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2013: 20 years bad luck.

ARIES (21 MARCH - 20 APRIL)

Adolph Hitler didn't get into art school but by threatening to kill himself secured a job painting nice-enough Bavarian landscape greeting cards. Later, failing in his first coup, he got arrested but threatened to kill himself so got put up in the Hilton for a couple dimes. After wantonly and systematically defiling his young niece, who killed herself to escape him and his sad little wiener schnitzel, he got arrested again, threatened to kill himself cueing his bro's-before-hoe's to get him out and into a more willing doppelbanger - the young Eva Braun. Finally, after skipping about the killing fields of the first world war relatively unscathed, and dodging eight assassination attempts. der Furher damn near brought to fruition a plan for world domination based on harsh toke psycho-social-economic madness, (that was WWII for you OCAD kids), failed, and seeing no way out this time, actually killed himself. For real. So look: Get some spanokopita. See things through. Dreams do come true. If a mangled Austrian Momma's boy (no judgement) can do it, anyone can. So buck up fuck up. Wham! Look, theres no getting out of this thing alive. The idea is to spend as much time as possible in love and service. Communication and Unity. Community. The word has been so evacuated of meaning. It's bantered around worse than 'literally', 'genius', 'absolutely' and 'socialism'. What the Sharks & the Jets both need to realize is that once the farm runs out of weed, cider, wieners and beans this happens: 

1. Decay

2. The slippery slope

3. It's going to get worse

4. A grab for power

5. Freedom, liberty and independence is lost

Don't let it happen. Revolution is not a dinner party, said Chairman Mao. And he really oughta know. During the famine he fashioned whilst writing poems by the lake, some of his people began eating their own children to live. So whatever your problem is Aries, if it's not that, then you know, like, be cool.

TAURUS (21 APRIL - 21 MAY)

The elected Chairman of the Bloordale Business Improvement Association is a gentleman named Spyro Commodores. Planta Genista. Amongst other things Mr. Commodores is the owner of the House of Lancaster. Since the War of the Roses, the HOL has declined into an inner-city Gentleman's Club franchise where one can procure all-the-way sex, illicit drugs and high-priced liquor without being pestered by pesky law enforcement. Sorry homeless single mothers over forty who have to work and score on the streets, but the HOL pays taxes - lots of 'em. The HOL is kitty corner from the Nut House and the Sally Ann. I mention this because I see this as a constellation. Your constellation. Your consolation. Your consternation. Consider it kismet. Welcome to the neighbourhood outlandos d'amour. Yeah, bullshit. It's everywhere. A day doesn't go by when you're not faced with your own or someone else's. In the teachings of Gary Peacock, (an inspired educator amongst a sea of shlubs), he likens the information he imparts to food. We all know what happens to food. Shit is a part of life that many of us are uncomfortable with. But there it is. A world full of shit. The oxygen on the streets of Mumbai consists of %30 fecal matter. Breath it in and Taste of the Danforth. Knowledge is power. Shit is power. Diarrhoea links to poor consumption. Constipation is repressed feeling. Work it out and get back to the counter or the shovel. There's more work to do. With the exception of those who struggle towards greatness without the grizzly musings of Ayn Rand or the assassinated dreams of John Lennon, "we're in some kind of postfascisto, apathetic hippie beatdom. Everybody feels that somehow there is shit in the nectar so you look for some ground on which to rally". Norman Mailer wrote that in the 1960's but for some of you the beat goes on. Beat it.

GEMINI (22 MAY - 21 JUNE)

I don't know Gem, you're truly outrageous. Do something weird this month. What's not weird? A life in service. Make it happen. Garbage collectors: Kings among men. Beckett said it: To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now. Apparently, if we pay attention and study, we can learn things that are exactly true, like 1+1=2. So let's hit the books this year and keep our eyes & ears open. If anyone finds something that's exactly true, (including more exactly true math problems), please email them to me. I'm too sceptical, thick and lazy to be anything but ignorant, fearful and starstruck. If you are in high school, (and I assume you are if you're reading this shitrag), know this: your teachers are right. You actually do need to know math and history and law and home ec. and accounting and shop and health and english to live as an adult in the 21st century. Take all that shit while it's still free. Do well. You'll be an adult in fifteen minutes. Dumb kids. Hey, you take the shame, debasement, abuse, slavery, children and desperation out of pornography, (which is asking a lot), and it's hard to criticize. The argument that goes something like people see things there which they then expect their partners to perform is not an argument against porn but for it. It's good advice. Loosen up. You think you're going to be able to pull off that crazy shit when your my age? No way! Get some lube and a bible, be safe, and engage in reckless enjoyment with your beloved and her fine half-sister.

CANCER (22 JUNE - 22 JULY)

Fundamentalist Christians believe the world is around 6000 years old while the Scientific Community believe it is much, much, much older - much older. I believe however that they are both wrong. I believe that the world is 39 years old and all the stuff we learned from our grandparents (period actors), at school (a sham), and on NetFlix (the CiA), is all just made up. What about the great cannon of arts and letters you ask? All just part of the Big Bang Travolta & Hammerstein Miracle Myth that happened 39 years ago. Think about it. Look around. The evidence is all about. What are you going to believe? All the smear we've been fed by our shit-faced, key-partying parents and lefty media outlets like the FT, Economist and National Geographic, or what you can actually touch, feel, see, hear with your own body? Why do you think B.S. Obama can't get Trump those documents he wants? B.S. is 39 years old! So is Delirium Tremens! So are you! So is the CN tower! This month prove me wrong. Live in the moment. That's all there is. This moment. Nick Fraser. Not Frasier. C'mon! Now let me guess, you are between 18 and 35 from an upper middle-class background who is preoccupied chiefly with themselves and with radicalism in all things, chiefly fashion, something you think is called anarchy but maybe socialism, lifestyle, inconspicuous consumption and self-expression? How's that working out for you? Is the self-loathing becoming too much? Are you beginning to think that maybe there is a thing or two in those dusty old bookshelves worth reading? Or that perhaps people over forty might have something to offer you besides the cheque you get every month from your mother? I mean, when someone says this or that band sucks I kind of think, yeah probably but you know, what do you eat in the winter? Or I'm right back at the Gulags, the West Virginia mine shaft, the factory floor, the bull pen. It's all very sad, this decline of the west. A Sri Lankan acquaintance of mine recently entered into an arranged marriage. I don't know a happier hipster.

LEO (23 JULY - 23 AUGUST)

Leos will retreat when injured. An unfulfilled Leo can be extremely disruptive. Says so in my Parker's book. Look: Love/Hurt(s). The two feelings are inseparable so there is no real conflict. In the case of some, the artifact of misery that's pinning your teeth together has to do with you not being able to possess the other to whatever extent you imagine the other's other imagines they do. Take a small piece - a lock of hair, a lions tail - and hold it in your heart of hearts - a heart shaped box. Be at peace, breathe, let go, stretch…Or you know what? Fuck that noise! Throw down for that shit without shame or mercy! A family - whatever it looks like - is sacred and sometimes you have to go out and take that shit. You have to make that shit. Like many sacred things you might have to fucking fight for that shit. Is it worth it? Better figure it out. Got any roar left bitch? Knut Hamsun, everyone's favourite fascist, tells us: Truth telling does not involve seeing both sides or objectivity: truth telling is unselfish inwardness. God Speed Germ. I love you. Rest your head. You worry too much. It's gonna be okay. When times get tough you can fall back on us. Don't give up. Please don't give up. When Kate Bush sang those words to Peter Gabriel in the 1880's they were still lovers and had just resolved a spat about reverb. They were always fighting about reverb. Pete wanted five seconds of decay while Kate insisted on ten with a high-pass filter. They settled out of court with seven secs and a gate. No compromise you say? Good luck Fountainhead. Good fucking luck. Don't make promises you can't keep. Don't make sweeping gestures as though they mean nothing and then come back on Saturday as though you've given up your religion. Let's be clear dear. Don't fuck around. The young hopefuls of the CPC are up against the combined deformed legacy of Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot and Mao. That's a tough nut to crack. That's a nutcracker suite. Tchaikovsky: total gaylord. Hunger offers no choice to the citizen or the police; we must love each other or die. - W.H. Auden

VIRGO (24 AUGUST - 22 SEPTEMBER)

I keep being drawn back into the work of Prairie philosopher, impresario, volleyball player, jazzman and gonzo philanthropist Dr. John E. Russon. Particularly the following passage from Human Experience (SUNY Press), "..there is always a cloth at the ready to wipe away the semen if the man should ejaculate onto his or her body." I can't get over it. The whole cum-rag thing. Is there one always at the ready as Russon claims? Is there? IS THERE?! Derrida (?) asks us if we can we even know what a cum-rag is and points to the word <is> itself as somewhat hopeless. Who Killed J.R. is presently working on a third book. We're all hoping that with this one he tries to cum from an angle other than the bourgeois, LL Bean deckchair, missionary position from which he presently insists that we're all just meant to posses endless supplies of clean cum-rags always at the ready. Jesus Christ. Fucking J.D. Rockefeller over there. Cum in her vagina Doc! Her va-gin-a. i.e. Leonard fucking Skynard. Freebird. Virgin Mobile. Mobile Virgin. 9/11. The Butthole Surfers are not a good band. They don't sound good. They are bad. They suck shit. I would rather listen to my parents fucking, which they still do thanks to medical science. Don't be like the Surfers. Don't be. Don't do anything. It will only lead to conflict. O my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible.  Oh wait, deal with conflict. That's what you should do Aries. Yep, deal with conflict using your non-violent assertiveness training. You know, like Israel's Bennie and the Jets. Hang tough Browns. Here Come the Warm Jets.The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart, One must imagine Sisyphus happy. - Camus

LIBRA (23 SEPTEMBER - 23 OCTOBER)

Allow me to paraphrase from bestselling Mrs. Lady Underpants, Sylvia Browne: You have been alive since the beginning of time in many different bodies all over the world. What you're living right now is simply the eternal life your spirit has been living and will go on forever. So relax. Don't do it. When you want to go to it. The difference between G.W. Bush and his dead Muslim despot friends, is that he never sent his own army into the streets of his own country to mow down his own people. In fact, you may recall he almost forgot to send them at all when the levy broke. He just ignored them and set his murderous sights abroad. That's why you can't really call him a fascist. Would have liked to seen him in the ring with Spicolli though. Bob Dylan is 73 and could totally take that Neo-Liberal nepotistic ponce Trudeau. Fake it till you make it brother. Black Flag. Yesterday I read NOW Magazine and The Grid. Just kidding. Andy Warhol was a piece of shit. His best work happened between the ages of 8 and 9. After that, the bank allowed his perverse pathologies to take the reins and it was just a horrible time to be around him. We used to meet for shrimp cocktails - you know with thousand islands dressing - on the upper east side and he'd scribble these vapid, disturbing aphorisms on napkins like, America is a fascist state and that makes me horny. Then he'd throw some bedraggled whore in a cab and get her to blow a monkey while Nico sang lieder in flip flops with a bag over her head. I mean those soup cans might have changed everything but everything was doing just fine thank you very much. He got his in the end. Let it be a lesson to those who aim to exploit the bedraggled whores of this world for the sake of "art". Fuck you bitchass Arts Council cocksucking motherfuckers. Art is a shadow - Eric Chenaux.

SCORPIO (24 OCTOBER - 22 NOVEMBER)

It was good to see you on the trolley car. Always good to see you. Friends, leave your parents alone. They are just as fucked as you are. I should know! I am your fucking parents! There is the State. There is the Church. But in the end you die alone. The more Friends you make, and keep, and care for, the safer you are. And remember that whatever Facebook claims, in real life, you can only have around 135 of them. And only then if you are very, very lucky. Cherish them and treat them well or you may lose them. And nothing sucks quite like losing a friend. Believe me. Anyhow, one issue of the Sunday New York Times contains more information than you would have likely learned in a lifetime during the 15th century. So Jesus be cool. Learn what you can as well as you can. Live a life in service. It's not like there's a job waiting for you after grad school anyways so take your fucking time. We can't all be the poppy salesman; the polymath; the predator; Alex the Alligator. Your options grow fewer. Go all in with your best shot. You're best shot for happiness lies within the words of the small voice inside your head. Find something to record with - your phone, a tape deck - and put it up to your head and record those precious melodies. That's your best shot: the binaural head. Though a hotly disputed subject, most sex therapists agree that there are some subjects, (abortion, STI's, taxidermy, Tom Cruise), which are too weird to even work as titilating taboo during those tender post-coital moments. Human sexuality is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in latex so use your head folks. We are all sensitive people: the butcher, the thief, the warrior king. Behind the unsatisfied sexual longings of all the people we see are the hurt and pain of loneliness, isolation, humiliation, anger, frustration (and) disappointment…from InTouch by Drs.Beryl & Noam Chernick (Sound Feelings Limited).

SAGITTARIUS (23 NOVEMBER - 21 DECEMBER)

[Q]: Why can't Stevie Wonder read? [A]: Because he's black. Awful right? Wow. Wow, wow, wow. I heard that "joke" recently and was so outraged I went out a bought a $700 glock to protect myself from the anguish that welled up inside me. A glock is what Toronto's boys in blue holster. It's got 17 rounds so if you're really up against it, it's a damn fine sidearm to have on your hip locked and loaded. But look, racist jokes are never funny. Never. Don't ever use them. They aren't funny and they hurt people. Seriously. Race is just such an important bullshit social construct it should never be laughed about. C'mon every single comedian in the world since the beginning of time! Stop that shit! Nigga' Please! So you love your wife and your girlfriend. That's okay. Good even. The way it oughta be. Sorry you moralistic diaphragms of truth and beauty but life is complicated. Be grateful for such bounty. Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (And It's All Small Stuff), is a more terrifying read than Mein Kampf. I met Richard Dawkins at a bar in Heathrow and after three single malts (he paid), I said, Dick this God is Dead rerun shit - you're fucking with us right? You know the Spirit is real.  He paused, looked around carefully then whispered: Alright then, but as verb only. I knew it! Great guy. Good tipper. "If I got a problem, a problems got a problem till it's gone.", is the best sentence in the English language, (followed by You'd better put the chicken back in the fridge), so I'm sharing it with you. That is the shit right there. Sesame Street/Russell Jones. Remember the names. Remember the tomes. R.I.P. O.D.B.

CAPRICORN (22 DECEMBER - 20 JANUARY)

Well, be well goats. Got a better idea than being well goats? If so, do that thing. Act that way. There is a guy I know in Whitehorse, YK, that I see about once a year. Whenever I do, I politely remind him that he owes me twenty dollars which he doesn't. He always apologizes, says something about a book I leant him, and pays up. It's amazing. I don't know. Try it! Canada is no longer a nation-state, but a postmodern something, writes sourdough Richard Gwyn. Now that's really saying something ain't it? I say, if you haven't checked out Bob Mover, now's the time. Bob please accept my commission to climb to the top of Ms. Liberty, blow that horn and save The United States of Israel from itself. As for the rest of you, the extravagance of your extended youth; your offerings to the Native Peoples who are gratefully ignorant of your existence and concern; must be released. Live a life in service yes. But who and what do you serve? Look in/look out. Don't let your halcyon days lived in clouds of hydroponic smoke allow you to believe the unbelievable. You're unemployed or under-employed. If you're out there doing some good that should be enough to make a decent living. An occupation you might consider is Non-Consumer/Disposer/Designer of Worthless Crap. The pay sucks but you can set your own hours and there are benefits. Stop looking for a job and start doing a job. There is plenty of work to do. My mother wanted me to find a woman who either worked at Tim Horton's or didn't mind going out there to clean people's houses. For the first time in my 52 years on this planet I took her advice. What a babe my doughnut maid.

AQUARIUS (21 JANUARY - 18 FEBRUARY)

In 1534 the king of France sent Jacques Cartier to find riches across the sea. He traded with the Natives who helped him and his peeps get through the brutal fucking Canadian winter you are currently enjoying with your OGGS, Hydro and binge drinking. The French must have been so grateful. And there is nothing that quite says thank you like fuck you. If someone helps you survive this winter don't kill them and their family and sink them into multigenerational poverty and genocide. G sus! Turn that ship around son. How about a Pot Luck? Passes to Blue Mountain? A gift certificate from Soundscapes? Gratitude is the attitude! I learned that at rehab Michael you fucking child. Grow. Up. Journey. The problem with Alcoholics Anonymous is that it's anonymous and it's for alcoholics and it doesn't work. This encourages the addict to continue to be accountable to no one but himself whilst he pounds back the pints between meetings. Then comes the powerlessness bit which does seem a profoundly misguided concept to embrace. You had might as well be a Christian. Oh yeah. It's the same thing. It just doesn't work very well for most people. There are other models for recovery and morality. If you are struggling with substance abuse call this number <416-535-8501> and tell them White Crow sent you. If you're not, then drink up and savour every sip. One man's poison is another man's prize. Live free. Be wise. Surrender. Survive. If you're struggling with morality go talk to a mirror. The leads are weak? You're weak. God is love my children and you are nothing. N.W.A

PISCES (19 FEBRUARY - 20 MARCH)

Being broke means you don't have any money. Not a dime. Maybe a nickel, maybe even a few nickels. But it means you have not enough money to buy a single from Golden Burma. It does not mean you have $70 and you'll be spending a week at the Ritz with your in-laws. It does not mean you have some money set aside for Jiujitsu. It mean you have NO MONEY. Nothing. Just thought I should clear that up. Poverty sucks doesn't it? Getting out of it has to do with finding things in yourself that you have to offer, training them, and using them effectively. Hopefully that, with some luck and tenacity, should get you out of poverty. If you're not in poverty it seems you have a duty to those who are. So do your duty. Coaching football is good. Rob Ford lives a life in service to his football team. So good for him. That's a good thing he's doing right there. I spoke to him once on his car phone. I got the feeling that he didn't realize he was the Mayor of a city of close to three million people. I mean we were all shocked weren't we? Perhaps no one more than him? He probably just didn't realize it. There was his brother Doug on the phone every morning, Robby, I'm serious. You won. You have to do some shit. You gotta stop the freakin' gravy train! These homos are getting away with murder! Huh, Rob would shrug, and swing by the office and cancel some HIV shit. Poor guy. I'm happy for him now. He's free and clear to live a life in service to his football team. Nothing wrong with that. And not a moment too soon. Someone woulda' Dave Bro'd that motherfucker. One thing that Marx fella' was right about was the significance of the gulf between us. The Gulf War. Desert Storm. The seven mothers of my seven mighty sons are all, every last one, wonders. These are beautiful, brilliant, angry, addled, over-privileged, tenderhearted, delightful women who suffer needlessly from victimization, entitlement, abandonment and anger management issues. After quietly enduring seven abusive marriages for seven long years they refuse to seek much needed therapy as they don't have the time. I will always love them but the thread is bare readers. If this sounds familiar let me give you some advice: Find the motherfucking time. You only have so much of it to get your shit together and then you just kind of end up in Miss America land. And to all of you who have hurt the ones you love, like I have just done, there is nothing out there like forgiveness. Or litigation. Either way - bring it. Jesus, I'm rollin' with you. Jesus, I'm rollin' with you.

Send your incomplete thoughts and exact truths to forgivemewhitecrow@gmail.com