfort and joy had come to an end. I guess all three of us knew he was looking for reassurance, so we gave it to him.  My younger brother talked about the living room of Hooke Road, which, I'm pretty sure, is the first house he remembers. The Christmas tree was always situated in a corner of the living room and, he recalled, waking up on December 25 and seeing the living room overflowing with presents. It was a typical middle class 1980s Christmas. Times were booming and a two-income home like the one I grew up in could afford to spoil the kids.  Again, I told the story of Electr...

 Today, the shortest day of the year, the Rotating Pineapple breaks new ground. For the first time ever, the note-a-day will include a recipe. I channel my late grandfather, Edward Morris, who ate this for breakfast many a morning before trudging outside to his giant green John Deere tractor (I hope) and then tilling the wheat fields of his Saskatchewan farmland. You need the following: - bread - butter - tomato juice. 1. Toast the bread. 2. Butter the bread. 3. Cut the bread into strips. 4. Pour tomato juice into a glass. 5. Dip the bread/toast strips into the tomato juice and eat it. - I am not a farmer but this is one my go-to breakfasts. I substitute the tomato juice with V8 and usually add a pinch of Mrs. Dash, but the recipe remains pretty much the same. It gives you the energy you need in the morning. - There is not much else I can say about this except that I can picture my granddad doing this. He gets up while the household is still sleeping, while my mom and her sisters a...

In 1843, Edgar Allen Poe published his classic horror story, the Tell-Tale Heart. Is it about a man who murders another man, cuts his body into pieces, and lays them under the floorboards of his bedchamber. When the police come to investigate, they find no sign of foul play. But the murderer eventually confesses because his guilty conscience makes him believe that the dead man's heart is still beating, even as it lies buried underfoot. Thump thump thump. - I became aware of this short story in Grade 9 English class. That was not because our teacher had chosen it as acceptable study material. No, he mentioned the story as a tangent. He wanted his class to study three songs from Alice Cooper's 1975 album, Welcome to my Nightmare. Apparently, one of his superiors objected to this, deeming the material too morbid. My teacher countered by asking why Tell-Tale Heart was still on the list of approved material. When it comes to depraved acts of violence, Mr. Poe had Mr. Cooper well bea...

 It is comforting to see that young people today like the same music that their boomer and Gen X grandparents enjoyed. Take a stroll through your average high school and you'll see kids with T-shirts extolling the likes of the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and Guns N Roses. They know that something happened to popular music around the turn of the century - that songwriting stopped being an organic in-studio process of self-expression and started being a factory-produced collection of computerized synth-beats. Kids got tired of the phoniness of top 40 radio. Craving real music, they went back to the past, and they found it there. - The phonograph dates back to the late 1800s. For more than a century, it - along with its descendants - was the most popular way people would listen to music. By the 1940s, the phonograph became known as the record player. Those things got workouts in the 1950s when rock and roll was all the rage. And with the advent of LPs, musicians had another artistic o...

 Is Santa a gnome? I’m not sure. - I’m not sure why garden gnomes are so popular, or any lawn decorations for that matter. If I had a front lawn, I wouldn’t need it to be a visual curiosity. - I’m convinced that the primary purpose of the garden gnome is to be kidnapped. Said gnome should then be taken around the world, be photographed in front of various landmarks, and have those photos sent back to the gnome’s owner. It is less expensive to take a garden gnome on a trip around the world. This is because airlines charge admission for flesh and blood, not for paint and plaster. - I recommend the movie, Amelie, which is one of the best movies ever made and also features a scene where a garden gnome is kidnapped. - I used to own a gnome. His name was Glengarry. Glengarry my gnome. We used him famously in a competition at the Glengarry News. I was the biggest fan of that competition. It has since being retired. And this note is now being retired.

 In elementary school, you always learn division last. You start with addition because that's easy.  Teacher: "If you have two apples and I give you another apple, how many apples do you have?" Shteevie: "I don't like apples." Teacher: "Well then if you have two Luke Skywalker action figures..." Shteevie: "R2D2 is my favourite." Teacher: "Fine." (Rolls eyes.) "If you have two R2D2 action figures and I give you one more R2D2 action figure, how many do you have?" Shteevie: "Three." Teacher: "Good boy. Here's a gold star." - From there, you move on to subtraction, which is just addition but in reverse. Then there's multiplication, which is just doing addition over and over again. In Grade 3, we mastered the multiplication tables. Those tables ended at 12x12. I memorized that answer, which was 144, so I could be math champion whenever our teacher, Mme. Di Batista, did the flash card challenge. T...

 My son is getting a vacuum cleaner for Christmas this year. He even picked out the make and model. Thank God it's an inexpensive one. He doesn't want Star Wars stuff or a PlayStation or whatever the new toy trend is. All he wants is a vacuum. So Merry Christmas, son. I look forward to a noisier environment. - If I had a dollar for every picture of my son with a vacuum cleaner, I'd be able to buy a very expensive vacuum cleaner. I have learned that whenever I take my son to a new environment, he will immediately search for a vacuum cleaner. Whenever we go to a place he's been before, he will tell me what colour the vacuum cleaner is there and then he will go find it. My mom can testify to this. If she's going to FaceTime me, she knows she has to be sitting next to the room where the vacuum cleaner is. That's because as soon as my son sees her face, he will immediately start yelling this: VACUUM WHITE! My mom has a white Miele vacuum. My son adores it. It might b...

 Last night, I said that I might watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special while lying in bed. Ash told me it's still too early in the season for that. - When does the Christmas season start? Well, according to the marketing department at stores everywhere, it starts the day after Halloween. In fact, in many stores, it starts BEFORE Halloween. Witness all those China-made plastic Santas hovering in the far aisle at Dollarama around October 21, you'll know what I'm talking about. - Here in Glengarry county, I'm fond of saying that the Christmas season starts with the annual Christmas tree lighting in Maxville. That always takes place in late November, usually the week after the Grey Cup is played. That same weekend, Maxville hosts its Santa Claus Parade. As a journalist, I have covered it about 20 times. One year, it was so unseasonably warm that people were watching it in T-shirts. Tis the season indeed. - When we were kids, we wanted to go Christmas carolling on Decemb...

Here is a partial list of things I have won, or got stuck with, at various white elephant gift exchanges: - Pack of Dr. Pepper flavoured gummies - Firewood - Obi Wan Kenobi sticker - Can of Ovaltine  - Svengali deck* - $5 Tim Hortons gift card (I bought a coffee and 85 per cent of a donut) - Mint flavoured Aero chocolate bar. Here is a partial list of things I didn't win at white elephant gift exchanges, although I was really hoping I would: - Three decks of Bicycle playing cards - Snickers chocolate bar - Mad Magazine holiday special. Here is a partial list of things I'm happy I didn't win at white elephant gift exchanges: - Gardening gloves - Poster of Jabba the Hutt - Cinnamon flavoured crackers - Plastic E.T. - Cheap Dollar store Barbie doll ripoff - Magazine with Brad Pitt on the cover - Panty hose**  -   Of all the things I won, the jar of Ovaltine remained in my possession the second longest. (The first is the Obi Wan Kenobi sticker, which, I think, is still in a b...

 It seems fitting that this be my title since I am writing this from Williamstown. I was in Williamstown twice today. Once for the annual Santa Claus Parade and then again for the hockey game between the Glengarry Brigade and the Embrun Panthers, which Glengarry is winning 1-0. And now, just as I typed return on the above paragraph, Embrun evened the score. How is that for wit? - Here is the definition of wit:  clever, humorous intelligence, the ability to make sharp, funny remarks, or the person who possesses it   I think I am a witty person. I wouldn't be very good at my jobs - journalist, writer, magician, note-a-day guy - if I was not. So since the game is now in intermission, I will eavesdrop on what people at the game are saying and give witty replies. - Someone at the snack stand: I want a hot dog.  Witty reply: Well, you are what you eat, weiner. - Someone at the entrance: How much are 50/50 tickets? Witty reply: One dollar each but you're the only person who...

 The worst office Christmas party ever was in 1994. I was 21 and had been working as a collection agent for a television cable company for about three months. It was an awful job, which consisted of visiting people at their homes, reminding them that they were delinquent in paying their cable bills, and, preferably, collecting payment then and there. I got $1.50 every time I collected payment, 45 cents whenever I just left a reminder notice. Very few people paid me. Most of the time, they insisted that they had already paid and then they invited me to get off their property. My supervisor was a military wife who lived in a condo in southeast Calgary. At the end of the day, I had to take all of my invoices and paperwork to her house and throw it in a lockbox that she kept on the deck of her condominium. The thing that I was doing as a full-time job was, to her, "pin money." The work Christmas party took place at a comedy club in downtown Calgary. The company paid for our admis...

 So this is based on a true story. It is the story of the cat of Ash. The cat's name is Ollie. Here is a picture of Ollie.   The cat was a kitten then. The cat is no longer a kitten. His personality cannot be described here, but it rhymes with gashole. The cat likes to attack me when I am going down the stairs. I do not like the cat. Ash loves the cat. Everything kitty does is adorable. KITTY!!!! - So a long time ago, when gashole kitty Ollie was a baby kitty who was not yet a gashole, Ash was in a pet store with her best friend, Jenn, who has tattoos and a motorcycle. Here is the way Ash would tell what happened next: "So Jenn and I were walking past the cats and that's when we saw Ollie and there was something about Ollie that was so adorable so I picked up the cat and immediately the cat latched on to me and I knew Ollie was destined to be my cat." Here is what the cat was really thinking: "I was sitting in my box thinking about how wonderful I am and how I am...

 I have spent an extraordinary amount of time this week covering South Glengarry's budget meeting, which took place last Friday. The meeting was uploaded to YouTube the next day and I got to follow nearly eight hours of riveting discussion on levies and bridges and tax rates. Don't get me wrong. The budget is an important meeting but I challenge anyone to sit through eight hours of number crunching and not lose focus at least once. My job, as a journalist, is to distill that meeting to its essentials and report on it in a way that is clear and informative. Still, reporting on budgets is my least favourite part of my job. There are three of them that I have to cover and they all take place around this time of year. Thank God that North Glengarry is waiting until January. I will have four weeks off. - Around this time last year, I wrote about a new writing device that enables writers to focus on writing without the distractions that modern day writing devices have. My writing mac...

 For a while now, my dad has supplemented his income by officiating at funerals. He's a pastor/chaplain, so he's most comfortable invoking the Lord at these funeral services, but there have been times when the family strictly forbade him from mentioning anything divine or metaphysical. At one of these occasions, dad had to wait for the family to show up at the graveside. They wandered in fashionably late. Several were hungover and a few were wearing attire more suitable for a strip club than a funeral. They seemed bored and listless as dad spoke the words that would see the dearly beloved into the ground. "Does anyone have anything they'd like to say before we depart?" "Yeah," one guy says, and then breaks into a story about how the dearly departed took a lot of money off some recent immigrant restaurant worker who was trying to make a little extra money as a bookie. The poor guy didn't understand how things worked on this side of the pond and he los...