I Like to Make Fuck Berserker

What is that cocksmoker Kevin Smith thinking? There’s a sizable ad in the new issue of Now weekly (motto: 25 percent shriller than eye, guaranteed) advertising Smith’s upcoming lecture at Roy Thomson Hall (Friday, March 12). He’s asking $47.50 for the pleasure of his company.

Kevin Smith is very wealthy. If he were not rich, then I could perhaps-maybe understand the ridiculous fee, but what are you thinking man? Do you realize the extent to which you are alienating your fanbase by charging that kind of money? I say that despite the small print that offers "student priced tickets" available through student unions. As much as I have enjoyed some of his films, there is nothing he is capable of saying that will be worth $47.50. And don’t get me started on the inevitable service charge (or "convenience fee" as they like to call it now) that will be added upon the base rate.

Speaking of service charges, tickets for the Winnipeg date of the Pixies tour go on sale tomorrow morning. Wish me luck. Imagine: the greatest band in the world, ever, is charging only $30 to see them perform. Did you hear that Kevin Smith? Thirty measly bucks.

In other news:

* I am still very busy, meaning weekly or bi-weekly blog updates are the best I can do.

* Last Saturday I was on the streetcar, heading eastbound, and I noticed some strange stenciled graffiti on the Gerrard street bridge that spans the DVP. All it said was "Heinz Kuck" in blue letters, a spraypaint appliqué on the concrete wall. I saw about four or five repetitions of the name before I realized what was going on, and it was brilliant: Staff Sergeant Heinz Kuck is the Coordinator of the Graffiti Eradication Program here in Toronto. Whoever came up with that little bit of nose-tweaking is one clever little bomber. Unless Kuck lost his mind and decided to start tagging.

* In my haste last Saturday, I forgot about some more anti-mushy chestnuts. Don’t like someone you’ve just met? Give them the rejection phone number. (Yes, an oldie, but a goodie). There are also two new books on the topic of love, or lack therein. The first will be relegated to a quick death Quirkyalone and so will the equally doomed www.betweenboyfriends.com. I referenced this particular gem in a recent National Post essay, but here it is again: personal ads from the London Review of Books. And, finally, the genius of Barry Yourgrau. I fear Yourgrau had his moment a few years back (I base this partially on the fact that I’ve found two of his books recently remaindered), but his collection, The Sadness of Sex, is a classic. Check this out:

I get a job at a hospital. It’s for victims of love. The wards are dingy and ill furnished, and the sufferings of the stricken in their squalor are truly heartrending. I’m overwhelmed. I have to stuff my ears with bathroom tissue to try to shut out the moans of anguish, the cries of longing, the desperate monologues into imaginary telephones that are never answered, never connected. Even semibuffered so, the tears often drip down my chin as I ply my mop sluggishly up and down the worn, crumbling corridors.