As is legally required of us at the end of every school year, below is a detailed summary of our 2008/2009 financial expenditures and activities, available for public access. As per the results of SSMU v. The Red Herring [2006], we are obligated to disclose not just actual spending and revenues, but speculative and/or suggested sources of income and expenses as well. Our lawyers would like it to be known that, we, the editors of this magazine, only recently became aware of the audio-recording equipment that was installed by SSMU in our office earlier this year. Additionally, we were uninformed of the legally binding status of any speculations or suggestions that were picked up on these recording devices.

The Red Herring Fundraising Events:

-          $1000/plate “War Orphans Dinner”

-          The Red Herring’s 1^st Annual End of Winter Mystery-Meat-Acue (RHMMQ)

-          Donkey Show

Expenditures, Unrelated to Publishing Costs:

-          $400: Lifetime membership to www.indianbuttmagic.com

-          $2500: 1000 copies of Fuck Work! The 2005 Dilbert Desk Calendar; intended for resale

-          $600: Genital piercings for executive staff

-          $870: 19^th century semi-functioning Italian bidet (purchase and installation)

-          $1700: A ‘chewing’ horse

-          $259.99: Flirting with Magic: The Complete Instructional DVD Series (1^st of three easy payments)

Expenditures, Venture Capital:

-          $10,000: Startup capital for Simpson-Beveridge Hypermarket Solutions Inc. to break into the antique semi-functioning bidet restoration market

-          $8,500: All-hooker synchronized swim team

-          $4,200: Exclusive rights to the production and sale of Jim Cramer’s Mad Money merchandise

-          “The Ombudsmen of Orgasm Manor” – A Red Herring Erotic Wall Calendar

At this point our lawyers would like the following to be known:

a) At the time of purchase in late 2008, we, The Red Herring, were under the impression that the ‘chewing’ in chewing horse referred to its ability to break down hard foodstuffs for later consumption by its owner, not its predisposition towards biting other horses and people.

b) We were not aware, until early 2009, that SSMU explicitly prohibits the use of club offices to house and care for animals.

c) We were not aware, until last month, that Strawberry, our chewing horse, had a severe and highly communicable case of E. rutilupiscis, or “horse shivers.”

d) We were not aware, until last month, that the 2007 Provincial Animal Welfare Act contains specific provisions outlawing the use of antique bidets in the feeding and cleaning of animals.

e) There was neither intention nor malice in any actions that we, The Red Herring, took over the course of the last year that may accidentally have resulted in the hospitalization of the entirety of the Snowboard Club executive staff with horse shivers

f) We were not aware that a SSMU permit was required to hold a fundraising barbecue on campus. Furthermore, we were not aware of the particular nature of horsemeat, including its high microbial count and the lengthy amount of cooking time necessary to make it edible

g) Contrary to allegations from Midnight Kitchen and Animal Liberties McGill, there is no concrete evidence that any member or representative of The Red Herring suggested or advertised publicly that horsemeat was either a) vegan-friendly or b) not actually a meat whatsoever

As an additional, related point, The Red Herring would like to offer a blanket apology to the following groups and organizations: the Snowboard Club, the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, AUS, the Sociology Department, the McGill Bidet Enthusiasts Club, McGill’s non-hooker swim team, and the families of the prospective student tour group that attended our fundraising barbecue. Please note that these apologies are neither an admission of guilt on the part of The Red Herring, nor do they imply deliberate intent in any of our actions.

~ David Groves

With the lithium mines in mind, I have begun a desperate and ultimately doomed effort to find a job. I know it is doomed, and I with it, because I have sown the seeds of my own destruction. Over the past few years, I have sabotaged my future self so many times and in so many ways that it is almost remarkable that the future me has not designed a time machine to come back and beat my ass twenty or thirty years backwards. The only comfort I derive from this harsh truth is that I am not alone in this: you, dear reader, you are also fucked. You are fucked because of the pictures your friends put on Facebook.

We’ve all heard the stories, of employers snooping around on the internet for dirt before they make their hires. As such, we should all know better. And probably, when it comes to ourselves, we do. But unfortunately, this does not apply to our friends, who bear no love in their hearts for us, and even less for our future selves. You cannot control it. One day, you will be out and you will get caught in a compromising photo. Maybe you bumped into somebody, and they were bent over, and it looked like you were plowing them. Maybe “someone near you” was throwing up, but the light and the angles and all the other excuses you can think of made it look like you were doing it. Try as you might, these photos will wind up online, resurfacing just when you thought you’d forgotten them as part of some terrible internet meme.

These photos fall into three simple categories, each of which devastating in its own way. The first are the plain old unfortunate-angle shots. You weren’t doing anything wrong; maybe you were even doing something right. What you were doing, though, is irrelevant, because you look horrifying, like someone hit you with a bag of animal parts. Your eyes are half-lidded and red, your jowls are frozen in mid-oscillation, and the camera has unprecedented access to the inside of your nose. These are pictures are innocent in nature, but murder for your career. They tell your employer “This person is so ugly that they will make you ugly. From a biological standpoint, this person is probably only debatably a human.”

The second category encompasses pictures that make you look like you’re doing something you aren’t. These pictures get a lot of mileage among your friends, and are especially pernicious because they are hard to refute. You weren’t wearing a man-thong, you say? Just a trick of the light? Well, it’s your word versus a pretty convincing picture, and, mysteriously, no one who was there is able to back you up. Were you punching that girl in the breast? No? Mighty strange way to “shake someone’s hand”, pal. Your prospective boss will look at some of these and think, do I want someone who punches all kinds of breasts working here?

The third category is undeniably the worst. These are the unforced errors of the gaffe world, the Lynndie Englands, the pictures that only made sense to pose for in the very small, demented context in which they were taken. You know these. Everyone does. No one forced you to have these photos taken, and you were positive that they were good ideas. Oh man, you might think to yourself, humping this statue is the shit! Then you will ask someone you know to take a picture of you humping this statue. It will turn out that this statue is of a recently deceased oncologist, or a civil rights activist, or a blind child that wrote a ground-breaking Broadway play right before getting eaten by wolverines. Later, you will look at the picture, and wonder why humping anything is the shit, especially because it offers the possibility, however remote, that you will impose your stupendously defective genes upon a whole new generation. These pictures will offer an unaltered glimpse into your mind, the place you routinely assault with pornography, drugs, and American Gladiator re-runs. Not only will employers reject you upon seeing them, it is probable that your family will as well. This is why I know I will not get a job.

~ David Groves

It wasn’t a terrible strategy, and in my parent’s shoes, watching me polish off another two or three pirate ships worth of lego pieces, it was probably all they could do. The problem is, etiquette is a double-edged sword. In most cases, it allows you to more or less glide through any social engagements you have on auto-pilot. A polite person can go to a party, talk to 30 or so people over the night, and leave without anyone having had a real conversation with them. This is great if you really just want to be at home in your underwear playing Wii Sports, or if you’re a sociopath. You don’t have to think at all: just let your ass-kissing instincts kick in and you’re golden. The downside of all this, though, is that when a genuinely novel situation arises, where there isn’t a clear “polite” thing to do, you’re basically fucked. This happens to me probably three of four times a year, and it is absolutely excruciating.

Here’s an example: this summer, I was walking home from a bar with a friend of mine when she was all “Yo, gimme a fucking piggy-back”. This happens with relative frequency, both because I’m tall and short people love to demean me and because I wear a saddle when I go out. So she hopped on my back, and we made it about half a block before I tripped, collapsed, and threw her at a parked car. Fortunately, she was unhurt, but at some point during the fall one of her breasts had wriggled its way loose from her bra and was resting contentedly outside of her shirt. Now, one part of being polite means that you really only expect to see very specific breasts at very specific times, rather than the occasional breast out in the street every now and again for no real reason. As a result, when you do see a breast, hanging out there without its partner, and you really weren’t planning on seeing that breast, you really don’t know what to do. I completely froze up, like I was camping and a grizzly bear just wandered into my site. My friend, who hadn’t yet noticed, said something to the effect of “You dumb asshole, help me up already”, but I had no idea what to do. If I helped her up, I had to look at her, and if I had to look at her, I would see her breast. And then she would see that I had seen her breast and mace me. I was stuck.

Another thing about relying on manners too much is that in these kinds of frightening new situations, your priorities are completely messed up. I, like a giant lanky catapult, had just launched my friend at a parked Toyota Tercel, and yet all I could think about was not seeing her breast, because that would be rude. So I stood motionless, looking straight up into the sky and not helping her, while she rolled around and swore. Eventually, when I had collected myself, I formed a plan. First, close one of my eyes and block my line of sight to her breast with my hand. Second, reach out with my other hand and help her up. Three, tell her that she was going half and half, but do it in a way that won’t embarrass either of us too much. Four, never speak to her again. What I hadn’t factored into all of this planning was that without my other eye, I had no depth perception. And so, in a desperate effort to avoid an awkward situation, I closed one eye, reached out with my right hand, and open palmed her right in the tit. Not a grab, not a poke or a clutch, but an open palm. It wasn’t forceful, but it got the message across just fine: I think that I have just ended our friendship.

~ David Groves

The Movie:

The Sly: Raymond ‘Ray’ Tango, a well-read, bespectacled Beverly Hills detective with a hot sister and a conspicuously absent sex drive.

The Plot: When detectives Tango and Cash (Kurt Russell, the loose cannon to Stallone’s uptight prick) brush up against criminal kingpin/rodent fetishist Yves Perret, he somehow gets them thrown in the slammer, from which they must escape and clear their names.

The Feel: Confusing, even for a Stallone flick. The entire sequence of events leading Tango and Cash into prison is a whirlwind of plot holes, and shows a profound misunderstanding of the American judicial system. Compounding on this, the film makes no effort to describe, even in passing, what may or may not be happening between scenes. As a result, whatever anger we should be feeling about Stallone and Russell’s imprisonment is diffused by the fact that we have no idea how long they’ve even been there.

Inexplicably: The role of Tango itself. To put it nicely, the character is far outside the range that Stallone can play believably. Fortunately, the writers recognized this, and limited his “classiness” to the clothing he wears and the newspaper he pretends to read.

Prison?: Yes. Kurt Russell and Stallone even share a somewhat lengthy prison shower scene, in which they compare penises.

The Movie: Cobra (1986)

The Sly: Marion ‘Cobra’ Cobretti, a hyper-violent detective with a strong distaste for “rules”, “laws”, and “talking”.

The Plot: When a cult of serial killers starts terrorizing Los Angeles, the police department has to call upon Cobra to do what they won’t: kill indiscriminately. 

The Feel: Very, very dark. The serial killer cult does not mess around, and we get to see them murder a lot of people. The police are completely ineffective at stopping them, mainly because they insist on a bunch of pussy liberal bullshit, like reading people their rights. Fortunately for us, Cobra doesn’t believe in anything but horrible, horrible violence. The closest he comes to proper police procedure is to whisper, “You have the right to remain silent,” before burning a man to death.

Inexplicably: Every one of Cobra’s one-liners is absolute garbage. In one scene, the police commissioner tells Cobra that he has an attitude problem, and Cobra’s response is “Yeah, but it’s just a little one.” Whenever Cobra and his partner try to engage in some light-hearted banter, Stallone mumbles so much that you can’t make out half the things he says. Also, there’s a really strange and overlong montage that cuts back and forth between footage of homeless people and robots.

Prison?: No. I don’t think Cobra would let anyone live long enough to even get to prison.

Movie: Demolition Man (1993)

The Sly: Detective John Spartan

The Plot: Simon Phoenix (played by Wesley Snipes), John Spartan’s criminal arch-nemesis, tricks him into blowing up a school bus full of kids. Both of them are cryogenically frozen, but when someone mysteriously thaws Phoenix out 40 years later, Spartan is reawakened to find and seek his revenge.

The Feel: Lots of jokes about the future, lots of stupid one-liners, lots of explosions, and a little ham-handed social commentary. Despite a number of flaws (some pretty corny dialogue, goofy special effects, Rob Schneider), the movie holds together pretty well – Snipes and Stallone look like they’re having fun, and no one takes the storyline too seriously.

Inexplicably: At one point in the movie, lieutenant Lenina Huxley (Sandra Bullock) asks Spartan if he’d like to have sex. The ensuing minute or so is among the most disgusting things I have ever seen on film, and they don’t even get naked. In fact, they don’t even touch. How? Well, it’s the future, dummy – they put helmets on and make stupid faces at each other from across the room. It sounds tame, but the combination of Stallone’s expressions and the noises he makes is enough to put you off sex for weeks (and I watched all of Party at Kitty and Stud’s). And just in case you can survive the abstinence onslaught that is future-sex, you get to hear Stallone refer to old-fashioned corporeal fucking as “boning,” “the wild mambo,” and “the hunka-chunka”.

Prison?: Yes. Prisons of the future contain all the accoutrements necessary for a good final battle: lasers, guns that shoot electricity, big blocks of ice, cranes, and a machine that instantly freezes anything it touches.

The Movie: Over the Top (1987)

The Sly: Lincoln Hawk (or Hawks, this is never explained), a truck driver/deadbeat dad/professional arm wrestler.

The Plot: Using his wife’s impending death as an excuse, Lincoln Hawk attempts to reconnect with his young son via the staple of American life: road tripping. The wife kicks the bucket, Hawk’s father-in-law takes custody, and for some reason Hawk must compete in the World Championship of Arm Wrestling to get his child back.

The Feel: Kind of a Frankenstein’s monster vibe, like the movie was originally two movies that were chopped apart, sewn together at random, and then electrocuted back to consciousness. Just as the bad-at-parenting storyline hits an insurmountable snag, a new story about arm-wrestling and fat rednecks is introduced, and, conveniently, they resolve each other. Adding to the disjointed feel, the story is all about Stallone’s intense dedication to his son, and yet he is clearly not capable of being a parent (he forces his 10-year old son to arm-wrestle a larger boy with a mullet, lets him drive a semi-truck, and oh, I don’t know, abandons him for most of his childhood).

Inexplicably: The movie is named after Lincoln Hawk’s super-secret arm-wrestling move, where he pivots his hand “over the top” of his opponent’s just as he’s about to lose to gain some mechanical advantage. This move would be a hell of a lot cooler if it weren’t blatantly illegal under professional arm-wrestling rules, something I assume no one in the film was interested in looking in to.

Prison?: Yes, for driving his semi into his father-in-laws living room. This is another obvious example of the whole “wants-to-be/shouldn’t-be a parent” problem.

The Movie: The Party at Kitty and Stud’s, or The Italian Stallion (1970)

The Sly: Stud, aka “The Italian Stallion”.

The Plot: Kitty and Stud have sex. Then they have a party, and have more sex. Then some friends of theirs have sex.

The Feel: Believe it or not (I didn’t at first), Sylvester Stallone’s first movie was a low-quality soft-core pornographic film. It was actually re-released (under the name The Italian Stallion) after Stallone struck it big with Rocky, and it’s obvious that the soundtrack, as well as some of the dialogue, was altered to reference his more successful venture as much as possible. As for the viewing experience, short of seeing Stallone’s penis, the movie is an unarousing mess, mixing equal parts embarrassing dialogue (“I’ll be velvet-mouthed on your shank of love”) and poor editing with long, boring sex scenes in which you can clearly see the actors looking behind the camera for instructions.

Inexplicably: I admit that I’m not well versed in 70′s porn, but there were some things that struck me as very, very bizarre. For one thing, the oboe is not a sexy instrument, no matter what people are doing when it’s being played. For another, there is no discernible value in having a man eat a banana and talk about bestiality while being fellated. None.

Prison?: Thankfully, no.

~ David Groves

As is legally required of us at the end of every school year, below is a detailed summary of our 2008/2009 financial expenditures and activities, available for public access. As per the results of SSMU v. The Red Herring [2006], we are obligated to disclose not just actual spending and revenues, but speculative and/or suggested sources of income and expenses as well. Our lawyers would like it to be known that, we, the editors of this magazine, only recently became aware of the audio-recording equipment that was installed by SSMU in our office earlier this year. Additionally, we were uninformed of the legally binding status of any speculations or suggestions that were picked up on these recording devices.

The Red Herring Fundraising Events:

-          $1000/plate “War Orphans Dinner”

-          The Red Herring’s 1^st Annual End of Winter Mystery-Meat-Acue (RHMMQ)

-          Donkey Show

Expenditures, Unrelated to Publishing Costs:

-          $400: Lifetime membership to www.indianbuttmagic.com

-          $2500: 1000 copies of Fuck Work! The 2005 Dilbert Desk Calendar; intended for resale

-          $600: Genital piercings for executive staff

-          $870: 19^th century semi-functioning Italian bidet (purchase and installation)

-          $1700: A ‘chewing’ horse

-          $259.99: Flirting with Magic: The Complete Instructional DVD Series (1^st of three easy payments)

Expenditures, Venture Capital:

-          $10,000: Startup capital for Simpson-Beveridge Hypermarket Solutions Inc. to break into the antique semi-functioning bidet restoration market

-          $8,500: All-hooker synchronized swim team

-          $4,200: Exclusive rights to the production and sale of Jim Cramer’s Mad Money merchandise

-          “The Ombudsmen of Orgasm Manor” – A Red Herring Erotic Wall Calendar

At this point our lawyers would like the following to be known:

a)      At the time of purchase in late 2008, we, The Red Herring, were under the impression that the ‘chewing’ in chewing horse referred to its ability to break down hard foodstuffs for later consumption by its owner, not its predisposition towards biting other horses and people.

b)      We were not aware, until early 2009, that SSMU explicitly prohibits the use of club offices to house and care for animals.

c)       We were not aware, until last month, that Strawberry, our chewing horse, had a severe and highly communicable case of E. rutilupiscis, or “horse shivers.”

d)      We were not aware, until last month, that the 2007 Provincial Animal Welfare Act contains specific provisions outlawing the use of antique bidets in the feeding and cleaning of animals.

e)       There was neither intention nor malice in any actions that we, The Red Herring, took over the course of the last year that may accidentally have resulted in the hospitalization of the entirety of the Snowboard Club executive staff with horse shivers

f)        We were not aware that a SSMU permit was required to hold a fundraising barbecue on campus. Furthermore, we were not aware of the particular nature of horsemeat, including its high microbial count and the lengthy amount of cooking time necessary to make it edible

                                                                                                                                                                                                  ~David Groves