Cannonball Read Entry #6: Bloodsucking Fiends - Christopher Moore

Saying that Bloodsucking Fiends is the best vampire novel of the past twenty years is a bit like saying that a cupcake is more delicious than a piece of poo; Sure, by it's perfectly great by its own merit, but considering that the competition consists of pieces of shit...Well, that's just a gimme isn't it?

The story starts with Jody Stroud, the comely red-headed protagonist, being pulled off the street (literally), bitten a vampire, then waking up the following night under a dumpster unscathed. Well, unscathed as long as you don't count that she now has super strengh, super senses, $70,000 stuffed down her shirt, a hankering for blood and a charbroiled arm. But really, who hasn't been there? From there, Jody copes with her new vampiric abilities, clashes with the Big Bad who turned her, and finds a boyfriend/minion in the form of C. Thomas Flood, a nerdy struggling author.

Right out of the gate, Moore earns brownie points for staying relatively true to the vampire mythos while simultaneously taking the piss out of it. The vampires in Fiends don't spend all their time talking about their feelings, drinking synthetic blood or (God help me) sparkling in the sunlight. Jody drinks blood, fucks Tommy stupid, turns to mist, nearly burns herself to a crisp and scales a building without every crying out "SOOKIE!"

Although blessedly, Moore still writes her as a sympathetic character. She realizes that while her status as nouveau-vamp gives her great power, she has no one to share it with. And while she drinks blood, she only goes after those that are dying and ready for death, constantly reigning in the id-like vampire side of herself.

As much as I love Christopher Moore's writing style, you can't help but notice that Moore himself loves it too. In fact, perhaps a little too much. At times, his prose takes a turn for the borderline masturbatory, as he lapses into non-sequitor jokes that don't fit in quite as well as they should, and scenarios that feel a bit like wish-fulfillment.

And while Tommy is a perfectly likeable character, you can't help but wonder if every room he walks into has a serious gas leak. He's charming and funny and all, but over the course of the story he manages to pull of some mind-numbingly bone-headed moves. At one point during the story, I wondered when the hell they would drop the "Dorky but lovable guy gets insanely hot chick" routine and maybe mix it up with an "Awkward stand-in for the female authour gets the hot guy" vampire book. But then I realized that they already did, and it was called Twilight, and it was fucking awful.

It might not be the most sparkling (ha) recommendation ever, but you really should read Bloodsucking Fiends by the virtue that it's not Twilight, and that it's actually a pretty enjoyable book. Next time you see some poor, unfortunate tweener reading Twilight, by all means, feel free to yank the book out of their tiny, tiny hands, bitchslap them a couple of times and replace it with Fiends. They'll thank you later.

Gratuitous Ass-Shots (NSFW)

Yeah, if by any chance you're in an office environment or you have hang-ups about seeing someone's tuchus (specifically, mine), now would be an excellent time to click the little red X at the top of your screen, rather get an eyeful of my butt and get fired.Anyway, without further ado...Butts. Like, a lot of 'em.

You Betcha!

Confession time: I was actually happy when John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. Yes, happy. What can I say? I liked her for the same reason anybody liked Sarah Palin: She had a charming little accent, she was a hockey mom (much like my own, so respect on that one) and if you squinted a little bit, she sort of looked like Tina Fey. It was when you started actually listening to what she said that you realized those were pretty much the only likable things about her.

For you see, Sarah Palin is the Diet Coke of the political world; an artificially sweet knock-off made mostly of air which, when finally finished, left behind a pretty foul after-taste. There really just isn't anything there. The quirky sayings are only quirky sayings, the adorable glasses are just adorable glasses, and the 432 page book is just words and paper.

Rock Out With Your Cock Out

The Five Hottest Frontmen In Music Today:

Brandon Flowers (The Killers)
Caleb Followill (Kings Of Leon)Sam Roberts (The Sam Roberts Band)Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails)Josh Homme (Queens Of The Stone Age)
And just to even things out, The Five Hottest Frontwomen In Music:

Amanda Palmer (The Dresden Dolls)
Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley)
Brody Dalle (Spinnerette)
Emily Haines (Metric)

Must Love Dogs

Holy crap, if this doesn't break your heart a little, you're a fucking corpse. Honestly, this is just beautiful.

I Like To Sleep With Him, Pushin' In The Pin

My complete and total inability to care for small animals claimed another victim today: This morning, I found Cthulhu floating belly-up in his fish bowl. I would have assumed he died of natural causes if it weren't for the empty pill bottle at the bottom of the tank and what appeared to be a last will and testament.

Standing over his bowl and looking down at his little aquatic corpse, I decided that now was the perfect time to pierce my nipples. Good luck following that train of thought. And so I set off to pay someone to permanently mutilate my chesticles. I decided to go to the guys who did my previous tattoos, as they were the only place in Montreal that let you drink yourself stupid during the procedures.
I walked into the tattoo parlour, only to have my leg humped by a dachshund while the inked receptionist watched on. "I'm sorry, I think your dog is fucking my leg," I said, trying to shake off the little guy before his lipstick ruined one of the two pairs of pants I owned.

"Sorry about that. That's just Dex, he does that sometimes," she replied, motioning to the dog that now seemed to be in the final stages of copulating with my leg. I proceeded to kick him gently in the balls, or at the very least where his balls would have been.

"Anyway, now that that's out of the way, would you mind piercing my ta-tas?"

"You mean your nipples?" she asked.

"Yeah, but I hate that word. So can you do it?"

"Sure thing," she said. "That'll be $114."

I was a bit skeptic as to how two tiny barbells, a clamp, two needles and five minutes of labour would cost anything over $100, but more than anything I was just happy that my mosquito bites were big enough to be pierced.

Having sufficiently greased some palms, I was lying on a table with my tits in a clamp, a needle at the ready and a mouthful of hoodie. I find that the initial pains of penetration are a little less awful when you have something to bite down on. "You ready?" She asked.

There's a time and a place for asking someone if they're ready for something. Personally, I prefer to pull it out at the wedding altar. If you do it right, someone will get punched in the face. But asking someone this when you're holding a needle to one of the most sensitive areas on the body. "Do it, motherfucker!" I said, which came out something like "Mmmm-Mmmm, MmmmrrrrMmmmrrrr".

And she did do it, and it did hurt like hell. And then it suddenly didn't. I looked down and wouldn't you know it, I had a 3 inch needle through my nip. And aside from a little blood, it really didn't hurt that bad. Not only did the actual piercing look pretty good but it also made my nips stand out like Jennifer Aniston's circa Friends.

With my body newly mutilated and my chest now bleeding slightly, I went to work and then home, to finally, blissfully send Cthulhu off to the big fish bowl in the sky. And then the toilet tank refused to fill up. Yeah, today confused me too.

Happy Paheeba Day!

Is it that time of year already? Why yes, yes it is! The day where the womenfolk take over Pajiba to honour our Warrior Queen Manda, Paheeba Day! Anyway, as a Paheeba day tribute, I'm honouring this glorious day with my best asset...Namely, my ass. Happy Paheeba Day, y'all! (NSFW-ish)

Cannonball Read Entry #5: The Devil Wears Prada - Lauren Weisberger

Reading The Devil Wears Prada has become something of a yearly ritual for me. Like tree-trimming, eggnog and the post-Christmas-dinner Feist Family drunken Irish brawl, Prada has become closely linked to the holiday season, a sort of kick-off to Christianity's knock-off of the Winter Solstice. Needless to say, I've read through the book so many fucking times I could write a Master's Thesis on the BDSM undertones in the relationship between main character Andrea Sachs and her employer/Machiavellian overlord Miranda Priestly, but that's a post for another time.

Despite the previous gushing paragraph, the thin-to-the-point-of-nonexistence plot follows the standard "Corruption and Salvation of the Protagonist" mold: Lauren Weisberger Andrea Sachs (our small-town heroine) dreams of becoming a writer. Andrea takes a position at Runway working under Fashionista-From-Hell Anna Wintour Miranda Priestly. Protagonist originally sucks until she begins to conform to her surroundings at the expense of alienating family and/or friends. Protagonist realizes what's important in life (Aforementioned family and/or friends) and and rescinds her ways. My apologies for the generic spoilers there, but if you honestly couldn't see that one coming from a mile away, feel free to click the little red X in the corner of your browser; this site is not for you.

The plot of Prada is really it's weakest point. While it manages to follow the standard paint-by-numbers cliche of tell-all novels in order to avoid turning-off potential readers, you can't help but feel as if it didn't so much take a backseat as it was left on the side of the road. At one point in the story, Andrea recounts about how Miranda's signature style of scarves were discontinued a year before she arrived, only to contradict herself a couple sentences later by saying that she bought the remaining stock two years before the events of the story. I wouldn't mind it so much if it weren't for the fact that the contradictory statement takes place TWO SENTENCES after the first. I'm not sure if this Weisberger's lack of attention to details or a supremely lazy editor but it just highlights the fact that she could have spent just a tiny bit more effort on the plot as a whole.

Thankfully, Prada's saving grace is Lauren Weisberger's impeccable characterization skills. Maybe it was the fact that most of the characters were based on real people, but it's amazing to see a book where even secondary characters are this fully-realized. The crowning glory of it all is obviously Miranda Priestly, the thinly-veiled stand in for A-List Sociopath Anna Wintour. While Streep's version in the adaptation was a more relatable figure, Weisberger's original is an absolute force of nature. She's merciless, cruel, vindictive and volatile at the drop of a hat, but you can't help but want to please her. She's a woman without a single redeeming quality or even so much as a trace of humanity underneath the flawlessly polished veneer, yet you can't help but want to please her for the sole reason that she cannot be pleased. The more vile and contemptuous she becomes, the more you want Andrea to succeed, partly to rub it in her face and partly because...Well, you want to give her exactly what she wants. She's a whip-cracking dominatrix who, lacking social intricacies or meaningful interaction, will break you not because she wants to, but because she has to: if she doesn't, you'll leave her.

Granted, it's easy to fall for the villain; they're usually the most-complex and human characters. However, Andrea is really what holds it together. Fiction hinges on the concept of suspension of disbelief, and when you live in a world where choosing between a Marc Jacobs Peacoat or a wrap from Givenchy is a life-or-death decision, you're going to need it. That's where Andrea comes in. I don't know how she does it, but Weisberger wrote her protagonist in such a way that, while you don't necessarily agree with everything she does, you can understand her decision. You can understand the panic when she hears the phone ringing, the sense of urgency in finding the number for Karl Lagerfield, and the frustration from being unable to instill the importance of these in everyone around her. She's a remarkably sympathetic character overshadowed only by one of the most wickedly malicious antagonists ever put to print.

At the risk of sounding long-winded, here's the shortened version: The plot is about as cliche and two-dimensional as you can get without breaking out the crayons, but the depth and complexities of the characters more than makes up for the fact. If you can get past the much-hyped real life implications of the story, it's a surprisingly deep book for something that most would describe as a guilty pleasure.

Jeremy Feist Is Not An Appropriate Role Model For Kids

Alright, so insanely awkward moment of the day comes from Facebook today. Basically, I'm a gigantic Facebook whore and I will pretty much friend anyone who sends me a request. Unfortunately, one of those turned out to be a fifteen year old (Whoops. I should probably check before I hit the accept button, huh?) who then sent me a message about my work on Videoboys. My stream of consciousness:

1. No.
2. NO.
3. Ewwwwwwwwwwwww.
4. NOOOOOOOO.

Yeah, whatever, call me judgmental but that is just...wrong on so many levels. It's great that kids are coming out this early nowadays and all, and I honestly doubt it's even possible to get to the age of 13 without going through an old issue of Playboy (or, if you're so inclined, Unzipped) but come on, really? I draw the line at chatting with pornstars.

Maybe it's the fact that I have younger brothers, but let kids be kids for christ sake. Sure, at that age sex is an issue, but at least have sex with someone you care about. And of course, USE A FUCKING CONDOM. At fifteen, you should be out sneaking into R-Rated movies or passing out after two bottles of Mike's Hard Lemonade or dry-humping someone's leg, not trying to strike up a conversation with a z-list pornstar! You'll have years to ruin the rest of your life with serious relationships and sex when you're older, but for God's sake, you're a fetus! That's illegal! And wrong! And kinda creepy and awkward for everyone involved! Go and do your little hormonal teen thing with other teens. There's a reason I have a splash page: Unlike Trix, I'm not for kids!

Also, I absolutely fucking despise kids. Hate them. Hate every single one of them. Except for mini-Jibans, 'cause those kids are several kinds of badass. Other than that? Hate them. Hate them...Soooooo much, it-it-it...fla-flames...flames, on the side of my face...

#HireJeremyFeist

Ladies and Gentlemen, lend me your ears...Or, you know, eyes, considering that this is primarily a visual medium. Whatever, you get the idea. Just lend me part of your body for like, five minutes and then it's all yours.

Anyhoo, it's time for me to get all serious and shit about getting big-name studio work down in the states. I mean the good ones too: Titan, Falcon, Channel 1, Raging Stallion...The top shelf stuff, really. You know I've been busting my ass on the social-networking front to get my name out there, what with the blogging, Twittering and Facebook(ing?) but now it's your turn! Sort of. Anyway, I sent applications to all the top studios out there, and now here's where you come in: You gotta convince them that my ass is literally hiring. How you may ask? Simple.

What You Should Do:

• Spam them with #HireJeremyFeist on Twitter
• Post on their wall on Facebook
• Do whatever it is people do on Myspace, assuming that's actually still around
• If possible, start a letter drive
• Send them a nice muffin basket with a card that says something good about me
• Eat an entire batch of Pillsbury Sugar Cookies in one sitting. This won't actually help me, although they are delicious and you'll probably like them too.

What You Shouldn't Do:

• Send them letterbombs
• Go to their house in the middle of the night and key my name in their car
• Threaten to cook and devour your cat if they don't hire me like that crazy bitch who likes Miley Cyrus
• Cut off the head of their significant other, put it in a box and get them to drive out to the middle of the desert, where they will ask "WHAT'S IN THE BOX?" before you show them, thus exposing their sin of wrath...Oh, wait, no that one was actually the ending to Se7en. Still, don't do that. That's bad.

What's in it for you? Well, if this entire crazy bit of shenanigans works, I will get this tattooed on me.
Mind you, I'm still debating between this on my other ankle, or getting the Whiskey-Baby-Ninja-Star on my forearm...Either way, do it and I'll mark myself permanently in your honour. Get crackin', y'all.