Charlie Sheen Meets the President of Egypt

The seatbelt light above his head had just turned on as Charlie Sheen suddenly regained consciousness after what must have been a mild heart attack only moments earlier. He felt pulsating waves of pain shoot down his spine and on down his limbs and he started to cough violently, taking gasping breathes of re-circulated air as the back of his throat burnt with the taste of stale vomit, his tongue a chalky white.

The lone flight attendant, a young woman with a tan complexion, cautiously made her way down the aisle of the small private aircraft and approached him. “Mr. Sheen? Are you okay, sir?” she asked.

“What? No, I’m fine!” he said almost shouting, his eyes pried open and burning from the glaze of sweat that poured down his face. He was going to play this situation as smooth as possible, he thought to himself. “Do you know where we can get some ketamine around here? I’m just need to calm down. I’m meeting someone very important, you know.”

“Uhhh, we don’t carry any of that on board, Mr. Sheen” she said, puzzled but more or less unsurprised by the strange request. After all, he had been behaving dangerously erratic ever since they left Burbank and was just relieved that the entire awkward flight alone with Charlie Sheen was almost over. “We’ll be landing in about twenty minutes. Is there anything I can get you before then? Anything at all.”

“We’re here already?! But where is the fucking Arab porno!” he shouted with a psychotic grin.

“Excuse me?” the flight attendant said.

Charlie Sheen grabbed a half finished bottle of sparkling mineral water from the side table next to his seat and handed it to her while his other hand had already undone his pants and was firmly gripped around his dick. “Here, take off your clothes and put this inside you! I need get ready!”

The flight attendant screamed and smacked Charlie Sheen in the face with the glass bottle, breaking his nose; his face was already far too numb to feel any pain. “You sick freak! Fuck you!” she cursed as she stormed into the cockpit horrified, locking the doors behind her.

The general public was so judgmental, Charlie Sheen thought to himself as he sat alone with his innermost thoughts, the stagnant perspiration of his nude ass sticking to the taupe colored leather upholstery of this luxury private jet soaring 35,000 ft. in the air as he continued to pleasure himself in quiet solitude. No, people like her could never understand the kind of torment he was suffering. How could she know the pain and persecution of being a completely talentless multi-millionaire born into a famous Hollywood family, or even starring in a brutally awful yet unbelievably popular network TV sitcom? Some people were just never meant to have life easy, he thought.

For as long as Charlie Sheen could remember it was only the kind-hearted spirits of the gentle porn star that he could pay $30,000 a night to open up his heart to and share his pain with, along with matching his and hers eight-balls. He paused for a moment and was overcome with grief when he realized he could not get it hard. “Come on Wolverines, America needs you right now!” he whispered desperately to his coke-limp dick before eventually giving up hope.

Shamefully defeated, Charlie Sheen looked out the window as the plane began its final descent towards the sweeping desert landscape below; a shining pyramid glistened like an oasis of the finest crystal meth in the distance.

Charlie Sheen could tell right away from the chokehold method applied, that the mighty sequoia of a man that pulled him off of the jet and onto the scorching hot tarmac was not an average police officer; Egyptian National Security Force, he would have guessed. According to the headlines of Huffpo he’d glance at before doing another line off his iPad, the country had been experiencing major civil unrest for more than a week and as a result, the people of Egypt had no knowledge of his own latest personal controversies.

 “Listen to me! I don’t want to cause any trouble here. I’m just trying to lay low for a while, man.” Charlie Sheen said to the officer dragging him through the blazing Egyptian sun, the seams of his favorite black-and-white polyester bowling shirt tearing as he fought helplessly to break free.

The man yelled back at him something in a language he could not understand. What had started as such a promising plan for beginning a new life was proving more difficult than he had expected. Back in the States he told nobody of his idea to leave the country and to take power in a foreign country in the midst of political turmoil; there would have surely been consequences if he had. As far as his agent and the producers of his show on CBS knew he was committed to rehab indefinitely, a lie so big that he would take his chances in the Middle East rather than return home with the truth revealed.

The two of them made their way to a small security building situated adjacent to the main terminal where Charlie Sheen was forced to sit alone in a small waiting room. In stressful situations such as these, the only thing that really helped Charlie Sheen focus was compulsively masturbating inside of high-end Italian sports cars, the Countach he bought shortly after wrapping on Platoon being his personal favorite. Despite his surroundings he had managed to work himself up to half-mast when another officer walked in the room.

“Oh my God, are you crazy?!” the officer shouted.

Charlie Sheen reluctantly zipped up his pants. “Listen, I need you to get me out of here. There’s been a big mistake. I need to see President Mubarak right away” he explained frantically, his broken nose starting to bleed and soaking the dried coke that had been caked onto his upper lip.  He sniffed. “I read some shit on the internet that he needs to know about.”

“Hey! Slow down” the officer ordered. “You’re not going anywhere until you explain what it is you’re doing here.”

“I’d like you to phone my father, he could explain everything to you. He’s the former President of the United States you see.” Charlie Sheen told the officer. “I’m here to speak with your leader on behalf of my father during this time of crisis.”

The officer stared blankly. “We’ll try and contact him,” he said before walking out of the room in utter disbelief.  

A few moments later, Charlie Sheen heard a loud commotion coming from down the hall. People were shouting in Arabic, leaving the building in a hurry as large groups of angry protestors began yelling anti-government chants nearby. “Hey! What’s going on? Someone let me out of here!” he yelled, but with no response. He paused.

“All right, just focus. Pretend this is a hotel room,” he murmured to himself. He took a deep breath to steady his nerves… “Die you evil cunt!” he yelled right before picking up the cheap aluminum chair and smashing it through the window leading into the hallway. Charlie Sheen could barely contain his enormous erection as he made his way through the deserted corridors and into the streets, the sounds of the looming chaos of a violent revolution closing in on him.

The clouds in the sky turned a crimson red when the sun began to settle along the horizon of the ancient civilization, and Charlie Sheen was no more than a mile down some desolate side street before he simply had to bust a nut, the smell of old tank fumes and roasted paprika filled the air as he finally came.

He saw a group of elderly Egyptian males sitting at a small table on the sidewalk; the old men were smoking and having quiet conversation as he staggered down the narrow alley towards them. “Hey, bro!” he said belligerently at one of them,  “You got any blow?”

The blood from his broken nose had already begun to dry on his face but the semen stains on his ill-fitting Haggar slacks were still fresh as he reached into his pocket and showed off a sweaty wad of $100 bills. The old man nodded his head ‘no’ and gestured him to go away. “Don’t you fucking test me! I’m Charlie Sheen and I’m here to see the President!” Then the gravity of his situation dawned on him as shouts and explosions echoed through the city, that there was no time to get high right now.

Tens of thousands of angry protestors swamped the streets of Cairo’s city center by the time Charlie Sheen had arrived, heavy black smoke billowed from burning cars scattered to formed twisted mazes of destruction where the battle was being waged. He knew that this was not a safe place, and that much like back in the United States, the military police patrolling the streets in armored vehicles were definitely out to get him. Surely these Egyptian Security forces would recognize the star of Scary Movie 4 and swarm him like TMZ reporters with automatic weapons.

“C’mon. Think, Charlie Sheen!” he thought, referring to himself in the third person as he often did during riots. During a similar situation in Los Angeles nearly twenty years earlier, Charlie Sheen once managed to infiltrate the chaotic streets of South Central after his weekly suitcase of cocaine was abruptly jeopardized by an angry, disenfranchised African-American community over the cancellation of The Cosby Show. “All I need is a good disguise,” he recalled, thinking back to his days of training in traditional blackface performance that helped him rescue his blow suitcase from that angry mob back in 1992. “An Egyptian disguise…”

He was a fucking genius, Charlie Sheen thought to himself as he made his way through the hostile crowds of angry Egyptian demonstrators, the screaming and scattering of scared civilians as they fled flying canisters of tear gas from the foreboding presence of the faceless riot-shielded authority was deafening, but Charlie Sheen continued to make his way toward his goal unabated. Four of five rolls of extra durable toilet paper later, and not a single officer in the Egyptian National Security Forces suspected that this mummy running through the streets was in fact the star of Two and a Half Men, CBS’ #1 primetime sitcom. Fucking genius. This may have been the best performance of his entire career, Charlie Sheen thought to himself as walked right through the gates of the Presidential Palace.

“Mr. President! It’s Charlie Sheen!” he shouted repeatedly as he marched through the majestic main lobby of the enormous 500-room architectural masterpiece he had just snuck his way into wrapped head-to-toe in toilet paper, his voice echoing through the round cavernous chambers of the ornate ceiling. By the time Charlie Sheen found the large conference room where President Mubarak was meeting with his top ministers, most of them already heard him yelling through the hallways.  

“You are the actor Charlie Sheen?” President Mubarak asked.

“Yes, Mr. President. It’s me. It’s an honor that you know who I am, sir.” Charlie Sheen replied, unwrapping the toilet paper from his head to reveal his disheveled, bloody face, dark bags formed beneath his eyes from many long consecutive nights of ignoring the existential sadness of his very existence.

“What are you doing here? You can’t be here!” the President said, “We’re in the middle of something very important right now.”

“Sir, did you know my father?” Charlie asked seriously.

“What?” He replied.

“My father, when he was President of America. You must have met him at least once. He always went on about how he always cherished his relationships with other great leaders when he was President.” Charlie Sheen persisted.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Is this what you came here for? I’m sorry Charlie Sheen but I really have other things to do right now.” President Mubarak said as he turned back to his Air Force Minister to talk about important Egyptian stuff.

“You’re not listening to me!” Charlie Sheen shouted, “You need to step down so that I can take over for you! After I watched too much porn and I need to take a break I read these really important things on the Internet about the Illuminati planning these protests to take control of your country like they planned 9/11. I’m an Emmy nominee and the son of the former President, it’s my right in the Geneva Convention to become the new President of Egypt!”

By the time he had finished talking, Charlie Sheen’s ears began to bleed.

“That’s it. You need to leave here immediately.” President Mubarak ordered the National Security Force officers to escort Charlie Sheen out of the Presidential Palace. “You need to go to rehab, Charlie Sheen.”

“No! I’m not leaving without my Arab fucking porno!” he yelled frantically as a pair of heavily armed men grabbed him by the arms and pulled him away. “I need your porn stars to complete the whole set!”

They blinded Charlie Sheen with a black leather S&M mask and threw him into the trunk of a black Range Rover where he continued to struggle violently, hopelessly kicking at the inside of the trunk, screaming maniacally about his need for Egyptian porno. When the car came to a stop, the two soldiers pulled Charlie Sheen out of the trunk and removed the leather mask, his face drenched in sweat. He suddenly felt a cold wind rush over his entire body. The sun had already set and he was in the middle of the Egyptian desert, his hands tied behind his back. The men who had brought him were beginning to leave.

“Hey! You can’t do this to me. I’m going to be the next President you stupid fucking pricks,” Charlie Sheen screamed as he began to cough uncontrollably. “Every year at the Egyptian orgy in Sherman Oaks I’m the goddamn Pharaoh! You’ll pay for this!” His voice cracked like a child unable to accept his own mortality.

One of the Egyptian soldiers turned to him with a cold gaze and said, “The Big Bang Theory is a much better show,” before removing his face like a ski mask to reveal the head of a red-eyed jackal. The demonic beast revealed it’s fangs playfully before it pounced on top of Charlie Sheen with a single bound and began to rip open his abdomen and eat his organs, the blood that poured out of him was as black and slick as crude oil and his face began to melt like a plastic toy in the microwave as the desert sands collapsed beneath them into an eternal abyss of darkness.

And then Charlie Sheen woke up 32 hours later in a Clark County holding cell after he was found naked and wrapped in toilet paper, drowning in the lobby fountain of the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

He turned to his side and immediately vomited all over the floor and all over himself. Across the room, a middle-aged holding cell guard saw what was had just happened and unenthusiastically put down his coffee mug, got up out of his seat and grabbed the mop. The place had already begun to smell.

A Recap of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

With so many issues on peoples minds during this holiday weekend we often get side tracked into forgetting what is really important to people. Things like last weeks G20, the HST, or even the unstoppable gusher of oil at the bottom of the sea surely carry some merit and are worthy of discussion, but we should never forget that Twilight: Eclipse, the third installment of the popular film series based on the young-adult vampire romance novels of the same name, is finally out in theaters, and OMG! I’m so happy I’m going to scream in my pillow!! So yeah… Lets talk about it. 

It should be said right away that Twilight: Eclipse is a very stupid movie. Duh! I’m pretty sure none of us had to graduate from Sylvan Learning to figure that one out. The thing is, stupid movies is kind of what Vancouver does best. We’ve made a billion dollar a year industry out of providing production services to hundreds of less-than-brilliant film projects over the years; in fact, you’d be hard pressed to name a movie made here that most people would consider to be very good. There’s nothing wrong with that, either! These films need to be made somewhere, and besides, there are lots of stupid movies I actually like a lot. What makes Eclipse unique is that unlike most of the stupid movies filmed here, this is going to make a disgusting amount of money. Last years unwatchably bad New Moon, also filmed here in Vancouver, ended up making around $710 million worldwide, and Eclipse is very likely to exceed that number. I’m not suggesting that money automatically grants a movie with significance, but with the Twilight series being easily the most profitable films ever made in this city, the local industry can only benefit from having such a top earner under it’s belt. This guy knows what I’m talking about.

So how was Eclipse? For me to say that I have to mention that last years film, Twilight 2: Twi Harder, was terrible, and having experienced watching it contributed heavily to forming my deep rooted prejudice against the entire series. I understand that I was never the target demographic, since I’m not twelve years old and I don’t fantasize about Taylor Lautner’s body, and I’m not easily susceptible to poorly constructed metaphors for teenage sexual confusion involving an urge to fuck vampires, but nevertheless I expected to understand why the movie had become such a cultural phenomenon, and I simply did not get it. So perhaps it’s a rare case of the bar being set way, WAY too low, but I actually thought that Eclipse wasn’t that bad. Not to say that it was any good, because we’re still dealing with the same miserable subject matter that is inherently a part of the series, but the presentation and handling of it was much better overall. Newcomer director David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night) moves the plot forward with more urgency by not allowing as many scenes to linger on unnecessarily, making the overall experience much less boring. Also, things actually happen in this movie! I mean, besides watching two people staring intensely into each others eyes for two hours reciting unrealistic monologues for how deeply they love each other, the plot actually had a conflict to be resolved. Neat! When these things happened, I wasn’t constantly confused as to why they were happening, which was also a big plus. I should mention right now that the rest of this review contains spoilers, not that it matters since I’m sure you’ve all read the book a dozen times and are in line at the theater right now, reading this review on your iPad while simultaneously watching New Moon, something you can totally do with the iPad. I guess what I’m saying is if you hate spoilers then don’t read this, and also: Apple, how about a free iPad? 

Actually, before I talk about Twi Hard With A Vengeance I just need to mention the unexpectedly difficult task of actually going to see this thing on opening day. Like, when a movie is literally playing every 15 minutes you would think that meant the waiting times for the next available show would be reasonably quick. Not the case! I completely underestimated the ability of 10-year-old girls to wait in long lines, even with all their cherry flavored Rings Pops and Justin Beiber on their Portable Sony Discman’s, because by the time my friend and I arrived in the afternoon the only remaining show times were at 10:45pm! Seven hours in advance is six and a half hours too much to be buying movie tickets! What is this, a waterslide?! Anyways, we’re sitting in the theater several hours later, and although I was initially relieved that the amount of small children had decreased significantly since earlier that day, I soon realized that a room full of grown adults who are paying to watch Twilight is exceptionally worse. To be honest I was slightly embarrassed to be there, among the “I’m a mid-40’s receptionist at an ear, nose, and throat clinic and obsessively devoted to teenage vampire fantasy novels” crowd. I don’t want to sound mean but some of the people there were definitely on ‘Team Anyone Who Could Want Me’.

And so it begins with a man being chased through the alleys of Gastown in the pouring rain by a super fast vampire. Big shout outs to Salt whose sign is clearly visible in the background; you know how evil vampires are when it comes to wine pairings. So this guy keeps running until the shadowy figure eventually strikes him down by barely cutting his hand? He drops to the ground and starts screaming in agony… over a little cut? Relax dude, it can’t be that painful. The screen cuts to black and the title ‘Eclipse’ appears. A girl in the audience yells, “Finally!!” We’re all so relieved that the movie is just now starting and the scene we just watched must have been some non sequitur, completely unrelated to the story. We fade into a scene with Edward and Bella, sitting together in a beautiful meadow. “AHHHH!!! THE MEADOW!!!” says someone the audience. Huh? Edward asks Bella if she will marry him, and Bella responds by asking him to make her a vampire. “Only if you marry me first.”, he says. But what about graduation? Surely she can’t become an unholy monster that thirsts for human blood AND get married before taking her English Lit finals, or whatever. Then there’s the whole issue of Mr. Shirtless Wolf who is all like, “don’t become a vampire; be with me because I am a werewolf who is also hotter because look at these abs” or something to that effect. Am I the only one who thinks that Jacob sounds like a creepy rapist half of the time he’s with Bella? No means no, dude! I mean, sure he hates vampires, but every time Edward even gets mentioned, Jacob becomes this angry asshole that looks like he’s about pull a Chris Brown and maul Bella’s face off. If a person in real life told you they were “going to fight for you until your heart stops beating” you would definitely call the police because that sounds like a fucking threat and that person would rightfully go to prison. Not in Twilight

Much like the movie poster and all the trailers have suggested, the time has come for Bella to make some important life decisions and finally pick a side already. “Choose your Destiny!”, as Mortal Kombat would say. Let’s face it, this is probably the most important decision made by anyone ever. Edward v. Jacob is one of the most polarizing issues of our time, I’m actually surprised it hasn’t caused massive amounts of family separation and a second Civil War yet. While Bella takes her sweet time to mope over her options, something resembling an actual conflict is brewing over in nearby Seattle, where dozens of people have mysteriously disappeared over the past few days. The Cullen family discovers, through a combination of telepathy and watching CNN, that this is clearly the work of evil vampires. “Someone is creating an army”, Dr. Cullen explains to Bella. “An army of vampires…” Bella adds. The nuances in the dialogue are just amazing. Meanwhile, the random guy from the very beginning of the movie is now an evil vampire and sneaking around in Bella’s house while she’s not home. After Edward realizes that an intruder was in Bella’s room, he uses his 80-something consecutive years of high school logic classes to figure out the army of “newborn vampires” (apparently the worst kind) is connected to all of this. Given this apparent threat to Bella’s safety, Jacob and the rest of the werewolves agree to set aside their hatred for the vampires in order to better protect her… so now she has two groups of monsters protecting her constantly instead of just one. Bella is pretty much the most useless person ever, right? I mean, it’s 2010, you don’t need to act so helpless all the time. I think if we learned anything from Buffy The Vampire Slayer it’s that a young mortal woman can be whatever she likes, which includes fighting alongside vampires to defeat armies of evil vampires just as well as any MAN! Jacob then takes Bella back to his reservation, or whatever, where they sit around a campfire and listen to the Elder Werewolf Native tell the tale of his peoples struggle against the vampires. I’m sure real Native Americans are just thrilled to have their history thrown into this mess. The whole thing just ends up giving the vampire-werewolf feud an awkward, racially charged element with overtones of genocide. But who cares, right? Jacob IS SO HOT!

So now the Cullen’s are preparing for a fight with the newborn Seattle grunge vampire army, and they decide the only way they’ve got a chance to win is with the werewolves help. Because Jacob is totally whipped, he gets the other wolves to agree and the two clans get together to practice their tag team newborn killing skills in an awesome cliched action movie training montage. Seriously, I love training montages so much. Later that evening, Bella is told to spend the night in the Cullen’s giant glass house, while Edward stays with her to “keep her safe”. Apparently Bella also loves training montages, because all that sitting around watching giant wolves and vampires fighting while she sat there doing nothing really turned her on. So they are in bed and she wants to fuck Edward REALLY bad, but then he kind of ruins it by mentioning how he just wants to get married first. What is this dudes problem? He’s sort of asking for a shirtless wolf boy to steal his girlfriend at this point. Edward goes on one of his “I’m really an old man and back in his day kids walked ten miles up hill both ways to get to school” stories. This is where the authors weird Mormon preachiness comes in and gets kind of annoying. I mean, I don’t have anything against people having different beliefs than myself and living according those beliefs in their personal lives, but having a character constantly use marriage as some kind of ultimatum against their partner in a relationship in order to convey some moral lesson in a fucking vampire-romance teen-fantasy movie is ridiculous and stupid. “Back then, I would have courted you”, Edward tells her, as if that’s supposed to impress someone? Back then there was only a ‘Team White’ and ‘Team Black’ and you had no choice which side you were on, so sometimes things change for a reason, old man! He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a giant, ridiculous ring, and once again asks her to marry him, because that’s what people did it in the old days. This time she says yes. Yay romance! I suppose in the meantime Bella can order one of those Twilight dildos ($39.99) and dream about it like everyone else in this theater, am I right?

So after a while, the Seattle newborn army starts their long march towards Forks and everyone needs to get ready. Also, it turns out that the red haired vampire girl from the first movie is secretly behind it all. DUN DUN DUN! It’s decided somehow that Edward have to sit out the battle to protect Bella, so they plan to go camping the night before on top of a mountain where they can’t be found. Also, in order to hide her scent, Jacob has to physically CARRY Bella up the mountain? Really, she can’t even walk herself now? Conveniently, a giant snow storm rolls into town that night and the three of them end up stranded together, because just like the old saying goes, when you’re in a romantic love triangle involving two different species of folkloric monsters, eventually y’all will get stuck in a small tent together. I’m pretty sure that’s a real expression. The rest of the movie plays out like your typical third act, epic battle followed by one-on-one final showdown kind of deal; some of it even looks kind of cool. The newborn army walks into an open field where the Cullen’s have been waiting, and the newborns are all like, SURRRRRGE! Then out of the woods come the werewolves and there’s a big fight, which was like watching giant puppies beat up groups of ugly children. Apparently, when you kill vampires they shatter into pieces like an ice sculpture now, a brave departure from the classic “disintegrating into a skeleton” death long established by Blade. Meanwhile, Jacob finds out that Bella has agreed to marry Edward and gets all mad. “You Mad!” - Edward. Then Bella confesses that she also loves Jacob, and then they kiss on top of a mountain. There is snow everywhere and he is still shirtless and wearing Hollister cargo shorts. Then Jacob turns into a wolf and leaves to join the rest of the group in battle. Suddenly, the red haired vampire girl finds their top secret camp site and tries to kill Bella but Edward fights her off and eventually he decapitates her. Blade would be proud. 

That’s pretty much it. I’m sure there is plenty of deep and complicated subtext that I haven’t fully explored but that is yours to discover. If for some reason you’ve read this whole thing and are still compelled to go see this movie, I recommend watching it at Scotiabank Theater on Burrard St. simply for it’s proximity to the hospital, because you never know what could happen. Oh, and Bella is still going to marry Edward, because duh! Sorry, Team Jacob. No rose for you. At the end of the day, this is a movie that knows how to please it’s audience, often at the expense of alienating everyone else. It could have been much worse, though. At some points I felt like the movie itself was aware of it’s overall absurdity, like when Edward would make little quips about Jacob’s constant lack of shirts. Some people did laugh, a welcome reminder that not everyone takes this movie seriously, but one that was quickly drowned out by the sound of swooning over Jacob’s constant lack of shirts. Personally, last years Twilight 2: The Streets made me exhausted just hating it. There’s not much you can hate about this movie that you didn’t already hate before, and so I’m actually glad that I can finally welcome Eclipse as another part of our vapid, garbage-filled mainstream culture. What started out as a bored Mormon housewives wet dream has turned into a billion dollar juggernaut of fluff entertainment, and with three movies and back-to-back Best Kiss MTV Movie Awards, our local film industry being a part of it is an accomplishment in itself. 

Smells Like Winter Paralympic Games Spirit

Last night in Whistler Village the closing ceremonies to the 2010 Winter Paralymics took place, officially ending Vancouver’s turn as Olympic host city. “Hey man, HAGS! - The IOC” - our yearbook, pretty much. I assume this means that these official sponsor billboards and Skytrain ads will be taken down soon, and replaced with ads for Sylvan Learning or something, because that’s the circle of life. In what was a fond farewell, International Paralympic President Sir Philip Craven spoke of the strength and courage of the athletes, and praised the spirit of the moment and it’s embrace here in Vancouver, calling these games “the best ever”. Of course, for myself and many others, these games have been over for about three weeks now. Not that I wasn’t aware these events were still taking place, but for the most part life in the city had begun resuming business as usual, and I for one was very relieved. So it was with some surprise when about a week ago I was solicited with the opportunity to attend something called a sledge hockey game. Apparently, someone had given several of these event tickets to a non-profit organization here in Vancouver, and through a personal connection were being offered to me for free. But of course, like Lil Jon & The Eastside Boyz once said, nothing in life is really free, and the things that appear free can often have unforeseen costs on an individual and their community. This cost, as I soon found out, had a lot to do with the Winter Olympics that concluded with a bang back in February. 

By now, everyone from the international mainstream media to Vancouver-based prepubescent Youtube legend Pruane2Forever have already commented on these Olympics and their significance ad nauseam. “Stop talking about the damn Olympics already” is what you’re probably yelling at your Apple iPad as you sit alone in the comfiest chair of a coffee shop reading this article, and rightfully so. The thing is, for me at least, these Olympic Games were a complete nightmare. Not that I watched any of the events, but the atmosphere it created downtown that so many have described as a show of pride and joy never before seen in this country, I found really obnoxious, and frankly, not very special. No offense to our great Canadian athletes and their historic achievements, but I’ve watched angry football hooligans in different colored scarves take drunken swings at each other before, gotten sucked into seas of (insert team colors here) as thousands of screaming frat boys sprayed ugly machismo recklessly through parking lots and city parks, and sat quietly in Bronx bound subway cars that spontaneously erupted in chants of “Boston Sucks!” on several occasions, so what transpired here three weeks ago was almost too familiar. I was but a single Tibetan monk atop a mountain, who upon accepting his terrible fate as it approached from the distance, closed his eyes and prayed as the beer-and-nationalism fueled tidal wave came and washed his peaceful village away.

Of course, that was a long time ago, and the world has changed since then. The flood waters have receded and civilization has begun to rebuild (the end of this stupid metaphor, I promise) and people have already begun historicizing what had just taken place, because he who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it, or something. I don’t know. So by the morning of last friday, I found in me the ability to put aside my resentful feelings towards the Winter Olympics and was willing to give sledge hockey a fair chance. It was after all, unfair of me to project those feelings onto the Paralympics and it’s athletes; what kind of jerk would do that? Besides, it was free! As I left my house that day I wondered, perhaps out of my sheer ignorance, if the arena would be freezing cold, since I had never been to a hockey game before. Surely people don’t sit in below freezing temperatures to watch these things, I thought to myself, second guessing the spring outfit I had on at the time. For a second I contemplated changing into a shirt that said ‘Canada’ on it, since this was still the Olympics, and yet despite seeing them on virtually everyone last month, I never did own such a shirt. Three jackets later, I arrived at Thunderbird Arena where the first game had just begun, and like with most things in life I had no idea what to expect. What struck me right away was how aggressive and intense the game actually was, like running full speed down a grocery store aisle and crashing your shopping cart into someone else’s, except there are human beings inside those carts! More surprising though was the crowd, which had stolen my attention for most of the game, and turned out to be much more interesting to me than sledge hockey. Sorry, all you sledge hockey fans! 

Like supportive parents that only cheer for both teams to have a fun time and have a penchant for arena waves that go on longer than I am willing to be a part of, the people in the stands were very enthusiastic and yet less confrontational than what I had imagined. Then there were the kids, lots of them. I would guess about %30 of the entire crowd were young children, accompanied by teachers and chaperones on class field trips from elementary schools all across the Lower Mainland. Even though many of them probably didn’t really know what was going on, they still cheered really loud when the players came on the ice, almost as much as they cheered when the jumbo screens played cartoons featuring the Olympic mascots and their misadventures. During time outs and between periods someone was blasting what must have been an 8 year old girls iPod, because these kids seriously Stepped Up 2: The Streets. Maybe it’s because I didn’t really care who was winning, and neither did a lot of the crowd it seemed, that made it okay for me to enjoy myself and laugh at things like a dozen elementary school kids doing an almost too well choreographed dance to ‘Single Ladies’. Sure, people were cheering for their respective teams, but those sentiments fell secondary to the overall spirit in the crowd, one where people with little to no personal invested interest in a sport they probably knew little about simply watched as proud spectators, celebrating great athletes that have overcome physical adversity performing at the top of their sport, being inspired by their strength and enjoying the whole experience. 

I suppose that was the point of this city-wide circus all along, although the over zealous monster that ended up marching down Granville St. on a nightly basis three weeks ago didn’t show any of these characteristics. My only real experience at an event was much more nuanced than I had expected, not necessarily fun per say, but not as bad as I had feared, and very different from the abrasive maple-leaf-wearing mob that made me feel so alienated in my own city, yet is spoken of so fondly by some. After the game I contemplated the possibility that perhaps I was wrong, or at least, failed to fully understand what had happened here during this whole multi-billion dollar spectacle. Because nothing in life is really free, after all, even if the cost is the realization that maybe something that brought joy and inspiration to millions was simply not meant for you, and that it was too late to change. That perhaps if you were ten years old today and your elementary school class went on a field trip to the Olympics in your home town it would have been the thrill of a lifetime. I’m sure that in 50 years, some of the kids dancing in those stands will be in their flying cars, telling their grandkids about how the great Sidney Crosby scored the gold-winning goal in overtime for Canada against the U.S., which of course were countries that still existed in 2010 before the Great Concavity. But instead, you’re a jaded twenty-something without a real story to tell, and will probably look back at the most historic time in Vancouver’s history with mixed feelings of exclusion and missed opportunity, and being reminded of this is a very expensive cost indeed.

MUCH LIKE HOW GRUNGE KILLED THE 80’S, POST-GRUNGE KILLS 80’S NOSTALGIA

I’m fairly confident that, assuming the 1980’s weren’t already dead several years ago, around 1990 to be precise, the last few months have really pulled the plug on whatever remained from that culturally defining era. With the most recent tragic deaths of iconic figures like Michael Jackson, John Hughes, and Autotune, we’ve reached a turning point where what was once nostalgia has drifted into antiquity, historicized for the future to read about while we begin the process of ruining the things that were great in the 1990’s, we can assume a looming resurgence of Jersey Shore house music will be upon us shortly. Despite all this, the post-grunge band Seether has decided to give us their cover of George Michael’s 1984 hit Careless Whisper, perfect timing!

A warning that this video is NSFW, where the ‘W’ stands for ‘Will To Live’

What the fuck?! Grab your shovels because we’re going to need to dig the 80’s a better grave, the old one just got rolled over in way too much. This song is terrible, obviously. When we visualize bands like these we’ve all come to expect an utterly awful vocal disaster, this is the bullshit that American Idol’s are made of. More surprising however, is how conceptually retarded this music video is. People thought that taking the graphics played between segments on VH1’s I Love The 80’s and turning that into a music video was a good idea. Fair enough, they probably stayed up all night coming up with that. But then, somewhere between the 1 a.m. brainstorming and the 3 a.m. take out order of mu shu pork, they thought they’d blow our minds by adding a little twist and combining those 80’s references with todays headlines! Economic Collapse! Karate Kid! Miami Vice! Swine Flu! Teen Wolf! Excessive CEO Bonuses! Ghostbusters! Kim Jong-Il throwing missiles like Donkey Kong while Scarface introduces his little friend! Someone get me a gun-shaped Pez Dispenser so I can bite on some candy flavored bullets.

Posted by: Jeff

THE OBJECTIVE OF ENTOURAGE IS TO HAVE THE LOWEST HUMAN BEING SCORE

So it’s been a while since I’ve written anything about Entourage. I wish it was because I haven’t been watching it all this time, but an unfortunate part of self loathing is the habitual subjecting of ones self to painful experiences, and the terrible truth is i’ve been quietly hurting myself with episodes of this garbage for weeks. It’s only a matter of time before someone notices my desperate cry for attention and plans a proper intervention, but until then let’s take a look at this weeks episode. The guys go golfing!

We begin with Eric eating dinner with his new CGI girlfriend with the face of an unborn fetus when they are suddenly interrupted by a phone call from his ex-girlfriend Sloan! Oh my, this is going to be awkward! Luckily she just called to tell him that she’ll be attending tomorrows celebrity golf tournament where Vince is scheduled to play. Eric totally forgot about it, which is no big deal since it’s not like he’s Vince’s manager or anything. The next morning, the guys arrive bright and early at the golf course dressed especially horrendous, because that’s what golf is all about; Turtle is wearing one of the argyle sweater vests he bought in last weeks episode for back-to-school shopping at Ross Dress for Less. Vince and Drama are paired up with Tom Brady and Mark Wahlberg, because there’s nothing like insufferable real life celebrities teaming up with equally appalling fictional characters and forming coalitions of the worst. I realize that Wahlberg moved on as Executive Producer after last season, but surely he retains enough influence to not be portrayed as such an unlikeable prick on a series that remains loosely based on his life. Unless that’s the public image he’s going for? Maybe Vince can recommend a good publicist for him, who turns out to be Wahlberg’s real life publicist! Call the building supervisor because somebody just broke the fourth wall!

Meanwhile, there’s a couple of boring subplots that take place in order to fill the 22-minutes of non-stop laughs. Eric acts like a jerk with Sloan because she tried to help him get a job. Turtle wants to tell Tom Brady that he sucks balls (Why am I agreeing with Turtle all of a sudden) but then backs out after staring into his dreamy blue eyes. Who needs another Superbowl when you’ve got cheek bones like that, right you guys? Ari plays golf with Jeffrey Tambor while being chastised by his wife over the phone for lying to her last episode. He even goes to the trouble of buying her a new Maserati, which she thankfully refuses, because it would be a shame if this show began repeating itself. Drama raises the stakes of the friendly charity golf tournament by betting everyone $1000 per hole, however that works, and quickly begins losing money when he realizes that he sucks at golf! Comedy gold! The whole gang has a good laugh at Drama’s frustration, knowing that they had plenty of money and could afford to lose it. At one point Vince proclaims he was just paid $4 million to do the voiceover of a dog. And to think, it was just a few months ago he was part of the %9.6 of people unemployed! Thankfully that whole recession thing didn’t get in the way of Vince’s ability to throw away money gambling on charity sporting events. Drama on the other hand, may have taken an extra dose of steroids that morning because after missing a shot his frustration turns into anger and aggression. Apparently when he’s not smashing peoples windshields with golf clubs on the Pacific Coast Highway, he’s breaking them in violent outbursts of rage. Get it? He is emotionally unstable! The writing on this show is hilarious, I can’t stop quoting it to my friends.

Posted by: Jeff

I LIKE MY HAIR LIKE I LIKE MY GIRLS DRINK, SPIKED AS FUCK!

Earlier this week, internet famous comedy folk duo and ideal girlfriend templates Garfunkel and Oates swapped their acoustic guitars and sweet singing voices for some dollar store bling and go harder than Khaled in their new song about an evening of old fashioned fun gone horribly wrong in This Party Took A Turn For The Douche, the results are adorable.

There’s a complex moral quandary that one faces when dealing with joke rap songs, and this song manages to avoid the most common problems facing the joke rap industry. While I can appreciate the humor in rapping about how to be cool about fire safety, joke rapping about the quantity of time spent on a boat or how flame broiled burgers are the most authentic taste of urban street life are just stupid and patronizing… oops! I meant patronizzle. That’s why I appreciate videos like these, where the performers openly celebrate their differences from traditional hip hop, and build upon it, while simultaneously addressing the issue of and internal parallels between joke rappers and douchebags, which we all agree are worse than Nazis. I think we’ve finally reached a point where the douchebag stereotype has become so universally despised that poisoning their Ed Hardy wine would be seen as perfectly justified in the eyes of the law. “Your honor, my client had no choice but to run that group of people over with his truck, they were spotted exiting the PATH and had a table reserved at Angels & Kings”, Harry Hamlin revealed to the judge and jury. Case Dismissed!

Posted by: Jeff

THE MR. CHI-CITY PROMISE: A LITTLE REALNESS CAN CHANGE THE WORLD

It’s been a few days now since I’ve posted anything here, I’m sad to admit that the endless stresses and demands of modern living have made it considerably harder to pursue my dreams of laying in bed all day on the computer. I’ve even been considering going back to school to take In Bed Business Management courses and starting my dream business, in that most of our operating hours will occur during sleep, eliminating much of the crushing heath insurance costs facing most small businesses for the awake. Luckily, during my absence Mr. Chi-City released the highly anticipated new video about his Chevy Caprice, which I feel an almost moral obligation to write about in the hopes that it will bring you the same amount of joy that I have received, and will subsequently pass that kindness on to a stranger you come across on the bus this afternoon, eventually forming a pyramid scheme of happiness that cures cancer and brings about world peace. It’s basically like the movie Pay It Forward, except instead of hooking up with a single mother stripper played by Helen Hunt you get to watch this fun video! Enjoy.

Now that I think about it, I might decide not to return to college and just spend that tuition money on getting my whip game proper. In this economy having a reliable income is important for the short term, but having the option of being able to obtain up to six hoes from a custom leather interior as purported by these statistics, is a long term strategic investment sure to yield enormous returns in bed.

Posted by: Jeff

THE CONTINUED EXISTENCE OF HIPSTERS IS PROOF THERE IS NO GOD

Wow, this is the fucking worst! The following video is an amateur short film where a group of hipsters in Williamsburg present their adapted version of the biblical story of Job, along with all the stupid neologisms, terrible grammar, and obnoxious subculture references you’d expect from an idea so inherently awful. Earlier this evening I showed this video to a friend of mine and basically we’re no longer friends, because he killed himself. ‘What’s the point? In a world where this video exists… suicide is painless’, he cried to me over the phone before the deafening blast of a single gun shot. You’ve been warned…

This is basically the worst thing to happen in New York since 9/11, I’m still struggling to accept what I just witnessed. In these emotionally devastating times I almost wish I could blindly have faith in the absurd notion of a God, and simply take comfort in believing one day he will come and unleash his terrible wrath on this horrible hipster epidemic, saving us once and for all. And yet here we are in 2009, another summer of kickball leagues in McCarren Park with no foreseeable end in sight. I’ve walked these streets so long, seen them pass me on bicycles and wondered aloud, are you there, God? Every time there was no answer… I guess that’s my answer. If you’ll excuse me, there’s a new taco truck on Bedford Ave. that sells handguns with single-serve bullets that I’ve been dying to try.

Posted by: Jeff