~Falcon Heene

~David “White Wine” MacLean

Do Not Put Your Money in a Bank

Putting your money in the bank is the equivalent of rolling up a wad of hundreds and setting it on fire. People at the bank are often homeless invalids working to support their methamphetamine addictions. The moment you hand your money over to them, their greedy drug-addled minds tell them to inject it directly into their arms so that they can enjoy the trace amounts of cocaine regularly found on hundred dollar bills. In short, bank tellers are Satan-loving, kitten-fetus-consuming monsters and cannot be trusted. What can be trusted are five yachts that simultaneously circumnavigate the globe. Basically the procedure is this: 1) Buy five 50ft yachts 2) fill them with your money, gold, diamonds, prized horses, ruby dotted monocles, and opiates, 3) hire an armed mercenary force (I suggest Chechens or people from Detroit) 4) watch the yachts sail away knowing that no one will be able to take away you’re meticulously acquired collection of fossils that may or may not, but definitely do, look like penises.

Buy a Gun

Buying a gun is a lot like buying your first child. The only difference being when you buy a gun you end up loving it, instead of feeding it to your game giraffes on a dare from Bernard Madoff. I barely think of Brian anymore; but my gun, I think of my gun everyday. Let me describe it to you. It is made of metal, it has 7 tubes, and it fires 40 pound WWII era artillery shells. How many break-ins have I had? 0. How many burglar limbs do I have displayed as trophies in my parlor? 763,452. And that’s my small parlor. You do the math.

Invest in Wooden Motor Boats

Nothing says this economy is back on track like wooden motor boats. I have 572. Owning a wooden motor boat is almost the equivalent of punching Fast Growth Economies in the chin with the arms of America. Every time I approach mine I think, “My god I’m wealthy,” and it’s that kind of positive thinking that will get us out of this death maze of foreclosures and whiny servants. Better yet, take your newly acquired fleet of wooden motorboats, form a fruit company with your pals down at the golf club, and invade an island nation. Might I suggest Haiti? Those guys love to be exploited!

Marry a Kennedy (A Good One)

I cannot emphasize this enough: marrying a good Kennedy is fantastic for your financial fortune, marrying a bad Kennedy is the equivalent of being fucked by three retarded Optimus Primes with Boston accents and beautiful, yet immobile, hair. This raises the question, “How do I know if the Kennedy I’ve married is a good one?” The simple answer is this: if your Kennedy is severely handicapped, the offspring of a senator named Edward, or both, you’ve hit the bad Kennedy gene pool. Really, the best possible option for anyone attempting to marry into the Kennedys is to hook up with the offspring of HE-MAN Arnold Schwarzenegger and SKELETOR Maria Shriver. Only then will you become MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE. Also, once you do marry a Kennedy, make sure to take precautions against death. I met Death once on a trip to the seventh circle of hell and that guy is all about fucking with the Kennedys…and Fresca. Death loves Fresca.

I’d write more, but I believe I’ve provided you clownish, inbred toilers with enough information to fix my problems and I really couldn’t care less about yours. I beg you all to follow my instructions carefully. I’d hate to have to stir you to action through force. It wouldn’t be pretty. Just picture 572 wooden motorboats carrying Chechens, Carnivorous Giraffes, people from Detroit, robot-butlers, WWII era artillery, and the corpse of my uncle, Ronaldo Kennedy, bearing down on you. Don’t think I won’t do it either. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times – I would sacrifice the population of the entire world a million times over to protect just one of my penis-fossils: my precious, precious penis-fossils.

~David “White Wine Spritzer” MacLean

Nazi-Ghosts aside, this moment had a profound effect on me. Soon afterward I found it impossible to go into a McGill classroom without feeling incredibly insignificant; which is ridiculous considering that I am Joseph Barnbar the VI and am therefore far more significant than the majority of you. But don’t worry, I quickly found a way to deal with my feelings of inconsequentiality and now, thanks to this article, (another Barnbar triumph) so can you! You see, I realized that the easiest way to make myself feel better about my own triviality was to create a stereotype, apply it to each student in a specific faculty, and then rest content knowing that I—situated outside the stereotype—was indeed an individual.

I’m going to presume that the first objection you, the reader, have to my master plan is that it’s far too creative to be carried out by someone who isn’t me. Graciously I acknowledge this objection as fact and, therefore, in an act of unfathomable kindness will provide a simple layout of the faculty stereotypes that I was able to create. I deal exclusively with the fields of literature, history, and anthropology, as these constitute the majority of what I study. So if you’re in science, please ignore this magnificent article entirely and concentrate on finding a cure for the raucous fungal growth I’ve developed on my lower back. It’s starting to smell like heated mayonnaise.

I begin with Literature, because this is the faculty in which I find myself most alien. Visibly, I define this faculty as the faculty of scarves. I don’t understand what compels so many lit students to purchase so many scarves and of such variety. Are their necks really that cold? Do they need to wear them so tight and avant-garde? Is it connected to a fairly obvious addiction to autoerotic asphyxiation? I assume so, as this is also the faculty in which one will undoubtedly meet the archetypal, intellectual masturbator. Everyone knows this person: his/her name is always somewhere in the realm of Sebastian or Ophelia, in class, they raise their hand like they’re holding a glass of brandy, and they will often become so flustered at attempting to relate the works of Mark Twain to Sigmund Freud’s boner that they’ll wave their hands manically in the air before proclaiming, “I’m sorry, I’ve lost myself.” If you recognize immediately that you’re NOT one of these people, then go ahead and give yourself a pat on the back, because I don’t hate you.

The second faculty I’d like to break down is History, as this is a faculty whose stereotype I can readily identify with. This has much to do with what I like to call the conjunctive continuum of paleness and strange eyebrows. History is one of the few faculties where you can immediately situate the academic success of an individual based on the pastiness of their skin and the irrationality of their eyebrows. If you’re sporting a moderate tan and plucked brows, I hope you like stocking shelves. If your pallor resembles that of a seventeenth-century aristocrat and your eyebrows have birds nesting in them, a Rhodes scholarship isn’t far off. And if you’re an albino whose eyebrows are presently circumnavigating the globe, congratulations, you’ve just won history. Collect your prize at the site of the 1765 battle between Donald St. Euqpear and Duke Barnbar of Magornia – I assume you know where that is.

Finally, I’d like to break down the field of anthropology. To be honest, this field was the hardest for me to stereotype. However, after a couple hours of research I found one character that appeared in every single class. This individual was “the guy/girl who never showered.” Apparently, some anthropology students are so enthused to start fieldwork that they begin adapting to the hygienic standards of the great apes long before they are forced to compile a detailed analysis on the fragmentation of their feces and identify its relation to the development of capitalism. Interestingly however, “the guy/girl who never showered” often embodied a few other distinctive traits. The most perplexing was the fact that amongst their almost endless supply of hemp and tie-dye clothing was an absurd amount of rock-climbing equipment. “Look, brethren, another carbineer! This will look so great attached to everything I own. Maybe I can use it to attach my water bottle to my backpack. God, this is so untamed!” This is something I’m sure they shout on a biweekly basis, or in other words, about as often as they bathe.

In conclusion, I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that I—the genius that I am—constructed this entire article as one big exercise in recognizing a clearly lineated stereotype, and significantly, one that appears multiple times in every single McGill classroom. To put it more plainly, I’d like to reintroduce myself one last time as Joseph Barnbar the VI, “The Arrogant Asshole.”

~ Joseph Barnbar the VI/David MacLean

“Stop, drop, shut ‘em down open up shop. Oh! No! That’s how Ruff Ryders roll.”

The General Message: The Rough Riders are going to go into your neighborhood and open a drug operation while yelling in an attempt to alert you that this is how they roll.

Adjective: Obnoxious.

Why it’s Garbage: For some reason DMX has decided to sample the fire safety song that was presented to my first grade class by a gigantic talking bumblebee. However, instead of rocking the standard “Stop, Drop, and Roll” sequencing that so captivated me as a youngster, DMX places “Roll” at the very end of the phrase and crams a pile of stupid shit in between. If I wanted to hear a vapid reorganization of my favorite childhood ditties I’d buy a Raffi album and periodically shout out “fuck” over the lyrics to “Banana Phone.” I must admit, however, that I’m eagerly anticipating DMX’s next two singles, “The Fire Exit is to the Left” and “Yo Yo Yo No Running Around the Pool, Ya’ll Might Slip.”

“I’ma have to show N******, how easily we blow N******. When you find out there’s some more N******, that’s runnin’ with your N******.”

The General Message: I am DMX and I really like to use the N-word.

Adjective: Unapologetically Lazy.

Why it’s Garbage: Ignoring the fact that DMX is using a horribly racist word over and over again, one cannot help but notice that he has rhymed the N-word with the N-word four fucking times. If one replaces the jarringly racist N-word with the less shocking “The Care Bears” it is easy to see the flaw in DMX’s lyrical design. Ex. “Ima have to show “The Care Bears”, how easily we blow “The Care Bears.” When you found out some more “The Care Bears” is running with your “The Care Bears.” In all honesty I actually like the “The Care Bears” version a little more. It’s got that “television show about bears that love each other” edge that really makes hip-hop work.

“Oh you think it’s funny then you don’t know me money. It’s about to get ugly, fuck it dog I’m hungry.”

The General Message: Do not laugh at me! Seriously man, I am going to fight you! I’ve decided to consume a sandwich instead! 

Adjective: Confusing.

Why it’s Garbage: DMX spends the majority of this song rapping about how inconceivably tough and unapologetically violent the Rough Riders are. However, in the one instance where DMX is personally tested he totally pussies out and decides instead to eat some pasta (boiled, I’m sure, in his own tears). Furthermore, this line introduces an interesting perspective on gang violence. Is DMX indicating that only well nourished people commit violent crimes? If this is true than how come I’m not regularly being jacked and shanked by Louie Anderson, John Goodman, or zombie Orson Welles (who, as we all know, is an incredibly fat zombie)?

“I’ma pull paper, it’s all about the papers. Bitches talkin’ paper, then how they wanna rape us.”

The General Message: DMX is going to smoke some weed. DMX is totally into smoking weed. Often DMX finds that women will talk about smoking weed and then segue into discussing how violently they want to have sex with DMX.

Adjective: Stultiloquent

Why it’s garbage: Once again we find that DMX is attempting to create a rhyming pattern out of identical words. However, the thing that really bothers me about this specific lyric is that it reminds me that I have about fifty term papers due this week, yet have spent the majority of my time listening to the Rough Riders Anthem. To be honest I only used the adjective stultiloquent in a desperate attempt to reaffirm my intellect. For the record, I have no idea how the word “stultiloquent” is pronounced and am, in fact, incredibly stupid.

“Talk is cheap motherfucker!”

The General Message: It is both easy and unimpressive to constantly say things without backing them up with real action…motherfucker.

Adjective: Counterintuitive.

Why it’s garbage: DMX is a rapper. He has made a living by saying things loudly and unintelligibly into a big metal microphone. Furthermore, despite DMX’s multiple arrests for possession of marijuana and his one incredibly strange arrest, which occurred when he attempted to carjack a vehicle while claiming to be a federal agent (WTF?), he really hasn’t done that much to back the assertion that he is a stone-cold thug. In a world where taking nine bullets to the face and body is considered the litmus test of toughness, smoking weed is about as tough as owning a small chipmunk named “Rascals” that loves unconditionally.

~David MacLean

(Ed’s note:  since David MacLean is a true believer in the “talk is cheap doctrine” he left the Herring office this morning to “beat the gangster piss” out of DMX. We have yet to hear back from him, he is presumed dead)

It saddens me to tell you this – as I know so much of what you do revolves around my personal success – but for all my triumphs I have yet to achieve one goal, that which has consumed my soul since first my gnomish body revoltingly burst forth onto Mother Earth: to achieve a level of fame unknown since the time of The Beatles. It is a goal common to all self-obsessed megalomaniac writers who begin articles with anecdotes about themselves. That’s right, I wanted to be a super-star Steve Guttenberg style. Yet, as I grew older, I let this dream fade away into the same sort of metaphorical dust elves undoubtedly use in the forging of axe blades.

Recently, however, my fiery passion for achieving international celebrity was reawakened. This occurred when an unfamiliar figure friended me on that all-consuming clusterfuck of neo-web-society, Facebook. Perplexed and somewhat astounded, as I neither have friends nor cyber-enemies, I sent this individual a message asking her who she was. To my enormous child-who-has-just-been-introduced-to-the-mechancis-of-a-jack-in-the-box-like surprise, this new Friend replied that she was simply a fan of The Red Herring, and had tracked me down through Facebook. Immediately I turned to my old-timey typewriter and revised Act 2 of Small, Pathetic Child Becomes Quasi Successful Man-boy to include a scene where I’m famous and drinking champagne out of the selective orifices of beautiful alien women. In order to understand why the women are aliens you really have to read Act 1 of the script. However, I digress, for the truly important part of this story is the fact that I, David MacLean, for one brief, shining moment had a fan.

Now, there are two reasons why I use the phrase ‘brief, shining moment’. The first is to convey a sort of sparkly mental image. The second, and more important, is to indicate that the moment was incredibly brief. Within days of gaining my fan I had lost her. How? Well, she didn’t stop liking what I did with the Red Herring – her fandom remained the same. What changed was my attitude towards her. Very soon after our friending I found myself constantly checking her Facebook page, you know, just to see what my admirer had been up to. I read her Info section; I learned her favorite books and movies, I became aware of her life goals, I met her parents, I collected enough of her skin and hair to create a ritualistic alter. Eventually, I was trying to contact my fan more than she was trying to contact me and somehow, through the magical workings of Facebook, she was no longer my fan. I was a fan of hers.

I now exist as a broken and shattered individual. Having tasted the sweet, sweet, nectar of fanaticized admiration, I find it unbearable to walk around generically like all the other plebeians (plebeians is what resentful fame-whores call the people who formerly photographed their vaginas). I suppose I’ll just have to wait until Miramax options my life story. I just hope they don’t cast Ben Affleck in the title role – I mean what kind of idiot can barely speak Mandarin?

~David MacLean

            Why is Sherlock Holmes so cool?  Well for one he is fictional, which means that not only does he theoretically live forever, he is able to do anything. If Sherlock Holmes wanted to start flying around strangling Koala bears, all he would have to do is gangster-slap his creator (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) around a little, and BAM! Sherlock Holmes will start flying around strangling Koala bears. The possibilities are endless. Pancakes for dinner? DONE. Sex with supermodels? DONE. An absurd amount of cocaine use without negative side effects? ALREADY IN THE NOVEL.

Now, I know you’ll be reading this and will probably say something whiny like, “Well, what makes Sherlock Holmes any better than someone like Superman? I mean Superman’s fictional, he lives forever. He’s sort of like a better version of Sherlock Holmes.”

            First of all, stop whining; second, be glad you’re still alive (Sherlock usually kills for that kind of insolence); and third, are you kidding me? Sherlock Holmes is the only fictional character strong enough and smart enough to outwit his author. All the other characters of this world are completely bound by the pen of their originator. Why do you think Superman still wears tights instead of a jersey with “FUCK YOU UP” emblazoned across it? It’s because he has to. Holmes, on the other hand, was once seen violating Conan Doyle’s wife and on more than one occasion spotted wearing Crude sportswear.                           

            Incredibly, these are not the only distinguishing characteristics in the mind-blowing repertoire of Holmes. Holmes is so incredibly good at solving crimes and unraveling sinister plots that he intentionally handicaps himself by strolling around with Dr. Watson, a sidekick that combines the athletic capacity of the late Pavarotti with the reasoning skills of a four-year-old child. Sherlock Holmes pretty much solves every crime and destroys every villain with a two-hundred-and-fifty pound sack of organs tied to his back. Furthermore, Arthur Conan Doyle’s dramatic use of the word “ejaculate” makes Holmes oratory skill far superior to any displayed in the 2008 election. Holmes doesn’t just cause others to “exclaims” things, like normal people, he forces them to “ejaculate”…probably all over each other. Here’s a direct quote from the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes:

“I heard her shut the door and felt quite sure that she had turned the key in the Lock.”

“The Key!” ejaculated Phelps.

            Notice how Phelps is so blown away by the linguistic strength of Holmes that he is literally forced to ejaculate everywhere. I’m pretty sure the quote continues with Phelps softly moaning in the corner as Watson attempts to coax him back into a state of reasonable consciousness.

            Finally, and most importantly, Holmes is a figure that purposefully combines the cool deductive charms of the liberal arts student with the mind-blowing scientific skill of those genius weirdoes hanging out around periodic tables. Holmes is in many ways the embodiment of McGill University. He is crazy-smart and totally willing to forgo money, sex, and the 21^st century to pursue the greater good – stroking his own ego. Seriously: fuck that stupid Martlet. How great would our athletic teams and academic body be if they were represented by a middle-aged detective? Answer: probably sensational. Besides, I hear Harvard already has Columbo on lockdown.   

                                                                                                                                                                                                        ~ Dave MacLean

            When Shakespeare attempts to lay down some serious Mack – sonnet style – he begins by comparing his lady fair to the inherent temperance and loveliness of a summer day. This seems to indicate beyond a doubt that Shakespeare is not only a horrible flirt, but also a fucking idiot. Summer is not temperate nor is it lovely; it is a soul crushing and brutalizing time of year where one (reads as: any university student) is willing to sell their young fragile life to the highest bidder. I am one such student; who has for years been confined to this endless drudgery, more formally titled The Summer Job; WHY WILLIAM?! WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?!!!

            Now, by this point, most of you are probably thinking I’m just being dramatic (After all wasn’t the author of this article the lead in a high school play titled Orange, Talk, Door?) Very astute observation Faithful reader and likely stalker, however, I assure you my summer employment experiences eclipses any agony you have yet to encounter in your bambi-like existence.  Since I’ve entered the workforce at the tender age of 16 I’ve worked six different summer jobs. On a whim of charitable kindness I’ve decided to traumatize you, the reader, with a description of only three of these experiences. I have listed them in chronological order, so that I can faithfully represent my digression from David MacLean: Human Being to David MacLean: Sadness Incarnate.
Job: DDDN Pizzeria
Date: June 2006  
Age:16
Status: Human Being
I will never forget my first job working at the local pizzeria DDDN; where the D stands for digestive or delectable or delicious depending on which D you’re talking about. The N stands for nutritious. Curiously, there is no letter in the pizzeria’s name to represent the phrase “shitty name for a pizza place.” My official duties at this pizzeria were, to the best of my knowledge, (my boss only spoke and understood Korean) to wear a red apron-skirt contraption, a red shirt, and a red hat emblazoned with the letter’s DDDN. On busier days, for some inexplicable reason, I was trusted with handing out free pizza to people on the most populated street in my neighbourhood; this was often accompanied by a spectator chorus of, “Holy fuck, that kid is lame.” Eventually I just stopped coming to work; a decision I reached once I realized my boss had decided that she would pay me in pizza (one slice a day). I have yet to formally resign or quit. I am technically still working there.
Job: The Brick 
Date: May 2007
Age: 19
Status: Overlord of Hobbit Creatures and one guy with really bad Eczema                                                                                                                                                                                         

The Brick, to all you unfamiliar, is a furniture warehouse store most noted for its no money down financing options and its immunity to all forms of combat; nobody beats The Brick – ever. I worked in the warehouse at The Brick for all of five days before handing in my 2 week’s notice. However, in those two and a half weeks I was given an astounding glimpse into another world, which previously I had assumed existed only in the works of JRR Tolkien. I worked with 5 men at the brick; three of which I’m fairly certain were hobbits. Now, in any other scenario I would have been psyched to have stumbled onto such an oddity, however I was forced to move furniture with these tiny boy-men, which was difficult for my 6′ 2″ frame. However, luckily, there was one other man working there of moderate height. This man was “Guy with really bad Eczema.” His skin was so incredibly dry that his eyes would periodically water and tear while you were talking to him. This made for fairly awkward conversation (do I look at the eyes, do I not look at the eyes?). The story does end happily however, as he left me alone with the hobbits for a week, so that he could attend his wedding and honeymoon. This was a major blow to my ego, at the time, as I hadn’t had a girlfriend for over two years, while eczema man was apparently a hot item. Other highlights at the brick include convincing an obvious drunk driver that it would be impossible to load a fourteen piece furniture set into his Geo, building a BBQ backwards with my bare-hands, and attending to a man who insisted on referring to each piece of furniture as “Mr.” I had to move Mr. Couch beside Mr. Bench so that there’d be enough room for Mr. Desk. The Brick is where happiness comes to die.

  
Job: Gardening Assitant
Date: July 2008 
Age: 19
Status: Sadness incarnate
Gardening sounds like the perfect summer job. You get to work outside, enjoy the sun, play around in dirt and build a close relationship with our large silent friends – the trees. This was exactly my thinking when I showed up for my first day of work. However, I soon realized that in order to enjoy the sun, the sun actually has to be shining. During the summer, I live in Vancouver; it rains…a lot. It does not rain as much as it does in the winter, granted, but still for the first two weeks of my employment I was soaked, covered in mud, and desperately trying not to pass out in my company supplied rain jacket which seemed to mirror the breathability and comfort of a pool cover. Once again, this scenario is one which I’m sure some of you will relate to with a simple shrug and a “whatever that’s not so bad.” Well fuck you guys; because my job was made exponentially worse by a little variable known as Paul. Paul was my Strict, Italian, David hating boss. At first I thought he’d be a nice guy based almost solely on his uncanny resemblance to Luigi of the Mario Brothers. However, after a while I learnt that this cartoonish resemblance to my favourite Mario-kart character was in-fact a cruel deception so vile that it had to have been inspired by some sort of summer job anti-Christ (I believe that the old testament refers to this character as “Sumjo usurper of the mellow.”)  Paul didn’t like me to begin with, I wasn’t hired by him, I didn’t really know what the fuck I was doing, and I kept pulling up tomato plants suspecting that they were weeds. All this culminated in Paul’s decision to make my life a living hell. When it rained I couldn’t sit in his truck, I had to sit under a tree; when I slammed the door of his truck he told me, in Italian, to “fuck a cat.”  Once I actually showed up to the wrong building and arrived to the actual job site a half hour late, my Italian is kind of shaky, but I’m fairly certain that he was accusing me of raping an orange. However, the very worst part of the gardening job was not my dispassionate boss but the fact that I had to pick up leaves in some very sketchy parts of Vancouver. To all of you not familiar with Vancouver this means several close encounters with Hypodermic needles. Now, I suspect that many of you had unpleasant jobs over the summer. However, unless you were, on several occasions, inches away from a possible HIV infection you better shut the fuck up; when it comes to summer jobs there’s really nothing comparable to nearly becoming HIV infected.

So William Shakespeare, if you’re reading this article, I hope you’ll reconsider a few of your most famous lines. “Beware the Ides of March,” might be more relevant today if it were worded “beware the Aids of August,” that “Now is the Winter of our Discontent” line should probably read ” Now, finally, the Winter; David MacLean is contented.” I would also like to apologize for calling you a fucking idiot. I have on occasion been incredibly moved by your work. I particularly like the line from Taming of the Shrew Act II scene i, “Asses are made to bear, and so are you.” Finally something I can relate too.

                                                                                                                                 ~David MacLean