2005: the year in "wtf."

WTF, I'm told, is interweb shorthand for "what the fuck?" Year-end crit lists always spawn a few of these, so here are a few of my picks for incomprehensible choices from the music media elite.

Deerhoof
The Runners Four

I recently heard this album over the PA at a show between bands and it was a close as I've ever come to walking up to the soundboard and setting it on fire. Admit it: you are only pretending to like this garbled noise shit because your fanatical indie purism demands it. Cliche, but true. And still sad. (see also: Animal Collective, Lightning Bolt)

New Pornographers
Twin Cinema
Always good for a few singles but far and away the most overhyped and overrated Canadian band of this young century. Not offensive so much as just...meh.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
s/t
Boy, from all the boner-popping this album elicited, you would think it would sound nothing like a bunch of dinks noodling on pots and pans fronted by another dink who "sings" like David Byrne getting ass-reamed with a 12-inch sandpaper dildo. You'd be wrong. (see also: Architecture in Helsinki)

Black Mountain
s/t
I have Led Zeppelin's II and that's enough for me.

Sufjan Stevens
Illinoise
I must confess to not hearing much of this critical darling, but what I did hear was about what I expected from a Jesus-loving, banjo-playing douche. Also, worst album cover of the year, if not ever.

Antony and the Johnsons
I'm a Bird Now
A big fat cross-dressing homo with a voice like a cow with a punctured udder puts out an album of showtuney dirges. And I should give a shit why?

Ergh.

Fucking Pitchfork, man. What kinda wanker comes up with bullshit like: "on their debut full-length, the band nods to the earliest recordings from the Fall or Television Personalities, bucking the frankly odd notion that smart yet cynical meta-pop is inherently ephemeral."

Yeah, I know I've spent many hours at the bar hammering the point that mart yet cynical meta-pop is inherently ephemeral. Fucking douches.

Is this, like, ironic or something?

Germany wants Iran out of World Cup

The head of world football's governing body says Iran will not be kicked out of next year's World Cup finals in Germany, despite recent inflammatory remarks by its president.

There have been calls from some German politicians for the team to be excluded as punishment for remarks made by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denying the Holocaust.

President Ahmadinejad provoked global outrage earlier this week when called the Holocaust a "myth" that Europeans used as a pretext for carving out a Jewish state in the heart of the Muslim world.

It's not so much about the remarks themselves as it is that Germans hate it when you bring up the "H-word".

The greatest call-out ever.

It has to be this:

"311, I am ready to fight."

Wooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

Now that, ladies and germs, was a football game. Woo!

#7

R.I.P. Besty, you old souse.

Goooooooo.....

Eskimooooooooossssssssssssss!!!!!

Bovs.

Despite the fact it still seems to give a shit about SNL (something even Lorne Michaels can't claim), frat-boy-in-blog-form whatevs (dot org)can still pull out some good ones. Example? How about this from his plug for R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet" DVD?

I mean, not to reveal any spoiler buzz or anything, but when was the last time you saw a midget with a 10 inch wang and cherry pie crumbs all of his fizz shit his pants and then pass out on top of a kitchen table after almost getting capped by an R&B superstar who likes to piss on underage girls? Thought so.

"Californiaaaaaa!"

You catch the OC last night? What a bunch of suck. They just need to stick comical moustasches on all the villains to twirl at inappropriate times. And I have to wonder why their wacky "schemes" always work, when a two year old with Down's syndrome and a piece of rebar lodged in his cerebellum would be able to see through them. But what pisses me off most is the fact I keep watching the thing.

All Hallows

I won't bother going off on the predictable tangent about slutty Halloween costumes (jokes about which are as cliched as the costumes they mock), but I will say that if you're over 12 years old and you still dress up for Halloween, you're a cock. No exceptions.

Outrage of the day (week, month, year?)

I don't know what's worse. Knowing that the largest lotto jackpot in Canadian history ($54 million!) went to a bunch of hicks, or knowing how they are going to blow their new wealth...

"I drive a 1983 Malibu," said Dean Parker, 28, a field operator from Killam. "I think I'll be replacing it with an Escalade. I don't have to worry about the price of gas anymore."
...
As for the winners themselves, Harley- Davidson's, new cars, houses and children's education topped wish lists.

Fucking small-minded ignorant hillbillies and their obsession with material status symbols. I wonder how much these douchebags will give to charity. Or how much they'll use to better their community? I'll bet a helluva lot less than they'll blow on trinkets. I'm also willing to bet that a few of these people will be dead broke in a few years.

Meeting people is easy....

...blogging/finding a new apartment is hard.

Yeah yeah yeah. So, to recap for those of you in the back: turned 29 (an occassion marked with an impromtu and wholly nonconsensual merlot shower), spent a week in Montreal (which warrants its own post, but $5 bucks says that won't happen), came home and shortly thereafter learned our rental condo is getting sold out from under our feet, leaving us in need of a new pad or else look forward to a very homeless New Year. Is it time to Go Condo?

So yeah, the last month can be summed up in one paragraph. Boo-urns.

Developing: T.O? (see November 14)

Revision

Okay, on further reflection, the "Juicebox" single isn't as bad. Could be a grower.

New Strokes!

The new Strokes single is staring to make the rounds on the 'net. On first listen I can tell you that it's not good. I really dig the spy-movie bassline, but find the song to be altogether too messy and shambolic, and not in the kind of contained, precise way I expect from these cats. If this is any indication, the new album (billed as a "departure": never a good sign) is gonna suck. I really don't think there's anything wrong with stepping out of the expected boundaries, but some bands need to recognize their limitations. I want the Strokes to be the Strokes, dammit.

Wild about Harry

Bet no one has ever thought of that headline when discussing Harry Poter, eh? Haw haw.

Check out my request notice from the library:

Harry Potter and the half-blood prince
J ROW Rowling, J. K.
Position in holds queue: 531

Punk is dead. For real this time.

Punk, like indie has long ago lost any meaning. I know this, so why does shit like this rile me up so?

Suffice it to say, punk sucks. That applies equally to Ted Leo, Green Day and Good Charlotte. Shit.

The first step for recovering scenesters is to admit everyone else has a problem.

Everybody who went nuts for the Shout Out Out Out Out/Chromeo show last night proved once more that the kids in this town don't know shit from bad chocolate. The Shout Outs reception was especially baffling, but I guess annoyingly repetitve electro jams are all the rage these days. I overheard one of the shows promoters outside the bar saying that all the kids want is to see the Rapture here in a small room, which shows my oft made declaration that Edmonton is a year behind the curve was off by at least three years. Which mean sthat in 2008 or so, the kids wil be clamouring to here a bunch of local bands doing half-assed impressions of the Jam, Wire and The Fall.

Maybe I should make myself clear: I hate this town and I hate all its annoying little fucking scensters with their stupid fucking outfits and downy "ironic" moustasches. I hate their cliquishness, I hate their attitudes and I hate their lemming-like tendancy to regard every shitty trend to come along as the greatest thing ever and themselves as some kind of daring pioneer for wearing short shorts and a headband (here's a tip sweetheart: if you are gonna dress like a '80s aerobics instructor, it helps to have the body of someone who at least excerisices once in a while.) I hate the disgisting displays of mutual masturbation in the pages of the local papers and in the bars. Honestly, if I didn't have some kind of investment in
the scene, I'd bail out, spend my time at home watching movies or reading and only heading out for the odd pint.

I really wish there was something positive to report on. But there is not.

No clever caption

Look, girls: the boho chic thing was bad in that it made you all look fucking pregnant, but the cowboy boots and short shorts shit is somehow even worse. Someone needs to bullet in that trend's head, and fast.

(Fortunately, given our place behind the curve here, once a trend rolls up in our town, it's only a matter of weeks, if not hours, before its officially tits up everywhere else. So, yeah.)

Help yourself.

It's all
here.

Ends and Means: now with extra racism!

S Korea unveils first dog clone

But do they taste as good as the originals?

We can make all sorts of crazy laws!

House approves flag-burning amendment

Boy: Hey, who left all this garbage on the steps of Congress?

Amendment: I'm not garbage, kid.
I'm an amendment to be
Yes an amendment to be
And I'm hoping that they ratify me
There's a lot of flag burners
Who have got too much freedom
I wanna make it legal for policemen
To beat 'em 'cause there's limits to our liberty
At least I hope and pray that there are
'Cause those liberal freaks go too far

Boy: But why can't we just make a law against flag burning?

Amendment: Because that law would be unconstitutional
But if we CHANGED the Constitution...

Boy: Then we could make all sorts of crazy laws!
Amendment: Now you're catching on!

Bart: What the hell is this?

Lisa: It's one of those campy 70s throwbacks that appeal to Generation X-ers

Bart: We need another Vietnam. Thin out their ranks a little.

Boy: But what if people say you're not good enough to be in the Constitution?

Amendment: Then I"ll crush all opposition to me
And I'll make Ted Kennedy pay
If he fights back
I'll say that he's gay

Congressman: Good news, Amendment! They ratified you.
You're in the U.S. Constitution!

Amendment: Oh yeah! Door's open, boys!

The Day the Violence Died

Do not fuck with Daniel M'Mburugu.

He'll mess your shit up.

Awesomeness.

General J.C. Christian, Patriot is launching an operation, dubbed Yellow Elephant to talk young Republicans into signing up to help addrss the U.S. Army's little recruiting problem. Check it out, in particularly this exchange with the Young G.O.Pers from Spokane. Made my day.

The kids from Downing Street

I wanted to mention the key revalations contained in the Downing Street memo for posterity's sake.

"1. By mid-July 2002, eight months before the war began, President Bush had decided to invade and occupy Iraq.

"2. Bush had decided to 'justify' the war 'by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.'

"3. Already, 'the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.'

"4. Many at the top of the [U.S.] administration did not want to seek approval from the United Nations (going 'the U.N. route').

"5. Few in Washington seemed much interested in the aftermath of the war."

Salon

My anti-drug is booze. What?

Like everybody else ever, I've got a fair number of musical skeletons in my closet. It shouldn't be a big deal that my adolescent CD collection included dregs like the first Collective Soul and Barenaked Ladies albums: I grew up in a small town and music never had much of a presence in my life and, consequentially, one naturally went along with what was big at the time. Fortunately, I grew out of it and I'm pretty sure my cringe-worthiest musical choices are behind me, which is more than a lot of people can say. However, it's pretty goddamn gratifying to see so much of the undeniably bad shit I listened to back in the day turn up on an upcoming seven disc Rhino Records '90s compilation. This '90s nostalgia bullshit is great, 'cause now I can pretend to be all ironic when I belt out the "Aw-wa-ha!"s in Better Than Ezra's "Good", even though I'm, like, totally digging it. Unironically.

I aren't Blagg

But I wish I was.

Digby goes down.

Heh heh: he said cock.

...it seems that the moral Red Staters have finally decided to admit that they love a good horse cock joke as much as the next guy and that's just fine with me. I always knew they did. We're all about horse cock jokes in this country, from sea to shining sea. Nothing makes a First Lady more downhome and fun than talking about horse cocks on TV. Bring 'em on. Horse cocks for everyone.

Flat earth, pointy head

I was reading the latest bullshit from New York Times' Bush apologist Thomas Friedman this morning, another one of those helpful advice columns where rabid right wingers tell left wingers what they're doing wrong and how they can fix it (the answer--surprise!--is progressives need to act more like conservatives.) Anyway, watching Friedman worm his way up Tony Blair's asshole put me off my breakfast, so I was pretty pleased to read this review of Friedman's latest literary endeavor. In particular I loved this dig:

On page 174, Friedman is describing a flight he took on Southwest Airlines from Baltimore to Hartford, Connecticut. (Friedman never forgets to name the company or the brand name; if he had written The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa would have awoken from uneasy dreams in a Sealy Posturepedic.)

And this sums neatly encapsulates everything that is wrong with Friedman and America in general:

It's impossible to divorce The World Is Flat from its rhetorical approach. It's not for nothing that Thomas Friedman is called "the most important columnist in America today." That it's Friedman's own colleague at the New York Times (Walter Russell Mead) calling him this, on the back of Friedman's own book, is immaterial. Friedman is an important American. He is the perfect symbol of our culture of emboldened stupidity. Like George Bush, he's in the reality-making business. In the new flat world, argument is no longer a two-way street for people like the president and the country's most important columnist. You no longer have to worry about actually convincing anyone; the process ends when you make the case.

Things are true because you say they are. The only thing that matters is how sure you sound when you say it. In politics, this allows America to invade a castrated Iraq in self-defense. In the intellectual world, Friedman is now probing the outer limits of this trick's potential, and it's absolutely perfect, a stroke of genius, that he's choosing to argue that the world is flat. The only thing that would have been better would be if he had chosen to argue that the moon was made of cheese.

The rest of the review is, as Friedman would say, the icing on the sizzling steak. Or something like that.

Hallelujah

I've been accused a few times of being an anti-religious and, specifically anti-Christian, bigot. Now, my personal feelings are that organized religion is a bunch of bullshit is well known, but I generally take pains to be clear that these are my personal opinions, just as religious beliefs are personal opinions, and it is really the intrusion of the spiritual into he realm of public policy that gets my goat. These people have no more right to force their opinions on us than I do on them. Or so I used to think.

Lately, though, I'm starting to wonder if I'm wrong. Perhaps the problem isn't with the fact that some people of faith (ie. Osama bin Laden, Jerry Falwell) want to impose their views on society as a whole. The problem is that the beliefs these people hold so dear are so ridiculous, so blindingly stupid, and so backward, that I question why we need to treat them with respect at all. Consider this.

"A steady stream of the faithful and the curious, many carrying flowers and candles, have flocked to an expressway underpass for a view of a yellow and white stain on a concrete wall that some believe is an image of the Virgin Mary."

A stain. A fucking stain. I know this kind of thing happens all the time, and that there are other, far more egregious and offensive exercises of faith than this, but I think this pretty well sums up the problem with religious belief: it inevitably leads to stain worshipping. Okay, maybe not in a literal sense, but the point is once you start with a logically unsound belief (that is: belief in a personal God), no belief is too outrageous to consider. If you believe some unknown, unseen being created all life and has a vested interest in the day to day activities of we puny humans (in particular, it seems, what we do in bed and whom we do it to), then it's only a hop, skip and a jump towards believing said being would opt to communicate with his flock through a smudge of salt on a concrete wall under Chicago overpass. In fact, it makes perfect sense.

You have to kind of admire these stain worshippers for their wholesale commitment to the absurd. No half-measures for them, unlike other more mainstream and less orthodox members of the flock who believe in God, but with a host of qualifiers and restraints imposed by the real world. Not so the People of the Stain.

But the problem is the media (isn't it always?) Reading the CNN story or any other coverage of the stain and its all very fair and balanced. The views of the Stain People are respected and, while skeptics may be given a say, there's no indication that the people queuing up under the overpass are anything but earnest and pious people "expressing their faith." You'll not find anyone saying the obvious, which is that these people are dunderheads. A stain is fucking stain and is no more a miraculous act of god than someone finding a potato that looks like Abe Lincoln. If you believe otherwise, you're a moran

The problem with cutting religion and religious expression, no matter how offensive or ridiculous it may be, so much slack is that it validates it. And once you open that door, there's no telling who else will get in. Seeing as how its only a baby step from belief in God to belief in stains by God, it's an even smaller step towards, say, shooting abortion clinic doctors or this. (Ever notice how similar the rhetoric of U.S. Christian fundies and the Taliban-types are?)

And yeah, I'm aware that some of the worst, most inhumane regimes in history have been secular. But that doesn't change the fact that there are people who would love to see the street run red with the blood of the non-believers if they got the chance.

"But wait," I hear you say "Doesn't that violate the principles of tolerance and understanding that are the heart of post-Enlightenment progressive thought." Well, kinda. But here's the thing. I'm not advocating we herd people into re-education camps or force them to give up their horribly ignorant beliefs. I'm saying we need to stop treating them with kid gloves. In other words, we need to mock them. Loudly and mercilessly, as they mock those who disagree with them. It won't stops them, to be sure, but it's would hold a lens up to them for the rest of us to look at. And who knows? If it takes ridicule to make just one person realize worshipping a grease spot is really, really stupid, then it'd be worth it.

Ein reich! Ein volk! Ein Pope!

Much is being made in some circles of the new Pope's past membership in the Hitler Youth. I don't know if it's relevant or not except from a "Holy fucking shit, the new Pope used to be a Nazi?" perspective. But I think it's worth exploring a little bit.

John Allen Jr., journalist for the National Catholic Reporter, supplies some background on Ratzinger's World War two service in his 2002 biography, the warm and friendly-sounding "The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith".

As a seminarian, he was briefly enrolled in the Hitler Youth in the early 1940s, though he was never a member of the Nazi party. In 1943 he was conscripted into an antiaircraft unit guarding a BMW plant outside Munich. Later Ratzinger was sent to Austria's border with Hungary to erect tank traps. After being shipped back to Bavaria, he deserted. When the war ended, he was an American prisoner of war.

Under Hitler, Ratzinger says he watched the Nazis twist and distort the truth. Their lies about Jews, about genetics, were more than academic exercises. People died by the millions because of them. The church's service to society, Ratzinger concluded, is to stand for absolute truths that function as boundary markers: Move about within these limits, but outside them lies disaster.

There are a few problems with this account. The timeline is odd, for one. According to Allen, Ratzinger deserted during in April 1944, two months before the D-Day invasion and at a time when desertion would have meant imprisonment or death. Yet somehow he managed to avoid getting caught for over a full year, and was still made a P.O.W at the war's end. The most likely explanation, given that Allen doesn't say precisely when Ratzinger deserted, is that he deserted in April of 1945, a month before V.E. Day when writing was on the wall for the Nazis and Germans were quitting the field in droves. So, his desertion can hardly be viewed as a bold act of conscience. Rather, it seems to be the actions of one saving one's skin.

Ratzinger's wartime experience makes an interesting contrast with his predecessor’s ant-Nazi activity in occupied Poland during the war and is another stain for the Church already facing so many questions about its actions during the war (wartime pontiff Pius XII is accused in some circles of turning a deaf ear to the Holocaust while the Vatican Bank is rumoured to hold 200 million Swiss francs confiscated by the Nazi puppet Ustasha government of Croatia and sent to the Vatican "for safekeeping"). However, they are neither here nor there. What's far more interesting is the second half of the quote above, which lays the ground work for Ratzinger's doctrinaire attachment to the Church's hard line stances.

Ratzinger has been outspoken in opposition to homosexuality, gay marriage, abortion, contraception, the ordination of woman, the revocation of celibacy vows and ecumenical (interfaith) dialogue. He was one of the primary foes of liberation theology, the movement whose adherents believed that the church should be involved in the struggle for economic and political justice in the world (Latin American practitioners of liberation theology, such as Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero , took the side of the poor and oppressed against oppressive regimes. The Church hierarchy, led by the last Pope, sided with the elites and the military juntas in the name of fighting Communism.) Ratzinger is also a big fan of the creepy, cult-like Opus Dei sect. In short, the new Pope shares the last Pope's reactionary thinking and fetish for centralization, but lacks the warm and friendly public personae of John Paul II.

Now, let's visit the rest of that quote from Allen’s Ratzinger bio:

Later reflection on the Nazi experience also left Ratzinger with a conviction that theology must either bind itself to the church, with its creed and teaching authority, or it becomes the plaything of outside forces -- the state in a totalitarian system or secular culture in Western liberal democracies.

Here's the rub: rigid devotion to dogma is not a response to totalitarianism: it is an instrument of it. Every single totalitarian, despotic, tyrannical and fascistic regime the world has known has required the strictest ideological rigidity possible in order to succeed. The Nazis were every bit as convinced of the absolute truths of their cause as Ratzinger is of his. Historically, absolute conviction and belief in the cause (whatever it may be) is what enabled people to herd other humans into gas chambers in Germany, slaughter political opponents in Stalinist Russia, denounce parents and teachers in Maoist China and on and on. And don't even get me started on the Spanish Inquisition.

I guess all of that is just window dressing. I think the real upshot of the election of another rigid ideologue to the Papacy is that the Catholic Church will continue to slide into irrelevance. A reformist Pope willing to bring the Church into the 21st (hell: 2oth) Century could have made the institution meaningful again to the millions of people who have turned away over the years precisely because of the rigidity that Ratzinger stands for. However, one must consider that, in any human institution, corruption will grow directly in proportion to the power the institution wields, the wealth it holds and the duration of its existence. Therefore, an ancient institution like the Catholic Church would be the most corrupt of all. It's pretty clear that behind the opulence and glitter, the piety and solemn rituals, the Vatican is merely a hierarchy of old men desperately clinging to whatever vestiges of power they have here on earth. I doubt there's anyone who could change that.

No Mod no mo'

I'm fed up with XXXX, my usual Friday night destination. This past weekend was a mob scene that strongly resembled a night at any one of this town's many
other establishments. In short, it was douchebagpalooza, complete with a line up, an asshole doorman, bad tattoos, cocked ball caps and Dieselwear everywhere. The only difference was the music.

Now, I recognize how juvenile it is to get pissy and territorial about a stupid bar, but I've been going there on a regular basis since this night started a year ago. I was going when the place was drawing under 100 people a night and struggling. I was there. Then, all of a sudden, Franz Ferdinand and the Killers got on the radio and the tourists started trickling in. Now, that trickle has become a flood which is washing away most of the old guard. I'm not alone in not wanting to fight my way through a crowd just to get a drink, or stand on a dancefloor that's too packed to even move.

I guess, in a way, you cold look at it as a triumph of musical democracy: there's no scenes anymore. The brown girl with the 50 Cent CD in her car stereo is now rocking out to Bloc Party. And that'd be great if it were true. But it's not. Music is like fashion in that it operates through trickle down. You got yer tastemakers* and yer followers: the former sets the tone and the latter pick up the scraps. That's what's happening at XXXX. Last year, the only people who were on the scene were the music nerds, the fashonistas and the hipsters. Their tastes have gradually filtered down through the masses, which means the people infesting the dancefloor now are not the products of a digital downloading revolution that has swept aside musical barriers, but bandwagon jumpers and poseurs.

Where does that leave me? On the sidelines. If I'm gonna wade through the lower end of the clubland gene pool, I'll head back to the strip where there's at least one bar playing good music that manages to keep the twats at bay.


*I can see how someone reading this would think I'm an insufferable cock with delusions of cooldom. That's not the case. I know I'm a dork. I'm no trendsetter. I don't even own a fucking iPod. I follow the trends as much as anyone. My tastes happen to be just slightly more left field than most is all. That and I grew up in the suburbs: having spent my formativ eyears hating evrything about the 'burbs, I've no desire to have my evenings on the town marred by the weekend warrior set.

Car cult(ure)

This crossed my path today (via Wolcott and Kuntsler) and I felt that, even though its a few months old, its content more than qualifies it for "outrage of the day" status.

It took me a couple of tries to get through it, seeing as how I had to periodically walk away to avoid swallowing my own tongue in rage, but the gist is thus: the car is awesome (in fact its what make us great! Better than them Commies, anyway.) and central urban planning and smart growth suck because they are incompatible with the American Dream of a house in the suburbs.

I'm not interested in delving too deep into the shallow waters of Tierney's analysis (though I will mention that his paean to the horseless carriage omits one cost: each year the car kills more than 40,000 Americans and maims millions more. That and the whole "dependence on foreign oil" thing and the trouble that can cause.), so I'll just look at the last bit of his essay, the part entitled "The Car-Culture War".

It's interesting that Tierney would attack anti-auto advocates on a class basis. Tierney frames the car clash as a battle between elitist, intellectual "Gulfstream liberals" and hard-workin', car-drivin' suburban day traders. It's as if the working class doesn't even exist. That's because, in Tierny's suburbia, they don't. Or if they do, they don't matter. Tierney assumes that all city cores are havens of wealth and cultural elitism like his native New York. He's wrong. The fact is cars and car-friendly urban development is decidedly anti-poor. Anyone familiar with urban planning theory will probably know how sprawl leads to the "doughnut effect": as population moves from inner suburbs to the outer suburbs in search of newer, larger or more affordable houses, the urban core decays (Detroit's a good--or bad--example). The people who get left behind are the poor who have to contend with declining infrastructure and services. Here in Edmonton, a number of inner-city schools had to shut down because tight resources needed to be directed to new suburban schools. But to Tierney, these people don't matter, probably because they don't listen to Lou Reed and drive cars with leather interiors. In any case, basing an argument on class and then subsequently overlooking an entire category of people is pretty fucking stupid.

Another interesting tidbit can be found in the midst of his tirade against urban planning. Tierney suggests that "old-fashioned city neighbourhoods" were not the result of central planning, but of good old-fashioned free enterprise and, I daresay, gumption.

"...those old neighborhoods and their transit systems were not built by planners at regional authorities imposing their visions of how people should live and travel. They were built by housing developers and private streetcar and subway companies responding to their customers' desires in an era when politicians were content to guide development with fairly simple zoning codes. It was only later, in the middle of the 20th century, that urban planning became a bureaucratized profession with sweeping ambitions, like the ''urban renewal'' projects of the 1960's and 70's that mostly served to hasten the urbanites' flight to suburbs."

So what prompted this shift towards central planning, Johnny Boy? Why I do believe it was the automobile! Let's not forget the role of the auto and oil companies in crushing alternate bodes of transport like streetcars. Finally, let’s dispense with the nonsense that developers and auto manufacturers were (and are) just giving people what they want. The “American Dream” model of suburban life (big house, big yard, big car) is a product of the post war prosperity that allowed so many middle-class Americans the chance to access what was until then a primarily upper-crust, bourgeoisie lifestyle. The car companies and developers were simply packaging those aspirations and selling the lifestyle back to people, even if they didn’t know they wanted it. In other words, car-centric suburban development did not become the norm and, indeed, the only option for North American living because of mass consumer pressure but because the oil, car and development barons decided that promoting such a lifestyle would ensure they would make a handsome profit (curiously, do you ever notice how few super-rich people live in the ‘burbs? In my neck of the woods, the ultra rich live near the core in elegant old mansions, not cheap-ass showhomes. Hmmmm.)

Which brings me at last to the fatal flaw in Tierny’s argument for the car. Smart growth and urban revitalization (in fill development) won’t work because people want the suburban lifestyle. So, because one model has been enshrined as the dominant one, all other options shall henceforth be disregarded (save those that simply make the status quo more manageable: wholesale change is not in the cards). The real problem here is taht change will come whether you like it or not. the current car-centric North American culture is fundamentally unsustainable. The tweaks Tierney and the car advocates propose are the equivilant of giving a band-aid to a cancer patient. When the system reaches the end of its tether and we are forced back to square one, Tierney and his ilk will wish they spent more time looking for real solutions and less time on high-tech toll booths and other stopgaps.

“… for most middle-class families, the ideal of city life conflicts with the reality of their own lives. Even if they're willing to do without a yard, how can they afford to live in a decent neighborhood within easy commute of their jobs? How will they go shopping on a rainy day with a child in tow? Where will the children go to school?”

This is what it boils down to: short-sighted suburban angst. Never mind that there’s no schools in the city because they had to close to fund the new ones in the suburbs. Never mind that there’s so few “decent” neighbourhoods because you fuckers took your jobs and bolted, leaving the cores to rot away. No sir.

The deficiencies of the city are directly related to suburbia and the automobile. And this imbalance is self-perpetuating.

"The answer is 'no'. Golden showers on the other hand..."

Kid's got guts.

"WHEN U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (above) spoke Tuesday night at NYU's Vanderbilt Hall, "The room was packed with some 300 students and there were many protesters outside because of Scalia's vitriolic dissent last year in the case that overturned the Texas law against gay sex," our source reports. "One gay student asked whether government had any business enacting and enforcing laws against consensual sodomy. Following Scalia's answer, the student asked a follow-up: 'Do you sodomize your wife?' The audience was shocked, especially since Mrs. Scalia [Maureen] was in attendance. The justice replied that the question was unworthy of an answer."

When these pricks use the power of the state to pry into people's personal lives, they open their own private lives up for scrutiny. And if history is any indicator, most of these perverts have soemthing to hide.

Vice Vice baby

This article about Vice Records (or whatever it's called) really singes my sack.

Where to start? Well, there's the fact that these cunts can piss and moan in true snide hipster fashion about "indie yuppies" while simultaneously trumpeting their own indie status...even as they take gobs and gobs of money from major label Atlantic Records to make their venture work. Would these man-shaped twats have ever scored acts like The Streets or Bloc Party (the "it" band of today's indie yuppies: I know because I are one)without the financial security their major label teat-sucking allows? Maybe, but I highly fucking doubt it.

Don't get me wrong: if some major label sucker came along and wrote me a blank cheque to run my label, I'd be leading the fucking hossanahs. What I would not do is play coy about what that formidable backing means to the label and try to hide behind transparent declarations of how independent I am. Nor would I whine about the "indie establishment" on one hand while selling songs to "The OC" on the other. Hey fucko: that "indie-yuppie establishment" you're complaining about? They're your bread and butter (well, them and the largesse of Atlantic: I just can't stress that point enough). I certainly wouldn't claim the independent record store-shoppin', blog-readin', MP3-downloadin', gig-goin', record-buyin' public as my "people" if I was so disgusted by their "boring music" (that from the cat who put out the sonic tribute to the colour beige that was the Stills' record). If I was so disgusted, I wouldn't be signing pop acts, but instead going after the Deerhoofs, Animal Collectives and other unlistenable rubbish bands of the world.

Upon further reflection, the one thing that stands out is that the Vice guys are positively terrified at not being "it" anymore and so they're trying to fashion themselves as elitist indie record store clerk types, even as they put out music that real elitist are turning their noses up at. The fact is, there's lots of music out there that "shakes you up a bit" and makes you "uncomfortable" but there's only, like, 12 record shop dorks nationwide who listen to it (because it's shit and the only people who claim to like it are only doing so to be difficult. I call such people "shitheads". But I digress.) Fact is, it's pretty hard to make a business successful or build an empire with those guys as your core market. So consider this article a final testament; the death rattle of an aging hipster who's suddenly realized there's no money to be made in genuinely marginal art, but he's got payments to be make on that Golf. But he just can't let go of the smarmy, holier-than-thou posture that he spend so many years during and after college building up.
'cause then he'd be old.

Best. Headline. Ever.

From the ever-reliable TMFTML:

ALSO, IF DRINKING WINE WITH ANOTHER GUY MAKES YOU GAY THEN WE'VE GOT ABOUT EIGHT DIFFERENT COCKS IN OUR ASS RIGHT NOW

Public Pervert (aka GOP Family values, aka the apple doesn't pass out far from the tree)

I know a few pervs who'll be pretty stoked about this.

Important Papal update!

Still dead.

Bedfellows

The ever excellent Billmon has a good post on the uneasy marriage between the U.S. Republican Party and the craze Christian Taliban over at the Whiskey Bar.

The Christian Right has become the feeding tube that ensures the G.O.P's continued electoral survival, but the party's dependancy on the Loons for Jesus is making some on the right squirm.

Important Terri Schiavo update!

Still braindead.

It's so cold in this house.

Spring has taken a powder on us. Instead of green shoots sprouting from branches and nosing their way up through the earth, we're in the midst of a March snow dump, which is sadly typical for this town. Thank god another west coast escape awaits.

Anyway, I was perusing Amazon.com for the tracklist to the new Bloc Party, and I noticed that all the albums under the "Customers who bought this title also bought..." heading were albums I've acquired in the past three months. I am a drone.

I've scored the most ridiculous DJ gig of all time. Thanks to the machinations of my girlfriend and the promise of free booze, I'm manning the decks at her office party on April 2. Apparently there will be Smirinoff Ice girls in bikinis, fog machines and a firetruck with a hot tub in the back. I am not making this up.

TMI

The underpants I'm wearing today are ridiculously uncomfortable.

I know this is late, but...

... the Fred Durst sex tape was so totally leaked by his people. I mean come on: are you trying to tell me that someone would look for that shit on purpose? No fucking way.

Freedom is, like, so hott.

A few months ago, during the Ukranian presidential election hubub, my old roomate and I noticed that coverage of pro-Yushenko demonstrations featured a perponderance of hot young chicks. While we agreed that hot chicks and democracy are pretty awesome, we didn't really think much of the implications of such imagery.

However, with Beruit apparently being overrun with anti-Syrian
babes (if you are to believe the MSM who's coverage has resembled an episode of "Beirut's Next Top Model"), the use of hot chicks as propaganda tools is impossible to ignore.

I am, however, not surprised.

Noooo!

Korn guitarist finds god, leaves band!

No word on where God was found. My money is on "...in a puddle of His own urine outside of the Score.."
(NSFW)

I was named by rock'n'roll

I'm emerging from a long winter's nap.

I'm off to see Sleater-Kinney in Vancouver this weekend. The riot grrl trio have a new album coming out soon. Me, I've never really been into them, but the girl is a fan so...

Then it's back to the West Coast in March for a long weekend with Bloc Party and the Kills. Yow.

Hot Hot Heat returns to E-ville on April 13th, which I wouldn't care so much about but for the fact The Futureheads are opening.

In other hot show news, the (International) Noise Conspiracy roll in with And You Will Know Us By the Trail Of Dead (or whatever they're fuckin' called) in May. The INC previewed a good chunk of their "Armed Love" album last summer at Coachella, but the record has been M.I.A. Maybe this tour means the album is coming.

I'm really liking these kids. Somewhere between Dylan, the Byrds and a touch of the Fab Four.

Pyramid power.

Awesome.

Wave of mutilation.

Y'know, it's really swell that people all over (celebrities too!) are opening their hearts and wallets to the victims of the South Asian tsunami of '04. I mean, we're talkin' billions of dollars in aid (some of which might actually even be paid!)

But, in a world where, each month, more people will die of malaria (165,000 or more) and AIDS (240,000) than died in the tsunamis, and where even this latest disaster's victims will fade from memory as soon as the camera crews go home, the current outpouring rings a little hollow. Just think: how many lives would be saved if a fraction of the big money currently being allocated to tsunami relief could be directed to developing good health and education programs in the world's poorest countries? But I guess we only care about those brown folks when they're on camera.