The Hottest Babe in Comics!

This past summer I was almost laughed out of the lobby-bar headquarters of the 'Comic-Con' festival in San Diego when I insisted that 'Marla' from the syndicated 'Retail' newspaper comic-stip by Norm Feuti was the hottest chick in comicdom.

As far as I'm concerned you can have your Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Lois Lane, Batgirl, Mary-Jane Parker, Betty & Veronica and Miss Hulk (that pretty well exhausts my knowledge of sex-pots from the comics,) because assistant-manager Marla of Grumbels Department Store is the girl that gets my cash-register going cha-ching cha-ching cha-ching in my groinal area.

I love the way she rolls her eyes when she has to face yet another stupid question by a customer. I love the way she sarcasticly sasses back to her brain-dead supervisor. I love the way she looks skyward when confronted by another of stock-boy Cooper's shenanigans and inspired ingenuity in avoiding work. Everything about her is droll and saucy.

But mostly I love the way she looks. I love that cute pert nose. I love those pert medium-sized breasts. And the pert way she rolls her eyes when ... oh, I already mentioned that. This girl doesn't just wash her hair with Pert Shampoo. She uses Pert Plus. And then applys liberal amounts of Pert Conditioner "for strong full body."

Remember that time she got talked into going clubbing after work with a female co-worker? Remember the tank-top she wore? Man, I'm still having fantasies about that one.

But they're nothing to what happened when I opened the colour 'Funnies' this weekend and found the above strip featuring Marla. Am I the only one out there who wasn't knocked out and reduced to drooling?

You want proof-positive that Marla is the hottest gal in comics, then all you have to do is look closer at that hubba-hubba single panel from Saturday. Check out how she looks in that 'Mrs. Fantastic' costume from the 'Fantastic Four' movie.

Isn't she incredible?

How to Dress for Halloween

According to Stats Canada, Halloween has now become more popular with adults than with children.

It's not hard to figure out why. The main reason that October 31st no longer has the same thrill it once did for kids is - over-protective parents. They've sucked all the fun out of it. On that night, they no longer allow their kids to roam the streets to take candy from strangers, soap windows, tip over the occassional cop car or torch abandoned tenement buildings.

Now it's organized Halloween parties - where the candy count is guaranteed and the fun is limited. And how could it be otherwise - your parents are there. For all you youngsters out there, here's a good rule of thumb in judging a party. At any point in your life. Don't matter how old you are. Upon making your entrance, wait five minutes and look around the room. If you can still see your parents, you might as well ask for your party-bag right then and there, fake a stomach-ache and go home and watch TV. Believe me, you'll have a better time.

As usual, adults have appropriated this holiday for Themselves. It represents their first opportunity to play make-believe and dress-up since they put their bridal gowns and tuxedos in storage.

And not just any sort of dress-up but SEXY dress-up. French maids, nurses in high-heels, Horny Lil' Devils, Elvira, Wilma Flintstone and Betty Page.

Men also like to dress up sexy for Halloween parties. Sure you will see the occassional zombie, Darth Vader, Stephen Hawking and Spiderman - but those are usually guys who don't have girlfriends. But for other males, the choices are pretty limited. There's always James Bond, but that's kinda lame - anyone can rent a tux. There's Zorro or the Lone Ranger - chicks always go for that masked-stranger look. Or you could always transform yourself into Austin Powers or Frank N. Furter, depending on how much of a fool you want to make of yourself.

But if you want a Halloween-look where you can still come off slightly cool, you can't go wrong dressing up as a vampire. Hands down, there is no child of the night quite as sexy as a vampire. There's so much built-in eroticism in the whole vampire fantasy. All that business about sucking neck - or just sucking - and the life-giving flow of bodily fluids. All that submission. All that dominance. I get aroused just thinking about it. And got the hickies to prove it.

And then there's the wardrobe. One thing about vampires - they know how to dress. Long flowing capes and gowns. Black fingernails. Everything in black. Even the sock-garters. Just like those Goth kids you see in downtown Toronto now that I think of it.

But you needn't go with the stereotype. So here's some recommended viewing to inspire anyone who wants to look vampish without coming across as Christopher Lee or that other old guy with the Hungarian accent.

Submitted for your approval - 'The Hunger' and 'Vampyros Lesbos.' And these two films come recommended specifically for all the lady readers out there. These are vampire stories in which the women are in control, no mere victims. Sista's are doin' it for demselves.

As such, both are also examples of the total opposite of the traditional vampire movie. This ain't your grandparents' Count Vlad. In fact, 'The Hunger' sets the tone in its opening scene with 'Bela Lugosi's Dead,' by Bauhaus played in an underground New York nightclub.

These are Modern women. 'Now' women. Career gals who only use men for pleasure and food. These are Today's vampires. 'The Hunger', made in 1983 stars Catharine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon and rock-star David Bouwhee. And they are all blond and beautiful. Especially Bouwhee.

'Vampyros Lesbos' which is an obvious inspiration for 'The Hunger' (even though 'The Hunger' was adapted from the novel by Whitley Streiber back in the days when he made his living as a writer, not as a victim of alien abductions,) and was filmed a decade earlier by Eurotrash sexploitation auteur Jesus Franco and stars Soledad Miranda as the vampire.

It's also a basic retelling of Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' - except the main characters happen to be women. And lesbians.

I could go on and on about why 'Vampyros Lesbos' is both an art-house and cult-classic and how the director turned the vampire mythos on its head (vampires sunbathing in the nude on the beach, 'sleeping' during the daytime by floating naked in an outdoors pool atop an air-mattress,) and how 'Hunger' director Tony Scott did the same thing of reversing all the well-worn established vampire cliches in his film.

But I won't. Because I only watched these two movies for the 'va-va-voom, hubba-hubba' factor.

Put it this way - in 'The Hunger,' we have Catharine Deneuve topless. And a young Susan Sarandon topless. And both nude. And that way TOGETHER!

And in 'Vampyros Lesbos,' the vampires are like that ALL the time.

Rooster Update

Last Saturday after finding out where the Rooster lived, I ran back home to get my camera. Then went to Shoppers to get some film. By 8:30, I was ready to take some pictures of the guy to officially record his presence at the Forks of the Thames on the edge of downtown London.

What you see above is just one of several examples of definitive proof of the rooster's existance in my neighbourhood. Follow the arrow, sqint real hard and you can see a smidge of the white feathers which ring his neck and that dot of red is the tip of the crown on the top of his head. Or plumage. Whatever it's called.

And if that's not enough, I've got half a roll of film of photos just like that.

As you can clearly see, his 'roost' is up in a tree about seven feet off the ground. Contrary to popular belief, he does not live in a sock where he spends most of his time reading books.

What you can't see in the photo is that at the base of that tree is a dish of corn and bird-seed that someone had been filling daily.

I saw him again on a dog-walk a few days later on Wednesday morning. It was about 9 o'clock. He had finished his cock-a-doodle-doing for the day and was down on the ground at the base of the tree. The dish of food was gone.

I got a good look at him this time. He wasn't as scrawny as I had thought when I first saw him on the weekend. Apparently he's been well-fed.

And what I had thought was just a fringe of white feathers around his shoulders was much more. They covered the whole upper-third of his body. Remember that 'Ram-Fed & Loaded' column about City Hall that used to be in Scene magazine? Occassionally they would run a a by-line photo which showed the writer with his long lion's mane of white hair released from the constraints of being in a pony-tail. The rooster kinda looked like that guy. Not shy or easily intimidated either. Strutting around proud as a peacock.

And after being out there alone for two months, he also had a severe case of blue balls.

The next morning I went by there again with the idea of bringing some bird-seed down if his food-dish hadn't been replaced. No sign of the dish or the rooster. But one of those guys who collect cast-off bottles and cans told me that the afternoon before, the people who had been feeding it were down there with a trap and they had a farmer willing to take him in.

And I haven't seen or heard him since.

It's a relief to know that he's gone to a good home and won't be here freezing to death along the river-bank when winter finally gets here in a two or three months, but I'll miss the guy. It was nice having him around for the summer. In fact, I might just buy me one of them roosters and set up a coop and harem for him in my backyard. Every neighbourhood should have at least one. It helps kick off the day.

... as for the individual who originally dropped the rooster off in the middle of the city along with a bunch of chickens, well - I have a theory about that. Thought #1 - he is a cruel scum-sucking low-life hick without a brain in his head to piss in.

And Thought #2 - after decades of farmers having to take in stray dogs and kittens because some irresponsible city-dwelling cretins got bored of them and just dumped them off out in the country near the first farm-house they saw - well, let's just say that country-folk are getting even by dropping off a rooster in the city - where people normally don't even get out of bed until 9 a.m.

It's called 'payback.'

And I think there might be some merit to that theory. This morning, walking through the parkland at the end of my street, the dog and I came across a pig and a goat running loose. And even though we were smart enough to avoid it, grazing around the Art Gallery was a real angry-looking bull.

Need for a Performing Arts Centre Questioned

"Why are we even thinking about a new Performing Arts Centre when this town still doesn't have a world-class lacrosse facility," asked London citizen and tax-payer Mike Jones in the line-up at Tim Horton's this morning.

"Chatham has one. Brantford has one. And next year the Windsor casino will have a lacrosse field which meets Olympic standards," said Jones to the back of the person in front of him.

"I say we take that $300-million windfall from the sale of London Hydro and drop the whole baby on a brand-spanking-new lacrosse field," Jones continued. "Maybe one with artificial turf. Maybe with seating and grandstands for up to 15,000 people.

"Because let's face it - until London gets off the pot, the international - heck, even the national lacrosse community are never going to think of London as 'Big League' when it comes to tournaments and letting us play them. They'll just by-pass London and continue on down the road to Kitchener. You all know Kitchener, right? A town smaller than London? But a town that had the foresight ten years ago to build 'Lacrosse Field in the Square.' You can be damn sure that the Toledo Whumpers, the Wallaceburg Ball&Netters and the Grand River Six-Nation Army all know where Kitchener is."

When contacted by the Sonny Drysdale Media Empire, London city-councillor Gord Homme, who also chairs the Creative City Task Force, pointed out the differences in the need for a performance hall and a lacrosse centre.

"Don't get me wrong," said Homme. "I am well aware of the contributions which our aboriginal peoples have made to this great diverse country called Canada - which comes from the Indian word 'Kanata' meaning 'a grouping of wig-wams.' And lacrosse is certainly one of them."

"But just think," enthused Homme - "A Performing Arts Centre, will be the ideal place for Native Canadians to come and witness some of the great achievements of their people which have become mainstays of Canadian culture - the music of Buffy Sainte-Marie; the theatre of Tomson Highway - and many more. Did I mention Buffy Sainte-Marie?

"And best yet, it will be a place for the Native-Canadian community as well as our brothers of colour and those from an Oriental heritage to come and first-hand experience the contributions made to civilization by white male 18th and 19th century Europeans. And there'll be touring productions of Broadway musical revivals!"

"Look - I enjoy lacrosse just as much as the next fellow - but a $100-million legacy and performing arts centre will be for ALL Londoners!!!," concluded Homme.

In response, back at Tim Horton's, lacrosse-enthusiast and London tax-payer Mike Jones said, "Oh c'mon - not that old tired refrain! For the last time - lacrosse IS NOT an 'elitist' sports activity!"

"But I will tell ya this - Gord and his cronies on council better think again - because the last time the Saskatoon Shattered Shins came to town, they had to play the London team in the field behind my son's elementary school. It was embarrassing."

I Heard the Rooster Call My Name

I finally saw him.

The Rooster. I only have two mornings a week I can actually hunt but today at about 7:15 I caught up with him. I was doing the dog-walk and before we even got to the walk-over bridge at the end of the street I could hear him beckoning from the other side of the river. When we got across the bridge, I could tell he was somewhere to the left. But with the way sound travels and the big empty space that is the Forks of the Thames, I couldn't even be sure if he was on this side of the river. He could have been over where the old Dutch Laundry used to be.

So we headed off along the river bank towards the Art Gallery, and heard him again - back towards the foot-bridge. We doubled back and narrowed it down to somewhere near the Cinderella bridge.

And then we heard him do it again. And standing on the bike path actually SAW the guy. He was up in a tree along the sloping bank of the Thames. He was roosting up there. That's what they do - roost. Hence the name 'rooster.'

But from where he was sitting and I was standing on the bike-path, he was about eye-level to me. We actually made eye contact. Nice looking bird. Kinda scrawny. But that's probably to be expected, what with having to eat bugs and stuff instead of corn after some dumb hick dumped him off at the edge of downtown in the middle of the city two months ago.

Then again, roosters always look kind of scrawny. Probably from having nothing else to do in life but wake people up at the crack of dawn and bang multiple-partner hens all day long.

He wasn't terribly big. Black with lots of white feathers around his shoulders or whatever birds have where their body meets the head. The head wasn't too big and it was too dark out to tell if he had one of those red plume things on the top of his head like you see on the Kellogg's Corn Flakes box.

Certainly not a shy animal. Looked right at me and the dog - a BIG dog (he's a Great Dane, you know,) and even though we were only a few feet away, he extended that neck, threw back his head and gave a full-throated "Cock-a-doodle-doo."

It was pretty exciting. Not unlike when I saw that deer on the bike path near Wellington across the river from Victoria Hospital this summer. So we watched him do his thing a couple more times and then got bored and came home.

Today I buy some film and tomorrow morning go hunting with my camera.

But I'm a bit worried about the rooster. It was 5 degrees C out there this morning. What's going to happen to him when it gets colder? I know that birds are cold-blooded like their relatives, the reptiles and dinosaurs but still, it gets mighty cold come November. And it's not like he can fly south for the winter or warm up in a nearby hen-house.

Still, I love the idea of the rooster living here. It says everything you need to know about this town. London likes to think of itself as a 'Big' City. But really it's soooo Small Town and Hicksville in just about every way. And a barnyard rooster living on the very edge of our great downtown is a perfect symbol of that.

I grew up on 'Huckleberry Hound' and 'Yogi Bear' and 'Quick-Draw McGraw' cartoons. All brought to us by the good people at Kelloggs Corn Flakes. And now I know what they meant by their slogan - "The best to you each morning."

My Month at a Glance

The boys in Accounting at home office are busting my hump for my report from my daily planner in order for me to claim expenses so I am passing them along via this blog. You can also think of it as 'the ever-changing moods of Sonny Drysdale.'

And so - courtesy of Facebook, here they are -

Monday, October 1 - Sonny is really excited about his new pants-suit.

Tuesday, October 2 - Sonny is wondering why you never hear of any girls being named 'Sally' these days.

Wednesday, October 3 - Sonny is really digging the new Britney Spears look now that she finally has some meat on her bones and is wondering if it's worth trying to revive our relationship. After all, the kids and Kevin won't be around this time.

Thursday, October 4 - Sonny is now driving a new car! And it's a two-door!! Until further notice, please only address Sonny as "Wheels."

Friday, October 5 - Sonny is changing the spelling of his first name to "Sunnie" - but only for this weekend. Pronunciation will remain the same.

Saturday, October 6 - Sonny is running under the sprinkler today. Man, it's hot.

Sunday, October 7 - Sonny is NOT getting jiggy with it.

Monday, October 8 - Sonny is turkeyed out, having cooked two complete turkey dinners within 15 hours. This Christmas, it will be ham. Or rooster.

Tuesday, October 9 - Sonny is pissed off at the London Free Press for spelling his last name wrong in their story about the rooster that lives at the end of my street. "Drysdal"?!? Well, at least they spelt my first name write.

Wednesday, October 10 - Sonny is exercising his democratic right of franchise today.

Thursday, October 11 - Sonny is wondering if he will ever waste his time voting again. Just like he does after every election. He only keeps doing it for the right to bitch afterwards. Just the same, the people have spoken. And if that's who they want, then the hell with 'em.

Friday, October 12 - Sonny is doing nothing but AC-DC covers for karaoke at the Press Club tonight.

Saturday, October 13 - Sonny is suffering today from a 'Stiff, Stiff, Stiff Upper Lip.' Like a dawg without a bone ...

Sunday, October 14 - Sonny is wondering - if it was the Big Bopper who put the 'Bop' in the "Bop-shoo-bop-shoo-bop" - then who put the "wang" in the "wang-a-lang-a-ding-dong"?

Monday, October 15 - Sonny is sad and experiencing the 'ship-builder blues' today. Yesterday, he put his first-born on a Greyhound and sent her off to begin her new life-adventure in Toronto. It seems strangely quiet around here today - even though she hasn't actually lived in this house for a couple of years. Oh well, as Archie Bunker once noted - "birds gotta swim, fish gotta fry."

Tuesday, October 16 - Sonny is excited - tonight is our first meeting of the Dr. Seuss Book Club!

Wednesday, October 17 - Sonny is excited for two days in a row because of being nominated at work for 'Night Staff of the Year.' But he really shouldn't be tooo surprised - his toilets are so clean you could eat off them.

Thursday, October 18 - Sonny is still creeped out after watching the worst porn movie EVER last night - "Debbie Does the Three Stooges."

Friday, October 19 - Sonny is practising his party-trick of balancing a glass of red wine on the top of his head.

Saturday, October 20 - Sonny is at the party and keeps glancing in the mirror as he watches himself gavott.

Sunday, October 21 - Sonny is having some weird dreams lately - they're like clouds in his coffee, clouds in his coffee.

Monday, October 22 - Sonny is feeling like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed.

Tuesday, October 23 - Sonny is never going to stop the rain by complaining.

Wednesday, October 24 - Sonny is all about the comb-over this week.

Thursday, Ocober 25 - Sonny is angry at the school bullies who took away his milk-ticket in the cafeteria today.

Friday, October 26 - Sonny is closing his cover before striking.

Saturday, October 27 - Sonny is realizing that there are no REAL winners in a knife fight.

Sunday, October 28 - Sonny is feeling pretty today. Oh, sooo pretty and witty and ...

Monday, October 29 - Sonny is booting it on over to Halloween-Land to pick out his Halloween costume today. Gotta skedaddle!

Tuesday, October 30 - Sonny is boogie-ing on over to McCormacks Costume Shop today to once again try to pick out his 'theme' for All Hallows Eve. Gotta scoot! ... After that when it gets dark, he's going to hook up with some friends and overturn a few cop cars in honour of Devils Night.

Wednesday, October 31 - Sonny is seriously thinking of Trick-or-Treating as Brandon Flowers tonight. Either that or that lead-singer guy in AC-DC.

Oh yeah, and so who are YOU voting for?

Sonny Drysdale lecturing Markii Burnaway, a Candidate for the All-Nite Rawk 'N Roll Party.

Sonny don't give a shit about 'faith-based funding for schools' and Markii didn't get a chance to get a word in edge-wise as Sonny insists that it's time to turn back the hand of time and say to all practicioners of the Roman Catholic School Board that we made a mistake a century or so and sorry, but from now on you have to go to the same schools as the rest of us.

As do ALL kids. Of ALL religions. And all those of NO religion. And even those who sleep through the service. And all those who claim that they are doing 'independent Bible study' on Sunday mornings.

Of course, snotty snooty brats whose parents can get them into over-priced high-falutin' Private schools, are exempted.

And yes, I'm talking to YOU, Holden Caulfield. You and that Robert Ackley guy would have been welcomed at Riverside High.

Oops, sorry about that Ackley kid.

... oh yeah - even tho I have an NDP sign on my front yard, I'm still not sure who I'm voting for.

NDP guy Paul Piglin lives just down the street from me and he and fellow NDPer Steve Holmes were the only candidates to get off the bus and give a little moral support to those of us who spent our summer on a picket-line.

Liberal Chris Bentley seems like an OK guy - but he's a Cabinet minister and has to toe the party line so he wasn't able to do dick-all for us on the picket-line. His fellow Liberal Kahil Ramal in the other London riding actually had me and fellow picketers into his office and asked what he could do for us, then got on the phone and told us about a planned meeting between the OPSEU union head-honchos and the provincial Liberal head-honchos - something my own local union people didn't bother to inform us about.

But both of them are members of the Liberal party and Premier Dalton McPinHead left us out on strike for toooo many weeks when he could have just done what he did in the end anyway and open up his wallet a lot sooner and end the strike.

And there's no way in Heaven or Hell, I'd ever vote for the provincial Conservatives - because if they were in power, I'd still be on strike with no end in sight, election or not. I know of what I speak because the last time I was on strike was when that cold-hearted bastard Mike Harris was in power and never even commented on our strike and let it end with the social agency I worked for being closed down.

John Tory strikes me as a decent guy (unlike Dalton,) if only because I've seen him cry. But let's face it, he only got elected as leader of his party because of his name. And now that I think of it, at the beginning of this last strike, he actually said on a local open-line radio show that he agreed with Dalton's position of not getting involved in our strike even though my social agency is directly funded by the provincial government. "No, the Premier has the right idea," sayeth the Tory. Oh yeah, well in that case, sucks to be you, John.

The other candidates are all just fringers - so I'm voting for the true fringe-people, those All-Nite Rawk N' Rollers who rule under the Independent ticket.