Tightcollar U

Yet another illusion about the world has been shattered! I was under the impression that the post-secondary experience was supposed to be chock full of youthful exuberance. I guess I've been mistaken about that, if you take the displays and booths that are on display in the quad of my college into consideration.

This year I have a seen:

• A book sale where the only books were either for young children or soccer moms.
  
• A sad, lonely and mustached man giving away free copies of The New Testament.
  
• A booth extolling the benefits of Costco membership.
  

However, the booth I saw today took the cake.

Freedom 55.

Freedom Freakin' 55!

What the hell is an organization that pushes financial security plans doing on the floor of a place that's supposed to be a healthy hotbed of hedonism? Where the hell are the folks pushing contraceptives? People advertising raging keggers? Goddamn, the paradigm keeps shifting on me. Am I going to see a Perry Como impersonator warbling in the halls soon?

Damn, this college is square.

Harmony of Man

A quote from a previous post that made me snigger:

Lollipop, my lollipop
Fell under the fridge
Now I cannot eat
But I guess
I can give it
To Dane
splash

Good lord, I'm awesome.

Well, relations between races might be reaching yet another low, but I read something the other day that gave me hope. I haven't found anything that illuminates the equality of men more than this. No sad cliches and no platitudes you might find on the wall of a dizzy kindergarten teacher. Here's a snippet from Naguib Mahfouz's book Palace Walk, which is set in Egypt.

"O God, may this street never end. May this dancing movement never cease. What a royal rump combining both arrogance and graciousness. A wretch like me can almost feel its softness and its firmness both, merely by looking. This wonderful crack separating the two halves--you can almost hear the cloth covering it talk about it."

Booty: The Great Equalizer.

Two Solitudes II: Solitude Harder

Due to my ever-increasing obsession with languages, I've taken up watching the French channel that comes with the meagre selection on my television. One thing that many people aren't aware of is that the media culture of Quebec (where this channel broadcasts from) is sort of... different from that of the rest of the Canada. Just another example of the infamous Two Solitudes, I suppose. An example of this would be Doc Mailloux, who I was introduced to barely an hour ago but already has both utterly repulsed and fascinated me.

I was farting around on the computer when I heard some particularly animated arguing on the television behind me. I turned around to see a fellow with an equal amount of grey curls on his head and chin glance smugly while the person sitting beside him preceded to berate the host of the program. The caption below read:

Doc Mailloux Raciste?
Le psychiatre et son ami noir s'expliquent

Which roughly translates to:

Is Doc Mailloux Racist?
The psychiatrist and his black friend explain themselves

Well, damn! They're right! His friend WAS black! It's a good thing they mentioned it in the title otherwise I might never have noticed. This odd titling would be post worthy by itself, but I decided to dig a bit deeper.

Apparently, this Doc Mailloux is the Dr. Phil of Quebec, in the sense that he's a psychiatrist with a bewildering amount of media presence. That's sort of where the comparisons end. According to the soon-to-be-reverted edit to the Dr. Phil Wikipedia article:

Phillip Calvin "Phil" McGraw is Oprah Winfrey's personal slave. He dusts her furniture in a man thong and pink apron. He has a sever inferiority complex, and attempts to make himself feel better by making fun of fat women or people with terrible lives.

(The joys of Wikipedia, ladies and gentlemen.)

But despite such things, at least Ol' Phil has never let loose verbal chestnuts like this:

Doc Mailloux said that [translation]: "Miss Jackson, like her brother Michael, exhibits unacceptable conduct, and this is typical of African or Black people, who do not know how to behave even though they left Africa many years ago." [...]

He also says, among other things, [translation] "they don’t know how to live! They live like an African tribe. You know, in Africa, when you want to shake your crotch, you do it." The host, Mr. Arcand, tries to temper these statements by saying that he thinks this behaviour is part of show business, and it is not about Africa. Doc Mailloux reacts by asking, [translation] "Would a civilized White do that?" When Mr. Arcand gives the example of Madonna and Britney Spears kissing during a program, Doc Mailloux replies that the singers kissed to demonstrate their affection.

Doc Mailloux: NOT A RACIST.

Normally, somebody making statements like this would be relegated to the gutters of AM radio. But this fellow has such an inexplicable presence in Quebec that apparently the Conservative Party of Canada courted him during the past election. This would be the Conservative Party that is the leader of the national government at the current moment, you Not!Canadians out there, not some fringe party.

*goes off to get drunk*

You Guessed 'Er, Chester!

Okay, this post is mostly an excuse to use that title, which you have to admit, rocks like no other. But while you're here, I suppose I should give you an update.

Dane

• Working at Loco Lous, a restaurant in Calgary, making more than he did working at a newspaper in North Battleford. One could make a comment on the current state of the job market when a burger-slinger makes more than an agent of the press, but luckily, that one is not me.
  
• Goes to see the strippers. A lot. Seriously, that's why he hasn't been posting more often. It's inevitable that this blog is going to deteriorate into an immoral cesspool; there's no need to rush things.
  

Joel

• Got an A- in Business Communications, and has no desire to write another fucking memo in his life.
  
• Puppet show is underway for a Nov. 28 performance. The show? Starsky and Hutch for kids. Seriously. Huggy Bear is being played by a teddy bear.
  
• Taken up a passing interest in Danish, due to my 1/4 Danish heritage. So! Languages studied at one point or another are French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Dutch, Danish, and Arabic. If I'd gotten past the "greetings" stage in any of them this would be much more impressive.
  

สวัสดีครับ
sa-wat-dii khrap

Manzanas

No, we're not actually dead. If anybody was wondering. Just... you know, thought I'd put that out there.

splash