the end of the world

And so I go speed dating

Writing a column about not having a girlfriend taught me a few things. First off it taught me that everyone loves a good joke about how poorly I do with the women. Secondly it taught me that there are an awful lot of single people out there who just cannot seem to meet the right person.

You don’t have to tell me that it’s hard; I wrote the articles about it. Now though there is a new way for single people to meet other single people without having to hang around in bars or anonymously send girls their OC fan fiction. It’s called speed dating and a local company hopes that it’ll be the next big thing for helping people meet people.

“Basically speed dating is a fun trendy way to meet new people,” explains Meadow Gilbert of Enteraction Events, a local company that’s bringing speed dating to the Kelowna singles scene.

Trendy indeed. Even before I’d seen Enteraction Events’ posters up around campus I’d heard of speed dating on CBC Newsworld as a way for members of the Jewish community to meet other Jews in mainly gentile cities. It’s also been featured on Oprah and 20/20 as the newest trend in dating. I had been wanting to try it out for sometime, and Enteraction Events were nice enough to waive the normal $30 entrance fee (there are discounts for OUC students) so that I could give it a go.

Already popular in larger cities throughout Canada speed dating has been a success for Enteraction Events here as well. Already they’ve held over a dozen events.

Gilbert described the events as “musical chairs for adults”. Which made me sad since I was the first one caught standing when “Pop Goes The Weasel” stopped playing. I decided to brave on and go anyway. Held at the Keg the event I attended brought together singles aged 20-35.

I arrived right at seven, and was given a number and told to sit at a certain table. At the table was a woman with the same number. We were to sit and talk for six minutes until the organizers rang a bell at which time all the men stood up and moved onto the next table. And so on for two and a half hours. At the end of the night I had to mark down who I wanted to meet again on a sheet of paper. If the women I wanted to see had indicated that they wanted to see me as well then Enteraction Events would give us each the email address of the other person.

Simple right? Well actually despite my reservations it turned out to be just that simple. Sit down, talk, get up, sit down, talk and on and on and on. After the first two people I stopped being nervous. By the end I had perfected a two-minute summation of who I was and why I’m as desirable as Ben Affleck. It’s not so much like the fast food of dating, but rather like the food court with options laid out before you.

There are still a few problems. 20-35 is too large of an age range for most people. With one exception I was younger than any of the women at the event. While often a few years doesn’t make a difference I have nothing in common with a woman ten years older than me with a kid and a career. Nor, I imagine, do they have much interest in a 25 year old who is still totally unclear about what he is going to be doing with his life, and thinks that moving to San Francisco is and writing about video games is a valid option.

Having said that the evening was fun, and speed dating has been successful for several people. A friend of my parents is now engaged to a woman he met at a speed dating event. And the more people in the college age group that registers, the narrower the age range will get.

For more information about speed dating in Kelowna visit Enteraction Events on the internet.

10 Facts I revealed about myself while speed dating:
- I am a student
- I have lived in France
- I like movies
- I have no kids and no divorces
- I once helped to bankrupt a national student magazine
- No I haven’t seen that film with Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock
- I make money writing about video games
- Yes six years is a long time to do a 4 year degree
- I live with two guys, but we rarely hug and never in that special way
- I like dogs more than cats

Three chords and the truth: or this is not a rebel song in 4/4 time

In the movies people fall in love at the right time. Oh sure maybe there’s a few minor obstacles, like the stock character of the oafish boyfriend standing in the way, or the fact that the male lead has just accepted a job on the moon, but nothing that can’t be resolved by the sheer power of movie love and the power chords of a top 40 hit single soundtrack.

Oh yes, the music. Like characters in Peter and the Wolf every emotion is represented by a song, or at the very least a genre of music. On the grade 11 band trip Ryan Corbett introduced me to Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral and Pearl Jam’s Vs. I was as angry as a middle class white kid could get being stuck on a bus for a week with two girls he thought he loved, but knew didn’t love him back.

“Help me / I broke apart my insides / Help me / I’ve got no soul to sell… my whole existence is flawed / You get me closer to God.” - Nine Inch Nails, “Closer” / The Downward Spiral

While I’ve not been Trent Reznor angry in a long while, I still enjoy listening to his snarl to remind me of a time when girls made me feel something beyond a general malaise that you associate with events that are beyond your control like world hunger, floods and the results of elections.

While NIN is the cure one could say that Van Morrison is the cause. “Brown Eyed Girl” coming on the radio or mix tape at an inopportune moment has caused me to fall in love with more brown eyed girls than is reasonable for a any song in 4/4 time. As part of a future therapy I intend to travel to Ireland and egg Van Morrison’s house, as an act of closure. Closure and retribution.

“Do you remember when / we used to sing? / Sha la la la (and on and on)” -Van Morrison, “Brown Eyed Girl / Some old album

Now though I suspect that Van has lost his power over me. Despite it being in the top 25 most played songs on my iPod I’ve not fallen in love for years, and not because I’ve been in some sort of backwoods Aryan colony either.

There aren’t just songs for anger and love. Lust has songs too. A friend of mine once told me that his partner liked to make out to the Nine Inch Nails song “Closer” that I mentioned earlier in the article. This seems wrong, on a whole level or reasons. Then again I’ve seen clubs full of people grinding to it so I suppose I may be off there.

The song that does it for me these days is the Billy Bragg and Wilco cover of Woody Guthrie’s “Remember the Mountain Bed”. Sure it’s not a sexual song, lacking the now prerequisite hip hop beat to be traditionally “sexy” but it’s sexy in a literate way.

“Your arm was brown against the ground, your cheeks part of the sky / As your fingers played with grassy moss, and limber you did lie / Your stomach moved beneath your shirt and your knees were in the air / Your feet played games with mountain roots as you lay thinking there” - Billy Bragg & Wilco, “Remember the Mountain Bed” / Mermaid Avenue Volume 2

Then there is more popular fare. Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” makes me inappropriately happy. Matthew Good’s “Suburbia” is my biography and U2’s “Zooropa” (the song and the album) is perhaps the closest we’ve come to an epoch-defining document.

Now comes the part of the article where I feel the need to gain some indie cred and thus will now mention that if you don’t own a copy of the Weakerthans’ album Left and Leaving you’re well on your way to becoming a war criminal, or at the very least a member of Paul Martin’s cabinet, though if Martin has his way that will be a very fine line.

“They’re tearing up streets again / They’re building a new hotel / The mayor’s out killing kids to keep taxes down / And me and my anger sit folding a paper bird / Letting the curtains turn to beating wings / Which I had a socket set to dismantle this morning / Just one pair of clean socks and a photo of you” - the Weakerthans, “my favorite chords” / Left and Leaving

Like a Nick Hornby character I communicate through mix tapes and burnt compact discs. In a world where sincerity is distrusted and irony is the language of the peoples it seems like a particularly noble way of speaking. Though few people can read the secret language of song arranging. Few women understand that the placement of “They’ll Need a Crane” by They Might Be Giants means it’s over, and is not simply meant as a gag. When I find a woman who can properly decipher a mix that ends with “Sweet Avenue” by Jets to Brazil followed by “Do You Realize” by the Flaming Lips, I will die happy.

“And instead of saying all of your good-byes let them know you realize that life goes fast / It’s hard to make the good things last / You realize that the sun doesn’t go down, it’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round” - the Flaming Lips, “Do You Realize” / Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

The Official Mix Tape / Burnt CD / iPod Playlist of the Soapbox 2004
1. Hey Ya! – Outkast
2. Perfect – Smashing Pumpkins
3. Intergalactic – the Beastie Boys
4. Common People - Pulp
5. Letter from an Occupant – New Pornographers
6. Foolish Love – Rufus Wainwright
7. Hold On – Tom Waits
8. Golden Age - Beck
9. New Test Leper (acoustic)– R.E.M.
10. There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You – Ben Folds
11. I Think I Need a New Heart — the Magnetic Fields
12. Help! – the Beatles
13. Moondance – Van Morrison
14. Remember the Mountain Bed – Billy Bragg & Wilco
15. You Were the Last High – the Dandy Warhols
16. Deeper Than Beauty – Sloan
17. Betterman – Pearl Jam
18. I Can’t Get You Out of My Mind (cover) – the Flaming Lips
19. Why Bother – Weezer
20. Acrobat – U2

A poor analogy to Vietnam

* Making a comparison between Vietnam and a crush on a girl might not seem like the most tactful thing to do, but hey I did it. Essentially what I meant was in the same way that having served in Vietnam has the power to define someone's life, this girl defined mine. Which maybe shows you I needed to get out more.

I was surprised to bump into her at the New Year’s Matthew Good Band show at Skyreach. I knew she was in town, as we have several friends in common. The day before I had burned a CD for her, at the request of one of my friends. I wouldn’t have done it to give to her myself, even if it was her birthday. I’ve been down that road before, and I can’t afford to be lead down it again.

We talked for a bit, after giving each other awkward hugs. In circumstances like this I slip into a glib sort of non-speak. Talking in circles about nothing much. I’m not sure why I do it, but she brings it out in me.

“So what should I call you? Jeffery or Kelly?” She asked.

“Whichever. People call me a lot of things mainly dick head, stupid jerk and the sort.”

“Which would you prefer?”

“I don’t really care, as long as you don’t call me dick-head in front of my mother. She doesn’t like that sort of language.”

“Which one would you prefer?” She repeated.

“You can call me Kelly I guess.”

She asked me what was new, which should have been a lot since I hadn’t seen her since the summer, and I haven’t had an actual conversation with her for a few years. But in all honesty I tried to think of one new thing that I could tell her. Really I desperately wanted to be able to say one thing was new. It’s the same with seeing anyone from my high school past, I feel desperate to have at least one accomplishment that I can talk about.

But I have nothing.

She thought I was hiding information from her. As though since the time she left for Toronto my life had blossomed into a series of events that made a television mini-series seem ordinary.

“Seriously, I’m not just being coy.” I explained.

The two friends I was with had departed to a distance away, thinking that I was making headway in picking up a New Year’s date. Of course I wasn’t, even if I were the sort of person who was able to pick women up in hockey arenas and at rock concerts I wouldn’t be making headway here.

This girl was my Vietnam. For about four years I was in love with her. Or what I assume is love, but was probably more like unrequited infatuation. I had told her that I loved her at one point, in an attempt to get her to return the sentiment. Like the American military in Vietnam I couldn’t seem to extract myself from the situation. We were friends, and that’s all she wanted to be. The problem was that in being friends I wanted more, and even when we hung out doing platonic things I was going crazy with a mixture of love, desire and all sorts of other feelings.

Our relationship would go like this. We would be friends. Then I’d finally have enough of this and ask her to be my girlfriend. She would say no, and reply that we were too good of friends to risk something like that on a relationship. So then we’d be friends. Then I’d finally have enough of being friends and ask her to be my girlfriend again.

This process left me emotionally drained by the end of my second year at OUC, when she decided that she wanted to forgo a degree in political science, and study music in Toronto.

It was an unwinnable war on my part. She was a deep believer in God, Jesus Christ and speaking in tongues, or at least went to a church where they did. I was an atheist, and at that time I was dogmatic on the issue. If I had business cards back then that would have been on it (Jeffery Kelly Simpson Professional Atheist). She was adamant that I was going to go to Hell. Further she said that she couldn’t be romantically linked with someone who had forsaken the Lord and was going to Hell. She could be a friend to the damned, I suppose, but nothing more.
Going to OUC was probably a mistake on my part. I ended up with almost the exact same group of friends, as almost all of us went from OKM to OUC. Nothing against my high school friends of course, but through them I ended up remaining friends with her even though at that point the cycle was obvious to me and I should have had the helicopters leaving the embassy by then.

The first Valentine’s Day at OUC I sent her flowers, as though that would bridge the religious schism. She liked them, said I was sweet and a good friend and that’s about it. No matter how many resources I committed to the task of winning her heart, I was fighting a loosing battle.

This of course makes me look like a complete goof. To be fair to me, she never articulated her position. Typically what would happen was that I would ask her out and she would say, “Oh, well I’m not really ready for a relationship now. But you’re sweet and if I am ready for one later…” She would leave it open.

A comfortable silence

Every story needs an ending. For the past several years I have been writing about the slow motion car crash known as my love life. During the years I spent writing what I, very cleverly, called the Soapbox I wrote about dates gone wrong, the troubles of being single, my invention of a series of colour coded buttons to indicate whether or not people were single or couple, straight or gay, and not being a fan of the bar scene. Essentially at its core the Soapbox was simply me daytripping through emotional trauma left over from high school. It did touch a nerve though, and it became the most popular thing we’ve run in the Phoenix. People, it seemed, liked to read about dating experiences more horrific than their own. I even managed to become a very (very very) minor local celebrity. To the point where the clerk at Chapters recognized my name, and the girl behind the counter at Subway knew intimate details of what had passed for a recent date that I had related in the pages of the paper.

Will someone please call a surgeon
Who can crack my ribs and repair this broken heart
That your're deserting for better company?
I can't accept that it's over...
I will block the door like a goalie tending the net
In the third quarter of a tied-game rivalry
- The Postal Service, “Nothing Better”

The primary recurring character was a girl from high school who I referred to as Murdoch in an attempt to disguise to the world who I was talking about; as though just coming out and calling her Michelle was going to rip a whole in time and space like crossing the streams of the Ghostbusters’ proton packs. Michelle’s story, as it related to me, was that she had become friends with this guy (me) in high school who liked her quite a bit though sadly she didn’t fancy him much. Being the nice girl that she is she never could bring herself to say outright that she never wanted to go out with me. Being the fucking putz that we are all capable of being when we think we’re in love, I took statements like “I’m just not looking for a relationship right now” at their face value. It wasn’t until both one of my best friends and I asked her to our high school graduation that I realized something was up. Call it an epiphany if you will, but all of a sudden I realized that I was just not the one for her.

She bore the weight of being a reoccurring character in a student newspaper column with remarkable dignity and always claimed she didn’t mind. We stayed in an uneasy friendship for a few years until she moved to Toronto. After that we would exchange emails every now. Around this time I became a contributing editor of a national magazine, and began to travel regularly to Toronto. When I was there we would make plans to meet up on the occasions that I wasn’t drinking on Younge Street.

The first time I met her after her shift at a restaurant called the Pickle Barrel. I met her boyfriend Paul. I spent a day on Paul’s couch watching Michelle fast forward and rewind through a taped collection of episodes of Jackass looking for “this one real funny skit”. Then I was treated to half of the Gemini Awards before we went to see Michael Moore’s Bowling For Columbine.

That night I stayed on Michelle’s couch, a piece of furniture that looked as though it had been stolen from the set of a television show about bordello’s in the 1970s. At that point I was suffering from a reoccurring bout of extreme abdominal pain that later turned out to be gallstones, so my night was spent in intense pain trying not to vomit on the couch.

Each occasion we would meet would be like being back in high school. I’d be the quiet kid with braces and acne and she’d be the girl who delighted in being as weirdly alternative as possible.

“I’ve joined a Ukrainian folk band,” she said to me one time we’d met at a bar by the hotel I was staying at.

”Oh, you’re not Ukrainian though,” I said.

“I know,” she replied.

It was the sort of conversations that we excelled at. We talk about nothing, like radio DJs language is less about communication and more about making sure there aren’t any uncomfortable silences or dead air. If there are others with us at the time she permits me to relate our history, my version where my love is noble and true and she tells me I’m going to Hell for not believing in God. The story leaves out the part where I burned holes into her backpack or did a thousand other stupid things that we all do when we’re in high school and love feels like it’s the most important thing ever.

You are a radio. You are an open door.
I am a faulty string of blue Christmas lights.
You swim through frequencies.
You let that stranger in,
as I'm blinking off and on and off again.
- The Weakerthans, “My Favorite Chords”

The last time I saw her I was outside my hotel which had just been evacuated by a fire alarm. The entire hotel was standing outside the Golden Griddle, a 24 hour breakfast restaurant, starring up at the hotel hoping to see flames. None ever appeared and soon everyone filed back in. Since the person who I was sharing the hotel room with was heading back to bed Michelle and I found a couch on the second floor balcony. I sat down and she lay down resting her head in my lap. I stroked her hair like I might pet a cat, if I didn’t hate the bastards, and we talked.

She had broken up with her boyfriend because he had wanted to relationship to move too fast. I said I understood, though I clearly did not. I asked whether his shaved head had been because he had wanted to hide the fact that he was balding. To her credit she wouldn’t answer. I informed her that if we were to buy monogrammed bathrobes and then later got married to each other we’d be okay because having the same last initial we wouldn’t have to get new bathrobes. She laughed and we sat there in silence, maybe finally communicating.

In a movie this would have meant the start of something. Fade to black and the next scene she’d be in a white dress and I’d be in a tux and we’d both be running away as members of our supporting cast threw rice at us. This isn’t a movie though and instead I finally say I have a flight to catch in the morning and we part. I go to my hotel room and fall asleep to Tucker Carlson being a jackass on CNN.

Maybe it’s not the way the best stories end. The great ones end with true love and a vanquished villain. Some stories though just end with comfortable silence.

Fear and loathing in Edmonton

* Remember when Bill Welychka was cool, before he went all Much More Music?

The car skidded a bit, "What the hell are you doing?" I yelled snapping awake. I turned to the driver's seat where my friend Ashwak was looking behind the car. Of course since we were on an open highway we were doing around 150 kilometres an hour.

"Wow." He said as he continued to look behind us.

"Look forward you crazy bastard!" I yelled at him as we swerved onto the shoulder of the highway. I checked to make sure he hadn't undone my seatbelt while I was sleeping, in some sort of plot to kill me by driving into a moose.

"Where are the mountains?" he asked, looking forward and easing the car back onto the road, never slowing below 145 kilometres an hour.

"What the fuck. What are you talking about? We're in Alberta of course there's not any mountains we're two hours away from Edmonton. Mountains."

"I'm so used to mountains." he protested, "Where did they go?"

"They didn't just disappear, they are behind us somewhere." I explained.

"I just noticed they were gone."

"Pull over you crazy bastard you're going to kill us all and I haven't even got to see Sloan yet. Just pull over to the side of the road and let me drive. Right there, there is a stop."

The '95 Dodge Colt slowed to a stop and my door swung open and I tumbled out. Ashwak stood up and stretched, after he exited the car. We switched places and I struggled to reach the pedals. "How can you be this tall? Jesus I can't even touch them with me toes." Luckily the seat slid forward. Now that I was driving Ashwak changed the CD. He removed Matthew Good's Underdogs and slid in his own selection. Soon Aqua filled the car.

Why were we here? What had prompted us to pick up and drive ten hours to reach this place, this wheat ridden stretch of land where the only life for another hour was probably the inbred family we had passed whose truck had gotten a flat tire. We had last stopped at Jasper National Park. It was only a few hours ago but already the mood of the trip had changed. It had turned ugly.

In Jasper we were still fresh-faced youths, with tickets to Edge Fest in our pockets and money on our debit cards. We parked with flair and walked into a restaurant that had at one point been an A&W but now was named Alberta Burger. The World Cup was on the television. The locals were arranged through out the restaurant watching some slavia beat another slavia. After purchasing a burger and a chicken nugget meal from the clerks manning the counter we settled down to plan our next step, careful not to block anyone's view of the televisions.

"What are we doing here?" I asked not for the first time.

"Eating."

"Isn't there something else? Something more to this all."

He shrugged and ate a French fry. "Like a metaphor or something?"

Exactly and what was the metaphor that we were reaching for? We were just driving through the Rocky Mountains for fun? Was it really just a way to "pay tribute to Hunter S. Thompson while watching a couple of bands play music?" Was I talking aloud?

"Look if you're going to keep up an internal monologue with yourself at least keep it internal. That fellow over there with the plaid is starting to look at us." I glanced over at the giant.

"I always favoured Bulgaria myself." I said with a smile.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Ashwak hissed at me. This was getting ugly and beyond attempts to copy a literary style it was apparent that it was time for us to depart. "Finish your drink and let's go."

My friend was on the same wavelength as me.

"What are we doing here?" I was getting sick of asking that question but the answer never seemed to reach me.

"We're waiting for my friend from Simon Fraser."

"And then we'll go to where we're staying tonight, right?" I asked. Having a place to sleep other than the Dodge Colt was important to me. While the locals in Edmonton had more teeth than those in Jasper there was still a sense that a plan was needed to survive this coming evening.

"Yes. They're going to meet us at Denny's, we'll eat and then we will go to where we're sleeping.

"Explain again about this place?"

"Okay a girl who lived in the same dorm as me at SFU her best friend's sister won the lottery. So she has ten million dollars. Now we're just going to sleep in here apartment for tonight on the floor. It's a big penthouse on the top of a building somewhere here. We're here at Denny's to meet my friend and her best friend. Then we're going to the apartment to drop off our bags then we go to the concert."

It sounded like a plan. Enter the catch.

"...and then she reported the lost wallet to the police."

I swallowed more ketchup-covered hashbrowns. "So we can't get into the apartment because you're friend's sister lost her wallet and keys last night?"

"Yes."

The impending crisis was averted by the arrival of none other than�.

Ashwak interrupted my train of thought, "Hey that's Bill Welychka."

We all turned and looked at who was entering the restaurant. It was indeed a Much Music VJ and it was indeed Bill Welychka. Our having nowhere to sleep was forgotten by all, except me.

"It isn't." one of the girls who had joined us said.

"Yeah it is." I said.

Bill was sat down in another part of the restaurant, away from our prying eyes.

It was obvious that he too was in town for Edge Fest. What could he be doing at Denny's? Only students who were spending their summer's worth of minimum wage would be eating here. Not a Much Music celebrity of the calibre of Bill Welychka, nor for that matter someone whose sister had just won ten million dollars. That thought brought my mind back to where I was sleeping tonight, a problem that was fast becoming an obsession of mine.

"I'm going to talk to him." Ashwak declared, standing up and leaving the table.

"Ask him if we can stay with him." I called after him.

With Ashwak, the common link between the girls and I, gone the conversation dried up. We sat there in silence, them thinking what a wet blanket I was being about the room and me thinking that the whole ten million dollar penthouse was not going to be all it was cracked up to be.

Ashwak returned excitedly, "It is Bill. I talked to him. He's staying at the hotel across the street and he just came in for some breakfast. He's going out to stadium after this for the concert."

"Can he get us back stage?"

"Can he get us a room?"

Finally it was time to leave. Nothing had been resolved with the exception that we had come to two conclusions. The first conclusion was that it was really cool to be eating at the same restaurant as Bill Welychka. The second conclusion was that our waitress was a bitch.

We left the Colt in an empty parking lot, or rather a place where a building used to be and now it was just an open lot where you left your car and paid for the privilege. Then we took the LRT, which is the Edmonton version of the subway, to the Commonwealth Stadium. When I was young I had seen one Royal figure or another drive around the track at the stadium and wave at the commoners. I remember sitting in the stands watching that, but I don't remember waiting in line to get in. To get into see Edge Fest however a line had formed around the stadium and even though we were an hour early we were near the back. While I certainly would not call anyone in the line Royalty they weren't common either. The number of died green heads with pieced body parts outnumbered the people who looked like they were still sane.

Enter our other friends.

They had gone on the same odyssey across the prairies that we had, leaving Kelowna after us and driving in a giant van of some sort, which I never did see. Then the line began moving. We gripped out tickets and were pushed and pulled into the mouth of the open door of Commonwealth Stadium.

My sycophantic replacement

* I would like to note that when I wrote this article the phrase "voted off the island" was still über-indie and thus cool. Now it's totally sell-out and thus lame. I also enjoy the concept that aliens are watching us and unhappy with the quality of our sex lives.

definition: Sycophantic Replacements: Clones or look-alikes replacing the original people to either a) act as spies or informants for some insidious power, or b) to be servile, pathetically obvious flatterers (in common English: suck-ups).

I wasn't the first one kicked off the island, although it looked that way to the viewing audience. The fact is it was my sycophantic replacement that wouldn't eat the rat, and caused his team to lose the coveted red pillow case.

Or something.

You see I was a million miles over the island, watching the live feed from an alien bridge as my replacement screwed it all up. I'm not saying that I would have done better mind you, it's just that it should be known that it wasn't me.

I used to think that when aliens came to earth they'd leave me alone, deeming me to be too inconsequential to worry about. I imagined that one day I would wake up to find that the planet's population had been either killed in a nasty struggle to the death or replaced by alien sycophantic replacement. (Either way I couldn't really see myself caring that much, I'm a bit lonely right now so the mass extinction of the human race really is an academic discussion to me.)

I was wrong however, I was one of the very first they visited. They had been watching random individuals for centuries (they changed individuals, because we obviously don't live for centuries) and one team of alien researchers had been watching me. However they had become bored with the task. They were like a kid with a glass jar with bugs in it, they wanted to see something. They wanted to see some fighting, but I had fought no one, although I did get my ass kicked a few times in elementary school for no particular reason other than someone else was having a bad day. What they especially wanted to see was fornication, and I was providing none of that. My team of aliens felt let down, all of their friends were in teams that were watching the sorts of people who went to dance clubs every night dressed like extras in a movie about prostitutes. They were getting to see lots of fornication, and my team was jealous.

When they first showed up I was quite insulted. Certainly I did not feel I fit the model of your typical alien abductee. First off I am literate, and second I don't own any crystals or cats. My name is not, I wanted to inform them, Billy Bob. But of course it's hard to let aliens know facts like these when you don't speak their language, or when your clothes are on fire. (Which mine were after they zapped me with their raygun.) That's about when I passed out.

I awoke on their ship, and when they noticed me struggling their team leader gave me a stern lecture. (I assume the aliens have some kind of translator device because at times I can understand them but other times, when they talk amongst themselves, I can't.)

"I have prepared some slides for you." he said at first.

"What?" was all I could reply. (You try to be more glib when you've awoke on an alien ship high above the earth with no clothes on because they've been burnt to a crisp.)

"On fornication, we are going to teach you to fornicate. It is very simple if you just look at this first colour slide you will see two human shapes. One is a male, which is your sexual identity, and one is female, who you'll have to mate with. Unless you're homosexual, we would very much like it if you were. They are much better to study."

Which is where I started to scream.

"Stop that, it is annoying. Look we are here and we want to teach you to fornicate so you can fornicate."

I stopped screaming, "What? I know how to forn... have sex."

"Yes sex. We want to teach you that."

"No I know how to do that."

"No you don't. We've been watching you since you were born. You don't know how to do it, you've never done it." he explained, and the colour slide turned to footage from my life, much of which I realize wasn't as bad as I remembered it (and much of it worse).

"Look I know how to have sex."

"Then why do you not. Do you know how to use chop sticks?"

"Not really." I admitted.

"Correct. When the opportunity comes to use chop sticks you opt for a fork and knife. When the opportunity comes for fornication you do the same."

"Opt for a fork and knife?"

"No you pass up the opportunity."

I rolled my eyes, which were about the only thing I could move at the moment. "Well excuse me, but I haven't really been in any positions to fornicate."

"Which is your problem then. But we have to watch you so it is our problem too. So we're going to help you, we're going to give you a sycophantic replacement which will return to earth and help you. It will look exactly like you but be controlled by remote from this ship, where we have amassed a large reference collection on human fornication and its techniques."

I had the feeling I didn't' have much choice in the matter, so I followed one of the aliens to where I was measured for duplication. While their advanced computer do-dads where scanning me the new alien asked, "Do you know Darwin?"

"I've never meet him."

"No obviously not. That was a joke. Ha ha. Very good. No do you know of Darwin's work?"

"Yes."

"Well I think he would be very angry with you."

"He would?"

"How will you pass on your genetic code if you are such a... what is the English word? Loser."

Ha ha. I wanted to smash his neon pink head, but didn't because I hadn't enjoyed having my clothes set on fire, and now naked I didn't want to see what they'd set on fire next.

He continued, "For humans it is not survival of the fittest anymore. It is survival of the coolest."

I was returned to earth, with a little button thing that I was to push when ever I wanted to be replaced by my sycophantic replacement. It was a wonderful device at first, when ever I wanted to talk to someone, without really being there I just slipped my hand in my pocket and hit the button. The first time I used it was back in high school when I was talking to a girl I had liked after finding out she had lied to me to avoid going out on a date with me. (She had told me that she wasn't allowed to go out alone with boys and then ten minutes later called my friend to invite him out on a date... alone. I was at his house at the time, so I found out about it pretty quickly.) I thought that I'd say something cruel and mean, as that's what I was feeling along with hurt, so I pushed the button and quicker than light I was a million miles away, on the alien ship watching myself politely talk with her. (My friend who she was trying to go out with played a great trick on us all by coming out of the closet a year or so later.)

Since then barely a week goes by without me calling on my sycophantic replacement. I sent it to my graduation ceremonies, and while it sat their through insincere speeches by popular people about togetherness, I was orbiting the earth immune to the proceedings. My sycophantic replacement goes to work for me a lot as well.
I use it when I need to talk to people.

There is a girl who I was once head over heels in love with (although according to the aliens I just wanted to fornicate with her, but they are wrong) when I was back in high school. It was one of those high school things that seem so important and dramatic, as though I had stepped off of this planet and into a movie where it really does matter if boy and girl get together and love isn't merely a set of compromises made. I suspect she had a sycophantic replacement, because every time she said, "No I value our friendship too much." she actually meant, "No I don't want to date someone who is not a Christian and therefore is doomed to eternal damnation. Have a nice day." These days when I see here I call in my replacement and zoom away at the speed of light. To those watching I may appear glib and uncaring, but above the earth's atmosphere I am angry, cruel and hurt.

(My aliens are getting sort of mad at me at this point. They say that I was given a great gift, that of a sycophantic replacement, and I am not using it properly. They are mad because I have yet to repay their kindness by fornicating.)

Lately I have begun noticing more and more sycophantic replacements around. You can spot them if you've seen your own. They seem to be moving in, walking in people's shoes and being insincere. I wonder if everyone has one, and my aliens have only tricked me into believing that I was unique in that regard. Worse yet, the invasion may have already begun. And once again I will be left alone.

This space for rent: or how I sold my soul to Pepsi Co

* While transfering these articles from my old website to this new one nothing has made me laugh like the sentence, "Bitty Kibble is the greatest thing ever; better than Harry Truman." Other than that this is an example of why articles that weren't about how sad my sex life was never were that popular. Also it should be clear by this point that most of the Soapboxes fell outside the world of reality.

Over the past few weeks it has come to my attention that people are reading the Phoenix. This to me is a surprise. Even more surprising is the fact that many people read the Soapbox, and some of them even like it.

Because of the Soapbox's popularity I have been offered several advertising contracts large and lucrative deals that include free cars, free shoes and even free money.

"Hello Jeffery, I'm from the Bitty Kibble dog food company. We would like to sponsor the Soapbox."

Of course I was quite excited. My first thought was, $$$. But before I could accept the offer another phone rang.

"Hello Jeff. May I call you that? Jeff my name is Clive and I'm from the Christian Cable Network. We would like to offer you a sponsorship deal. We will give you a hundred thousand dollars and your own cable television show to air sometime between the hours of ten at night till six am."

My own television show! A hundred thousand dollars! Where do I sign?

Now those of you who know me might think, "Jeff how can you sign a deal with a Christian Cable Network? You're not even Christian, you're an atheist for Pete's sake."

Well yes I am. But I repeat a hundred thousand dollars!

And so I signed on the dotted line. Shortly after that I received my cheque for a hundred thousand, my 'God is Keen' T-shirt and a production schedule for my own show.

That day I ripped up my student loan cheque and quit my minimum wage job.

All was going well, until I handed in my first article, "Why I hated Okanagan Mission Secondary School". After submitting my article I received a call from Clive, "Jeff we have a problem with your article."

I asked what the problem was.

"Well first off where you refer to the school's new principal. We are deeply offended by your choice of adjectives. There are too many of them and they are all four lettered."

Obviously they had never met her.

"Next," he continued, "you make fun of Christians throughout the article and I'm not going to even start on the bit about your grade eight gym teacher. Jeff this is hardly a Christian article. Why can't you go back to nice pleasant true love articles?" Then he asked, "Are you even a Christian?"

"Is that going to be a problem?" I asked.

"Well frankly yes it is." Clive replied.

I offered to convert, but it was too late. I had offended Clive and he and his lawyer quickly worked to terminate my contract. So that was that. I gave the T-shirt and the money back. I had to fish my torn up student loan cheque out of the garbage and tape it back up. I phoned up my old manager at my McJob and begged for my job back.

Suddenly I remembered the Bitty Kibble contract. Hurrah! I was saved. I could quit my job again and threw away my loan cheque again

I quickly called up my agent, "Agent, get me the Bitty Kibble contract."

"Quit calling me agent, I'm your mother. You shouldn't swear so much in your articles. Your grandmother wants to know if you're going to writing any more of those funny dating articles again. Those were really sweet. Also will you be home for supper?"

In exasperation I fired my agent, "Agent, you're fired."

"Fine. Does that mean you can start paying me rent?"

"Umm when I said fired I meant... fine... as in doing a fine job. Keep up the good work."

"Are you going to be home for supper?"

After getting off the phone I called up the Bitty Kibble company myself.

"We're so glad you decided to go with our company. We know we'll have years of a mutual beneficial relationship."

"Yeah, yeah. Just send me the money." I said, knowing that next month's tuition was due.

"Money? Oh you must not have read the contract. All we're offering you is a year's supply of dog food."

So anyone know what I can do with a truckload of kibble?

Don't worry though dear reader. This new corporate sponsorship will not affect the content of the Soapbox. Now on with my article.

__

As an OUC student I know how much you, the average student, needs high quality dog kibble. For many years, like you, I was lost and lonely unable to feed my dog the tasty, healthy and all natural kibble that he deserved.

But those days are over my friends. Since I've found Bitty Kibble my life has turned another corner. My dog is happy and healthy. Bitty Kibble is the greatest thing ever; better than Harry Truman.

Often I lay awake at night thinking about how great Bitty Kibble is. I just do not have the words to describe the amazingness of the kibble of Bitty Kibble.

------

Jeffery Simpson can be seen on the Christian Cable Network at 5 am every morning. He eats Bitty Kibble and would vote for the Reform party if they would pay him more. E-mail your letters/corporate sponsorship contracts, to Jeff_Phoenix@hotmail.com

Cars and girls

* This is probably where, looking back, my writing started to get better. If it's still not David Sedaris it's at least getting nearer to Dave Berry. In fact I had been studying the Dave Berry structure of articles, and this was the first time I really felt I managed to nail it. By this time the year had changed to 1999 or maybe even 2000. Also I realize now that during my day to day life I don't make enough Isle of Man jokes. Also if you want to play spot the major, guess why I was making so many history jokes.

I do not know anything about cars. I put gas in mine. It's white. That's my general philosophy towards cars right there, they're different colours and you put gas in them. The other day I went to Mr. Lube to get my oil changed. After I pulled in Mr. Lube Man (if that's his official title) began asking me questions that I had way too much trouble answering.

"What year is your car?" he asked.

"White." I answered.

"No what year is it?"

I guessed, "Umm '87?"

"It's not an '87." he informed me.

"Oh, I guess not. Wait it's new so it's a '98."

He punched that into his computer and then tested me further, "How many miles do you have?"

That was easy since it was on a gauge right in front of me, "Seventeen thousand."

He looked at me for a minute and seeing that I was done my sentence asked, "Seventeen thousand even?"

"Oh no. Seventeen thousand three hundred and seventy seven."

"Thank you." I began to suspect he thought I was either a jerk or stupid. "Can you pop the hood?"

"The which?" "The hood." "Oh, right." Anyway it goes on. (For a complete transcript check the latest issue of the YM.)

I have a friend who knows a lot about cars. He's constantly saying things to me like, "I'm so excited because yesterday I dropped the whozzitz from the snarfgus and re-hurbled the snussypuss." He doesn't actually say words like 'snarfgus' but for all that I understand of the conversation he might as well. So after the long explanation of what he did to his car we then engage in the same conversation again and again.

"What is that going to do?" I will ask.

"Well it's going to make the car louder and faster." he explains as though I haven't been paying attention.

"Doesn't it already go faster than the speed limit?"

"Yeah."

"So what is going faster than that going to do? I mean you can only speed so much, it's not like you're ever going to get that much faster. And why do you need louder? I mean a stereo I could understand but I don't like hearing my engine. Why would you care what it sounds like, unless it's sounding like it's going to die."

"It's the sound of power. It's thrilling." he replies. I suspect that he has a small penis.

The basic fact is that I don't care about cars. My car is white, it takes gas to run and it gets me from point A to point B. In addition while in my car I can listen to U2 or the Matthew Good Band as loud as I want. I can also sing along and nobody cares. That's really all I care about in the arena of the automobile. So if I can't change my oil myself I don't see that as a major loss. Women however are different. I don't know any more about women than I do cars. I also know very little about the Isle of Man. The Isle of Man however generally isn't a pressing topic in my life. I have never gotten an erection thinking about the Isle of Man (okay I did once but I don't want to talk about that).

Women however are one of the most interesting subjects to me. Yes I would be very happy indeed if all I had to do in life was spend time with my girlfriend (which I don't have) and kill video game Nazis on my computer. Really I think I could make a life out of that. I suppose my perfect life would be wake up in the morning and then shower. After that I'd make love to my beautiful girlfriend. Following that while she was smoking or running for political office or overhauling the hurble nertz in her car, I would happily commanding the British Army against hordes of computer Nazis. Sometimes for a change I'd play as Americans. But only sometimes. I don't have a girlfriend however, so my days generally go more along the lines of the following. I get up, worry about studying for my next history exam. After worrying about my slipping GPA for awhile, I'll masturbate.

Now I'm not knocking masturbation; as Woody Allen said it's sex with someone I love. However after awhile I do get despondent. Feeling all alone sometimes I find myself drinking vodka out of a soup can and trying to reenact Kurt Vonnegut novels with my socks while listening to the Greatest Speeches of Neville Chamberlain on my stereo, to ease the pain. I have over the years been able to acquire a small bit of knowledge about women however. First off unlike cars you don't have to put gas in them. I mean that statement in the literal sense; I'm sure you could probably find some clever metaphor, but you really don't have to wheel them up to a pump and put in refined oil. This knowledge has saved me from countless embarrassing situations.

Okay enough being silly.

On to the practical advice I should like to share with you all. Most of this I came across after working for four years in a mainly female environment (not the Phoenix but my other job). Sure the management hasn't given me a raise in four years but all the useful knowledge of women I've picked up working there more than makes up for it (this is a load of crap it doesn't). For example I learned that women like tall men. I found this out while listening to my co-workers talk about their boyfriends. "Oh yeah, that's the last time I date someone whose not at least three inches taller than me." one of them said. The other three agreed. I was upset because all of them were at least as tall as me. After that I resolved to grow a foot taller. I'm still five foot nine. I also still earn minimum wage. I'm looking for a job with shorter women. At least my car runs fine. It's white.

----

Jeffery Simpson is a third year student. He has no major. Except for Major Major Major Major but if you haven't read Catch - 22 you're not laughing right now. Speaking of laughing if you enjoyed this article and the Soapbox you should e-mail Jeffery at jeff_phoenix@hotmail.com that way he will know you like it. Maybe your praise will convince him to stop playing Buster Keaton albums to try to make himself hip.

You must be at least this tall to go on this ride

* So here it is an article about sex, written by someone who knew (and still knows) fuck all about the subject. The only thing really notable about the article is that I wrote it while standing at an internet terminal in Florida, which was sort of awesome since I'm sure I broke at least one public decency law by doing that.

Oh God, not again. Last time I tried writing something about sex I ended up breaking my cardinal rule, insult myself at least twice as much as I insult anyone else. In my last look at sex I broke that rule and bad things happened to me. Okay I caused bad things to happen to myself out of guilt but still.

Frankly I was not planning on taking part in this issue's sexual supplement, or whatever cheesy name the remaining Phoenix editors have given to it, but as I was looking through a book on Herbert Hoover I just couldn't get my mind off of sex. Plus, writing about sex in a public library, in the Deep South of the US seems a bit adventurous. This may be a hangin' offense here.

Not only that I voted NDP last time. My God I'll be lucky to be out of here alive.

But on to sex.

There are many types of sex; sex between a man and a woman is the most common. That is not to snub other sexual activities like sex between two men or two women or a woman a man and a wombat. Frankly there are so many sexual combinations that are probably great fun that I just don't have the time to list them here.

I can not really recommend any of these being myself a virgin. In fact the only sort I can personally attest to being enjoyable is the man and hand version. But it makes you blind which is why I am making so many spelling mistakes.

Actually it doesn't make you blind or else it would be a question on the ICBC form.

"Okay sir you drive the Colt to work and school. Good now do you masturbate? You do? Well that's an extra thousand."

Frankly I am not proud of it. Nor am I ashamed of it. I suppose it would be a bit weird if I were proud of it. You know the guys from the football team get together and talk about their latest conquests and then there is me.

"Well you know that hot little red head who sits at the front row of all the games? Well I scored her sister. She's even in high school. Cool, hey? How about you Jeff?"

"Well boys you know that tall dark haired girl from our Elementary Screen Writing Class?"

"You scored her! Wow you are a stud."

"Not exactly. Actually I just imagined her naked and played with myself."

Anyone who has not lost their lunch at this point please raise their hands. Okay there are a few hardy souls ready to continue.

However although I generally do not engage in conversations like those with people I am not ashamed of it. Well I mean I'd be much happier if I did not have to and I had a girlfriend to take my hand's place, but you know.

The odd and strange thing is I'm not particularly interested in sex with women. No nor am I interested in it with men or wombats either. The thing is as much as I've whined this year in the Phoenix about not having a girlfriend it has never been because I want a sexual partner.

Frankly I don't mind not having sex for a long time, I'm a virgin and I'm in college I'm used to waiting. I've always been more interested in the relationship thing like going to films and holding hands and buying flowers, you know the nice safe 50s TV version of a relationship, than getting hot and heavy in the back of my Dodge Colt.

That of course is a wonderful line. You know the sensitive paper guy, "Oh no I don't care about sex. Let's wait for years and years until I meet your mother and we're married happily." Frankly I suppose it would be but I find women are more interested in sex than men. Or at least more interested than I am.

Seriously. This girl who I've been writing about all year, who for my safety I'll refer only to only as Murdoch, asked me once if I thought she was sexy. I was seriously blown away. She explained that she always wanted guys to think she was sexy.

See here is where I was going wrong, I had been trying to get her to love me in that nice 50s' sort of way because I thought that was who she was. Plus really despite the vulgar words in the Phoenix that's who I really am. But all along she wanted some sort of freak biker who just talked about her breasts and how much he'd like to shag her. Okay maybe I'm overstating that a bit. He'd also have to be a Christian and probably it would help if he went to her church, but still...

So did I have any particular points that I would like to make about sex?

I really can't. I mean I can't suggest positions or techniques to you.

Nor can I give you guys a guide to seducing women. (Women follow my time-honored advice and remove your clothes. If that fails remove your clothes and bake.). Frankly sex is a lot like a roller coaster, sticking to my Disney theme, it looks fun but I'm not tall enough to get on yet. (Actually I am tall enough for roller coasters I'm just a coward).

The rise and fall of Jeffery Simpson and his tales of bars

* The assistant manager at the Paramount theatre would read the Phoenix and once I stopped writing about either my love life or the local bar scene, he started telling me that I wasn't funny anymore. I actually had never been really funny, it's just that like the rest of the world he enjoyed laughing at my misfortune. Stories about math rock stars who reached the end of Pi and then flew to the moon just didn't cut it. So I responded by returning to the subject that had launched my so-called career.

The song quotes are from the Matthew Good Band song "Rico" which was in-style at the time.

So my assistant manager, who is an avid reader of the Soapbox, tells me that I haven't been as funny lately.

"Jeff, people want stories about bars. More stories about bars is what you need to write. Everyone likes those, this stuff about jobs or careers or what ever this last one was about, forget it. Bars are where the laughs are," he said to me during one shift.

So I considered it. More stories about bars. I suppose, and not just because I want more hours at work, or that promotion. However I suppose I can not just jump into a bar story, there has to be a context. Something to justify the local of a local tavern.

Let us then start with an observation. Having an ex-girlfriend, or in my case a girl who turned me down on numerous occasions, trying to be your friend is a lot like when in grade school you'd bring home a bad test and your parents would get angry and tack it on the fridge for some sort of motivation. That way every time you went for a glass of milk you'd be faced with your lack of knowledge of the cultural customs of modern day Japan. With my luck all three girls I've ever asked out, all three said no, attend the same OUC campus as I do. So it isn't just one bad test, it's a whole report card tacked up there with comments written in red like, "Needs some improvement."

The problem is after awhile you get thirsty and you have to give up avoiding the fridge, once again returning to your shortcomings. After awhile it gets a bit depressing. The point where you find yourself in your car one night singing along to U2's "So Cruel" and finding parallels to your own life is when you're in trouble.

That's when you have to put the past behind you and look to the future. I've always been told that there is plenty of fish in the sea, and although I do not fancy a long-term relationship with a trout, at this point I may try anything.

So I telephone my friend Anonymous up and said, "Where are these fish?"

"What fish?"

"The fish you keep telling me about, the ones in the sea."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

After we got the whole matter straightened out we headed out for yet another night in Kelowna's bar scene. This was my chance to put the past behind me, find love and live happily ever after. So with a combination of Semisonic's "Closing Time" and Matthew Good's "Rico" playing in my head I threw on my best-stripped shirt, threw on my black leather jacket and headed downtown.

"Buy the rights to endless love. If your friends don't like it you can tell them from me, 'Well fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck off!'"

Our first stop, as always on these sort of trips was Captain O'Ryan's. The fake Irish Pub motif was all I needed to get in the swing of things.

"Now remember Jeff bar talk is different than real conversations. You can't be witty and sarcastic. You just sort of yell and talk about how much you like the DJ. Okay and don't mention you write that column of yours, it might scare the girl off." my friend said to me, smiling.

I took it as sound advice, of course this was from the fellow who informed me that running yellow and red lights increases the amount of passionate sex I will receive in my life time.

We hit the bar, my friends quickly ordered a picture of some sort of beer and I got a Coke. Now for those of you who have ever ordered a Coke at a bar I ask you, why do they put those stupid straws in it? I know most people can visually differentiate Coke and beer, but why do they have to put a flag (straw) that says, "Hello I'm not drinking because please come and mock me." Of course I'm self-conscious enough without having a loser symbol in my drink; so I do what another non-drinker would do in that situation, I lose the straw.

"Oh yeah it's umm ale, from umm Germany, or not Germany but around there a smaller country, it looks like Coke but boy it's strong. Yeah I think umm... I don't know what it's called. They just give it to me."

So there we are, my friends and I and a whole load of the International Relations Course Union standing by the band (two guitarists and a drum machine) sipping our drinks watching a bunch of girls dancing on the bar.

"They mgngmg mgwoudhsoldkd don't they?" asked a cute girl beside me. I recognised her from somewhere but I didn't know where. Nor had I any clue what she had just told me. Yet remembering my lessons in bar-speak I nodded in agreement. I just hope she didn't say something like, "They're having fun dancing, do you want to join the neo-Nazi movement?"

She then said something else I didn't catch which, since she was cute, I agreed with as though I had been thinking the same thought the whole day. (For all I know a group of skinheads are expecting me to lead a march at this moment).

"Having fun?" I asked.

"Do you have your notepad?" she asked.

I wasn't quite sure how she knew that I carried a notepad in my pocket, being the hard working journalist that I am, but I nodded, pointing to my pocket. Yet before I could figure out why she wanted to know, or even how she did know, a much larger male type person came and put his arm around her, leading her away. Pondering that I turned to find my friends polishing off their drinks with the I.R. Course Union. (The I.R. Course Union is a Soapbox all to itself).

"We're off." my friend said. I gulped down the rest of my Coke, and followed him out the door. I was upset I still hadn't found anyone to be my girlfriend but I figured that my chances would be greatly increased at a dance club.

Yet to get into a dance club one has to wait in line. That includes powerful journalists like myself, especially since I accused a bouncer at Splat's of fondling 14 year old girls and then being bribed with weed. Yet still I tried.

"I'm a Doctor of Journalism and I demand to be let in." I said to the bouncer at the Vibrator.

"Really what's your name?"

"Raoul Duke, and I demand to be let in now."

Of course one does not make demands with those sorts of people. I ended up lucky though, as we stood at the back of the line a fellow tried to push into the club. I recognized him from my high school; he had graded a few years ahead of me. I was about to point him out when he was administered a severe beating by a few bouncers until he staggered off blood dripping from his head. I suppose at that point the proper thing to do would be to offer to help him find medical attention but God damn-it I had spent 20 minutes in line by that point, I wasn't going to give my place up.

Finally we got inside the club; luckily the bouncer had never read the Phoenix and didn't recognise my name as the fellow who writes the articles making fun of bouncers.

Inside the Vibrator is a lot like my old high school. A) The music sucks B) there are way too many cowboys C) there are way too many white people who think they're up for guest star spots in the next Puff Daddy video epic and D) the music sucks.

Since we were a group of guys with no girls, but we didn't just want to sulk in the corner we hit the dance floor, dancing with ourselves. The theory being that girls would see us, secure in our masculinity being able to dance with other guys and not worry about looking gay, and come over and join us. We probably should have worried a little more about not appearing gay because after one song of the group of use guys dancing together, we had to abandon the club. If we hadn't left then it was quite possible that we would have had our heads kicked in by either the patrons (either the cowboys or white rappers), the bouncers or the DJ. Whichever way you slice it the vibe in the vibrator just wasn't our thing.

So off into the night we went. We returned home. Once again I had failed in my task and on the way back I began singing along to U2's "So Cruel" once again. Now as I type this up I am torn between calling up the girl who turned me down over three times or phoning up my grade six teacher and demanding she let me retake my Japanese modern culture test. At least that way I can get it off the fridge.

-------

Jeffery is a short man. Wants to live with a long haired girl in Costa Rica. He'll rip of newsstands, and during the getaway she'll drive the vespa.