Dope City Free Press

Boyhood Memories of Saskatchewan

2009-11-08T18:13:00.003-04:30

I was trying to remember if I had been to Saskatchewan ever in my life. I had lived in Motherfucking, Alberta, near enough the Saskatchewan frontier for me to have visited the Green Rider province when I was a boy. I could not remember so I phoned my mom. "How are you Beer, my little, little boy?" she asked after saying hello. Mom had been drinking, so had I. "Saskatchewan! Those redneck cocksuckers! I wish I could tell you you have never set foot in Saskatchewan," she spat, "but that would be a lie. The summer before we left Alberta, for good, the summer after I had Kitty, we all went camping to a lake where we met the Hoods on the Saskatoon Berry Day long weekend. I forget the name of the lake. It might have been Shit Hole Lake. Or maybe it was just near Shit Hole Lake. That was a long, long time ago Beer."

The Hoods were old family drinking buddies. They were not fond of mixer. That was,"For God Damn Americans," I heard old man Hood say over and over once the party had passed from beer to better things.

"You and your brother had a grand time eating bugs and snagging suckers with the Hood boys on the lakeshore and of course we all got eaten alive by the mosquitoes," mom continued as she looked deep into her wine glass. We were on the phone but I knew she was doing that. If you are ever looking for your past, have a look in a glass of wine, it is in there somewhere. "We weighed Kitty when we got home and she had lost a pound during the long weekend we were in Saskatchewan. The motherfucking mosquitoes had sucked a pound of blood out of my baby. She was pale as your father and I were after that weekend from all the rye we drank. Other than that, none of you got hurt for a change so it was a pretty uneventful weekend. Just what you'd expect in Saskatchewan."

That's Entertainment

2009-11-08T13:56:00.006-04:30

Sonja and I listened to a 1964 Smothers Brothers record this morning. On the cover is a picture of Dick smashing Tommy over the head with a guitar. That is some funny shit.

"I can remember fucking near pissing myself watching the Smothers Brothers on tv," I said to Sonja, who was listening to the record as she crunched her cereal. My brother and I loved the Smothers Brothers so much we even performed skits we thought were every bit as funny as their shit. I was Dick, Axel was Tommy. Axel's funniest bit was when he would lay on the floor, raise his legs high in the air and light his farts on fire. When Axel's fuel was mom's homemade beans it was like a KISS concert in the living room some nights.

"They were the funniest brothers since the Marxs," Sonja said between milky crunches.

Listening to Tom and Dick got me reflecting on how much joy I have experienced watching television. Anne Murray entering my life on Don Messer's Jubilee; Bobby Orr and Gordie Howe skating back and forth across across the screen; Yo-Yo Man.

But it has not just been the technology of television entertaining me. Radio, records, movies, punk rock shows, computer crap and much, much more all delivered to me with technology. Walking the dog is probably the only thing I do unaided by technology and even then it is an activity I do in Jetson shoes developed by a team of doped up scientists who could cure cancer with the Olympic sized budget they have to work with.

Today I am watching a Canadian Football League game when taking breaks from raking up wet leaves. The leaf raking is technology free but it is more fun watching Canadian football in November. Motherfuck the Bombers!

What Makes a Good Monarch?

2009-11-07T00:45:00.004-04:30

"How come you no go Victoria see Prince Charles?" asked Ma. "In China if Prince come near where anybody live they go see him every time. You don't like Prince Charles or something?"

Ma knows damn well I think Canada's next King is a boob. Everybody does. I cannot think of a bigger boob offhand. I picked up my coffee and let Ma continue. When you are having a conversation with a woman there is little risk in being economical with your words.

"Prince Charles look strange, eh Beer? Like maybe he is not all human. How come so many white people so funny looking?"

"You have a point there Ma," I agreed. "You should visit England. It is like a funny looking people museum. I guess that's what we mean when we say Chinese people all look alike. You just are not funny looking enough for us. The odd thing is that us strange looking white people have been at the top of the totem pole for a long, long time. Being funny looking enough to suggest multiple inbreedings is just what we look for in a monarch. Just so long as we do not have to get too close to the motherfucker."

High Noon

2009-10-31T17:17:00.004-04:30

I sat down at a table at the back of the bar near an emergency exit. I always choose the table a hunted man in an old western movie would choose: a table from where you can clock every fucker that walks in and is close to an exit so you can get the fuck out if you have to get the fuck out. That is Dope City in 2009 - High Motherfucking Noon.

The bar was not my regular bar. It is the bar closest to the garage my car gets fixed up in. It is the bar I ended up in during the aftermath of the successful attack on New York City's twins many black Septembers ago. Visiting the bar is like revisiting the scene of a good old fashioned flaming car crash you just about died in.

I ordered my beer. It came in a pint pot. The beer did not taste quite right but I drank it quick. I ordered food and another pint of the same beer. Beer does not have to be perfect. The waitress smiled as she took my order and listened to my beerside banter. Her smile was fake, just like her tits.

I looked up from my Racing Form around the room as I waited for my food. Everybody looked sick enough to keel over right then and there. The people in my bar are sick looking but these people looked like the living dead. Nobody was looking at me. I thought, "I must fit right in with these dead motherfuckers."

The food came and with it another beer. A song I liked played through the bar's speakers. It was the Strangler's "Always the Sun." I could not place the band or the song right away. The Stranglers are a long fucking time ago to me. I like their first several records. They drip of the best dope money can buy and way too much of it.

After the fourth beer the waitress' fake smile and fake tits were starting to look like maybe they belonged to Pamela Anderson. That was when I thought maybe today four beer would be enough. I settled up and was soon driving my fixed up car towards home, a violent hockey game on tv and the honest smile, real tits and freaky punk rock Hallowe'en sex waiting for me at home.

Drink Beer and Watch Television

2009-10-24T12:50:00.005-04:30

I have started watching Jay Leno on Friday nights. I remember Jay from when he was a regular guest on Letterman's late night show. I never missed Letterman when I was working nights. He wore a Harley t-shirt most of the time. Sonja says, "He's old and fat," but I do not care. Jay is a symbol of America after all, as old and as fat a country as has ever existed on our dope crazy planet.

Last night Michelle Obama was on. She was good looking, funny and a teeny bit regal. That is one Show Business Nation down there. Maybe that is why America gave us the taser: the inventors knew it would look cool seeing someone (preferably a black someone) being tasered on the big screen. Zap-pow!

Can you imagine Canada's Prime Minister's wife doing a comedy bit on late night national television? Do you even know what the Prime Minister's wife's name is? I sure as fuck do not. I could see her telling a little off colour joke about Indians at a Cowichan Terrorist Knitting Bee but that's about it.

Pretty soon Michelle and her Leader of the Once Free World husband will be in Dope City to attend the most stoned Olympics in history. You will see them on your television. It is going to be smoking. The Obamas will be smiling all the fucking time except for when Canada kicks their old, fat American ass in the cold, hard light of day.

More Olympigs

2009-10-23T22:46:00.003-04:30

The Dope City Free Press is a rabid supporter of the 2010 Winter Games. Have been since the '70s. Knew it was going to happen. As Prime Minister Handsome Dick Manitoba once commanded, "The party starts now!"

Olympigs

2009-10-23T19:47:00.005-04:30

There was traffic trouble so we turned off the main drag and headed down an eastside sidestreet. We were in the real Dope City now. Deals were going down behind every door and in the shadows, in the alleys, the dope was as cheap as the high was short lasting. That is the best thing about being a beer hound: you know what you get in every bottle and you know how many bottles it is going to take to get you where you are going.

Sonja has not spent half the time in the city as I have. She is nearly always aghast when we get near the diseased heart of the city. The only way for Sonja, and most people, to get around that aghast feeling is to get good and fucking loaded like the locals. On this day Sonja had not had enough wine.

As she was shaking her head in disbelief a solution to all the Eastside's problems occurred to her. "I bet Oprah would know what to do. Why doesn't Canada have an Oprah? All we've got is Fanny fucking Keefer and she doesn't know her ass from a hole in Olympic security any more than the Olympigs can tell the difference between a knitting bee and a sleeper cell hiding in a cave on Whistler."

Everyone is calling the police in charge of Olympic security the Olympigs. The word may just be one of the unexpected legacies of inviting the world over to get drunk and watch curling.

"Hey!" Sonja shouted as we slowly rolled down the forgotten street. "That's the Roller Girl store!"

We had looked for the Roller Girl store before but never found it. We had even asked the Olympigs where Roller Girl Street was. They were standing on a street corner, trying, like always, to look important. They were looking for someone, anyone, to taser. Stumped them all. They had heard of Roller Girl Street but they could not even point towards where the street might be. Do not go looking for donuts on Roller Girl Street.

I pulled the car into the sparkly store's rock parking lot. Sonja said, "You go in by yourself. You'll have more fun." I went in.

The first thing I saw when I walked in the door was a blonde trying on a pair of roller skates. Her white legs stretched out one after the other like two limousines. I ought to go out shopping more.

Then I saw Roller Girl. She is real exuberant. I like that.

She learned to skate at the Stardust. I like that too. The Stardust fucking rocked. Taking a girl out to the Stardust and then the Round-Up after was as close to guaranteed head as you could get back in the '70s.

I bought some roller girl socks. Swedish colours. Real pretty. Told Roller Girl, "They're for my girl."

"Lot of guys who buy socks here say that," she almost winked.

Wildcat At Dope City Free Press Ends Peacefully

2009-10-22T23:20:00.008-04:30

I have been spending more time trying to keep my computer working. Just when the computer thinks it has me on the ice I bounce back up, kick the motherfucker back into gear. Fuck the experts, this machine is going to have to start smoking before I give another penny to you computer making shit bastards and your fix-it army.

Tomorrow I have a story about a roller girl you might like.

What Is It All About?

2009-10-14T22:39:00.004-04:30

There were a great many robins

In the park today

They were filling up on

Canadian worms

Before they cross the border

Into America

And points South

It is all about the worms

Motherfuckers

A few days ago it was a

Peregrin falcon working the breeze

It is all about the birds

Motherfuckers

Today Each of Us Lives Several Hundred Years in a Decade

2009-10-12T00:12:00.006-04:30

When I was a boy nothing made sense
Until Marshall McLuhan.
"Poets and artists live on frontiers.
They have no feedback, only feedforward."
There were always televisions in the house
Dad always kept two in good working order
So he would never miss
Hockey Night In Canada
On Saturday night
He would have his hockey game
And he would have his beer
Mom drinking wine and making cookies
All us kids in our pyjamas
Playing on the floor
He always took a big swig
After the fucking Canadiens scored
Those fucking Canadiens
I did not understand television then
Just a bunch of Canadians skating back and forth
Beating the fucking shit out of one another
I saw better games on the frozen pond up the road
French kids kept their head up on the outdoor rink
Because they were in motherfucking Alberta
Where Marshall McLuhan is from

Thanksgiving Message To the World

2009-10-11T11:15:00.006-04:30

Four reasons why you should go see the big roller derby movie Whip It.

1. You love roller derby girls. They are like puppies.

2. Ellen Page will remind you so much of Andi.

3. Ellen Page wearing a Zenith t-shirt while reminding you of Andi.

4. You get to see a Squealer get eaten.

For Thanksgiving this year I would like to give thanks to all the roller derby girls I got to see this year; also I would like to give thanks to all the beer workers for keeping me off-balance all year yet again; and I would like to thank everyone hard at work on preparing Dope City to host this winter's Olympic Games: fuck the police snooping under every bed for anti-Olympic criminal activity; fuck the cost overruns and the corruption; we are going to get so shitfaced.

Our Olympic Winter

2009-10-09T19:28:00.002-04:30

For a town that thinks it is shit fucking hot, Dope City sure does empty out fast on a long weekend. The highway out of town was snarled this afternoon just like it is every long weekend. It made me happy my hard working Hockey family is staying home instead of being up north drinking our faces off and slurring, "Happy Thanksgiving," with the people who hate the idea of living in Dope City almost as much as they hate the fucking government.

The Hammer was waiting for me at home. The best part of having a dog is being welcomed home. During the short periods I have not had a dog in my life, I have found the hardest part of not having a dog to be the lack of a welcome home when the dog house is empty. I like my dogs alright. I think my friend Henrik likes dogs even more than I do though. During our recent fishing trip I had to endure listening to him talk about his dog in his sleep. "Puppers! Puppers! Puppers!" He did not say much else. The fucker talks more when he is sleeping than when he is awake. No wonder his old lady sleeps in so late.

Sonja says the only thing I ever say in my sleep is, "Eat me."

After my dog and I exchanged greetings and I opened a Carlsberg I lit the first fire of our Olympic Winter. Expectations are high. Back when the NDP first proposed an Olympics for Dope City the idea was that holding such a high profile event would help strengthen the non-resource based components of our economy. Dope City and the rest of the province used to be strictly boomtown economies. When lumber prices are high we eat a lot of fucking steak. When lumber prices are low we eat a lot of Newfie steak. The timing of the Winter Games could not have been better if a boost is what we are going to get for our province's fortunes in these less than ideal times. I hope it works.

The dope industry already softens the sharp edges of hard times around here. Now we are going to expose a whole lot more people to what helps us keep on keeping on.

We are going to have a real good time together, motherfuckers.

England

2009-10-08T10:55:00.008-04:30

I ought to write more about the time I spent in England. Maybe I do not think anyone wants to read about running riots, punk rock vomit and the quaint fuckers I went to school with.

I began to think England just might be a queer fucking country when I saw which pornography was given the most prominent spot on the newsmans' stands. The English cannot get enough spanking mags. There are hundreds of different spanking mags and they all sell faster than a dead pop star's records.

It was the English who invented the computer and you can bet the only reason they invented it was so they could consume even greater amounts of spank porn.

I lived with several different families in the English countryside. The knot that tied all the families together was spanking mags. One family had a pile of it in the bathroom. Once I became familiar with my hosts I asked their teenage boy Cullen, "Is the spanking porn in the bathroom meant for wanking?"

"You mean you don't have a pile of spanking mags to wank off to in your bathroom at home in Canada?" he asked in reply.

The only reading material available in the bathrooms of my family's house was The Hockey News. Same went for every other bathroom I ever took a shit in in Canada. I guess maybe Canadians liked to look at pictures of Frank Mahovlich when they jerked off in those days.

Only Mistake I Ever Made

2009-10-06T19:46:00.004-04:30

Some people will not ask someone with an amputated arm how they lost it. I am not one of those people. After the old guy told me he was a retired faller I asked him, "You lose your arm at work?"

"Yes," he told me, "years ago. Only mistake I ever made in the woods. Slipped and sawed my arm clear off. Ed," he continued with a nod of his head towards his fishing partner, "kept me alive until the helicopter got me off the mountain."

I asked Ed, "You knew first aid?"

He shook his head. "Not really, but you learn all kinds of shit if you work in the woods long enough."

Morning Lake

2009-10-05T20:45:00.004-04:30

"It's a morning lake," the oldtimer told me and he was right. It was early afternoon and the oldtimer and his buddy were already hard at work on their beer supply. The old timer only had one arm. His buddy was a quiet fucker. I do not like quiet fuckers and I hate morning lakes even more.

It was a morning lake because high winds blew over the lake each day, beginning in the late morning. I looked at the lake in the morning when I let the Hammer out around dawn. It looked like it might be nice to go fishing out there in the shadowy pink mist. Then I went back to bed, where a man needs to spend as much time as he can.

The only man I have ever known to like a morning lake was my dad. He used to wake my brother Axel and I at 3:30 so we would be sure to be fishing at first light. As my dad splattered fried eggs on the campstove frying pan one early morning before fishing, my brother whispered to me once, "He wakes us up this fucking early to fucking torture us. The fuck." My dad heard him say it over the sound of the greasy egg splatter and admonished Axel, "The only thing I'm fucking torturing you with is the pain in the fucking gut you're going to get after you get these eggs and beans in your gut. What do you know about fucking torture? You think I'm Hitler. You think I'm fucking Hitler don't you? Do you think I'm Hitler too Beer?"

Even Hitler would not go fishing at 3:30 in the morning. I hated it when I got dragged into my brother's shit. If Newfoundland had a Hitler who liked to get up at 3:30 in the morning to go fishing it would be my dad. Beer Uber Alles. "I think Axel means Hitler when he was still winning the war. It is kind of fucking early though. Why don't you take Kitty and Sal out fishing tomorrow morning?"

My dad figured he spawned a couple of the dumbest, laziest motherfuckers ever. "Women don't fish! Men fish! And we're pigs and firemen and soldiers and lots things that women will never do. The day your sisters fucking fish will be the day a lesbo has her own daytime talk show on tv. Fuck. Women don't fucking fish and they get to sleep in. Don't blame me. God made the fucking rules, I just enforce them."

My dad thought all lakes were morning lakes but none of them were or else we might have caught something besides fuck all on all those early mornings on the legendary lakes of Canada. I am looking for a good afternoon lake, a lake that is kind to drinkers.

Hockey Story From Alberta

2009-10-05T08:54:00.004-04:30

At a party on the weekend I met a man from the small town of Motherfucking, Alberta. Motherfucking, a small town on the shores of Alberta's largest mosquito hatchery, is not far from Garlic City. He told me about a job his son had a few years back with the Oilers. "The team give him a seat in the press box to watch every home game and they pay him for it. In return, after the game he goes out and starts up all their cars for them. Wouldn't want to let the trophy wife's ass to get cold!"

Janet

2009-10-02T23:14:00.003-04:30

It is the start of another hockey season

Pucks, sticks and hemp huts

We all know hockey

Ain't what it used to be

Big league sports have all gone to Hell

All except the CFL

The only sport

That is still the way sports used to be

Is roller derby

Violent

Sexy

Risky

As Janet Gretzky

Getting Drunk and Hunting

2009-09-30T19:31:00.004-04:30

Kevin at work came back from his hunting trip today. I saw him driving into the parking lot. The roof of his 4x4 looked like it had come into violent contact with a good sized tree. I emptied my coffee mug and walked over to see what had happened. For once, I wanted to get a story the first time it was told in the parking lot. I slapped the top of his truck's cab as I asked Kevin, "What the fuck happened?"

Kevin has what some folks call a devilish grin. He was smiling like Satan the day Michael Jackson died as he told me what happened. "Me and my buddies who had tags, three of us lucked out this year, had our moose so we didn't have much else to do but get pissed and raise shit. We got drunker than a Hindoo on a picket line. I'd be a dead man if I drove my quad and ratraced around the bush all pissed up like some dumb fuckers do. Driving drunk in my truck is way safer. Fuck what the police say. Mind you, it is a good thing I am a short fucker because I would have got konked good and hard if I was a six footer."

I like my booze and a little danger now and again is ok but I am not half the boozer and danger seeker most my brothers are here, in what seems like the last operating sawmill in Canada.

Bottled Beer is Better

2009-09-29T19:22:00.004-04:30

I am in favour

Of the Anarchist crackle

Of a Canadian campfire.

I was drinking beer

With several of my countrymen

Around a Canadian campfire.

We were telling stories and

Watching sparks fly into

The frozen Canadian night

When a woman across the fire from me

Got a little excited. She yelled,

"My beer can froze to my lip!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Another Fishing Trip Gone Horribly Wrong

2009-09-28T21:30:00.005-04:30

It was the end of another fishing trip. The cars were packed and it was time to go. As the cars warmed, heaters slowly melted a thick coat of frost off windshields. I decided to let the Hammer have a last quick run around in case she needed to take a shit before the long drive home to Dope City. You do not want to be in a car long with a dog that needs to take a shit.

The Hammer ran over to a nearby cabin and began eating something off the ground. I went over to see what she was eating. She will eat anything. This time she was eating somebody's puke off the dirt. Hunks and hunks of ice cold puke.

You know what I did. I puked my fucking guts out right then and there. It felt fantastic. All the retching attracted Hunky and Henrik's attention and they came over to see what was going on. By then the Hammer had switched to eating my puke. She was eating it as it fountained out of my belly. Henrik and Hunky both started puking then. The Hammer thought she had died and gone to Puke Heaven.

The door of the cabin we were puking in front of then swung open. A male, with his dick hanging out of his shorts, opened the door and asked, "What the ...?" before he leaned over and started puking too. He was followed out the door by his wife, who I figured was probably the one who puked in front of the cabin the previous night because next thing you know she was lying on the deck dry heaving. They had a baby in the cabin who was probably puking too.

After a bit we all sort of got control of ourselves. Somebody had to say something and it was Henrik who spoke up after surveying the scene and cleaning his face with his sleeve. "Looks like somebody around here can't handle their fucking booze."

It's A Rocker!

2009-09-19T23:29:00.002-04:30

Northern Rock Opera

I Wish I was a Roller Girl

2009-09-17T22:49:00.005-04:30

I wish I was girl

And I could roller skate

I'd kick Suzy Shameless'

Cherry-Popping cake

I wish I was a roller girl

I'd hit her fast and I'd hit her late

And when she begged to be hit no more

I'd make her booty quake

I wish I was in a roller girl movie

'Cause then I'd be a star

But I'm just sitting here

Getting high and drinking beer

Wishing I was a girl

(Sorry about that Jerry Jeff Walker.)

Josie's Story

2009-09-16T20:55:00.005-04:30

Josie told me this family story.

"My grandpa came over from the old country all by himself. Left my grandma and their two kids behind. He worked in a sawmill and he saved his money so one day he could buy a small farm; a small farm like the one he left behind to come here. But the price of a small farm kept increasing. After a while he gave up on the idea of buying land in Canada. He sent his savings back to the old country so his family could buy more land there. One day, he thought, I'll return to the old country as a big landowner. After he had bought a lot of land the Commies took over and stole all his land.

"So he started all over again. And one day he finally bought his small farm, so close to the sawmill he could walk to work. A little after that his family joined him in Canada. His youngest daughter, two when he left her to come to Canada, was now twenty-one. That was my mom.

"When I was growing up my brothers and I would visit the little farm all the time. It was only two acres. They always had a cow, a goat and some chickens and rabbits. Sometimes they had a pig.

"They were unlucky with their cows: every time they calved they produced a male. The male would be allowed to fatten up some before it was sold as veal. When my brothers got old enough, maybe thirteen, they were given the pleasure of killing the fattened calf. They were given a ballpeen hammer and shown where to strike the blow. They liked doing it. I didn't ever get to kill a calf. That was man's work.

"There is one scene from the farm that is still vivid for me today. My grandpa in behind the house killing a muskrat with a shovel in the snow. There was fucking blood everywhere."

I love stories like that and told Josie so before I asked her, "I bet your grandparents never once voted NDP, did they?"

"Fuck no," laughed Josie. "In fact he once chased an NDP door-knocker out of his yard with his muskrat shovel."

On the Road

2009-09-10T19:33:00.003-04:30

I dreamed I was on the road with Hunter.

I dreamed I was dead.

I do not remember anything else about the dream.

The Road,

Hunter,

And Death.

It was an unusual dream because

I usually dream about sex.

I even dreamed of Anne Murray

Fucking a dog one time.

Bow-wow Anne Murray sex dream.

I dreamed I was on the road with Hunter.

I dreamed I was dead.

Someone Else's Words Made Into a Poem

2009-09-09T19:32:00.003-04:30

Tonight

I went to this American

Idol Concert 2009.

It was everyone

From the top 10 performing,

Including my favourite performer,

Adam Lambert.

It was the

First Concert

I've ever gone to.

It went from 7:30 - 10:00.

It was loads of

Fun.