To all of our readers who do not reside in the Greater Toronto Area, Caribana is an exciting time for our great city. Originally started as a Caribbean tribute to the Australian actor Eric Bana, it soon drifted away from its somewhat obscure origin and evolved into week-long celebration of Caribbean culture. This sea change happened shortly after the release of Ang Lee’s “The Incredible Hulk”, which the Caribbean community derided as an overwrought letdown that was a terrible choice for Bana’s Hollywood debut. Bana himself is hoping that his 2009 summer twin-bill of “Star Trek” and “Funny People” will get him back in the community’s good graces, and has enlisted the lobbying aid of local icon Michie Mee in an effort to regain his spot as parade grandmaster.
In order to help you understand what Caribana’s all about, I have enlisted Mrs. Butter Chicken to help me re-enact our conversations about Caribana over the past few years:
August Long Weekend, 2005
Butter Chicken - “Jesus, this fucking traffic is terrible.”
Mrs. Butter Chicken - “I told you we should have taken the sideroads up.”
Butter Chicken - “We are not going to make it to the cottage until, like, midnight.”
Mrs. Butter Chicken - “Jesus, calm down. It’s always like this on the 400.”
Butter Chicken - “But why? It’s slow, but there is no reason for it to be slow. DRIVE FUCKING FASTER. [Furiously hits steering wheel.] FUCK!!!!!!!!!!”
Mrs. Butter Chicken - “Are you just about done?”
Butter Chicken - “No……FFFFUUUUUCCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!”
Mrs. Butter Chicken - [Shakes head in embarassment, stares longingly out the car window at handsome man in nicer car.]
Butter Chicken - “Do you want to stop at Weber’s for a burger?”
Mrs. Butter Chicken - “Yeah, like you need another burger.”
August Long Weekend, 2006
See above.
August Long Weekend, 2007
See above.
August Long Weekend, 2008
See above.
It’s like you’re on the beaches in Jamaica, isn’t it? Well, now that you have had a flavour of the Caribbean, enjoy the weekend!
It’s 1:30 in the afternoon. A perfect day; not a cloud in the sky. The temperature is 25 degrees Celsius (for American readers, that’s 1411 degrees Fahrenheit). A cool, odourless-ish breeze flows in from a nearby Great Lake. The beaches aren’t crowded. There are a ton of seats available on the city’s patios. The lines at the beer store are non-existent.
It is also Wednesday. And you are at work.
Now it’s 10:00 a.m. You are on a golf course. You got up at six this morning so that you could make an 8:00 a.m. tee-time at a course located outside the city, so you wouldn’t have to explain to your girlfriend why you spent 1/4 of a month’s rent just for the honour of shooting a 134 at Angus Glen. You are also standing in the middle of a hurricane. The only dry spots to be found on the course are underneath the cars in the parking lot, half of which have their sun roofs open. Gale force winds have ruined your golf umbrella. You have two soakers and early onset hypothermia. Your best friend was struck by lightning three holes ago, yet in strict accordance with his dying wish, you valiantly “carry on to the final hole” (although, on reflection, he may have been saying “carry me to the hospital”). You are cold. You are wet. You are miserable.
It is also Saturday. And your first real day off in a month.
***
If the above sounds familiar, chances are you’ve spent your last two summers in the Greater Toronto Area. You see, we’ve had back-to-back winters that were, even by Canadian standards, homicide-inducing. And that would have been fine, if they had just been counter-balanced with the usual blissful, if alarmingly brief, summer season that we desperately look forward to during the other 9 and 1/2 months of the year. But that has not been the case, friends. No, that has not been the case at all. We are now 65% of the way through the second straight summer where I will end up paler at the end than I was at the beginning; no small feat for a man once voted “most likely to be mistakenly shot with the stream from a proton pack.”
In all seriousness, it rains here every…single…weekend. It’s like friggin’ Seattle, only with a mediocre basketball team, instead of none. And the real kicker is that it has been mockingly beautiful during the work week , almost without fail. In fact, I would go so far as to say it’s almost as if God is punishing us for going against His divine will and allowing the gays to marry each other. And as Madonna found out the hard way, that son of a bitch holds on to His grudges.
Where’s your crying wax Black Jesus boyfriend now, eh, Ferrigno?
Well, I am here to say “enough!” I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take Vitamin D supplements any more!
So here is my proposal: I am humbly requesting that the mayor appoint me Toronto’s official “Weekend Czar”. As my mandate, I will have complete and autonomous control over determining when weekends will occur.
How will it work, you ask? Well, by last count, there were 52 weeks in a given year. That equals 104 weekend days. I will watch the weather network on a constant loop each and every day. And each and every day, at 5:00 p.m., people will tune into the local news where I will announce, on LIVE TELEVISION, whether the next day will be a weekend day (in which case I will loudly declare ‘yay’) or a work day (in which case I will calmly declare ‘nay’). Simple as that.
It is important to note that I can also use the 104 days whenever I like. That means some weeks there may very well be no weekend. Conversely, some weeks may be all weekend. Hell, we may have a whole month of weekend! You just never know. But what you will know is that each day you have off will be a guaranteed beauty (note that I will have access to the most cutting-edge Doppler radar technology, virtually eliminating any chance my predictions will be wrong. On that note, please send me any ideas you may have with respect to designing said technology).
But let’s not rush into this all willy-nilly. Let’s first weigh the pros and cons to see where we end up.
Pros:
Well, there’s the obvious - no more wasted weekends spent indoors. People will be healthier, happier and an appealing shade of Sanjay Gupta-brown. Depression diagnoses will dramatically decrease. Murder rates will plummet. Bear attacks on campers will…well, those will skyrocket. But come on…camping? Who are you trying to impress there, Grizzly Adams?
Tanning salons would be out of business. Which is good. Because, hey, did you hear? They most definitely cause cancer! And with our resource-strapped, third-world health care system, our cancer-specializing shamans could use all the breaks they can get.
Just think about the television ratings for the daily announcements. It would be like a big-time lottery drawing, every single night of the week. And with that kind of reach, I would finally have a platform from which to spread my message of joy, harmony and mass levitation, which I admittedly cribbed almost verbatim from the doctrine of the Natural Law Party.
Related to the ratings point, if hundreds of thousands of people are watching me every day at 5:00 p.m., I imagine I will become some sort of style icon, a la Vanna White. People will tune in each evening just to see what I am wearing (”Is that from the new Randy River line?”) or how I have styled my hair (”Gasp! He’s parting it on the other side!”). And let’s face it - ever since Pierre Trudeau hung up the ol’ cape, this country has been salivating for a new sartorial saviour.
Cons:
The unpredictable and erratic interruptions to stable and meaningful commerce caused by a highly variable work week; the resultant and inevitable economic collapse.
And there you have it! It’s Pros over Cons in a 4 to 1 landslide! So let’s put an end to weekend tyranny by giving one man unfettered discretion as to when they will take place. I can start Monday.
Oh, and as for my fee? Heck, I’m not greedy. I’m just doing this to help out. How about a $50 per month stipend, unlimited free hot dogs at all city street meat stands, and, as long as we’re giving them away, a whole shitload of bankable sick days.
NOTE: We have recently become aware that the tagline “A critical look at the headlines that shape your world” might appear to closely mimick The Onion’s “A look at the numbers that shape your world” tagline. In order to alleviate any appearance of plagiarism, the editors of Food Court Lunch have elected to modify the tagline to read as follows: “An insightful look at the headlines that shape our lives“. We thank you for your continued patronage. Anyhoo, on to the headlines!
The vote stalled earlier when the City refused the Union’s demands for banking of extra sick days where an employee is actually too sick to abscond from work, thus wasting a sick day.
Really, in these tough economic times, who can begrudge an enterprising young woman who chooses to earn a living by shaking her God-given booty in her landlord’s furnace room? Let he who has not attempted to run a pay-for-play peep show out of their backyard shed cast the first stone.
Actually, I may just be reiterating the actual message of this article. Frankly, I don’ have time to read all of the stories I post. These fraudulent insurance policies aren’t going to sell themselves to the elderly!
This is exactly why I get all of my investment advice from a miniature R2D2 robot I bought at a flea market. Hey R2!Should I invest in distressed commercial leases? BLEEP! BLEEP! BLEEP! Fine, I’ll stick with the exchange-traded funds. Sheesh!
July 28 - a day that will forever live in infamy. Why, you ask? Because on this very day the following awesome shit happened:
1865 – Welsh settlers arrive at Chubut in Argentina, prompting historians to wonder who gives a shit.
1868 – The 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is passed, establishing African-American citizenship and guaranteeing due process of law. Politicians decry the end of racism in North America, boldly predicting the election of a black leader “within the next 140 years or so”.
1896 – The city of Miami, Florida is incorporated. Will Smith rejoices.
1914 – Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia after Serbia rejects the conditions of an ultimatum sent by Austria on July 23 following the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. Snow Patrol suspected of being in league with Serbia…
1942 – Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227 in response to alarming German advances into the Soviet Union. Under the order all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so were to be immediately executed. In response, France issues Order No. 69 mandating that all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions be given a bottle of wine and a black turtle-neck.
1990- Soulja Boy is born, signalling the horrific death of the art form known as music.
1997 – Guatemala becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty. Finally!!
I was heading to work the other day and was descending the stairs to the subway platform. As I stepped down, I noticed a gentleman coming up the staircase. He was in his late forties, perhaps even in his fifties. His hair and eyebrows were mostly grey. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, but looked pretty presentable. I didn’t really pay much attention to him until I saw what was printed on his t-shirt:
I am pretty sure he wasn’t wearing the t-shirt ironically — there were no skinny jeans or scarves in sight. Upon seeing this gentlemen wearing the t-shirt, I asked myself: really? Stop snitchin’? Buddy, you are in your forties. If there is any time in your life you want people to start snitchin’, it would be in your forties. Most people in their forties own shit and have kids. Someone breaks into your house. Someone vandalizes your car. Someone tries to sell your kid drugs. Someone makes a pass at your underage daughter. Accordingly, by all means, start snitchin’. At that age, you are supposed to be the kind of person who materially benefits from a snitching culture. Conversely, if you are living a lifestyle in your late forties wherein you benefit from a “stop snitchin’” policy, you have to do some serious re-evaluation of your priorities. Still selling weed and sharing an apartment with your buddy? Still jacking car stereos? Still knocking over convenience stores? Maybe the problem doesn’t really lie with the snitches, no matter how much you want to ensure that they do indeed “get stitches”.
In summary, at that age, the only slogans allowed on your t-shirt are as follows:
- Stop walking so fast.
- Stop standing on my lawn.
- Stop taking me to movies with subtitles.
- Stop this erection that has lasted over four hours.
- Stop complaining about my casual racism.
- Stop dating him or else you are no longer my daughter.
- Stop nagging.
- Stop? I’ll stop when I’m damn well ready to stop.
- Stop sign? Didn’t see it.
- Stop to catch my breath.
- Stop dating my daughter.
- Stop telling me my son’s gay.
- Stop. Seriously. I know.
By now most people in the U.S. are all too familiar with Obama’s proposal to turn the United States into a Communist State. Most recently, the commie pinko bastard has proposed a system of purely state-run health care that will deprive Americans of their right to choose…
(Actually, he has proposed nothing of the sort. In fact, his proposal simply seeks to extend current private services, in conjunction to limited state involvement, in an effort to provide health care services to the 47 million Americans who are currently without access to any health services whatsoever. In short, he seeks to adopt a watered-down version of the “universal health care” model that has been adopted by every other Western industrialized nation. But let’s not get bogged down in the facts.)
Fortunately, the prescient Republicans have been clever enough to call Obama on his folly, pointing out that the proposed health care reform will set the nation on a collision course with the health care disaster known as “Canada” (which I believe is some sort of island republic). In support of their arguments, the Republicans have gone straight to the source: former Canadian supermodel Shona Holmes from “Waterdown, Canada”. And Shona has a message for Americans:
You tell ‘em, Shona. Your story totally checks out. Totally. I won’t even point out the hypocrisy of you suing the Ontario government to recoup the costs of your surgery amid your praise of private health care…
And let’s not forget the paragon of news media, Fox News, where Hannity finally exposes Canadian health care for the sham that it is:
That is a great piece of work! The nurse actually admitted that people do not more frequently require medical care on particular days of the week! And who could believe the magical private clinic was closed!! Forget the fact that private clinics do not exist up here in the Great White North - your story must be true! Look at your hair - it’s gorgeous!
Anyway, we here at Food Court Lunch felt that it was time to clear up a few misconceptions about Canadian health care so as to assist our friends south of the border in these troubled times. To this end, here are a few key facts that you should know:
In an effort to cut back on health care costs, Canada employs shamans instead of certified medical professionals. Accordingly, most illnesses are treated by spirit walks and peyote.
The average wait time for basic medical service is 2-3 years. Adopting the Denny’s patented “buzzer” technology, patients are given a beeper that lights up and vibrates when it is their turn to see the shaman. Unfortunately, the beepers only have a range of 60 feet, so it makes for a long 3-year wait.
Our current health care coverage extends to all medical issues, except the following: (i) fractures, (ii) breaks, (iii) internal illnesses, (iv) external injuries, (v) damaged ears, eyes, noses or throats, (vi) injured vaginas, (vii) mud butt, (viii) achey-breaky pelvises, (ix) body-related injuries or (x) scrotum-related accidents.
Our nurses are all out-of-work actors and actresses who are forced to sing while you wait. Here is a video from my last hip surgery:
Announcer: Well, then put your hands together for the host of Bonnerlicious, the nicest guy in professional sports, Mr. Maaaattttt Bonner!
(Matt Bonner jogs out from behind the stage into the studio kitchen, to enthusiastic applause)
Bonner: Welcome, everybody! And thanks so very much for joining us on this, the very first episode of Bonnerlicious. Now, you are probably saying to yourself, “waaaaaaiiiiit a second - isn’t Matt Bonner a basketball player? Then what the heck is that big galoot doing with a cooking show?” Well it just so happens that, when I’m not draining threes, I’m usually straining peas!
Audience: (laughs)
Old Lady in Front Row: (to old lady next to her) Oh, he seems like such a nice boy.
Other Old Lady: Reminds me of my grandson. Except for the hair.
Bonner: …but seriously, folks. What I mean to say is, I just plum love to cook. And on this show, I hope to share with you some of my favourite delicious and easy-to-make recipes. So what do you say? Should we get started?
Audience: (applauds)
Bonner: Ha-halright. The first thing we are going to make today is my famous “Red Bean Filling”, which I like to use in burritos as a delicious alternative to meat! Here’s what you need: first, grab yourself some cumin seeds, cayenne pepper, apple cider vinegar and some cooked red kidney beans. Now you may be asking, “Matt, can I use black beans instead of red kidney beans?” You sure as heck can! Personally, I prefer the red ones, but that’s probably just because…(points to hair)…it happens to be my favourite colour.
Audience: (laughs)
Bonner: Oh, and for any Jewish women in the audience - yes, the yarmulke does match the ringlets. (winks)
Audience: (silent; exchange confused glances)
Bonner: Never been with a Jewish lady. Always wanted to be.
Old Lady 1: (to Old Lady 2) What did he say?
Old Lady 2: I think he says he misses his Bubbe.
Old Lady 1: Oh, that’s nice.
Bonner: Anyways, we are going to put all our ingredients, except the beans, into a sauce pan, and let them simmer for a few minutes. While they are simmering, we mash up the beans into a paste, and then toss them into the pan. Now we’ll cook ‘em til they are heated through. Doesn’t that look nice?
Audience: (nervous applause)
Bonner: Let’s just give it a taste to see how it’s doing. Mmm. Almost there. Now at this point, you may want to add a pinch of sea salt, just to give it a bit of flavour. Personally, I like to use what I call my “secret sea salt substitute”.
(Bonner reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small Ziploc bag filled with a fine, white powder)
Bonner: I always make sure not to add more than half a gram, three-quarters tops. Any more will absolutely wreak havoc with the bowels. (leans into camera) Learned that one the hard way, didn’t we, Manu? (winks)
Audience: (murmuring, confused)
Bonner: (turns around rapidly, quickly sniffs something off his pinky) Alright! (bounces up and down) Now we’re cooking! Now we’re feeling it! Who wants to make some power shakes?
Audience: (murmuring loudly)
Old Lady 1: He seems awfully excited.
Old Lady 2: I’ll say.
Bonner: Where’s my blender? Okay, here we go. (tossing items in blender) Let’s get some cranberries in there. You got your strawberries, you got your raspberries. (tossing gets progressively angrier) You got whatever kind of berries you want, just as long as they’re RED! ALWAYS RED! (sniffs, wipes tear from eye) They never let you forget. It’s all they ever see. It’s all you’ll ever be to them…
Audience: (stunned silence)
Bonner: (collapses to one knee, head in hands)
Audience: (stunned silence)
Bonner: (suddenly perks up) But fuck them! Throw in some yogurt, some “Protein EXTREME!” supplement, and…(looks around suspiciously; tosses handful of white powder into blender)
(Audience members gasp; begin making angry calls on cellphones)
Bonner: …let’s BLEND THIS SHIT UP! (turns on blender; quickly turns and takes another sniff off pinky)
Audience Member: (yelling at Bonner) What the heck is wrong with you!
Bonner: Nothing is wrong, baby! Not when you are riding the red rocket straight into the sun!
Audience Member: What in blazes are you talking about?
Bonner: BRING OUT THE BONNERLICERS!
(”99 Luftballoons” begins blaring over the speakers; two women in bikinis and stilettos come dancing out on to the stage, each wearing a bright red clown wig)
Audience Member: Excuse me, did you call them the…?
Bonner: NO! IT’S A SOFT ‘C’!
(Bonner begins grinding with the women; the audience begins filing for the exits in disgust)
Bonner: Coming up after the commercial break…(nods towards women)…a red rocket sandwich! (continues grinding)
Old Lady 1: I don’t think this show is going to be on next week.
Old Lady 2: That’s a shame.
Old Lady 1: Tsk tsk. These networks never learn. No matter how nice a redhead seems at first, eventually, the creepy ginger in ‘em is going to seep on through.
Old Lady 2: Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Malcolm X, Debra Messing…
Old Lady 1: (rolls eyes) Ugh. That one.
Bonner: (taking off shirt) TURN MY GOD DAMN MUSIC UP! THE ROCKET’S READY FOR TAKE-OFF! (falls to floor, struggles with pants)
Old Lady 2: So what do you say - you create a distraction, and I’ll grab the coke shake?
Pity the poor milk companies. The global recession has hit the dairy industry especially hard, cutting into already razor-thin profit margins. Not to mention the fact that today’s youth just don’t see cow fluids as meeting their desire for extreme, UFC-branded performance beverages. What’s a poor milk supplier to do?
Take Natrel(tm), for example. A division of Agropur, one of Canada’s largest dairy companies, Natrel markets a wide range of premium milk products focusing on the “better tasting” and “better for you” market segments. Unfortunately, notwithstanding the efforts of Natrel and others to re-brand milk as a “healthy but cool” beverage choice, there has been negative growth in the dairy market over the last decade.
So what’s a poor dairy company like Natrel to do? Come up with an awesomely creepy corporate slogan, that’s what!
That’s right. Their slogan is “Natrel - The Milks of Human Kindness“. Wow. Thanks to the diligent efforts of Natrel’s marketing wizards, we’re treated to a slogan that manages to bring to mind breastfeeding, oedipal confusion, masturbation and fertility all in the same breath. Boy, I’m thirsty! Waiter? I’ll have one of your milks, please. What’s that? Well, I’m partial to milks of human kindness. And waiter? please make sure it’s warm.
Sure, everybody rails on him now, but give Joe Jackson credit for being the first to recognize the relationship between prime numbers and supergroup success.
I fail to see why this is a news item. I make both my kids chug a glass of maple syrup every morning before they head out to the schoolbus. It gives them that early edge before they crash into diabetic shock.
Why can’t North American game shows be more like the Italian ones? Monte Hall + scantily-clad women + awkward animated characters +on-air telephone conversations = ratings gold. Am I right?
Seriously, if the US can’t carry out an election without massive voter fraud, then how is a tiny country like … ahem. Mauritania? Mauritius? Maury Povich? What the hell. I give up.
Everyone has those moments in life that trigger an epiphany that life has not really gone as planned. For some, it’s that time that they accidentally shat themselves on a bus on the way home from a school trip to the World’s Biggest Book Store (for example). For others, it’s the time that they fellated their own sister in a park while she was passed out from over-consumption of mouth wash. It’s happened to all of us…
Having recently returned from a trip to Montreal with Butter Chicken and Fruit Smoothie (among others), I have to confess that I experienced one such moment of terrifying self-reflection… Upon completion of our readings to children at the local orphanages (which was the primary reason for our brief sojourn to Montreal), we decided that it was time for a little sustenance. Accordingly, we headed to the centre for Quebecois haute cuisine - Burger King. I of course ordered “le Stackticon“, as would any reasonable consumer in search of toy-inspired meat meals. After all, it’s supposed to look like this:
Pour le record, it actually looks like this:
Upon opening the admittedly impressive Stackticon (w)rapper, I noticed that the actual burger was not quite as massive (or “massif”) as I had been led to believe. In fact, it was about the size of my left nut, and my nickname on the boys’ swim team in high school was “Tiny Ballz”. More to the point, I was convinced that I had been furnished with a materially deficient Stackticon, containing only 1 patty!!
In a fit of alcohol-induced poor judgment (apparently we had been drinking at the orphanage…), I decided to take my complaint to the top. And by the “top”, I mean the over-worked minimum wage cashier who was serving a line of angry French patrons. As it turns out, I was not the first customer to lodge a complaint regarding insufficient volumes of beef. In fact, Burger King actually has a protocol in place by which the cashier can verify the validity of such a complaint (seriously). It involves taking a sterilized fork from the special (w)rapper, peeling back the bun, and probing for additional meat. My ex-girlfriend used to use a very similar process during lovemaking…
Much to my delight, the cashier did in fact find my missing patty, pulling it out for me to inspect. I am not sure whether it was the look of blind fury on her teenage face or the profanity-laden comments from fellow patrons in line, but it instantly became a moment of shame that I shall forever cherish as a new low in what has otherwise been a life filled with astounding lows interspersed by fleeting mediocrity.
My only regret is that I decided to drown my shame in a fresh bottle of mouth wash, and then went for a walk in the park with my sister…
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