Here is Barry Zeeman tweaking the latest version of The Barry Zeeman Machine. The BZM, shown here for the first time in all its retro splendor, can do anything - anything at all. You want pancakes? It can do it. You want a supercar you can't afford? It will fashion you a full size, road worthy copy - What colour, sir?! Hey, maybe you want a beautiful wife? One who speaks the language of love and doesn't care what you look like? The BZM can do that too! Keep your company's books? Check. Be the CEO of your company? Check. Do your taxes, monitor dinner on the stove, walk the dog? Check, check, check. So when is this dream machine going to be released? Unfortunately, never. It seems Barry Zeeman was still exploring the BZM's capabilities when he accidentally created a bunch of Barry Zeeman clones who promptly zapped the real Barry Zeeman to smithereens and stole his machine. The clones are wanted for the disappearance of the real Barry Zeeman. That's all we know so far.
February 2, 2015
Oh, this lady was so deliberate it was excruciating. Words didn't pour forth, they oozed out slowly, one at a time, each stuck in a molasses like goo, the individual syllables pulled apart and stretched like taffy. I wanted to leave, I wanted to escape, I wanted to finish her next sentence, but that wouldn't have been polite, and I am Canadian. So I waited while she takes an age to reveal what she knows. Which wasn't much. Damn!
February 3, 2015
I'm walking through an alleyway about to pass a guy walking in the opposite direction. But he stops in front of me and says, Friend, I want to know if you are depressed, lonely, afraid of the world and all the horrible people in it? Nope, I said, smiling like I meant it which I did. Why, are you? I asked. His body sagged. He didn't say another word, just walked away. Well, wasn't that weird.
February 4, 2015
By the way, just to set the record straight, there is no such thing as time. Everything happens all at once, simultaneously. But, paradoxically, we do have time, because we can't live like that, everything all at once, our hard wired brains need time and space to figure things out. We need time and space to consciously create our life. But remember, we aren't "here" in this reality for every second of our lives. We all sleep. Every night we lose ourselves in timeless environments. So the concept's not so strange after all, eh?
He had a smile that could light up a room. There was nothing fake about Jeremy. Still, people wondered. How could someone be happy all the time? Oh, there were rumours, of course. No one had ever seen him eat. And his soul patch never seemed to grow. But people liked Jeremy because he was always smiling, and there was nothing fake about him.
February 7, 2015
If what lies before you is a long abandonded institutional hallway, it can only mean one thing.
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind.
It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge.
This is a dimension of imagination.
Next stop, the Twilight Zone!
February 8, 2015
A young girl with a terminal illness tells a charitable Christian organization that her dying wish is to meet her favorite singer, Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses. But the religicos are appalled after they find out who Axl Rose is (a heathen!) and listen to the band's music (a pack of devils!). How can they condone this? They don't. They stall the dying girl, telling her lies about misplaced paperwork, communication snafus and the like. They wait her out, she dies, Axl Rose never sullies their good Christian doorstep. Nice, real nice.
February 9, 2015
What if you have no ambitions toward anything? What if you are having a hard time directing your life because you have no current desires or future goals to reach? What do you do then? Well, I would think if the outside world isn't doing it for you, then now might be a good time to explore the inner one.
February 10, 2015
As if politics weren't already fraught with weenies, poseurs, liars and scumbags, here is one more desultory permission allowed the disingenuous: politicians can and will switch parties - while in office. Isn't that a slap in the face to the constituency who elected you? The ones you supposedly represent, except now you don't. What a pack of vermin.
February 11, 2015
A knock on the door. Two 20 something's tell me they are on a scavenger hunt. They want to know if I have any red energy domes. What? No. How about a yellow hazmat suit? No. Anything that says, Are we not men? No. What about, Whip it? I groan. Devo, Christ, no. Boys, I sez, Devo ain't on the playlist here. They ask which of my neighbors might be into Devo. This is rural British Columbia. Who knows what anybody's into out here? I shrug. They leave.
February 12, 2015
If you don't think you're the bee's knees, then why would others? Ok, let's say you crave respect. If you go and verbally demand that people respect you, it won't work, because respect is earned, not given. This means that you have to be able to command it instead of asking for it. The first step in that quest is to think you deserve to be respected; to believe that you are worthy. This is the essence of self-respect. If other's see that in you, then they will change their attitude toward you. It's that simple.
February 13, 2015
-- Oh my gawd, look at that, will ya.
-- That's a damn Ferrari.
-- Now what kinda dork would you have to be to ride around in a monstrosity like that?
-- Carol Jean! That's one of the most beautiful cars in the world.
-- Not to my eye. Looks like a shiny rat the cat dragged in.
-- It's a damn million dollar supercar sitting right in front of our faces.
-- It's a dorkmobile, Kenny. That car screams, Look at me! Be a show off! Be a dork!
-- Nah uh. You'd be one damn cool dude if you were driving that sexy machine.
-- Wanna bet?
-- Hell yes, I do.
-- Ok, we're just gonna sit here and wait for whoever owns this rat black dork car to come and drive it away.
-- But we could be sitting here all day.
-- We're on vacation, Kenny, what else you got to do?
-- Ok. I'm gonna take a picture so when we get back home and tell everyone this story they'll know what we're talking about.
Sweet jeebus, got an e-mail from an irate Ferrari owner reader who said that my slagging him off as a dork means he will never set foot on my site again. Really? Maybe he has the same car? I asked him if his Ferrari is a black Enzo, like in the picture above. He says his is a red 458 Italia, but Ferrari is Ferrari, I'm obviously jealous, arrivederci peasant boy. Peasant boy? And he says he's not a dork?
February 15, 2015
Fun is such a relative thing. First it's toy soldiers, then Snakes and Ladders, then maybe a trip to summer camp. At camp you learn about alcohol. Your next fun is drinking to excess, learning to like it and stealing to support your habit. Then girls become fun. Alcohol and girls are fun + fun. Later, after the unplanned pregnancy, putting the baby up for adoption, and a new addiction to hardcore drugs (which are always fun at the start), you marry. You both think hot tubs are fun, clothing optional beaches are funner, and finally swinging with the neighbours, the most funnest thing ever. But now you're older, divorced, and wondering what could be your next fun. Well, what if you find your adopted baby? Daddy's home! That could be fun.
February 16, 2015
LETTER OF THE MONTH
Dear Keith,
How come the parents of genius children always feel proud and are only too eager to take full responsibility for having created their precious child prodigy, when the parents of idiot children carry no shame or bear no responsibility for the dolt they produced? Shouldn't we all be held accountable for our actions? Now this is just an idea, but what if we fine the parents of especially stupid children? Would that work?
Signed,
Concerned
Dear Concerned,
Your plan, I get the shivers just thinking about it.
February 17, 2015
Today is the birthday of an anonymous 42 year old woman from Leeds who is on vacation in the Canary Islands. I know this because she called me. She said she was sitting by herself on her 42nd birthday on a gorgeous white sand beach in front of crystal blue waters and she was so pleased with the setting and her birthday and all that she just had to tell someone - but not a friend back in the UK who would think she was rubbing it in - so she dialed a bunch of random numbers and my phone rang. We chatted for about 15 minutes. Does this stuff only happen to me?
February 18, 2015
Having just fixed a leak, I have created a poem in ode to our plumber. Ahem.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
We no longer have a gigantic water leak under our house due to a ruptured pipe continuously running water into the unheated crawl space, whose ground is so frozen that the water couldn't penetrate and instead sought the lowest point, our half basement, to spill into, making my wife especially nuts.
Here is where it begins. Every impossible dream, every learning curve, every great adventure, every competitive race, they all start here. There is no beginning if there is no start. Alas, there are downsides to declaring this the start - excuses, avoidance behaviors and unexpected trips to the bathroom are just some of them. The start line can engender anxiety and stress so that sometimes just getting to it is an accomplishment. A start line implies a finish line, but with the end nowhere in sight, it hasn't yet crossed your jumbled mind that you may never reach it. Which is good, one less thing to fret about, because right now your heart is beating fast, you're sweating profusely and your fears are multiplying, all because your time has come. Ready. Set.
February 21, 2015
I felt bad for the guy. He was wearing the worst looking toupee ever. It wasn't even on straight. The fake hair was jet black, shoe polish shiny and looked perfectly awful. Every person he passed looked at his hair, but he seemed oblivious to the attention. You'd think this was on some old duffer, right? Wrong. It was a kid in his 20s, which somehow made the bad toupee seem even more egregious.
February 22, 2015
He's 6 years old, precocially smart and has no social skills. I'm in conversation with another adult when this kid wedges himself between us and starts talking. "Basically, cats come in three different sizes. There is the regular sized house cat, then they scale up to medium sizes like the lynx, bobcat and ocelot, and from there they supersize into your jaguars, cougars, lions, cheetahs, tigers and leopards." I look to the other adult but she has this isn't-that-cute! look on her face. "Dogs also range greatly in size, but with many intermediate breeds, they are more consistent across the spectrum from small to large. If I had a pencil and paper I could draw you a very informative graph." She lets out an involuntary gasp. "Birds also go from smaller than an ounce to well over thirty-five pounds. But cats only come in small, medium and large." The kid then leaves abruptly and barges his way into another group of people. Basically, we have been photobombed by a 6 year old.
February 24, 2015
Someone wanted to know when I was going to start writing about celebrities. Good question that. In the past I have written of my feud with George Clooney, but that's over, though it could have been rekindled this past summer. He came up to British Columbia and shot a movie in the next town 15 minutes away. Did he call? Did he show up at my house to bury the hatchet? Did he at least send over a minion with a token of his appreciation saying he was too busy with the movie to see me even though he was literally 15 minutes from my front door? No, no, he didn't. And I'll be damned if I was going to go to the set to see him. So I chose the high ground. I didn't start things up. I just let sleeping dogs lie. There, that's kind of a celebrity story.
February 25, 2015
I'm standing in line at the checkout behind a woman who has a shopping cart loaded with 20 bags of cat litter. The cashier asks her how many cats she has. The woman says she doesn't have any, but once a month she buys cat litter and donates it to the SPCA. My whole insides smiled. I thought her act of kindness was absolutely awesome and I told her that.
February 26, 2015
I was listening to an actress reveal her secret on how she would produce tears for a scene. She said she would prick herself with a safety pin and think of her dead sister and together those two acts would bring tears to her eyes. Jeez, self abuse for art...I dunno. Me, I will cry on cue if you play either Danny Boy or The White Cliffs Of Dover. Both of those songs touch me in an inexplicable, yet tear producing way. Every time. Every single time.
February 28, 2015
This guy tells me that for two years he has been trying to make a viral video so he would become famous on the Internet. He said that if he could get a million views, he would die a happy man. I asked him what fame and a million views is going to do for him. He actually thought about it for a second before saying, I don't know. I just want it.
