Where Was I?

It was the second week of grade 10 for me ten years ago. I had just come from my first period English class and was headed to the first floor for second period History. There was a four minute window that you had to get from one class to another and while other students were entering I saw another teacher come in and say to my teacher if he had heard about a plane that flew into the World Trade Center.

Even though I had no idea what was going on, it immediately caught my ears however after a few moments I quickly dismissed it. Probably just some two-seater plane with an amateur pilot who had trouble and made a deadly collision. Tragic but nothing extreme, I thought.

Once that period was over it was time for lunch. I made my way to a pay phone to call my dad because he was to pick me up for lunch and at the time he had about as good a memory as his grandmother does today.

"Dad, you're supposed to pick me up today, remember?"

"Andrew, I'm sorry, I forgot. I've been watching the news. Do you know what's going on?"

"No, what?"

"Terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center. Both towers are gone!"

I suddenly got a flash of these two large towers on fire, being destroyed in the middle of a metropolis. This was something that happened in Tom Clancy novels and bad movies. As I waited outside for him to come pick me up I could hear more and more students suddenly talking about it.

As soon my dad pulled up I got in and we raced home, listening to news updates on the radio and once inside, watching it all unfold on television. A plane had flown into the Pentagon and another airplane had crashed somewhere in America. The endless loop of the second plane hitting the second tower and their final collapse was searing itself onto my brain. Constant flashes of "America Under Attack" sent a sickening feeling through my body.

I never expected to hear those words. In my life the words "Under Attack" was something that happened to Federation Starships or characters in a Schwarzenegger movie. You just never expected it to happen in real life.

I can't remember what I had for lunch (Or if I ate anything) or the rest of that day. However I do know when I first became interested in the world around me. Before then I had my sights on place: Hollywood. I wanted to be an actor and make movies for a living. But suddenly my life took a dramatic turn. I wanted to know what was happening in the world all the time. I started paying a lot more attention to American politics.

Before that, my generation never really had a "Where Were You When" moment. The closest we ever got to that was when Bill Clinton went on TV and admitted that he had lied about Monica Lewinsky. But there was never anything that got our attention and maintained it for a long time. Never something that shook us and changed us, whether or not we were aware or willing to admit it.

I remember being in one of my first days of college for journalism and leaving the Politics class. I can't remember what we discussed but I know that I talked a lot throughout it, like most of my classes and that the date was September 11, 2007. We had just come out and another student remarked to me, "Hey, you know a lot about politics."

"Yeah," I answered. "I've been interested in politics for the past six years."

Who Called It?

Back a few weeks ago, you might recall my opinions on Donald Trump trying to be the first orange man elected President (Seriously, dude, lay off the spray-tan. You're not Lindsay Lohan) and how he would later announce his candidacy on the season finale of Celebrity Apprentice.

Well it turns out that this won't be the case because...the finale's already been filmed and even NBC has come clean about it. Yep, like I said before, this was a publicity stunt to bolster ratings for his reality show that no one really cares about anymore in an attempt for him to say, "The Apprentice is the number one show on television!" and drag that line out for at least a year.

"Curses, foiled again!!!"


I did imagine upon hearing this news that the Donald is going to comment that NBC is somehow mistaken about the progress of a TV show that airs on their own network and he will make an announcement but even his own spokesman basically said, "Yeah, my boss is full of shit."

Wow, not even into the campaign and you've already stepped in it Donald. Look, I can imagine this has been a rough month for you, what with Obama releasing his birth certificate and while you still tried to grill his ass about it, he was busy getting ready to kill Osama bin Laden. Now you could have gotten on him about taking sixteen hours to make up his mind but you blew it. Now it's back to The Apprentice and hoping that people will give a shit about anything you do.

How Trump envisioned the Obama administration to view his non-announcement on Celebrity Apprentice

Writer's Block

I must say, in terms of writing, I had a great month in April. Most of my stuff may have been not to everyone's tastes but given that it was the third highest rated month since I started this blog, I think most of you liked what I was doing.

However now I'm in a rut. There are things that I want to write about but every time I star to type, it looks like shit, even to my standards and I erase the whole thing. And that's not to say that there's not a lot going on in the world. The debate rages on to whether OSB is really dead (Trust me, if Al Qaeda is on the rag about it, then ya, he's dead), my best friend is getting married at the beginning of next month (Though in Harrow-dude, seriously?) and during my time home I'll probably do some more cooking (I'm posting recipies-trust me, it's good).

Is it bad that I can't remember the last time I wrote something down in a journal?


Right now I'm thinking of doing a post about two shows that I find to be some of the worst on television yet at the same time, I can't get enough of. Those are The Steve Wilkos Show (AKA: The Jerry Springer Show without transvestites and midgets) and Operation: Repo. It's the latter which I find more ridiculous but I'll probably get into those reasons later.

Wow, you sure look menacing in those overalls

Donald Trump for President?

I enjoy politics, that's no lie. Anybody who went to college with me was aware of this because I was always sitting in the front row for our Politics class (Nerd) and listened to every word the professor gave out as well as throwing in my own two cents every now and then. And they also knew that I followed the 2008 election like it was waving a carrot in front of my nose. So I'd like to take this moment to comment on a person who is throwing his name into the mix for 2012: Donald Trump.

In 2012 Trump plans to become the first orange man elected president

I'll come out and say it: This is a joke candidacy. The Donald doesn't want to be POTUS, he wants to keep his name in the limelight since The Apprentice can't draw views like it used to and also because said reality show is in the dreaded "Celebrity" seasons (AKA: Shit nobody cares about).

And come on, America, you really want a guy like Trump as President? Politics is a harsh world to live in, with both sides throwing bombs at each other. You really think that a man like Donald Trump will be able to survive in a world like that when he started a war of words with Rosie O'Donnell? I mean, yeah, Rosie annoys a lot of people, but Trump acted like she had castrated him and then took a dump on his face. All she did was mock him, dude needs to lighten up. Besides, considering his hairdo has been a punchline for over a decade, you thin he'd have thicker skin than that.

I mean, can you imagine how it would be if a foreign leader disagreed with him?

SchweitzerMan: President Trump, what are you comments regarding Nicolas Sarkozy criticizing your new economic policy?

President Trump: Well look, Schweitzer-Man, Sarkozy is a moron and it's not surprising that he's the President of France because France is full of idiots. I mean, look at the Eiffel tower. It's the ugliest phallic shaped tower I've ever seen. I've been to Paris, had an awful time. Look, French people are retards, plain and simple. And if they can find their ass with their own two hands, maybe they can give me a smart reason why I shouldn't keep doing what I'm doing. Oh and be sure to watch this week's episode of "The Apprentice: White House" on NBC.

OK, maybe he wouldn't call all French people retards but at the same time I wouldn't put it past him.

Back over ten years ago, Mad TV did a sketch where Donald Trump appeared on a fictional BET show called Reality Check and was asked why he thought he could be President. The two fat hosts got laughs at his expense before Trump got upset and called them water buffaloes (Which makes me wonder if Trump wrote the dialogue for this sketch). Naturally they proceed to tear him a new one verbally but let's face it, that's pretty much how it goes with Trump. You either kiss his ass and tell him how much you love the apprentice or you're on his enemies list.

I remember liking this show...before it got over exposed

He's planning on announcing his candidacy on an episode of Celebrity Apprentice and already you can tell that he's not going to. He'll give some bullshit reason about how he'd rather spend time doing what he's doing right now but he'll thank all the idiots who tune in to see him tell them something they should already know in the first place.

Technically it's a brilliant move: Make a big announcement on a show that not a lot of people are watching to make the ratings skyrocket and then you can claim that The Apprentice is the biggest show on television.

Oh and stop with the Obama birth certificate thing. For Christ sake, you think if WikiLeaks could uncover anything it would be that.

Schweitzer-Man vs the Nazis Part II

So there I was, downtown Calgary and I realized that I had arrived too early. So maybe I could have afforded to fall asleep on the train and arrive a bit late. And since it was cold, I decided to walk around and warm up. As I rounded the block for the second time I saw a group of women carrying signs so I decided to follow them to city hall.

Sure enough when I got there there were trucks for CTV, Global and various other media outlets. There were a few counter-protesters around, making name tags with goofy names like 'Pac-Man'; 'Tinkerbell'. I was thinking about putting 'Schweitzer-Man' on mine, but decided not to take one at all. If it looked like I had anything to do with the counter-protest movement, chances are that I would not have gotten as close to the skinheads as I did.

As one of my college professors once told me: "That's boring. Make it sexy!"

Which brings me to my next point. I have no idea which group it was that attended this. I heard some people saying it was the 'Aryan Guard' while other said it was a group called 'Blood and Honour'. It's confusing because the Wikipedia page for the Aryan Guard links it to the Blood and Honour website and they insist that they are NOT the Aryan Guard. Confused yet? But for the sake of clarity, I'll refer to these people as Blood and Honour.

So the leader of this counter-protest got up on the steps of city hall and announced what would be happening. There were going to be two blockades of police, one blocking the counter-protesters and the other blocking Blood and Honour with about a hundred metres or more in between them. I noticed a lot of the people there were wearing masks (Guy Fawkes seemed the most popular; I think those people were just hoping a fight would break out) and was told that it's legal so long as they don't do anything illegal. The leader of this was a long-haired dude named Jason who had previously been assaulted by members of Blood and Honour so I can understand why they would want to wear them. In their case it was "V for Very Unoriginal"

I don't know who said so, but shortly thereafter someone said, "There they are! They're down the street!" Cue the theme to Superman as I dashed down the street with my video camera in one hand and my other camera in my trusty camera bag. Before I could even get across the street I saw an obstacle in front of me which was the police barricade. Normally I would have done a flying somersault over them but thanks to my charming good looks and youth, they took me to be a member of the press and let me through.

As I got closer I could see the waves of two identical flags for Blood and Honour. As was earlier stated, there were not a lot of people. About sixteen, I imagine, most of them dressed in black, some of them with shaved heads (There was only one woman and she had pink hair) with bandannas over their faces. What mostly surprised me was how young most of them were. Most of them looked like they belonged in Germany's version of High School Musical. A lot of the older ones looked to be in their thirties and forties with big guts and faces that told me not a lot was going upstairs other than the theme to Benny Hill.

"We told our parents that we were going to the library to study...please don't tell on us."

The one in charge was probably in his twenties but you couldn't tell looking at him. He was just so short that you would have thought he was crouching or on his knees. I'm surprised that nobody went up and kicked him. Not because he's a Nazi (Kick all Nazis, not just short ones) but just to see how far the little guy would fly.

The whole couple of hours I was out there consisted of Blood and Honour getting blocked by police at one block so then they would try and go around the block only to find that the police moved faster than a bunch of fat white guys who probably won't lose a pound despite all the walking they did. Aside from shouting "WHITE PRIDE WORLDWIDE" they really didn't do anything.

At one point one of them got right up in the face of one of the officers in the barricade and began shouting at him. They were the ones who deserved to be at City Hall. They weren't the violent ones. The officer just kept quiet and let the moron rant away. "That's right, hide behind your sunglasses," he sneered at the cop as he went back to join his friends who were all hiding behind their bandannas.

"We're so full of pride that we're going to hide our faces so no one knows who we are...wait, what?"

And that was it, walk, get blocked, shout and repeat. On and on. I don't know what in the hell these dumbasses were trying to accomplish. "Hey, let's walk around and wave a flag and shout the same slogan over and over for four hours! When we done, we can go back to the clubhouse and circle-jerk!!!"

And you know that last part is true.

Occasionally, some of them would decide to remove all doubt about their lack of intelligence and possible inbred family tree by opening their mouths to speak. "I got laid off from my last job because I don't speak Arabic," boasted some fat slob. I'm sure the fact that you were caught trying to have relations with a Basset Hound didn't help you either. And let's look at his actions right now. Instead of taking the opportunity to look for employment in downtown Calgary, he's going to just walk from one block to another, back and forth for a few hours, shout "WHITE PRIDE WORLDWIDE", show everyone how fat he is and then go home and pass out drunk during a Nascar race, muttering in your sleep, "They took muh job!"

It's fine to hate someone if they're an asshole, but to hate them simply because "der skin is blaak", well it makes me think that random sterilization isn't such a bad idea. Or maybe just for members of Blood and Honour. They must realize that separation of the races is just crazy and the pipe dream of the KKK and Elijah Muhammad. I mean, these people must have watched Star Trek and all the episodes (start video at 2:19) they did about racism or demonstrated that racism was something not tolerated due to it's sheer stupidity.

Wow, with you being unemployed, I'm glad you still have money to spend on the essentials like cigarettes.

Naturally I would have loved to go into full superhero mode and body slam these pussies like I was Hulk Hogan but sadly due to the massive police presence in the area, the odds of escape would not have been in my favour. But if there was one idiot who deserved it, it was a man I nicknamed 'Leprechaun-Nazi Douche'. He was wearing a large Leprechaun hat despite St. Patrick's day having passed. He walked around with Blood and Honour and would say stupid shit like, "You got these people that come from Sudan and they have like eight kids and they start selling drugs and listening to rap music."

Oh right, Mr. Leprechaun-Nazi Douche. Because as we all know, white people never have an abundance of children, listen to rap or do drugs. No, it's all those evil minorities. What was even more sad was that the Blood and Honour people just kinda stood there and accepted it. Eventually Blood and Honour realized that after four hours of walking around they were pretty bored and going to go back to their clubhouse to circle-jerk. Mr. Leprechaun-Nazi Douche went over to the counter-protest side and tried to pick fights with anyone who would give him attention. I last saw him walking down the street all by himself.

"Look, I'm wearing a big leprechaun hat!!! I'm so crazy and original! Please pay attention to me!!! PLEEEEZZZEEE!!!!"

So with the Nazis on their bus and gone, I decided to leave as well since there wasn't going to be anything interesting going on anyway. In closing, I leave you with a picture of a happy police officer and a member of the 4chan community.

"Now that the Nazis are gone I can play paintball! Hell yeah!!!"

I'll just let this one speak for itself

Schweitzer-Man vs the Nazis

"But my Führer, we are Nazis; we have no brains!"

-Nazi Captain in Three Stooges short Back From the Front

Ever since I was a little kid I was fascinated by superheroes and while Batman is my favourite, the first one I remember being exposed to was Superman. I didn't know jack about the whole backstory to him being the last son of a doomed planet until I actually started watching Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman when I was seven. And yeah, I don't care what people say, that was an alright show...until it got dumb of course.

But yeah, it wasn't until I got a bit older that I realized that Superman had been around the time my grandparents were young which is pretty cool. What's also cool is that they incorporated the heroes into the effort against the Nazis in WWII. While it would have been cool to see Superman use his heat vision to slow melt the skin off of Hitler's face, we had to settle for something more suited for the times.

Come on, melt his face! It'll be just like Raiders of the Lost Ark!

Which brings me to what I'm talking about today. I was walking home from the bus stop when I saw a sign attached to a streetlight. Apparently what my history teachers in high school taught me was just a lie because Nazis are alive, well and probably smell twice as bad now as they did in the 30's and 40's. They're holding a White Pride parade and anti-racism march is being planned and I plan to be in attendance with camera in hand.

Nazis piss me off. I remember watching documentaries about hate-groups in high school and most of them were the same story: Fat and friendless in high school, decided to become a Nazi so that way you'll be accepted somewhere blah blah blah. Then they go to prison, meet up with more Nazis, get some stupid tattoos and basically ink themselves so stupidly that it's impossible for them to interact in normal society...like this jackass.

Just the kind of guy you hope your daughter brings home

Naturally with such ignorance out in full force, I could be tempted to unleash my superpowers and beat all up and drop them off at the nearest Jewish doctor's office but instead, I've devised a few ways that you can have fun with Nazis. That's right, fun with Nazis.


1) Bring Three Stooges Videos-If you're going to do this, I recommend Back From the Front or any other sketch where they parody Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party like You Nazty Spy. But if you want to really offend these asshats, then go with Back From the Front.


After all, what's going to piss off some Nazi's more than the story of three Jews who board the S.S. Schiklgruber and easily defeat it's entire crew and dispatching of the captain and his officers by having Moe Howard dress up as Hitler?

"Hang Hitler."

2) Insist that Everybody's Home is Africa-I watched the boxing documentary When We Were Kings about the Ali/Foreman 'Rumble in the Jungle' in Zaire. At one point Foreman can be clearly heard saying, "Africa is the cradle of civilization. Everybody's home is Africa."

Everybody you say? Christ, just try to say that to a Nazi and not have him foaming at the mouth in pure rage.

2A) Ask What their Real Name is-Go the Nation of Islam route. I remember a scene from Malcolm X where he is asked what his real name is by his Muslim preacher. He gives his full name but is then told that that name (Malcolm Little, specifically the surname) is the name of the slave owners who owned his family.

And since everybody's home is Africa...well, for all I know Schweitzer was probably some evil plantation owner in Africa! In fact, I bet that history has twisted his image so that he looks like some great man who won the Nobel Prize. Thank God my family escaped his clutches decades ago! But in escaping, we forgot our true names that were given to us.

Albert Schweitzer: Nobel Prize winner, humanitarian, slave master.

3) Remind them that "Buffalo Bill" was probably a Nazi-Some of you might be aware of this but in The Silence of the Lambs, the transvestite serial killer Buffalo Bill can be seen with a swastika in his bedroom when he's going for his gun. It's one of those 'blink-and-you-miss-it' scenes. Now what the hell a transvestite is doing with a swastika in his/her bedroom really has me scratching my head.

Still, in all reality, these Nazis probably have Buffalo Bill up there with Hitler. We know that even though these Nazis hate anyone who's not white or straight but in all honesty, they wish they could be Buffalo Bill. Hell, this might not make them mad so much as it may help them.

"It rubs the lotion on it's skin or else it reads Mein Kampf again."

I'm looking forward to this rally in two weeks. Hopefully I can get some good pictures and some funny stories while I'm there. Stay tuned...

Vote for Pedro, I mean Bieber

Most people who know me know that I take a big interest in American politics. I have ever since 9/11 and it's probably what got me interested in paying attention to the news and into journalism. It lead to me acting like an absolute know-it-all jackass in my Politics class.

And one thing you may not know about me is that I don't like Justin Beiber.
At all. I don't understand the appeal and I don't understand why he's got people like Usher and Ludacris appearing in his music videos. Does he have footage of them engaging in gay sex or murdering someone?
Plus, why are girls going nuts about him? Do they even look at this guy? Every time I see him, I think I'm looking at Hillary Swank in Boys Don't Cry.

"I've seen Usher do things you don't wanna know about!"

I'm not one of these psychos who want him to die a horrible death, I just wish he would sound like he's hit puberty when he's singing about how he's in love with a girl. Look, I'm sure he's a very nice guy but...I don't know, he just seems very wimpy.

Anyway, I'm getting off subject. With the 2010 midterm elections coming up in November, it's becoming more and more clear that the Republicans are going to take back most of the seats they lost four years ago as well as gaining some new ones. Quite a turnaround considering that after 2008 people thought the Republican party was obsolete.

With the Obamamentum (Someone see if that word's trademarked or not) over with, the Democrats are getting more and more desperate but the strategy of blaming George W. Bush doesn't seem to be working like it has in past years. So, in their own desperation, they decided that the best way to appeal to the American voter would be to use an underage Canadian.

Yeah, now that you're back from that and changed your pants since you most likely pissed them, let's go over a few things.

I guess he watched the video...

Why is this in black and white? You're trying to hard to be edgy. Just show it in colour, stop being so pretentious. It's a dumb political commercial, not Schindler's List. And for God's sake, why do you have twenty people speaking to me? One spokesman wasn't enough, you had to give each one a five second snippet before cutting to another hipster turd?

It starts out with some guy who looks like he's trying way too hard to look like Seth McFarlane who says, "This isn't your standard election year video of celebrities asking you to vote."
Thank God. The last thing I wanna see in my commercials is some has-been actor from the 80's reminding us that they're still alive and then telling us what choices we should make.

"It's us. Asking you to vote for celebrities who can't."
If they can't vote, then they're shit outta luck.
"Celebrities like Justin Beiber."
WHAT!?
Why the fuck should anyone worry about Justin Beiber in this election? He hasn't lost his job, or in any danger of losing it at least until his balls drop? Seriously, I know Obama's kinda out of touch but Christ almighty.
Oh and it seems the smug has gone to your brain because if you did any research you would know that JUSTIN BIEBER IS CANADIAN!!!

Cut to footage of Bieber being chased by a crowd of screaming girls and then back to some chick who looks way too hot to be saying the stupid shit that comes out of her mouth.
"Yet whomever we vote for in the 2010 midterm elections will impact his future."

How? He's not going to care. Seriously, why don't you just make a commercial that says, "Republicans don't like Justin Bieber and shall kill his followers." Do, I care about his future? No, he's got his millions upon millions while some people are trying to figure out whether they should pay the bills or buy groceries.
Hey, why not say something smart like, "Whomever we vote for will impact all our futures"?

Cut back to fans cheering about him and then cut back to some homely looking chick who finally says, "And ours."
But the thing is, after that last hot chick, you were expecting you'd see her again, but they got...the other girl and you recoil in disbelief and shock, therefore probably missing her message.

Cut to footage of Bieber being hit on stage by a projectile and then cut back to the speakers.
"Members of congress may have the power to vote for or against legislation but we have the power to vote for or against every one of them."
You know, this is common knowledge if you're not an idiot.

"So tell your parents."
Make me, jerk.
"Your grandparents."
I said, 'make me', asshat.
"Your Facebook friends."
You don't tell me what to do...

"Your friends from karate class."
I don't do karate. I do boxing and you sound like you need a left hook to the liver!
"Your MySpace friends."
Nobody has MySpace anymore! What is this 2005?
"Your sisters."
If I tell my sisters anything it'll be that my parents have always loved me more than them.
"Your brothers."
I don't have any brothers. Jesus Christ, how big did you think my house was growing up? Where the hell would we put all those kids who my parents didn't love as much as me?

"Your step-brother."
I don't have one and if I did, I wouldn't speak to him.
"Your Jonas Brother."
My...what? Seriously, you're looking to get a liver punch soon.
"Tell everyone. To vote again in 2010."
And what am I supposed to do if they don't? Murder them?
"If they won't do it for you..."
You're gonna say murder them, aren't you? Oh my god, you sick bastards...
"Ask them to do it for Bieber."
Oh my god, you sick bastards...if they're old and smart enough to vote, then I don't think they give two shits about Bieber.

The commercial finally fades away to a disclaimer which says, "Not withstanding his great head of hair, Justin Bieber is an underage citizen of Canada and thus is ineligible to vote in these United States."
Why don't you just say, "We're stupid asshats, ignore everything we just said."
You'd think it'd be the end but then it cuts back to one of the speakers who whispers into the camera, "I love you, Bieber."
No, that's not creepy at all. And I'm sure that sticky stuff on your hands is just glue. That's what I'm telling myself.

How the hell can these people expect the American people to be swayed by that? No kid is going to tell their parent to vote for the benefit of Justin Bieber. Oh yes, your dad just got laid off and mom is working two jobs just to try and make ends meet, but we've got to do this for Justin Bieber. Was this commercial made by Joe Biden? Doubt that, the man can barely count.