A couple of years ago, R.E.M. finally joined the ranks of The Ramones, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Peter Frampton, and Barry White and were featured on an episode of the best TV show ever...The Simpsons (although, The Family Guy is definitely gaining some ground).  

I can't believe I'm going to be freakin' BALD!!!

Well, it's less than a week til that fateful day when I get my head shaved. I was pretty laid back about it when I volunteered to do it, but now that the day is getting closer and closer, I am getting some major league cold feet! I know it's just hair, but it's been over a decade since I've had a hardly any hair. A couple of years ago I got my hair cut pretty short before I went houseboating, but NOT BALD!!! I know it is a great cause I am doing this for and I know that all of the money will go toward Candice and her family, but I really wished I would've just organized some sort of charity cabaret or steak night or pub crawl or something. Oh well, I guess there's no turning back now... Apparently Global News will probably be out to document this event. SInce I am getting my head shaved, I figure I might as well have some fun with it, so before I get totally scalped, I will definitely get a mohawk first and have some pictures taken because this will be the only time I will ever get a chance to have a mohawk...even if it is for only two minutes.
So I have to resign myself to the fact that I will be bald now... So I'm trying to think of some cool bald people... Michael Stipe, Billy Corgan, Moby,Kojak, and Zubazz come to mind. I've always said that if I were to ever start losing my hair, that I would just beat nature to its punch and shave it all off instead of attempting to do the pathetic comb-over or wearing a cheesy hair piece. So at least now I will get a glimpse of what I may have to deal with in the future.
I've always liked trying different things with my hair. I don't think I've actually had my natural hair colour in the last 4 or 5 years. I usually just tell Erin, my stylist, to do whatever. For me, hair is an extension of your personality. Some guys like to throw on a plain t-shirt, some jeans, and a ball cap. But I don't like looking like 75% of Hickville Regina, so I try to have fun with how I look. I definitely don't think and act like a typical guy from Regina, so I try not to dress like one either. I don't like to be just one of the herd or crowd. Fortunately, I have met enough other like-minded people here in this sterile town that is Regina.

JJ Ramone

So I suppose I should perhaps mention how I ended up with the JJ Ramone moniker. This is definitely partially my own doing, but it kinda was kind of an accident how it occurred. A few years ago, I picked up the nickname "G" from work since my birth name is Gerald. So even though I have always been called J.J. (my cousin Ian gave me the nickname "J.J." shortly after I was born... Gerald James...so I should be technically G.J. ... ), working at S@#$way I was given a nametag of "Gerald." Well, coworkers eventually started calling me "G" for short. Then I got some other names attached to that... G Love, G Money, G String, G Spot (priceless!!!)... but the one that stuck was G Funk... so I figured you can't really fight a name that's been given to you, so I decided to use that name for my e-mail, website usernames etc. But a couple years ago, I was on the The National Pist website, which is an excellent local newspaper dealing with pub culture, and one of the links was reginabarstars.com. I was perusing it and noticed that my good friend Zubazz just joined and local Lungbutter legend The Rev were on this site, so I decided to join. I was in a huge Ramones kick at the time...plus the fact that Joey Ramone and Dee Dee Ramone recently died, I decided to have my username as JJ Ramone. I thought that GFunk didn't really suit my style anymore since I'm not exactly Mr. Hippity-Hop-and-it-Don't-Stop. Plus I figured that this would be just some obscure website that only 15 people might hit... Boy was I wrong!
I never expected Web Jay's reginabarstars.com site to actually take off. Well, after a few months, there were hundreds of registered members and there were some RBS events that got planned. For the first RBS event, the planned destination was McNally's where a local cover band B!LF was playing. I had no clue who this band was, but this guy who was logged onto RBS as "bilfguy" (Christofur Real) who made numerous kickass posts regarding music (and was a fellow R.E.M. and punk rock geek) really made me intrigued that there were a lot more like-minded people in the AC/DC/country music city that is Regina who actually appreciated music that was a little out of step with mainstream Regina. So I p/m'd Mr. Real and inquired if I could get up and sing a tune with these B!LF guys. Well, I showed up to McNally's not knowing a soul, met up with some really great people from RBS (Web Jay, Chelle, Matt, etc) and Chris from B!LF. So when Chris calls me up to the stage, he calls out for a JJ Ramone. Well, since that day, the nickname has definitely stuck. A few months after this night at McNally's, I sang "Blister in the Sun" with the B!LF guys at O'Hanlon's for another RBS event. After I finished the song, Mr.Real tells the crowd that I'm gonna sing "I Wanna Be Sedated" by The Ramones. So I we did an impromptu version of the song. I don't think B!LF ever did that song before, and I definitely never sang it before without the aid of lyrics on a karaoke night, but I did it and there was no longer any turning back from the whole "JJ Ramone" thing. After that, a lot of my friends like Zubazz, Tina and Rude Dude just starting calling me by that name. Mr. Real usually just calls me Mr. Ramone now. And now I've had the added moniker "Mojo" added on to the name too thanks to Mr.Real... maybe it's part Austin Powers, but it also has to do with a 2-for-2 incident (This may be a later post...). So the moral of the story is that you really can't fight nicknames. If they stick, you have to just accept them. I have to say that I like the whole JJ Ramone thing and that it has a nice ring to it, but if I would've known the whole RBS thing would've taken off like it has, I probably would've slightly changed the Ramone part... JJ Mahone perhaps?

Contemplating Life...

Well, I'm in a big reflective mode right now. Next month I'm turning 29, and I''ve started wondering what I've accomplished and where I should be at this stage in life. In a year or less I will be done my Masters in English, so I won't be tied down to Regina any longer. I am hoping to go overseas to teach English for a year or so, but after that I have no clue where my life will take me. I'm not overly concerned with my career future, because I know I have some options ahead of me... either stay overseas and teach, get a gov't job as a speech writer, get into the Communications field, apply for my phd, etc... However, what I am more concerned about is the relationship part. I don't want to be some 40-year old creepy guy at the bar oogling the 20 year old chicks. I'm a Gemini, so I have some commitment issues, plus I love to flirt and keep options open, but at heart I am a big romantic I think. Maybe I'm too picky or something, but it seems like every girl I grow to really care about and want to start something quasi-serious with ends up not being a viable option... for a variety of reasons. In the last couple years, I feel I've really hit my stride in terms of self confidence and "mojo"... I think it's the fact that I've gotten older and that I don't really give a shit about impressing people when I go out. I just try to be myself and not come across as the eager beaver. So I've had the most attention from women in the last couple years than I've ever had...and I've definitely had my share of fun. But at the end of the day, I still crave that one real close relationship. I don't believe in fate or destiny or soul mates or that "one special someone"... But I do believe that there are a handful of people that you are compatible with. But it is SO hard to find one of these handful of people. It's like that movie Rules of Attraction... I like this girl who likes that guy who digs that girl etc etc etc.... Plus in today's world, a couple needs 2 incomes to survive... so that means both partners going to school and trying to get their individual shit straightened out before committing to anyone. I've met a small handful of really amazing women in the last few years that I have really gotten to like and would love to seriously date, but because of circumstances or bad timing or various other issues, things have never worked out. I have a rough idea in my mind of my "perfect woman", but it totally changes in reality when I meet certain women... I have been wildly attracted to wildy different women. I had a really great conversation with one of these women tonight and it really got me thinking. We're both roughly the same age, we're both attracted to each other, and we both want to get out of this cycle... but within a couple months, she'll be gone from Regina for good, so again another one slips away because of circumstances. Just as we get close, there's a dead end in sight. So the search continues...

Computers rock/suck

I totally love computers...when they work! I rely on them way too much nowadays for school, info, communication with friends, music, etc. So when my computer went haywire last night and today, I started freaking out. I was able to use MSN Messenger, but I couldn't access my e-mail or most websites. Plus my keyboard stopped working, so I got really frustrated because I couldn't even do any writing for my thesis. I talked to a Sasktel internet support helper and he recommended I stop using Internet Explorer since my problems were probably caused by soem spyware or virus picked up through that browser. So I just switched to Firefox and so far it is working great. It seems to work way faster than IE ever did for me. I did a system restore and ran a bunch of system scans and then downlaoded Firefox, and now my computer is working better than ever. A few years ago I never imagined myself needing or relying on a computer... but ever since I got one, I find I can't live without it. I rarely watch TV anymore. I get most of my news online. And I now find that I use Messenger way more than I use my phone. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I find it way easier to contact people this way instead of playing phone tag. My one friend sees messaging and texting as the downfall of our society, but I think it is a very useful method of contacting people.

JJ's Classic Story of ALL Time

Okay, since I am not afraid to make an ass of myself, and I really don't take myself that seriously, I shall divulge my best story ever. However, I will change the names of the two people involved since I really don't think they recall these events. Well, here we go...

This past summer, a bunch of us went out to nightspot and we tore it up pretty good. Well, after the bar closed a girl I shall call "Susan," a guy I shall call "Dennis" and myself went to Susan's apartment to have a couple more drinks. Well, Dennis started passing out in the living room and Susan disappeared for a while, so I went to check on her to see if she's ok. I go into her room and we start making out and fooling around a bit. A few minutes later, our pants are off and we start fooling around a bit more. Well, Dennis stumbles into the room and passes out at the foot of the bed, so Susan and I stop what we were doing for a bit. After seeing that Dennis was passed out, Susan and I continued to make out and fool around some more. Well, I looked down and saw that Dennis was reviving a little bit and I saw that he was caressing Susan's leg. I kind of brushed it off and carried on making out with Susan. Suddenly I feel this hand on my cock, and I'm getting a hand job. I was really starting to dig this, so I decided to get my fingers wet, so to speak. Well, at this point it dawned on me that the way Susan was positioned that it would be very hard for her to have her hand on my cock... not impossible, but difficult nonetheless. Then all of a sudden, the hand let go of my cock and brushed by my leg. At this point, I was kind of startled because I DID NOT KNOW IF I GOT A HANDJOB FROM SUSAN OR FROM DENNIS!!!!!.

I haven't brought up this night with either person since it happened. To this day I still do not know whose hand was on my cock. So I may or may not have had my first homosexual experience. It's one of those things that I think is better not to know. Ignorance is definitely bliss sometimes. This is one mystery that will never be solved, and I'm content with that because I really hope the worst-case scenario is not what actually happened.

Here's a pic of me and the Princess. In the last couple of years, I've met lots of great new friends and Tina and Zubazz are definitely at the top of that list. Of all my classic stories from the last couple years, Tina is usuallly part of it somehow. Did someone say shroomies? 

Continuing with the celebrity photo ops... This is Christofur Real from B!LF with Robin Fucking Black. I funally had a chance to see Robin Black and his band of Intergalactic Rockstars at The State a few weeks ago, and I was blown away. They are hands down the best live band in Canada. They put on a SHOW...tons of energy, great tunes, and enough attitude to give Johnny Rotten, David Lee Roth and Liam Gallagher a run for their money. And to top it all off, Robin is a really great guy. He's a little too eccentric to be huge in Canada, but I think he could be huge in Europe. Chris' original band Superjuice were lucky enough to open for Robin in Saskatoon...a trip I'm kicking myself I never made. 

Spring is finally here!

I woke up this morning around 10:00 and I opened my window, only to hear this strange sound that I haven't heard in months... birds chirping! I looked outside, and for the first time it actually looked like a real spring day. So I got pretty hyped and went out for a 35 minute run before work in shorts and a t-shirt. Spring is hands down my fave time of the year, since everyone gets so grouchy and miserable and depresses towards the end of winter...myself included. But once spring kicks in, everyone is giddy, people come out of hibernation, girls wear more revealing clothes and life is good again. I don't consider Jan. 1 to be New Years... I consider a day like today where it once and for all really does feel like spring to be the real New Years Day.

Eskimo

Eskimo...