yo i'll put it blunt if that's what you want, yo i am a cunt if that's what you want, you take afront, just shake your butt, New York City! WHAT?!!

remember way back in 1984 when we all heard about that infamous Pepsi commercial where Michael Jackson's hair caught on fire, causes 3rd degree burns to his scalp, and starting his addiction to pain killers?

i've been searching for years for the footage.

here it is.

it's horrifying.

prepare yourselves.

EDIT here's the embedded video, i'm sure YouTube will pull this off soon, so watch it while you can ppl



---

i'm going to NYC for the weekend for a little R&R and visit a friend or two there. I need to get away, especially with the stress of watching my beautiful cat slowly deteriorate. will return on monday....


---

on monday, i'll hafta start planning.

i found out today that i've been cordially invited to attend the 8th Annual International Women Playwrights Conference in Mumbai, India, where a staged reading of one of my plays will take place. It's a huge honour and a chance I just can't pass up! Having my play staged internationally! Going to Mumbai! Ack!

am I excited?

yes.

am i petrified?

also yes.

first i need to apply for a travel grant from the Canada Council to cover the costs of transportation and accomodation. then i need to book a flight and a place to stay, then i need to get an indian visa, then i need to decide how long i'm going to stay after the conference ends...i'm thinking a little trip down the coast to Goa for some sun and surf....then maybe up north to the Himalayas....maybe Jaipur....maybe Delhi...maybe Amritsar ... who knows. it's India!

namaste.

"i never forget a pussy" - austin powers

i just found out today that my cat and my best friend of 14 years Cocoa is dying. her thoracic duct burst somehow, vet doesn't know how or why, and liquid is seeping into her lungs, slowly drowning her. we keep trying to drain her lungs, but they're filling up faster than we can drain them.

vet says she has about a week.

it's really hard because this is the 3rd cat i've lost in 4 years.

i know a lot of you are rolling your eyes right now because i've suddenly become one of those bloggers who talks about her cat, blah blah blah, but i don't care how much of a loser i sound when i say that cocoa really is my best friend. she makes me laugh and brightens my day. she always makes me feel better when i'm sad. she loves me no matter what. and i love her.

she has these big green eyes, too big for her tiny face, and she just looks at me with sadness when i've disturbed her somehow.

so how am i supposed to put her in the car next week, knowing it's the last time she'll ever see home, and drive her to the vet, knowing i'm driving her to her death?

i can't do it. and i can't stop crying my eyes out.

if you love animals, you know what i'm going through.

if you don't, you'llnever understand true, pure love.

i won't blog for a while. i won't even be able to leave the house.

love your pets while you can, people.

i wanna love you pyt, pretty young thang, you need some luvin', tlc, tender luvin' care, and i'll take you there

yesterday in sweden, the genius dance troupe Bounce came up with the best tribute to Michael Jackson....riffing off of T-Mobile's flash mob dance in Liverpool Street Station in london, they created a flash mob in Stockholm, TWICE, to the tune of MJ's best song ever (in my opinion) "Beat It."

enjoy the awesomeness!!




and just as a reminder, here's the original T-Mobile flash mob:



how badly do i wanna participate in one of these!! if someone is organizing a flash mob here in the t.dot, hook a sistah up.

settling down in your early twenties, sucked more blood than a backstreet dentist; oh my god i can't believe it, i never been this far away from home

daily, i get a lot of shit for being who i am.

like a feminist . . .






and a vegetarian...









and a pacifist...





and a fag-hag....




and a shit-disturber....





and an atheist...








and a bookworm...










and a backpacker...







and a hell-raiser....



....but i'm not gonna change just because it offends your opposing sensibilities. a lot of people are threatened when someone takes a stance politically. if you don't think like them, then you must be dangerous.

but i like me. a lot of people like me.

so i'm going to proudly continue to be who i am....

until some OTHER

feminist,
vegetarian,
pacifist,
fag-hag,
shit-disturber,
atheist,
bookworm,
backpacker,
hell-raiser,

comes up here and takes my place.

(that's my nod to margaret cho)


---


today someone sent me a recent photo of my exboyfriend.

dude has gotten fat.

and apparently he's gone from being a chef in one of the best fine dining restaurants in london to being a flight attendant. ouch.

i looked at that photo for a good five minutes, realizing that if i met the guy now, i wouldn't even bother.

poor guy.

i seriously have some shitty taste in men.

boys, if i fancy you, seek help. it means you're bonkers.

but don't forget who's taking you home and in whose arms you're gonne be, so darling save the last dance for me

i had a dream last night that i was being slowly poisoned to death. so i came on my blog and wrote my final entry which simply said, "i'm dying. it doesn't hurt. it kind of itches a little."

then i woke up.

what the fuck?

i woke up and knocked over one of my candelabras, and the red wax candles when flying. then i looked in the mirror and noticed a few new pimples.

i'm 28.

and i still get pimples.

my right hand still isn't functioning properly from some strain i've put on it from gripping my bike's handle bars too tightly. it takes a lot more effort for me to write, use a fork, wash myself, pretty much use it for anything.

i feel like i've had a stroke.

i'm not really doing much these days. i spend about two to two and a half hours each day working out. i've never mentioned this on this blog before, but i'm doing an extreme weight lifting program. i started in march, so now entering my fifth month, i can now bang out like 20 full body "man" pushups on my toes. when i started, i couldn't even do 5 pushups on my knees. the results are staggering. i don't know why so many people just focus on cardio and they don't lift weights. muscle burns fat. the more muscle you have in your body, the higher your metabolism, which means you'll even burn fat in your sleep. muslce prevents injury too, gives you better strength and coordination. makes you lean and toned. that old myth that women will bulk up if they lift weights is such bollocks. we can't bulk up, we don't have enough of that crazy testosterone (bless it) to get bulky, unless we take hormones and steroids.

a lot of women i've spoken to have said they don't lift weights because it's "boring." that's just an excuse. get yourself a set of dumbells and get in the game already. i love my python biceps!

anyway, i should be done my training sometime in late august, early september. i'll post before and after pics then.

so i'm dreaming about death, and training for life.

is this a dress rehearsal?

i took my baby on a saturday bang, boy is that girl with you, yes we're one and the same, now i believe in miracles, & a miracle has happened tonight

i was a huge huge huge michael jackson fan when i was a little girl. i had all the books written about him, all his music videos, magazines, t-shirts, cassettes and CDs, even the rare ones he did with Eddie Murphy!

i used to keep my vcr on permanent "record pause" in the case that something MJ related came on tv, i could just take it off pause, and record it. i still have a lot of that memorabillia tucked away, some of it was recently unearthed and i was planning on selling it on ebay.

even though i have been very critical of him in recent years (i mean, come on. if you're gay, just come out and say that you're gay! no one cares about that stuff anymore! and stop touching little boys! and quit messing with your nose! and vitilligo isn't that bad, i know people who have it!), what i can only think of now is this: yesterday, Beat It came on the radio, which i thought was odd because i only listen to alternative radio stations, and you never hear him on the radio anymore! i was in my room, getting changed, and the joy of hearing this song again made me dance. i stood in front of my mirror, and performed like second-nature his infamous dance routine from the music video for Beat It. i still knew it off by heart, more than 25 years after that video was recorded. it's so fitting now that that should happen within the past 24 hours. like the universe was reminding me why i used to like him because he was about to leave so suddenly.

and dancing around my room like that to an old hit really gave me a lot of joy.

so despite all the controversy and scandals, i hope that is his legacy.

one of the few vhs tapes i have left is of the 1993 interview he did with oprah winfrey mere days after his infamous superbowl performance. these montages aired during the commercial breaks of that interview, and i've always loved them. thought it'd share them now, since i feel they accurately portray his musical talent, his performing genius, and the way he emotionally moved an audience.




this compilation of Jackson's effect on his fans was included in his 1993 VHS home release Dangerous (which accompanied the album), which i also owned at one point, set to the tune of carmina burana

Michael jackson - carmina burana
by leslie_mj

but if you'd wait around a while, then you'd fall for me, i promise you, i promise you i will

these are the trailers of three films i saw last week at press screenings.

Whatever Works, the new film by Woody Allen



Moon, starring Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey



The Girlfriend Experience, directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring porn star Sasha Grey.



all three of them are wildly different but so, so good.

Whatever Works is a clever musing on relationships (and was alluded to in Woody Allen's previous effort Vicky Cristina Barcelona). an ornery old man encounters a sprightly young southern belle, whom he thinks is stupid but sweet, and suddenly all the people orbiting their lives are affected by the odd dynamic of their relationship. there's marriages, three ways, homosexuality, house boats, god-delusions, photography, and a cameo by samantha bee. all aces in my books. clever, witty, and a typical Woody Allen laugh. despite Larry David's protestations, it is actually a feel good movie. even with all the suicide attempts in it. although i couldn't help but wonder if evan rachel wood only got a plum part in this flick because scarlet johannsson wasn't available, and we all know she's woody allen's wet dream these days. still, i think it's a funny and charming flick. my favourite line is when ed begley jr is searching for his ex wife and her new lover, and larry david describes the new lover as "he's got four arms and two noses." trust me. in context, it's a gas!

Moon is a very quiet and insular film that plays tricks with your head. Sam Rockwell essentially carries this entire film, with Kevin Spacey voicing the benevolent but cryptic computer who takes care of him on the surface of the moon for years at a time. the film deals with the issue of cloning, although doesn't really go into the politics and controversy surrounding cloning (ie are clones property? are they equal to humans born via reproduction? do clones have rights?). instead, this is more of a a character driven story than a plot dirven story, which i am usually a champion of. however, in this case, a little more delving into the issues would have given it more gravity. but it is still a tour de force and sam rockwell is fucking brilliant in this flick. i don't exactly understand the point of kevin spacey's machine, tho. he's just there to provide exposition, and in the end, helps sam rockwell's character with his secret plan without putting up a fight. sooooo, he doesn't really raise the stakes or cause conflict, which we all love in dramas. he just smiles. but i digress, good sci-fi flick that really takes the genre to a new level.

The Girlfriend Experience by famed directed Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Ocean's 11, Erin Brokovich) has been high anticipated for months now. everyone has been buzzing about it, because it stars everyone's favourite and most infamous porn star Sasha Grey. if you've never seen any of her pornos (and i haven't for the record), you'll probably remember her from her appearance on the Tyra Banks show, and the fashion photo shoot she did with Vice Magazine last year (my favourite is the purse between the legs. cheeky!). this film, which is her mainstream debut, is shot in a very guerilla-minimalist style. her character's name is christine (no relation, hee hee) who is a high priced escort with a loving boyfriend who accepts her work, and all the people in her life who use her, try to profit off of her, or jerk her around. again, this is a very quiet film, and the performances are kept to a very minimalist style in order to reflect the realism. sometimes you wonder if most of the script is improv, which is probably is, considering how the conversations flow. what i was most impressed with was sasha grey's performance. some other critics have call it cold and unsympathetic. but i thought she exuded many levels without pandering to an audience. it's a very intriguing and captivating film, i would deffo reccommend it.

i'm invited to a whole bunch more press screenings in the next month, so more reviews to follow:)