RKS Sports: Up the Mekong into the Heart of Darkness: An Evening in the Heart of THE LEAF NATION

Given the conflagration occurring in the Middle East with missiles and drones flying here and there one might say there was militarism in the air or at least on the CNN/FOX/CBC airwaves. My goodness even the Grand Pouba fell as a martyr in the heat of the moment but was no doubt dancing with the Seven Virgins as the Iranian population danced in the streets to his send off.

I had received an invitation into a secret society, a tiny fragment of THE LEAF NATION just down the street.

THE LEAF NATION refers to fans of the National Hockey League team the Toronto Maple Leafs. From whence emanated this term?  No doubt some marketing firm hired by a television network to create an illusion of the presence and power of a “national organization” dedicated to the love and awe of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. How can THE LEAF NATION be a national organization of Canadians when Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Montreal also have National League Hockey teams?

I was raised in Montreal at a time when the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey League were an awesome professional sports team winning Stanley Cups on a regular basis. They have won 24 Stanley Cups in their franchise history. The Toronto Maple Leafs have won 13 and the last one in 1967. Montreal’s last Stanley Cup was in 1993. Needless to say although I rarely watch hockey these days my need for Montreal to excel and the Toronto Maple Leafs to fail is deeply ingrained in my genetics and psychological makeup. A bit like OCD. I can’t stop myself!

The Toronto Maple Leafs have been sputtering about since 1967 and The Montreal Canadiens since 1993 but this year their team looks like a Stanley Cup contender whereas at best in “On the Waterfront” fashion the Toronto Maple Leafs must be croaking in a Marlon Brando fashion, “ I coudda been a contender”. The Toronto Maple Leafs are sinking in an embarrassing quicksand unlikely to make the playoffs. One sports commentator said a couple of weeks ago in the past few years the Toronto Maple Leafs were the team being chased now they are chasing. Given their 4th straight loss last night they have descended for a race to the basement in the standings. Their legs have given out.

So I begin musing as I walk to the ground zero of my invitation during a regional “conflict”. I feel akin to Martin Sheen in “Apocalypse Now” cruising up the Mekong for a final termination of Colonel Kurtz. I am heading into “enemy territory” and query if the three gentlemen attending are to welcome me in an “Eyes Wide Shut” fashion? Or are they wild Montagnards?

Thank goodness none of the three gentlemen attending are in robes holding candles. There is no attempt to conceal their identities. PHEW!

There is a fellow named K2 who claims to be married to Barbie but this is unverifiable. The G is a former Canadian Football League Grey Cup champion. K is our host a man knowing more about cheese than the entire LEAF NATION!

G and K2 are sporting Toronto Maple Leaf paraphernalia and K2 has an enormous mug with a Toronto Maple Leafs logo on it. K is neutral wearing a CANADA hoodie.

As for a foamy beverage I could have selected a Molson Export, the Molson Brewery heavily involved with the Montreal Canadiens, but play it safe and open a Mexican Modelo. All these guys are dentists and if I misbehave and criticize the Toronto Maple Leafs will I be held hostage for a retributory root canal?

As the fireplace spreads its cheerful glow the Toronto Maple Leafs are soiling themselves being outplayed and outshot by the Ottawa Senators.

Wait a minute! The members of THE LEAF NATION are making some disparaging and sarcastic comments about their beloved Toronto Maple Leafs. A consensus develops they will not be in the playoffs this year. WHAT AM I HEARING! THE LEAF NATION, like Austin Mathews, without Mitch Marner (unwisely traded by the Toronto Maple Leafs) is showing serious foundational damage. Am I dealing with a rebel faction of THE LEAF NATION where watching FOX News reporting of the Iranian conflict takes precedence over the third period?

Silly me as I walk home down the street. There is no LEAF NATION. The statistics and my evening verify this. THE LEAF NATION is but a dream and if any remnants remain, they will soon realize watching and cheering for the Montreal Canadiens is the more humane and realistic path forward.

I no longer feel like Martin Sheen but more like Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu ministering to some victims of THE LEAF NATION!

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: LIBERATION DAY: NAKED BEFORE THE QUEEN: LOSING A BODY PART

LIBERATION DAY: NAKED BEFORE THE QUEEN: LOSING A BODY PART

Bob mentioned to me in his law school days one of his professors told his class the utmost honesty was a must for Canadian lawyers. If you ever had to explain yourself just imagine you were standing naked before the Queen! Monarchist dribble by today’s standards but he made his point!

So while watching the Iran hostilities being explained on television this morning Bob removed my cone and to do so my collar necessitated removal and talking about feeling naked. It was if I had lost a body part.

I moaned, groaned, rolled around and had a few intense scratches and soon realized I had not lost a body part instead being LIBERATED hopefully like the Iranians from a murderous theocracy.

My morning walk was exhilarating as the breeze swept my face, no snow becoming caught in my cone and being ready and able to puppy fight although no puppy buddies on this walk.

And my water and kibble bowl a la volonté instead of hand feeding and water drinking with a bowl mashed up near my snout.

The funky cone smell disappeared!

I can roar around the backyard once again without Bob and Fay worrying about me busting a gusset!

Life can be so good as a puppy!

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: “CONFESSIONS OF A CONEHEAD!

CONFESSIONS OF A CONEHEAD!

Finishing my conehead imprisonment after my newtering. I don’t feel new?

Tomorrow at high noon, like in some Western film my cone will be removed!

Yippee!!

I was about to say imagine if you had a cone on your head like me! But you are human so how could you understand.

With a cone I had trouble reaching both food and water bowl. I had to be hand fed my kibble and a small bowl of water had to be lifted to my snout in my cone to quench my thirst. I lost my feeding independence. Too much mushed kibble sticks to my snout.

I kept bumping into everything.

It’s beginning to smell mighty bad even when the cone is cleaned with wipes.

I couldn’t puppy fight for fear my cone would hurt my playmate let alone bust a stitch.

But I loved scooping up the snow in it or my stuffies and flip them into the air. Given Toronto’s dismal job in snow removal I could have been a snow plow with that cone.

Yeah it is all for my own good. Isn’t puppyhood full of contradictions? Good riddance cone.

RKS Poetry Anthology: “My Ninety Minutes as a Palestinian Hostage” (NAMBY)

My Ninety Minutes as a Palestinian Hostage (NAMBY)

In the midst of dropping off spouse at Toronto’s The Four Seasons Centre

for an opera performance

Unfortunately, at the corner just opposite the United States Embassy

An angry chanting mob many in keffiyeh shouting Allah is great

AND DEATH TO AMERICA!

Biden being burnt in effigy

Pounding with fists on the car ahead of me at the traffic light

Trapped by the swell and incompetent Toronto police

As the hate immigrates to Toronto from thousands of miles away

Why export you and your hell to Canada?

The Irish, Tamils and countless others taking vitriol to Toronto’s streets

 I don’t want that hell

And believe it or not

Prayer rugs are taken out and divine intervention is sought

Followed by smashing of huge plate glass windows to the dismay of the opera patrons

While I sit in my car blinded by police vehicle flashers

Please let me go as a hostage to the commotion

I gotta go home and pee!

Robert K. Stephen

RKS Poetry Anthology: “Was it better in the old country?”

Was it better in the old country?

We were in a cab last night

I was staring at the meter intensely uptight

While the driver was talking to you

Of stories of love and wine

Ah……the girls of his youth

In the old country

Many grey hairs less

Robert K. Stephen

RKS Poetry Anthology: “The Fascist playbook new edition and old strategy”

The Fascist playbook new edition and old strategy

Those in The 50 beware

True and tested ensconced in a revised playbook edition

Resurrect Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin

with

a new fascist tradition

Resisting will be sedition

Create a historical myth of some fictional purity

Always better in days of yore

secret police required proudly bearing the ideological mission

Identifiable by uniforms of sorts

Immune from all civil torts

Bash, stun, drag away and occasionally murder

Excused and justified in the war against scapegoats

Control the press by first demeaning

After all what is more threatening than their perceived oppositional leaning

Big brother pictures to adorn all

Especially on the screen and the major cultural halls

Stack the judiciary to assist in the implementation and enforcement of your mission

Rulings of justification to enforce the new laws

And justify the locking of opposition jaws

Create a phalanx of enemies threatening the utopian mission

Corrupt the electoral process in the guise of fairness

Or better yet seize power in coups

Your downfall of course is hopefully not all are dupes

So for you in The 50

A rough road lies ahead

Play it wrong and thousands will be imprisoned or dead

To the dogs liberalism shall be fed

Robert K. Stephen

RKS Poetry Anthology: “COVID Variant B.11.529 Greedy and Too Late”

COVID Variant B.11.529 Greedy and Too Late

Mutated COVID-19 variant with apparent origins in South Africa

Cases emerge in the EU

“Valiant and brave” effort to contain the spread

First World descending towards more lockdown dread

Should have avoided sharing the vaccine to the Second and Third World instead

First World countries far too greedy jabbing up their folks to no avail as up may augment the count of the dead

Just when they became smirky and confident by in effect ignoring the need elsewhere

In their superior medico dreams

Yet another lockdown in sight

And the midnight fires burn at the laboratories of Big Pharma giving the world good kharma

For better or worse its everywhere and possibly ready for a final devastating tear

Or is this just a media scare?

Robert K. Stephen

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: OF COURSE I HAVE IMPROVED MASTER BOB’S QUALITY OF LIFE!

OF COURSE I HAVE IMPROVED MASTER BOB’S QUALITY OF LIFE!

I mean it is so obvious I have made Bob’s life better.

He enjoys the challenge of waking up between 05:30 and 06:00 to “put me out”. He so enjoys an early start to the day! And falling asleep with me on the bed after I have performed my “ablutions” is even better than an early wakeup. A double treat.

He now walks close to 10,000 steps a day and there is nothing better than a brisk walk in subzero temperatures. That Polar Vortex wind is invigorating. So why a groan or two when a blast of wind freezes his face? Because he’s having so much fun. He needs that exercise.

Having to clean up after me. You know that rare almost never potty accident in the house or the odd puke. That bending to clean up is fantastic aerobic exercise! The aromas must be invigorating!

Keeping him off the computer so he doesn’t have to write all those stories. Boring! He can be so more efficient with the time slots for writing when I nap. A chance to practice time management skills.

Watching me run around in the backyard snow barking like a fiend sometimes whether its midnight or 06:00. When I “don’t hear him” and he is in his pyjamas running after me begging me to come out from the bushes. What a fun game and superb exercise for Bob.

Putting his hand in my mouth several times day to remove whatever I have vacuumed up. They teach you at puppy school to do this just in case there is an emergency necessitating removal of a foreign object down a pup’s gullet. One less thing to learn at puppy school! The time I was choking and Bob was ready to race off to emerg must have been exciting! I love tearing up paper and biting walls. Keeps Bob active and on his toes.

Too much television is not good for humans. Not that Bob watches much television, but I make sure he watches less as I bark for his attention, play with him or receive a yell or two for doing something naughty. The less television the better!

My puppydom has given a new meaning to life for Bob.

RKS Literature: Parisian Backstabbers: “The Atheist’s Mass” (Honoré de Balzac)

“In Paris, when certain people see you ready to put your foot in the stirrup, some of them pull you back by the coattail, others loosen the buckle of the saddle-girth so that you’ll fall and break your head; this one takes the shoes of your horse, that one steals your whip. The least treacherous is the one you see coming up to shoot you at point blank range. You have enough talent my dear fellow, soon to be acquainted with the horrible unending battle which mediocrity wages against superiority. If you have a headache you will be called a lunatic. If you have one outburst of temper, they will say you are a social misfit. In short, your good qualities will become your failings, your failings will become vices, and your virtues will be crimes.”

“The Atheist’s Mass”, Honoré de Balzac, 1836.

RKS Literature: Desperate Poverty and Great Talent: “The Atheist’s Mass” (Honoré de Balzac)

“There this poor young man experienced that desperate poverty which is a kind of melting-pot whence great talents emerge pure and incorruptible, just as diamonds can be subjected to any kind of shock without breaking. In the violence of unleashed passions, they acquire the most unshakeable honesty, and by dint of the constant labour with which they have contained their balked appetites, they become used to the struggles which are the lot of genius.”

“The Atheist’s Mass”, Honoré de Balzac, 1836