Poisonclover’s Patch

This is friggin hysterical.

So I’m going to be thirty on March 22nd of this year.

Most see this milestone as a year older, or a year closer to death, or one more year without a husband/wife/baby/Snuggie (the Snuggie and its ultimate retardedmess will be saved for another blog.)

I see 30 as a reason to celebrate. I don’t respond to it with a pants-shitting fear, or an “I’m sooooo old!” attitude, like most douchebags tell me. I think you are only depressed about your age if you really don’t like your life.

The resistance to this age is found in the “60’s” mentality as I call it.  Thirty, according to dirty acidhead hippies, is the age that you stop being cool, you stop being young, and you have to become a full fledged adult. You need to settle down, get married, pump out 2.3 children, get a house and an RRSP and a minivan and an ulcer.

My simple response to this thoery is *ahem* Fuck that.

I am still single, but I know a lot of unhappy young married people. I have no children, but I teach 70 teenagers every day, and they keep me young. I don’t have a minivan because I’m not an asshole. I look good, I feel good, and I am still carded at the liquor store.

So 30, bring it the fuck on. So long 20’s, I’ll write and send pictures 🙂

I love Madonna. It’s a cliche for gay man, but I think in light of Britney and Miley, she is still the best diva to be nuts about. These Disney sluts need rehab and an education, frankly, but I digress.

Madonna has been a constant presence in my life since I was 6 years old. My first tape that I excitedly played on my Fischer Price Portable Casette Player (plastic coated in case I dropped it down the stairs, which I did) was “Like a Virgin” in 1985, and I never looked back.

When I was a child of the 80’s Madonna was my cool older sister, the bad girl friend who taught you about smoking and sneaking out and hair bleach. She taught me the power of changing your appearance, and how ambition and intelligence can make you unstoppable. She was there when I hit puberty and first became curious about sex, and lo and behold, she released the “Sex” book.  Now mind you, most teenagers don’t need to know about S&M and lesbian knife-play, but I was always an overachiever and a bit weird.  Despite critics and peers alike taunting me for loving her, I never gave up on my first real idol.

As a struggled with my sexuality, she was the only media figure who presented gay people as real. She loudly proclaimed that homosexuality was normal, and made me feel a little less alone and scared. When the Nineties hit and her celebrity waned in the era of punk and grunge, I still bought her every release, cringed as she became a mother and feared she would lose her edge, and actually paid money to go see “Evita.” As I left my high school years behind, I was dazzled by her “Ray of Light” and marvelled as my idol turned a fit 40 in 1998.

Madonna was my first concert ever, and I have seen hundreds of concerts since, but the raw thrill of seeing her live was too much for my 14 year old brain to handle.  “The Girlie Show” gave me my first glimpse of Madonna in the flesh, and my insatiable love for live music.  She is the ultimate performer, and her shows are more than a concert, they are an artistic representation of her music, and a hell of a spectacle.

Why am I talking about this now, after not writing in this blog for a lonnnnnng time? Well, last night I saw Madonna live for a fourth time on her “Sticky and Sweet” tour. I lived the dream of being close enough to see her face. I had floor seats, and was able to approach her stage and see her in all her face-lifted, Kabbalah enlightened, Malawi obsessed  recently divorced glory.  It was unbelievable. You don’t often think of her as a real person – she exists on TV, magazines, and album covers.  At 50, she is still the queen.  I stared in awe as she sang “You Must Love Me” and snapped pictures like I was working for TMZ.

Madonna spent so much more time raising me than my parents (kidding, but she did teach me WAY more about sex and ambition) and I thank her for being the fabulous shape shiftng icon who has been my favorite for the last 20 years.  As I waved my arms and sang “Like a Prayer” last night, crying a bit due to sheer emotional overload, I realized that Madonna may be a cold bitchy career obsessed megalomaniac, but its her message, her music and her image that keeps me rivetted.  I hope she is still my favorite another 20 years from now, and she still proves that you can rock fishnets and hot pants at any age, as long as you are fit and realllly rich. Rock on Madonna, and P.S.  – “Borderline” is SOOOO much better on electric guitar.

Hanging upside down for a long time is NOT magic.

Bat’s do it all the time.

Think about it.

This weekend I took a spur of the moment trip over the border to go dancing. Why over the border, I hear you ask? Well, believe it or not, Canada’s gay dance clubs are few and far between where I live- a self-respecting mary has to go to Toronto, or worse, Hamilton (the poor man’s Toronto) in order to find a bar that plays decent music and doesn’t look like something that would appear on Extreme Homo Makeover.

I am fiercely proud to be Canadian, but does a seemingly influential and (somewhat) cultural hamlet like my town deserve a drought of active gay nightlife? Why must I waste gas to go shake my moneymaker? Why must I tolerate asshole border guards and stupid American turnarounds (those annoying circle roads that city planners throw in to make a city seem avante garde – do we ALWAYS have to copy Britain? I mean really…) in order to get funky and move my bod?

All in all, me and my crew had a blast, but if you are planning to venture over to American soil for some adventure and house music, here’s what I learned on my last visit. Its my “Sketchy Border City Gay Bar Survival Guide:”

1) American energy drinks give you pep, but they also give you gut rot, and a headache that feels like a rat is using your temporal lobe as a scratching post. Oh, and if you drink more than 2, your eyes shake.

2) Americans automatically know you are Canadian. They just do. Maybe its the fashion sense, the proper enunciation of the English language, or the fact that our colored money glows under blacklight. Just show no fear and stay perfectly still and they’ll retreat.

3) Some guys think that placing a hand on your back and leaving it there is flirting. Or bumping into you repeatedly while dancing. Or getting all his friends to point and gesture at you. Or followng you through the bar and gawking at you like your David Beckham or a pregnant teen in church. In Canada, this is stalking and assault, but I must admit the attention is nice. As long as it stops there, and it doesn’t border on “I’ll be in your backseat with a knife and a can of Crisco” kind of attention.

4) If you see a lot of straight people in a gay club, they are most likely on drugs, dealing drugs, or both. Avoid these individuals. They will subject you to really boring conversation, and make several references to “how cool they are with gay people.” This means one of two things: they are so deep in the closet they are finding Christmas presents, or they are socially retarded and can’t function in straight clubs. Cuz, you know, gay people NEVER judge… 😉

5) Make sure you wear nice underwear. Your mother was right about this one.

Happy first day of Autumn and all that crap.

So as a hurricane approaches the southern US, and I was awake this morning at 6am, sipping my coffee and eating an Everything bagel with no butter (not a choice, I was fresh out) I was taken aback by a news reporters glib sound bite concerning the evacuation of Houston.

He said those who do not evacuate today by noon face, and i quote, “certain death.”

I thought that was a refreshing bit of non-euphesmistic journalism. Basically, if you choose to stay, you’ll end up impaled on a tree, and not in Kansas, Dorothy. However, I feel nothing but empathy for the people who have had to evacuate their homes and leave their world to chance and prayer. I could not imagine what it would be like to have to board up my 2 bedroom apartment and head north to dry land. I hope this is a relatively mild assault, but reports prove otherwise. Hopefully this Ike is like Ike Turner and Texas is like Tina Turner; at first he hits hard, but she ends up kciking his ass and recording `Private Dancer.`

Okay, its not a perfect analogy, but you do better.

Excuse me, I have to go board up my windows. Not for the storm, I just always do.

1) If you are on Facebook more than 5 times a day, you are either unemployed, paranoid, a real slacker at your job, dying to know how many of your friends changed their status because you hope it might include you in some way, or simply addicted. It’s like a new drug, one that won’t make you sick (props to Huey Lewis) – I call it Facecrack or Methbook.

2) Next time something/someone goes wrong or fucks up, call it “a hot tranny mess.” It makes every situation better, and funnier.

3) I don’t give a shit about the Olympics. They should change the name of this years games to “International Rub and Tug” considering how many underage Chinese girls are in them.

4) Saying out loud “I need to go dam my beaver” is the funniest way for a woman to exit a room and head to a washroom (thanks Amy).

5) Always teach music students about the Great Keyboardist’s in History:

* Mozart

* Madonna Wayne Gacy – Marilyn Manson

* Kimber – Jem and the Holograms

6)  And shouldn’t Labour Day really be called “No Labour Day”? Like, what the hell? Why are calendar-makers and holiday creators so freakin stupid?

Excuse me, I have to go check my Facebook.

I realize that I should be more diligent if i’m going to have a blog…I have neglected it so.

I’d be a very bad parent – my blog is out of date, and my houseplants are all dead.

I love making random pointless lists, so here are some Summer Observations by yours truly:

1) WAY too many people my age are getting married. Stop it already. Me and my single friends have decided to hold a “Stage and Doe For No Reason” just to celebrate ourselves as single, fabulous people who will never get a wedding, stag, shower or any other kind of public money-grab. Yes, there will be a 50/50 draw.

2) Bridging from the last point, there is nothing more pathetic than going alone to a wedding (I mean ALONE alone, no friends or nothing, and sitting at the Table of Mismatched Guests).  It’s right up there with taking your aunt to the prom,  using Grecian Formula on just your beard, or stealing pennies from the corner store’s Cystic Fibrosis donation box to buy a cheap copy of “Cherry Pop” magazine and some Listerine (cheaper than vodka).

3) A LOT of people my parent’s age never use sunscreen. Ever.

4) Though tourists drive our economy and I myself have worked with them for years, I still want to boil 90% of them, alive, in oil.

5) Madonna turns 50 this week, and after sticking by her for 20 years (my first tape at 6 years old was “Like a Virgin”) I have to say in all honestly……….I still love her. Yes, I read her brother’s book, but COME ON people, who didn’t know Madonna was a heartless bitch? And FYI, I called it that she had a facelift 2 years ago.

More to come, but I’m holding a bachelor party tonite, and I have to find something to wear that will absorb spilled tequila and stripper sweat easily (you breeders and your rituals…:)

I saw “The Dark Knight” last night for the first time, and I will definitely see it again. I have been a huge Batman fan my whole life, because I thought Superman was queer and absurd and any comics about mutants must be a veiled criticism about inbreeding in America. But Batman was so cool, so dark, so goth, and he was just some rich guy who was bitter that his parents got shot. His only super power was a kickin’ bod.

Now I always prefer villains to the heroes, because they are vastly more interesting. The Joker was always hands down the best. He was homicidal, completely insane, darkly humourous, and wore lots of purple. My soulmate! (Yes, I realize he is fictitious and a psychopath, but most of my crushes today are as well). I collected everything Joker I could get my grubby 10 year old paws on. When Nicholson personified the Joker in 1989’s Batman, it was my new obsession, and one great Halloween costume.

Then came the dreams. Or nightmares. As much as I loved the Joker, he also scared the shit out of me. Clowns are just SCARY, especially when they hold guns. As a small child, I hated clowns. My mother once put up a clown poster in my room because she thought it was cute. Picture a poster of an old man painted up as circus clown grinning holding a pink plastic HAMMER (yes a hammer.) It was the most unnerving thing I had ever seen, and it stared at me with its demon eyes every night. Picture when Homer builds Bart that Clown Bed on The Simpsons, and you;’re close. (“If you should DIE before you waaaake…..”) Later on, the poster was taken down, since my mom discovered it was a print of John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer. Even to this day, if I see a mime in front of Home Hardware, I pee my pants.

Anyhoo, I had recurring nightmares at 10 that the Joker was a real person, not the polished and darkly comic Nicholson, but a deranged maniac with horrible makeup and a butcher knife coming to kill me and my loved ones. He was a real man, not a cartoon or a drawing. My dreams consisted of being locked in my elementary school, with me and all my friends being chased by this Joker who we never actually see at first. It is night, there are low fires burning in weird areas, and blood is smeared on the walls a la Manson style, with weird pentagrams and slogans about the Joker. (Keep in mind, I’m ten when I have this.)

The one part of th dream I remember best is running through thick darkness, past the rows of lockers, looking for a way out. The only light I can see is the low, eerie Emergency light down the hall. I see a figure approach. I know it is him, but I don’t want to see him. He approaches in shadow, closer, and steps under the light for a split second.

I see him. Horrible white makeup, green hair, scarred red mouth, and a huge ass silver knife. He walks towards me and cackles. I almost shit my pants, both in dream and in bed. These recurred for a while, but my point is NOT that I need intense psychotherapy or that I apparently was conceived on an acid trip, but that last night, that maniac was Heath Ledger.

He is the by far the best portrayal of the Joker I have ever seen – he was all mad dog-foaming at the mouth-eyes of the devil-slice your face-kill your baby ka-RAZY. He brought a demonic and psychotic fervor to the role that Nicholson broached on, but opted for a more polished appeal. It was a masterpiece. Ledger was brilliant. I’m upset that he was supposed to also be in the sequel, but has passed. He OWNS that film. He is terrifying, but you can’t stop watching him. He is the soulless, unexplainable, petrifying demonic murderer I always envisioned. It was awesome!

And yes, I almost shit my pants at one point during the movie, out of excitement, fear, and spicy salsa. My nightmare came to life, and i was so happy. You’ll know the part when you see it – I won’t give it away. Hint: he explains why he got his scars.

Today’s entry is less my humour and more shameless corporate promotion, but, meh. Ledger deserves all the praise I can muster.

As the Joker would say “Why so SERIOUS?”

I hate Croc shoes.

There, I said it. Declaring this statement to family and coworkers has caused me to hear statements such as “But they are SOOO comfortable!” and “I’m a mom, and I’m on my feet all day…” because apparently as a single person I walk on stilts or do the Worm to get around. I also hear “If you wore a pair, you’d change your mind!” and “I think they’re neat!”

Allow me to retort to some of these. First of all, being a mother doesn’t excuse you from dressing like a human. Also, my bedsheets are comfortable, but you don’t see me wearing them in public. Suddenly everyone’s fashion sense mirrors the theory of George Costanza from Seinfeld and people want to drape themselves in plastic instead of velvet. I would also never wear shit this tacky unless it was Halloween or I was going to a “Mock the Dutch” rally. And finally, like Madonna said to her entourage in Truth or Dare after Kevin Costner called her concert “neat” and she feigned gagging herself, “Anyone who calls my show ‘neat’ has to go.”

Crocs are meant for gardening and manual labour. If you are above the age of 5, you should not be wearing these rainbow colored rubber/plastic clogs.  Also, they are one step above orthopedic shoes. So if this is the look you are trying to sport, then top it off with a fashionable walker and smart arm brace. Go for that “physically degenerating” look that hospital patients always rock.

I’m tired of the general public allowing themselves to wander into plain view looking defeated, blind, and clueless. I’m tired of people not dressing to their potential, and blaming a lack of time and money on their shitty style sense. It takes so little to look good, and Crocs basically say to everyone who sees you in them “I’m done! I wear plastic shoes, and I don’t give a fuck about myself or my appearance. Comfort is my Vogue magazine.”

I love What Not to Wear, a TV show with stylists Stacy and Clinton. It is based around transforming fashion victims into stylish people. The best part about the show is the rules: It is so simple to look good. And affordable.  All you need to do is buy clothes that fit and are from this century. Take the time to look good, and you will also FEEL good. Trust me. I’m not saying I am some fashionista, but I tend to dress to impress, not to clean up an oil spill or clog dance.

I propose that if we want to change the world, start by beautifying what is around you. Wear nice shoes, dammit, or at least ACTUAL shoes, with laces and a tongue. I am offended by Crocs, and I want the only crocs I see in public to be devouring humans like in Lake Placid.  I beg of you all, keep the rubber shoes in the garden, go to Payless and change the world.