Addendum

Here I forgot to mention Pretty Girls Make Graves' album Elan Vital as a solid choice Runner Up for the best of '06, if only because its the only album I heard all year that had songs about both union organizing and pirates on it.

Oh come on.

Talk about a nice, slow one right over the plate:

Over 250 sickened after eating at Olive Garden


Like, do I even need to make a joke here?

(h/t T-Bogg)

Idea?

Since everybody on ze internets seems to have the exact same taste in music, perhaps it's time to re-evaluate this term "indie"?

To totally belabour the point and drain it of whatever humour or impact it has, I'm saying there's nothing particularily independent about all these bloggers picking the same 12 albums. Get it? GET IT?

Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar, well, he eats you

Yesterday I had a job interview. The job itself was pretty interesting, though a bit of a lateral/slightly downward move. But that doesn't matter since I totally made a balls of the interview. I'm shit at interviews at the best of times, but this was bad. Five minutes in and I was a sweating, stammering nervous wreck, my carefully practiced answers turning to lead on my tongue. I was lost. I fared no better at the subsequent written portion. Basically, I shit the bed.

But, lo!, though the Lord taketh away, he also giveth. Last night, my indoor soccer team won its second game of the season and I scored my first goal of the year. It was a beauty, too: a quick first-timer from the middle of the box right into the top corner. This is awesome because the only other goals I've scored in my soccer career have been garbage; easy tap-ins into open cages, that sort of thing. It felt good to get a real goal and help the team win. See, as a kid, I never got to play sports. I wasn't that interested and my family wasn't big on the whole "encouraging kids to try different things to help them become well-rounded individuals" thing. Presumably, that was the TV's job. I didn't complain at the time, but as I've grown up, I can see I missed out on some of the social and character-building that team sports can provide. Like sportsmanship (I am the worst sport ever). So it's kind of nice to experience a bit of what I missed, even if it is a bit late.

It’s over now and I can’t go there anymore

Crap.

These boots are made for fucking things up.

Over at Hullabaloo today, we find this photo of a whole family of criminals, idiots, drunks, fuck-ups and proto-facsists past and present all done up in their Christmas Holiday Christmas finest.

Take a careful look at the ape-like creature seated in the front. Take note of the footwear. Now take a moment to let that sink in. Yes: those are, in fact, black cowboy boots emblazoned with the Presidential seal.

Now, not only are they pretty much the fucking tackiest thing ever (well, at least as tacky as the codpiece), but the booties speak volumes about Bush's approach to the presidency. He's not interested in responsibility or leadership (a blessing, I suppose: imagine how much worse off the world would be if he actually had ideas): he just wants to play dress-up.

Which reminds me of one of the Gee Dubya nicknames that's been circulating in progressive circles for these past few dark years: "Little Boots". As for the origin of that one, well...

As a boy of just two or three, he accompanied his parents on military campaigns in the north of Germania and became the mascot of his father's army. The soldiers were amused whenever Agrippina would put young Gaius in a miniature soldier's uniform, including boots and armor; and he was soon given his nickname Caligula, meaning "Little (Soldier's) boot", after the small boots he wore as part of his uniform

It gets worse.

Lately, the usual local media suspects have been all atwitter over the issue of violence in the Whyte Avenue, this after a slew of stabbings on the strip over the last few weeks, including one fatal one. The stabbings are, of course, on top of the regular and unreported punch ups, sexual assaults, alcohol poisonings, vandalism and public urination that has, sadly, become par for the course on the Avenue on the weekends, as assholes from all points of the compass succumb to the lure of cheap highballs and cheaper skanks, hop into their jacked up truck or dad's SUV and head on down for a little ultraviolence. (Whyte Ave's troubles and a solution to them is covered quite nicely by The Journal's Todd Babiak: Leduc represent!)

The only thing I would add to Babiak's concise and pointed column is that a greater emphasis needs to be placed on pointing the finger at the dirtbag motherfucking profiteers who are the real root cause of Whyte's decline and fall. Unmitigated scum like bar mogul and Old Strathcona Hospitality Association honcho Mo "don't blame the bars" Blayways. These pricks and their relentless pursuit of profit at all costs are the culprits, folks. Two examples: Blayways recently purchased the Savoy, a cool, modern lounge on a prime piece of Whyte Ave real estate. The Savoy was once the destination for young and well-coiffed hepcats, but its fortunes declined as those same cool kids grew tired of being called fags by the ever-growing douchebag contingent and began staying away in droves. So Blayways (who owns numerous local "boom-boom rooms") snapped it up and plans to transform it from an upscale martini lounge into a goddamn sports bar, filling a niche that has clearly been left empty by the no fewer than 14 other Whyte Avenue bars (trust me, I counted) that show sports on a regular basis. This development came to light over dinner on Saturday at Milan's, a charming little central European bistro that, we learned, has just been acquired by new ownership who plans on-wait for it-converting the place into a bar.

Is nothing sacred? (Don't tell me: I know.)More importantly: do these guys have any fucking imagination whatsoever? Is there anyone who could look at the Ave right now and say "Hey, I know what this place needs: a top-40 bar where people can watch hockey on obnoxiously large televisions. Betcha no one has thought of that." Has the thought of doing something different simply not occurred to them, or is the size and spending power of the douchebag demographic so large and so bottomless that the only way to make a go is to cater to the lowest common denominator? Lack of imagination or simple marketplace considerations aside, one thing is clear: Whyte Ave will suck and suck hard for as long as the booze merchants with their horrible homogenous vision are allowed to roam free. Yeah, there need to be seating caps, minimum drink prices, zero-tolerance and all that stuff. But I'd be just as happy going old school and seeing some of these fuckers (asshole patrons and owners alike) swinging from the cutesy decorative lampposts on the Avenue, their stiff, grotesquely contorted corpses serving as a chilling warning to others.

Ech.

I'm told that these are hipsters. Not just any hipsters, either, but New York hipsters, which makes them pretty much the hippest hipsters in hipland. And yet this entire tableau could just have easily emerged from a really fuckin' bitchin' Saturday night at the P.O. after "Power Hour", albeit without the ridiculously bad, expensive clothes and hair. The P.O. crowd, I mean.

This is why I'm retiring from nightlife.

Photogasm

The photos from our October Euro-excursion have started to trickle in, so I thought I'd post some highlights. First: Paris!


place de la Concorde


I should not have to tell you what this is.


Hot flying buttress action


Montmartre girls

Memory, all alone in the moonlight...

It's weird. Going through the past three (!) years of blog archives and seeing how much things have changed. Yeah, I'm still at the same job (which is sucking as much, if not more, than ever), but gone are the references to weeknight drunks on gassy draught beer, social life dramatics and depleted bank accounts. Today, I have a decent income, a girl who loves me and whom I love in return, a great apartment in a area of town I never thought I'd live in. The social life isn't quite as frantic: gone are the gigs ands late nights. I still get my kicks when I can, though prefer to do so with fine wine and and a reclining chair. But the thing that hit me when reading my stuff from 2003 was that I still have no fucking idea where I'm going. But I do feel a little closer. I hope that's worth something.

(It is comforting that some constants remain. For example: Bloggers' spell check still sucks ass. It doesn't even recognize "blog". Yeah, meditate on that for a second.)

No word but awesome.

How often do you get to see the words "half-man, half-ape super-warriors" in a newspaper headline? Not often enough, that's for sure.

It's a great day. A great day.

Wave of stupification

As those who know me well can attest, getting angry at the letters page is one of my favourite activities. Nowhere is the absurdity and abject stupidity of the average member of this misbegotten species more prominent than in the letters page (well, talk radio is probably worse, but I don’t pay attention to that crap. Okay, anonymous internet commentators are pretty bad too, but, since that would fuck with my thesis, I’m just going to ignore them.) I love letters pages and the like because they illustrate why democracy is such a terrible idea in a society made up of drooling half-wits. By giving people a public forum in which to proclaim their stupidity for all to see, they show that human beings cannot be trusted to manage their own affairs. (And thus, a paradox: without such democratic forms of communication, we might soon forget the ignorance, self-absorption and blindness of our fellow man and start to demand they be given a voice. There’s also the argument that allowing stupid ideas to be exposed to the world negates their power, but I think the current state of the mass media and a supermarket checkout aisle featuring 15 different magazines with the same six or seven spoiled, drug-and-venereal disease addled “stars” on their covers disproves that idea. Stupidity unchecked begets more stupidity. But anyway…)

Today’s funny pages produced a couple of fine examples of the genre. I should stipulate that I’m talking specifically about the Edmonton Journal, as the Sun’s letters page content is about as erudite as a wet fart; stunning, I know.
The letters in question were prompted by a recent triple homicide at a downtown Edmonton nightclub. This nightclub is-how shall I say it?-frequented by a demographic with a higher statistical probability of committing or being victimized by violent crime. On Saturday night, someone bush-league gangbanger wannabe got tossed out and decided to come back to the bar and start shooting, killing three random bystanders. Civilized stuff. But let’s go to the letters page and see who gets blamed? The “kids”? A youth culture that glorifies violence? Males aged 18-29?

Nope. Let’s go to the tape

“Downtown no place for nightclubs, bars.”

Another three slayings at a downtown bar in Edmonton. How surprising given that it has been happening almost weekly for months now.
…
Edmonton used to be a safe place to live. We’re rapidly losing that sense of safety, and there is something truly grotesque in this latest bloodbath happening as it did in the shadow of one of Edmonton’s largest churches.

Presumably, getting killed away from a house of worship is not as bad. But I want to address the idea that these murders indicate Edmonton is getting less safe. Now, if you go by the numbers and not the headlines, you’d see the overall crime rate in Canada fell from 1991 to 1999 and has been relatively stable from 2000 to 2005 with a few ups and downs along the way. In fact, in 2005, the national crime rate dropped five per cent. “But wait,” you cry. “Homicide was up four per cent in 2005, following a 13-per-cent rise the year before. Aggravated assault was up 10 per cent and assaults with weapons were up five per cent. And a much of that increase was due to an increase in such crimes in Toronto and Edmonton!”

True. But that leads me to the question: who is it, exactly, that’s affected by crime (either as victims or perpetrators)?
If you look at the murders in both T.O. and Edmonton, many are gang-related and most of them involve young men (the notable exceptions being the crazy sonofabitch who is murdering streetwalkers and the all too frequent incidents of domestic violence that lead to murder). The same holds true with violent crime in general. In other words, there are very few examples of so-called “random acts of violence”. What we’re talking about is what a sociologist or criminologist would call “high-risk groups”. If you’re a member or close associate of such a group (say, low-income, minority males aged 18-25), your chances of committing or being on the receiving end of a violent criminal act are statistically greater than that of someone not in the group (say, a soccer mom in Terwilliger Towne.) Violent crime is simply not a broad social problem. For the majority of us, the streets are quite safe.

But that’s not the really stupid part. That would be this:

“Nightclubs of this type really have no business in the heart of the city. We’ve seen what happened to Whyte Avenue with its preponderance of bars. Do we really want this downtown, where we are trying to encourage people to live and businesses to set up?”

I’m not sure what they mean by “nightclubs of this type,” and I’ll agree to a point that bars are killing Whyte Ave. (more on that in a bit). But they don’t leave it at that.

“I would encourage government to make alcohol the next ‘tobacco’ and run it right out of public spaces.”

Public spaces? Lady, bars are private spaces. Unlike enlightened Europe and, uh, Las Vegas, booze in public is a no-no. As for banning booze, well, it’s been done, remember? The word "prohibition" ringing any bells? And we know how prohibition helped curb violent crime, right?

After that pearl, and a brief caveat about “good” bars and nightclub patrons, we’re presented with the crown jewel of the stupid.

“Let’s face it: these bars do not contribute anything to society and are a magnet for misfits. If you want to watch the game over a beer with your buddies, do it in your own home.”

Thankfully the writer already refuted her argument earlier by bringing in the example of Whyte Avenue. People tend to forget that back in the day (I’m talking 20-odd years ago when The Princess was a rundown porno theatre), Whyte Ave was a shithole. There were a number of factors which contributed to its revitalization, such as the preservation and renovation of historic buildings, the creation of pedestrian friendly streetscapes and small business-friendly development policies, policies that allowed for the establishment of more up market watering holes. Any smart urban planner (well, both of them) will tell you that the best way to revitalize an area is to bring in young people with money. And guess what? Young people with money like to drink. Whyte Ave would never have become a destination if it turned into a dead zone after all the clothing stores and knick knack shops shut down for the night (like downtown today). And the fact that the people responsible for maintaining Whyte Ave have forgotten the formula that made the place successful and attractive in the first place (hint: it’s called balance, people) does not mean a lively bar scene contributes nothing to society. On the contrary: the evidence shows it contributes a lot.

Now, I wouldn’t have quite as much of a beef with this person if they were merely calling for the city to be smart about what kind of bar it allows into the downtown core. I would also agree that some of the dodgier establishments downtown need to go. But once you start turning newspaper headlines into broad generalizations unsupported by fact to justify a bunch of sour-faced, meddlesome, anti-fun, statist policies, well, you’ve proven yourself stupid enough to make the letters page. Kudos, dick. I hope that one ends up on your fridge.

Long Winters

Holy shit did it ever snow a lot this weekend. Well, not that much, but enough to cause some major carnage on our roads. I guess people forget we live in a northern city and thus a little snowfall should be expected as November draws nigh. In spite of the crap weather's best efforts to bugger up my weekend, I actually had a pretty good one. Friday, me and D headed to Bistro Praha for Czech beer and schnitzel the size of my head. Oh, and crepes, delicious, boozy crepes. Then we checked out Clint Eastwood's "Flags of our Fathers" which was only okay. Well shot (especially the action bits) and competently acted, it just seemed rather trite, which is off considering the subject matter.

Saturday, I defended the honour of the Moustache at the first ever Covered In Oil/Battle of Alberta ball hockey extravaganza. It was rather wet. That evening featured a somewhat tepid Halloween party, the highlight of which was yours truly's brief reign as karaoke king (99 per cent on "Hey Jude" and "It's Not Unusual, bitches.) And then we got a flat on the way home, in the midst of the snowstorm with help (the AMA) tied up everywhere. Fortunately, we were able to snag a ride home with G's missus' parents, so it worked out in the end. Well, for me anyway: ain't my car stuck on the west end with a buggered-up tire. Finally, Sunday was he kind of Scotch and Guinness drinking, beef-stew making, sexy movie watching day that befitted such a snowy Sunday. There. Don't you feel better for knowing all that?

Las Ramblings

This abortion by our own Clown Prince of Media Nepotism perfectly demonstrates the fatal flaw in the thinking of most of Edmonton's civic boosters:

But I can’t because I’m in love and it makes me cry that I have to look at Telus ads and the same Tim Horton’s litter that makes Todd Babiak upset. Our city, which I will love forever, needs to find a theme that’s actually not shitty and run with it. It’s our duty as the living to make it more beautiful, to add to it so that someday down the road people will flock there for reasons other than a mall that looks like it was bought at a garage sale. Over here, thanks to history, people gladly make civic sacrifices to embolden their public spaces further. Ralph bucks, anyone? Though I don’t like its gift shop Gehry-of-the-glacier look, I’m glad we’re getting a new art gallery. Baby steps.

Leaving aside the fact that Barcelona is highly overrated as a city (it's redolent of damp armpit, it's expensive and, worst of all, full of tourists like, well, Fish) and the general dinkness (that’s a new word: like it?) of Fish's writing (like how he peppers his column with Speedy Gonzales Spanish to show what a man of the world he is), Grikowsky is operating with the same flawed logic of ex-Mayor Bill Smith and countless other nabobs whose fumbling attempts to turn a geographically isolated backwater into a "world-class" city have actually turned us into something of a civic inside joke.

Basically, these well-intentioned idiots think that civic identity (or “theme,” as Fish puts it) can be slapped on a city like a fresh coat of paint on a park bench or rammed into place with no consideration of history, geography, culture, whatever. The end result of such thinking is initiatives like the new Alberta Art Gallery Grikowsky mentions. It’s a shameless ripoff of the famed Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, the construction of which helped spark a renaissance in architecture and tourism in a crumbling post-industrial city. The logic behind the choice of a derivative design for the new AAG is thus: if a fancy Gehry designed art gallery can do such wonders for Bilbao, then Edmonton should be able to tap into some of that hoodoo by building a lil’ Guggenheim of its very own. The flaws are pretty obvious. For starters: Bilbao is in Spain. There, they have beaches there where people can bask (Basque?) in the sunshine. It’s in Europe and thus easily accessible to millions of potential visitors. Edmonton, on the other hand, is cold. It’s in Canada; northern Canada, to be precise, and the only way you can access it is via an airport several dozen kilometers away across a frozen steppe broken up by cancerous housing developments and big box retail complexes (all of this after you catch a connecting flight from Calgary because Edmonton’s airport has very few international flights coming in or going out.)

Other examples of Edmonton’s starry-eyed, never-think-things-through, “If you build it, they will come” mentality are depressingly numerous. The hated Mall is one. The redesign of Churchill Square, carried out to try and lure Edmonton residents downtown to breathe life into a moribund core, is another. In this case, the city fathers decreed that the old square (a tree-and-grass filled area popular mainly with summer festival goers and hobos) was in need of a facelift, ostensibly to mark the city’s centenary, but also because the costs of replacing the grass after its annual trampling were getting prohibitive (Paris, home of some of the world’s largest and meticulously maintained urban greenspaces, addresses the problem of grass abuse with a byzantine system of tiny fences and signs reading “Please keep off the grass.”) Edmonton’s vision/solution was to pave the fucking thing with slate-grey concrete (giving the square the appearance of a Stalinist military parade ground or-and this is the more likely aesthetic inspiration-a parking lot), throw up a few picnic tables and some second rate public art pieces (all prominently featuring the names of the corporate sponsors: who doesn’t like whiling away a sunny summer afternoon beside the sparkling waters of the EPCOR waterfall?), and put up a café, presumably to give people somewhere to go to escape the oppressive, empty feelings the new square invokes. Of course, the café in question is only open until 6 p.m., so if you fancy popping in for a coffee after a show at the Winspear or a trip to the gallery, you’re pretty much fucked. That’s what Second Cup is for, I guess. There’s other examples, like our propensity for bulldozing/burning down historical landmarks and putting up condos and Starbucks (a problem everywhere, to be sure, but in a city with such little history to begin with, a much more acute one), but the point is this: you can’t import an identity. What works in one location won't necesarily work in another. Aping another city's successful projects is like the jock meathead who digs the Killers and buys his ironic tees at Urban Outfitters: unoriginal and kinda douchey. Cities are living things. A city’s identity, its heart, its soul, won’t spring forth from the mind of a city planner, architect, politician, Chamber of Commerce-type or “edgy” “Gen X” “visual artist” like Athena bursting from Zeus’ forehead.

It has to grow.

I reject the idea that this can be done through consensus and careful planning (again: the “theme” of which the Fishman speaks). To return to the original example of Barcelona, Gaudí never set out to make art that would bring tourism bucks to his city: like so many other greats, his work was reviled in his time and he died penniless, his work finding popularity only after he got run over by a tram. Some of his best loved works, notably Park Güell and La Sagrada Familia, are accidental icons: the former was designed as a housing project that was never finished because they ran out of money, the latter is a church that has never hosted a Mass. Other examples of this phenomenon are easy to find. The wide, tree-lined boulevards of Paris were designed, not for strolling lovers, but to facilitate the movement of large masses of troops and cannon. Berlin’s cutting-edge modern architecture was made possible by the city’s almost total destruction in the crucible of the Second World War and its subsequent division. On the other hand, attempts to build greatness (the local examples above, any planned community anywhere and, uh, Nazi Germany) tend to fail miserably in their purpose or otherwise come to grief in the end. Civic greatness, then, is an unintended consequence, an accident of circumstances requiring a quicksilver-slick mix of history, vision and timing. Together, these factors can coalesce and shape a city’s identity, which is about so much more than concrete and stone, blueprints and paint. It’s a feeling you can’t fake.

Which brings me to my final point: Edmonton already has an identity. It’s in the brutalist angles of the buildings of the last boom, the sad, dirty parks, the decaying infrastructure, cheap condos, crap transportation system, and the downtown street corners where the snow and trash fly by horizontally borne by the Arctic air that whips through the concrete and glass windtunnels of the government offices. The things we hate are as much a part of this city as its river valley, festivals and whatever the hell else we like about this place (cheap rents?)
(I’d like to think this makes Edmonton like Manchester or Detroit, but they are decrepit drunks warming themselves on the fading embers of their former glory, while Edmonton is a baby born with its brain on the outside of its skull.) To do away with the flaws, then, would be to destroy part of this city’s soul, or at least whatever passes for it.

Not that I wouldn’t love to see some improvements. We’re a city that, unconsciously or not, embraces all the worst aspects of North American urban culture while neglecting or deliberately attacking those things that could make life bearable. What can you say about a city that holds endless focus groups on downtown revitalization while approving endless new subdivisions on the distant fringes of the city to be served by billion dollar freeway projects? Or that brags about the passion of its hometown sports fans, but sends black-clad thugs to thrash drunken teenagers for stepping off a sidewalk during an impromptu victory celebration? But I suppose that’s to be expected from a city (even a allegedly “liberal” one like this) in the heart Conservative Bizzaro World where public money is earmarked for private gain and where the Powers That Be clench their ass cheeks around the public purse so tight that no amount of probing or lube can pry a few coins free for faggotty shit like “art” and “culture”. But I digress.

In the end, I can agree with Fish’s rather fatuous point that people in this town need to work at making this city better: the city, as the saying goes, is not going to improve itself. A sudden and wholesale shift in out cultural attitudes so that we approach life more like, say, the French, is unlikely at best. And since we can’t count on The Man to help us out (at least not unless we want our ideas bludgeoned to death with a focus group), I guess this is the part where I put forward my great plan for making Edmonton better. But I’ll be goddamned if I have one. I’d kinda like to see a little less breast-beating about how crap this place is and a little more art that is about this place and its people, not shit designed to propel the creator out of Edmonton and to Vancouver or Toronto as fast as humanly possible. By the same token, I’d like to see a helluva lot less fawning over every dink who puts paint to canvas or who picks up a guitar: let’s have a little quality control, people. That old bus ticket stuck to a canvas with random splashes of paint isn’t great art just because you saw the guy who did it down at the Black Dog. Your band really does suck. And the people who snicker at your knock off Warhols aren’t jealous haters cutting you down to make themselves feel good; they’re genuinely concerned with the proliferation of lousy art made by pretentious assholes. Nothing personal and thanks for trying. Just do better next time. For my part, I‘ll try to be a little more open minded and do more to sample the fruits of others’ labours, while doing my meager part to keep the wheels turning. Not to make a statement, or to cram my “vision” of Edmonton down anybody’s gullet and certainly not because some dickwad hack writing for a no-bit weekly told me to, but because of the hope that something good might grow out of it so that when I’m dead a little piece of me might live on. And hopefully that little piece will one day rise up and destroy you all.

What?

(This post was inspired by Devon and Gauloises Blondes)

Ein kleine crap muzik.

Very disappointing CD haul this week. Grabbed the newone's from TV On the Radio, The Hold Steady and Kasabian. I picked up TVOTR on the strength of awesome single "Wolf Like Me" and the good reviews. Alas, it sucks ass. Unlistenable art-wank at its worst. Which is really my own fault, given my prior knowledge of the band's work and the 9.4 rating Pitchfork gave it (Pitchfork approval being a good sign of something's suckiness). The Hold Steady is even more disappointing. The tinny production had me checking the stereo wiring and fucking with the equalizer because I was sure no Hold Steady record could sound so thin. Then there's the music itself, which is slopppy and ugly. Maybe it'll improve with further listens, but, unlike the ant in the song, I don't have high hopes. The Kasabian disc, I haven't given a listen to yet, but I'm really hoping it's good so that I didn't piss all my money away on crap. Stay tuned.

Rage, remixed

I'm fucking sick of remixes. All I want is the mp3 of the Gorillaz's "Dare." I don't want the Soulwax remix. I don't want the DFA remix. I don't want the DJ Dinkmaster mash-up with some ironic bad pop song. I just want the fucking song. Why is that so much to ask?

Work, Work, Work

I'm gone three weeks and have managed to slide back into doing fuck all at work like it ain't no thing. What can I say? I have a gift.

Oh those crazy Arabs.

Brother Schlayden sends me the latest from the desert, land of sand, camels, military dictatorships and incredibly lazy people:

Ramadan ends Monday with Eid which lasts three days and has these guys doing even less work, which I assume would start into negative numbers, causing lawnmowers to spit out grass and paint to go back into cans. And hamburgers eat people.

I just really liked that last bit. Reminds me of when the Simpsons were funny. Is that show even on anymore?

So, I'm back from three weeks in Europe (a lovely country). I may post my scribblings from the trip. But then I might not. See, I like to keep folks guessing.

Ladies and Gentlemen....

I give you...your MySpace Technical Group!!!

Clichés R I

Just got the following e-mail:

Due to the Employee Recognition Barbeque tomorrow evening, all employees can dress casual for the whole day.

My first reaction was "Yeeeeeahhh! Sweet!"

Second one was "I'm getting excited over an extra casual day? Fuck!"

"Office Space" ruined everything.

Totally pwned.

Just read it.

9/11 is a joke in my town

There's a saying that really stupid people use: "9/11 changed everything". It's a trite little tautology and is usually used as a rhetorical blackjack to club readers or viewers with some horrible idea (ie: "torture is wrong, but 9-11 changed everything." You know the type.) Still, for a lot of people the attacks of 9/11 did change everything, whether it impacted them directly through the loss of a friend or family member, or if only by shattering the illusion of American security. For others, though, the events of 9/11 drove them completely fucking nuts(and I ain't just talking about the folks at the National Review).

Taste the crazy.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was working at my home office. After being informed of the first terrorist attack on the Trade Center towers I turned on the television and watched the horror unfold. I was shocked at the unimaginable destruction, and overwhelming loss of life. It was a tragedy beyond belief.

As I watched that morning, I noticed a series of eerie faces in the billowing smoke. These images appeared to morph in the seemingly never-ending pillars of ugly black smoke. I made a mental note of these surreal apparitions, and I mentioned it to my wife. I did not discuss these sightings again. After all, I tend to see images in clouds. However the images I see in clouds are always pleasant images, usually animals.

In assembling the archives for this site, I viewed thousands of images and newspaper covers. Again, I noticed the eerie faces in the still images of the smoke of the burning towers. They seemed to be present in not just one, but several of the burning tower images. Further research provided additional information and seemed to confirm what I was seeing.

I was not alone in noticing these awful faces.

My favorite bit is how he usually sees kittens and baby elephants in the contours of visible bodies of very fine water droplets or ice particles suspended in the atmosphere, but saw mean nasties in the smoke and flames of a burning building where hundreds of people were dying horrible deaths. Anyway, there's not much more I can say, but do make sure you check out the photos of the "faces", especially this horrible vision:

Friday Fiver

Drawn at random from the iPod HAL....

1. The Kinks-The Village Green Preservation Society

2. The Rolling Stones-Loving Cup

3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs-Cheated Hearts

4. Air-Le Voyage de Penelope

5. The Organ-Stephen Smith

Pop the Glock!

I keep seeing shit about Uffie, some 18-year-old hipster douche twat from Miami who has a really shitty electro-rap song called "Pop the Glock" that is getting the hipster fuckwits who read "Vice" and the Cobrasnake excited ('cause rich white kids reedily rapping about guns and shit is awesome 'cause it's, like, all ironical or something?)

You kids want irony? Here's some irony I'd like to see: Uffie getting shot in the face. With a Glock. Get it? Huh? Get it?

Dear England: I love you guys.

First this.

Then this.

Keep up the good work, you limey bastards.

The last, best SoaP joke.

From the still-funny-more-often-than-not-but-fuck-are-all-those-ads-annoying Onion...

Snakes On A Plane, the highly anticipated Samuel L. Jackson vehicle featuring snakes on a passenger aircraft, is opening today. What do you think?

"Cool. What's it about?"

Existence of benign supreme being revealed

Panic! At The Disco frontman bottled on stage

Friday Fiver

1. I'm From Barcelona-"We're From Barcelona" (Yeah, I know: they look like dinks and p-fork loves them, but, as Furnaceface once said, this will make you happy.)

2. The Beach Boys-"Hang Onto Your Ego"

3. Mates of State-"For The Actor"

4. The Stranglers-"Peaches"

5. White Town-"Your Woman" (Holla 'atcha '97!)

Dear mp3 Bloggers:

We get it. You really like the Mountain Goats. Now fuck off.

I'm tired of all these motherfucking racists on my motherfucking T.V.

Saw a thing on the tube last night about Prussian Blue, the Aryan nations' answer to the Olson Twins. What was most shocking about it wasn't that these 12 year-old girls were singing songs advocating racial genocide and denying the Holocaust, but that their music is so shitty. Come one, white power America! You're being ignorant back woods hillbilly hatemongers doesn't mean you can't have taste. I will say this, though: that fucking Rudolph Hess song has been jingle-jammed into my head all day.

C'est étrange

Whilst crusing ye olde myspace, I ran across the page of a girl I used to know (long story short: we had a thing once, my heart and most other bits weren't in it, so she fucked two of my friends), which in turn led me to her blogger page, which contained a reference to yours truly. Given the tacitly agreed upon state of somewhat hostile indifference that exists between us, I found that strange, yet oddly flattering.

"It's coming right for us!"

Country music "star" an asshole.

Troy Gentry -- one-half of the country twosome Montgomery Gentry, scheduled to perform tonight at Freedom Hall -- has been indicted for allegedly shooting a black bear named Cubby.

Gentry, 39, of Franklin, Tenn., allegedly bought the tame bear for $4,650 from wildlife photographer and hunting guide Lee Greenly, 46. Gentry then "killed it with a bow and arrow in an enclosed pen on Greenly's property in October 2004," reports The Associated Press.

In other news, dog bites man.

Flag flop

I'm not the swiftest horse in the race sometimes, so it's not really surprisng it took me a while to figure out why the flags around town (including at the Leg building) were spending so much tme at half staff. But it seems everytime some poor fucker buys the farm in Afghanistan, the flags go down. Which is mor ethana little strange to me given that the Tories keep telling us that we're at war, and that casualties are to be expected. Well, if we're at war, then why continue to treat every death as some great national tragedy? Canada lost 900 men in one morning in Dieppe. That's war. Sending the flags up and down like a yo-yo show show out of touch we've become. All I'm saying is, let's save these symbolic gestures, no matter how empty, for real national tragedies.

Quasi-racist Friday!

Steve Aoki: I have seen your future.

Today...



The future...



Repent now, cocksucka!

I've decided to retire "douchebag" from my arsenal of invective. It's just become too popular. In its place, I've decided to start using "asshole" a lot more. Say it with me: "asshole!"

It still has punch, don't it?

Dear E-Mail Porn Spam-bot

Regarding hot amateur sluts: who determines who is an amateur slut and who is a professional? Is there a governing body that deals with these things?

Words fail.

No, really.

Fantasy Island

Making fun of right-wing neocon pundits and their tough guy delusions has become something of an internet cottage industry. It's a market I'm not about to jump into, but when you see something like this, you gotta take a swing.

"Mark Steyn is exactly the guy you want on your side in a street fight."

Uh...really?

Chris Hitchens I could see. He's a boozer and British which, along with being completely insane, could be assets in a back alley tussle. But Steyn? I'm sorry, but doughy-faced musical theatre aficionados are not the kind you want at your back in a brawl, no matter how scruffy their appearance or strong their links to organized crime.

In a street fight, the only possible use for Mark Steyn is as a human shield.

Show, don't tell.

This is great. A single photo has saved me from wasting time attempting to suss out whether a band is any good.

The picture:



See? I could have gone off on this band (apparently they are called "Man Man" and based on the evidence here, they suck an unbelievably huge amount of sweaty donkey cock) and their stupid outfits dripping with hipster irony (note the headband). I could have ranted about the presence of two of the worst musical instruments known to man on the same stage (that's the accordion and saxophone for the uninitiated). But without photographic evidence, any attempt to describe this back alley musical abortion would have fallen well short. Add the photo, though, and any written argument is instantly rendered redundant. After all, what’s the point of reading about how much a band sucks when you can assess that from a 3 second glance at a photo?

I don’t even have to listen to them now! Thanks P-Fork! And fuck you for hyping these assholes!

Newsflash

European hipsters just as stupid and douchey as their North American brethren. Shit like this is what makes me wanna cheer for the terrorists.

Yeah, that about sums it up.

The Mideast Crisis Explained

Sofa scenes

(Watching Alphaville)

Me: They're losing me with this crazy semantics crap.
The GF: Really? I could hold my own in a talk about semantics.
Me: That's a conversation we are never going to have.

Dear Chicken Man

I know you only get paid like eight bucks an hour, and I know you work in a shitty ass basement food court all day. But would it kill you to not dump my French fries into the bag upside down so that they all spill out and stain the paper with grease, reminding me of the crappiness of the bounty which I am about to receive? Don't you fuckers have some kind of system for packing Big Crunch Combos, or did my choice of gravy in lieu of beverage throw your whole world into turmoil, rendering you incapable of practicing proper French fry orientation techniques? I don't know what it is with KFC, but they have some of the worst customer service/quality control standards in fast food (hint: lettuce is supposed to be green, not brown, and if the best you can manage is four wilted chunks of turd coloured iceberg, you might as well just dispense with whatever pretense of healthy snacking you're attempting there and give me the extra mayo instead.) You'd never catch the automatons at McDonald's dumping a dude's fries. They'd probably get beaten for that shit.

Beat surrender?

National Review Online wanker John Podhoretz asks the oh-so-clever question:

Instead of playing the (World Cup Final) match and losing, why didn't France simply surrender the way it always does?

Really, J-Pod? Always? I wonder, does anybody who brings out the "surrender monkeys" slur even know fuck all about France's history? Because I'm hard pressed to come up with an example of French cowardice. In World War One, France held out alone against Germany in the early stages of the war and held on for four years of the bloodiest combat the world has ever seen, with 11 per cent of its entire population being killed or wounded. In World war 2, France was quickly overwhelmed by a far superior fighting force, one that bulldozed its way across all of Europe. True, France didn't do so well against the Vietnamese Communists, but we also know how that turned out for Pod-boy's U.S.A. And France also had a small problem with an Arab insurgency in Algeria, but I'm hard pressed to come up with any parallels in American history. Suggestions?

One should also note the France’s assistance was vital in allowing the American Revolution to succeed. France covertly supplied Washington with arms and ammunition and joined the war in 1778. It was the French blockade of Yorktown that prevented the British from receiving reinforcements and it was a combined Franco-American force that forced the surrender of the British garrison in that climactic battle.

If there's a country that deserves the reputation for giving up, it’s Italy. In the First World War, Italy sat on the fence in the early stages despite overtures from the Triple Alliance. Then, when things started going well for the Allies, Italy threw their lot in with the eventual victors in a brilliant display of historical opportunism. In World War Two, of course, Italy started the game on the side of the Nazis, but surrendered when the Allies took Sicily and threatened the mainland.

So, to make a long story short, the antipathy so many wingnuts hold against France as a result of the French government’s refusal to support the Iraq invasion is rooted firmly in ignorance. What a surprise.

Hell just got a little more crowded.

Lights out for Kenny-boy.

Enron Corp. founder and chief executive Ken Lay, who was convicted in May for his role in the in the Houston-based company's downfall, died of a heart attack on Wednesday at his vacation home in Colorado.

Be vewy, vewy quiet...

A new poll released Tuesday suggests only a tiny minority of Americans - four per cent - know Canada is already their largest supplier of crude oil.

This is good. That's not the kind of information we want getting into wide circulation down there. Next thing you know, they start blaming us for high oil prices. An then..well, kablammo!

The soft underbelly of the crocodile.

Via Canadian Cynic I see there's a civil war a-brewing at Free Dominion (no link) between the dominant Christian/so-con "fags'n'fetuses" set and Team Fiscal Conservative. I point this out not because I give a shit, but because sometimes it's amusing to see how genuinely ignorant and stone crazy some members of the CPC's base really are. Go forth, point and laugh.

But don't stay too long. Shit loses its funny after, oh, 40 seconds, leaving you with nothing but the sinking realization that there really are people who's biggest concern in the world is what total strangers do with their genetalia. And that's just sad. Puppy sad.

Bring the noise

Attention: from here on out, all Oilers/sports-related content can be found at the new joint venture of myself and the Belfast Canuck entitled Todd Harvey's Moustache. All other snark stays here.

Eases the pain.

(Actually I'm just trying out this image posting business.)

The day after the mourning after

Now that that hockey business is over with, I can move on to talk about more interesting things.


Um.


Ah.



*crickets*


Soooooo...the UFA market looks interesting this year...

What happens when you lose everything?

You just start again. I sit here this morning, after arriving an hour late, last night a dark bruise on my memory, I don't know why I got as into it as I did. Maybe I just wanted to feel part of something bigger. And while it lasted, it was great, this feeling that something was happening. It was all a lie, of course, but our belief made it real. Today, life goes on, the childish silliness of it all shelved for another year. But I'll miss that feeling more than I will miss watching the games.

In the meantime, I'm trying to understand how to be gracious in defeat. It's a alien concept to me. Maybe its the overabundance of war metaphors used to characterize sports, but I don't understand how one is supposed to crawl from the wreckage, look up at the foe who vanquished you and thank them for it. As if the sting of the loss isn't enough indignity.

Meh. At least there's the World Cup, a spectacle I have no personal emotional investment in. Maybe its better to watch from a distance.

Wow.

Poetry.

Oh boy! Another hockey post!

Two things:
First: the lameness of the team's Cup run slogans. For the Oilers, it's "Get Electric!" which totally makes sense for a team named after a fossil fuel (I guess the alternate, petro-friendly slogan "Get Lubed!" didn't make it past the focus groups.) For the Hurricanes, it's "Whatever It Takes!” which is about as vague and pointless as it gets. "Whatever It Takes?" Would you punch your grandmother in the throat? Skull fuck a dead baby? Eat a gallon of lard? Crawl naked over a football field covered in broken glass and lemon slices? Look at Rod Brind'amour's face? No? Then I'm afraid, sir, you are not willing to do "Whatever It Takes!"

Second: the lameness of the coverage. The CBC is brutal. I don’t know if it’s budget cuts by the Conservatives or just incompetence, but MotherCorp can’t get its shit together. Improperly cued replays, drunken camera work and, worst of all, the execrable duo of Bob Cole and Harry Neale, who used to be pretty good but have lapsed into senility.
I'd tune into NBC, but I refuse to watch their coverage until they stuff a sock in Pierre Maguire's yap and then stuff him in a old refrigerator down at the dump. GOILERS.

Coupe du Monde

How fucked is it that Budwiser is the official beer of the World Cup? It's funny how they are trying to market it as some international beer, enjoyed by cosmopolitin people the world over. Like anybody from real beer countries (Germany, Holland, Belgium, Czech Republic, Canada and er...anywhere else but the U.S.A.) would touch the stuff.

I'm also sick of those Rogers commercials with the three dinks from Canada going to the World Cup. The chick is mad cute, though.

Germany is owning this game. Too bad they can't seem to score.

RED CARD!

Crossbar! CROSSBAR AGAIN!

GOOOOAAAAAALLLLLL!!!!

Game over. Poland hasn't beat Germany in football in 85 years. Not to mention that big loss in '39.

Huh.

I'm pretty astonished that I've had the TV in my office tuned to the World Cup for the bulk of the last three work days and the only comments I've received have been inquiries about whatever game is on. Sometimes, this gig is pretty sweet.

Waiting for a miracle.

Aw fuck. Some random notes.

* Jussi played great. The first 'canes goal was the result of some dodgy lateral movement, but overall, you can't fault him for the loss. He held them in it and he's probably the only Oiler who can hld his head high today.

* Pronger fucked up. I never thought I'd see those words, let alone write them, but there it is. The big man's giveaway, which led to the winning goal, cost the Oilers the series.

* Sergei Samsanov can get away with a no-look behind the back pass. No one else on the Oilers can, but that didn't stop them from trying, which cost them at least three quality scoring chances.

* At this point, it's almost worth taking two just to run down Ward, nor can I think of any better purpose for that meat sack on skates Laraques.

*Meanwhile, the PP stunk. Again. Has there ever been a team in the Finals that has had as many 5 on 3 advantages and faled to capitalize?

*The World Cup is the gretest spectacle in sports.

*It speaks volumes about the size and fervour of the 'canes fan base that they have to troll Oilers fan blogs to find others they can talk hockey with. They are also dirtbags.

*Tomorrow's a big day. Both Ukraine and Germany are in action, so I've got a 1 in 3 chance of someone I'm cheering for winning agame tomorrow. But with my luck....

"Rod Brind'amour has a face like a slapped testicle"

Go on, cry home to your mama. She waitin' for you.

Oh sweat you, now how you gonna act? Bringing that trash in here.

This is MY house!


GOILERS!!!!!!!!11!!!!1!!!!

Man...

It's one of those days where everything in the world seems to be designed for the sole purpose of pissing me off.

Well...

Today is one of the longest days ever. One can only replay the horid events of last night over and over so many times and engage in only so many blog debates over whether Smith or Conklin was to blame for The Giveaway (100 per cent Conks, BTW) before the madness starts creeping in.

But really: why didn't anyone tell me Liberty City Stories was out for the PS2?

Curses.

My biggest failing is negativity. It's not that I see the glass half empty, but half empty and full of a mixture of pus and cat urine. My pessimism has no limits: ain't no mountain high enough that we can't fall off of, break our spines and spend the rest our lives shitting in a bag. It may well have been this negative streak that drew me to the Habs and, later, the Oilers: two franchises with glorious pasts long behind them both teams come with high expectations that yield little results. Cheering for the Habs/Oil axis is a pessimist’s dream because chances are, in the end, your most dire predictions of failure will come to pass, and you will stand vindicated and defeated. Yet the history and tradition these franchises embody generates visions of success that fuel impossible hopes.

When the Oilers made the Stanley Cup final, I was, as usual, skeptical. Sure, the run up to now had been great, the team had an air of destiny about them, but it was too much to let myself believe. But when the Oilers jumped out to a three goal lead in Game One, a game they dominated from start to finish, the mask slipped. For a few minutes, I believed.

It’s only right, then, that the universe would punish me for my sins by making the Oil cough up four straight goals, injure starting goalie Dwayne Roloson (putting him out for the series), and install the worst backup since Andre “Red Light” Racicot to literally give the game away with under a minute to play. Fuck.

Now’s the time for rolling over. Now’s the time to call it done, for Carolina fans to break out the brooms and lube up the livestock for the victory party behind the barn. Right?

Well, no. See, I’m tired of disappointment. I’m tired of being negative. I’m tired of giving up. I’m ready to see this through, to fight to the bitter end, to rally ‘round Jussi Markkanen. I’m ready to believe. So come on, Oilers: don't let us down. Send the ‘canetards back down to the holler in tears.

Raisng 'canes.

So the Oilers will face the (North) Carolina Hurricanes for the Cup. I woud have preferred the Sabres (a long-suffering team from a city that may as well be in Canada), but in the ‘canes we gave an opponnent I can really work up a hate for. First, in both this year and in their previous Cup run (’97?), they ousted my beloved Canadiens to get there. Beating the Habs in the playoffs is a cardinal sin in my book: I spent the formative years of my life cheering against the Oilers (well, you can also blame my family’s knee-jerk contrarianism for that) just becausee they beat Montreal in ’82. Took me almost a decade and the total reversal of the local team’s fortunes to get over that. Second, the ‘canes are from Carolina, which apparently is not one, but two states in the Bible’n’Bush-loving American south, where the favorite sport involves cars driving around real fast. Blame a lifetime of “Coach’s Corner” for that brand of regional hockey chauvanism, but I just can’t get behind a team from a place where the only ice is in the mint juleps and who’s website has a section on hockey basics (“what’s an ‘icing?’”). So yeah, Carolina sucks and I’m not a big fan of their hockey team either.

That’s why I’m offering a large cash prize* for the intrepid Edmonton fan who makes the trek to Carolina for a game and gets a sign on TV. The catch here is hat the sign must read “"Dale Earnhardt sucks Hitler’s cock in hell!”



*large cash prize does not actually exist

An open letter to HRH Queen Elizabeth II

Dear Lizzy (can I call you Lizzy?),

Listen: I'm sure you're a nice enough old broad (goofy hats and ugly dogs notwithstanding) and I'm sorry your kids are idiots and you have grandkids who dress like Nazis. So don't take it personally when I say it would be pretty awesome if Canada replaced the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, er...Windsor with the House of His Royal Horndog Majesty, Prince Albert of Monaco. First, Monaco is cool. Nice climate, beacasinosasions: the perfect setting for international intrigue. Also, like Canada, nobody really knows or cares that it exists. As for Albert himself , well, his mom was Grace Kelly (who was smoking hot in Rear Window), and unlike Prince Charles, Albert is young, athletic (he competed in the 1988, 1992, 1994, 1998, and 2002 Winter Olympics for Monaco on the freaking bobsled team) and photogenic. Like Charles, Al is something of a horndog, but unlike Charles, Albert has Grade A taste in chicks, having been linked to supermodels Angie Everhart and Claudia Schiffer, as well as Penthouse Pet Victoria Zdrok. Dude's also sired not one, but two illegitimate children, wheras Chuck's kids are just bastards.

Now, I'm not amonarchist by any means, but I figure that if we're stuck with a useless figurehead, it's better that we have a figurehead who, you know, likes to party with hot chicks. And Lizzy, that just isn't you. Sorry. Now, if you want to keep doing the Queen stuff you do now, but without actually being Queen (which I suppose would just make you a batty old lady in a funny hat, but c'est la vie), that's cool. We'll let you a keep a car and maybe a footman or two. Now, don't know what kind of mumbo jumbo is required to make this switch, but if you could hook that up, that would be great.

Your less then loyal subject,

********

4:01 p.m.

One of the crappier parts of my job (other than the unrelenting boredom and overpowering sense of inertia) is when only one of our front office persons shows up and leaves one of us to answer the phones for the last 45 minutes of the day. And, since my office is nearest to the front, I usually draw phone duty. Now, my regular gig is tedious enough without having to field calls from people asking questions that are either completely unrelated to what we do here or are related, but completely beyond my ability to respond to. I usually end up directing all calls to the same branch, which leaves me wondering why we can't just direct all calls there in the first place. Most of the time I just feel like telling hem "Look, I can't answer your question. I went to community college. I am deeply unfulfilled. I am a living, breathing example of superfluous and inefficient bureaucracy. Would you like to leave your name and number so that someone who gives a shit can call you back?"

I must say, though: the one call I answered so far has been the only function I performed today that was even remotely related to my job. 49 seconds of work (including the time it took me to get up from my desk and answer the phone) out of 7.25 paid man hours is not an unusual statistical achievement for me.

Just...shitty.

It's especially bad when you're sitting inside and the sky outside is blue with puffy, cartoony clouds that may as well have fucking cute smiley faces like the ones in Super Mario Brothers and all you want to do is sit on a patio or balcony with a beer and a spliff and maybe play the new Super Mario Brothers but you can't because you're at work and drinking is frowned upon and you can just forget about the spliff because you had a cold last week which has turned into a phlegmy cough which only comes out a night to keep you and your girlfriend awake, so you end up sleeping for three hours on a couch that's way to short and so you're totally tired and also you're up to your ass in bills and so a Nintendo DDS is totally out of the question and so you think "why the fuck am I working this shitty, boring job with no prospects for advancement and even if there were, I'd probably tell them to stick their prospects for advancement up their ass because the job is so shitty and boring" and then it hits you that you’re turning 30 this year and have pretty much nothing to show for the first 1/3 of your life and the remainder isn't looking so shit hot either, but hey an empty dull life beats no life at all, but then chances are the monitor you spend your days staring at is sending radiation that is causing tiny cancer cells to grow in your brain or your balls which means at some point in the near future you're probably going to be laying in a hospital ward praying to a god you don't even believe in to make it through this ordeal so you can live until you lose total control of your bowels and forget the names of the people who you love if you're somehow lucky enough to have anybody, but then it hits you that you’ve just wasted 10 minutes writing a really depressing run-on sentence, which brings you that much closer to the end of the day so you might be able to catch some sun after all, plus the week is almost officially half over and the Oilers are in the motherfucking Stanley Cup Final and suddenly things could be a lot worse. Yeah.

Whyte riot, a riot of my own!

If they really want to keep a lid on the Cup-related shenanigans on Whyte Ave, rolling a couple of vials of nerve gas into the Thirsty Turtle at the final buzzer would be a good start.

Idolotry

...or why Europe is, and always will be, better than North America.

Last night, millions of idiots people tuned into to watch this dink "wow" the judges and voters on "American Idol" with a hackneyed, overblown performance of a tired old Stevie Wonder song.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, the Eurovision Song contest was held to select the most popular song in Europe. The winner? These guys.

There's only two words for that: "fucking" and "awesome".

Whoooo!

What a game. despite falling behind early on, the good guys perservered and scored the two goals they needed to propel themselvs to victory. yes folks, FC Barcelona are the champions of Europe!

Oh, the Oilers? Yeah I missed most of that one.

I was saying "Boo-urns".

So San Jose fans booed the Canadian national anthem on Sunday night. I'm surprised, not by the booing, but the fact it took so long to notice: the same Shark Tank faithful gave "O Canada" a chorus of boos in Game One. Ask anyone who was in the Underdog for that one, they'll tell you.

But, really: who fucking cares? I don't even know why they bother with the anthems at NHL games. Given the international flavour of the game these days, choosing to sing just two anthems isn't representative of the players. And, more than that, it's just silly and archaic. Ditch 'em.

"...Code" causes Christian crack-up

I don't care to read the "DaVinci Code" (pop-lit is not my bag), but I am intrigued by the movie. It has a good cast (how can anyone not love Audrey Tatou? And Ian McKellan? Fuggetaboutit.), a good director and, based on the trailers to be the kind of popcorn film that Hollywood has forgoten how to make. But what seals the deal for me is that the film (which puts forward the crazy notion that Jesus Christ-wait for it-may not have actually risen from the dead three days after being nailed to a post) is causing conniptions among right-wing religious nuts.

"Christians are under no obligation to pay for what Hollywood dishes out, especially a movie that slanders Jesus Christ and the church," said Robert H. Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America, a conservative Christian group based in Washington.

"I don't have to see 'The Devil in Miss Jones' to know it's pornography, and I don't have to see 'The Da Vinci Code' to know that it's blasphemous," said Mr. Knight, who plans to join religious leaders from groups like Human Life International and Movieguide in Washington on May 17 to announce boycott plans.

(I love this line: "Christians have not been this worked up about a movie since Martin Scorsese's Jesus stepped down off the crucifix in "The Last Temptation of Christ" in 1988.")

What can you say about a subgroup who packs the house to see their Saviour get whaled on in great, blood-splattered detail ("The Passion of the Christ") but get insulted by a popcorn thriller starring the All-American Tom fucking Hanks? get your priorities straight, people.

Beat

I've never liked the Magnetic Fields. A few years ago, when "69 Love Songs" came out, a friend made me a mixtape (how old-skool is that?) and I found it unlistenable junk. I find Stephin Merritt's voice extremely grating and the whole Cole Porter/showtunes vibe left me cold. Now, Merritt is openly gay, but I'm fairly certain the fact I can't stand his music doesn't make me a homophobe. But according to music critic/pretentious wanker Sasha Frere-Jones, the fact that Merritt doesn't seem to like black music makes him a racist cracker. The article does a good job skewering the big fat balloon of illogic that the gasbag SFJ and somebody named Jessica Hopper send up. But what goes unexplored is the very basic notion of why certain type so music appeals to certain demographics.

The fact that I, as a middle-class white male, gravitate towards music made by middle-class white males for middle class white males does not make me racist or sexist. It simply means I gravitate towards music that I can relate to. Take a band I'm currently enjoying the shit out of: The Rakes. Now, despite the fact they are British and I Canadian, it nonetheless goes without saying that I have more in common with some sweater wearing white boys in an indie band singing about working a shitty white-collar jobs and going down to the pub than I would a lesbian folk-singer or gangster rapper. Music tastes can be aspirational, too, but I think individual tastes are determined in part by how closely the content mirrors the experiences of the individual (to say nothing of things like melody, beat, lyrical content etc.) Race is barely on the radar.

That's not to say race (or for that matter, sexism-I wonder if SFJ has more men or women among his favorites?) don't matter. Questions of race will inevitably cross over into art, but the course of action SFJ seems to advocate (which is, essentially, affirmative action for your CD collection) is flat-out ridiculous. Individual tastes are tricky things to pin down and, unless someone is talking about their love of Prussian Blue or RAHOWA, inferring racism by omission is irresponsible at best.

(This post is clearly not as insightful as I hoped: there's a disconnect between my brain and fingers right now. I blame the Oilers for making me stay up till 1 a.m. the other night, something I still haven't recovered from).

Trivial Psychic

I've ben reading a lot about Lily Allen of late and have had her sweet summer jam "LDN" going through my head for the last couple of days (hear it on her MySpace.) Something-probably the tinny-sounding horn sample and bouncy beat-reminds me of White Town's 1997 number one "Your Woman." Now I haven't heard that song in years, probably since it was big, and my searches for an mp3 have, so far, turned up nowt. So you can imagine my utter surprise when I walk into a dollar store at lunch and, as I'm paying for my purchase at the till, well, you can guess what song came on. So yeah: I'm freaked out.

Addendum

In response to the previous post, astute reader S. points to the recentimmigrant rights rallies in the U.S. as evidence that people get riled up about much more than meaningless sports events. So please allow me to clarify: people only stage spontaneous gatherings for meaningless sporting events and when facing the prospect of deportation.

Take it to the streets

Y’know, I like sports and hockey as much as the next guy. I wept the last time the Canadiens won the Cup and again the last time they made an early playoff exit. And I lustily cheered every Oilers’ goal last night. But at no point did I feel compelled to run down the street, yelling my fool head off, or drive around honking my car’s horn. After all, it’s not as though I had anything to do with the win; I didn’t accomplish anything, so what’s to celebrate? But that obviously didn’t occur to the thousands of well-liquored Oilers partisans who descended on my neighbourhood last night to demonstrate their pride in their local sports team by kicking over newspaper boxes and baring their breasts. As I tossed fitfully in bed, fantasizing about the EPS helicopter swooping down, Apocalypse Now style and machine-gunning the revelers, it really struck me what a big fat waste of energy the whole spectacle is. I thought of Paris in May 1968, of civil rights marches and other mass movements. These are distant memories, never to be duplicated: we live in a society where people passively accept every single obscenity the government and corporate world inflict: it takes a meaningless sporting event to get people to come together in a spontaneous show of unity. And that, friends, is fucking pathetic.

Glory hole!

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Hockey post

I'm all in favour of the NHL's crackdown on interference and other infractions. If some of the games I've watched in these playoffs are any indication, it's helped open up the game a lot. However, it's starting to get a little ridiculous. There were a number of calls in last night's games that shouldn't have been made. Don Cherry (who is at his best when he sticks to analyzing the game) had a clip from the Flyers/Sabres game in which a Sabres skater lost his edge behind the Philly net, which led to a penalty call on the checking Flyers d-man. Not only had the Flyer not laid a glove or stick on the Sabre, the call was made about two seconds after the guy went down. Then there was the call on the Canadiens' Tomas Plekanec in overtime after a Hurricanes' attacker tripped over the Canadiens net, which led to the winning goal. The call itself was, at best, 50-50, but given the blatant high stick which put Habs captain Saku Koivu out of the game in the second period (and may put him out longer with an eye injury) on which no call was made, I have to question what the hell is going on with the officiating. This about sums it up.

In this, the first NHL post-season under the new rules, when a dirty look will get you two minutes and a dirty thought will get you four, a nasty stick to the face drew nothing at all.

Also: can the league consider banning the one-piece sticks? If Major League Baseball can ban aluminum bats, why can’t the NHL go back to wooden sticks? Hey, it was good enough for Gordie and the Rocket…

Comix

It's not quite MNFTIU, but Wondermark is some pretty funny shit.

The simple genius of Jane Jacobs

Okay: I haven't read any of the late Jane Jacobs' works yet. But it's hard not to like what I've read about her work as an activist and her ideas regarding urban planning (most famously made in her seminal 1961 work The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Looking at them now, these ideas (that urban planning should be focused on people, pedestrians in particular; that strict zoning requirements eliminate the everyday interactions necessary for creating communities; that more people on the streets means less crime etc.) are so forehead-slappingly obvious that it is hard to believe they were ever considered revolutionary. But what sucks really hard is that, in some circles, these simple concepts are still completely alien. Sadly, these are also the circles where urban planning decisions are made.

Here in Edmonton, we have what can only be considered a schizophrenic approach to urban planning. On the one hand, politicos endlessly stress the need for "downtown revitalization" while on the other, hand continue to execute a suburban, car-centric, big-box-friendly model. Big box complexes like South Edmonton Common (the appropriation of the term "common" in this case can only be a vile joke on the part of the developer), filled as they are with shitty chain restaurants, outlet stores and miles of parking (and no sidewalks anywhere: you want to travel the 100 metres from the Urban Barn to the Indigo Books? Get in the car, motherfucker.) sprout like weeds on cheap land on the outskirts (roads and services coming at the expense of taxpayers, natch). Meanwhile, the efforts to bring some life back to the core consist mainly of erecting tons of shoddy condos and "executive lofts" and the concrete wasteland that is Churchill Square. It would be almost comical if it weren't so sad.

Anyway, to say the suburbs suck and North American urban planning is stuck in some kind of time warp to the '50s is to state the obvious. I'd recommend this post at Pandagon, if only for the last paragraph, which sums up why suburbs are not only bad design, but a leading cause of rampant wingnuttery:

You want the answer to why people think, for instance, that gay men are fucking in the streets in liberal cities and teenagers are one pill away from forming sex cults? It's because it's easy to believe that sort of shit when you're holed up in a McMansion and your main contact with the diverse population of America is through the television set

It is sad that Jane Jacobs didn't live to see her simple, people focused ideas becomecurrencymmon crrency of urban planning. Sadly, I think that we're too far gone at this point: the tiping point (to use an annoying buzzword) has passed: we won't stop until we hit the wall.

Steal this post! No, wait...

If the recent upswing in fake authours wasn't enough to convince you of the deathly state of the literary world, chew on this: A Harvard University sophomore with a highly publicized first novel acknowledged Monday that she had borrowed material, accidentally, from another author's work and promised to change her book for future editions.


Putting aside the editorial license/slopply lede writing (ie. "accidentally"?), it seems things are so dire that people can't even find good books to plagarize anymore:

Kaavya Viswanathan's "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life," published in March by Little, Brown and Company, was the first of a two-book deal reportedly worth six figures. But on Sunday, the Harvard Crimson cited seven passages in Viswanathan's book that closely resemble the style and language of the novels of Megan McCafferty.

Megan who?

McCafferty's books follow a heroine named Jessica, a New Jersey girl who excels in high school but struggles with her identity and longs for a boyfriend. McCafferty is a former editor at Cosmopolitan who has written three novels.

I've not read her stuff, but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say an ex-Cosmo staffer is no Delillo*.

Now, if you're an aspiring authour and you want to gank something for your book, wouldn't you think it's a good idea to maybe look outside the narrow confines of the genre you are working in? Silly rabbit.

Of course the other side here is that, since all chicklit stuff is pretty much interchangable anyway, what's a little overt plagarism?

*I'm not discounting the possibility that she's a decent or even good writer. But I'm not exactly her target market, wot?

Moving on.

So, the upcoming weekend has the distinction of being the occassion of my fifth move in six years. Now, that moving sucks goes without saying, but I'm a little extra nervous about this one for a couple of reasons other than the usual stresses and pains-in-the-ass that come with the territory. First off, this move marks my first foray across the river, which is a pretty radical departure. I've been a downtown denizen for nigh on a decade, so I'm generally apprehensive about the change of scenery. This is amplified by the fact that I'm leaving downtown's empty, garbage strewn streets for the comparative hustle and bustle of the south side. Now to some, that would seem like an upgrade, but not to me. See, I generally hate people, so the more people I have to deal with, the unhappier I am.

To compound the issue, the neighbourhood I'm moving to is frequented primarily by the kind of people I hate the most: namely LuluLemon-clad, giant baby stroller pushing yuppy breeder fucks during the day and, by night, drunken, obnoxious ballcap wearing suburban douchebag meatheads and their Playboy Bunny tramp-stamped paramours. This rabble is especially in evidence come summertime, when the hormones fill the air like mosquitos, the wife-beaters and flip-flops come out and winter belly rolls are released from their down-filled restraints and seared into the retinas of unwitting and unwilling passersby. In other words, I’m moving into the heart of asshole country right at the start of asshole season. Fuck. (Compounding the usual assholishness will be the NHL playoffs, which means any Oiler victory will be followed by a veritable hoedown of hooting, hollering, honking hillbillies, accompanied by the omnipresent hovering of the police helicopter. Fortunately, the Oilers are playing Detroit which means the window of opportunity for victory celebrations should close in, oh, about a week.)

Of course, my favorite pub in the world is now less than a block away, as are a plethora of record shops, cafes, bakeries and other amenities that downtown lacks, which is really what was behind the decision to cross the river in the first place. Nonetheless, it’ll take a lot of weed to get me through the weekends, since I’m fairly certain that the condo board (which doesn’t even approve of barbeques on the balcony) will most definitely frown on the hurling of Molotov cocktails onto the street below. Bummer.

FAQ

Q: Why do girls get tattoo'd with the Playboy bunny logo?

A: Because it's cheaper than just getting the word "Slut".

Mommy dearest

My top pick for most loathsome media trend has got to be the upsurge (good word for it: reminds me of what happens to the contents of my stomach when I read Rebecca Eckler) the whole "mommy" columnist thing, where young(ish) columnists (usually one's who used to just write about what sluts they are) turn their meager talents to chronicling their sudden foray into motherhood. As if we're supposed to give a shit. There's a lot of reasons to hate this stuff; that these alleged testaments to motherhood are reality thinly disguised paeans to consumerism (baby as accessory); that the individuals specializing in this rot are usually talentless hacks who'd be slinging lattes if it weren't for fucking Candace Bushnell and their own familial (or carnal) connections; that the whole enterprise is rooted in exhibitionistic narcissism. Above all, it's the simple fact that, like the characters in the late, unlamented "Sex and the City", the purveyors of this junk are upper class white women with secure jobs and well-to-do significant others. For them, raising a child is no different than a trip to the spa: a lifetyle affectation and little else. What possible insight do they have to offer? Oh, I'm sure its hard banging out 300 words on baby poop or Mommy/baby cocktail outings when the baby's bawling (where the hell is Consuela with the bottle anyway?). But try doing it as a single mother working a double shift at Tim Horton's because her deadbeat ex-husband spent last month's child support on Pilsner. Suddenly motherhood doesn't look quite so fucking cute anymore, does it?

Off to the races

So right wing douchebags (and douchebaguettes like Michelle Malkin) are whipped up in a righteous froth over NBC's Dateline sending Muslim men to a NASCAR event as part of a look at race relations in post-911/The War Against Terror (TWAT) America. The piece follows a Washington Post/ABC News poll that shows a growing proportion of Americans are expressing unfavorable views of Islam. The poo-flingers are crying into their pork rinds, claiming that NBC is perpetuating the image of NASCAR fans as ignorant redneck racists. Even NASCAR is pissed: so sayeth spokesman Ramesy Poston

"The obvious intent by NBC was to evoke reaction, and we are confident our fans won't take the bait," (Poston)said.

So, uh: what exactly is the problem? If NASCAR fans aren't racist hillbillies, then there's no danger of these folks being hassled and thus, no story. If anything, such an occurrence would be a vindication of NASCAR fans. I'm not sure how this stunt qualifies as "provocation" either: if NBC was sending Muslim men to a NASCAR event waving "Death to America" signs, burning Bush (or Dale Earnhardt) in effigy and chanting "Allah Akbar!" then fair play. But the only way sending people in Muslim garb to just walk around at a NASCAR event is provocative is if their mere presence is enough to actually provoke somebody, which would validate the thesis. Thus, the shrillness of the righty tighties' reactions implies they are really worried that someone might get up in the face of Muslims at the race, which, to me, perpetuates the whole NASCAR fan/racist paradigm.

Cruising through MadMalkin's posts on the subject, she put up an e-mail from an astute stupid reader:

Michelle,
I hasten to point out that you've been so engrossed by the staging of the news by NBC, something that is worthy to discuss of course, but you miss something that I found hysterical. The email you cite says the following:

"I have been talking with a producer of the NBC Dateline show and he is in the process of filming a piece on anti-Muslim and anti-Arab discrimination in the USA. They are looking for some Muslim male candidates for their show who would be willing to go to non-Muslim gatherings and see if they attract any discriminatory comments or actions while being filmed.
They recently taped two turbaned Sikh men attending a football game in Arizona to see how people would treat them. They set them up with hidden microphones and cameras, etc."

Fair enough, I suppose, if that's what they want to find. But as an example of how their sting operation works, the email cites they sent two Sikhs to a football game. Sikhs are not Muslims, in fact the two religions historically hate each other and there have been wars fought between the two.

While NBC News is out trying to find discrimination, they are already blurring the lines of religious reality by not recognizing a Sikh is neither a Muslim or an Arab. How can viewers react to the news segment if they are misled that the two men at a football game in Arizona weren't actually what the segment was about?

This is considered insightful by people like Michelle Malkin. Of course I have to ask: how many Americans (particularly red-staters) can tell the difference between a Sikh and a Muslim?

Hmmmm....

Joe Bob: "Hey Bobby Joe, lookit than feller down there with the beard and turban. Y'all reckon he's an Eye-racky Mooslim like that there Saa-dam Hoosain?"

Bobby Joe: "Goddamn it, Joe Bob, ya ignant sonofabitch. That man right there is a Sikh. Historically speakin' there's a longstanding antipathy between Sikhs and Muslims, which has often manifested itself in violence. Now git me another Bud Light and pass the Copenhagen. Git'r done!

(Actually I'm not even sure how big the beef between practitioners of Sikhism and Islam is; it's entirely possible the dude above was confusing Sikhs with Hindus.)

Now, if two non-Muslim visible minority types in quasi-traditional garb were targets of anti-Muslim sentiments, that tells me two things

1) Anti-Muslim sentiment is a problem, and;
2) Rednecks can't tell the difference between Muslims and other visible minority types.

Which, once again, confirms (in a decidedly unscientific way) the whole thesis.

All of this is a long winded way of saying the obvious: right wingers sure are stupid.

Grits ain't groceries

Not being a Liberal partisan, I have but a passing interest in that party's leadership race. However, if I had to choose a candidate based on the one most likely to make me vote Grit (and hopefully oust the odious Harpercons), I'd have to pick Ken Dryden. He's smart, articulate, enough of a political outsider that he comes free of the kind of baggage that plagued the last Liberal regime, doesn't seem like an asshole like Ignatieff and, above all, is an ex-Hab. I can see the ads now....

TV screen slow fade in to unflattering photo of a chubby Stephen Harper.

Voice over: "Stephen Harper wants you to believe he has what it takes to lead Canada. But how many Stanley Cups has he won?"

Cut to: Archival photo of Dryden with Stanley Cup, as a list of accomplishments (Cup wins, Vezina trophies etc.) scrolls over.

Fade into: Photo of Dryden now, standing in his classic crease pose, maybe flashing his Cup rings.

Voice over: On ____, vote Ken Dryden for Prime Minister.

Fade out over Liberal party logo painted at centre ice.

Okay it ain't perfect but honestly: what does it say about our country when I'd rather have a man who used to take pucks in the head running the show than Stephen Harper?

T.M.I

I've been fighting what seems to be the stomach flu for the last little week or so. Really, you never know how much you miss the simple things-snacking, a beer after work, taking a solid dump-until you can't endulge in them. The first time you enjoy these things after a long layoff is a revalation.

Yawn.

I heard my first ever SoofYAWN Stevens song the other day. Oh my God, what rubbish. It was the one about John Wayne Gacy and the lyrics read like the wikipedia entry on the guy. At one point, I jokinly turned to my girlfriend and said "I bet he says something about dressing up like a clown." The next line? "He dressed up like a clown for them." Sooooo shitty.

I am pleased to see that art has finally started to imitate life over on "The O.C.", with Marissa/Mischa Barton starting in on the marching powder. No that I watch that show anymore, it's so bad.

"The Office", on the other hand, is dead funny. So is this, Chaleee.

Last night, something on TV really pissed me off and I wanted to write about it. But I forget what it was. Oh well.

Hope I die before I get older

I'd like to think that by the time I'm 40 (not too far away now), I'll be wearing suits to the office, going to bed at a reasonable hour, drinking wine that costs over $25 a bottle and generally enjoying the shit out of getting old. I hate the kids: why would I want to be them?

Then along comes this and frankly, it hits a little too close to home. Thank god I still have time to change my ways.

Buck

So this morning, I had a weird bit of jingle jam (when you get a song or a song snippet stuck in your head). It was the bit from CCR's "Lookin' Out My Backdoor" that goes: "There's a dinosair Victrola/listenin' to Buck Owens..." That isn't all that weird, but for the fact that I came into work and found out Buck Owens died today.

Cheney, Cheney, Cheney, stop being such a dick

Brakes are fantastic.

Conservative women hate vaginas, monologues

Today I present the (belated) International Woman's Day edition of our favorite game "Conservative idiocy". This week's edition stars Monique Stewart.

Monique Stuart was a teenager when Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" first appeared off-off-Broadway a decade ago.
But by the time the 24-year-old saw the play in her senior year of college, she'd already made up her mind that it wasn't worth much.
"It really confirmed everything I already thought about the play," she says.

I don't know about you, but I form all my opinions from snap judgments based on little or no evidence.

Which explained why she was standing behind a lectern at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Northwest recently, telling other young women how to be good conservatives -- and how to bring some protest drama of their own to Ensler's work.
"It's disgusting," she said. "The play defines women as their sexual organs."

I think her choice of words is pretty telling. She might as well have said "It's disgusting, it smells bad, it looks weird and it gets slightly wet when Ann Coulter is on T.V. I hate my vagin...I mean The Vagina Monologues."

The show has always had its detractors, but this year conservatives worked to transform the season of "The Vagina Monologues" into a season of the Vagina Debates. Stuart can take some credit for that.
As program officer at the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, a Herndon-based group with ties to some of Washington's most powerful conservatives, Stuart helped coordinate the movement.

Holy shit. This nitwit gets paid for this job? I wonder what her business card says? "Vagina Agitator?"

The play strings together interviews with 200 women into a series of stories, some full of humor, some full of pleasure, others full of abuse and violence. "Women's sanity was saved by bringing these hidden experiences into the open, naming them and turning our rage into positive action," feminist Gloria Steinem wrote in 1998.
But Stuart sees a different message, one that "tells women to look for their own fulfillment through sex."
Stuart asks, "Is that supposed to liberate them or empower them?"

The lowly vagina, you see, is not meant to be an empowering sexual organ. That distinction belongs soley to Teh Cock.

It's been a road to empowerment for Stuart, at least, who seems to have found her conservative voice through protesting the play. She took up the cause as a student at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I.
Stuart grew up in a liberal Connecticut family, but in her sophomore year, she attended a debate that included conservative commentator Ann Coulter and came away enthralled. Soon she had joined the College Republicans.

Well no wonder she has a problem with vaginas. The sight of Coulter's parchment-like flesh, emaciated frame and tooth'd maw is enough to shrivel any wang and dessicate any cooter within a 1,000 yard radius. Also: "enthralled"? Did the WaPo reporter check Stuart's neck for Coulter fang marks?

Then, the summer before her senior year, while she was an intern in Washington, she went to an event featuring conservative author Christina Hoff Sommers, who attacked the play.
Stuart finally read it -- and decided she was on Hoff Sommers's side.

Anyone else getting the picture of someone really desperate to rebel against her "liberal" family background? So desperate that she's willing to absorb any half-baked conservative idea without question or analysis? Just an observation.

During winter break of her senior year, she retyped "The Vagina Monologues," replacing every use of the word "vagina" with "penis," and called the result "The Penis Monologues."
"When you call it 'The Penis Monologues,' that's ridiculous. It's ridiculous on the other side as well," she says.

Actually what's really ridiculous is spending a significant amount of time retyping "The Vagina Monologues," replacing every use of the word "vagina" with "penis," and calling it a clever send-up. Quite simply, the amended version would completely lack and meaning or context. It'd be like replacing every reference to "liberals" in Ann Coulter's entire ouvre with the word "booger". It's sophomoric and utterly nonsensical (though in the Coulter/booger case, a vast improvement).

Stuart held a reading of her rewrite last spring and invited Hoff Sommers to campus for a lecture. To promote it, a friend of Stuart's dressed in a six-foot phallus costume and distributed fliers.
It impressed Hoff Sommers enough that she wrote about it in the National Review online.

If you read the Hoff Summers NRO article is pretty funny. She takes great issue with the play's "vulgarity" and sums it up as a "raunchy play, which consists of various women talking in graphic, and I mean graphic, terms about their intimate anatomy." It's clear the conservative ire with the "Monologues" is simply this: they don't want to hear about those gross, dirty, smelly vaginas. In other words, the Vagina Monologues backlash is precisely the kind of partiarchal, anti-sex, anti-woman crap the play was written to counter in the first place. But anyway, back to little Miss Vagina.

Stuart traveled the country and visited local campuses to organize the campaign. In November, she was on Georgetown University's campus, where Luce was co-sponsoring a talk by conservative Michelle Malkin. Stuart handed out books resembling Playbill that criticized "The Vagina Monologues."
Early last month, Stuart joined a conference call with more than a dozen women's outreach directors from the College Republicans to talk about protesting the play, says Sarah Armstrong, the national women's outreach director. "We try to get good speakers who are not only real role models but who can help us in our states with increasing activism," Armstrong says. "She's coming from the same place we're coming from."

What place is that? The Land of Trivial Obsessions?

Georgetown freshman Anthony Bonna took a copy of Stuart's Playbill back in November. A few weeks later, he called her to get one of the institute's anti-V-Day kits, with posters that ask, "Aren't women worth more than their private parts?" He and a few friends plastered the campus. Later, shortly before one of the "Vagina Monologues" Georgetown shows, he went door to door in a dorm to raise money for the same battered women's shelter that the show was benefiting.
It was an act to "show you can help out women without seeing a play that attacks traditional values," he said.

I can see the placard now: "Vaginas are not a Family Value".
these fuckers really parody themselves, don't they?