Most of it still makes as much sense as it ever did.

A poster for the campaign reminds potential tourists of the ordinary pressures of withstanding Torontonians

As Torontonians prepare to abandon their homes in droves, hoping to avoid the inconvenience, disorder and unwashed anarchists of the upcoming G20 summit, the G20 Tourism Board has launched a massive advertising campaign aimed at encouraging tourists from elsewhere in Canada to visit the bright lights of the “Big Smoke” without any of the notoriously insufferable people that inhabit it.

“Imagine being able to visit the shops of Queen West without suffering an obnoxious gaze. Imagine being able to order a coffee at a small, independent cafe without being completely ignored,” said Reginald Hoover, Communications Director for the G20 Tourism Board. “People across Canada have broad presumptions about Torontonians: Most are correct.”

Added Hoover, “Thankfully, they’ll all be crammed up shoulder to shoulder in Muskoka. Why do you think we had to create that fake lake? We can’t have random assholes wandering into the shot complaining about cellphone coverage.”

The G20 Tourism Board is promoting a remarkably atypical Toronto experience, showing off a myriad of wonderful architecture without the obnoxious teenage tour guides, as well as restaurants without grown men who have beehive beards. Thanks to the total absence of anyone who lives in Toronto being in Toronto during the summit, basic civility is expected to prevail, with talking to strangers no longer likely to be immediately interpreted as either insanity or a prelude to requests for money, or both. Traffic is also expected to improve considerably, as out-of-town drivers on the Gardiner Expressway will not be distracted from driving by composing inner monologues about how much they hate driving on the Gardiner Expressway for later posting to their blogs, or the comment section of Torontoist.

Thus far, potential reaction to the campaign has been positive. Bonnie Stern, a Nova Scotia native who last visited Toronto in 1991 and swore to never return after being yelled at by an intoxicated TTC employee for not having a nickel, was looking forward to her return visit, despite the potential danger that protestors present. “Sure, some white guy with terrible dreadlocks might narrowly miss me with a molotov cocktail, but at least he’ll notice that I’m alive instead of just looking through me with those dead eyes after a quick scan of how slutty or rich I look.”

In spite of sharing plans with other Torontonians to leave the city as well, civic leaders have overwhelmingly welcomed the potential tourism. The lone exception to this has been fiscally conservative mayoral candidate Rob Ford, who has threatened to curtail the costly summit by eating it.

“No longer will our waterfront be a sight of the worst designs of mankind,” said Miller, touting the ability of the facility to clean itself. “Given normal waste conditions, this bathroom is entirely self-cleaning. It would take a truly horrendous mess – say, from someone vomiting and shitting all over the place because they’re completely antisocial – to put this facility out of order. It will be a gleaming example of progress – and increased property values – for miles around.”

Added Miller, “Besides – people don’t typically devalue the things they pay for by ruining them. You’d have to be angry at society, a member of some pointless punk-related subculture, or just plain old mentally ill to even consider doing something like that.”

Security Officer Fred Taylor, who will be charged with responding to the washroom if patrons don’t have to leave after the maximum 20 minutes, was equally optimistic. “Sure, there’s a chance that some urchins will try to live in the bathroom, but I’m not too worried about it. If there’s one thing crazy homeless people are shy about doing, it’s arguing with rent-a-cops over bullshit. Don’t see it ever happening. Definitely can’t foresee any situation in which a little girl is at the waterfront with her family, knocks on the bathroom door, and is treated to a guy in rags on PCP screaming at her about the apocalypse.”

Added Taylor, “Of course, that assumes she can get to the head of the line, which won’t be easy with the massive congregation of vagrants that will rally there ten minutes after I chase them back under the Gardiner.”

Miller, outlining his further plans for beautifying the waterfront, including a cocaine soup kitchen, pitbull adoption facility and beard washing salon, was adamant that granting free tokens would not spur any illicit economic activity. “Is it possible that these street people will try to aggressively resell the tokens, harassing local residents and valuable tourists? I suppose it’s possible,” continued Miller, “But they’re only worth a quarter – what kind of person would possibly bestow such value on such a small amount of money? Not me.”

“We want to attract world-class people to Toronto,” said Miller. “So, if you’re reading about this in a newspaper you’re rolling up an eight ball up in, whether you be in Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, Calgary, The Downtown Eastside or Victoria, come on out to Toronto and help make our waterfront a wonderful place to be.”

“Everyone knows a cool neighbourhood in Toronto has tons of junkies, hookers, bums and squeegee kids,” said Dominic Rogers, a new media specialist, sculptor, and trust fund recipient. “Congratulations, Queens Quay – this summer, you’ve truly arrived.”

In a completely unforeseeable circumstance, oil turns out to be pretty bad.

In the wake of a recent, massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, leaders and experts across the globe are concluding that the black, viscous substance may have finally, actually caused environmental harm. “Ordinarily, we would never think of our use of oil as being potentially hazardous to the ecosystem,” said zoologist Dr. John Stewardson, twirling his safari hat and sitting inside an enormous GM Hummer with the engine idling. “It seems we may have to finally consider the idea that oil can be harmful.”

“Numerous species of birds will be horribly murdered as a result of this spill,” said Melanie Paulson, a naturalist and outdoor adventure-seeker. “We never thought that oil could be responsible for this. We’re all used to certain technologies – like those plastic things that hold soda cans – causing inadvertent harm to wildlife, but oil? It’s devastating.”

An additional concern was for the human environment, where residential areas face the threat of property destruction and further danger to those without the resources to abandon their shoreline communities. “Oil was only meant to help others – never to exacerbate class inequality, or the horrible suffering of the poor,” said British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward, whose total compensation for effectively managing a largely exploited and endangered front-line labour force of tens of thousands was over 2 million Pounds Sterling in 2008.

Hayward also lashed out at the potential human flaws in events leading up to the spill, distancing his company from such failings. “We were gathering this oil for good reasons – we didn’t get into this business to develop a product or cause an event that eventually turns human laziness and short-sightedness into environmental devastation.”

U.S. President Barack Obama, speaking to a collection of delegates in Louisiana after arriving via his personal Boeing 747 jet, was concerned in his tone. Obama, who was the aircraft’s only passenger, was quick to condemn British Petroleum, despite Hayward’s defense. “Terrible damage has been caused by this incident, but at least it can teach us a lesson: We need to take our attitude of endlessly sucking oil from every orifice of the Earth and radically change it to one where we do exactly the same thing, except with more safety guidelines and stuff.”

Added Obama, “If oil is truly dangerous, our only option is to develop some kind of training video, or maybe just dam up parts of the Gulf near New Orleans to make getting to it easier – oil might be a problem, but hell: How dangerous could water be?”

Censored and uncensored versions of one of the many memos that will soon be made public.

In a move prompted by House Speaker Peter Milliken’s decision that the Conservative government must release uncensored documents regarding the mistreatment of Afghan detainees, Canadians are collectively bracing themselves for the shameful, unspoken and yet widely known secret about the issue: Nobody really gives a shit.

“Afghanistan? Sure, right,” said Nancy Jackman, a retail supervisor from Oakville, Ontario. “I remember hearing about how little girls couldn’t go to school there, but then we came along, and now they can? That’s great,” said Jackman, stirring a bowl of chocolate syrup, slightly disinterested. When asked specifically about the treatment of detainees, and whether she felt Canadian Forces knew they would be tortured, Jackman was non-commital. “What? I don’t know. Yes? I guess they probably would be. It’s kind of fucked up over there.”

Policy advisors, journalists, and military legal experts were in complete agreement that the blanked-out sections of military memos that revealed a total disinterest in the fate of the war-torn nation and its stubborn, kind of dirty-looking people should be preserved. “Honestly, the whole thing has been embarrassing enough,” said Ray Alexson, sole member of a Central Asian/Canadian think tank in Winnipeg. “At least with things the way they are, we as Canadians can pay the occasional bit of lip service to the conflict – you know, put the Highway of Heroes song on, or not flip off the end of Coaches Corner, but putting all this business out in public won’t change the fact that this has less real traction as an election issue than deer hunting in Labrador.”

Added Alexson, “Think about that: It means we literally don’t care about people being subjected to horrendous, nightmarish pain. That is how either numb and indifferent to the war on terror we’ve become, or so sick of the whole goddamn thing that we borderline don’t mind that they are suffering.”

Some analysts, however, were pleased overall that this issue had become a hot parliamentary, if not humanitarian, issue. “This is a bold moment for Canadian democracy,” said Betty Dyson, a senior analyst with Parliament Hill Watch. “Surely, the constitutional and partisan significance of these proceedings will finally bring this issue into the national spotlight in a way that a bunch of dead, tortured pseudo-persons to whom we don’t really relate ever could.”

With this and other pathetic national issues, including the Guergis / Jaffer affair, Quebec, and pointless attempts to regulate the financial services industry, Canadians are anxiously fearful of an election in which they have absolutely no issues upon which they even remotely want to vote, now known as “The usual.”

“We’re just waiting for the Liberals to come out with some incomprehensible plan for the environment,” said Dyson, “Then we’ll be all set.”

As an overnight pop music icon, I’ve had more than my fair share of awkward sexual propositions from teenage girls, their sisters, their middle-aged mothers, Tina Fey, ladies at the candle and card shoppe, members of celibate religious orders, and legions of screaming harpies that bear down on me from afar, burying each other in psychotic lust, convinced that only I am able quench their disturbingly inappropriate desires.

And yet, if only they knew that their desires were all for naught: If only they knew about my micropenis.

Microphallus, or micropenis, is defined as a stretched penile length of more than 2.5 standard deviations (SDs) below the average size of a normal, fully-capable man. As a permanent, congenital affliction, the term is most often used medically when the rest of the penis, scrotum, and perineum are without ambiguity, such as hypospadias.

I don’t really understand what any of that means, but here is one thing that I do understand: I will never satisfy a woman.

Ever.

Think about how angry that makes you.

Some people have said that I look like a lesbian, and you know what? I might as well be one. This is a serious medical condition – one for which there is no cure. It has nothing to do with my youth, or youthful appearance. Even when I am forty-years old – if I can make it that far without offing myself – I will still suffer from the locker-room anxiety of my microscopically tiny genitals.

Do you understand? There is nothing in my pants for you. Nothing. It is as blank as your heart. Your imagination of its power is a lie.

What is it like being afflicted with a permanent, debilitating micropenis like the one that I have, you ask? I will tell you: It is the exact opposite of being a worldwide entertainment phenomenon. Imagine how exciting it would be for you to pick me up in a bar – not that I should be in one – and go home with me.

And then you suddenly find a convenient excuse to leave.

It’s messed up. Almost as messed up as a bunch of ladies old enough to be my mom fawning all over me because they’re sick of how fat and bald and gross and mean their husbands are now that they’ve had kids – you know, kids like me – and are also instilling in their daughters the kind of insanity capable of producing a psychotic human stampede that could potentially hurt or kill hundreds.

But my thrust cannot redeem you.

Just imagine what all those women would feel, en masse, if they were to all become simultaneously aware of my unavoidable, genetically-determined micropenis. Would they collapse like an enormous pile of manatees? Turn on each other in fits of violent rage? Eat each others faces off in the heat of horrible denial?

The thought is too much to bear. That is why I must guard the secret of my micropenis with my very life. The insanity I produce now is a mere shadow of the mob hatred that could form were the truth about my micropenis even speculated upon, even jokingly.

And yet, keeping the story down is a full-time gig. The other day, I met a fan, and she said, “Justin! I’d do anything for you! I love you!”

To which I replied, “Well, that’s appropriate, because I am fully-equipped to love you in return.”

That was a close one.

Later on, her mom said to me, “Oh, Justin! If I was only your age…!” – but she didn’t have to finish this thought, as I knew what she meant: She was lamenting the fact that her urges were deviant and criminal rather than socially acceptable.

And so, rather than say something foolish, such as, “I’m sorry, but that’s impossible: I have a micropenis,” I just flipped my hair around and said something normal, like, “Hey, thanks!”

It hurts to lie.

Not as much as it hurts to have a micropenis, but still. Some people might say, “Hey, that micropenis of yours is nobody’s business but your own!”

But come on: Be realistic.

The eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland has produced many lessons for both Canadians and non-Canadians alike – in this article, The Albatross presents the top ten:

1. As initial reports of flight cancellations at London-Heathrow, Paris and other European airports began to come out following the volcano eruption, one thing became certain: Absolutely nobody cared if everybody in Iceland was dead.

2. The people of Newfoundland are unable to differentiate a rare meteorological phenomenon – one that they could not experience more than once every ten minutes – from volcanic ash.

3. The bad news is that there are a number of unscrupulous airlines; ones who secretly place their financial well-being above concerns of passenger and aircraft safety. The good news is that you will shortly be able to recognize these as, “The only airlines that are still in business.”

4. Given Iceland’s current state of financial collapse, it seems likely that they were trying to burn the country down for the insurance money.

5. Remember: The inhabitants of Iceland are the descendants of Viking sailors who refused to colonize any place unless it was a frozen, isolated shithole. Bad things can’t really happen to them without everyone being able to say that they kind of had it coming.

6. Many experts have noted that phenomena such as this eruption are an example of massive, natural disasters that could threaten all life on earth: Proving, with finality, that the end of the world will be really boring.

7. Much like what Canadian Juno nominees will begin producing in tandem if we can’t fly them out of St. John’s immediately, volcano eruptions are harmful, disgusting products of collaboration between forces whose powers stem only from a perverse entrenchment deep in the dirt-filled core of a flawed and depleted country, news of which is obligatorily pissed all over us by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

8. Canada could have handled this transoceanic problem much more handily if it had applied to British Columbia, where a giant haze of smoke hanging over the province is a regular occurrence.

9. Although Newfoundland’s economy has been harmed by the damage done to airline income in the province, local sales of shuttle bus tickets to Europe, Asia and beyond are apparently through the roof.

10. For all of the damage this volcano eruption can potentially do to jet engines, at least we finally know why you can’t smoke on an airplane.

The Overlords of Betelgeuse – galactic warmongers from a small world orbiting the distant red supergiant – reported to their superiors today that continued monitoring of what they refer to as the “Caveman-Robot War” revealed its certain, indefinite continuance, much to their delight and pleasure.

“Finally, we have found a species that has engineered the perfect, eternal conflict,” said Undulax the Annihilator, a representative of the bloodsport-spectating delegation. “With combatants woefully ignorant of each other in the visceral, tangible sense that tires a lifeform of the horrors of murder, and acting from cold and dispassionate stances that alienate even their own sides, these hew-mons have managed to create a mutual destruction so far removed from what they consider normal life that nobody will ever identify with it enough to declare that it must end.”

Citing cases of primitive, myopic men who take up arms in conflicts which they can barely describe on behalf of ancient beliefs that many of them would no doubt abandon with even the slightest education versus non-sentient, metal weapons that fly through the skies, with neither side mustering forces that understand in any sense the greater significance of what they are doing, or why they are doing it, the overlords cackled with incredible glee. “Look at these foolish bio-forms bowing to some imaginary man in the heavens without the slightest temperance of reason or science!” said Captain GEX, waving an electron pistol for effect. “Look at those unmanned, unfeeling gun-droids who believe in an equal nothingness, and who also have no connection to anything beyond the small piece of themselves that they are.”

Humanity was equally un-afforded to the operators of said robots by the overlords. “Even the actual people who pilot them, safely tucked away somewhere in California, never feel the dark, smoky aftereffects of their great slaughters, and are little more than automatons themselves,” said GEX. “I have heard these young men call each other ‘bro’, and compare their exploits to electronic entertainment devices; completely oblivious to their own monstrousness.”

Of equal excitement among the delegation is that even if the war should someday end, the probability that anything will be learned by anyone, anywhere, is virtually nil. “On our world, much to our disgust, many of our wars are followed by touching, sobering tales about the great tragedies and casualties of violent conflict,” said Xor’el Vampirus, caressing a tibia. “I assure you there are no novelists or poets among the X-Box addicts, unmanned predator drones or illiterate fundamentalists here.”

Added Xor’el, “There is death. Only death.”

Dismissing criticism that many reasonable, well-understood human soldiers continue to die as well, by claiming that clearly they are being phased out as rapidly as possible, the overlords also pointed out that even their slayings are quickly decaying into total abstraction. “The death of soldiers, once a solemn, dignified and largely anonymous affair, are finally being twisted full-scale into not only partisan opportunism, but into predictable segments on television programs, and templates for popular songwriting opportunities,” said Admiral Starkiller, Missile Lord of Andronus. “At this rate, even their sympathetic corpses are turning into a mishmash of generic faces and names – somehow, these brilliant humans figured out that this is one of the few areas in which knowing more actually makes you realize how little you actually know, making you feel you know even less than when you started, and turning the tragic loss of Private Whoever into just another momentary, incomprehensible abstraction that invokes a momentary, insignificant, conditioned and automatic emotional response, no different than a beer commercial.”

Added Starkiller, “We have many medals awaiting this ‘Don Cherry’ whom you speak of.”

Asked why the overlords were so intrigued by the conflict, they explained that they were chiefly interested in who would emerge victorious. “The cavemen excel at underhanded, guerilla tactics that have the unintentional by-product of inflicting horrendous civilian casualties – compare this to their robotic opponents, whose overwhelming, barely-harnassed technological enormity is equally potent at inflicting horrendous civilian casualties,” said Grelznek, Skull-Eater of the 7th Fleet. “Obviously, we are interested in which of the two sides can ultimately claim victory in this race to cause the greatest amount of collateral murder.”

Added Grelznor, “Ordinarily, we would simply look at criteria such as the capture of valuable, strategic territories and resources, but we can’t find any evidence that they are fighting over anything that they won’t quickly be running out of regardless of who owns it, so it doesn’t make much sense that they’d be fighting over that.”

Allegations of a secret ‘third party’ complaining to the PMO about MP Helena Guergis’ conduct surfaced today, with many speculating that the third party must be must be a political insider, despite the PMs insistence that it isn’t a member of government.

To uncover this web of intrigue and deceit, The Albatross presents the first in a totally fictional series: PARLIAMENT NOIR.

First of all, why the secrecy? Because the ‘third party’ accusing Guergis is none other than her husband, MP Rahim Jaffer. In spite of the fact that the allegations are being tied to his ongoing strip club patronage, Jaffer offered to rat on his own wife to Prime-Minister Stephen Harper in exchange for Harper’s willingness to take a meeting with Nazim Gillani; a meeting that, as we all know, was leaked to the press by Gillani himself.

Harper is disgusted with Jaffer’s willingness to betray his wife for a business deal, but he doesn’t realize that Gillani didn’t just ask Jaffer to get him the meeting – Gillani threatened to have his Toronto Argonauts hitman kill his beloved Helena if Jaffer didn’t get both the meeting and a guarantee that Harper would agree to funnel money to his consulting agency.

This was an assurance that Harper was willing to give, but obviously it would be in exchange for never naming Jaffer as the source of the dirt on Guergis, as this would only arouse suspicion that might lead to uncovering the corruption he was now willing to undertake in order to get rid of her.

His previous attempts to eliminate her, including an elaborate campaign to have Jaffer incur drug debts by attaching an RCMP detail to pursue him as soon as he had a trafficking amount of cocaine on him, forcing him to destroy it while being pursued, and consequently giving Guergis no choice but to pay back the dealers on Jaffer’s behalf by uncomfortably smuggling drugs in her rectum out of Charlottetown airport, with Harper hoping she would get caught either in the process or with a later police search at her house – a house that Harper had cleverly aligned as not technically being her property through a complex mortgaging technicality, and thus one in which she had no privacy rights – had failed.

And, because of Gillani’s threats, Jaffer is actually doing all this not to save his own skin, but to save Guergis from death by CFL, even if it means ending her career on Parliament Hill, and never revealing to her – because the world is cold enough, damnit – how close she came to being clipped over a few hundred grand for some bullshit windmills.

But the real mystery is this: What was the information that Jaffer had to give to Harper to ruin her, exactly?

Simple: Guergis is secretly a stripper, unrecognizable to the general public in the dark lights of the club, and only Jaffer knew it was her on that fateful night he was there with Gillani, recognizing the birthmark on her inner thigh – the one that only he, as her husband, would know about.

Or, if there are other guys, they weren’t there.

PARLIAMENT NOIR.

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper

Foiled again!

Just as I thought maybe I was on the verge of meeting some cool dudes to roll through some of my favourite poon-tang joints with, the media screws it all up for me.

It’s bad enough that I’ve got this giant pile of cash for ‘Green Power’ just wasting away in my office – instead of sticking out of a bunch of thongs stuffed in my mouth while strippers squat over my face, that is – but since the press keeps getting in the way of all the super-legitimate businessmen I keep hoping to meet, I guess I’ll just have to take all this money to the rippers myself.

You know what I just sit up here at 24 Sussex and dream about? I will tell you: Getting some hot ass.

But not by myself! I want friends. I want someone to write an e-mail, and say how they want me to “Join the team.” I’m really looking for some bold visionaries who understand that I will totally hang out with them, even if they are a bunch of shady ‘entrepreneurs’ with possible ties to organized crime. Why does the media keep interrupting this process in which I would definitely be interested?

I mean, hey: I know the code. Money Over Bitches, right? But everyone needs a break sometimes, especially with some good pals – pals who I could possibly divert federal funding to.

What, I’m not going to immediately go for that plan just because I’m the Prime Minister of Canada?

Don’t be ridiculous.

In addition to my position – which, you know, is total bullshit, or whatever – I’m also a notorious sex addict, and party animal. Look at me: Do I look like a man who ever met a hooker he didn’t have to motorboat? Don’t pass me by. Invite me out to the peelers so we can get boners and eat dirty prime rib together. Your prior arrests and convictions are of no concern to me.

Don’t listen to the media. Keep up your recruiting efforts of legitimate, intelligent people into your dirty schemes. They don’t immediately find you transparent in the least.

Take me, for example. I’m a white cowboy from Alberta: Nothing about your ethnicity, track suits, gaudy automobiles and hilariously nondescript ‘consulting’ firm would have raised my ire or suspicion about your associations or background whatsoever.

Or, even if it did: Just, you know, wear suits or something. What vast resources could I possibly have at my disposal to investigate you prior to writing you cheques for millions of dollars to help ’save the environment’?

And take a compromising photo of me? Here, at this dirty bordello in Niagara Falls, to which I would no doubt accompany you? Why, certainly!

You guys are real players, and I’m tired of all this upright living. Please lend me $80 so I can go get four private dances and ejaculate in my pants. What is wrong with these newspapermen, standing between me and my dreams?

My dreams of meeting you.