The Red Herring

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Fuck it, We’ll Do It Live

Just so you know we’re still here for you, dear reader:

 

In His Really Lame Image

Existentialism posits that it is individuals who are ultimately responsible for the quality of their own lives and not some distant, omniscient deity. This is my last semester here at McGill and accordingly my final chance to submit something to The Red Herring. Why, you ask, have I have only waited until now to write an article for the Herring when I could easily have done so at any earlier point during my undergraduate career? The answer is simple: God told me not to.
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Viva La Cigalution!

In my exponentially expanding list of people/groups that do me great psychological disservice, there is one group that I have been unable to dismantle, destroy, or dismember through the use of my meager vocabulary and crippling condescension: Cigots. Cigots, (aka people against the smoking of tobacco products) have typically never tried whatever they are protesting, but have “done the research” to prove that whatever you are doing is “immoral” or “unethical,” or “bad” (i.e. doctors, fourteen year old girls, members of the ‘Church’ of Scientology). See, the real problem is that their minds have been twisted by the media and national government propaganda, and they now believe that the cigarette industry is, in actual fact, the “cancer industry.” Since when, in this great country of ours (and by ours I mean mine), have we described our industries by their potential consequences and not by some catchy nondescript title? We don’t call the fast food industry the “fat-ass industry” and we don’t call law school the “industry of crushed dreams.” Read more…

Not Your Average Case of the Mondays

I don’t really have sex, but Monday fucks me hard every single week. Unfortunately, it’s not the passionate kind of hard that you see in movies such as Braveheart, where a firm, unshaven freedom fighter unleashes his manhood on you. Nor is it the kind of hard that your inner animal craves and that rap music is about. No, Monday bangs you like the techno music-loving, cocaine-snorting, party-clothed motherfuckers at Club Opera. He doesn’t know your name and he has pubic hair on his chest. The only difference between that fuckbag and Monday is that Monday doesn’t finish in five to ten minutes – it fucks you all day long.
It might start with something you forgot that you had to have done for early Monday morning. So you stay up far too late on Sunday night finishing it and sleep through handing it in anyway. Read more…

20 Interesting Facts Aboot Canadians

1) Canadians have over a hundred words for snow.

2) Canadians hunt in packs.

3) Canadian children as young as ten or eleven will have a glass
of maple syrup with dinner.

4) It is forbidden for a Canadian to sing the national anthem in
fewer than two languages.

5) Canadian food, while culturally distinctive and startlingly
original, does not exist.
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Existentialism: The State of Formerly Having Been an Istential

I was excited to write an article for the Herring, but then I was told the topic: existentialism. I think it goes without saying that existentialism is a difficult subject for anybody to write about. This is particularly true for me, because it runs in my family. My grandmother died of an existential overdose one day when considering whether to eat a second hot dog at a lunch barbeque. Her father suffered an even more gruesome fate. He was caught by the Nazis and sent to one of their philosophical camps, where he and almost 200 other rationalists and empiricists were forced into a crowded room and simultaneously had their belief in an ordered universe shattered. Hell, just last week a cousin of mine was committed after being found disemboweling his cat, Kierkegaard, and screaming, “WELL, FUCKER?!? HOW CAN THERE POSSIBLY BE A GOD?!? NIETZSCHE FIGURED IT OUT, WHY THE FUCK CAN’T YOU?!?” Before anyone gets worried, though, I have already made the appropriate calls, and Heather Munroe Blum’s poodle, Friedrich, is fine. Thank goodness for that poodle’s quick philosophical judgment.

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Of Moustaches and Men

All I know about existentialism is that people in Cultural Studies throw it around like a Frisbee on the first day of spring. Pffft, Cultural Studies: get over yourselves guys, and stop telling me who directs the movies I watch. Anyway, I’ve been told that this stuffy sounding word has something to do with life, and God, and being self-reflective, so I’ve decided to write about whatever I want.

I recently decided to grow a moustache. It was intended to allow for a more realistic portrayal of my part in a play, but it wasn’t really that effective because in terms of hair-growing ability my face is 9. In order to thicken it up, I applied hefty dosages of mascara to my whiskers. I felt alive.

Although people scoffed at me once the play was finished, I didn’t want to shave. I spent the ensuing Christmas break in Mexico, surrounded by pre-teens with thicker moustaches then me. The embarrassment only fueled my desire.
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Inside the Actor’s Insanity: Tom Cruise Edition

The Red Herring has finally matured to the ripe old age of 20. Finally, our dearly beloved satirical rag is old enough to have sex on film, for fun or profit, in nearly every country on earth. This means that if the market for “man-on-magazine” porn is really about to explode in the way experts (read: my weird neighbour) have been predicting for years, our little magazine’s funding problems will finally be over.
In honour of the magazine turning 20, I decided to provide the readers of The Red Herring with a 20-year retrospective on my life entitled: “David MacLean: Who the fuck is he and why is he touching himself there?” However, after gathering data (ie. thinking for five minutes about why I totally rock the shit), I realized that my life is filled with a hopelessly small amount of shit-rocking. This is probably due in part to my being raised, ‘til the age of 17, in a small, poorly-decorated tool-shed on the outskirts of an Eastern Siberian dust village. Therefore, instead of a 20-year retrospective on my own life, I’ve decided to hand down a retrospective bestowed upon me, for exclusive use in this issue only, by one Mr. Tom Cruise. You may know him better as “Fuck, not that guy again,” “That giant douche bag,” or simply, “Thom.”  The retrospective is in the form of a transcript of a recorded monologue as Tom Cruise is, of course, unable to either read or write. Read more…

Just Beat It

Masturbation. No pleas for cuddling, no requests for child support, no awkward questions like “Do you love me?” or “How am I going to get this out of my hair?” Has mankind yet discovered anything quite so fantastic? Today, class, this is the subject at hand.

So you think you’re some kind of pro? Do you really think no one knows that you have Girls Vs. Porpoises Vol. IV safely hidden away in that computer folder you titled ‘School Documents’? Well, I’ve got news for you: your roommates, your significant other, heck, even your mom - they’re all on to you. They check your history folder, they look at your cookies, and they’ve even held a black light over your laptop. Your old excuse about deleting your history every night to conserve disk space isn’t fooling anyone, an unsurprising fact considering how many episodes of 7th Heaven you’ve got stored away in there. Read more…

The Funny One

Every group has one. At The Red Herring, we’ve culled them together and created a monster. We are, collectively, The Funny One.

To break it down SAT-styles:
The Red Herring: McGill-sanctioned publications :: My buddy Michael, man, he’s fucking hilarious : Your group of friends.
Now, The Funny One (hereafter referred to as Teefo) is a social position often looked upon with admiration by other members of the group (e.g. the Hot One, the Smart One, the Fat One, the One No One Really Likes, etc.), but I’m here to tell you that it’s no cake walk. A Teefo must obscure their personal faults, protect their status in the group, and constantly perform mundane funny-making tasks to keep their title.
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