Sorry, I'm very sorry, but there was a time when we all begged Roy to jump to Mercury and back. C'mon Roy! Jump to Mercury and back! He shook his head, said no. He would not do it.

All I know's that despite his inability to jump to Mercury and back I've seen him leap a house, eat four meals in a row, and successfully impregnate a hundred girls in an afternoon. That's gotta count for something.

He didn't jump to Mercury. Is he just an ordinary guy after all? Maybe so. Nonetheless, I'll continue to document his suprahuman exploits.

Our financial report was presented to us by our CFO. Increases in our biotech lines were countered by slips in our nanotechnological researches. Overall, he said, there was a modest net increase in resources. Our CIO queried the nano results, wanting a breakdown between the Albuquerque and Memphis institutes. He answered her by saying they were roughly equal. Our HR chief said she'd been considering moving the microscopy team to Memphis to better liase with the stochastic branch. We tabled for research into the consequences. We adjourned the meeting, and then we all took a shower together and had sex.

Dear Diary,

Why can't I get a boyfriend? I just don't understand it. I've got a good education. I've got a degree. I don't have a car, but I have a cute little Vespa. I know how to cook. I was in an ad for computers because I look super-smart and I'm super-cute. I've got a good tummy and I expose it on occasion. I can carry a conversation. I've been places like Bali and Costa Rica. I think I'm good in bed. I've got super-nice friends. I'm not snobbish. I'm pretty perfect. Why don't I have a boyfriend? Pigs!

She is still standing on a raft in the middle of a lake.

FLACKBACK:
She stops the film producer on Gartenstrasse as he's entering his office. "Sir, I'm a writer, and I want to play the writer in your new picture."
He says, "Any acting experience?"
"None. But I am a writer."
"So?"
"Sir, I know how one looks when one writes. I know the facial expressions. I know how to snap a pencil and throw it across the room."
"Though I should know better, you're hired."
:END

She is still standing on the raft. Is her self her self.

MAN AND WOMAN

One morning, Man finished his shower, turned off the water. As he was bending down to do so, he noticed that the drain was quite full of hair. (This is a rather common experience.) He reached down and pulled out the clump. The clump was made of black and blonde hair, his and hers, all twisted together. It reminded him of he didn't know what. Marble? Pearls? Marriage? It was precious.

"Woman," he called. "Come here and look at this."

Woman came into the bathroom. Man held out the clump. "Look."

"Eew, YUCK!" and she fled.

"What?"

Sometimes I think I'm stuck on background and oblivious to form.

I was pushing my bike across a crosswalk and there was a sports car coming along which obviously was not going to stop. Yet I inched my bike forward, forcing the car to swerve. I was prepared to see my bike smashed. I wanted it to happen.

So here I am, paying attention to everything except what's important. I care about that outline. Look at those contours! There's the other side of the street! I don't care! I'll die when my bike swings back and rips off my head!

TWO CARTOONS I DIDN'T DRAW (AND ONE I DID)

1. A surgery. A brain operation. The doctor is about to make an incision into the skull. Pearls of fear-sweat are popping from his head. The nurse is saying, "Hey, c'mon, it's not rocket science."

2. NASA control room. A scientist is staring up at the display, he's rubbing his chin, fear-sweat is popping from his brow. A technician is saying, "Hey, c'mon, it's not brain surgery."

3. In a bar a bunch of dogs are sitting around drinking. A terrier is running into the room shouting, "Soylent Green! It's poodles!"

UNSUCCESSFUL PET NAMES FOR GIRLS

Carrie Martin: Carrie Cherry Bun-Buns

Mary MacDonell: Stiff Critchets

Elena Galdamez: Golly Go Gal Galdamez

Terri-Lyn Hodgson: Bonnie

Joanne Amos: The Near Cigar

Cheryl Lancastle: She Who Cannot Be Fucked or She Who Cannot Be Fucked Over

Nanci Oosterman: Deflowerer Powerer

Mary Ellen Gillespie: Helper

Sandra Gillespie: Buzzy 'Bove Boards

Maureen Kennedy: La Voc

Catherine Skelton: Vole Baby Vole

Linda Sukloff: Palsy Walsy Mamsy Pamsy Palsy Walsy

Linda Revie: 'Teach'

Marlene Warnick: Da Boss

Ellen Calder: 'The Beard'

Yolanda Mulder: 'Not The Beard'

Tammy Moorse: Tammy Bam Bam Red Red

Helena Raposo: Like Stiff Critchets

Property for Sale, Vacaville, California.

L shaped dump, only 4 tenants, grass growing freely, a naturist's paradise, back-to-earthers welcome, Sylvan and Havelock, current landlord Michael DaCosta cut down our laundry line, going to the Ontario Municipal Board, seventeen units, sold lock stock and barrel for between 2.5 and 3 million, containing as tenants the relexologist Stephen Jones, the absent Dr. Sandra Gillespie and the current Christie Stephenson, the photographer Mary MacDonell and the writer John Skaife, the linguist Mary-Ellen Gillespie and the actor/percussionist Cavan Young. All fully house-trained. If with pleasantness you come could be yours for $27.99, plus taxes.

Did I see what I thought I just saw? Did I just see one of the two young hipstery women whom I'd seen leaving the bar not five minutes before squat in a doorway at College and Dovercourt and pee into a bottle as her friend looked on? Did she stand up and did I see her walk away with a bottle of orangeade in one hand and a bottle of her pee in the other? Did I actually see her hot pee in the bottle she held in her right hand? Did I actually see this pretty girl's pee?

In our town, we were all tired of fussing over our religious, aesthetic and political differences, just sick of them. So we decided that the first baby born in 20-- would be our guide in everything. We would follow his faith, his tastes, his voting pattern. The baby was born, and we waited eighteen years til her maturity. Then she was eighteen, and we made her our leader. We all became Episcopal, we all started reading detective novels, and we voted as she voted. To the eyes of outsiders, there was no difference between before and after. But we knew.

Dear Dr. Gallows-Humour,
I received some terrible news yesterday. My sister and her entire family were killed in a hurricane. What should I do?
Yours truly,
Bereft

Dear Bereft,
Well, that certainly blows.
Perhaps the hurricane also killed your sister's rotten neighbours. You know, the ones she'd had the stormy relationship with.
Had she meant to buy a tear-down?
Just shows you family life ain't a breeze.
I hope you have some pretty good memories. Wasn't the last time you saw her and hers a blast?
Any insurance money to give you a lift?
Yours with bad wind,
Dr. Gallows-Humour

Come along with me
Travel a tram
Across these offices
With opened attics

See the doctor and his paper
See the architect perusing space
See the politician staring at a diagram
See the solicitor devising an article

Now Cupid comes
And aims his arrows
And lets them love
(Though unrequited)

Now the doctor stares at diagrams
The architect devises articles
The politician holds his paper
The solicitor peruses space

Now let it be
Requited and see
Stanza number three:

The doctor devises diagrams
See the architect and her articles
The politician peruses the papers
While the solicitor stares into space

....The week's assignments were handed out.

"Duncan," said the boss, "you I want to verify the integrity of and back-up and off-site the data for the last quarter. Maxim, solidify the contacts and contracts we set at the Houston meet. Lincoln, prepare a report concerning the loading of the West plant. And you, Skaife," turning to me, "win me the Nobel Prize in Chemistry."

"Right," said Duncan.

"Right," said Maxim.

"Right," said Lincoln.

"Wait," said I. "I don't know a thing about chemistry."

Duncan, Maxim, Lincoln and the boss glowered at me.

The boss asked, "Aren't you a team player?"

EXTRA BITS

George Snuffleupagus really really really wants to fuck me and I really really really don't know what to do!

Why would anyone in the world call their driving instruction company "Lucky?"

MMPI question:
I consider my life to be
a) candy wrapped in cyanide
b) cyanide wrapped in candy
c) both
d) neither

I'd much rather be rewarded with 72 sluts.

I know it's strange but I only laugh when I'm very angry.

So I hear the folks who make the TV show 24 are going to make a motion picture. What are they gonna call it? 2?

Children of many ages!

Introduce yourselve to a new hero! Put away the Man of Super, the Man of Spider! Look at: Crazy Sleepless Man!

Crazy Sleepless Man does crazy things! He can be not stopped!

True! Read of him in the smash manga book Crazy Sleepless Man! He fights dragons and dead hungry persons!

New books out soon! Many planned! Next book is Crazy Sleepless Man Fights Tikumasu!

In the known game, he is a psychic type of fourth generation!

Crazy Sleepless Man is up all night! He is ready to fight at every hour!

Get Crazy Sleepless Man!

ELECTRICITY

Go!

Electricity is when electrons jump from atom to atom or maybe molecule to molecule. In a wire these molecules jump along and sometimes they're bunched up and sometimes they're kind of sparse, and these patterns create waves of electicity known as frequencies. They rush one way and then back again, in the wall plug, which is the alternating current. With a battery it's like the juice only flows one way, that's direct current. Lightning I understand is an electricity that flows through the state of matter called plasma, which has free electrons. I just learned about plasma.

02:58!

WHAT WOULDN'T I GIVE TO BE BRAVER, MORE ASSERTIVE, MORE INTERESTING, A BETTER SPEAKER IN FRONT OF PEOPLE, LESS SHY, LESS FROZEN IN MY DESERT BOOTS, NOT AS HIDDEN AS A GHOST IN A SNOWSTORM, TO BE ABLE TO COMMAND ATTENTION IN A SMALL- TO MID-SIZED CROWD, TO SCARE PEOPLE JUST A LITTLE BIT, TO COMMAND RESPECT, TO SPEAK AND NOT TO LISTEN ALL THE TIME, TO BE ABLE TO RIDE LIKE THE WIND WITHOUT FEARING A HORRIBLE ACCIDENT, TO GET UP, GO OVER SOMEPLACE AND SAY, "I THINK YOU'RE WRONG ABOUT THAT, AND HERE'S WHY"

A single solitary thing.

With me today is the writer Barbarian.
So you're a writer.

A writer I am.

Who are your sponsors? The state, a foundation?

I'm all on my own, I'm patronless, me.

No Canada Council, no Trillium grants?

I just write my writings, the hell with the rest.

But who's your promoter, your manager, who?

Not into promotions or management stuff.

So why're you here on the radio public?

I'm here 'cause you'll pay me.

We're not set to pay you.

This interview's over.

He's gone, the Barbarian. My list'ner's, please join me
In hoping he soon contracts cancer and dies.

Lo, upward springs the busy grasses, dew-licked, sharp, dozens in inch; toward the cart of Phoebus in his temple of Day they reach with open praise; each green the green so not its neighbour's green, yet all the greens melting together to give the sense of purest most green; a private copse do they create.

But look! here comes the mighty Juggernauts of steel and gas; sharpened wedge and rotary motion meet the innocent blades, and reduced they be; though many live, some die, without a verdant mourner to be seen. Joy is dead!

'Twas attracting busy rats, ye see.

MOST MEMORABLE WIZARD OF ID STRIP

In the first panel, the King is sitting on his throne and the Wizard is beside him. The King is shouting, "I'm surrounded by idiots! Bring me the wittiest man in the kingdom!"

In the second panel, the King is sitting and the Wizard is standing nearby accompanied by a man smoking a cigar. The Wizard is saying, "Sire, this is Nit. He's the wittiest man in the kingdom."

In the third panel, it's only the King and Nit. The King is saying, "Hello, Nit."

In the fourth panel, Nit is saying, "Hello yourself."

YOUTH


The revolution has occurred!

Young people occupy all positions of power!

***

The Secretary of House confers with the President.

"Gossum phat beats fer ya, dude!"

"Awesome!"

The Secretary of Roadz and Highwayz confers with the President.

"Prez, we banned carz. Bladez and boardz only!"

"Awesome!"

The Secretary of Public Sexual Health text messages the President.

"R U in 4 a BJ L8R?"

"Awesome!"

The Secretary of Agriculture confers with the President.

"Chronic, man! Suck it down!"

"Awesome!"

The Secretary of Defence confers with the President.

"New York City's been attacked! It's blown all to shit!"

"Awesome! Truly awesome!"

...despite that, Alex Parkson, our hero bicycle courier, takes a wrong turn on the way to a proverbial cute meet and winds up in a secret prison somewhere in Eastern Europe. When the commandant of the prison, nicely roled by Philip Seymour Hoffman (think Dick Cheney trying to imitate Brad Pitt) finds out about the mix-up, his character is suspiciously sympathetic. Meanwhile, in the civilized part of the world, namely France, a group not explicitly identified as Greenpeace is collecting testimonials that hey, c'mon people, would you just go see some of these stupid movies? I'm gonna lose my job!

MY SLOW MORNING

My tire was low
So I took off my knapsack
And pumped it up

Halfway to work
I'd forgotten my knapsack
Went back home for it

Garbage day
A truck turned in my path
If not for the tire and knapsack
I would have missed it

A bus in front
I don't dare pass

Buying coffee
Someone's there
My enemy
I hang back

Someone's holding the lift for me
Don't want to rush
Say, "Going down"
And down I go
Momentarily

Seeing Boss I detour
Because I'm late

Because of

Tire
Knapsack
Garbage
Bus
Enemy
Elevator
Boss.

LINES THAT NEVER FAIL

I'll jive your hive.
I'll shellac your crack.
I'll blunt your punt.
I'll debouch your crotch.
I'll dig your digging.
I'll cleave your dive.
I'll gmail your female.
I'll plow your mound.
I'll slat your twat.
I'll slot your twat.
I'll vacuum your livingroom.
I'll shower your bower.
I'll quiver your quiver.
I'll water your twolips.
I'll asterisk your matrix.
I'll doggy your pussy.
I'll quill your till.
I'll slush your bush.
I'll measure your fissure.
I'll dork your fork.
I'll spangle your mangle.
I'll use your cooze.
I'll sweep your chimney.
I'll bespatter your matter.

Charley was on the Playstation when Phil ran in out of breath.

"My God!" cried Phil. He fell into the e-z-chair. "I was almost killed out there!"

"Yeah?"

"When I stepped onto the subway train there were cops on the platform. They shot at me! Pandemonium! Got to our station, and a ten-foot guy tried to take a bite out of me! Down the street I was chased by a wolf in a red dress! I barely outran her!"

Charley glanced toward the window. "Must be the rain."

"It's not raining!"

"Oh. Then it must be because it's not raining."

This is my 300th entry. Hard to believe, isn't it? I didn't expect to live so long, but I did.

So that's 30,000 words written altogether. What's the equivalency? A standard page has 250 words on it. Thus I have written 30000/250 pages. Doing the math, it's ... 120 pages.

Jesus Christ! That's all? It felt more like 250 or so.

But then with all my paragraphing....

Then again, I've got my very own website. There's at least 80 pages of stuff there.

So, 200 pages since the first of September. Not bad.

Anyway, on with today's story.

Aw, crap!

I drive a smart fortwo.
I'm as petty as possible.
People who aren't petty can't be my friends.
I hate then.

I have very few friends for three reasons.
I drive a smart fortwo.
Most people aren't petty enough for me.
Having friends is ecologically unsustainable.

About the third reason: Friends encourage waste. People take more than they need because of pressure from their friends. Friends are not friends of the Earth.
My smart fortwo, just me and my dog Che.
I ran over a baby carriage today. I don't feel bad. That baby was no friend of the Earth.

NO PERSONALITY

Shiny streets and amplified noises and slippery sidewalks and falling rain and pushy tourists and dry patches and Idol billboards and lightning flashes and green automobiles and open umbrellas and coffee houses and loud machinery and outer demons and grey skies and traffic signals and wet bicycles and finally thunders and animal statues and greenish grasses and psychotic murderers and temporary markers and cellphoning bureaucrats and underweight starlets and underground entranceways and dripping maples and speeding cars and danger signs and Shetland Sheepdogs and glittering puddles and saturated newspapers and pretty women and lit lights and no personality.

Footnote to Starving Artists Sketch (Rewrite), currently at http://www.vif.com/users/johnskaife/Website/Third/060621-23.html

The original version of this sketch was performed at Ryerson, on some kind of 'Comedy Nite.' Performing in it were Adrian Sebastian Scott, Rob Gfroerer, Paul Greenberg, possibly Vito Viscomi, and others. I submitted two scripts to them. They rejected one. (I still have it somewhere.) But the script for the starving artists sketch never came back to me. So here's a rewrite of it. You'll be happy to know that this one is much shorter. The starving artists sketch is the only bit of writing I'm sad to have lost.