matthewhansen.net

Stolen Underwear

2006-08-11T19:19:00.000-04:00

PS. Blogs STILL Suck

2006-01-27T02:06:00.000-05:00

I just had to put that there.

For Whom The Poll Tolls

2006-01-27T02:04:00.000-05:00

I say, leave those polling booths up in all the schools, churches and community centres across the country. Why take them apart, put the tables away, tear down the signs?

We'll just be voting again in a few months: Leave 'em up.

Less hassle.

Blogs are lame.

2005-09-16T11:59:00.000-04:00

You know, these blogs are kinda dumb. Everyone and his half-twin has one these days and they are kinda getting lame. I kinda hate that people think blogs are "journalism" too. I kinda hate that everyone has an opinion about everything too. I think if I read mine I'd think I'm a dork.

A Better World

2005-08-21T13:30:00.000-04:00

Wouldn't the world be a better place if:

All the gay guys were like Will Truman;
All the lesbians were like the ones in porn;
All the straight guys were like Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin;
And all the straight girls were like the ones in Beverly Hills 90210.

Then everyone would fit their stereotypes - it would be a true Pleasantville.

Fuck Going To That Party

2005-08-18T08:35:00.000-04:00

I have to say, dear reader, most social interactions involving a group of heretofore strangers are beginnning to wear on your favourite sleepless bon vivant-turned-socialite-turned-hermit-turned-wannabe bohemian-turned genteel debauchee-turned author.

Why? Well, every conversation seems to begin with an interrogation to determine just what *kind* of person you are. The first question, after some stupid joke over the punch bowl or someone's strange looking shirt is: "so what do you do?"

"I'm an consultant. I'm a lawyer. I'm a teacher. I'm in contstruction. I bite chicken heads off and then glue them to fabric as part a pomo commentary on the state of the environment, and sell my work on ebay."

Whatever you say now shapes who you are; what you are - you become judged. It shows, perhaps, how much money you earn (or don't), the circles you travel in (or don't) all according to well-established social stereotypes: 1. Lawyers snort coke and lie for a living, 2. Teachers are lazy and take summers off, 3. Construction workers are less intelligent and sweat a lot.

But, of course: the construction worker could have a PhD (God, I sound like Amanda Marshall) , not all lawyers snort coke and lie, and Teachers work pretty hard most of the time. Not to say that the laywer might not inhale blow like it was going out of style (maybe he bought it off one of the highschool teacher's students?), but we just don't know, and it shouldn't shape who the person is, and what the person has to say, in the first one minute of the conversation.

I think there should be a rule that no one should be allowed to say what they do.

Stick to the tried, tested and true inane conversations about news, weather and sports. Let's not bother even trying to get to know each other, because, over the punchbowl in a five-minute conversation, honestly - how much knowing can you do?

Denmark Versus Canada: All Oot War!

2005-08-11T13:48:00.000-04:00

For those of you wondering where I stand on the "big fight" between Canada and Denmark on Hans Island - because of my Danish Canadian-ness - I've put a lot of thought into it. About 7 seconds.

I'd say it's fairly clear as to whom was there first; who can lay claim to the rock. Is it called Beaver Island? Moose Island? Douggie Island? Frontenac Island?

No.

It's called Hans Island.

So.

Smoking Rocks!

2005-07-30T00:58:00.000-04:00

I want to start smoking. I really do. I totally dig the idea. I think more people should light up - especially if they work in an office. Actually, smoking is great for all kinds of things. We always focus on the negative aspects - you know, rotten teeth, yellow fingers, cancer, all that stuff - but I say enough's enough with the bad vibes.

I've been envious of smokers before. They have their own corner at parties where it's almost like a fraternity, a club - instant acceptance if you have cigs, an instant "in" with women ("got a light?") and always, always with something to do, to fiddle with; truly, all the coolest guys in history have been smokers. I mean it just adds a dramatic flair to anything you say, in between puffs. Try it, I swear it makes anything you say instantly hip. "Did you know," then take a drag, "I bought new shoes today? They're green."

But I digress. The reason I want to be a smoker now is because of the breaks at a jobplace. It's great. At an office, it's entirely acceptable to go "for a smoke" two, three, even four times an hour. It's fantastic! You just get up, maybe round up a few others to join you and poof! you're on the elevator downstairs - to go outside! Just stand on the sidewalk, puff a bit, chat - take your time, too, you're with friends - until you finish a "butt". I'm telling you, it's a great way to get fresh air. Smokers get all kinds of fresh air, ironically, more than us non-puffers. I couldn't just say, "hey, I'm going downstairs to stand outside for 5 minutes again, anyone wanna come chat with me?" because that would be a waste of time; I am getting paid after all.

So, I'm gonna start smoking. Who will join me?

Gr8 G-8

2005-07-14T14:47:00.000-04:00

I'm reprinting a letter I read in today's NOW; it sums up so much I felt about the Live-8 concert last week.

(And by reprinting, I really mean retyping - it's not in the online verion of NOW.)

Drinking to debt's content

Michael Hollet is right, and since my original cynicism had me ignoring the event in Barrie the other weekend, I decided to make up for it and this weekend dedicated every beer I drank to African debt relief. To recreate the musical line-up, I also made a play list of the whitest bands I could think of, and since I didn't have Dan Aykroyd to MC for me, I just loaded up a tequila advertisement and put it on repeat.

Then, before I was too gone (poverty is history and I've the empties to prove it), I signed an online petition only to realize that I was adding my name to those demanding that softball return to the 2012 Olympic Games. Darn.

So I didn't manage to get the petition right, - but I'm going to try the whole thing again next week. Call me an idealist, but I believe that if I party hard enough and rock bad enough I'm going to totally save Africa.

Justin Stayshyn
Toronto

Buds in the Ears

2005-07-01T09:37:00.000-04:00

What's happened to dialogue? It seems to be an endangered species in our modern technocentric society where every other young person seems to be wearing a headset, preferably white to act as a badge of iPod ownership. Listening to music and being culturally aware is great but there comes a point when it's time to put down the headphones and engage with the people around you; you can't have a real discussion with sound blasting into your ears from a set of buds.

I see examples of disfunctionality, and lack of interaction, all around: a family sitting on the subway with the two kids sitting in the middle, each with a set of headphones on; a boyfriend and girlfriend walking down the street holding hands, headphones in the ears; or a group of friends heading home from school, headphones in the ears - none of these people are talking or connecting with one another. Are we to enter into a world where we are all isolated from one another except for the most important of interactions? In a world like this it would be difficult ot form a social consensus on issues affecting us.

The basis of democracy is engaging with your fellow citizen in discussion, talking about pertinent issues and generally finding out what's going on in the community. How is democracy to survive as people act in a more and more isolating manner? While iPod and cool may be synonymous, has our technology come to own us as more and more people jump on the band wagon? When we become more interested in self-gratification than engaging with those around us we are stepping onto a path with real pitfalls - the powerful are more than happy to have us as mindless vessels, filled to overflowing with content from our iPods rather than as active, engaged citizens.

provided by guest mh.net panelist Andrew Randell

You're Breaking Up

2005-06-22T17:07:00.000-04:00

I wonder how percentage of cell phone conversations include the following sentences. I estimate 45-55%:

"What? I can't hear you."

"Say again? What was that?"

"No, I think it's you. It's not mine."

"Call me back, it's the signal."

"What? I'm sorry, I didn't get that."

It's funny enough to see people glued to cells on the subway, in restaurants, stores, parks and so on, but the best, the best I say, is seeing people walk around like goldfish in a tank trying to get better signals. Zigzagging on a sidewalk or parklawn trying to find that perfect spot where the cellphone works. It's really amusing, watching us technologically advanced folk walk around in circles like dogs chasing our tails.

Flying High

2005-05-12T17:49:00.000-04:00

I was just walking along Bloor--just east of Ossington. There's a few bars where some real down-and-outers, booozers and addicts are always walking around, congregated in clumps on the sidewalks, talking, laughing, yelling. You know the type, drunk or high, dishevelled, downtrodden. At first, I thought, "Look at all these sad and unhappy people...all together in one crowd."

But then I looked to the other side of the road at the tired and worn out people coming out of the subway, briefcases in hand, eyes sullen and baggy, going home to their screaming and kicking kids, bills, mortgages, schlock on the set and a quick night's sleep before the cycle is repeated.

But the dregs, the drunks, the addicts--the perpetually stoned---live their lives in a state of beautiful blindness. Apart from a few hangovers, they lead a life of bliss, in a way. Maybe they know something we don't? Wouldn't it be nice to live our lives in a false happiness, an altered state of reality, instead of real and fatigued sadness?

Food for thought. So, readers: Go have a drink, or two, or three, a snort, a hit--and we can all find out? Meet you on Bloor...I'll be the one talking to myself.

The King of May

2005-05-07T13:53:00.000-04:00

Kraj Majales (King of May)

by Allen Ginsberg

And the Communists have nothing to offer but fat cheeks and eyeglasses and
lying policemen
and the Capitalists proffer Napalm and money in green suitcases to the
Naked,
and the Communists create heavy industry but the heart is also heavy
and the beautiful engineers are all dead, the secret technicians conspire for
their own glamour
in the Future, in the Future, but now drink vodka and lament the
Security
Forces,
and the Capitalists drink gin and whiskey on airplanes but let Indian brown
millions starve
and when Communist and Capitalist assholes tangle the Just man is arrested
or robbed or has his head cut off,
but not like Kabir, and the cigarette cough of the Just man above the clouds
in the bright sunshine is a salute to the health of the blue sky.
For I was arrested thrice in Prague, once for singing drunk on Narodni
street,
once knocked down on the midnight pavement by a mustached agent who
screamed out BOUZERANT,
once for losing my notebooks of unusual sex politics dream opinions,
and I was sent from Havana by planes by detectives in green uniform,
and I was sent from Prague by plane by detectives in Czechoslovakian
business suits,
Cardplayers out of Cezanne, the two strange dolls that entered Joseph K's
room at morn
also entered mine and ate at my table, and examined my scribbles,
and followed me night and morn from the houses of the lovers to the cafes of
Centrum -
And I am the King of May, which is the power of sexual youth,
and I am the King of May, which is long hair of Adam and Beard of my
own body
and I am the King of May, which is Kraj Majales in the Czechoslovakian
tongue,
and I am the King of May, which is old Human poesy, and 100,000 people
chose my name,
and I am the King of May, and in a few minutes I will land at London
Airport,
and I am the King of May, naturally, for I am of Slavic parentage and a
Buddhist Jew
who whorships the Sacred Heart of Christ the blue body of Krishna the
straight back of Ram
the beads of Chango the Nigerian singing Shiva Shiva in a manner which
I have invented,
and the King of May is a middleeuropean honor, mine in the XX century
despite space ships and the Time Machine, because I have heard the voice of Blake
in a vision
and repeat that voice. And I am the King of May that sleeps with teenagers
laughing.
And I am the King of May, that I may be expelled from my Kingdom with
Honor, as of old,
To show the difference between Caesar's Kingdom and the Kingdom of the
May of Man -
and I am the King of May because I touched my finger to my forehead
saluting
a luminous heavy girl trembling hands who said "one moment Mr. Ginsberg"
before a fat young Plainclothesman stepped between our bodies - I was
going to England -
and I am the King of May, in a giant jetplane touching Albion's airfield
trembling in fear
as the plane roars to a landing on the gray concrete, shakes & expels air,
and rolls slowly to a stop under the clouds with part of blue heaven still
visible.
And tho' I am the King of May, the Marxists have beat me upon the street,
kept me up all night in Police Station, followed me thru Springtime
Prague, detained me in secret and deported me from our kingdom by
airplane.
This I have written this poem on a jet seat in mid Heaven.

Schizobloggia

2005-04-25T23:57:00.000-04:00

FADE IN:

Pulsing music drives titles across a black screen.
The music softens as subtitles continue to slide in, indicating:

TORONTO, CANADA

And as the camera pans across the city:

MONDAY, APRIL THE TWENTY-FIFTH

The camera selects and slowly zooms in on one large old building:

TWO FORTY-THREE P.M.

We cautiously edge toward an open window, whose slightly raised blind leaves a narrow orifice for us to slip through. The dim light within reveals a seedily furnished bedroom. An attractive woman in bra and half-slip lies on the bed, gazing up at a shirtless man who stands alongside. Some fast-food items are on the table.

MATT:
(internal) Write something on your blog. You have to. It's been too long. You have readers who read it and they want to see something new. Come on man, do it.

MARION:
I better get back to the office. These extended lunch hours give my boss excess acid.

MATT:
Why don't you call your boss and tell him you're taking the rest of the afternoon off? It's Friday, anyway--and hot.
(internal) I've got to get out of this and write something on my blog. But what can I write?

MARION:
What do I do with my free afternoon? Walk you to the airport?

MATT:
Well, we could laze around here a while longer.

MARION:
Checking out time is three P.M. (They sink down on the bed, facing each other. More kissing and caressing.) Hotels of this sort aren't interested in you when you come in, but when your time is up-- Oh, Sam, I hate having to be with you in a place like this!

MATT:
Yes, you are right. I better go then.

Pontiffication

2005-04-11T11:11:00.000-04:00

I have no interest in a sweeping criticism of the Pope or Catholicism in general right now, but I won't praise the papacy either. What I would like to point out is this: I see cars everywhere with horrible, gaudy (pardon the pun) Polish or Vatican flags on their cars; these are akin to the ones during the Stanley Cup or World Cup of Soccer.

Do you really think that putting a bent, cheap flag hanging out the side of your car--quite possibly one of the tackiest things money-hungry companies, eager to profit from your sentimentality--is respectful of JP, or your Church?

Go team go.

Did I Say That?

2005-03-25T11:50:00.000-05:00

I've had a few people email me with some links that reveal the power of the internet. Here's one.

http://www.jimpoz.com/quotes/speaker.php?speakerid=435

The Sky Is Half Full

2005-03-21T01:22:00.000-05:00

What's the difference between a forecast that's partly cloudy, and a forecast that is partly sunny?

Icy Glares

2005-03-16T10:32:00.000-05:00

So I'm riding along the Lakeshore bike trail, fresh from Arizonian warmth, hating every minute of the ice and snow and sleet and dogshit. The trail becomes a sheet of ice; I'm forced to walk/ride it until the next intersection so I can get back on the road. There's a good 500 metres of ice-covered trail, with less than a centimetre of "pavement": I push my bike along that by taking my feet out the pedals and push on through the ice flinstones-style. Halfway along this sheer stretch, I see a female jogger, running directly towards me. By directly, it's not just that I mean opposing direction--I mean *right* at me.

I'm precariously trying to keep my bike upright on this centimetre of pavement, (which, with every second, is rapidly decreasing) making sure I don't slip--and she is coming right at me, scowling. Finally, she almost brushes against me, and I'm stupified.

"Are you going to move?" she grunts.
"Are *you* going to move?" I laugh back, incredulously.
"You're supposed to move out of the way!" She glares, running by.

This is where I stop, and look around. It's -5, and we are both running on a trail that is covered in ice. This isn't hyperbole--it really is ice. Complete ice. Ice, ice, ice. Practically unrunnable, definitely unrideable. We've both just landed on this ice by happenstance and I'm sure she will take to the road once she can. I can't believe that she's ready to knock me over in a territorial fight for the millimetre of "trail" that is left.

"I'm supposed to move out of the way?" I say, "Where, I say, where, is the sign that says `Please yield to bitchy slow-moving yuppy joggers on the Lakeshore Sheet Of Ice Trail?' Where is that sign?"

And I look around, gesticulate a bit, shrug my shoulders.

She stops, opens her mouth to say something but instead all she can do is shake her head in a way that mimics Scarlet O'Hara saying, "Well, I nevah!"

"Is there a sign?" I repeat, "Maybe it's covered in ice?"

p.s. I was smiling the whole time through this incident. Please don't arrest me for road rage.

The Dream Machine

2005-03-12T10:24:00.000-05:00

I went and saw "The Dream Machine" last night at the Theatre Passe Muraille and was so moved by hearing Allen Ginsberg's "America" read aloud that I just have to repost it here:

America

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial
for
murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came
over
from Russia.
I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie
producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.
Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of
genitals
an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles and hour and
twentyfivethousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underpriviliged who live
in
my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his
automobiles more so they're all different sexes
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they
sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the
workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party
was in 1935 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother
Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have
been a spy.
America you don're really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take
our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. her wants our
auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him makes Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers.
Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts
factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

A Keep It Simple Stew

2005-03-10T23:35:00.000-05:00

Some basic rules that stewed in my head today that I believe can make life simpler and easier.

1. There's only a few people who truly need cellphones or pagers: Hookers, drug dealers, bike couriers and real estate agents.

As for the rest of us--come on--is there anything that important that we need to talk on the phone in the subway, on the bus, in the car or at a restaurant? Throw the phone in the lake. You'll feel better.

2. Stop watching so much TV. Honest. Think of the hours of your life that have been spent in front of the boob tube. Are you any smarter or wiser knowing who killed J.R., or who Rachel chose over Ross and Joey? Does it really matter who Donald Trump picks? In short: sitcoms make us feel fat and ugly and the news makes us feel scared. Turn it off, go sit on a bench in the park and read a book.

3. The only people who should wear matching tracksuits are athletes walking around the Olympic village during the Games. Everyone else, ditch them. You look ridiculous.

4. The only people who should regularly go to tanning salons are strippers. (Or chain smokers who are trying to look "healthier"; the raspy-voiced, wrinkled nicotine addict simply must have a nice golden hue.)

5. If you are one of those people who is always told, "you give crummy directions", it's probably because you don't know how to read a map. Learn which way North and South and West and East are. It's much easier than saying "go left here, and right there."

6. Resist the urge to rage on the road. As long as you don't die, it's not worth trying to educate someone on how they should drive. Screeching at someone through a near-soundproof car window and giving the finger at 120km/h on the highway won't teach them anything. Let it go. Life's short enough.

7. No matter how funny they sound in private, no one likes a public fart once you pass the age of 11. Once you hit twelve, hold it in until you can be alone. Then, let it rip.

Torawna Or Bust

2005-03-07T11:38:00.000-05:00

Friends, neighbours, and lima beans:

I'm a' comin'. Toronto-bound; Canada-set; I'm leaving on a jet plane to Canuckistan.

Youppi! Back to the freakin' cold weather, insecurity and cynicism of our home and native land!

Oh.....Canada?

Sand For Sale

2005-02-28T10:37:00.000-05:00

While riding through hot, sunny Tucson (please note the two words "hot" and "sunny") on a hot and sunny day, my brother and I noticed (at a quick stop for a drink, on accounta the hot and sunny-ness) something quite odd.

A tanning salon.

It actually got me thinking of some profitable ventures here. A great way to reduce overhead for a tanning salon here would be to just get rid of the roof of the place and lay down some cots. Then, simply charge people 10 dollars to come into your building and lie down to tan. Huzzah! A tanning salon.

The other ventures I've thought of include a cactus store, and a sand store. These places would be ideal for the Arizonan and his or her cactus and sand needs. Heaven knows how hard it is to get decent sand and cacti these days.

Epilogue: I've seen one cactus store (no, really!) thus far. Still looking for the sand depot.

A Reality Check From A Moron

2005-02-25T10:17:00.000-05:00

Check this out. It rocks...

http://beernporn.blogspot.com/2004/05/friendly-reality-check.html

Errands for Arizona

2005-02-22T13:04:00.000-05:00

It's 1am and I'm finally ready (well, pretty much) to head to AZ tomorrow for a training camp. I've never been the most organized, but I always find, without fail, that the day before a travel day I am always scrounging to get things together.

Things can't be found (passports, wallets, shoes, left insole, tickets) and bike parts need replacing--always at the last minute. And always, always, something that I didn't count on, occurs. (Today, I couldn't find a sizable cheque that needed to be cashed. After cleaning up the apartment and setting out a few garbage bags to the trash, and admiring my clean room--the cheque was nowhere to be seen. Long and stinky story short: I had to go a spelunking in the trashcan.)

Laundry always seems to be done late--I've never not gone to bed without the thump-thump-thump of the dryer as a quiet reminder that I'm not quite fully packed. And the bike, though cleaned, repaired and ready to go--is still not in the bike bag; this will happen tomorrow after a quick ride.

And now, being a grown-up (sortakindanotreally) means other things--deadlines for articles, paying the rent in advance, email auto-replies and the proverbial check to verify the oven is off--on top of the piddly pack and bikecheck.

But, to think--warm climes ahead! O, doth the warm sun harken me! O, shall I be joyous to garnish my pale skin with sunscreen! Arizona: lock up your daughters and stock your tacquerias--I am him, the time is now--Hansen's a comin'.

An Arizona Persona

2005-02-18T22:01:00.000-05:00

To my three or four readers out there,

I'm off to Arizona to pretend and be a bikerboy guy for a bit. So, I may be posting even less regularly than usual.

Feel free to haggle over Tim Hortons coffee, gay marriage, horseshit and everything else while I'm gone. I may just join in...