Occupy My Nutsack

For the last month or whatever protesters have been "occupying" (I am putting this word in quotations because clearly people who aren't employed 24/7 can't be occupied by anything because I say so) in a bunch of cities that don't matter across the continent I happen to live on but don't really care at all about.

Legend has it, these no-talent-bums began this thing on a place in Jew York City called "Wall Street" (BTW- how can a wall be a street? Already we know these guys really suck because they can't get their infrastructure right, am I right folks?) and haven't left since. Then a bunch of other poverty affected cowards decided they didn't want to be as committed as the people in JYC so they made their own hobo camps in their own Podunk hometowns to show "solidarity" with the rest of the so-called "99%" of alleged "humanity." At first I thought it was funny- a bunch of poor people out in the cold and rain freezing to death. But as it turns out these poor people want me to do more than throw quarters at them whilst insisting they dance better and better. They want me to help them. Worse yet- some of them aren't even poor and STILL want me to help poor people! The goddamn nerve of these sons-of-bitches!

I could understand if they were all women or the Blacks/Gays. Sadly folks, they are not. Indeed some of them are white Christian men. In fact the Youtube rumor mill claims that some of them are war veterans. Obviously we know how crazy and homeless war vets are. Why should they help themselves to any of my hard-earned skrilla? Fuck that. I'm watchin' BET instead of some lame assholes complain about how the system sucks. Yeah the system sucks. For you- you deadbeat dickwads.

Look at this dipshit:

I bet he doesn't even have a job! I bet he doesn't even ahahahahshahahhaahahah whatever! He has dreadlocks! Isn't that funny? He wrote his sign on CARDBOARD!! OMFG if only something was misspelled that would be SOOO FUCKIN' FUNNY!!! LOL LMAO WTF!!!!

OK I'm kinda scared these protesters are going kill me. G2G TTYL!

Your pal,
JP

REVIEW: Living With Friends

Family Contact, a Toronto-based film making trio comprised of Zac Tatham, Aaron Manczyk and Efehan Elbi, is about to debut their new web series Living With Friends. After drinking several pints and drunk dialing their agent two nights ago I made a promise that I would review the series on the Daily Pescado. At the time I hadn't seen a single Family Contact film, though after going through their website (http://familycontact.ca) I noticed they have some very enjoyable cartoons and shit.

Living With Friends is a bizarre, unique, hilarious series that would be fun for some of the family. The dry and often awkward sense of humor contrasts the surreal slacker world shared by Zac and Aaron (played by themselves) as they battle eachother for jobs, women, and slinky races. Their boastful series tagline states they are "... trying to make a really good show and make it in an order so it comes off like a TV show." The webisodes are much shorter than syndicated TV shows tend to be (ranging from around five to ten minutes each) they are easy to follow with clear, consistent cinematography and a steady premise for an experimental independent series.

From surfing the internet for costume websites only to pretend to be goth kids in order to impress goth girls to taking a mission through the woods looking for acorns to hock (one dollar a corn!), the friends' back and forth banter is as entertaining as it is genuine. According to Manczyk roughly ten percent of the dialogue is scripted, most of the writing being done primarily through storyboards. Occasionally the sound leveling is off, which is expected when film makers are working on virtually no budget and don't have access to fancy sound equipment and engineering. This results in constant volume manipulation on the viewer's behalf, but the humor and delightful shots make the remote clicking well worth the effort.

I'm quite certain that Family Contact's work will keep improving and will one day be a household name in Canadian film and/or television. Give them a proper film budget and they will give you quality entertainment.

All in all they get 3.5 out of 5. Very fresh ideas, nice camera work. Acting can use workshopping. Proper sound design is needed.

Regards,
J. Pescado

art.

People often say, "Hey Jesus, how come if you are an artist you never write about art?"
Awesome Q, my friends.
The reason is since I am an artist, I'm not really an art critic. That'd be like a chef writing restaurant reviews. It's a biased, gluttonous, narcissistic role to play and quite frankly being self-centered isn't my style. Might be someone else's but definitely not mine. Instead, I like to focus on my own work and my own life instead of always acting like I'm the only person of any true significance. As a rule I try to talk about myself as little as I can, but sometimes I think I end up talking about myself because I can't think of anything as important as me I feel.

Well rules were meant to be broken and I will discuss my beliefs about art.

I think the sole purpose of the visual fine arts should be to generate income. As children, when we visited art galleries and were first experienced to price tags with several digits being a career artist just seemed like the most logical vocation possible. In regard to the starving artist phenomenon, this problem is not the fault of the visual arts but a crime committed by non-visual artists who decide to visit art galleries without buying anything. It's like they go to Starbucks just to smell. Well I'm sorry this painting isn't 180 degrees and doesn't cost five bucks before being disposed in a trash can and public urinal and you need four of them to get you through the day. Fuck your buying tendencies. Buy my work and brag to your friends how expensive it was and how much of a genius I am and how smart you were to buy my work when you did because it's gonna be way more expensive in a few years. Oh GOD how expensive it's gonna be! Just think of all those zeros!


As the great Pablo Jueves said, "An [artist's] ego dissolves when [his] paint dries." We as artists love our works until they are finished. Once completed they cease to belong to the creators, and must become collected by a third party. A finished painting is of no value to its painter. The painter's job is to paint again, not to have painted previously. Thus collecting is essential to the lifespan of a work of art. Without a collector, the painting will most likely never be taken more seriously as anything more than the canvas it is painted on and will often be painted over or constantly altered.

A really good thing about being a great artist is women want to have sex with you even if they are much wealthier than you. This is one of the few vocations where this frequently happens. Even when people aren't buying your work they feel bad that someone with so much potential fails so horribly at life they tend to buy you stuff and ask your opinion about things you aren't at all qualified to talk about as if your opinion mattered. This is my second philosophical argument in favor of what I was talking about.

If you don't buy art, specifically my art, you are singlehandedly murdering culture and everything you stand for. So instead of complaining about how pop culture sucks and is bad for children, put your money where your mouth is (DEEZ NUTS) and buy something worth owning and occasionally noticing its presence.

Your pal,
J.P.

An American's Guide to Canada

Recently I moved back to my home country: the bomb-ass ol' U.S. of A. International readers will throw me their opinions on this saying shit like, "Oh, uhhhhh the USA runs the World Bank which fucks up everybody" or "Americans are too patriotic." "Canada is the non-violent version of America."
America is the land of freedom fries and heroes (disambiguation: gyros belong to Greece which is somehow making us all poor.)

We all know that America doesn't run the World Bank, just a couple of American illuminati members. In regard to our extreme patriotism: maybe if your country fought it's ass to be Number 1 you'd love it too. And as for Canada being a non-violent version of the USA, please research beheadings in North America. Canada outweighs the US on a per-capita level that any leftist Canadian would love to deliberately lie about.

I dig the NDP [Canada's New Democratic Party]. I honestly feel deep down that beggars by the liquor store should earn as much as the next guy. Jack Layton was my neighbor, and I wish I could say "mayor". Sadly, as far as I know he's never run for Toronto mayorship and that sucks a big one. I bet Olivia Chow could win it. Until then, the most socialist leaning major metropolitan area in Canada will be run by a Nixonian dickwad.

Ron Ford (or whatever his name is) will try and do his thing. He wants to be the Giuliani of the Dot. We know he sucks. He's a fat fuck with no game and lied about virtually everything in his campaigning. Obviously, I don't have the time to back up my research but, I can say beyond a doubt, Toronto will still in all likelihood be a great place for Americans to visit.

Here are 10 things for an American to know about Canada before coming to visit or live (illegally):

10: You can get welfare! As long as you keep showing up to the proper office, it doesn't matter if you are in the country legally or not- they just don't want you shooting people for money.

9: Pot is cheaper. Though booze is taxed up the ass, standard price for a gram of good pot is $10 where ever you go in the whole country. Not bad!

8: Post-Secondary Education. If you want to go to college, a.k.a. "University" [prissy snobs] you'll be paying around 12 grand as an international student. If you get a hookup with landed immigrant status or dual citizenship, you're looking at about 6 grand. And enough of the schools are good. Queens University is the Harvard/Dartmouth/Yale/Swarthmore College of Canada!

7. Beer. Although booze is apparently more expensive in Canada, the beer gets you really drunk- pretty quick. Don't believe me? Go to your nearest liquor store and buy 6 bottles of La Fin du Monde. If you can finish the sixth, please email me detailing your experience. And for you college kids, the drinking age in most of Canada is 19. In Quebec, Alberta and Manitoba the drinking age in 18. So why the hell hang out in a country were they want to card you all the time? For the weather?

6. Gas prices. This is gonna be a downer. When you first arrive in the Great White North you might very well think the gas is cheap. This is not true. Gas in the Empire is priced by liters (or "litres" if you suck as spelling). Basically you gotta multiply that number by 4 if you want to know the price equivalent back home (or times it by 4 if you don't know what "multiply" means).

5. Guns. Hand guns are very much banned throughout Canada, although there are ways to get them. To do so involves a lot of background checks and gun safety shit slackers's just not down for. So plan on not rocking a gun unless you want to use it. If you are crazy into guns, there are enough Canadians looking for a dope piece. These ruffians don't go to ranges and are most often very bad when it comes to accuracy. Try to be the target of your armed opponent so that when they miss you aren't the one getting hit.

4. Drugs. Just like pot is cheaper, drugs cost more. Canada is much further from Mexico. Drugs come through/from Mexico. Expect that anything not made in Canada is gonna cost more. Easy solution: don't do drugs, smoke weed instead.

3. Fast food. It exists but the government taxes the fuck out of it. You're better off going to a real burger shop. There's one out by Haliburton, ON called Webbers. In terms of downtown Dot, head up to Eglinton and Oriole Parkway for Burger Shack (my friend works there and she's a cutie-cutie). Hero Burger isn't bad for a chain spot, but it is what it is. For true fast food check Hooker Harvey's on the corner of Jarvis and Gerrard Street. It's named after the area's rampant local prostitution.

2. B.C. This is one of the most beautiful states/provinces on the continent. Barely anything can go wrong here, except it is responsible for Canada's weirdly enormous amount of beheadings and crack/heroin/meth is a big issue. Sort of like New York in the 80s only its a bunch of white people in the woods. Stay away from sworded and/or needled people and you will have few problems. I have a lot of love for B.C., these stone age mofuckezz always showed me a good time, gave me proper work and picked me up hitchhiking. If you are an American touring Canada, please spend your tourist dollars in this province. The people in B.C. are worth any amount of money you spend on them. As long as they don't spend it on crack.

1. People will judge you as an American. If you are a white American- it may be your first experience as the only minority in the room. Don't let this affect you. You can use your American-ness to your benefit. People will think you might be more cultured or urbanized. You might be accepted as having more historical knowledge. There is a good chance none of these apply to you. Don't worry- as long as you flatter your Canadian hosts there will never be any realization-backlash. Now if you are a black American, white people see you as "American". Black Canadians will think you make more sense than any of them. True say most black Canadians are first, if not zero generation Canadian. You are their role model. Please love them for this opportunity and eat copious amounts of their injera.

Your pal,
John

P.S. You need a passport to cross the boarder. Fuckin' eh!

Theater Review: "Bullet For Adolf"

Wednesday night I attended the second performance of Woody Harrelson's Bullet For Adolf (see www.bulletforadolf.com for more info).

Now me and Woody go way back. I think White Men Can't Jump was the first R-rated movie I ever saw that didn't have any historical relevance. I smoked pot with him at an African restaurant back in 2005 and he strangled me when I tried to take his photo after the filming of Zombieland. As his close homeboy I had to see what he was up to.

I got to apologize right now for being a hater. Let it be known: I never hate for hatred's sake.

When the play started it sucked. The actors were overacting so bad I couldn't follow the dialog. There was this white kid in a suit with no tie with a very racist name saying the N-word and MF-word like they were direct and/or indirect articles and I was just sitting there, stoned as a goat in my chair thinking about how my high school's performance of Damn Yankees was kicking this play's ass six ways from sundown. That play was aiite. Jon Scott's fake boob exploded by accident. I almost pissed myself laughing.

The characters were the main point of the show. Harrelson admitted during a question and answer ceremony following the performance that the Hitler-gun-mystery-plot was slapped on as an afterthought. Not what I would assume to be the most effective approach to writing a script, but there have probably been plenty of great stories throughout history where the writers were concerned primarily with who the events were happening to, not what the events were. Definitely.

It took until the second act for the male cast to actually think and behave like their characters, with the exception of David Coomber (who played Clint). From his first scene he stole the show and made up for what the other actors lacked. The female actors did their job, not forgetting lines or anything. Still, either their delivery or the script made sympathizing with the characters quite a task for the audience. They lacked individuality and relevance to the plot. Throughout much of the play it seemed as if their presence had little more purpose than to make the cast less of a sausage-fest.

The accents sucked. Brandon Coffey, who played Zach, a Texan character based on Harrelson, sounded like Gomer Pyle, USMC. The Nazi-dad, played by Thomas Gough, sounded as convincing as Denzel Washington in The Mighty Quinn. He could have used some direct influence from Hogan's Heroes. I'll say it right here, right now: he should wear a monocle.

By the second act the play got a lot better. The downside is it turned into a potheaded whodunnit. Potheaded is cool but whodunnits are lame. I don't want to spend $32 on an amateur episode of Murder She Wrote even if they might be smoking real pot on stage. Still, a lame mystery is more interesting than people arguing over why it's bad to use the N-word (see Act 1). And I got to hand it to the cast, the comedic elements really flourished after intermission and the phony accents became less and less distracting.

The ending was not memorable. The characters had to do more work for the German guy and everything was OK. Hitler had nothing to do with anything really and the German guy already didactically explained everything having to do with the subtext enabling the audience to watch without the need for individual thought or inner reflection.

All in all I give the play a 2 out for 5. One point for Harrelson being my boy and one point for Coomber playing his role impeccably.

If the producer's wish to quote me saying something complimentary, they can quote this:
"...One point for Coomber playing his role impeccably!"

Every other aspect of the play needs serious work.

Best of luck to the cast and crew during the rest of the show's duration.

Your pal,
John

Q: What does FAQ stand for? A: Frequently Asked Questions.

Greetings, Pescadites*.

Over the past little while that I've been on sabbatical many of my readers have sent in various questions to which I've intended to provide responses. Of course I don't have time for most of the questions, but I do have time to answer the questions I received from three or more readers at least one time each.

*Please stop sending me rude or sexually suggestive messages/photographs.

Q: Where do homeless people get their money?
A: It's not that cut and dry of an issue. Many homelesses don't have any money and that's why they are homeless. Some are able to leach off social assistance similar to the way a parasite eats away at the living flesh of its host species. Don't get me wrong: there is nothing more human than homelesses. Still, these homo insectiens  can be crafty. Some do quite well for themselves panhandling (known on the street as "waiting for the mail").

Q: Why do people use dangerous substances (also known as "drugs")?
A: Dangerous substances can really make life cool while their effects last. The enjoyable duration is typically followed by 8 to 24 hours of shaking and sweating (as well as making your pukehole feel like your butt and your butt feel like your pukehole.) Some people also think that drugs can bring them closer to God, but as anyone who's ever used good enough drugs knows, we're all Jesus and the Devil at the same time - just like a cloud is both air and water.

Q: Who will will the Superbowl in 2012?
A: Kansas City.

Q: How do I know if my boyfriend/ladyfriend is cheating on me?
A: First and foremost, Jesus Pescado is no player hater. You're pissing me off even just asking that kind of question. If you're boyfriend wasn't cheating on you he'd be called your husband (and we know that don't mean squalla.) If you know a female you refer to as a "ladyfriend" you probably have several "ladyfriends" in which case who the F are you to say what does or doesn't happen inside her ladygadget? Ladies burned their bras in the 60s and 70s - meaning they can all take their tops off and we can all get a good look. In return we don't need to open doors or pickle jars for their lazy (but hella fine) asses. Feminism is the best reason to be a motherfuckin' man about it.

Q: Reading your blog developes serious questions pertaining to its authorship. Who are you? Some sort of racist?
A: I am a thirty-five year old exchange student from Mexico City studying sociology. I can say words like beaner, crackertrash, and dago all I want. Who are you? A friggin' priest all of a sudden?