John here. I know, I know. I haven’t uploaded one of these in a while. Sue me! But if you saw the last one, then you know how things with my Cera Cast co-host and lifelong friend Matt went, while, a little south, let’s say. Anyways, I moved back into my folks’ garage, and I’ve been Cera Casting religiously, but just haven’t had a chance to upload ‘em (‘net connection back here is spotty & too lazy to go to library). Anyways guys, did a special one Monday nite in honour of Michael Cera’s big 2-2 and thought I’d share it. Make sure to watch the whole thing as it features a very special guest….
….Michael Cera!
This one is brought to you by Miller Chilled, the light lime taste of summer that is better than Bud Lite Lime.
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In a development as unbearable as it is overdue, a local twenty-five-year-old acquaintance of yours starting getting it recently. Citing a newfound interest in punk rock music, Noam Chomsky, and the ineptitude of the Bush II administration as foundational to her new, gratingly mid-adolescent worldview, this friend of your roommate’s friend has been halting otherwise pleasant strings of conversational Simpsons references lately in order to insert her own still-budding opinions on U.S. foreign policy and outdated popular culture.
“Blah blah blah Dick Cheney,” she said while leaning forward as if it indicate her seriousness, before adding. “Something something weapons of mass destruct-blah.” Despite your long held understanding of her as a normal, perfectly inoffensive individual who listens to bad music, watches uninteresting movies, and reads only magazines, your associate—who you’re not even all that close with, really—has recently started asking you for book recommendations.
“I’ve heard Atlas Shrugged is pretty good,” she said, pronouncing it “At-last,” before your eyes glazed over and you stopped listening completely.
Despite you and your real friends’ best efforts to re-direct the conversation to the episode of Seinfeld where George eats the eclair out of the garbage pail, your acquaintance was unrelenting, blathering on for minutes about how 9/11 was a controlled demolition and how the Catholic church’s stance on abstinence within the clergy is “inherently hypocritical.” She then proceeded to ask if you had “any good documentaries” she could borrow.
“She’s been really fucking annoying me lately,” your pal Brian commented. “Doesn’t she get that the rest of us were saying stuff like ‘opiate of the masses’ and reading the Coles Notes for The Communist Manifesto in high school? I mean, how old is she? Like 30? I heard she just bought a London Calling tee off the Internet!”
Sure enough, days later she would pop by your apartment again, for god knows what reason, wearing a tastefully pre-faded shirt emblazoned with the cover of the Clash’s seminal 1979 album. “Have you guys ever heard this record?” she asked coyly, clearly oblivious to the fact that it’s number 8 on Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Rock and Roll Albums of All Time and everybody and their goddamn aunt has not just heard it but whistles the bassline to “Jimmy Jazz” at least twice a week. She then went on to ask if “you dudes” have ever seen “This Is Spinal Tap,” again uneducated to the reality that everyone you know had seen the movie before they turned fifteen and that most people just call it “Spinal Tap.”
Reports from high school friends of this girl you don’t even really know suggest that while the rest of you were listening to punk, heavy metal, and progressive rock music, reining in potential acne breakouts, and plotting the best time to start a cafeteria food fight, this chick was dancing around her bedroom to FM radio and dating boys. Other sources suggest that she didn’t even start smoking until she was 21.
“It wasn’t down in, it was sort of on top. Above the rim!” one of your good-time buddies interjected, as a means of rejuvenating the basement apartment’s energy.
“You my friend have crossed the line that divides man and bum,” your buddy Pete rejoined.
“You dudes seen Arrested Developments yet?” she asked, and you wondered how long it would be before one of you moves out of town.
Ding-dong, fellow college-age persons! Is this a sick party happening or what? Buddy of mine, Craig, told me that it’s you guys who are the ones who throw the whackest (or is it most whack?) parties on my beat, I mean street. Mind if I come in?
Cool, cool, cool. Cool setup. I really dig the posters. Pink Floyd? Tell me about it, right. Can’t believe Dark Side still holds up after what, thirty-five, thirty-six years? Unbelievable. Who do you guys think rocks the most, Floyd of Zeppelin? Classic debate.
So guys, point me towards the keg! I got to thinkin’ and the thoughts I’m thinking is I’m thinkin’ drinking. Oh. No keg? BYOB eh? Hmmm…novel, novel.
Let me just turn my ballcap around here. There we go.
Well if there’s no beer for a thirsty twenty one or two-year old like myself to drink, then I know another way to get all buzzed up. You know what I’m thinking? A l’il marihuana. Some of that Mary Jane. Ol’ Schedule IV. That goofy green stuff that you can roll like a cigarette or smoke out of a water pipe or bake into brownies and sell to school children. You holding?
No. I’m not a cop.
And frankly, I’m a little offended by the suggestion. Come on bro, dude. I mean dude I’m just trying to get high, man. Get a little wacky off that weird ‘backy, you know?
What do you mean nobody calls it weird ‘backy? That’s what everyone calls it down at the office. Uh, yeah the office. I work at an office. But it’s in the back of like a record store or something. And anyways where I come from, Kitchener, everyone calls it weird ‘backy. That’s like the name for it on the streets or in the dorms in the hash dens or whatever.
Oh, so what? So you guys don’t have hashish dens anymore? Come on. Are you serious? Busting up a place like that used to be a gas. All those stoned hippies just—what? Yeah man, that’s what we call it in Kitchener, guy. When you really hit up a den and inhale some serious hashish smoke it’s called busting it up. Like as in, “Oh man we really busted up that hashish den last night, what an irresponsible time!”
I told you. I’m not a cop.
I’m just one of you guys, you know? Just looking to pal around and get a little nutty. Do some weed and drop the needle on the Floyd and see what happens? What do you mean you listen to Pink Floyd on your iPod?! Come on, guys! How can you even pretend that you’re coming anywhere close to hearing it!
Whew, sorry about that. Still got a bit of pent-up aggression from that game of pick-up frisbee I was particpating in earlier. But it’s like I’m saying. Sure. Sure I look a bit older, and heavier, and my face seems a bit more dour and compromising. But so what? That’s how everyone hangs their head in Kitchener, bud.
And it’s interesting you mention it, being a cop I mean. ‘Cos I was reading the other day in some youth culture rag that a lot of people assume that if you ask a cop if they’re a cop they have to tell you or else it’s like entrapment, right? But really that’s not true at all. It’s much, much more complicated than that.
I mean ‘cos think about it, right? Like remember that episode of Hill Street Blues when Belker and Washington are undercover at the X-rated movie theatre? Well you think if someone, like let’s say the guy selling popcorn, was like, “Oh are you guys cops?” you think they’d just say, “Oh yeah we are and we have to tell you” and then pack up and head home? Wouldn’t make for much of an episode. Wouldn’t make for much of a Thursday night.
What do you mean you don’t know who Detective Sergeant Michael Belker is?
You’re all under arrest.
Hey Mrs. S! Thanks for a wonderful semester! I’ll always remember you even when I’m breaking records at State. You taught me to point my index finger at society, and not my middle finger at jerks. Maybe our paths will criss-cross again someday. Maybe then the world will finally be run by that ancient race of philosopher kings. Who knows? Not me.
The Lane Not Taken
Two lanes diverged on a busy road,
And I knew the right led to my work
And with my Spectra, down I slowed
And glimpsed at where the traffic flowed
To a halt behind some dumbass jerk.
Then took the other, cause what the hey?
And making perhaps a bit more sense,
Cause it looks empty, at least I pray;
Plus there’s a Wendy’s along the way,
Large fries and burger would be intense.
But down to the right was Stacy Gray
With whom I longed to make sweet love.
Oh, I kept that for another day!
Though probably should have made the play,
A Namath pass from up above.
I shall be telling this with a pie
At Wendy’s twenty minutes hence:
Two lanes diverged on a road, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that is why I am different.
P.S. Hey maybe hip-hop is like my generation’s poetry.
P.P.S. Did you ever notice that most people in school dress exactly the same? It’s (sorry, it is) like they don’t have any individualism, or whatever.
Peace
(keywords: Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken)
]]>So just now I accidentally hit refresh on my “Whisper of the Heart” divx download, and found myself with about an hour to kill. Anyways, heres what happens when you put all our faces together. I wont show you the parent images because I’m too lazy:
This is Deanna and Lee: Deanna, as a visual suggestion, a blonde five o’clocker miiiight be worth looking into.
Me and Ed: Holy Adorable, Ed, what are we going to do about this? It’d be a crime against man if this little sprite were never to know the pleasure of laying at our feet while we warm ourselves on the familial hearth. That brings me to:
Millar and Ian: the only picture of Evan on file is the one his mother gave to me after I gave her a warm stone massage and then we took a shower together. Bear with me folks, its from 1999, so the science is a little wonky to begin with.
Doyle and Max: Smouldering and composed.
What next? Add 8 parts friendship, 2 parts good time, a dash of laughs, and you’ve got this handsome fellow(?)!
You know what movie I saw the other day that I haven’t seen in a while? “Holy Fire”. Man, it is seriously so good. It’s like the best movie ever. I’m not lying, its up there in the All-Time Top Ten.
What, are you kidding me? Dude, you have to see it.
Do you have a mind? Well then prepare for it to get blown compadre.
I’m serious man, there is no way it will not blow your mind. Unless you don’t have a mind, because then there would be nothing to blow. Plus, if you didn’t have a mind you wouldn’t be able to understand it in its fullness, what with all its eccentric storylines, plot intricacies and whathaveyous.
But no, you’d understand. You, my friend, have the brains to grasp the profundity that it presents, the cinematic depth that is so ruthlessly and mercilessly explores. It’s right up your alley. Knowing you, you’d love it, go absolutely apeshit for it. You’d sit still, jaw agape, drool collecting at the side of your mouth, wondering just how a human person managed to so adeptly encapsulate all that is intellectually stimulating in such an endearingly perplexing 116 minutes. It’s so you. It has “you” written all over it. If there was one movie ever that I was to recommend to you, it would be this one. Its as if the whole thing was made just for you; Charlie Bernhauser totally had you in mind when he made it. It might as well have been called “You”.
Yeah, Charlie Bernhauser.
He’s the one that did “Fog in the House of Mist”
Oh man, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
I’ve seen it like seven times; notice something new each time too. Its one of the few movies I’ve bestowed with the status of infinite rewatcheability. Are you sure you’ve never seen it? What about high?
You haven’t even seen it high?
I bet you wondered why I asked you that—why if you said you hadn’t seen it I’d ask you if you’d seen it high. Two different movies. Two totally different viewing experiences. High its like you understand the wholeness on a totally different level, appreciate nuances you would otherwise never notice, think things you would never even think to think of, see things that not only had you not seen, but that weren’t even there when you were sober. I’ve seen it high six times—and I don’t count that as part of the initial seven.
Oh, is this your stop?
Hey what are you doing now, want to go grab a coffee? I could tell you more about all my other favorite movies. I have lots of favorites. Lets see, there’s…
No?
Oh well, no problaymo. Say, well why don’t you give me your number and I’ll take you up on that raincheck some other time.
You know what, thats cool. Say, I never even caught your name. Boy, how rude of me…
Well, to each their own. Well hey, its no big deal really. I mean at least now I know what part of the city you live in so maybe I’ll just start hanging around your neighborhood more often, until I run into you again. We could be neighborhood buddies and you could see me at the bus stop from across the street and you could wave at me and I could smile back and you could use your newspaper to point to your watch just to let me know that you are in a rush but then you would make that inviting eyebrow scrunch that means “we’ll catch up soon”. And we would. Thats the best part, we would. We could see each other at the local store and compare the groceries that each of us are buying while we walk down the aisle, smiling, happy to see one another. Just like in that scene in “Ruth’s Caveat”.
Never seen it?
Oh.
Well hey, do me –Nay, yourself– a favour, and go see “Holy Fire”.
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…and this is my “office”, so to speak. Why yes, Mike, that is a mini-fridge. I’m pretty sure I could paint in here if I wanted to. Just don’t feel like it. It’d involve unplugging and moving the old M-fridge, which has beers in it. Usually. And the beers that are usually in it are Steamwhistles, because I can now easily afford the uncompromising taste of a premium domestic pilsner. Ever tried the delicious taste of an Ontario Steamwhistle, boys? Haha, guess not.
Seriously though Stevo-O, Anne, my boss, is easily as chill as Bob from your record store. She smells like she smokes, and I’ve caught her listening to The Beta Band on three seperate occasions. On top of that, I’ve been working here four months and I don’t even know the bitch’s last name! Do you know Bob from Bob’s Records last name, Steve? You do? Huh. No. It’s nothing. I guess I was just thinking about how Anne and I are just informal enough in our interactions to get by without knowing one other’s last names. Don’t worry, maybe one day you’ll somehow forget ol’ Mr. Robert ‘Bob’ Kendell’s last name, then you guys can attempt the same level of laid-back understanding that Anne and I enjoy, workingday after workingday.
And I mean, sure, the dress code is technically “business casual”, but it usually skews more towards the “casual” than the “business”, if you know what I mean. Honestly, Sandi last-name over in administration may as well just go ahead and change the name of Fridays to “Chuck-Taylor-days”.
Well, “Black-Chuck-Taylor-days”, at the very least. Which is actually cool with me, because when your job is this chill, you need something to distinguish the weekdays from the weekends. So I save my red Cons for Saturday, and that way, when I look down, I know “hey look, red Converse high tops, I am not at work right now.”
“Data Entry”? Uh, where did you get that from, Steve? Well I’m sorry we all can’t work in the glamorous world of selling garage records forever, man. While you’re behind that counter making minimum wage hawking Sonics re-issues that people don’t even need anymore because of the internet, I’m halfway to owning a motherfucking Pontiac Sunfire. So have fun with all that Montreal youth-culture stuff, man. All the rest of us in the twenty-four to twenty-nine year old demographic driving late-model coupes during our generous vacation allotments will all be very impressed with your bus passes, your jean jackets, and your unruly, fly-by-night bangs.
Besides, did you even see this computer? Did you even see it? What’s that little symbol underneath the screen right there? Could you maybe identify that for the rest of us Mike? Yeah. That’s right. An Apple. It’s not really ‘data entry’ when you have a built-in webcam and something like fifteen professional-quality photo-filters to put over the corresponding jpegs. And I know you guys have noticed the difference in MSN Messenger pictures lately, because I mean, I can essentially chat whenever the hell I feel like it. And do. And I do other creative ventures, too. Yeah, you laugh it up Mike, but you see this Jetplanes of Abraham show poster of a neon deer exploding? Two words: All, me. And that show was fucking awesome. We had pizza and everything. Do shows in Montreal have pizza usually? Don’t think so. I would say, oh, roughly eighty percent of shows here have pizza on-hand at all times. I bet sometimes you could really use some pizza to wash down your sour Quebecois beers over in some N.D.G. shithole, couldn’t you fuckfaces? So enjoy talking to me on Messenger all day while it lasts, because once I fire Photoshop 4 up on this little puppy, you won’t be seeing this handsome emboss-filtered face in the corner of your MSN windows all that often. No. The only way you’ll be relating to this-here guy is by emailing ericcassidy@subpoppostermakingguys.com
Shut the fuck up Steve, you know I meant Seripop.
And Ottawa – no, listen – Ottawa is actually pretty cool. Take the food, for instance: I know you guys probably think you’ve had nachos before, but believe you me; you haven’t. The Highlander Pub over on Bank does this thing with grilled chicken strips and Monterey jack that renders your previous understanding of the term “nacho” impotent and misguided. And coupled with a pint of delicious Steamwhistle beer, they’re like 7 dollars no tax between five and seven. And segueing from the five-till-seven into the seven-till-eleven-thirty time slot, let me just say that the night life here is absolutely hopping. I mean, you can’t judge Ottawa just by last night, guys – it was a Thursday, and it was sort of raining out, which come to think of it is surprising because its never rained in Ottawa any other days I’ve been here. Tonight will be better; I don’t know if you guys have heard of a little band called, oh, I don’t know, Embassies of Denmark, but they’re playing a basement show just down the –
Fuck you you haven’t, Steve. We saw them open for that other band with cellos that one time, and you fucking well know it. You’re such a piece of shit.
Oh so I’m a sellout, now? I’m a sellout, am I? Well, you know what, Steve? You know what, my man? I hope you’re familiar with the nearest bus stop, Stevey my boy, because you can get the fuck out of my office.
Oh, and Steve, one more thing: Close the door behind you.
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Oh man, isn’t it great how we all hang out like this? We’re the best. A real gang. Like Seinfeld. No. No. Wait. More like an Old West gang. Yeah. Like Young Guns or some shit like that.
Only instead of guns, it’s bongs. Young Bongs. That’s us.
Man. Those guys all have nicknames, don’t they? Billy the Kid. Um, Cannonball Jim. Probably. Who knows.
Nicknames though. Nicknames. That’s the mark of a real group. A group people are intimidated by, want to be a part of but no, sorry, you don’t pass our test. How long can you Indian-toke for? Not enough bro, back o’ the line. No nick for you.
But we, we all need nicks, eh? Agree? Lou? Craig? C’mon back Geoff. Geoff. Geoff.
Seriously. We should make names up for each other.
Or I could suggest some.
No. No.
Stay. Seriously. Stay. This isn’t lame. I swear. Nicknames. Everybody worth anything has a nickname. Clinton’s got Bubba, right?
Bubba. Craig, you be Bubba. It suits you.
Now Lou’s gonna be Doc, just because that’s the type of dude Lou is.
Geoff. Lampshade. That’ll be good.
Sam’s gonna be…Sam should be…Carpet…cause of…
No, really, there’s a reason.
He’s always rolling around on carpets, right? Man. That’s Sam for you. Can’t hold his weed. Total Carpet move! Oh man, that’s gonna be said so much from now on. Hold your applause.
No, dude, we do smoke that much. It’s totally like our thing. Other groups rob banks, this is what we do. Got it? Carpet? Bubba? Doc? Lampshade?
Ok. So we’re a group—–Oh shit. You know what? I totally forgot my own nickname. I’ve gotta have one too, right? The Young Bongs featuring Bubba, Doc, Lampshade, Carpet and…And….
Bong.
Call me Bong. Yeah. I guess. Hmmm. Sounds ok I guess to me. Why not, right?
Geoff, that’s not a reason. I mean, Lampshade, shut up. That’s not a reason. It’s whatever. Whatever. I just said it. It’s not written in stone or anything. I just think somebody, one member of the Young Bongs should actually be named Bong. You guys already have some pretty sweet nicknames. I mean, it’s not like mine’s as original as any of yours. I would gladly trade with any of—-
No man. Dude. You own Bubba. I don’t even think “Craig” when I think of you anymore man. It’s Bubba fully and completely.
Carrrrrpet. I can’t imagine you without that name.
Listen, I’m doing all of you a huge favour. Bong will be my name from now on.
I won’t answer to that. You know what to call me.
But I didn’t “make up my own nickname”. I just took the last one available. It’s like I got to the video store and How High, Half Baked and Big Lebowski were all rented out so I took some slightly boring but still pretty solid movie like Microcosmos out, ok?
Don’t call me Microcosmos.
Don’t. Seriously. You know my name. Bong doesn’t want to be called that.
Good. Thanks.
Microballs? What does that even mean?
Whatever dudes. I’m gonna go drop a deuce. Peace.
No way Carpet, I’ve always said that.
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Yo, you got plans for this afternoon? Because I was thinking that we could play that Big Lebowski drinking game where we get totally fucked on White Russians and — Dude, who is that band on your t-shirt? “Gang of Four”? Huh. No. It’s…It’s nothing…Its just that, well, I remember a time when the only ‘gang of four’ for you was the original line-up of Hoobastank. Remember when we saw them in the Belleville civic centre with Big J from high school? Man, were we ripped that night! See, that’s the dude-bro of a roommate that I remember.
I mean I can sort of get behind The Arcade Fire’s groove, but lately you only listen to all those bands made for those knobs in Mile End. Gang of Four? More like Gang of Bore. Magneta Lane? More like Magneta Lame. The Soft Boys? More like…fuck, dude. I don’t even have to rhyme anything with that. You listen to a band called The Soft Boys. Enough said. Listen to whatever you want, but you and I both know that beneath that lame-ass, pre-shrunk, extra-small Gang of Four shirt is a pretty sweet Incubus tattoo.
No, don’t walk away from me! No, I’m serious dude; sit down. Euro-Deli can wait. We need to have a serious talk about what you’re turning into. I mean, when you replace your poster of two hot chicks dykin’ it out on top of a Porsche with an annotated map of Williamsburg’s concert venues, it makes me wonder just who it is that I signed a lease with. And then there was that time that I came home early from the gym and caught you jerking it to Amelie. Amelie, dude? At least when I accidentally walked in on your last whack-off session, the girl on the T.V. wasn’t some mime-looking foreign chick with see-through skin. I mean Jesus, when did you even buy that DVD?
You know what man, we go back a long ways, and I’m a pretty easy-going guy. I can deal with all that hipster stuff if it didn’t affect us. But last Tuesday, slightly after nine o clock, you stepped over the line. You know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you? Remember last Tuesday, when I quoted Stewie from The Family Guy and then leaned in for a high five? Well? Push your fucking bangs out of your eyes and answer at me, bro! Do you or do you not remember when I quoted Stewie from The Family Guy and then leaned in for a high five? What happened, huh?
Yeah. That’s right. Nothing. You just left me hanging there like a goon, and then left to watch a DivX of Waking Life. If you’re too good for Stewie Griffon screaming “Baby needs to suck ash, Baby needs to suck ash,” then I guess you’re too good for the Chadmaster. And you know something? I don’t even care anymore. Fuck it. I’m going to Peel Pub to mack on some girls. Girls who aren‘t Amelie, bro; remember those?
Oh, and one more thing: If I hear you use the word ‘meta’ one more time, I’m gonna punch you in the throat.
Peace out.
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