Making Her Mark Marking Her Territory

There's no question we're in the age of trolling, from people voting with potato sacks on their heads to a basketball player's fiancée texting all of his ''side chicks''... all 200 of them.

Now, I don't know anything about basketball except that there's a guy named LeBron James, there used to be a guy named Carmelo Anthony, and that Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, ''Magic'' Johnson and Wilt Chamberlain used to play the sport, when they weren't busy scoring off the field.

Which is admittedly what Victor Cruz seems to be doing as well. Good on Elaina Watley to mark her territory, though. I guess.

Here they are in, presumably, happier days:

Here's the group text she sent:

Touché. Literally.

That Canadian Feeling

I rarely identify as Canadian on the international scene, except when nothing else gets understood.

I do, however, fully identify with this year's Miss Canada contestant in the Miss Universe pageant, who went all-out Canadian stereotype (minus, say, beer, maple syrup and poutine) for her amazing uniform, preferring fun (with winks to the sometimes off-the-wall absurdity of High Fashion) to sexiness or whatever else might make a judge look at her beauty instead of her character:

The internets were both aflame and all-praise for her boldness, and I stand firmly in the line of ''backers'' on this one.

The score (20-14) reflects the year she was crowned Miss Canada, but some idiots went misogynistic in their disapproval (''is that the number of guys she's just had'') while others doubted her hockey knowledge (''those are football scores / there are no touchdowns in hockey dummy''), but I have decided to not promote angry adults living in their parents' basements because they're still grounded from 20 years ago; they can keep doing what they've been doing most of their lives and fuck themselves.

Kudos to you, Chanel Beckenlehner, for having the galls to have balls and character, not just stunning looks and a degree in Political Sciences from the University of Toronto. I don't know if you've won or will win Miss Universe, but you've won my respect.

The State Of (Indie) Rock

I read a piece a few weeks back that I thought was bang-on about the state of indie rock, whose bottom line was ''it has no balls'' compared to any other meaningful rock movement before it, and you can use your imagination to remember the impact Chuck Berry's feet and Elvis Presley's hips had, to The Rolling Stones and The Animals and Cream in England to Bob Dylan, even, in folk, to the heavy-band music of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, to punk rock to post-punk to Guns N' Roses to grunge to techno (both the Detroit revolution and the mid-1990s U.K.-based boom) to hip hip - from Afrika Bambaataa to Public Enemy to N.W.A. to Wu-Tang Clan to Outkast.

The article itself blamed blogs, namely those who keep bringing the same crowd-pleasing faux-indie acts to the spotlight, and he used the following top-10 to drive his point home:

• 01: Of Monsters and Men – My Head is an Anima
• 02: The Lumineers – The Lumineers
• 03: John Samson – Provincial
• 04: Mumford and Sons – Babel
• 05: Sufjan Stevens – Silver and Gold
• 06: The Walkmen – Heaven
• 07: Beach House – Bloom
• 08: Matt & Kim – Lightning
• 09: fun. – Some Nights
• 10: Jack White – Blunderbuss

I agree that, apart from Jack White, there's nothing worthy of a top-10 list there. And he lost his indie cred to most people (not me) because everything he touches turns to gold he made it big repeatedly.

And it ends with with this firecracker:

In 1992, when Donita Sparks of L7 pulled out her tampon and threw it at the crowd at the Reading Festival, she didn’t do it to create a YouTube sensation or to make a Pitchfork top 10 list. She did it in a moment of genuine defiance and frustration at a crowd flinging mud onstage. She knew what was between her legs and she wasn’t afraid to use it. And by that, I don’t mean a bloody tampon; I mean a serious pair of balls. She had more balls than the members of Fleet Foxes can ever hope to have. And that kids, is what rock and roll is all about.

And I tend to agree - both with the state of disposable music, and that rock (and most music, actually) should have a rebellious energy.

My friend, sometimes band mate and at times Voice Of Reason John 'Triangles' Stuart took offense to most of what Ms Kitty Vincent wrote in a well-written piece of which I will quote the following:

For someone who came of age with first wave punk and hardcore, grunge, as I perceived it was the last, pathetic, gasp of the dying 80’s punk scene. Yah I know Sonic Youth calls it ‘the year that punk broke’ but really it was more like the year that punk died. I mean can you actually believe that grunge isn’t watered down vaguely Black Flag/Sabbath/ Husker Du/ Grand Funk Railroad.  Anyone not living in the Pacific Northwest in 1991 probably heard Nirvana et al from MTV. Good old underground MTV, they never tried to shape anyone’s taste, especially when they were airing Smells Like Teen Spirit every 18 minutes. (...)

More mindfucking is that she just instructed people not to buy records by indie artists.  I suppose they should just stay home and listen to Geffen Nirvana box sets while watching VHS recordings of Lollapalooza. (...)

Another problem is that apparently these kids aren’t angry enough – because you know anger is the only authentic emotion. Well, aside from Rage Against the Machine and some riot grrrls, I can’t really think of too many political grunge bands. Soundgarden? Ooh that’s some heavy angry political shit eh, just like Gang of Four or the Au Pairs, or The Style Council and the Red Wedge tour. Grunge was not a political scene, sorry, Amnesty pamphlets at some fucking festival with fat-ass corporate sponsors just don’t cut it. Wearing a “corporate rock sucks” t-shirt on the cover of Rolling Stone? No, saying fuck off to Rolling Stone & MTV would be more like it.

Good point about grunge being mostly non-indie, but I have to take points away for the political thing: bands like Pearl Jam said no completely to RS and MTV, supported Ralph Nader's two runs for the Presidency (and went on the Vote For Change tour), fought Ticketmaster's monopoly and exorbitant surplus charges in court and accompanied women into abortion clinics (the reasoning behind that is that one is less likely to kill a rock star than a single, teenage mom). Also, again: Fuck Soundgarden.

For me, it's probably just more where I'm at in my life at this exact moment, and what I'm most in the mood for. And that with Ben Gibbard being in tons of projects (the best of them being Postal Service and Death Cab For Cutie, of course), he's already flooding the scene with (fine) soft songs, I don't need a hundred imitators to sound exactly like him on the radio, on TV, in Festivals and in ads.

I need some diversity, I need originality, and above all, I need to feel what I'm listening to is real. Anyone who doesn't hear that The Lumineers is watered-down Arcade Fire needs to be tied to a chair and taught some serious lessons.

I'd start with Classical (Baroque, Classical and Romantic), move to tribal African or middle eastern, then move onto the blues (early 1900s, then Delta, Memphis, Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans), touch on jazz and the history of Montréal during prohibition until the mid-1960s, then the blues-inspired (mostly British) rock, then hard rock, funk, punk, post-punk, hair metal (a.k.a. 'cock rock') for a few laughs, the ''good'' bands who wore make-up (half the lesson on The Cure, of course), GN'R, grunge, metal, how truly great Rage was and the unfortunate shitty bands they inspired (from Korn to Deftones, but mostly Limp Bizkit and Papa Roach), a two-part class on how rap started as having a message and split into one faction that was all about 'the bling' while the other more about abstract poetry, and electronic music, from house to industrial to drum-and-bass and how the fuck it ever got castrated enough to end up on Madonna records.

And we're back to the balls. Half of AC/DC's songs are about balls. If it was all about the testies, though, I'd be the most successful artist on the planet, and yet, I'm among the poorest fucking saps currently owning a guitar on the planet - whether that's a testament that they don't matter or they're just not fashionable these days isn't up to me to judge, but that's a fact.

However this turns out in the end, though, I will be comfortable knowingly having become a cynical bastard, listening to shit I like, not giving a fuck about the shit I hate, biding my time until my brand of entertainment comes to me and going back in my cave when it leaves. Just like I have since age 10.

I Found Someone With Bigger Balls Than Me

Sure, he weighs 450lbs, but 100 of those pounds are contained in his scrotum.

And if that's not enough:

Wesley Warren's breathing is laboured. He suffers from high blood pressure and asthma. He can't urinate normally or have sex. He has daily bouts of depression. Getting dressed takes nearly an hour, and then he carries the appendage around covered in a hoodie and resting on a pillow-topped milk crate.

This Dog Looks Like A Cock

From my friend Yan's blog. From two other peoples'. 's. 's.

Ok, fine, so the blogosphere is fucking nuts. 'Cause he looks like a furry pair of them.

Videos Of The Week: Gotye (Feat. Kimbra) and Walk Off The Earth

Here it is, the soundtrack of the last month for me, Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know. Goddamn, what I good fucking song, full of emotion, truth and sorrow.

Gotye is a Belgian-Australian songwriter born Wouter ''Wally'' De Backer and has won multiple awards for this song in 2011.



The song caught even more steam in North America of late through Walk Off The Earth's cover of the song, in a just-as-subtle-yet-just-as-great video featuring 5 musicians playing on the same guitar. For a rare time, I also include the cover, as co-Video Of The Week.



Sarah Blackwood's voice is one for the ages.

Ball Handling

I bet she could give a few basketball players some ball-handling lessons... wait, no, that's not how I should have phrased that.

Alexander Semin Has Balls

It's a little old in terms of news but the Washington Capitals' Alexander Semin has called out the NHL's superstar and #1 attraction, Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby, as not being as talented as the hype surrounding him would suggest.

In a TSN.ca article, indeed, the NHL's leading scorer (that would be Semin, by the way) goes as far as saying sophomore Patrick Kane of the Chicago Black Hawks has better moves and an overall better game.

While I haven't seen Kane play enough to either agree or diagree with that last statement, I do agree that Corsby has been overhyped and is nowhere near the best player in the league as of yet. Tampa Bay Lightning forward Vincent Lecavalier, Detroit Red Wings defender Nicklas Lidstrom and Calgary Flames power forward Jarome Iginla, among others, would be way ahead.

He's not even the best in his age range (the Caps' Alexander Ovechkin and Calgary Flames defenseman Dion Phaneuf would be ahead of him in that last category, in my book).

But he is still young and could develop into a real force if he bulks up and stops whining. And is likely in the top 30 forwards in the game as it is, which is still ahead of most others.

It's a debate that will only be settled when all players have retired and comparisons can be made. In the meantime, though, Alexander Semin's first real interaction with the North American media has been one in which he's shown tremendous character. After all, you don't get recognition by beating puppies (unless you're Michael Vick), but by going for one of the top dogs.

Family Guy Has Balls

I haven't always been a fan of Family Guy. I've thought their strong points, the only funny parts, were in bits that usually had nothing to do with the story line, as opposed to, oh, say... The Simpsons, who fit their jokes into a story line, which when done right is much better, subtler, smarter, but when done wrong becomes obvious, apparent, contrived and cheap. In recent seasons, The Simpsons have gone back to doing it well, for a viewership in the modern era, when they had gone more '50s and forced on their base in seasons previous.

But Family Guy has taken a few bold stances worth noticing recently, and it would be wrong to not mention it at all. For instance, this clip takes a bold stance on the upcoming U.S. Presidential election by showing a nazi who supports the McCain-Palin ticket - of which I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

It remains to be seen whether Family Guy can go the South Park way and become a quintessential big-audience animation show that ignites position-taking and provokes thoughts on a constant basis (on current divise issues, more often than not) rather than just go for a cheap pop-culture laugh - and I'm not even sure it's their intention to get there either. But this particular shot was bold, and deserved mention.

On either side of the political spectrum, when someone has balls, it's good to talk about it; even more when they're on the right side.