Bread Face

Via The New York Times (via BuzzFeed, Vice and Instagram...) comes Bread Face, a woman who, well, uh, likes to smash her face into bread.

Is it art? Is it comedy? Is it just a weird fucking fetish? Is it just that it feels good?

If you can, look up the one where she does it over a super-salty pretzel from Brookly hipster spot Black Forest, over Jennifer Paige's 1998 pop hit Crush... as much as I love pretzels, I'm just worried she'll get salt in her eye(s).

On Suicide

Many things have been said about suicide in the past couple of days, what with the death of Robin Williams and the fact that he was so beloved and touched and inspired so many people.

But the smartest thing came from my friend Yan, blogger (and songwriter) extraordinaire, and I will quote most all of it because just one part would not be enough:

A famous person committed suicide so of course tumblr and the rest of the internet is going to be filled with patronizing BS about suicide for the next several days.

I mean no disrespect to Robin Williams or to the people paying tribute to him, but please please please for the love of god spare me your saccharine messages about how suicide is never the answer.

This is a very unpopular opinion but I believe that sometimes suicide is the answer and I wish people would respect that choice. Yes, I know there’s mental illness involved and suicidal people are not always thinking clearly, but I can’t stand the way well-meaning people speak condescendingly to people who are suicidal.

Why can’t we just let people go with dignity? Why not accept the fact that sometimes people reach a point where the pain is so great that it completely obliterate all other consideration and there is only one way out? Yes it sucks for those who are left behind. I know because I’ve been left behind a few times. But don’t you think people who are suicidal already know that? That they will be missed? They’re not stupid babies. They are aware of the pain they are going to cause and they probably already feel a tremendous amount of guilt over it. But when your own pain reaches a certain point, that doesn’t matter anymore.

I don’t want to upset people and I’m certainly not advocating suicide, but stop treating people like babies.

I share that opinion. Deeply.

I find it very selfish for people to ''oppose'' suicide, and the same goes for hastags like #endsuicide. Like Yan said, apart from hurting loved ones - who likely will feel pain at other moments in their lives as well - where is the harm in taking your own life? Aren't there enough humans on earth for whatever purposes you had in mind? And what if this particular human felt they had done what they needed to, or all that they could have, or that every single one of their efforts led to no change for the best for anyone/anything? The species can afford one less, all the better if it's someone who doesn't feel like giving Life another try rather than, say, kids who are collateral damage in a shitty war no one will benefit from.

I say #keepsuicidealive. I'm pro choice. All the time.

That being said, R.I.P. Mr. Williams. I re-watched Death To Smoochy tonight, because it's one of his most under-rated films, and part of when he - as an actor - turned to darker roles rather than all-serious or all-comedy. Maybe I'll watch One Hour Photo tomorrow. And try not to kill myself on Thursday.

''Unnecessary'' ''Quotation'' Marks

Not that I'm picky about grammar... actually, yes, I am. But I don't specialize in just one pet peeve the way this blog on Unnecessary Quotation Marks does.

These examples sum it up pretty well:

Are they hiding a lion in there?

I wouldn't drink it...

There's a restaurant near my house that also has a sign like this, but for Chinese... except everyone working there is Indian

Go look it up, it's a good 15 minutes of laughter. Ideal to start or end your day on the right foot.

Fathers Day

On Fathers Day, I texted my dad. I'd spoken to him for over a half hour the previous day, and I knew he was working and wouldn't have slept the night before, so I didn't want to impose another conversation that wouldn't be as ''deep'' as the one we'd just have.

Funny that I didn't have a dad for the first 20 years of my life - or not a permanent one, and certainly not the biological one - and now that I do, I treat him as if he'd always been there.

But the best Fathers Day thing I've read this year was from Enid-Raye Adams' blog, which quoted another one, and can be found here. I'll just quote her conclusion:

To all the Moms out there doing both jobs, Happy Father's Day.
And to the Dads that stay and do the work, you are a treasure beyond description.

Good stuff.

Video Of The Week: Katie Armiger

Yep, for the second straight week, I'm featuring a young, strong country singer - though this time her style fits completely with what you might have in mind when it comes to modern country music.

But like last week's bad-girl Nikki Lane, good-girl Katie Armiger has the confidence and swagger to party around flames, though in Armiger's case, it wasn't from burning a bad boyfriend's Harley, just ''regular'' pyrotechnics:



I mean, sure, she's pretty, but what hits me first and foremost is exactly the opposite: with 4 professional records in 4 years, hundreds of live shows and tons of people met who were as impressed with her talent as they were her looks - and all that at just 22 years of age - Katie Armiger has lived, in such a short time, what most people don't experience in a whole lifetime. And when a stunning woman has to deal with saying ''no'' more often than she does ''hello'', that builds character the likes of which men twice her age will never even come close to.

In the Playin' With Fire video shown above, she has that Leelee Sobieski / Jennifer Lawrence look going for her, but mixed with a dirty, working-girl attire, saying lines like ''I'm already crazy and I feel fine / as I cross this line between wrong and right'', ''I'm already lit and this ain't done yet'' and ''I like the burn''. And there's the look in her eyes in every close-up. And the totally sexual way she cranks up and uses that flame-thrower (in high heels, no less).

She's in control, and not much can stop her. I'd say the sky's the limit, but she can even shatter that if she wants to.

I first came to realize she existed when recording songs at Studio Loco in Montréal, where her Confessions Of A Nice Girl CD laid on a table. I put it on out of sheer curiosity and had expected ballads and cutesy, wholesome songs from the cover, but instead found well-written, beat-driven songs that I instantly connected with. I've been a fan ever since. Here's the cover art in question:

Tiny Super Heroines

I thought I'd mention this site today, whose address is Better Supes but whose official name is Little Girls R Better At Designing Heroes Than You, because I like the thought process that went behind it: superheroes drawn based on pictures sent in of little girls wearing costumes.

It negates the need, desire and tendency to add unnecessary boobage, cleavage and under-dressing those who would hypothetically save our measly lives. The only quip I have is that they ed up looking a bit like generic comic teens (i.e. default lack of boobage because too young to have them):

But there were instances where the end result was nothing short of spectacular, including one ''evil doctor'' I encourage you to seek out on their site. My personal favourite is this one:

The initial drawing is exactly like the picture, so it really is that girl, and you can really see her giving it her all for whatever cause she wishes to defend or attack; the added 8-bit Castlevania-like video game character design is just added fun.

Big fan of the Pink Knight.

Celebrities That Look Like Mattresses

Oh God. So good.

Is Sad And Useless the best website at the moment? If not, they're damn close, and their Celebrities That Look Like Matresses (sic) post is the best page I've seen all year...

Here's a sample:

However, their Metal Albums With Googly Eyes post is almost just as good...

April's Blog Suggestions

I have met a lot of creative individuals in my lifetime, and vowed to stay informed and updated on/in their lives, then Life happened and it fell through.

But there are two of these people - who you may not have heard of, though you definitely should have - who have kept hacking at their dream and their voice while living normal lives and raising families and going through hardships, hard times, hard shit - and that I have moderately stayed in contact with.

In no particular order, here they are, both back in the blogging game.

First, Charlotte Martin. She is a terrific songwriter, an exceptional singer, and an even better human being. Married to Ken Andrews (formerly of Failure and Replicants, now a music producer and engineer) for roughly a decade, they have two children and live in California (though she is originally from Chicago). They take turns touring so that one can stay behind with the kids, and her fanbase and circle of friends often intertwines in an odd way that never would have been possible before the internet age. Because of that, she was able to survive and thrive even after ending her relationship with major label RCA.

You should also follow Enid-Raye Adams. She will likely write a lot less often than Charlotte, but every post will turn your life upside down. She hails from Western Canada and at some point decided it would mean a better life for her to return there, but in between she was probably on the verge of finding regular work in Hollywood; you may have seen her in Final Destination 2, The L Word, Dead Like Me, Babylon 5 and Slap Shot 2, but she has since played in a lot of TV series that were filmed in Canada, such as Fringe, The Haunting Hour and Arctic Air. She's an extremely smart person who isn't just a terrific performer but also has a couple of really good screenplays in her. She is also trying to juggle a family life with the added reality of hard economic troubles and a constant questioning of her place in the world, and her level of happiness.

They are both very open about their lives, especially their pain - though Enid-Raye perhaps more so than Charlotte, because she has this feeling that no one's reading her stuff and treats it like a diary that perhaps even her husband doesn't know about (if he does, I hope he doesn't find out about her state of mind through it at times), whereas CharMar feels like each of her readers is a close friend that she doesn't want to have worrying about her.

They are both extremely compelling and thought-provoking. And people you can't help feeling for.

Fear And Loathing In Montréal

I've told you before of my friend Yan, a brilliant if at times insecure human being. Brilliant because every single one of his thoughts - be they about social issues or cute cats - seem like they were thought out for years, and are usually irrefutable.

But I don't mean 'insecure' in the 'afraid to speak his mind' way - heck no, he'll give complete strangers a piece of his mind if needed - but more in the 'I hope my friends remain friends after what I just said' way. Yet all of his friends are there precisely because we want to hear what he has to say.

That being said, he's changed the name of his blog to Une Haine Incommensurable, a French title, though he'll keep writing in English. Here's the explanation:

Even the title of my blog says a lot about my outlook on social interactions online - ''une haine incommensurable" translates to ''a hate so great it can't be measured." I changed my blog title to that recently because it’s a pretty accurate description of what I feel most of the time.

 Furthermore:

I think the problem is that I'm so overwhelmed by the shittiness of the world that I no longer believe it’s possible to reverse it. I've given up hope. All I see is willful ignorance and smug privilege and a complete refusal to even admit that there might be a problem or two with the way the world runs. And the same stupidity and cruelty demonstrated over and over and over again by countless anonymous dudebros and I just can’t take it anymore. I want all you people to burn. You're not worth saving. 

 And though I don't always see eye-to-eye with him, that is precisely how I feel about where I live (city, province, country, continent, even fucking planet) these days. And for the past year or two, as a matter of fact. The extent to which the world is a decaying, infected, all-kinds-of-wrong hellhole and the people are rotten, puss-filled, lying, twisted cancers makes me sick.

Fear And Loathing indeed.

Tonight: USA Out Of Vietnam

Picture courtesy of Meet You At The Show

Still in the midst of unpacking after a Monday move, I'm missing a show I wish I could attend, at my favourite venue in town - Casa Del Popolo. The act? None other than the mighty USA Out Of Vietnam.

For some idea on what you're missing, I'll refer you to my friend Triangles' blog right here. And he's right - $7 nets you this 60-minute opus and is a steal. Jonathan 'Johnson' Cummins always finds a way to make his projects special and different from anything he's touched previously; this one is closest to what The Besnard Lakes are doing, in that it is more atmospheric, rehearsed, structured and, well, longer in song duration than anything Doughboys or Bionic could throw at you, but its energy is no less primal. If anything, it's a lot more from the gut than the music he released in the 1980s and 1990s.

The plethora of collaborators in the studio give way to a mere 4-pice onstage, but don't let the sheer numbers fool you, this rock machine packs a heck of a punch. On a heaviness scale of Warrant to Darkthrone (or Poison to Entombed), it's a hard Kyuss. Yet, it can make a grown man cry more than watching his favourite sports team lose a championship in the final minute of a deciding game.

If you can make it, I advise you do.

Awesome Pictures In/Near Water

I love great pictures, and my favourite colour ones usually involve water and/or various shades of blue - the flashier the better. This Russian blog had just what I was looking for today, terrific pieces of art from Finnish photographer Susanna Majuri:

There are 29 in total, I encourage you to check them out.

Writing

Writing; it's a hell of a beast. Yes, I meant writing, not writers. Writers are a disparate bunch, but most of those who consider themselves to be writers have this idealized preconceived notion that it's a glamorous way to kill oneself through poverty and acclaim, when it is often one and rarely the other, and almost never done in the spotlight.

The spotlight kills, always has, always will. Not just writers, but thinkers too. Very few revel in it, and most who do do so fort such short periods of time hat it's irrelevant. From a three-movie career (hello, James Dean) to a decade of high-level sports success (Patrick Roy, Wayne Gretzky), they are shooting stars in a world of dead planets.

So, no, this won't be about writers.

The action of sitting down to put thoughts into words drives a few of us to the brink of (in)sanity, usually because it causes us to exist on a parallel plane, one in which we have time to ourselves, one in which we can afford to take a moment and not make a living for a while. Time is often more an enemy than inspiration, which can be triggered. You can't invent hours, make them up from scratch when you've run out - if so, one could harness that skill to create immortality. And yet some dedicate their lives to this... but, of course, I digress. Which I do so often I'm probably an evil mastermind in a poor sci-fi movie.

Where I meant to go was here, to a blog post by Kelly Kay, a friend-of-a-friend I met at an UnPop show I put on three or four years ago, someone I would have liked to get to know better but probably scared instead. Which is fine, because I already have all the friends-I-don't-have-the-time-to-be-around that I can handle.

Like myself, Kelly's a film grad who loves music, particularly of the live variety, and who, in an ideal world, would get paid to write whatever's on her mind. except her mind is twisted, violently, because she spends way too much time over-analyzing stuff like Lana Del Rey as a fictional, built-up character personalizing America; it's at once mesmerizing, compelling and haunting - not the subject matter, but the depth to which she dives into it. It's a heck of an interesting read.

Horny Stock Photos

You can find anything these days on the internet, and half the sites are filled with stock photos. It was only a matter of time before people with too much time on their hands compiled them into funny lists, and from there, to compile the weird ones.

And so I bring you Horny Stock Photos. Awkward work stuations galore, with a sample of my two favourites:

Seriously? Groping? She's paid to just sit sit there, and even she's thinking ''oh HELL no!''

1000 Posts (!)

I can't believe I used my 1000th post to write about a dumb story about humans preferring sex and alcohol to religion and work.

I started this blog about six years ago, and have witnessed a shitload of stuff. I saw a bird committing suicide; I broke my back and farted in someone's face; I went to Cuba and had the best time of my life; did nothing - not even move - for 15 straight hours; went on 3-to-5-day sleepless stints more times than I can count; challenged Murphy's Law and lost - time and time again; and again; I've been let down and got back up; I almost fucking died.

I played solo shows, shows with my band, with experimental projects, with ''bands made of friends''. Even played in a Velvet Underground cover band. I even stole the show by just being a guest on one song.

I could have written about anything old, anything new, and I chose a bottom-drawer story.

What I should have done is thank you, anyone who would read this, whoever you are.

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.

America Versus Poutine

So someone at BuzzFeed is angry that Americans can't do poutine right, and explains how and why in much detail...

Source: midnightpoutine.ca

Let me tell you something, Henry Goldman, sir, most of Canada can't get it right either. In Toronto, most places use mozzarella or regular cheddar rather than cheddar curds; in Manitoba or Saskatchewan, you can get a severe beating just for ordering one - and my fist was sore from defending myself (and cops were coming), so I had to leave before it even got to my table.

Truth is, while the Rest Of Canada has shown a bizarre love for poutine in particular but Québec foods in general (the current debate is figuring out which between poutine and pea soup is the country's official dish...), it's pretty hard to find a decent fries-brown sauce-cheese meal outside of La Belle Province. Heck, there are probably as many good ones as there are God-awful ones even in Québec.

What we need is a list of decent places, pictures, and a how-to list that we can print out and carry at all times and take out whenever we crave one, and force restaurants to make us one on the spot whether it's on the menu or not - it could become the ''order off the menu'' of our generation.

Fries, cheese curds, warm gravy on top.

Paradise.

Noise Park

Many people take the South Park-themed apps to ''Park'' themselves, their friends, or their idols - or just waste time. The good people at Noise Park took it one step further and took the entire genre of experimental music and turned it into the crude cut-up-style creatures we love watching on TV:

Jean-Michel Jarre

Aphex Twin

Albert Ayler

Whether it's electronica, jazz or whatever that soft prog Jean-Michel Jarre creates, they are now part of the Noise Park universe!

Girlfriend Of The Year

Murad Osman is one lucky guy - his girlfriend seems to take him all around the world, and he's documenting it in an original way, by taking an Instagram picture of each place where she seemingly pulls him by the hand towards a landmark:

Unfortunately, Instagram being what it is (social network-meets-photo editor), most of these look like drawings - and, thus, fake - rather than photo-documentaries.

Still, these are sights to behold, whether he looks like he actually visited them or not.

Model Citizen

As an ''old'' guy in my early 30s, I remember the days before the internet, where it was virtually impossible for a guy in Winter Wonderland to come into contact with California a top model who will fact-check his blog post herself.

This is exactly what happened to me when Kirsty Lingman (also known as Kirsty Lingman Santos) did so on my Collectibles blog.

There is no time like the present.

Theoadore

My friend Theo likes to cook, drink, and dress fabulously, but his favourite activity is - without a shadow of a doubt - talking about cooking, drinking and what he's wearing.

Lucky for us, he recently discovered the joys of blogging and can do so online, for all to read.

Best of all, most of the stuff he makes is pretty simple, including his Bloody Caesar, detailed here.

Test two of those recipes, and call me in the morning don't call me!