Monday, May 28, 2007

As of weekend, Teresa and I will have been married for seven years. We met at university, and that was a blessing, but the one disadvantage (or advantage, depending on your point of view) of having met so late in life is that by then we were too old to write each other the kind of bad love poems that only high school sweet hearts could invent. Well, to celebrate the cusp of our anniversary I have decided to write a poem for my wife in the spirit of all bad high school love poetry.

For Teresa,
A Really Bad Love Poem
By Ali Williams


If ever I was a glowing sun
you would be my earth.
If your beauty was a can of Coke
you sure would quench my thirst.
If I couldn't win you for second prize
I'd definitely come in first.
If your love was the cause of heart attacks,
Oh, mine would surely burst.


If our marriage was a hip hop song
just call me "Biggie Smalls",
'cause when it came to freestyle battles
for you I'd win them all.
I'd rock my "ice" and my Bentley,
I'd be feeling ten feet tall!
And if some player tried to hate on me,
I'd tell him "Lick my ballz"!


If your absence was a malady,
I would live my life in pain,
'cause every moment away from you
just drives a man insane!
To give perspective of my love
so you understand what I'm saying,
I love you just about as much
as young "Dubya" loved cocaine.

Baby you are my shining star
I humbly bask in your glow.
In this our seventh year of marriage
our love is sure to grow.
We faced some tests in the past,
and I'm sure we'll face some mo'.
Yet succeed we shall, both you and I,
at least that much I know.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

For Phil and Rob, R.I.P May 6, 2005

The man said to himself
as he went out the door,
"I'm going where you demons,
can't follow me no more!"

The runner took that step
in the very last mile,
The sun went blazing hot,
and his heart ran wild.

Langston Hughes once called Death:
"The Consorting Whore".
She dallied with the runner,
and the man at the door.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Truth

The other day I was driving around listening to CBC radio wishing that I could live in a world where politicians always told the truth, when I decided to use my (admittedly: frazzled, overwrought) mind to conceptualize a world where for one day everybody had to tell the truth. I quickly realized that such a world would be less like a Jim Carrey-esque farce and more like a chaotic, ravaged, anarchy like London in 28 Days Later. If we all were forced to tell the truth for one day, the economy would fall, international commerce would grind to a halt and family members would murder each other in the street.

Why?
Because the truth is simply too powerful for us to handle.

Very few people can handle hearing the truth, much less telling the truth. The only people I know who can make a living off of telling the truth are stand-up comedians, and they generally lead miserable, self-destructive lives:

Richard Pryor, 1940-2005
(Once lit himself on fire.)

Sam Kinison, 1953-1992
(Snorted a hell-of-a-lot of cocaine.)

Bill Hicks, 1961-1994
(Smoked and drank all his life. Died of pancreatic cancer.)


That’s the reason so few comedies ever with the Academy Award for best picture. To the best of my knowledge, Annie Hall was the only comedy ever to win best picture.

I tried watching Annie Hall this past summer and I couldn’t get through it. It was so chock full of truth it made my skin crawl!

People always say they want the truth, but we don’t really mean it. The moment somebody starts saying something real, we start laughing, or we try to discredit them by saying that they are either vulgar or crazy. I’m going to prove it too, at great risk to my (ha, ha) reputation.

The following text will contain the top ten unadulterated, undiluted, unedited truths and I see it, and I’m betting something this post going to offend somebody.

Warning! Discretion Advised!

Both the subject matter and the language used to present the subject manner are not censored by the writer. If you are easily offended, your time would be better spent visiting this link:

Top 10 All Time Best Truths as perceived by me.

10) 99% of white people I know love the taste of chicken and watermelon.

99% of the black people I know also love the taste of chicken and watermelon.I cannot understand how such a simple fact of life can be readily accepted for one group of people, but form the basis of ridicule and scorn for another group of people. It’s yet another indication that the human race is still has a long way to go on the evolutionary scale.

9) Every black man in North America went to work this morning wondering if this was the day he was going to get fired. He will wonder the same thing tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. And the day after…

8) It is actually possible to live a fulfilling and rewarding life without… cable television.

7) Kicking a woman out of your organization for wearing a head scarf is just as insidious as forcing a woman to wear a full body veil. A woman should be free to wear what ever she wants and the rest of us should just butt the fuck out!
6) The term “marriage” should be used when two people make a life long love bond to each other, regardless whether the couples are heterosexual or homosexual. Heterosexuals do not hold the moral imperative over the word “marriage”. The one gay couple I know have done more honor and justice to the word “marriage” than… let’s say… Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson.”

Then...

...and Now.

5) The War on Terrorism is not really about liberation. It's about oil companies justifying charging us over $4 per gallon for gas. When you look at it from that point of view, George W. Bush is the most successful president in American history.



4) It doesn’t matter if they are big or small… I just plain love boobs.

3) I’ve never felt comfortable in a church. At best I found the typical church service to be boring and at worst, oppressive and creepifying. I never even got married in a church because the only church I could conceive of attending in comfort is that one in the “Blues Brothers”, y’know with James Brown as the pastor and where Jake learns that he’s on a “mission from God”...?


But the truth is… that church never, ever really existed.

2) I do believe in God. I really do think God looks like Samuel L. Jackson. More specifically, he looks like Sam Jackson as “Jules Winnfield” in Pulp Fiction, y’know with the Jheri curl, and the gun, and the wallet that says “Bad Mutherfucker” on it. It may seem blasphemous or psychotic to you, but that image of God gives me absolute peace of mind.

1) The only time I truly feel connected to the universe is when I’m standing smack dab in the middle of a Tang Soo Do class.

There. I’m done telling the truth.