A FRIDAY COMIC

A FRIDAY COMIC

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A FRIDAY COMIC

A FRIDAY COMIC

WOLVERINE

One of the first comics that I bought was Wolverine #1.

Wolverine is bad ass.

First off, he is a cool Canadian comic book superhero. If you are a 12 year old Canadian boy it is slim pickin's to find an awesome Canadian superhero. Captain Canuck doesn't conjure up the same rugged, tortured persona of Wolverine. He is kind of like the Canadian Superman. Yes, he is good. Yes, he's a nice guy, he has all those qualities that you would hope a real-life superhero would possess, but he is sort of a dork.

Second, I don't care what you nerds out there say Wolverine is hands down the coolest X-man. Sure, those other X-men are complex characters with amazing powers, but they can not hold a candle, or an incendiary device of any kind, to Wolverine in the coolness department.

So, why have the Wolverine movies been so disappointing. They are not terrible. They are good popcorn movies, but they have failed to catch that certain something. Hugh Jackman is not the problem. That guy is Wolverine to his hard bitten core. He captures Wolverine perfectly. On the big screen you could not hope for a better knuckle blade swinging, gravelly voiced, oh, so coiffed dude.

How can Bryan Singer or Gavin Hood or whatever novice film director they want to helm the picture, how can he, or she (Kathryn Bigelow?), make it better?

It has to be Wolverine: The Musical.

Has anyone seen Hugh Jackman dance? That guy is an amazing dancer and dancing well = bad ass. I want to see him shimmy his way down an alley was tapping his nine inch claws to the rhythm of Nine Inch Nails just before he disembowels a couple of thugs.

Fans (re: nerds) might say that no one would believe it. How would you make it credible? People you are watching a movie about mutants who do battle with evil, mutants with special powers, some of whom are aliens from a distant planet and wear green tights. What would a few song and dance numbers be? Surely you can suspend your disbelief to encompass that. And did I mention that Hugh Jackman can dance like a Mo'Fo'. Look, no one watches Sharks and Jets battle it out and thinks to themselves, hmm, gangs of barely literate thugs singing to each other before they pull out switch blades; ridiculious. Sure all the nerds would be up in arms. They would think that it was ridiculous. They would be angry that Wolverine would be tap dancing. But those guys have never seen Christopher Walken tap it out in Pennies From Heaven. Again, dancing well = bad ass.

A tap dancing Wolverine, they would be cheering in the aisles of the theatre. Finally an X-men movie you can see with your grandmother.

A FRIDAY COMIC

DISTRACTIC THREE

Distractic Three: There are two approaches to this next distractic, either the 'Ace Ventura' or the 'Snape.' On the surface they seem totally different, but they are of the same animal. Hopefully a sloth. They are meant to disarm your co-workers and make yourself the kind of person people shy away from engaging with.

The 'Ace Ventura,' the fun-loving fool, cracking jokes and tacking 'kick me' notes on the backs of co-workers. Always pretend this is endearing. Do impressions of people in the office, recite entire scenes from the “The Big Bang Theory” and do magic tricks, but poorly. If you do not have an infectious laugh - practice one, preferably incorporating snorting. Make sure that you organize a Tacky Christmas Sweater day at the office. I don't care if you are Jewish. Do it. Get really excited about any upcoming holidays regardless of whether you give a shit about them or not. Decorate your cubicle as if it is a Macy's storefront window display.

Not for you? Try the 'Snape.' Shuffle around the office with a scowl plastered across your face. Always have a complaint ready at hand, probably about the office 'Ace Ventura' and their relentless cheeriness. Confront people in ways that make them uncomfortable. If someone uses your coffee mug, dump out their tea, then throw your mug in the garbage, mumbling under your breath about respect and personal space.

Honestly, the 'Snape' works best if you are 50+, the twenty year old sour curmudgeon is a tough sell. Plus, if you are older you can treat everyone like a child who doesn't know the value of a dollar and a hard days work. Have many stories that start, “Back in my day....” and then recall your time at the mill with Jerry, who lost both his hands in an unfortunate accident, but learned to pull planks with his sliver riddled stumps. There was a real worker!

Regardless of what you choose, people will stay the hell away from you. Soon you will be padding down the hall and co-workers will scatter before you as if you are a plague addled escapee from a leper colony. Everyone will be so busy trying to avoid you that they won't care if you are doing any work at all. Mission accomplished.

DISTRACTIC TWO

Shakespeare said, all the world is a stage. Fine advice from the man who pioneered this second distractic. You can follow in the footsteps of the master, only your stage need not be the world just your cubicle. We all know Shakespeare was a company actor who took credit for plays written by a charlady from Islington. This distractic requires all your De niro-esque acting chops. No one said shirking work would be easy.

Distratic Two: act as if you are under constant pressure and very likely on the verge of psychological and/or physical collapse. You should have a mantra and it should be something like, “Oh man, what a day, we were so busy. I didn't think that I was going to get everything done.”

Say it again with me: “Oh man, what a day, we were so busy. I didn't think that I was going to get everything done.”

Say that a few more times... there, feel that, it is almost like you've done work! You probably actually feel a little tired.

Hint: keep a spray bottle in your desk drawer and spritz your face down so you look like you are sweating under the weight of your work load.

This will dissuade co-workers, lazy hacks like yourself, from trying to shift their work load on to you. Make sure you complain about all the other projects you are working on: real, imaginary or otherwise. Combine that with your mantra and sweaty brow and they will eventually slink off to try to dump their work on someone else.

Your typical interaction with a co-worker should leave them feeling so sorry for you that they may buy you lunch or even offer to give you a food rub. Though the true goal is to firmly established yourself with this distractic so they offer to take projects or tasks on for you. In this way you create a task wheel of which you are the hub. The beauty is you can agree to do things for the boss and then have one of your 'spokes' pick it up and do it for you. This is a great distractic because work actually gets done and it looks as if you are doing it. Hurray!

This distractic is used universally by upper management. Soon they may recognize you as one of their own and you'll be on your way to a corner office and 'doing lunch'. The only thing required of you now is to book a decent tee time. Congratulations, you have been promoted. Don't thank me, thank Shakespeare.

DISTRACTIC ONE

I am an expert at shilling my time for a moderate per hour wage, and doing the very least I need to without getting fired. We all work with people like this, we know people like this, hell, you might even be one of those people. Others may call you a 'slacker,' a 'dog fucker,' or maybe 'useless as tits on a bull' or some other woodsy folk cliché. They are all derogatory terms because the truth is you are skilled. To shirk work effectively requires talent and dedication. As much as our ancestors taught their children to start fires or set rabbit snares, this is a skill you can teach your children. At the core of this survival technique is a trio of solid, tried and true tactics, herein referred to as 'distractics.'

Distractic One: act like you are doing more work than anyone else, complain about how useless other people are. If you constantly point out the shortcomings of others, real or imagined, people will forget to notice that you yourself are spending all your time updating your Facebook profile. To be honest this is my least favorite distractic because it can breed animosity between yourself and other co-workers, but some people find that this works for them perfectly well.

If you look hard enough it will be easy to find the faults in your co-workers. It doesn't even have to be work related. Sometimes someone has a little tic or idiosyncrasy that you can point out to others. “Hey, have you ever noticed how whenever John breathes, his nose always whistles? Man, that drives me crazy.”

Soon Johns nose whistle will be driving everyone in the office crazy and their hate-on for him and his stupid nose will obliterate the fact that you are a lazy sack of shit. The process of ostracizing John and excluding him from all work functions will have begun. John, sorry babe, but you had to take one for the team. The team of doing little to no work.

To be continued...

MATH

I have been considering returning to school and getting an accounting degree. But my rocky relationship with math does not boded well for my planned career change. 

I failed grade nine math.

I put all the blame on my teacher, Ms. ______. I had either a personality conflict with her or misplaced sexual feeling that manifested themselves in a deep rooted animosity that sprang from her attainability. Either way, I failed that class. I was also terrible at math though, too. I couldn't make sense of it the same way my grandmother couldn't make sense of the Beatles; it's evident millions of people get it, but to you it is white noise.

My failure led to a stint in summer school in the next town over. I stayed with my great aunt Aleigh, my grandmothers sister, who actually had a deep appreciation for the Beatles, Gilbert and Sullivan and wine coolers. Immersion learning was far more effective than tortuously stretching it out a whole school semester. Sure, after I solved the last equation on the final exam I immediately forgot everything I learned in the previous three weeks. But retention was not the point, the point was to get a letter grade - any letter grade - better than a 'D'. It worked.

So, why accounting?

I have a dream. Nothing noble or altruistic like Martin Luther Kings dream, but a dream all the same. I imagine getting my accounting certification - putting roots down in a small coastal town, driving the kids to little league games, playing horseshoes with friends on the weekend while consuming far too much craft beer and dabbling in yoga/kayaking/freeclimbing/recumbent bicycling/surfing/paddle boarding, or whatever soul staunching activity is recommended in the local rec-centres Fall/Winter guide.

The problem, besides my atrocious math skills, is that I vacillate nearly hourly between that and wanting to be an artist. Nothing focused, it just depends on what I have last watched, read or eaten. I may want to be an actor or pinstripe classic cars from my grimy home garage. Sometimes I want to produce high quality limited edition coffee table books about the crusades, or perhaps write a novel or direct arthouse films and give them one word titles like Desolation, or Myopic, or Sandstone.

The more I learn about artists, those who have achieved expertise and success in their chosen medium, I realize they did little else but work tirelessly and obsessively since their late teens. The recognition many of these artists experience just shy of middle age is the culmination of years and years of hard, frenetic, arduous work. Math might be a bit easier.

So, there it is: two choices, but neither wanting to abandon one, or wholeheartedly commit to the other, I resign myself to my mundane factory job and skim by paycheque to paycheque just shy of middle age, the culmination of years and years of hard, frenetic, arduous waffling.

Although I would like to, I can't blame Ms. _______ for my present predicament. Life is not like math, there is no summer school if you flunk out. Do I get a do-over? I'd gladly go sit in a stuffy classroom with other adults, hemming and hawing on the precipice of BIG decisions. At this stage of the game the only choice that really makes any sense is to just say "fuck it," go and buy an off-the-rack Brook Brothers suit and crunch other peoples numbers, albeit poorly. It might not be the path of the great artist, but I might be able to go paddle boarding with him on the weekend.

BEER

It is irrefutable, dads and beer go together like waning athletic prowess and a pulled groin. I never really had any athletic prowess to begin with, unless you count hacky sack. But I am a father and yes, now I love beer as I once loved hacky sack.

Not just any beer though. I like my beer like I like my woman, bitter and stout. Okay, that's an old joke, not even mine, but I do like my beer to have character. I like variety. I want dark beers, hoppy IPAs, stouts, porter, ales, and everything in between. I don't want the generic pap produced for the masses. If a brewery shills their beer with a TV commercial filled with scantily clad women and guys high-fiving each other, chances are, I'll pass. Sure, that beer has its place in the cultural milieu - mostly with the Wal-Mart set - like The Big Bang Theory or chaotic MMA t-shirts with brand names like Brutalize and Ass-Whupping.

But good beer is expensive. When I was a young single man going to university and irresponsibly hemorrhaging my student loan, money was no object; drinking beer was the object and my tastes were not as discerning then. Graduate university, kids come along, bills to pay, loans to manage, day to day family life puts a strains on the household finances and at the end of the day you still want to put a cold one back. But there are no bucks left to buy beer, at least not in good conscience.

I found salvation in the miracle of homebrewing. Not the nasty, cloudy stuff in plastic green bottles your uncle used to make, the stuff your dad referred to as 'ghetto-shine.' There are great kits out there. Obviously, making it from scratch, grinding the grain, steeping the cracked grain, boiling the wort, etc..., is the way to go. But didn't I mention that I have kids! Who has the time?

Buy the bladder kits, Brewhouse is great, available in almost every style and incredibly user friendly. Basically a concentrated wort, add water, pitch your yeast and Bob's your uncle. They are also very hackable. You can add hops, malt, less water, more water (why would you do that?), honey, maple syrup, vanilla, fruit, the list is endless. For about $35 you can pick up a kit that will yield a good, if not great, twenty-three litres of beer.

What?! you say.

Yeah, that's right. Let's do the math: twenty three litres is roughly 11 six-packs. Eleven six-packs of decent microbrew would cost about $132. That's gonna save you almost $100. Affordable indulgence. Put away that hacky sack, it is time for a new hobby.