NEST

Issue Two
Billy Cudgel Alright. This is it. Issue two of the gutterbird nest. Awesome. So much has gone into getting this issue together the sweat of our art department, the sobriety of our editing staff and several whole dollars in printing fees. Let me tell you; It was worth it. Weve had some really talented people lend us their work for publication and I am confident that these top-notch writers and artists will more than make up for our abject failure to meet our own deadline. (Yeah, weve given up any pretense of publishing regularly. Well get new issues out whenever we can.) In spite of our tardiness, issue two has gone better than anyone predicted (no one was hospitalized!). Weve got some really good stuff here the sad, sad autobiography of Joel Brown, a half dozen non-fiction smut stories about first timers clunking junk, a couple of comics, a really real astrology section and a half-baked piece of political commentary from some pinko college boy. Read it. Love it. Oh, and, if you want to get published in the next issue send your work to: Briar Rose lit@gutterbird.com

Everything Bad That Has Ever Happened To Me: Part One

by Joel Brown

Lets begin with the fact that at the age of eight I wrote a fictional story about a magician named Taralacat who was a master of lying. I plagiarized the idea from a book of short stories for children by Clive Barker. As a youth, I was a compulsive liar but the euphemism used was quite the storyteller. I liked lying. I liked the fact that I could take a story written by somebody else and reword it in my own way and then get away with it. And how I did, winning the approval of my teachers, my classmates and my parents. Ms. Moniz, my grade five teacher, sat me down one day to talk to me about how I was an awful student yet she saw very big things for me. Like being an aeronautical engineer? I said, eyes shining. This is what I wanted to be at the time. I dreamed of recreating the Avro Arrow. No, she said, Not that. But maybe something bigger than that. Lo and behold, I became a writer. This was the first notably bad thing that ever happened to me. Revolving around that one choice I made, a litany of small tragedies began to make themselves present. And here they are one at a time. I was born a bastard and my parents never loved each other. They married for the span of two years and then divorced when I was five. There were bitter custody battles. Mom won,

but so what? We were on welfare and life was horrible. Apparently. What did I know? I was in kindergarten and I really didnt give a shit about anything other than a red headed girl in my class named Candace and a brunnette Italian down my street named Angela. Her sister as well, Antonella. All three broke my heart. A thing of absolute no goodness: women. At an early age, I was a lover and not a fighter. When I was seven, my doctor took a look at my testicles and realized that something was not right. One was high and one was low so I had a hernia operation. This happened after playing tee ball and some kid named Jeremy kicked me in the nuts because I called him a shitty tee ball player. The operation was painless and I breathed through a mask that smelled like bubblegum. I went out like a light and then the jackals went at me with forceps and scalpels. I woke up with an inch long scar above my lower lover region and then they gave me ice cream for a job well done. When youre seven years old, an inch is a big portion of your body. I couldnt walk right for a day or two. Mom let me watch the Terminator and have chicken noodle soup. I look at the scar now and its barely discernable and ever so small. I havent thought about that since I was eight years old and I havent thought about being eight years old since I was nine years old. I was struck with a laundry list of ailments as a child: chicken pox, scarlet fever, night terrors, saying things like I wish I could get hit by a car, so I can go to the hospital and be safe.

In grade two my mother met my stepfather through a dating service called Lifestyles, like the condom. He bought my brother and I a book with glow in the dark do it yourself as seen on tv dinosaur fossils. It came with an allosaurus and a t-rex. We went for a walk in high park. He yelled at us for going too far ahead. Then he proposed to my mother and they were married. My stepdad and I did not get along. I would act out by stealing money from my mothers wallet, shoplifting, selling illegal computer games at school, swearing in class, breaking James Coopmans nose with an elastic band, getting into a fist fight with Matthew Huxley because nobody liked him, breaking into Blake van Delfts email account and sending out nasty messages to all of his contacts, downloading porn on my grandfathers computer and racking up a $2000 phone bill to Madagascar, shoplifting pornography in the folds of the Toronto Sun newspaper and hiding them under my bed, taking money from my stepdads wallet and taking my friends out to eat and play Street Fighter arcade at Pizza Hut, calling somebody a faggot or a nigger - I cant remember which - and getting into a lot of trouble for itexhale. In grade eight I called my stepdad a pussy bitch. To his face. And then punched him the stomach. He was a swell guy and really gave up a lot for us (like his Ford Ranger pick up to pay for my expensive therapy sessions with Dr. Deutsch). At the time though, I felt as if I was really dealt a bad hand for having a stepfather and being made to go to therapy, because I thought I was a perfectly normal person. Unfortu-

nately, I was a writer and my stepfather was the first person to tell me. In grade nine I could have been an exceptionally gifted student. But then I started smoking marijuana with the kids on the football team. I continued smoking until grade eleven and by that point I had dropped out of high school twice because of several things that had happened. My stepfather took anything contraband we brought home and locked them underneath the stairs to the basement in his office contraband included items such as discmans, pornography, toy guns or hats shaped like bombs that said BOOM on the top. These were all presents from my father. Not the pornography though. My stepfather and my father despised each other as fathers and stepfathers often do. I was quite fed up with this. So my brother and I devised a devilish plan wherein we would take my stepfathers key off of my mothers keyring while she was in the shower. My brother would then bike to the home hardware and get it cut, replace my mothers key and bobs your uncle we had keys to the vault. When my bother got back from the Home Hardware he replaced my mothers key with the freshly cut key. We later found out that the key didnt work. We got caught. Although I got caught worse. On the same day that my brother and I were scheming to retrieve our confiscated goods I made an illegal locker transaction with my friend Adam. I stole a bottle of really expensive scotch from my grandfather and swapped it for an ounce of weed. He wrote me a

note thanking me for the liquor and wishing me good times with the pot. It was probably the most incriminating note ever written by anyone in the history of illicit note passing. It was actually a pretty good day for a while - I was wearing my rescued discman listening to NOFX while carrying a bag of weed in my pocket. I was going to go to my friend Elis house and we were going to smoke ourselves into the next century and drink his parents Perrier water. But before I could even get out of the school my parents caught me picked me up right in the hallway. I was taken to the office. I threw the bag of weed in the trash receptacle of the waiting area while nobody was looking. They found the note, those curious georges. I spent a week at my grandfathers while my parents decided what to do with me. When I returned, they decided to charge me with breaking and entering and theft under 5000$. They had decided to let the weed thing slide but were going to take me to various social workers to deal with my drug addiction. They thought I was smoking crack and swallowing my moms pills as well. The pills were not me. That was the baby sitter. She chain smoked and had bad perfume and was wrinkly and overtanned and yelled at me for calling my brother a faggot. We went to a rehab clinic outside of Keswick, Ontario, home of ex Toronto Maple Leaf goaltender Curtis Joseph, affectionately known as Cujo. Every kid there had dead eyes and was doing the twelve step program. I just smoked marijuana every now and then. I was not one of them and I was not taking my mothers pills. The rehab

clinic had a psychologist on staff. She asked me many questions and I thought it was confidential so I told her my father and I were plotting against my parents, which was true. He was going to mount a flight of the valkyries style legal assault on them to obtain custody. Who arrests their children before the age of eighteen anyhow? The psychologist broke the hippocratic oath and a week later after I got fingerprinted for the crimes I had committed, my stepdad drove me to see my half sister and my mother for the last time in two years while she was at her speech and language therapist. They kicked me out. I moved in with my father. I became a punk with a blue mohawk the same year and then I started drinking and then I became an atheist and these are all horrible things to happen to a person. Apathy, hopelessness and incurable alcoholism began to plant their seeds. When I was twenty, my Montreal apartment burned down with all of my posessions and I nearly died. But thats another story altogether.

First Experiences of Sexual Inadequacy

A series of smutty non-fiction shorts by Saturn C. Powers

Movies, books, Television, and the Church tell us that our first time having sex is a beautiful and magical experience that you share with someone you love. All of us non virgins know that thats not always true. Its usually uncomfortable, awkward, and we make all kinds of mistakes because we have no idea what were doing. Love gets replaced with intoxication and feelings of what the hell. Yeah, sometimes love is involved; weirder things have happened. But when youre a horny kid looking for a fuck, you dont even have to like the person. They just got to be there and willing. Me, I lost it to one of my high school teachers on prom night. Alcohol was involved, I seduced him, he didnt know I was a virgin, I escaped out the window after he passed out. Awkward. I gathered a group of some of my ridiculous alcoholic friends so we could share with each other, and everyone else, our first experiences with sex. When asked at first, they all shrugged it off and said they didnt want to talk about it. 20 beers each and a couple of joints later, they were more than willing to share these awkward stories with me. It was a wonderful bonding experience and the night ended with vomit and feelings of regret, much like the stories you are about to read. Julia D. I was like thirteen or however old you are in grade nine. Fourteen maybe. Anyways it was with my boyfriend at the time, whatever his name was, who was older than me, eighteen, but he didnt know how old I was. Anyway, we had planned to just do it at his place in a bed

just like everyone else did, but we somehow got into a bar and got drunk and did it in an alleyway. I dont remember if it hurt. I remember it being uncomfortable and going home right after. I dont know what was wrong with the kid I fucked, but he like fell in love with me after. I dumped him and he kept stalking me and telling me he loved me or something. It was really weird, it wasnt his first time; he was just being an asshole. One night at like two in the morning he showed up at my house and demanded I come see him. I needed to get rid of him before my mom woke up, so I came clean about my age. I wish Id thought of that sooner since it scared him right off. I never saw the asshole again. Felicia S. Id just turned sixteen and one of my stupid high school friends gave me a condom telling me to give up my flower. Her words not mine. Id already decided that I wanted to loose it in a one night stand before I finished high school. I didnt want to fuck the first guy I loved; I couldnt imagine someone I loved hurting me like that. So anyways, I got fucking smashed at one of the secret beach parties and dragged my drunken ass home. My really hot twenty-four year old neighbour was sitting on his front deck drinking and waved me over. He knew I was drunk and he knew I was sixteen. I didnt give a shit that he was being a creeper; he was hot, I was drunk, and I wanted him to take advantage of me. We had a couple of beers (or for me I should say a couple of beers too many) and we made out. He asked me to come inside and I said I had a condom. I

didnt tell him it was my first time and I didnt tell him how drunk I really was. He found out when I threw up on him half way though. He freaked out, pushed me off him, and ran to the bathroom. His swearing woke up his sister and she yelled at him for half an hour for fucking the sixteen year old neighbour girl. Joel R. I was around fifteen and lost it to some girl at my friend Charlies house. He was having a party and offered up his room to me for some sweet loving. After it was done, I did a little dance with my used condom; I was excited that I filled my first one. I was really proud of myself and I wanted to rub it in Charlies face that I lost it in his bed before he got to, so I hid the condom in his guitar. It didnt hit me till a month later that that was probably the cruelest thing I could have done to my buddy. Charlie came up to me at school all pissed off and asked me if I put a used condom in his guitar. I laughed and told him that it was me and he was all dude, thats not funny. He found it the night before and lost his shit (kids a germaphobe). He went up to his kitchen to get plastic baggies and paper towel to clean it up which made his dad think he was dealing drugs for some reason. His dad confronted him and Charlie had to tell him about my condom. His dad laughed at him and didnt help clean up because the Tigercats were playing. Steven B. It was Halloween when I was in grade 12. Id just started dating this girl, Maggie, who was

basically the village whore. My friend Carl was having a Halloween party at his moms new house. I went dressed as a woman and Maggie went as a guy. We drank our forties and Maggie decided we had been together long enough (like 3 weeks) and it was time to fuck. She knew I was a virgin, which I think turned her on. She had gotten herself a big collection of v-cards over the years. We went to the only free room in the house, Carls moms room, and we started fooling around. I felt kind of weird about having sex on my friends moms bed; she was such a nice lady. Instead, I propped Maggie up on her dresser and we had sex. As I said earlier, Maggie was dressed as a dude for Halloween and was wearing a moustache. I was really uncomfortable with it so I asked her to take it off about six times and she refused. The sex lasted seven minutes and it was the most uncomfortable experience of my life. Megan H. My first time having sex was nothing special. My boyfriends parents were away, we had sex in his bed and that was that. My first time having cyber sex is a much funnier story. It was my first year at university and got drunk at a party. I went home very horny and messaged my long distance boyfriend telling him that I wanted sex. I turned on my webcam and took off my shirt. He took out his thing and started jerking off. I took off my bra and started taking sexy pictures of myself. Suddenly, during one of my topless pictures, the booze caught up to me and I threw up on my Mac, breaking the poor thing. My drunken mishap left me with a huge dilemma; I could either go

and get a new Mac book for 2000 dollars or get my broken one fixed for a quarter of the price. The problem with getting it fixed though was that the first thing that would come up on the screen would be a picture of me topless and throwing up. Zach M. I was seventeen years old and really high on K waiting at the train station. A guy I knew from school approached me and I decided that then was as good a time as any to loose my virginity. We went behind the station and he fucked me. It was fun. A few days later at school, a friend of mine pointed out the guy who fucked me and said you see that guy right there? He always fucking cheats on his girlfriend. If knowing that wasnt bad enough, during our sexual escapade, the best sex talk I could come up with was hey, your like Jewish and youre a carpenter. Youre just like Jesus! Ashley J.: I was sixteen and lost it to my boyfriend. Everything about it was pretty conventional. When he was about to put it in, I thought it would be funny if I said is it in yet? Turns out my joke wasnt very funny because it was, in fact, already in.

The Tottenham riot and the M word

An Editorial by Laurence Braun-Woodbury

A spectre is haunting Europe - The Tottenham riot was the starting point of Englands long weekend of riots. Many of the residents of this multicultural, low-income neighborhood attacked local shops when a peaceful demonstration against police brutality became an orgy of arson, looting and hooliganism. The obvious question is why attack your own neighborhood? Or, perhaps, why not attack the people responsible for your anger, poverty and disaffection? The answer may lie in a North American and British taboo. The taboo against Marxism. The mere mention of Marx or any of his ideas can be enough to discredit an author or speaker, yet Marxist ideas about class and class interests have been some of the most important and influential in the history of political and economic theory. If we continue to simply discard them, if we continue to pretend that class is not a relevant social distinction, we will continue to live in a society that cannot express class grievances. Why are we surprised that the frustrations of the people of Tottenham were expressed without focus or purpose when we have discounted the only vocabulary that is capable of articulating those frustrations? The English underclass is a phenomenon unfamiliar to North Americans. For the English underclass the wrong postal code, the wrong

accent or attendances at the wrong schools are more than obstacles to be overcome; they are fate. As my sister, who is currently working in London said: the difference between the poorest neighborhood in Toronto and the poorest neighborhood in London is hope. In London there is none. As the decades have passed the already downtrodden British underclass has faced a series of trials: half a million jobs were taken out of manufacturing (as a half million were created in finance), the education reforms of New Labor favored test-taking ability (and therefore households that can afford tutors) over students interest and cuts to post-secondary education tripled tuition rates and axed the education maintenance allowance. Making the situation even worse were the service cuts initiated by Camerons Tory government. These cuts came into effect this year, they included the removal of millions of pounds in services from low-income neighborhoods across the country. Among the services cut were those provided by the Lewisham Connextion centre. This single cut brought 35 employees and 1.6 million pounds a year out of one of London's most desperate areas. Included among the services provided by the Lewisham Connextion centre was the advising of 13- to 25-year-olds who were in danger of becoming "neets" (an English designation meaning not in education, employment or training). It is estimated that the program helped 15,000 teenagers every year

since its inception ten years ago. The effect that these policies have had is dramatic - Englands wealth gap is now the largest its been since the Second World War. Looking at this situation you could say that a complex convergence of economic and political forces has worsened an already dire situation faced by many low-income British citizens. Or, you could say that in the last three decades there has been an assault waged against the interests of Englands working class by, and to the benefit of, the wealthy and the powerful (A.K.A. the bourgeoisie). But you cant say that. You cant say that because that assessment employs the language of class; the language of Marxism. It is our newest and strongest taboo. We have tried (and nearly succeeded in) excising the language of class from our vocabulary. We marginalize those who dare talk about shared class interests and scoff at anyone who believes that rich people want to enact policy that benefits the rich and that poor people want to enact policy that benefits the poor. This taboo has proved disastrous. When just and righteous anger boils over onto the streets of Tottenham when peaceful protests against police brutality prove insufficient and the frustration and hopelessness of a whole class of people demand expression words, and therefore actions fail. All that

emerges is frustrated, nihilistic violence. There is value in the language of class. It gives expression to real political and economic phenomena and makes the effects of those phenomena seem manageable. The Marxist lexicon gives focus and more importantly, offers hope.

Saliencies

Poetry, Comics and Horoscopes.

Addendum to a Love Poem by Zach Brewer

Or, consider the firefly That burns bright by night And leaves no trace by morning Except the salt spit sweat on the sheets And the what how who of a dazed recollection.

Horoscopes Because Were Drunk

By Billy Cudgel, Elliot Fitzroy, Saturn C. Powers, and Aaron M. Aries (March 21st-April 19th): If youre going to go out and stab someone today, dont do it in broad daylight. Wait until youre in a crowd of people at an important function. The crowd will provide great cover and no one will notice a thing. Taurus (April 20th-May 20th): The shirt youre wearing today; dont wear it again. You look like an asshole and Ill know how to find you. Gemini (May 21st-June 20th): Your tarot reads as follows: inverted King of Swords, King of Cups, and Seven of Wands. I dont know what that means. Google it if you want. If it matters, heres what I see: Bagels with jam, Polly Pockets, and Community reruns on Netflix. Cancer (June 21st-July 22nd): Cash rules everything around me. Cream get the money, dolla dolla bills yall. Hey, you gotta pay for that chemo. Leo (July 23rd-Aug. 22nd): Youve never touched a black mans chest before. Today, I think you should. Im doing it now as I write. It feels great. Too bad hes gay.

Virgo (Aug. 23rd-Sept. 22nd): Fuckin, fuckin, if you let that hair down from out them cornrows, you might lose it some day I need another beer Libra (Sept. 23rd-Oct. 22nd): Upon careful considerations of the movement of Venus in your lunar regions, Ive decided that love is in the air. Keep all orifices open. Scorpio (Oct. 23rd-Nov. 21st): They say variety is the spice of life, but what I think you need is a little more bland. Stick to the mundane everyday shit no matter how much it kills your soul. If youre having trouble with it, try heroin. Sagittarius (Nov. 22nd-Dec. 21st): Life looks at you like your math teacher looked at your homework; with an inoffensive, yet oddly biting neutrality. Dont ever expect any gold star stickers because they will never come. Thats what alcohol is for. Capricorn (Dec. 22nd-Jan. 19th): Stop thinking about boobs so much. Youre still doing it! Stop! Boobs are evil things; soft, squishy, evil things. Youve been warned. Beware the boob! Aquarius (Jan. 20th-Feb 18th): Ok, now youre pissing me off. Dude, my boyfriend is part of a biker gang and he will fuck you up! Pisces (Feb. 19th-March 20th): Now I know why your boyfriend kicked you out of his car.

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Thanks to the writers and artists who submitted their work, Thanks to the staff who brought this issue together.

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