cross me off your list


no need for full out justification of why these albums are on the "list" of the best albums of the year. frankly, it makes no difference but here's among of the few discs that pleased my ears. look into it, you might like some of it

Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
Wolf Parade - Apologies To The Queen Mary
Jason Collet - Idols of Exile
Matthew Good - In A Coma (mainly the acoustic disc)
Metric - Live It Out
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois(e)
Bob Dylan - No Direction Home
American Analogue Set - Set Free
Sleater-Kinney - The Woods


feel good lost


Clinton = peace and prosperity, Bush = war and recession
Clinton = admired around the world, Bush = detested worldwide
Clinton = balanced budget, Bush = $2 trillion added to national debt and counting
Clinton = genius, Bush = imbecile
Clinton = Rhodes Scholar, Bush = My Pet Goat
Clinton = workaholic, Bush = vacationer
Clinton = all indicators of national health up, Bush = everything he touches turns to crap
Clinton = big man who accepts responsibility, Bush = weasel who plays the blame game
Clinton = gas at $1.15/gal, Bush = gas at $3.18/gal
Clinton = higher standard of living, Bush = tremendous step backwards for America



so yeah...

all potential gift receivers make a short list, preferrably affordable, of the things your heart desires so it makes my end a lot simpler, quicker and stress-free.

yeah, that would be greatly appreciated.


are you in or what?


saturday night i had the pleasure of seeing the meligrove band open for the legendary rheostatics at the horseshoe tavern. one of the dudes in the meligrove band went to my high school and i pronounce this to my claim-to-fame seeing as the band has a major label debut in january. mind you, i barely knew the guy and in the future when i tell stories of knowing this band, it'll be merely, "yeah, i used to hold the door open for him." fun stuff huh? nonetheless, they're a great live band and have really grown since the old days of battle of the bands in the school cafe. hopefully they'll become big rock stars and i'll ride the coattails of their success picking up hot girls at their concerts, "you know, i used hold the door open for that guy". chicks dig guys who hold doors for musicians.



last night, misty queen and myself drank cheap red wine and paid a visit to nathan philip square ice rink. she's awful skater so i looked like a champ out there. every time she wiped out on her ass, i'd tell to go back to england. i took advantage of my flourishing sem-long hair and likely looked super sexy as it flowed carelessly in the bitterly cold december air. i wish the rink had mirrors all around so i could prove this claim myself.

i used to work at a skating rink and during the winter would purposely let my hair grow to attract the members of the finer sex as i patrolled the rink with authority and grace. it worked during masterfully that one new year's eve shift when a couple of drunken 16 year olds wandered about the ice rink. and i don't think my hair had little to do with it but teenage drunkeness.

there was also one girl, that came every couple of evenings between the hours of 7-8:30pm by herself and skated her cute ass off. we figured she was a figure skater judging by her attempts at all those jumps with weird names. she'd always make demands to clean the ice as it was not satisfactory for her. we'd comply because she was cute and the zamboni guy thought so as well and regardless of whatever he had to do, it would have to wait to please the pretty blonde. if the zamboni was ever down, we'd probably lick the ice clean for her. everyone was smitten by her graceful skills but none of the patrons of safety were able to even approach her. even the hair in the wind didn't do the trick. she just went about her skating and walked off. always our shifts ended at 10pm, so none of us could've gone after her. she was beautiful and i was in love and i think i'll write a song about it.

did i enjoy my three seasons in the public service sector as a patron of safety and fun. the girls, the perks, the affirmation that public sectors workers just have it better. this winter i should've gone to get that job back for the easy money and the easy girls. last night for like the 1,350,532 time i told misty queen how i wish skate patrol could pass off as a respecful career and how i'm ideal for all the responsibilities it carries.

i am reminiscing here. forgive me. my mood is everywhere today, much like the weather.

christmas is less than two weeks ago and i have yet to get anything for anyone. instead i'm being greedy and buying things for me me me me. like today, i got matt good's in a coma--if only for the acoustic tracks and the dvd--and bob dylan's no direction home. so this christmas if you get a cheap gift from me, take comfront knowing i get to listen to some decent music instead.




His voice cannot be silenced


advice oozing out of my ears


this morning i am awakened by phone call from my future-to-be hot metro toronto cop friend. he's calling about girl advice. after laughing for a good 3-5 minutes i told him to wear a rubber.

guys don't call guys about this shit. we're trying to make sense of our mistakes or at best ignore them, so we aren't in a position to give others sound advice. especially myself. it's not that this guy--soon to be hot cop--is out of touch but basically wanted to hear what others expected him to say. that way, cheating on someone becomes easier to swallow because every other dumb guy would do what he's doing. there's gotta be some psychological term for this; cognitive something.

i haven't met his mistress but his girl is quite the hotty, so the chick on the side better be head-exploding hot. otherwise, there's no use is fucking up a perfectly stable relationship for empty hanky-panky.

apparently she's half japanese so the wear a rubber advice sounded good to me.

god damn you, half japanese girls....


between silence and tongues


one week into the election and some general themes are beginning to come about; harper and layton are trying to make up for what hurt them last year.

harper was the boogeyman that potentially could've formed a minority government had it not been for liberal tactics to drive voters into their fold. this time, he's changing about by trying to make the campaign about the issues. oh my goodness, what a novel idea! an election about the issues! it's a good tactic by bringing up the proposed gst deduction, opening debate on same sex marriage, and the rather bold outline of improving health-care waiting times. this forces martin to respond to the issues at hand, not so much attacking harper's conservatives. so as long harper is dictating the issues of the campaign, things look good. mind you, the policy initiatives are hardly bold and radical (2% decrease in consumer tax is not exactly mind boggling economic policy), but it is enough to make the papers next morning and have pundits talking about what was said, not who said it.

however, this is a long election by canadian standards and at this pace, by january 20th harper's policy ideas may need something proposing to change the country's capital from ottawa to kingston. ok, that's bold, but geographically bold.

layton, on the other hand, struggled last time around as last minute potential voters bought into the fear of harper as the PM and voted liberal. in some close races, this strategic vote cost the NDP quite a few seats. this time around, layton's message has been neutral towards harper to undermine liberal scare tactics. this week, he came out with the simple message that a liberal vote in saskatchewan is a vote for conservatives. trying to beat martin at this own game. ahhh, the wonders of our electoral system becoming political ploy themselves. (it's like those playoff possibilities on the last day of the season: if team A losses to team F, and team C wins or ties to team D, then team B makes the playoffs if they score 1 or more goals mind you, i doubt this example has any logic it but the things nerdy politictical scientists write about is now going to be used to confused the shit out of the voter). so unless you live in a "safe" riding expect political scientist from your nearby college/university getting plenty air-time talking about first-past-the-post and all the lovely naunces that it can result in.

paul martin is confusing me. starts off the campaign with the simple "be afraid of harper" message and by the end of week is publicly implying "the best i can do is minority with layton on my side". but knowing martin and the liberals, this is a tactic and once polls potentially show martin in majority territory, he'll forget he was even hugging buzz hargrove. how pathetic was that? again, a risky move that voters just aren't going to buy and see martin as a political opportunist. not a way to start a campaign basically seeking a procedural mandate and cuddling with the opposition's key demographic.

douche bag of the week: paul martin gets the nod.

just now, reading various election sources i noticed that each of the major parties has a blog (or blogue for the french) on their website. unless i'm not looking hard enough, ndp doesn't have one. we don't want to get into the obvious ironies of this. obviously, it's propaganda. they all suck. WE'RE SO SUPPOSED TO WRITE ABOUT YOU NOT YOU WRITING TO US!

the conservatives and liberals have some campaign tag alongs writing them while bloc's duceppe is writing his own, including a brazing image of himself pictured right. wish my french was better so i understood it but judging by the image, his blog is less about the campaign than a kinky story about him and 19 year old college students on chilly night in laval. besides, he doesn't care; he's only worried about quebec, that appears a lock, so why not write about your sexual escapades with young horny sovereignist?

in sum week one, nothing went on and missed nothing you didn't know there's an campaign going on.

mr. matthew good brings up a valid point you need to look at regarding the televised debates and our "democratic deficit."



it is easy to pounce on the federal conservatives as being right-winged boogeyman hell bent on returning canadian society to its christian-judeo roots. at least, that's what martin and the liberals will have you believe to scare citizens in central canada that harper's party is something like the republicans down south.

but liberals themselves have a few odd characters within their own ranks. the fact that many of them opposed martin's rush to push same-sex legislation through parliament displays not all of them are enlightened moderists but themselves hold conservative views on social issues. in canada, same sex marriage is legal because martin told the cabinet to vote for it or else.

while i don't think harper should be re-hasing the issue yet again and it probably was a mistake to begin his campaign on this subject, the public and politicians themselves are divided on this issue. maybe it's a plausible strategy to polarize the electorate from the get go, but if you're in the liberal war room, this is exactly what you want harper to say and pounce all over it.

and what about liberal loonie tunes? not long ago, former defence minister under trudeau, paul hellyer, said the government should be hold public hearings looking into the existence of ufos. he believes they're real and the secrecy of things like roswell should be known. yeah, it's not exactly teaching intelligent design in universities' science department, but just as mind boogling. though certainly, this would be a better waste of public money than ad agencies siphoning dough for no work at all.

and more recently, junior foreign minister dan mcteague suggested rapper 50 cent should be banned from canada because his music promotes hate and violence. supposedly last time he played in toronto, someone was shot dead outside of the show and in montreal, there was some violent incidents noted. and with the rising gun related violence in toronto, everyone's all up in arms on finding a quick fix. so banning rap concerts appears the way to go? no one had anything against 50 cent filming his movie in toronto last year as it brought money into the city.

the rise of violence in our streets is the result of social cutbacks finally catching up with times. in 1993, paul martin as finance minister became the master of balancing the federal budget by slashing funds left and right, including transfers to provincial coffers. in 1995, ontario elected the "radical" mike harris hell bent on downsizing the state through decreased social spending and tax cuts across the board. with less money from the feds, slashed spends by the province, urban poverty continued to climb and now it's being splashed all over the headlines as gang violence, turf wars, but the roots of it go unnoticed. the cop out? well, it's media and the images and kids are influnced by it. 50 cent videos make young black kids shoot each other, it's not the system! of course not! i'm glad ontario's premier scoffed at mcteague's suggestion and the issue is more complex than that.

so is banning 50 cent going to do anything? well no. because if you're poor living in the city, chances are you can't afford his cds, you can't go to see his movie and sure as hell, you can't play his new video game. and with ticketmaster distributing the tickets, inner city kids don't have that kinda "scrill" to climb over the service charges they slap on tickets. so who buys all this 50 cent merchandise? white surburbia!

the 50 cent "media mogul" is supported by middle class white kids who look at 50 cent as a sort of fairly tale they can get involved with: act all tough ala gangster like, hung out with their "thugs", ho some bitches in their homeroom class and in the lunch cafe. it's all a cute little game when you live in richmond hill, markham and any other middle class neighbourhood. because surburbs are so sterile and blantant, 50 cent pumps some artificial sense of rebellion into these children. burbs are the antithesis to the urban scene so a kid looking at this environment 50 cent is speaking of, it's fun because rebellion and yet contained in a way, they don't have to actually understand it. throw that kid into parkdale or regent park for a few weeks, so he knows what it means to come from the streets.

for white suburbia, fittyis basically a violent video game to act out all innate aggression without actual worries. and the suits behind this machine are getting rich awfully quick. you don't want kids listening to 50 cent mr. mcteague? then bang on the doors of his record company to drop him off their label.

well if we can't get rid of 50 cents, let's have him change his message to a positive one for the kids. you know, eat your vegetables, respect your parents, say your prayers and tuck in that shirt!

just because fitty is a little rough for middle class sensibilities does not mean he needs to change what he's doing now that he's in the mainstream. he raps about what he knows, what he saw, rich little kids love it and he's laughing all the way to the bank. i agree it's a little extreme, but i don't think he needs to change, it's the marketing machine behind him that needs changing. obviously, he's an easy target because he's the spokesman. he personally doesn't go around putting up his movie posters, he doesn't stock music stores with his albums, he didn't create the vidoe game, he's merely a brand. i don't find him to be the most intelligent being out there, so obviously for his name to be as widespread as it is, there are plenty of marketing minds pulling all the strings and all of them asking the same thing, "how else can we make money off this?" let's face it, record sales are down, so the movies, games, clothes, are simply diverse ways of bringing in the cash.

and just like always, the music industry stays out of it and ease middle class parents by slapping parental advisory stickers on albums to show they care about the kids are listening to. everything is okay, there's a sticker on the cd.

and if fitty wants to change, i'd like him to go out in public and say, "listen there are plenty of folks like me in the ghettos right now, if you don't want us in the mainstream rapping about what we rap about: talk to our public officials about pumping some money into hoods so these kids have a chance just like everyone else cuz banning us from playing is doing nothing."

i guess what i'm ranting about is that mr. mcteague has no grasp of reality of the situation going on in toronto. which is awfully strange considering his riding is scarbourough and represents one of the city's poorest regions. doesn't take much to think why voting is on the decline when your mp just doesn't care how to fix the problem.

and finally, g-g-g-g-g- UNIT!



i'm watching the wonderful program ET Canada only to learn one of the guys from the band simple plan is named jeff stinco.

quick: use of the names in the band that best describe their music?

i swear that joke sounded funny as the computer was booting up.


Dailies

old thoughts become new revelations