Graeme Quipped...

thankfullness…

When i was a kid, and it was thanksgiving we used to go around the table and say “what we were thankful for”. So I figured i would write a short list of things that i am thankful for…

-I only have two sets of extended family

-thanksgiving happens once a year, not twice

-i don’t have aids

that’s about it.

Calling All Nostalgia Buffs

I have always kind of resented the fact that I was born in the mid 80’s. Don’t get me wrong, coming of age in the 90’s was ok, I got to taste ice blended coffee drinks at a young age and thanks to cable TV I got to witness important tragedies like the Rodney King debacle, 9-11, Woodstock 99 and the 13 months where everyone talked like Austin Powers (did reading that make you horny, baby?)

I know I didn’t have it that bad, if anyone has it bad it’s my brother and sister. They were both born in the 90’s and won’t really have anything good to reminisce about minus the whole “Obama thing”.I know that in ten years they will be sitting around with friends talking about the energy drink craze and the episode of the simple life when Paris and Nicole tried to milk that bull.

If you ask me time was really in favor for my parents, they grew up around in the 60’s and 70’s’s. A lot of really important people did a lot of important things in that  time. If they had a hero it was someone like Martin Luther King Jr. He’s my dad’s hero…my hero was (and still is) Conan O’Brien. Nuf Said.

I went to the same high school as my parents. Sometimes I fantasize about what it would be like if I went there with them. I don’t think they would like me very much. We would have little to talk about, from what they have told me my dad was a kind hearted jock and my mom was a small town choir girl that all the black guys liked. I on the other hand was an artsy fartsy  “why don’t the girls that i like, like me back?” type (or as they were called back then, “a gay”). 
I think we would be saying the same things then as we do now. such as… “i’m calling you because i need gas money”or “it hurts my feelings when you say things like that” or “who borrowed my Stevie Wonder record and didn’t ask!?”

Despite this, i still can’t help but wonder what it was like..I’m sure it wasn’t all “peaches and herb” back then, there were some big draw backs too, social injustice, war overseas and the threat of nuclear holocaust just to name a few. But if nostalgic movies like “The Sandlot” and “Forrest Gump” have taught me anything, “life was just better then”, especially if you were a little kid or a half retarded man. So with out furhter ado, i present…

“Reasons I Wish I Had Been Around in the 60’s”

Soda
it came in glass bottles…I know this seems like a small thing, but it’s not. Have you ever drank a soda out of a cold glass bottle? It’s like heaven. Milk also came to your doorstep in glass bottles, and on top of that a dapper looking man delivered it directly to you, sometimes it was even accompanied with a whistled tune! Can you imagine!?  Aluminum Cans suck. Plastic bottles suck. Milk cartons suck. Milk jugs suck. If you prefer your liquids in them, then you suck too. bring back the glass bottles already!

Smoking
Cigarettes cost 5 cents a pack and it wasn’t “bad for you” and you could smoke literally anywhere (even in a doctor’s office or a gas pump). Cigarette companies also sponsored everything, even The Flintstones. There are old TV ads where Fred and Wilma light up and go on about the smoothness and richness of Winston 100’s. What a time to be alive/dying slowly of emphysema.

Male Expectations
Being a man back then would be pretty easy, (hahaha who am I kidding? it still is!) all you had to do is have a job, occasionally break your children’s spirit and never cry. I think so long as I had a place to go secretly cry, I could handle this. Plus, a man of my physique would have been seen as “tough” and “powerful” back then, Look at a bully from a 1960’s movie, they’re cookie dough for god’s sake. These days a man of my carriage is seen as “jolly” and “sexually frightened”.

Women’s Fashion
If you went out on a night on the town, you were sure to see at least one bikini clad painted lady dancing in a cage. I have never witnessed this and for that I am very bitter. If the swinger look wasn’t for you lots of women wore beehive hairdos, cat eye glasses and cool dresses that were designed to highlight the hips. don’t mind if i do…

Canadian Football
Although it’s never an easy thing to do, The Riders were easier to root for at that time. We hear so much about George Reed, Ron Lancaster and that other dude.  The riders also wore the uniforms we now know as the “retro jerseys”. If you ask me we never should have stopped wearing them. I also would have been able to watch the 1962 Fog Bowl, that’s the one that got called off at the half way mark due to sever fog conditions, the game was resumed and finished the next day. it’s not that crazy, i just think that’s kind of neat.

Aqua Cars
if you thought the Delorean or the Pontiac Aztek were a trip, this will blow your mind. At one point people thought it made sense to own a car that they could drive in a lake. I saw an older couple driving one on wascana lake a couple weeks ago and i literally stood there staring, slack jawed with disbelief. They saw me and I kind of felt bad for gawking, but if you ask me they brought it upon themselves. This ain’t the 60’s gramps! Sadly you can’t just drive cars in lakes anymore…

Trudeau
I never really grew up with a spark plug prime minister, I know it’s not really their job to be entertaining, but it’s nice when they are. I grew up with Chretien a dyslexic funny talker that beat up anyone that crossed him, he certainly give the air farce a lot to work with. But it would have been cool to be around for Trudeau. He knocked boots with Kim Cattrall, he drove a shiny sports car, he flipped off crowds of people, he had an indoor pool, he angered my grandpa and he’s the reason why your box of “instant oatmeal” also says “grau rapide” on the other side. Someone like that won’t come around again for a long time.

Guitars
Silvertones, harmonies, jazzmasters no one wanted them. You couldn’t give them away. Today they go for thousands. I would fill my garage with them and sell them to the highest bidder decades later. I would take the money made from the guitars and buy extravagant things like small islands and children’s souls.

Counter Culture
From what I understand there were Coffee houses where you could do stand up comedy for savvy intoxicated educated liberal crowds. Independent comic zines also started popping up everywhere, it seems like it was the best time to be a fledgling indie cartoonist or a comedian. All I know is that my “seven words you can’t say on the radio” bit would kill.

It sounds typical, but I think the real reason I wish I were around in the 60’s is because I would have been able to be a part of the hippy movement. I could travel across the country in a van full of dirty strangers, I could have done mountains of drugs, learned some guitar and I would have been able to have coital relations with anyone or anything as much as I wanted and no one would say peep. Not like these days where everyone is emotionally repressed, politically correct and up tight.
I wish I could go back in time to the 1960’s, I could be a progressive and self indulgent long hair, while still being the same closed minded outspoken racist that I am today. 

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL A GROOVY TIME!

Sorry it took so much reading and writing to get to that simple conclusion

Welcome The Nineties, BABY!!!!

Well, i never thought it would come to this but here i am. i’ve joined the wave of the future,  i’ve joined the blog-o-sphere, i’ve gotten with the times, i’ve started living in the now, i’ve started drinking vitamin water and wearing american apparell every day and i’ve started using words like blog-o-sphere. what the heck happened ?

Usually i chose/try to bury my head in the sand when it comes to “what’s going on”. I wait til movies are on dvd and my favourite tv and music was made about 10 years ago. I like to enjoy things at my own time. needless to say doing something this “modern” and “contemporary” is a big stretch for me, but i figured if i can grasp making microwave popcorn, i can probably grasp this too.

Now from what i understand a blog is a place for people to “vent” and “share their unique and important opinions on the big issues” so please allow me to do so…

oh, also please don’t judge me on my poor grammar and writing ability. i promise you, i am a pretty sharp guy in real life.

1. Carrier Pidgeons

I saw someone using one of these in a movie preview a while ago and it floored me. i can’t believe that at one point in time you could give a note to a pidgeon, an animal with a brain the size of a pencil eraser and say “dennis, (that’s what i’d call mine) please take this note to my wives, they need to know that i will not be home to sup tonight as i will be toiling in the salt mines til morn” and the bird would comply. how amazing is this!? If i  wasn’t terrified of birds and hadn’t just purchased a new cell phone i would gladly use one of these amazing creatures to keep up with the people i care about.

2. Biblical Names…

parent’s should stop naming their kids after the most popular people in the bible…(simon, mary, matthew, john, luke, mark, wayne, david, thomas, brent, joseph etc.)everyone has these names, if you’re expecting and planning on using a biblical name, please dig a little deeper. it’s a pretty huge book, and at the least can help you find unique baby names.

I guess what i’m saying is…i just really want to meet someone who’s parents hated them enough to name them barabas. I’m sure they’re out there and i’m sure their awful name forced them to be very kind people. Barabas, if you’re reading this…you got a friend in me.

3. Nintendo Wii

About a week ago i was playing Wii baseball with my pal taylor, naturally i was getting my ass kicked. I’m batting in the top of the 7th inning, i swing at a curveball (missing it completely) and pop my shoulder out of it’s socket. Before i knew it I was on the floor wincing in pain and trying my best to not black out and cry like the giant pussy willow i am. Its sounds silly, but this was probably the most painful experience of my life. My father is a man with scars on his face from hockey pucks and baseballs flying at it, reading this would probably make him cry (on the inside of course) as the wii incident is my only sports injury ever.

This experience made do some thinking…

-if this is how people in my generation are getting hurt, we’re totally effed when world war three goes down…especially if the “bad men” invade and challenge us to a game of “american baseball”.NOW THERE’S A MOVIE I WOULD WATCH!

-My respect for the olympic athlete that impaled his scrotum on the pole vault went way up after this experience. I used to laugh at him, now i feel for him and want to send him a cheque.

Scrotum guy, if you’re out there…you got a friend in me.