Catch-phrase of the Year

... "Jason Sims ... Jason Sims. AAAAAUUUGGGHHH!!! WHY is that name so familiar?!?"

I don't like to brag but I do know a thing or two about catch-phrases. Picking up my kids at the school-yard five days a week gives me a window into what's popular with the young people these days simply based on what I hear four times within thirty seconds.

That's why I'm concerned that we may unbeknowingly be raising a generation of terrorists because every day on the school grounds, at least three times I hear one of the tots yell out, "DY-NO-MITE!"

And if it wasn't only the entire civilized world some of them were thinking of blowing up, I also worry about the environment. As in this example of which I witnessed just this morning while dropping Sonny Junior off for a playdate at our daycare, the 'ABC Team,' - "Oh, yeah? Well, up your ass with a ten-pound bass!" Well, I can assure you that he never heard that in this house. Not from my side of the family, anyway.

Anyways, today at work we had our annual 'Holiday' party. Because ol' man Dithers is too cheap to book a place during the prime period of the month that the Christ Child was born - where everyone gives presents and leaves work early.

And, I told him too. After my third roast-beef sub and cranappletonic, I looked him straight in the eye and told him what a cheap bastard he was and that even though I really loved him, as far as I was concerned, he could go shove a twelve-kilogram fish up his stupid rectum.

Somehow it all sounded a lot cooler and poetic when I heard it this morning coming out of the mouth of a five-year-old smoking a cigarette. Luckily for me, he's Uncle Ol' Man Dithers.

Still, Life is like that sometimes, isn't it?

Sometimes, in a social situation we don't know what to say, so we just inappropriately blurt out the first thing that pops into our mind.

Which brings me to the most popular catch-phrase I've overheard on the school grounds for this past month. And apparently it was appropriated by those elementary school hipsters from a commercial on AM-radio.

And I invite everyone to use it themselves over the next two days.

Let's face it - as grown adults, once we hop on the New Years Merry-Go-Round, we are often placed in social positions where we don't know anyone - be it the family Christmas dinner; your spouse's corporate Christmas Dinner - or one of those New Years Eve get-togethers where everyone wears their brand-new Christmas duds and the host wears out his original copy of his favorite-ever Christmas present - Sir Elton's 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.'

So, this is what you do when confronted with such a situation where you are in a room of strangers and don't feel like being a wall-flower. While your ol' lady is in the can, don't be shy but walk up to the first grouping of people you see and as a ice-breaker, repeat this phrase I keep hearing from various Grade 6'ers -

" 'Jason Sims' ... 'Jason Sims,' AAAAUUUGGGHHH!!! Why does that name sound so familiar?!?!"

And then you hit yo-self upside yo head and pronounce in wide-eyed glory, "Of course! He's the real-estate broker who has his face on billboards all over town!"

*** NOTE *** - That's Jason's photo way up top, gracing this blog.

If you pull all that off properly, I'm sure you will be free for the evening. However, if someone misinterprets your ploy as a savvy 'conversation-starter' and actually starts to ask about the current state of real estate, the only way out is to change the topic to the importance of having a good financial adviser. And you know lots of them and most of them are being paroled next month.

If they're still there, interrupting your conversation with the bartender, try this guaranteed 'Been-nice-meeing-you' ... "Read any good books lately?"

I can assure you, you'll be the most lonely-looking guy at the party. And that's always a good thing. Chicks go for that look. And that's according to Marilyn Monroe in 'The Seven-Year Itch.'

Ghosts of Christmas Past

Back by popular demand is another holiday sampling from the Sonny Drysdale Archives of 'The Danny O' Day Christmas Card Series' (*TM*) - this one entitled, 'The Party Boys,' featuring Paxton the dog and Danny O'Day, the eternal frat boy and Sonny's favorite nephew.

It's Christmas Eve and as you can see, Danny is still rarin' to go. And why not? Nuthin' says Christmas better than an Oriental Party Pak from M&M Meat Shops - and that particular box of frozen oven-ready goodies hasn't even been cracked opened yet. Except by the counter help at M&M who always open the box and make a big deal of showing you the contents and then waiting for your approval and the inevitable 'oohs' and 'aahhs.' It's like being in a fancy restaurant when the wine-guy untwists the bottle cap, offers it to you to sniff and then waits for your thumbs-up before pouring. Now, that's class.

Paxton, on the other hand, is all partied out and just wants to get back to doing what he likes best, having a little nap knowing he is in the company of his loved ones. The ol' boy was only eight years old at the time this picture was taken. That's 56 in people years, and that explains his middleaged love of napping. Alas, the party is officially over for Paxton. He'll be missing his first Christmas this year - and would have celebrated his 12th birthday just this past Tuesday.

But life goes on. As do the Christmas traditions. I'll still take the boy out some night at the three a.m. and we'll cut down a small evergreen in one of the parks along the Forks of the Thames. And hopefully won't have to drag it too far to get it home. I'll still send the girls out carolling around the neigbourhood on Christmas Eve and maybe this will be the year we break the $500 mark. And I'll still send out my home-made Christmas cards, if I can ever get Danny to get off his ass and come up with a new pose or concept.

And once again I'll get Edward Scissorhands to help me put up my paper snow-flakes. He's pretty useless at handing me the things because they always accidently get cut in half (and yes, there is such a thing as two snow-flakes that are exactly alike,) but he's a whiz at snipping the string that I use to suspend them from the ceiling. ... You know, until Edward came down to live with us, it never snowed. And since then, it has. If he wasn't still here, I don't think it would be snowing right now. Sometimes, you can even catch me dancing in it.

And that's my Christmas wish for this year. More snow. Maybe a Snow-mageddon's worth. Maybe a Monster Snow-magaddon. Or a Snow-McJihad. A blizzard on Christmas Eve would also be nice. And Boxing Day should be a Snow Day too. Retail employees everywhere would be thankful. And just think, everyone would have to stay home and only spend the holidays with their immediate family.

Paxton has already got his wish. Uninterrupted napping. And less stressful dreams. He no longer chases that rabbit in his dreams. He finally caught him the night he died in his sleep. That's when it happened. At the moment he had the rabbit between his teeth, his heart stopped. It was all over just like that. I can only hope the same thing happens to me in a similar fashion some night when I'm having that recurring dream about finally making it with Candice Bergen.

As for Danny, all he wants is the same wish that was granted to that block-head Pinocchio - that someday the Blue Fairey will come and turn him into a real live boy.

BREAKING NEWS ... You Are Invited Again... UPDATE

Back by popular demand?

Word round the campfire is that next Saturday - December 13th, the Michael Gibson Gallery will be doing another screening of the 1980 Brian Jones television documentary, written about by Herman Goodden in yesterday's London Free Press.

Artist Brian Jones still moves journalist Robert Pegg 28 years later


Reports of the additional screening came as news to the SonnyDrysdaleMediaEmpire and so times of the screening will be posted later when confirmed by the guy in the Research Department.

******* This just in (as of Wednesday, December 10th,) - the documentary will be screened at TWO O'CLOCK this SATURDAY AFTERNOON. *****

Word on the street has it that the show's director may even be in attendence for the screening of what has been called "an absolutely invaluable document of an important Canadian artist."

The exhibit, 'Brian Jones - Private Window' runs till December 27th. Sonny encourages all to check it out at some point during the month - if only for a rare and last chance to see a pencil drawing for one of the first of the 'Neighbours' style paintings. The oil of it is at the top of this post. It's the painting which kicked the whole thing off. The title - 'Neighbours.'

The Michael Gibson Gallery is virtually located at www.gibsongallery.com.

In the non-Matrix realm it can be found at 157 Carling Street - across the road and just a hop, skip and a jump from Chaucers.