ARIES (21 MARCH - 20 APRIL)

I hated the mumbling that went on inside my mouth…It was like the drone of a trapped bumblebee…You crazy liar! You fool! You jack-ass! Why don't you tell the truth once in while. It's your fault, so quit trying to shit the blame onto somebody else. - John Fante

The brutal fact of it Chandra, Higgsy, is that Neo-Citron is now only available at Wal-Mart; there are no swimming trunks for sale at Dufferin Mall; and the neighbourhood hardware store, perhaps the greatest institution in retail history, is a thing of the past. There's more. Synthetic pot is now available at the corner variety for all our inner-city high school kids who need a leg up avec ses devoirs, whilst growing the real shit remains a criminal act. Give the bookshops and record stores five more minutes to gasp their last breaths; the newspaper business enough time to sell their presses to the OCAD kids; cancel public broadcasting, healthcare and arts funding and that'll just about be that. Finally, Canadian society as lean, mean fighting machine. Let's attack America first. They'll never see us coming. We'll hang our synthetic maple leaf from the top of the Pentagon and then we'll hit the Middle World guns a-blazing. Let's face it, our Billy Joel foreign policy has made us the laughing stock of the world since Newfoundland signed on to Confederation. Let's start blowing some shit up. Look, this is your world. You did this. You created Wal-Mart Neo-Citron, (those are words now!), and the military/prison industrial complex. Kavuna Simon describes the Congolese minkisi (object of power) in 1913: "When you have composed it, observe it's rules lest it be annoyed and punish you. It knows no mercy." You are responsible. You have made some lousy decisions in your life and now you must deal with the consequences. Everyone thinks it will never happen to them. It will. It does. It is. Look around. It's all your fault. Whatcha gonna do about it? I know your busy living a life in service because it's shit or walk right? So good. Hit the bricks. Run along little faggot with the little earring there's more money for nothin' out there for you to spend mindlessly. Run motherfucker run. Run to your mamma. Run DMC.

TAURUS (21 APRIL - 21 MAY)

The women have got to be annihilated. They have enslaved my mind…I decided that drowning them would be the best. I could do it in comfort while I took my bath. Then I would toss the remains down the sewer... A cruel hero, but a hero nonetheless. - John Fante

The coffee from the bottom of the cup bleeds into your bathwater and your reminded of growing up with a father constantly chastised by a mother. He stacked the dishes wrong; failed to put the good sheets on the guest bed; dressed you in your sisters clothes; or shovelled the driveway north-south instead of east-west. Many grown men secretly thrive on this kind of Moth(e)Ring, while others will run from it like the plague, while still others will resort to violent silence. In any case, we must make compromises if we choose to partner up and they must not include violence of any kind. That's right, I learned that at John School. Most people don't ask for too much. Open relationships? Open to what exactly? Open to sexual liaisons outside of the coupling? How does this work? You're free after work on Thursdays so you hook up at the row of pay-by-the hours off the Jersey end of the Holland Tunnel with a bottle of Baby Duck and then clean up, go home and say what now? Sorry I'm late honey, I was banging your friend Sue at the Super 8. And that's gonna be cool? I've always thought that the answer to the problem that monogamy presents, (the desire to nail anything with an undercarriage and a decent pair once the coast is clear), is either a healthful menage or going to the pros. If neither of these are options then you're stuck with making that partner of yours every woman in the world. If you're lucky, and you probably are, she is. Treat him/her good and if the nagging/childishness is too much just explain politely but assertively that such behaviour will surely lead you to the garage with some Bells and a noose. If it persists there are worse ways to go. What? Did you want live forever? Fuck you glass slipper wearing, Peter Pan reading motherfucker.

GEMINI (22 MAY - 21 JUNE)

I have seven months and 450 bucks to write to write my novel with. This is pretty swell in my opinion. - John Fante

Happy Valentines Day. Seriously. I hope you have a wonderful time on the 14th of February because it is a very special day. I'm just kidding. It's just another bullshit thing to ignore. I know you know. Just trying to do my fucking job. I hate this job. Every month I gotta sit down in front of some fucking computer somewhere and think about stupid shit to write as though I actually give a shit about you, yes you, who is actually taking time out of their precious lives lived in service to read it. What a burden I carry! Read something else. That's the best fraudulent psychic astrological forecast I can send you - a reading list all accesible at the Public Library. You don't even need a membership card - no id, no contract, no nuthin'. Just sit your invisible poor-credit ass down there comfycozers and read:

.The Economist

.Toronto Star Obits

.the Bible

.a dictionary

.Colossus of Destiny (Arturo G. Bandini)

Or if you're living underground The Metro News is a good source of Associated Press miniatures and free. Don't knock it man. They get all the sexy bits in there like the one about the woman who got Workman's Comp for a sex-related injury or Silvio Bunga-Bunga's recent marriage to his daughter. It's all in there. If you're looking for something light to read don't take Ondatjee's advice and pick up the National Enquirer, take my advice and pick up some Ondajtee. His poems read like Penthouse letters without the soft shoe. Same his early films done at the farm. Skip those. Not worth the overdue fines. The poems are good. The man can pen a good bit but to place them somehow above the Enquirer is absurd. Always think of yourself as lower as the next man. It's both true and easier to remember. Honesty is revolutionary you duplicitous Gemini motherfucker.

CANCER (22 JUNE - 22 JULY)

Don't be a fool. She's a slut, pure and simple, a capitalistic slut. Her day is finished when the revolution comes. - John Fante

Behind the ever-so comely Mediterranean eyes of the Bank Greeter lurks a nascent desire to murder your memory over Lean Cuisine. Your number's up Cancer. When is the last time you really did anything decent for someone without some expectation of remuneration? If you're just in it for yourself well then be honest about it. The only thing worse than balls-out capitalism is the kind that masquerades as something else. Everybody knows you want the good life and that you don't really care about anyone else. Why fight it? Be that guy. There is some charm in just being yourself and probably that's all you got going on at this point. That, your rich old lady, your Escalade and your golf game. If you're golf I'm street hockey. Fuck that. I'm street. I lay down there with that shit. I slow the autos down. My skin is asphalt. I help them old lioness bitches at the imaginary crosswalks you race through trying to get to death early. Not on your best day man. You're boney ass is chicken shit and I'm your Chuck Fucking Norris Delta Force II Columbian Connection. I will baste you, waste you, debase you if you persist. You don't hold a candle to rising at 5am without a hangover. Destroy that sanguine temperament before I do. You serve no one. Have a fine month in your squalor of luxury you cancerous crab.

LEO (23 JULY - 23 AUGUST)

Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come not to bring peace but the sword. - Jesus via Matt 10:34

My life partner, is a cheerleader for the Argos to whom she refers as "crew" and/or "posse". Even from the nosebleeds I knew it was love at first sight. It can be so simple sometimes. Toughness and sweetness pours out of her everywhere and into everything. Her perfect pom-poms bring to life in me a love for music and the written word that I feared had passed long ago. We were listening to the radio upon that dreadful day in Newtown, Connecticut when the announcer referred to the massacre as the "second worst incident of it's kind in American history". Poor choice of words. I wish Gomeshi had said it. Maybe that would have done it. Remember Peter Gzowski? Too young? Well let me tell you, life was sweeter then. In any case, this nightmare was a reminder of the severity of mental illness left unchecked, which points to a healthcare system failing it's own, which points to a government doing likewise. It's frightening and difficult to come to terms with. Whatever happens in a big city, (from the emergence of a weirdo art star to a terrible act of violence), happens in a small town. So beware. Picking up your kids from school can be a drag. Everyone involved tries to balance safety and convenience. Do we need a cop at the door? Well, if we fucking need them at bullshit fucking film shoots to conduct motherfucking traffic then I think we fucking need them at the fucking nuthouses to which we send our fucking kids every fucking day. The annual budget allotted to the Toronto Police Department is over a billion dollars. I think we can afford it. But wait! Who will watch those whack-jobs?! How's this: Fuck Michael Moore. I'm with Heston on this one: Strap the PTA. To parents everywhere dealing with the worse thing that could ever happen to anybody, I wish you Godspeed in your impossible recovery. In your agony may you find some measure of peace. Somehow. As for the ongoing "labor disruption" involving Toronto's elementary school teachers, here's the thing. They have the most important fucking job in the world so fucking give them whatever the fuck it is they want. Fuck man, is it just me?

VIRGO (24 AUGUST - 22 SEPTEMBER)

"What is it? Arturo! What's the matter?"

"None of your business."

"Shall I get a doctor?"

"Never."

"You act so strange. Are you hurt?"

"Don't talk to me. I'm thinking.""But what is it?"

"You wouldn't know. You're a woman". - John Fante

Recently some schoolteacher somewhere was pinched for jerking off in front of unappreciative women in public. That's very impolite, my six year old announced. Yes. Very impolite indeed. This is what I mean! Just ask first or go to the pros. Where are peoples manners these days? It's simple: Excuse me Ma'am, please forgive me for being so forward if that sort of thing put's you off, but I find you extremely attractive in a shitty kind of way and would love to just let my seed fly off up in front there. You would be surprised dude. Women are just as gross and horny as men. Maybe more so. I should know. I used to be a woman. I did the change because I could no longer stand being associated with such disgusting perverted people as the Nonmen (Wombmen, Womyn...). Think about it. They made you! I bet if you asked 100 Nonmen if they would sneak out behind the bar and watch you yank it for a twenty, every single one of them would do it. I mean, depends where you go right? Don't be trying that shit in the Annex but you know what I'm talking about. Every last one. Try it. Nuff said. The war on drugs is a war on people. Poor people. Legalize all that shit now. And quit shopping at Value Village. There labour practices are horrendous and illegal. Don't kid yourself. They are Big Business. Support The Salvation Army and Goodwill - the last vestiges of a faded, worn, and not-so-gently used Christianity.

LIBRA (23 SEPTEMBER - 23 OCTOBER)

It's morning, time to get up, so get up, Arturo, and look for a job. Get out there and look for what you'll never find.You're a thief and you're a crab-killler and a lover of women in clothes closets. You'll never find a job! - John Fante

That's some American literature right there and it hurts don't it? Let me direct you to the secret of waking up and to living beneath your means. It's Folgers. That's right Folgers in your cup. The best part of waking up; that mountain grown aroma and so on. People harsh the brown powder but if you are a thief, crab-killler and lover of women in clothes closets like poor young Arturo, (and I know you are), it's what you need to put the doo wop diddy in all you do. The difference between Folgers and Fair Trade is about 10 cents a day for the Jamaican farmer who's more than likely bringing up your beans. So whilst that is a significant amount I think we can agree that it's hardly fair. It seems calling that shit Fair Trade is a little over-the-top no? I mean when you're paying someone 20 cents a day anywhere in the world to do anything does fairness even come into it? I don't think so. That's Rough Trade right there. I think that getting you to spend $6 on a cup of coffee with a side order of feeling good about yourself is really what's going on here. For under 5 dollars a month Folgers will keep you as perky as a stripper on Valentine's Day. So you tell me which is more fair: our Jamaican friend getting 80 cents a month for your $4.65 or you spending $180 for his $3.20 in labor. See what I mean? Me thinks the middle man is taking the piss. He's always taking the piss that middle man. Grow your own.  Don't get above your raisin'. Dance with them who brung yu'. Enough with the platitudes? Good. Fuck you Libras. Shit eating well goats.

SCORPIO (24 OCTOBER - 22 NOVEMBER)

"Bilge," I said. Who are you to criticize a smell? You're a nun. A female. A mere woman. You're not even a woman because you're a nun. You're only half-woman." - John Fante

"Oh Jesus, I am nothing". This is an example of negative self-talk however accurate it may be. The Whitecoats have me doing some pretty strange things around the house these days. Let me share some with you. Put some pictures up of yourself as a young child. (Don't have any cause your parents were on junk while you were shuttled around foster care? Look for pity elsewhere Scorpion and just put up some pictures of some other kid - they all the look the same anyway). Now heal that little kid. Look into it's eyes and remember what it was like to be that kid. Now focus on the good shit please. If the bad shit comes up well then let it but gently bring your focus back to the good shit. There's one thing for you - some inner child healing shit. The other thing is to get up and look yourself in the mirror and do some daily affirmations. I'm not kidding around here asshole. Fucking do it! Surely you have something you can be proud of? Perhaps you are a good enough parent? Perhaps you're a good citizen who votes, recycles, files tax returns, and lives a life in service. Perhaps you are a hard worker or have overcome adversity. Give yourself a moment to feel what's good about you and give yourself a little credit. You certainly won't find it on the ass end of Offerings so do that shit at home motherfucker. Do it everyday and stop calling yourself names. Leave that to me shithead. And if the Whitecoats have put you on Seroquill or Ritalin or Effexor, or are even suggesting it, run Forest run. I don't care how crazy you are, drinking those particular brands of Kool Aid is a one way street to living like a tree lives. Want to live like a tree lives? Take the damn shit. What do I care. I ain't your mama. Scram.

SAGITTARIUS (23 NOVEMBER - 21 DECEMBER)

Most of all I though about money…I used to roll paper in my hands and pretend it was money...I stood in front of a mirror and peeled it off to clothiers, automobile salesman and whores. - John Fante

Some days start and end with treats but in the middle, tricks. This is referred to often as work. Feeling like a whore, not a sex worker. (a noble profession particularly in the Netherlands where the Government pays pros to serve the seriously disabled because otherwise their not getting all of their Maslow in), but a whore, a wage-slave even to yourself, can be part of what it means in creating space between you and the door wolves. I'm sorry life is like this. It really shouldn't be. It does seem unjust. I know you're out there every month trying to make hundreds of dollars. It's insane! Education doesn't seem to matter. Familial wealth seems to make a difference. One doesn't seem to meet to many wealthy whores at the gym or on Lock-Up Raw Extended Stay. If you were born into wealth I'd say your pretty lucky, provided you stay off the narcotics and live a life in service. The Royals seem to do this. Say what you will about the inbred ruling class but for the most part they seem to bring up decent kids. But remember that wealth is just a mindset right? Right??? Rise every morning and look at all the things you have that you don't need. Put them in a pile, do some dusting, and give it all away. Give it up. Give up your world and start anew. Everyday do this until you have nothing but what you need. Then look around at what you have left and realize your enormous wealth and get back to your hoe-in' with a renewed sense of value. Things could always be worse. But they're not are they? If things are pretty okay then that's pretty good. Don't be chaisin' rainbows Sag. You'll end up dead. You will regardless of what you do. Life is amazingly cruel until you accept suffering as readily as you accept a pat on the back. If you're parents live in town and bought you a house on a nice side street and look after the kids on weekends, etc. you are in a different position than the terrified Vietnamese woman working at Coffee Time sending money back home. You do see that don't you?Take it easy but take it, as the sad man once sang.

CAPRICORN (22 DECEMBER - 20 JANUARY)

From the bedroom I heard my mother's soft snores. By then I was ready to commit suicide, and so thinking I fell asleep. - John Fante

Ahh yes, the winter blahs. A S.A.D lamp is available for around $100 and will help those of you who are affected by the rays of the sun, (every living thing), to continue to live a life in service without being crippled by the depressing realization that you live in a climate not quite fit for human habitation. It may also be helpful to not think of yourself as human but as simply another mammal with tribe in tow working tirelessly to survive. Fill those green bins with leafy greens and get your teeth around some decent game. Borrow, beg or steal if you must but take it in. This country is yours to hop across one-legged and cancer-ridden, unfettered by armed checkpoints. And despite it's problems, it is a grand enough place to hang your hat. Liberia has much more temperate winters but you may have a lot more than merry weather to think about if you're looking to relocate there. People actually escape from countries. It seems to me that the only people ever trying to escape Canada are whoring diplomats, tax evaders and the odd sex tourist caught poking around the reserves. Don't check the weather every morning. Just be prepared for anything always. Plan for the worst but keep your chin up. Dress to kill. Dress to fight. No one likes a loser so quit acting the part Cap.  

AQUARIUS (21 JANUARY - 18 FEBRUARY)

Democracy is permissible as long as the control of business is off limits to popular deliberation or change; i.e. so long as it isn't democracy. - Noam Chomsky

Police officers in London, England sent out greeting cards over Christmas to gang members wishing them Happy Holidays and reminding them of the consequences of breaching their bail conditions. It's nice to know the Brits still have a sense of humour. Bravo Gendarmes! Gags can be profound. They are weapons we need to combat conceit and horror and the cliches that life presents. The Ottawa/Wakefield-based drummer/producer Ross Murray was once asked what he would do with a million bucks. His answer: Elaborate gags. Whether you have a million dollars or not, I see an elaborate gag in your near future Aquarius. With love in your heart why not take a break from your exceedingly dull life and pull prank? De-tune the bass players trousers on break. Get your foot in the door. Ring some doorbells posing as an atheist jagoff collecting for the cause. Yank yank, woozle-woozle, chitty-chitty bang-bang. Just for laughs, pretend you give a shit about someone besides yourself and make some exceedingly generous gesture that will change someone's life. That would be hilarious. And now from a list of Joys compiled by H.Jackson Jr., Rosemary Brown and Kathy Peel: #14. Don't buy children underwear.

PISCES (19 FEBRUARY - 20 MARCH)

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left, Shaped to the comfort of the last to go…- Philip Larkin

The most intense application of your fortitude is the quarterly trip to Disneyland. Your activism, though impressively well-monied, falls far beyond any known benchmark of hypocrisy. No, you won't be hard to find when the revolution comes. You need to apologize Pisces. I know it's difficult but if you could muster one decent, sincere apology where you demonstrate some genuine remorse without trying to absolve yourself and minimize your depravity or by resorting to passive aggression, manipulation, obfuscation, all-out lying, using your child as courier pigeon or hostage, or shaming, bringing up the past, etc.,all forms of abuse, you will be ready to graduate to Level II of existence.com. You will love Level II. Sure it's more challenging than Level I but it has so much more to offer. The images and narrative are so realistic and true to life. The penalties are more severe but the prizes feel like the real thing. So genuine is Level II you may actually begin to experience lifelike feelings of empathy and understanding, agency, accountability, responsibility, self-reliance, and wonder. Plus, it prepares you for Level III which feels exactly like you're lying in a hospital bed on a morphine drip wondering if your life in service was worth a Mississippi goddamn. Level IV, whilst extremely psychedelic, doesn't last very long and nobody is totally sure about Level V. That's the big one people often describe as…well they don't really…something about going towards a bright light…Don't be fooled though; it's Game Over. So Level II is really where the beef is. Get there Pisces. Stay a while. Engage. Play hard. Go big or go home. Home is where the heart is. Got any? Still think you're special? Boy, do you got a shock comin'. Better you than me though sweetheart. That's what they call the selfishness piece in the preservation industry where I'm currently installed. Cat got your tongue? Cat's will do that to fish. I can only offer you the gift of hope and love and the reminder that money doesn't grow on trees. May you banish every negative impulse from your soul. The universe won't do it. It's up to you alone. That's your cross to bear and the quality of mercy these days is extremely strained. Jesus Christ, where did you go my dove? You're getting a reputation down here.

Available on the web: www.steeringwheeldebergerac.blogspot.com

Send your vitriol this-a-way: forgivemewhitecrow@gmail.com