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“One of the reasons Brando was a great star was that he never followed the form book, but lived his life spontaneously, personally and sincerely.” – Roger Ebert

When Marlon Brando died July 1st 2004 at 80 years of age, I had not yet crossed over into bloggerdom. His ashes were scattered today – half in Death Valley California and the other half on the Tahitian island he bought in 1962 (insert blizzard joke here). So I wanted to take this opportunity to mark the occasion.

Here’s what must be amazing about being an enormous (no pun intended – Marlon was still fairly fit in the 60s) celebrity. You can do the most outrageous, impulsive things. Marlon filmed Mutiny on the Bounty on the island, called Tetiaroa, in 1962. After principal photography wrapped, he married one of his co-stars (Tarita Teriipaia) – and then bought the island.

“Me filmy. Me likey. Me stayey. I’ll take the tanned broad, too.”

I’ll miss Marlon. He is first on a very short list of actors who defined the artform. Up until his death, he was giving in-house (and I mean his house – which he never left, ever) acting lessons to established A-listers like Sean Penn and Nick Nolte. The list of restaurants that would permit Marlon to partake of their all-you-can-eat-buffet is probably… also… very… short. Sigh.

That’s what you refer to as a “low-hanging fruit” joke. But Brando was into humor at its most very basic – flatulence – so he’d probably let me get away with it. Have a safe trip on that last Streetcar, Stanley. You’re the best that ever was.

The man is 82, afterall, but I’m not ready to see him shuffle off this mortal coil just yet. Nor am I lobbying for a Meet Wally Sparks or Ladybugs sequel. But Rodney Dangerfield has been one of my very favorite comedians since I first saw Easy Money on network TV way back in 1983. It’s one of the funniest comedies ever conceived and I’m frequently shocked at how few people have seen it.

At first it looked like his heart surgery had been a roaring success. And I also heard Adam Sandler and a bunch of other actors and comedians had been to the hospital to visit him – but apparently he’s not actually doing so hot. So pull together folks, and send Rodney some good vibes today.

Monty : [about his Mother-In-Law] She says I drink too much, I smoke too much, I gamble. I mean she’s right, but what can I do? I got no… what’s the word…

Nicky : Class.

One of my current pissah-projects is the redesign of a humor site based around the term Masshole, kid. For those of you who don’t know, simply put – a Masshole is a resident of Massachusetts. But it’s deeper than that, you cawk. You can’t just move here from Poughkeepsie and start referring to yourself that way. Massholes aren’t created on the fly, kid – they’re either born or Boston bred over many beer-and-sox-soaked years, dude.

We’ve come up with a lot of funny stuff for this site so far, and I can’t wait to roll it out to everyone in a few months. In the meantime, dig this:

I found a local T-Shirt company who are quietly making nifty Masshole T-Shirts some of you might want to know about. If you’re a certified Masshole, love the feeling of 100% cotton t-shirts against your body and have been looking for something in a Fenway/Highway 93 green, check them out, kid.

Construction of my parent’s new house in Portland, Ontario Canada is now off to the races. To have the keys to an actual physical house that belongs to my family after 5 years of parental trailer transient behavior is going to be absolutely wonderful.

This is actually the back of the house, which faces the Big Rideau. Those tall windows above the back door will look out onto the lake, but there are enough trees on the property that there’s still an element of privacy. We can see the lake, but the lake can’t really see us. And that’s good -because I’ve been rather worried about pirates.

The top floor has 2 bedrooms and a bathroom, and I think there will be another bedroom somewhere on the first floor. My father is skeptical, but I see a lot of potential for the basement. We could easily turn it into a bar and maybe even fit a pool table or at least a dartboard down there. There’s also a garage separate from the house that has a loft which I want to see turned into a bunkhouse of sorts. The best part of having a place like this is being able to entertain – and entertain we shall. But never pirates.

There was a cat in a cage on the Subway this morning. He wasn’t by himself – his people were with him. Woulda sucked if he was alone, cause again he was in a cage and he’d be pretty much f*cked. He was orange and white and mewing incessantly.

I have always had this gift with cats. I can pick up even the wildest of felines, and I have this secret hold that I do where they’ll always just go limp and relax. Might also have something to do with the finger in the butt.

Anyway, I made eye contact with the cat. It stared at me for a bit, cried out again briefly and then shut up. I didn’t hear him mew again for the rest of the ride. Maybe my steely gaze intimidated it. Maybe word has gotten around the water dish that I violate the odd cat with my pinky.

My own cat, Boss – I’ll admit that I have one as I’m comfortable with my sexuality – is remarkably obedient. He comes when I call him, does tricks, yaps incessantly and loves people. He’s like a dog. Or Bryan Whitely.

But I’m good with the cats.

Prisoners get creative. There was The Great Escape Tunnel, The Shawshank Redemption chess set and the paper mache dummies from Escape from Alcatraz. And I remember many episodes of Oz where the prisoners would drink some concoction called Pruno that they distilled in a remote janitorial closet. In between ass-rapings in same said remote janitorial closet.

But if there were an Oscar for creative brig intoxication, it would have to go to a group of cons in Grafton prison in New South Wales – where a group of inmates have been milking spiders for their venom, diluting it with water and then injecting it into their veins. And we’re not talking about a few daddy-long-legs here. These lads kept four deadly Aussie Redback Spiders as milkable pets. Think a cow with eight legs. Or a spider with a little mini-udder. Actually completely forget that I just went off on that tangent, please.

Alright, “deadly” doesn’t really begin to cover it. These little bastards are a close relative of the black widow, and are even responsible for the odd down-under death. “The venom acts directly on the nerves, resulting in release and subsequent depletion of neurotransmitters.”

There’s a Flaming Lips tune called “The SpiderBite song” which I always thought was a euphamism for heroin induced needle tracks. So I found this spider milk article strangely ironic. But after a quick bit of research, I found out that Wayne Coyne actually based the song around the time he provided a hungry arachnid with a snack while cleaning his garage and had to go to the hospital. So that angle went out the window like a Great Depression stockbroker.

One politician, from the current NSW government’s opposition, remarked “NSW prisons are more like a holiday farm than a prison system.” I’ll take Cabo and a cold sixy of Corona over spider spit anyday thanks, mate. But maybe the politicians should be worried that the practice of spider juicing could spread beyond Australia’s prison system. Or already has – that theory would explain Savage Garden, at least.