B.A. = Bad Attitude, M.A. = More Attitude

On a rainy, spring day in Calgary a middle-aged man with damp, wet canine smelling clothing and plastic bags duct taped over whatever footwear they might have been concealing entered a Mcdonalds restauraunt on the northeast side of town. A middle-aged lady behind the counter greets him and asks him what he'd like to order.

Bum: I'll have a double McBLT please.

He empties two pockets full of change onto the counter and spreads it out with weathered, dirt-under-fingernail hands.

Lady: I'm sorry, sir, we don't make double McBLT's.
Bum: Why not?
Lady: I suppose it may have to do with the idea that one beef patty plus the bacon really ought to sufficiently satiate even the most carnivorous of appetites.

The man's eyes widened somewhat and his eyebrows arched.

Bum: Be that as it may, it only holds true under the priveleged, not to say decadent assumption that said sandwich will constitute one of multiple meals for me today. Alas, due to economic downturn in my area of expertise, it will not.
Lady: Well, sir, your monetary meloncholia notwithstanding, the rigidity of my training and indeed the franchise employee expectations in general afford me little to no discretion in such matters. What am I to do?
Bum: In matters of discretion, nor franchise policy I can claim to be nowise your superior. Still, what's to stop you from making a McBLT and throwing another patty on that bitch?
Lady: Good sir, I trust that when addressing ME you included no comma between "that" and "bitch" in your last sentence.
Bum: And I trust that your emphasis on the ME in YOUR previous sentence did not intimate a presupposition that I might, though not to you, refer to OTHER women using the highly dismissive pejorative, "bitch."

She smiles. He smiles.

Lady: B.A. in English Lit. from the university of Alberta in '97. Sheila. Nice to make your acquaintance.
Bum: Masters of Literature from Lakehead U. '94. My name is Hubert. Charmed. Say, what are you doing after your shift today, Sheila?
Sheila: NOTHING with you ya hobo! Now do you want the burger or not?
Hubert: Sigh... Okay. And a small fries too if there's enough here.

Popularity

I'm not going off on one of my rants about banking but I put my money into one and what does the bank do? They put it into massive R.O.I. (return on investment) schemes and scams that regular Joe Blows don't even have access to; they do things with it that would land me in the hoochcow if I tried the same; or they give me negligible interest for lending it to them while charging crippling interest to then lend it to someone in need. All the while charging me money to get my own money and making it as inconvenient as possible to do so. Bankers are just bully, gangster middlemen and they represent the biggest rip job there is.

But I'm sitting here looking at a cable bill of $172 and thinking this might be second place. What do we get for our cable TV dollar? We get local network news, sports and entertainment shows that, yes kids, used to be FREE! Maybe if we snip that Rogers or Telus umbilical chord it might still be! Anybody tried that lately? Probly doesn't work any more since the advent of compulsory digital. I dunno. What else do we get? Popular shows from mostly American networks just about all of which are available for 8 bucks a month on Netflix or somewhere else online. We also get the inconvenience of having to watch the shows when the stations air them. Or record them. We also get one more thing: commercials which pay for the shows many many times over. Yet cable crooks STILL have the balls to charge and charge exhorbitantly for that which should be free.

I listened to Chilliwack Greatest Hits this morning and recently watched Searching For Sugarman, the Oscar winning doc about Sixto Rodriguez. You can find both Rodriguez albums and Chilliwacks Greatest hits in their entirety on youtube. I highly recommend them! They may not be your style but the talent and the inexplicable obscurity are undeniable. And just about anyone can think of a dozen things that are overrated or underrated. Why? What exactly IS popularity and who forces it to happen? Is this just another thing dictated by the maximization of profit? Sounds a bit paranoid and conspiratorial if that's not a made up word... but if it becomes popular, if the right agencies give it their stamp of approval, then it will be completely legit due to popular usage. Maybe there are no popularity police because if there are, they sure missed the botanical barge on marijuana! But if there are, who are the people behind these agencies who profit from popularity? That's what has my mental gears grinding today. And what, if anything, is popular and as yet doesn't have a price tag or a meter attached to it?

This made me think of the new fad in major metropolitan areas called oxygen bars where people pay to inhale pure oxygen.

Breathe as much as you can today my friends. While it remains free to do so...

Simple Solution

http://m.youtube.com/index?&desktop_uri=%2F

I feel for this girl, a breastfeeding mother
who's finding breastfeeding a bit of a bother.
If she had her way, if she had her druthers,
she'd do it away from the shit and the piss and the other

bodily fluids that stink up the loo.
If I could breastfeed I know I would too.
But baring a breast gets a UK poo poo
unless in support, that's the long and the short, of the companies who

Cover the billboards with glamour and glitz,
and models who CAN bare their corporate tits.
Our world needs a sort of mamary ablution.
And just like breast milk I've a simple solution.

If you need to breastfeed your little consumer
and not nervously stress yourself into a tumor
feel free to whip out a life-giving tit
so long as it has a corporate logo on it.

You're out of the house nowhere near a toilet
and your infant is hungry. Go ahead, spoil it!
Breastfeed with assurance. Be confident. Smug,
with a Coca Cola sticker on your exposed jug.

If you know a mother afraid to shed her sweater
for fear that the authorities won't let her
an Exxon titty tatt is what you should get her.
Monsanto. Walmart. Starbucks. Even better.

So don't let young mothers simmer with hate.
Share my idea with them before it's too late.
You'll see it'll all work out great!
For I'm nothing if not a breast exposure advocate.