Tuesday 12 April 2011

THE TOP 20 TDB LEDES OF ALL TIME!

Cartoon of Bugs published in HOUR magazine exposing Bugs being arrested buck naked (true story!) after being caught by the police in Montreal having consensual sex with a (GASP!) woman! No more chicks for Bugs! (Cartoon by the incredible Dan Buller)
 
I've got to say, my years at Montreal's HOUR magazine were punctuated by being dragged to the Quebec Press Council several times, being banned in Winnipeg, getting death threats, Three Dollar Bill being investigated by The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, being screamed at backstage by Cyndi Lauper, getting the last-ever sit-down interview with James Brown, or having a cartoon of me being arrested buck naked by the Montreal cops (true story!) drawn by HOUR's awesome editorial cartoonist Dan Buller -- the list goes on and on. But the list I treasure most is the following one, which I began compiling in the late 1990s when my Three Dollar Bill ledes started pissing off people.


My old friend and colleague, former HOUR news editor Michael-John Milloy reminded me of this last week when he wrote a Facebook posting about when he joined HOUR in 1996 at the invitation of then-news editor Lyle Stewart..

"My life in HOUR began when Richard puked on me." MJ wrote. "Lyle had recruited me to write a story on the latest doings of the nimrods in the McGill student council and, after my story was published, invited me for drinks at Upstairs [jazz bar]. Bugs met us there after hanging out at the Roddick Gates and we soon set to drinking, ogling Lyle's girlfriend (Richard) and desperately trying not to embarrass myself in front of two of my local heroes. As a callow, know-it-all jackass at the McGill Daily, meeting Lyle and Bugs was meeting the kind of journalist I wanted to be: fearless, funny, caring and paid. Luckily Bugs dispelled my reverie when, after a quick pitcher and some shots of rotgut tequila, he laughed and, just as quickly, threw his hands in front of his mouth. Lacking the panic reflex I developed over the next decade, I sat immobile as a thin stream of vomit arced out from between Bugs' fingers and painted my shirt"

When someone commented on MJ's awesome lede, MJ replied, "My hommage to Bugs' many, many superior ledes."

Which reminded me of the list of ledes from Three Dollar Bill that I had been compiling for years. So here are my Top 20 (Thanks, MJ!):

  1. “I tried everything except blowing Conrad Black to kickstart my journalism career.” (Aug 1999)
  2. “I have never sucked Mike Piazza’s cock, so I have no idea if he’s gay.” (June 2002)
  3. “I can’t help but think when I look at Michael Jackson that his face is tighter - and whiter - than my ass.” (July 2002)
  4. “It’s true, alas, my asshole is not the centre of the universe.” (July 2000)
  5. “Arrogance, not to mention my pumps, is humankind’s Achilles heel.” (April 2000)
  6. “The only schmuck convinced that no one believed former Canadian Olympic champ Brian Orser was gay is, go figure, Brian Orser.” (Dec 1998)
  7. “Ricky Martin can sit on my face.” (June 1999) Oh yeah, I outed Ricky two years later in TDB.
  8. “I love to fuck. I love to get fucked. I just wish straight boys had as much guilt-free sex as queer boys do (and with queer boys!).” (Aug 1998) This column got me banned in Winnipeg.
  9. “I am living proof that in less than a century gay life has gone from being the love that dared not speak its name to the love that won’t shut the fuck up.” (Nov 2002)
  10. “You know, after putting up with straight people all my life, I’ve figured out that most of them really aren’t all that bad.” (June 1997)
  11. “I adore women and Lord knows I love a fabulous rack. But honey, there is a limit. I mean, there I was at Barbarella’s, an Ottawa strip joint for a stag party last weekend, and I hadn’t seen so many flabby asses waving in the air since, well, Gay Pride.” (Oct 2000)
  12. “It must be spring because here I am lapping it up – behinds, that is, like a bitch in heat.” (May 2001)
  13. “I don’t think the man they called Jesus of Nazareth ever sucked cock, though I bet he would have loved it had he taken the time, and made a proper fag hag of his beloved Mary Magdelene.” (Dec 2001)
  14. “A fuck is a fuck is a fuck.” (April 2000) The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary investigated complaints that TDB was pornographic after this column ran.
  15. “I always tell people I graduated from the Malcolm X school of rhetoric.” (Oct 2001)
  16. “Pope John Paul II is a sonuvabitch”. (Aug 2003)
  17. “If the Gay Games are the Uganda of the sports world, then the Federation of Gay Games is Idi Amin.” (Jan 2004)
  18. “Imagine the relief sexually abused choirboys in the Catholic Church are feeling now that the Grand Séminaire de Montréal has announced it will test all new priests for HIV.” (January 2004)
  19. “I'm no slut, but I lost count of all the cocks I'd sucked when the number topped 200 some years ago.” (November 2006)
  20. “If there is anybody who deserves to die of AIDS, it is the HIV-denialists who after 25 years of solid science still insist that HIV is not the cause of AIDS.” (March 2011)

2 comments:

  1. FABULOUS ARTICLE...you truly are very talented !!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. patrick meausette10 April 2013 at 08:50

    You are going to burn in hell! (See you there).

    ReplyDelete