Anatomy of the male preteen heart throb.

It starts with a small town.

When you are from a small town, you are probably vulnerable enough to be conned into wearing something rediculous, singing showtunes and / or being a white preteen rapper, and generally being a puppet for the industry. Or your simply just too polite to say no.



A powerful, enduring, godlike figure (Usher, Jermaine Dupree, Snoop Dogg) takes you under their wing for God knows what reason. Maybe they see a glimmer in your eyes - a prospective river of boundless riches. These enduring figures tear the young neophyte from his home, introduce him into the "game", a world of drugs, nice shoes, and scantily clad women. The young grasshopper will adopt infinite swagger and generally lose his virginity at age, oh, 12, and is probably about ready for rehab at the ripe old age of, oh, 16. I give Beiber 2 years.

Anyone who actually calls themself The Doggfather and isn't widely ridiculed for it would be responsible for Lil Bow Wow's astonishing success. And as for Kriss Kross, wearing clothing backward may not have been quite the enduring trend the world had hoped at the time, but Dupri moulded those boys into cartoon character type figures of monumental historic relevance. Their music videos are totally like a necessary institution in hip hop. And I don't care what anyone says. Those boys were fucking hot.



He has to have older, famous women spreading his name like wildfire across the internet. When this blonde sbum bag announced that she "wanted to do a shoot" with Bieber and that she was "close to his age", a wave of nausea on par with the hormones in Laguna Beaches spanned the land. Gag me with a spoon.



On that note, often times there is a virginal quality to the male preteen heartthrob that sometimes makes older female celebrities want to rip off their clothing, tie them up in their bedroom and tape the whole thing and sell it to the tabloids. Or the child star just gets married at the age of like, 18 because all they want to do is bone but are hampered by their moral qualms.



Usually the child star will alternate between singing, acting, dancing, theatre, and may even start a clothing line. Their status as a triple threat may be questionable, ie Zac Efron`s uncertain acting abilities - but let it be known that he can really bust a move.



Its imparative that he throws a lot of gang signs.



Then, when the child star turns about 19 or 20 and realizes their entire career has been little more than an artistic joke, one of several events may ensue:

a) The child star turns to the porn industry (remember screech? And Jesse Spano? Two child stars of Saved by the Bell who both attempted to salvage their careers with porno. That said, he's pretty good at what he does. His appearances on Sally Jesse Raphael making mysoginistic comments at white trash hoes do make me chuckle, I cannot lie.)

b) The child star commits suicide or has a mysterious death. (Michael Jackson, Corey Haim)

c) The child star publicly apologizes for creating noise pollution and swears to embark on a path of legitimacy (The Moffats. I guess they didnt go through with the attempt for legitimacy, though. Matter of fact I tried to check the spelling of thier name and Google was like girl who the fuck you talkin bout?)

d) The child star sinks into oblivion and is never heard of again (JTT, Hanson, Rider Strong from Boy Meets World) save for maybe the occasional sex tape, commercial appearance, or arrest for cocaine posession (Danny Bonaduce).

e) Turns homosexual and astonishes the world. (Lance Bass, JTT)

I`ll end this post on a positive note: I predict an epic comeback for Macaulay Kaulkin. He managed to wheel Mila Kunis, so something tells me he has the makings of a legend. Or maybe heès just hung like a horse and we will be seeing an epic porn tape of the two of thm in the future. Either way, Im down.

Hungry.

So I moved and don't have internet yet. I've been using this as an excuse for pretty much everything I haven't been doing.

But theres a bakery from heaven about 10 meters from our apartment with free internet, mountains of custard tarts and adorable old men playing chess, so I guess I don't have too much to complain about for the time being.

I'm really happy to be back in school because it really inspires me to make something of my (filthy and pathetic) existence. I've been writing a bunch of stories, and been working on a sonnet since I've been back in school. (sonnets, by the way, are the bane of my existence, but I can't seem to stop trying)

Anyway, I havent finished anything.
Better than not starting altogether, I guess.

My classes really inspire me but at the same time discourage me because they show me how far I have to go, how much I still have to learn. How long will I be satisfied with my artistic persuits before I grow out of them again? Will I ever be able to write a book without tiring of it after the first few pages, chapter, draft? HOW WILL I EVER DOCUMENT MY LIFE IF I GROW SO RESTLESS IN THE PROCESS THAT BY THE TIME I AM 80 I HAVE NOTHING TO SHOW FOR MYSELF!

In ACS 500, that celestial academic god Andrew Hunter divulged one of his favourite philosophy quotes :
"The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room."
- Pascal (a French child prodigy, mathematician and philosopher, 1623 - 1662)

This really resonated with me. I often wonder if other people can't read a page without their mind wandering or jotting totally irrelevant notes on the page or pacing, drinking tea, checking e-mail, (going on facebook - I'm so ashamed). I am a focused person, but the concept of concentration kind of baffles me.

When I was a kid I believed that to be concentrated was to sink into a meditative, unearthly state that was entirely separate from a regular state of being. To be so completely unaware of your surroundings, fully absorbed in your thoughts to the point that hours should pass before you emerge to discover you have created an entire masterpeice, or something. Sometimes studying intimidates me. (I feel like I might slip into a parallel universe if the library is too quiet.)

(The last part is an exaggeration, but it's not such a far cry from the truth)

Anyway, while class sometimes makes me feel bad about my ability to 'concentrate' at the drop of a hat (ie - my ability to slip in and out of a parallel universe), working with the Continuist makes me feel super awesome. We started a blog this year,to make it a more ongoing, interactive project. This years theme is 'The Hunger' - to encourage contributors to think about the issues they feel passionately about (or what they are 'hungry for').

This excites me. There are so many things I'm hungry for this year. English, sonnets, custard tarts ...

Check it out here ! http://thecontinuist.wordpress.com/

Money Aint a Thing.

A few summers ago, I lived in Calgary and worked on as a cook on a golf course called Wintergreen. It was an enjoyable summer. I only had one major qualm with my stay in Calgary, and perhaps it was born from a strange complex of my own. My qualm was this: the minute anyone found out that I was from Toronto, they seemed to have something questionable to say about it. Being a proud (recent) Torontonian, I have noticed that those who like Toronto seem to like it a lot. And those who hate it, despise it with every cell in their being. And in my few years of travel, I find that the latter type generally possess the same reasons for loathing - too fast paced, too many douche-bags, too big, too unfriendly, too intimidating ... the typical ‘big city’ complaints.

(I say fuck that, with all due respect.)

One golf club member in particular felt compelled to tell me that:
“People from Toronto want things to move too quickly, they miss out on things”

(Obviously, this is an enormous generalization and this man was an idiot.)

I told him “If you move too slowly things will miss out on you”
As you could imagine, I was so self satisfied after this that I never forgot it to this day.)

I really dug Calgary, (with the exception of the stampede, which was like being stuck in an all encompassing Gretchen Wilson video and furthermore, a vegetarian nightmare), and I also dig many other small towns in the world where things move slowly. But Toronto is truly one of my favourite cities in the world, and I feel completely at home in the busy streets. To be fair though, maybe this man did have a grain of truth in his statement. After all, my (enduring) defence wasn’t an attempt to thwart it, just to justify it. And I only have myself to blame.

In the city, the reason we move so fast is because we are such a success oriented society. This is what I meant by “things will miss out on you”. We attempt to please everyone, to achieve the unattainable idea of success that we end up spreading ourselves thin. To be successful in the urban world involves business suits, elevators, late hours and back pain. And when it comes down to it, harms our families, our health, and the people around us. Success is killing us.
Cowboy hats and country music aside, Canada suffers from the Western syndrome of unfeasible standards. Endless goals ‘pathways to success’ are promoted in schools, etched into our minds at a young and tender age. Are we meant to constantly feel like we aren’t enough?

Let us take a moment to notice the differences between Italian and North American ways of life. Perhaps the most significant difference is the pace. Fast food is basically a metaphor for North American culture. (George Ritzer called it the McDonalization of society – the principles of the fast food restaurant are coming to dominate American life, and gradually affecting the rest of the world.)Even Europe is being affected. It pains me to think that one day, the entire world will have a McDonalds on every corner.

The laissez faire lifestyle of European countries is, to me, the most opposing aspect of our two cultures. The term laissez faire means to let events take their own course. For one thing, its an exotic and appealing notion and the North American admires it for a second before mowing down on cheese cappelletti at the neighborhood east side Marios. Italians live longer, have healthier diets, and a hell of a lot less stress in their lives. Sure, the traditional Italian meal is riddled with saturated fat and wine, but the simple fact that they linger over a meal for like, 3 hours longer than any hamburger – scoffing American is telling. It’s a pleasure principle.

We North Americans have a completely different conception of pleasure. Quantity is quality for us. And that can be seen in our excessive use of condiments alone. Ketchup, salt, pepper, HP sauce, hot sauce. Does a hamburger even exist anymore under all those toppings? Why do we feel the need to cover shit in sugary tomato paste? You would never see that going down at an Italian family dinner. We’re not even eating food. We’re eating xantham gum, corn syrup, hemlock, arsenic... you get the point.

(I have an unhealthy addiction to hot sauce.)

On that note, I came across a quote by Thomas Merton one day that really resonated with me. He said “the plain fact is that the world does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, storytellers, restorers, lovers of every kind. So be anything you like, be madmen, be drunks, be bastards of every shape and form, but at all costs avoid one thing: success.”

This quote makes so much sense, and yet, the ideal is so persistent and carved into our minds that who knows how long it will take for the world to actually benefit from peacemakers and healers? But I do believe that things flow in cycles.
As a (very successful) rap star once said, “Bling bling, money aint a thing.” The truest words are the fewest words.