The Rise and Fall of Charles Wells

April 5th, 2005

A song about a friend whose fallen in love but has to keep it a secret.

The Rise and Fall of Charles Wells

It was a Wednesday, or maybe it was Thursday
When Julius called me, said we're going to New York

I packed up my bag, put in my favourite shirt
Might get lucky, might hit paydirt

It was a long drive, at least 13 hours
But it was worth it, because I found her

She wore a green gown, like a surgeon
and when I saw her, my blood started curdling

She said: "Servus!" and it blew my lid
I can't explain it, Ich Liebe Dich!

We talked on messenger for a month or so
And she loved me and I loved her

Our relationship, it flourished
Despite the distance, I had persistence

I bought her flowers and a bermuda trip
You think you know courtship? Man I invented it!

And as the time wore on our love grew hotter
Had to ask her father if I could marry her

He was a butcher from Iran
And when I saw him, man I ran!

He pulled out his knife and started chasing me
And as I ran away I heard him scream:

MY NAME IS ALI! YOU'RE DATING MY DAUGHTER!
SO I'M GONNA HAVE TO KILL YOU! AND CUT YOUR BALLS OFF!

MY NAME IS ALI! AND I'M GONNA HAVE TO KILL YOU!
YOU FUCKING INFADEL! YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!

Trying to Lose

February 26, 2006

Christania, Denmark

-I'm Vance Reemer, reporting here from Christania, Denmark the site of the world's free olympiad. As you know, here at the Free Olympics the athletes aren't "pound"ed into submission by the world doping agency and are free to use any substance they want to enhance their performance. As promised, with me here is mr. Cocker Tfoak, head of the rules committee of these first free games.
First of all, can I call you Tfoak?
-Tfoak isn't really my family name, over generations we've had so many hyphonated names in my family that I now just go by an acronym.
-Oh, is that true? And what does it stand for?
-Two-fifths-of-a-kilogram.
-I can see why you go by Tfoak. How 'bout Cocker, is that an acronym too?
-No, my name is actually Cock but as "Head of the rules committee of the free olympiad" I aim to become a very recognizable public figure so I lengthened the name to avoid any unnecessary mocking in the press.
-Well, I suppose that's very responsible of you.
-What, lengthening my name?
-No, aiming to be a recognizable public figure. Your role as the head of the rules committee at the free olympics is a very important one.
-Thank you, I know.
-But I'm confused.
-About what?
-Well you role, exactly what do you do?
-I ensure that the athletes aren't cheating.
-And how might an athlete cheat at the free olympiad?
-Oh there are many ways, but let me give you an example. Yesterday evening as I was making my 7:00pm amphetamine distribution round at the athletes village I caught the American Cross Country Ski team drinking beer and eating pizza with the German women's bobsleigh and ice dancing teams.
-And why mr. Tfoak, is drinking beer and eating pizza considered cheating?
-Well, as you know many unscrupulous nations have used our olympiad as a kind of propaganda tool to demonstrate their supperiority at events where performance enhancing substances are banned.
-How so?
-Well by losing at our event they're attempting to prove that their non-drugged athletes are superior to the ones who use enhancing substances and therefore doping doesn't help them.
-Huh?
-THEY'RE TRYING TO LOSE!
-And you consider this cheating?
-Of course we do! Trying to lose is not the true spirit of the Olympics! You know when I caught those Americans and Germans partying last night (and after curfew I might add!) Not only were they consuming two banned substances but the German bobsledders were conspiring with their ice dance team to switch events! If I hadn't caught them, paying cable subscribers all over the world would have witnessed the ice dance team put the bobsleigh into a pirouette in turn four while Karin, the deft bobsleigh pilot attempted to lift and spin her 200kg brake-woman Olga above her head!
-Well I do see a breach of the rules there, you can't have two women competing together in the ice dance.
-Actually, on account of all the testosterone she's injected Olga has qualified to participate in both women's and men's events.
-So she's clean then.
-As clean as the needles we provide at the safe injection house.
-Wow, it's quite an interesting dilemma you have. Any other interesting situations you've encountered?
-Well the South Koreans only enrolled in events that Japan was guaranteed to medal in because they wanted to prove to the world that the only way the Japanese could beat them was by using drugs. Then they became extremely upset when American short-track speed skating star Apollo Anton-Ono apparently pushed a korean skater over the finish line which caused him to qualify for the 1500m final. And then there's the canadian press who are up in arms over the non-inclusion of Todd Gill on their men's hockey team.
-But Todd Gill must be almost 50 now!
-He is, and he's gotten worse with age. It seems as though if the Canadians don't finish dead last with the greatest negative goal differential the whole country will be thrown into a crisis. Canada only lost 1-0 in their first game to Uzbekastan and allready sports editors all over the country are calling for the resignation of executive director Bob Probert.
-Wow, 1-0 that's a close score. I didn't catch the game, what happened?
-Steve Smith, who qualifies for the games because of his use of Sudafed to control a sinus problem, managed to bank one in off the pad of his own goalie, Grant Fuhr, in the 17th round of a shootout.
-Jeeze! The canadian press will be all over that one, most sports writers I read were calling for a loss by 15 goals or more.
-Well many Canadians feel that mr. Probert should not have even travelled to Denmark with the canadian team because his recent stint in a drug rehabilitation clinic might have a positive effect on them.
-I wonder why the Canadian women's hockey team has been so successful at being woefully awful while the men's have not.
-Their star player carries her little son onto the ice every time they play. With him in her arms she has absolutely no chance to hold a stick, let alone score a goal. In fact the women were so bad that they were thrown a congratulatory party last night where Canadian rock act "The Lowest of the Low" performed.
-How appropriate. I guess you're pretty upset about this Canadian hockey drama taking away from your event.
-Oh quite to the contrary, we felt that we needed as much controversy as possible from the Canadian contingent for the games to be considered legitimate.
-Oh really what else have they done?
-I caught their cross-country team skiing with broken poles and if that isn't enough one member of the team stopped at one point to give a pole to Norwegian coach and that slowed her down even more. And, in the pairs figure skating competition the Canadian pair of Rick Moranis and Rita McNeil have launched a protest after learning that the french judge gave them a score above zero... out of pity.
-Just out of curiosity, since the Canadians are trying to lose, whose music do they dance to?
-Rick's in the free skate and Rita's in the compulsory.
-Good God! The Canadian team should be sent home!
-Oh they're not the only ones causing problems. I sent the Danish police on a wild pursuit through the North Sea and into Sweden after an Austrian men's mission who had infiltrated the athletes village and were trying to lure athletes away from drugs and into the church.
-What happened?
-Of course we caught them and we discovered a dozen bound copies of Gideon's bible in the trunk of their car that they smashed into a police barricade. The bibles we found in the car matched the ones we uncovered in the athletes village.
-How terrible!
-Even the anthem singers got in on the act when the Americans enlisted Bob Dylan to sing the Star Spangled Banner after hearing Neil Young's version of Oh Canada.
-How did those go over?
-They were so bad the networks pulled us from the air for a full two hours. On the plus side though both singers embody the spirit of our games through their long histories of illicit drug use.
-Have there been any other famous people involved with the games, maybe in a feel-good capacity?
-Well it's not feel-good but American biathlete/Vice President Dick Cheney earned the Us it's 5th DNQ of the games by shooting at other competitors rather than the target.
-That must've gotten the networks attention.
-No, they were too consumed with reporting one of histories great role reversals.
-Oh, what was that?
-President Bush was on the sidelines cheering on Vice President Cheney!
-Goodness Gracious! Wow, unbelievable... Anyways, what are the medal standings like so far?
-Well this is the problem, so far nobody has qualified for a medal in any event.
-Who is doing the worst then?
-Canada led with 15 DNQ's going into to today's competition but then we found out that one of their snowboarders didn't actually smoke pot, but only inhaled it at parties where his friends were smoking. Because he doesn't actually use drugs we disqualified him from competition which erased his earned DNQ and put Canada into a tie with Sweden who has 14 DNQ's.
-Will the Canadians protest?
-Yes, they've allready contended that like most pot smokers the athlete in question was lazy and didn't have a job so in order to get his high he intentionally attended so-called "hot box" parties where his friends would fill a room with marijuana smoke and he could inhale for free. What upsets me about this case is that in light of the controversy the athlete has become the poster boy for the Canadian Hemp Clothing company that supplied their country's uniforms and he doesn't even smoke the stuff!!!!
-What drama! With all this controversy surrounding the games, how do you intend to keep the spotlight on you mr. Tfoak?
-That's a good question, I can't keep up. Right now you're the only network that even wants an interview because everyone is at the press conference of the American skier who is trying to connect with the Korean car he was conceived in.
-Wow, now there's a heartwarmer! What has he said so far?
-Just: "Dude, where's my Kia?"
-From the sounds of it he's a good role model for future athletes who may want to participate in your games. Is there anything you'd like to say to the kids out there?
-Yeah. You know, be a kid, have fun, losing isn't everything. These games are a celebration of sport and if you happen to come away with a medal that's ok, it's not the end of the world. We shouldn't put so much pressure on our kids to be mediocre or even bad. The free games aren't about sitting around beers and pizza and relaxing, they're about the kids and the kids showing off what they can really do. So kids if I can say one thing it's: go out there, be a kid, have fun, use drugs and show the rest of the world the true nature of competition and the free olympics!
-Stirring. Well that's all the time we have right now. Thanks again mr. Tfoak and stay tuned for America's favourite new reality show "Who wants to be an Olympian?" where overweight Mid-Westerners move to the US Olympic training facility in Lake Placid, New York and undergo cosmetic surgery in an attempt to motivate them to shed pounds and get in shape for a spot on the US 4-man bobsleigh team in 2010 in Vancouver.

Talking to Koreans

December 12th, 2005

Ottawa - Rick Mercer is at it again. Bored with the invevitable ignorance of the Americans he encountered on his first hit talk show "Talking to Americans" Rick has moved Southeast to continue the series in Korea.
Here's a preview of the first episode...

(Scene 1)
(Rick is sitting in KFC chomping down a chicken burger topped with Kim Chi when a young couple wearing matching shirts and holding matching blue bags with the letters P.M.S. in big white text scrawled across the front sit down next to him.)
Rick: I noticed you guys both have PMS and I can't help but thinking that our viewers back in Canada would like to know what's up with that?!
(The Korean couple look at the camera and they both put two fingers up to give the peace sign and say: 'Kim Chi!' which is Korean for "cheese!")
Rick: Hey guys, I'm not taking your picture I was just wondering...
Korean Couple: I'm sorry. Can I take picture of you?
Rick: I guess so uh...
(Two camera flashes go off.)
Rick: Uh don't you guys want to be in the picture?
Korean Couple to each other as they look at the backs of their respective digital cameras: Wow, oh, wow, nice, BEAUTIFULL.
Korean Couple: You are very handsome man! VERY BEAUTIFULL!
Audiences across Canada: Wow we're not even one minute into the show and already they've said something dumber than what we heard in 4 whole seasons of Talking to Americans.
(The Korean couple then both remove a big white text book with PMS in blue on the cover and put their MP3 players on so that they can study. Amazingly they start up a conversation while simultaneously listening to music with their headphones on.)
Rick: Ah so you're studying about PMS together so that you both can cope with it when it happens.
Korean Couple: (...)
(Rick removes the woman's earphones and puts the microphone right up against her face while giving his famous 'I'm from Newfoundland so it's funny when I do this' shrug.)
(The Korean woman looks at the microphone and then looks at her cellphone (which she is currently using to make a text message and have a phone conversation, while she listens to her MP3's and talks to Rick) and removes from it one of her 7 teddy bear key chain charms and attaches it to the base of Rick's microphone.)
Korean Man to Rick: It's more cute now.
(The Korean man then removes one of his teddy bear key chain charms from his cellphone and puts it on the video camera.)
Korean Woman: It's more cute now too.
Rick (in his funny way): Right.
(The camera now zooms in on the text book and reveals that P.M.S. stands for Pre-Medical School, which must be a hogwon or private after school academy that these two middle school students are attending.)
Wives across Canada to their husbands: Wow it's really funny to think that there are probably hundreds of kids across Korea studying PMS text books. You know honey, I've had a good laugh over that idea and the segment should probably end here.
Husbands across Canada to their wives: Yeah but I guarantee Rick won't let it die, I think he's still trying to make people get the 'This Hour has 22 Minutes' joke.
Rick (to the Korean man): So what's it like to be a man with PMS?
Korean Man: PSP? PSP Sony? Yes I have.
(The Korean man then pulls out his Sony Playstation Game Boy thing and puts one of it's headphones in his right ear while keeping his MP3 player headphone in the left. He starts up a game of Kart-uh Ride-uh and gives Rick a look that says 'Ok, we're having a conversation here, say something.')
Rick to the Korean woman (the decibel level of his voice has decreased by a factor of 100 to Don Cherry volume, but because it's Rick he sounds really deflated): So-it must-be hard-to have to-carry-PMS-with you-all the time-everywhere you go.
(Suddenly the South Korean Immigration SWAT team burst through the KFC windows, spray the small crowd of 500 KFC customers with machine gun fire and demand to see Rick's University Degree in Comedy. When Rick can't produce it he is hauled off to immigration. The SWAT team stays on the scene to clean up bodies and hand out cell phone charms to anyone who lost a loved on in the battle. 124 of the 500 patrons suffer fatally but nobody seems to mind because there is the potential that a horrible Canadian in Korea without a proper degree was apprehended.)
(End of segment 1)
(Segment 2 begins two weeks later with Rick sitting in immigration with his 'Newfoundland Univurzidy Duhploma of Madisen err I mean Being Phony, no it's Funny you dumbass' degree that he waited two weeks for his parents to make and send to him, which is being inspected in front of him.)
Immigration Inspector: Ok, this looks good to me, you've been assigned to teach English at Deung-Won Elementary School in Kang Seo district.
Rick: But I'm not an English teacher, I'm a comedian.
Immigration Inspector: Look we've kicked 73 liars out of this country already, do you want to be number 74 Mr. Mercer? If that is your real name!
(The CBC cuts to an infomercial that informs Canadians that the reason Koreans didn't have any problems with SARS is because they eat so much Kim Chi. For only 4 easy installments of $5999.95 you can own your own Hyundai automobile with a trunk filled with Kim Chi that now apparently makes you immune to bird flu!)
(Rick is back and on his first day on the job his Korean co-teacher has informed him that today he will be teaching 5th grade Korean students how to sing 'Let it Be'.)
Rick: Who wants to sing a song?
Students: (...)
Korean co-teacher: Strudents-uh rets sring song-uh!
Students: YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Rick presses play on the computer and a horrible computer synthesized version of Let it Be fills the air.)
Paul McCartney: When I find myself in Times of Trouble
Rick: Who knows what it means to find yourself in times of trouble?
Students: (...)
Rick: Well if you're ever standing at the back of the class, staring at the teacher and holding your chair over your head because Ms. Lee told you you were bad you've found yourself in times of trouble. Understand?
Students: Ahh yes I know. I always times of trouble. I know.
Rick: Ok
Paul McCartney: Mother Mary comes to me.
Rick: Does anyone know who Mother Mary is?
Student: Mother Mary is Jesus mother, she is virgin, in Korea all mothers virgin.
Rick: I have a hard time believing that since the women in this country all wear skirts that in my country would be called belts but yes excellent answer.
Paul McCartney: Speaking words of wisdom.
Rick: Words of wisdom are very smart words, can anyone think of any really smart words in English?
Student: If you'd be loved, be worthy to be loved.
Student: Actions speak louder than words.
Student: Kill two birds with one stone.
Student: Haste makes waste.
Student: A friend in need is a friend indeed.
Rick: You kids have a hard time putting together 'I like apples' who the fuck taught you to say those things?
Rick's co-teacher: In Korea it's important that children learn important American expressions so that they can look smart during business meetings.
Student: You had me at hello.
Rick (in his funny way): Right.
Paul McCartney: Let it Be.
Rick: Hey that's a great idea, let's forget about this song for a second, who knows what day it is today?
Students: (...)
Rick's co-teacher: No Mr. Rick, it's very important for our students that they learn American pop songs.
Rick: Fine, I'm sorry.
Paul McCartney: And in my hour of darkness.
Rick: Ok so that means you were bad again, maybe this time you were so bad that Ms. Lee had to hit your hands with her flute.
Students: Oh yes, I know hour of darkness, I always hour of darkness.
Paul McCartney: She is standing right in front of me.
(Rick stands with his arms pressed against his sides, his knees together and his chin up and says:)
Rick: What am I doing?
Students: (...)
(Rick's co-teacher jumps up and yells:)
Rick's co-teacher: STANDING!
Rick: I know you know. I was asking the students.
Students in unison: STANDING!
Rick: Do they just repeat everything you say?
Rick's co-teacher: No in Korea we teach our students to communicate, repeating words is not an effective way of learning English.
Students in unison: No in Korea we teach our students to communicate, repeating words is not an effective way of learning English.
(Rick asks again)
Rick: Ok, now does anybody know what I am doing?
Star Student: Standing!
Rick: Yes good.
(Rick walks over to the student and stands right in front of him)
Rick: Now, where am I standing?
Star Student: (...)
Rick: Forget it.
Paul McCartney: Speaking words of wisdom
Rick: Does anybody remember what words of wisdom are?
Students: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all!
Students: A bird in hand is worth two in the bush!
Students: Absence makes the heart grow fonder!
Students: Heal the world, make it a better place!
Rick: Tomorrow's lesson will be on the word wisdom. But let's finish off for today first.
Paul McCartney: Let it Be. Let it Be, Let it Be, Let it Be, Let it Be, Whisper words of Wisdom, Let it Be.
Students: Let it Be. Let it Be, Let it Be, Let it Be, Let it Be, Whisper words of Wisdom, Let it Be.
Rick: Wow great! Ok let's sing the whole song now.
(Rick stops the song, finds the beginning and presses play.)
Students: When uh bluh bluh bluh bluh bluh trouble
Bluh bluh bluh comes bluh me
Bluh bluh words bluh wisdom
LET IT BE! (screamed)
And bluh bluh hour bluh darkness
Bluh bluh standing bluh bluh bluh me
Bluh bluh words bluh wisdom
LET IT BE! (screamed even louder)
LET IT BE! LET IT BE! LET IT BE! LET IT BE!
Bluh bluh words bluh wisdom
LET IT BE!
(As windows in the classroom start to shatter along with television sets all across Canada the CBC cuts to their British foreign reporter who is on the scene of Paul McCartney's apparent suicide in Liverpool. The camera shows McCartney's face covered with smeared make-up apparently because it was very difficult for the make-up artist to do her work on a corpse that wouldn't stop rolling over.)
(End of segment 2)