Wrybread's Cavalcade of Whimsy

Okay, so I haven't yet bothered to make any posts to this LJ regarding the upcoming Federal Election because, really, I don't care all that much.  None of the parties really seem to be courting my vote (it's all "working families" rather than "young single geeks with hopefully temporary retail jobs"), although I did get a phone call from a rather awkward volunteer from my Liberal candidate's campaign today.  When pressed for information about said candidate, all he could tell me-repeatedly and in the most stumbling manner possible-was that she'd been in Canada for "thirty-five, uh, no, twenty-five years."  He eventually 'fessed up that his computer had frozen and that was the only information he could get from his script.  I felt kind of sorry for him, but...c'mon, you're devoting your time to this candidate and all you can do is haltingly give me some vague biographical information to convince me to vote for her?  I wasn't too impressed.  Anyways, later on this evening I was clearing out my room, which consists of equal parts books, clothes, and crap.  I was trying to get rid of the latter to make room for more of the two former.  Mostly books.  As usual, the whole "clearing out my room" project lasted about five minutes before I got stuck into one of the books, a collection of poems by the criminally undderated and underappreciated Canadian poet Raymond Souster-read his Wikipedia page along with a few interesting links here-en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Souster.  As fate would have it, I found a gem of a poem that seems appropriate to this or really any other election campaign (and there seem to be a lot of the damned things at the moment).  It's called "Good Dog Sam":

Good dog Sam
never plays favourites  
especially in election year,
spending equal wetting time
on the virginal posters
of both the virginal posters
of both the Liberal
and Progressive-Conservative
York-Humber candidates.
                                                       -Raymond Souster

I laughed my head off for about five minutes before it occured to me that Good dog Sam's most likely long dead by this point as the poem was written back in the Sixties or so, but if he was still around he'd have a few more candidates whose posters he would have to equitably urinate on; the Bloc Quebecois (in two official languages, of course, or perhaps they'd have their own Separatist pissing dog), the NDP, and maybe even the Greens, although it's debatable if they'd deserve equal wetting with the other candidates. 

And I also can't believe there used to be *Progressive* Conservatives, remember those days?     
      

Current Location: Wrybread HQ
Current Mood: indescribable
Current Music: Animaniacs-Presidents Song

Interesting story today: http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/NHL/2007/05/02/4147153-cp.html that led to me getting an idea that could make someone rich if done right.  When my mother heard about this she commented "Is that the safest place for the Stanley Cup to be?"  I responded that terrorists messing with the Stanley Cup would be the one thing that I could see completely uniting the country from coast to coast.  Think about it, it would be like the day after Pearl Harbour in the States, with boys across the country rushing to enlist.  Then it struck me: A Canadian War Movie.  About the Stanley Cup being stolen while in Afghanistan and the Canadian squad sent to get it back from Bin Laden or whoever.  I'm thinking an over-the-top parody of every big American war movie you've ever seen, but with Canadians fighting for one of the few things we'd all go to war over.  Instead of the usual American stereotype soldiers (wise-cracking Brooklynite, Southern boy who's a great shot because he grew up hunting game), you'd have a diverse squad from all across Canada.  License to print money right there.

In other news, I celebrated Joss Whedon Comic Book Day (with a Stephen King chaser) a day late today, picking up the new issues of Runaways, Astonishing X-Men, Buffy, and Dark Tower.  AXM was fantastic and shocking, my doubts about this arc (which seemed simplistic in comparison to Torn) have vanished.  Next issue can't come soon enough.  Will tackle the other three in the next few days.  Also picked up a copy of Christopher Ricks' Dylan's Visions of Sin from the library, a book that my friend K's been bugging me to read for a while.  As a BSG fan, I'm curious to see if he has anything to say about "All Along the Watchtower" (wink), but I'm also really intrigued to see the methods of literary criticism applied to a non-canonical subject, albeit one that's as lyrically rich as the songs of Bob Dylan.                     

Current Location: Wrybread HQ
Current Mood: quixotic
Current Music: WrestleCrap Radio Podcast