So, hi...
How was your weekend? Mine sucked toad ballsacks. I was in Hamilton slinging 'funny' all weekend to a crowd of - if I could borrow a page from Liz Lemon - "whittling, jug blowing IHOP monkeys" who couldn't have cared less. I didn't know this about Hamilton - but it's a mountain town. As in it's on a mountain. A snow-capped one, to boot. Well, no. But there were substantial thermal differences, that's for sure. Anyballs - this is boring... moving on:
A few things...
1.) The most hilarious thing I've read in a while...
Some amazingly kooky lady named Eileen Bernstein who teaches social studies at a public school in the outer boroughs of New York was teaching her class of 12-year-olds about slavery. She decides to, well, get creative in this history lesson by taking two black girls in the class, BINDING THEM TOGETHER, then making them crawl under a desk to replicate how conditions were on a slave boat... Holy fuck... that is out of control... and SO something that would have happened in my hometown of Brockville.
I remember learning about slavery - we didn't have any black kids for the teacher to force into any such creative anachronism (we didn't even have anyone who looked remotely swarthy, for that matter...), but make no mistake about it - if we did, the teacher totally would have done something like that and thought that it would have been a really instrumental learning experience. Instead, we just read the Barbara Smucker novel "Underground To Canada" - a touching story of a young slave named June Lilly (versioned to Ju'Lilly, for short), "followin' the drinkin' gourd" (the big dipper in slavetalk) on the underground railroad to Canada and, ultimately, freedom.Because in Canada, as my teacher put it at the time, if you owned slaves, "it would have been like wearing a New Kids On The Block T-Shirt"... this was around 1993, so yes, that reference had a lot of weight behind it.
2.) The most hilarious thing I've heard in a while...C/o urban dictionary.com - The Kimmy Gibbler: When you refuse to leave after you have a one night stand, even when they ask you nicely.
The sentence they provide as an example: "Last night I met some whore at the bar....we came back to my place and she gave me the Kimmy Gibbler....she fucked the hell out of me and then refused to go home when I asked her nicely."
Ugh - I have been Kimmy Gibbler-d so many times I can't handle it. I can't tell you how nice it is to finally have a name for when that happens.
3.) The most hilarious thing I've seen in a while...
The purported cover work for Whitney Houston's long-awaited comeback album...
Yeah. No.Devastatingly, this is not it. It's some sort of fan-generated photoshopping.
You don't know desperate every fibre of my being was that this was actually it, because this would have been fucking amazing.
I'll bet the actual album cover will be her sitting there looking Dionne Warwick-esque in a cream turtle neck surrounded by Laura Ashley-isms, as opposed to this little nugget that makes the last Pussycat Dolls album cover look like it was shot by Anne Geddes...
In other Whitney Houston news - reports that her and Bobby B were on the verge of reconciliation were met by a resounding "Hell To The No!" by Whitney's press rep. Or at least they should have been.
The most hilarious thing ever ever ever EVER ever...
TOMORROW NIGHT!!!
And...
One more thing...
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the passing of a Toronto comedian and friend of mine, Troy Dixon.He died in a car crash Saturday night - from what I've pieced together, he was travelling in the dead of snow squall country somewhere around Guelph driving back from a gig when he hit a patch of black ice and crashed. Game over. Very sad.
He was just about the nicest guy ever, a TERRIFIC comedian and, as you can tell from the photo, a searingly hot piece (Troy was well-aware that he had a standing invitation to, at any time, sit, full-weight, on my face).
His death is sad for so many reasons... Of course, it's heart-breaking to his family and close friends and anyone connected with him in any way, as we've lost a human life - but it's particularly sad and terrifying because of the way it happened... a fluke patch of black ice while driving home from a gig - something that could have happened to ANY of us... I was on the road all weekend - this easily could have happened to me.
To me, the saddest thing about this is that Troy was just on his way up... he was just getting good and all of a sudden, this happens. It really makes you question this whole concept of "destiny" what the point of all this is. Well no - the point of all this is that we are all so temporary and fragile and it can be over any second, so for fuck sake's, if ever you needed reason to tell anyone that you loved you love them, let this be it.
Anyballs... Rest in peace, Troy.
That's about it...
--- Aj
It's perhaps more commen knowledge than 2 x 2 equalling 4 that I am about the biggest Whitney Houston fan in the known multiverse. And, in rousing, appropriate celebration, I now present, in no particular order, my favourite Whitney Houston moments EVEREVER.
What can be said that hasn't already been said about this long-awaited tell-all sitdown with Primetime Live's Diane Sawyer. I'll never forget it. I remember it was December of my third year in University and I had some assfucking essay on feminist theatre or some shit that was SEVERELY overdue and I told myself that I'd only watch the first segment then get to it. Yeah, I watched the whole thing. Then rewound it, watched it again. Then again. Suffice to say, the paper didna get done that night.
Before the smack, crack and Bobby B - under the tutelage of svengali Clive Davis, Whitney made her debut singing "Home" from The Wiz on the [late] Merv Griffin Show. Look up 'angelic' in the dictionary. You'll find this link: 
Cracked out of her everlovin' skull, Whitney and Bobby made a pilgrimage to Israel where they met with black Muslims, a hysterical Whitney was baptized and she gave birth to yet another immortal soundbyte, "My land! MY LAND!". Amazing: 
Whitney proved to be the extra-lite icing on the already freakshow-y cake that was the Michael Jackson tribute of '03. If there was ever an instance that people feared for her life, t'was then. Vogue editrix Anna Wintour had a different take on it, though: "Lookin' good". Shock. Awe. Here: 
This song bears the distinction of being the song I've listened to the most in my life. I swear. I could sing this song in my sleep and probably have dozens of times. This video, whose theme seems to be gay mimes in a fingerpainted maze, is 80's haute-camp. Inset right is the cover to the single. What's so desperately sad about this is that if Whitney was to wear that ensemble now and go strutting on Queen West, she'd probably make Vice Magazine's "Do's". Am I right? I'm right. Best song ever: 
Hell-to-the-hell-to-the-HELL-the-YES! Sorry, MAD TV fans. Maya wins the Whitney impression award hands down. This betta not be you Bobby B: 
With tension running high at the height of the gulf war, Whitney made it perfectly clear what the boys were fightin' for. Sweaty perfection: 
Pretty funny shit: 
As you can imagine, when it was announced that Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey were to be joining forces in a power-ballad duet, it was kind of the biggest shit deal EVER for me. The only thing that could have made the spring of '99 more of a huge shit deal would be if Madonna and Janet Jackson staged some sort of telethon dance-off. Irregardless, both divas showed up and showed out at the '99 Oscars singing the ballad, "When You Believe", that easily won the Oscar for best song later that night. In this clip, Whitney shows that you simply don't fuck with her on stage and makes Mariah look like a contest winner who won the opportunity to be on stage with Whitney. Simply put: marvelous: here: 
Here's m'story about this: One lazy Saturday afternoon whilst I was back in high school, I was watching the VH1 and they were airing a Grammys greatest moments special. As I'm prone to do whilst horizontal, on a couch, in front of the TV, I dozed off. Only to awaken to the thunderous modulation of Whitney hitting the "AND IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII" and I've never been the same. Bitch done lays it out: 
Lord have mercy. It's a damned, crying shame that we didn't get "Being Bobby Brown" up here in Canada, and all I could do was get various snippits on youtube. Anyway - as with their real lives, Whitney and her unusual antics proved the star of the show. This woman is a soundbyte machine and, with the exception of "Hell To The No" and maybe "dootie bubble", her shining moment came in a rebuttal to Bobby during a heated political discussion. I give you Whitney at her crack-whory best: 
Getcha tickets now!!! Call 416-975.8555 - once again, the facebook invite is at 