The Tension

There are a lot of reasons to go to Canada. The air is cleaner, the water is cleaner, the streets have less cars, and the University of Victoria has a shit ton of bunnies. But one of the best things about Canada is not any of these clean, "green" things. The best thing about Canada is the word "bum." If you've seen Pineapple Express, you might have noticed that during the extended fight scene between Seth Rogen, Saul, and Red, Seth Rogen exclaims after being hit in the rear end by Red, "Aw! My bum!" This is not because Seth Rogen is proper or because Seth Rogen was trying to be funny; this is because he's Canadian. And Canadians say "bum."

Earlier in the scene, Rogen hurriedly talks about "phoning" someone. He says in an exasperated voice something along the lines of, "He's a fucking liar! He's trying to phone John!" Most people probably did not notice this little sprig of subtlety, but I certainly did, mostly because I have been dating a Canadian for the past 7 months and am now more than ever sensitive to their strange vernacular discharges. Americans would never use "phone" as a verb. We would say "call" exclusively. Canadians say "call" too, but they usually say phone. I suspect this is British, and I suspect I could figure it out in two seconds on the Intranet, but I'm not going to. Instead, I'm going to talk about how much I hate Seth Rogen, and how at the same time I don't really hate him at all and especially after Pineapple Express might even describe him as "kind of funny."

Seth Rogen was born in 1974 in Kelowna, BC to a steel welder and a salmon packer. He was the youngest of five siblings and didn't start acting until the age of 22¹. He made his first standout appearance in 40 Year-Old Virgin, where his most notable line was, "Plant it with your finger." In both Knocked Up² and Superbad he was somewhere between "kind of" and "very" annoying, so I was fully skeptical going into this 9:50 screening of Pineapple Express at the Capitol (al?) 6 Theater in downtown Victoria. But now I am not skeptical. About anything. For the first 30 minutes of the movie, Rogen is his usual self. He seems to be consciously awkward in the hopes that the audience will find it endearing (and it seems that most of the audience does). However, something changes in the final 90 minues of the movie, and I don't really know what that, but either Rogen gets a little funnier, the plot gets a little better, the rest of the cast gets WAY funnier, or the character Red almost makes me pee my pants when he cocks a shotgun and exclaims, "Thug life." Or all four. But something happens, because Rogen gets a lot more bearable, and the movie as a whole becomes (almost) awesome, which I more than I ever could have expected from this movie³.

Sometimes when I sit down to write I fully intend to write about something in particular and then end up writing about something completely different. Today I fully intended to write about an herbal tea made by Celestial Seasonings called "Tension Tamer" that contains catnip as it's eighth ingredient and with which I have become completely obsessed. But then I started talking about "bum" and using "phone" as a verb and I completely forgot to talk about the box of tea sitting just to the right of my girlfriend's laptop that features a princess draped in a red dress sitting atop a subdued, fire-breathing dragon. I have been drinking several cups a day of this tea for the last few weeks and have come to fear two things: A) I might be addicted, B) I might be losing my mind. I was completely blown away when I saw catnip on the ingredients. I didn't even know catnip was safe for human consumption. I'm still not entirely convinced it is. My friend White Mike has a cat named Raffles who eats wild catnip in his backyard and one time became so hypnotized by the delightful herb that he passed out and fell off the 3-foot retaining wall that separates their garden from the lawn. And now I am consuming catnip. And I feel a little like Raffles.

So that's my take on Pineapple express and also my take on Celestial Seasoning's "Tension Tamer." So far today I haven't had a single glass and am semi-confident I will make it through the whole day without it. It's better than making it through the whole day within it. The Tension Tamer. The Tension...

-Boosh Clown

¹The previous two sentences (are) could be completely false.
²Though this is somewhat unnecessary, I would like to state for the record that I did not think Knocked Up was a great movie. In fact, I thought it was kind of bad. However, most girls seem to love this movie with every inch of their existence. I have no idea why. Girls must understand pregnancy better or something.
³I would have been enthralled by anything better than "horrible."

Reader comments:

John, from Fayetteville, NC, writes:
Hey Boosh- I stumbled across your website because I'm a huge Hilary Duff fan and noticed you have mentioned her several times on your blog and, um, I have some news for you: No one wants to hear what kind of tea you drink, or what kind of tea you are "obsessed" with, as you so "cutely" put it. Your blog makes me want to gnaw off my own arm.
-John Boy