From the anals of time

At my age, pinpointing when something occurred, is sometimes tricky. My best guess is that the following occurred around the early 90's.

On a hot summers day, in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, young Gwen Jacobs was walking along the sidewalk of a busy downtown street. She suddenly decided right there and then that it was unfair for men to walk along topless while women had to be uncomfortably covered. She removed her top and nonchalantly continued her trek. In due course, as one might expect, the police arrived on the scene, "scene" being the operative word here, and promptly arrested her.

Gwen, the assertive and resourceful gal that she was, even at her tender 20ish age, secured herself a good lawyer. To make a short story shorter, the court was convinced that she was right in having equal rights to a man in regards to public (un)dress.

The effect of the case was immediate, if not widespread. In the following months, the occasional young, and even not so young, female could be seen exercising her new-found "freedom of expression", most often at beaches, parks or in one case, while watering the front lawn. Each incident that was spotted by a member of the hordes of press that were now scouring all venues they thought might yield another "Gwen", was immediately flashed across the television screens and had everyone wagging their tongues about it. Beach attendance figures broke all records that summer, attended by mostly adolescent boys (of all ages) hoping to get a head start on September's anatomy class.

Well, extremely conservative Canadians couldn't stand for such a public debacle. But what to do about it? When a "lady" of a certain age, in a small public pool, with even smaller children, insisted on exposing her ample bosom, thereby covering up her navel, enough was enough. The police arrested her and somehow managed to convict her of some sort of community standard statute. After that, one or two more incidents were reported to have occurred at the beach and that was the end of it. Canada was proud to revert back to the prude it has always been. And Gwen Jacobs was indelibly etched in Canadian history.

How much more dirty can politics get?

The following ad has been playing on TV more times than I can count the last few weeks.



It seems to me that if politicians put half as much effort into serving the people as they put into digging up dirt and defaming their opposition, things would be a lot better for all of us. I've never understood why they get away with the slanderous messages they bombard us with. They never seem to get sued. I'm sure that at least some of these messages are true but either way, they are scumbags for libelling someone so viciously or else they are scumbags for having done what they're accused of. I can't wait until one of them is "exposed" as a paedophile or necrophiliac.

Caution: offensive content

Earlier this evening, I found another reason for my waning interest in watching hockey. Mind you, it's not a biggee, but just the same...

The Toronto Maple Leafs' Nik Antropov had just tied the game late in the third period against the Mighty Ducks (I still can't believe they adopted that name). The home crowd was going wild and the camera did a pan across the Leaf bench.

Many of the players were looking down as if there was something fascinating going on down there, and many others were looking in various directions, looking about as interested as if they were at a lawn bowling game. No offence to lawn bowlers who many I'm sure can make the Maple Leaf team.

Getting back to the camera pan, it stayed long enough on one player for the presumably millions of faithful Canadian hockey fans to witness the "horking up" of a "loogie" just shy of the size of a regulation golf ball, and its propulsion halfway across the ice surface, quite possibly landing on centre ice. If it were black, it might have instigated an invalid faceoff. However, the best was yet to come. One player, who will remain nameless, only because I was less interested in him, than he was that the camera was on him, had an index finger lodged up his nose, seemingly to the third knuckle, where it remained until it was out of camera range.

I think the ending of Taxi Driver is less offensive...maybe because it is reminiscent of old-time hockey. ;)

Background music

The song you're hearing is from one of my recent music videos. I'm thinking of playing some background music here on an ongoing basis. If you like this song, it's The Beatles' Free as a Bird (currently third one down) found here: www.videosbyvinny.blogspot.com

Q & A's from around the web

Where does salami come from?

Same place steak and chops come from--an animal. A salami is a four-legged mammal about 5 feet tall that is found only in western Europe. It is the only mammal known to man that is completely hairless. --Vinny

Yes the native salami is endangered now, so cunning italians decided to gather up all the necks and arseholes left over after they had slaughtered a pig, and assorted other bits and pieces and brew it up into a mess that could quite possibly kill you if made the wrong way, forced it into a bit of guts twisted the ends and hung it out to dry, and called it salami. --Mick

Italians aren't that cunning...looks like they missed an arsehole. --Vinny