Video Of The Week: The Cars

Let's take a short break from hockey predictions to acknowledge one of the best songwriting talents in 20th Century Rock, Ric Ocasek, who was found dead earlier at the age of 75. He was inducted along with his other The Cars bandmates into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2018 (I sure as fuck voted for them, yes).

He also put out some terrific solo albums, my favourite being 1997's Troublizing, which included bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur (Tinker, Hole, The Smashing Pumpkins, a great solo career in stoner rock), drummer Matt Walker (Filter, Garbage, The Smashing Pumpkins, Morrissey) and Billy Corgan (The Smashing Pumpkins) on guitar, keyboards and backing vocals.

But I wanted to focus on The Cars for the moment, seeing as that's what Ocasek was most known for. My favourite Cars song is My Best Friend's Girl, with Just What I Needed ranking a close second:

I'm still looking for additional information pertaining to the video, including who directed it. When I find out, I'll update this paragraph.

Okasek also produced a ton of records for other artists, including Suicide, Bad Brains, Bad Religion, Nada Surf, Le Tigre, No Doubt, and, most recently, Weezer. He just may be the king of Power Pop.

The Birth Of Father's Day

For most of my life, on Father's Day, my Mom would take us to my grandparents' place so the entire family could celebrate with the Family Elder. I'd wish every dad a "Happy Father's Day" except my grandad, who got the "Happy Grandfather's Day" greeting instead. Only from me, not any of his other grandkids.

I "met" my own father when I was 20. Before then, I had a succession of men volunteering for the job with varying levels of conviction; only one of them had some level of success, my brother's dad, who lived with us for over a decade. I learned many Life lessons from him; he was a lawyer, a sports fan, a history buff, a grammar nazi and a music aficionado - all things I could relate with or grew at least a passing interest in.

Still, I realized when I got to meet my biological father that we had even stronger bonds despite never having spoken to each other prior - he was court-ordered to never (ever, not even after I reached adulthood) contact me before I'd learned to speak, as I'd just begun taking my first few steps. We shared the same mentality, the same animal instincts, the same food preferences, a penchant for alcoholized drinks, the same irrational fear of skunks... and so much more.

So I've been celebrating Father's Day with him for the past 20 years as well, but also with my grandpa.

A couple of weeks ago, my girlfriend gave birth to my very own son. I was going to get celebrated for Father's Day for the first time, myself. We had things planned out, first on my girlfriend's side for lunch and early-afternoon activities, then an evening with my dad and his lady.

Except that on Father's Day eve - Saturday morning - my Mom called, telling me my grandfather, who'd been living in an assisted-living facility for the past couple of years, took a turn for the worse during the night and was entering his final few hours.

He hung on for as long as he could and waited for every one of us to each have our moment alone with him before taking his final breath, and I left his building around 7 PM on Sunday without having seen my own son on my very first Father's Day.

Life wanted me to close out the "Grandfather's Day" chapter of my life before I was to enter my own "Dad" moment. It was bittersweet, it was sad, and I wasn't at my best when I finally saw my kid a few minutes ago, still going on two mostly sleepless nights and a tear-induced headache, but I came home to my own family to begin a new chapter, having closed one a car ride prior.

Like a well-written TV series script, there will be repercussions from this weekend in the coming weeks, months and years - my grandmother still lives in the same facility, for one, and some family members were forced to re-open some old wounds that will require new stitchings when facing the Family Elder, but Life has a way of tying together loose ends that works a lot better than anything J.J. Abrams or M. Night Shyamalan can cook up.

Onwards and forward.

Happy Father's Day to those who can have that - and a nice stroll down memory lane to those who can't.

Poppy Fields Forever

As usual, my friend Mark was on point by sending me this awesome image today:

Poppy fields forever.

Now, Canada, Justin Trudeau and other politicians, make this a paid Holiday all over the country. Our soldiers from WWI, WWII, Blue Berets and the soldiers that we lent to the Crown for wars such as the Korean War deserve the respect.

In Drugs News

What quantity is "too much drugs"? Depends on the drug.

How much is four and a half pounds of drugs? Again, depends on the drug.

Four and a half pounds of marijuana will fill four garbage bags and will last one "real" stoner  two and a half years.

Four and a half pounds of fentanyl could kill the entire city of Columbus, Ohio. You do not want that in the trunk of your car.

From Kaya Pharmacy

Then again, last August, authorities seized enough to kill half of New York City. That's 20 pounds, worth roughly $3M on the market, although I'm unsure if that's wholesale or whether it represents the street-level value that low-level dealers sell at.

And even that's nothing compared to the September bust which confiscated an amount enough to kill 32M people. That's 195 pounds.

That's what the War On Drugs should be after.

Thank You, Keith Olbermann

I was going to post about Donald Trump's bullshit regarding the death of American troops in Niger, General John Kelly's bullshit in defending Trump, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders' bullshit in defending Kelly - and how it was all hypocritical.

I had a lot to say, but not only did Keith Olbermann beat me to it, he's so passionate about it that he spits when he talks a couple of times, so I thought I should share his rant instead:

Weird, tough times.

Video Of The Week: The Tragically Hip

Well, it had to happen, and so it has: The Tragically Hip's lead singer and central figure, Gord Downie, has passed away from his incurable brain cancer.

My own personal history with the Hip began with their 1989 "true" debut Up To Here's second single, New Orleans Is Sinking, the first (Blow At High Dough) not making a dent in what I was listening to at the time at 10-11 years old (Guns N' Roses' Appetite For Destruction and GNR Lies, Kiss' Crazy Nights, N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton, Def Leppard's Hysteria, Michael Jackson's Thriller and Bad, Prince's Batman soundtrack, Queen's The Miracle, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Mother's Milk, and Bon Jovi's New Jersey). But New Orleans had something, a feel, a groove that I could deal with. I say "true" debut, by the way, because I'd seen their self-titled Tragically Hip 1987 EP release in stores at that point, but didn't buy it until 1992 or 1993; Up To Here was their first full-length endeavour. I didn't really think much of the rest of that record, so I waited for the second one, 1991's Road Apples, to be very discounted (under $10) to give it a go, and I loved Little Bones, Twist My Arm, and Cordelia right away. I liked the rest of it, too, but not as much as the one-two-three punch at the beginning of the record, which I still go to in order from time to time.

1992's Fully Completely was a whole new ballgame. All killer, no filler. This was what cemented the band as a force to be reckoned with on the Canadian mainstream rock stage, with reason. Out of the 12 songs on the album, only four do not qualify as "hits". They're great nonetheless, but the Big Eight just pack so much: Courage (for Hugh MacLennan), Looking for a Place to Happen, At the Hundredth Meridian, Locked in the Trunk of a Car, Fully Completely, Fifty Mission Cap and Wheat Kings all became staples of their live shows until the very end, and remain in full rotation on Canadian rock radio to this day.

1994's Day For Night was even better, with such classics as Grace, Too, Greasy Jungle, So Hard Done By, the tear-inducing Nautical Disaster, Inevitability of Death, Scared and An Inch an Hour. With sleeker production, this was a band at the height of songwriting genius made to sound like early R.E.M. - and it worked. It felt real, honest, and raw.

1996's Trouble At The Henhouse might be their finest work, with standouts Gift Shop, Springtime In Vienna, and the masterpiece Ahead by a Century. It has a more acoustic feel to it, it seems warmer and softer then their preceding works.

They released Live Between Us, a live album recorded in Detroit, in 1997, containing most hits, then went in the studio to make 1998's Phantom Power, with standout tracks Poets, Bobcaygeon, Something On, and Fireworks. It was a fine record, but nothing original; it was The Hip sounding like The Hip - not as generic as future releases, but there was a comfort level setting, there wasn't much surprise.

The same can be said of 2000's Music @ Work. If anything, even the four singles (My Music At Work, Lake Fever, The Completists and Freak Turbulence) sound almost sarcastically like keeping with the band's signature sound. And titles like Tiger The Lion do nothing to dispel that notion. This is where I moved on from the Hip a bit, so I bought 2002's In Violet Light because I'd bought all the others, but I played it twice in its entirety and never really went back to it. They made videos for It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken and The Darkest One, and that was my lone contact with this album.

2004's In Between Evolution, however, struck a major chord in me. Perhaps it's the fact that unlike others, it's politically-charged, in the midst of George W. Bush's Iraq War, or maybe they just started trying again, but songs like Heaven Is a Better Place Today, Summer's Killing Us, Gus: The Polar Bear from Central Park, Vaccination Scar, It Can't Be Nashville Every Night, As Makeshift as We Are, One Night in Copenhagen and Goodnight Josephine really resonated. The album was produced by engineer extraordinaire Adam Kasper (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Queens Of The Stone Age, R.E.M., winner of two Grammys for his work with the Foo Fighters), which probably helped.

2006 brought World Container, which I remember liking, but The Kids Don't Get It is the only song from that album that's made its way into my Permanent Playlist. It's pretty much the same for 2009's We Are The Same: Coffee Girl, Now the Struggle Has a Name, The Depression Suite, and Love Is a First are all fine tunes, but Queen of the Furrows is the only song off that record that I still listen to on a regular basis.

Then there was the two-album conclusion, Now For Plan A and Man Machine Poem, the latter of which is named after a song from the former. Confused? Good. These are good records, introspective, deep in thought, with dark yet groovy pieces of music. Not what I would recommend for someone who has never heard the band (the 1992-96 output would be a better starting point, in my opinion), but for a casual fan or radio listener who was curious to find out how their 1990s sound evovled with age and technical skill, I'd recommend these two ahead of the previous two.

Pretty much as soon as the cancer diagnosis was confirmed, the band embarked on what doubled as the Man Machine Poem tour and its farewell tour, playing 15 shows in 10 cities - it was originally 10, but controversy surrounding ticket scalpers getting the bulk of the tickets (promoter Live Nation estimates upwards of two-thirds of tickets were purchased by bots, not people) forced the band to add a show apiece in Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary, and two in Toronto; the tour did not go farther East than Ottawa, meaning Québec (specifically the rather large Montréal market) and the Maritimes drew blanks. The final concert was held at Kingston's Rogers K-Rock Center, in the heart of the group's hometown.

I bring this post home with the song that first caught my ear, New Orleans Is Sinking:

I don't know who directed it, but if I come by it, I will update this post.

Video Of The Week: Tom Petty

Tom Petty died last night, but because we live in a 24-hour news cycle where tweets count as "breaking news", the story was ahead of itself, reports of his demise making the rounds on social media while he was still technically alive, angering his family, friends and bandmates:

from Instagram

How sad a world are we living in? TMZ were once again the only ones to get the news right, but instead of leaving it at that, they actually released the audio of the 911 call his wife made when she found his body. For fuck's sake.

This does, as AnnaKim Violette Petty mentioned, overshadow and disrespect the man and the artist's oeuvre. We're talking about a Rock And Roll Hall of Famer (class of 2002), yet another lost member of The Traveling Wilburys (Roy Orbison and George Harrison had passed away before him, Bob Dylan and Jeff Lyne of Electric Light Orchestra fame remain), and a very successful songwriter whose career spanned five decades.

Some of the songs you may know him from include Refugee, Learning To Fly, Free Fallin', It's Good To Be King, Into The Great Wide Open, Don't Do Me Like That, Runnin' Down A Dream, All Of Nothin', Mary Jane's Last Dance, You Wreck Me, and a terrific and perfect cover of Patti Smith's So You Wanna Be A Rock'N'Roll Star.

Oh, and this tremendous piece of 1980s music called I Won't Back Down that I've sung in concert over a dozen times:

Yes, there are a few cameos in the video directed by David Leland, including Lynne (co-songwriter on most of 1989's Full Moon Fever, Petty's first official solo album), Harrison (who played guitar on it), Mike Campbell (lead guitarist of both Petty's band The Heartbreakers and on this record) and former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, who does not play on the actual recording (those are actually Phil Jones' beats). Also missing in the video is Heartbreakers bassist Howie Epstein doing backing vocals.

Notable covers of this song include Pearl Jam's rendition from the Live At The Gorge set, but young'uns will know it best by Sam Smith stealing it for his Grammy-winning Stay With Me...

Chester Bennington Suicide

Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington committed suicide by hanging a few hours ago... on his idol Chris Cornell's birthday, making his death go from "sad" to "tragic".

I was never a fan of his art, and mostly snubbed those who were. LP's collaboration with Jay-Z is probably the only recordings of the rap mogul's that I never listen to.

Still, may he Rest In Peace.

R.I.P. Carrie Fisher

Fuck, 2016 is a killer.

Today, Carrie Fisher was the latest esteemed member of the entertainment and arts community to pass away, the result of a heart attack suffered last week while flying from London to Los Angeles.

She was 60 years old, and is survived by her beloved puppy as well as her mother, actress Debbie Reynolds, and daughter, actress Billie Lourd.

As Princess Leia Organa in the Star Wars movies, she was my first silver screen/celebrity crush. I had always dreamed of writing her into a screenplay. In terms of film writing, she, Demi Moore, Rebecca De Mornay and Deborah Kara Unger were my muses when it came to female parts; I tried writing strong, smart parts for women so that one of them would one day play in one, giving me the credibility I needed to keep making and writing movies.

My most mainstream screenplay - for lack of a better word - about a guy who loses it and starts sending dill pickles by mail, had parts for all four of them as his co-workers and bosses in a call center. It was never sold nor picked up, of course, because I am terrible at selling myself.

She will be missed.

She had recently released her autobiography. It's a fine read.

Death In Vegas

I was in Las Vegas a month ago when the Paris attacks took place.

And this week, fellow Quebecers were in an accident on the strip where I spent most of my time there:



Those interviewed keep asking ''why''? The same was said about what happened in Paris, and in Beirut.

But there is no why. This one was a distressed woman. Terrorists have a cause. People need to realize many things, chief among them the fact that even if we cure everyone and every ill, one dissatisfied customer can take things to the extreme and crack - and kill.

That's life.

Another part of life is that we all die.

At birth, at one year old, at ten, at twenty-five, at fifty, at eighty-three, at one hundred years of age. Natural causes, AIDS, cancer, accident, murder - no one walking the earth's surface survives, ever.

Who the fuck cares how you die. Live for the moment. LIVE. Because Life hangs by a thread, and a tiny one that no one can see most times.

Video Of The (Last) Week: Velvet Revolver

Fucking December, eh? John Lennon, Darby Crash... now Scott Weiland.

I wrote a (probably) mean post when he passed on my Facebook page:

All I meant was a counterpoint to those who Kurt Cobain-ed him and made him a music god now that he was dead when he was merely a musician. And I cited examples of some not-so-perfect people who had achieved greatness that perhaps may have redeemed some of the bad they'd done in their lives.

And his (second) ex-wife Mary Forsberg, with whom he had two children, agreed:

We read awful show reviews, watch videos of artists falling down, unable to recall their lyrics streaming on a teleprompter just a few feet away. And then we click "add to cart" because what actually belongs in a hospital is now considered art.(...)

I won't say he can rest now, or that he's in a better place. He belongs with his children barbecuing in the backyard and waiting for a Notre Dame game to come on. We are angry and sad about this loss, but we are most devastated that he chose to give up. (...)

Let's choose to make this the first time we don't glorify this tragedy with talk of rock and roll and the demons that, by the way, don't have to come with it. Skip the depressing T-shirt with 1967–2015 on it - use the money to take a kid to a ballgame or out for ice cream.

 So... yeah.

I wasn't sure of I was going to post this or not, and even as last week turned into this week, then late into the week, I hesitated. But I had words to get out there, and I decided to do just that.

So, here's a song that deals with some of the fallings-out Weiland and Forsberg (playing herself) had to deal with, with the Velvet Revolver power ballad Fall To Pieces, which all members (Weiland, guitarist Slash, bassist Duff McKagan, power-drummer Matt Sorum and guitarist Dave Kushner) contributed to and isa nice way for the former members of Guns N' Roses to avoid playing covers of their own songs Sweet Child O'Mine and Patience with their new band too often, as they are of the same type:

R.I.P. Angie

The smallest and youngest of my two cats, Angie, left this realm today, at the ripe old age of 8. She had cardiac issues and a blood clot had formed near her aorta, and it paralyzed her hind legs. This is her, earlier tonight, in that picture.

I spent the day crying alongside her, whether it's when we lay on my kitchen floor in between going to veterinarians' (three times), or at the last animal hospital where they, too, told us it was time to let her go. I use the ''us'' pronoun because at that last place, I called her former human, my ex-girlfriend (i.e. Former Lady Of The House) to join us. It was she who held Angie as the doctors gave her the anesthetic and performed euthanasia. She was hers at first, so it felt like a circle had been closed. It made sense.

And that's where my brain reacted in ways I wasn't used to. We're conditioned to want to avoid death, to see it as ''wrong '', and euthanasia on humans is illegal in many places but tolerated on animals and pets. And I know it would have been selfish to keep her with me for another day because of the inhumane level of pain she felt, even though she only expressed it when she wasn't in my arms or sleeping next to me.

Then I wrestled with my memories of her being louder than usual when she would talk to me these last few months, and wondering if there was anything I could have done differently for her to have a better quality of life; the doctors say her condition couldn't be cured, and even if it had been controlled by medicine, in cases like hers, the inevitable eventually happens anyway. I might not have even bought her more time.

But there's always that ''what if'' in the back of a human's mind. And although your mind knows right from wrong, truth from fiction - it still tries to play you.

Mine was telling me I was her protector, and that I had failed; but not only is death the only inevitability in Life, disease is the one thing no bodyguard can prevent, even the best ones.

I chose to cry to let my sadness out, and I chose to do it in front of her. With her. Towards her.

And I choose now to remember the love I gave her and the love I felt back. The good times we shared, and the bonds and closeness we had.

It'll be a while before I fall asleep easily without her sleeping either on top of me or with her back to mine, exchanging heat. And my other cat - who isn't the healthiest beast out there, I fear - will probably go nuts.

But she remains with me in thought. I treated her like a daughter, she treated me like a husband. I miss her like a sister.

Video of The Week: N.W.A.

This week marks the 20th anniversary of Eazy-E's passing (yesterday was the actual date), a victim of AIDS, a year before Tupac Shakur was shot down, in a down period for Snoop Doggy Dogg, at a time where Death Row Records were getting more recognition for their ''street work'' than their art, marking a decline in California/West Coast hip hop that would take years to get back on its feet.

And while rap originated from the streets of New York and was brought to the mainstream via Grandmaster Flash and Sugarhill Gang, then elevated to high art by the likes of Public Enemy (who gave it political legitimacy), it was West Coast rap that put a real sense of danger and impending doom to the old, white male politicians and their wives (hello, Tipper Gore).

And at the forefront of their fear was what would later emerge as having been a supergroup because most of its members had successful solo careers afterwards, N.W.A. - Niggaz With Attitudez. They were stirring shit up when they were underground and just playing shows and releasing mixtapes circa 1986-88, but when they released Straight Outta Compton on August 8th, 1988, it really hit the fan. Profanity-laced, talking about the violence that was actually happening in the streets of Los Angeles, with real and smart rhymes about the social divide between races and of people in a position of authority versus the poor, taking the word ''nigger'' that white policemen were screaming at black kids back with a vengeance - a real, actual call for vengeance, because if the song Straight Outta Compton is an introduction to their world, Fuck Tha Police is direct in its intention.

It was pure of heart, and it was genuine, and it was genius. The words Ice Cube wrote for himself as well as for Eazy-E (the group's leader, a terrific showman and personality but sub-par writer) and Dr. Dre (a master producer), and those MC Ren and Yella wrote themselves hit White America and the Establishment in the face, with nothing but the cold, hard truth. They were Bob Dylan, they were John Lennon, but they were angry, and without them there probably could never have been a Tupac, or a Rage Against The Machine, or a System Of A Down.

The Man tried to kill the movement with ''Parental Advisory'' stickers on their tapes and records, but the trials and news coverage led to exactly the opposite of what the narrow-minded politicians had hoped for: instead of ''protecting'' their children from the ''threat'' of angry rap, it just drove suburban kids to buy more of it, and thus began a cultural shift that is still (very slowly) taking place in the States. It's as if these politicians didn't recall when their own grandparents called Elvis Presley ''the Devil's music'' and how that just gave him more traction. Except this time, Elvis was a black man with a gun. (And, like Elvis, Ice Cube did gain some weight and go on to make terrible films; in his defense, his music has remained relevant pretty much the whole time, though).

So here's their introduction to the world, their calling card, if you will, directed by Rupert Wainwright:

What Colour Dressed Him Best?

Blue and black, or gold and white?

(yes, that's a dress joke).

But it leads me to Leonard Nimoy, who died today due to complications from COPD (chronic pulmonary disease, something that runs the gamut between severe asthma and lung cancer).

He was an actor, of course, but also a writer, poet, film director (including two of the Star Trek series and Three Men And A Baby), and an inspiration to many. He struggled with his Spock character for a long time, but seemed to come to terms with it in the 1990s, concluding decades of soul-searching with his second autobiography, 1995's I Am Spock (after 1975's I Am Not Spock).

I'll watch Galaxy Quest (in which Alan Rickman's character is a clear homage to Nimoy himself) tonight, to mix some laughs with my sadness.

Live Long And Prosper, concluded the 83-year-old man, in his final tweet earlier this week, publishing his last poem at the same time, for the whole world to ponder:

A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.  LLAP
— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) February 23, 2015

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.

Soccer To Me

I haven't watched a single second of World Cup play this year. I'm not bragging, nor complaining; I just didn't care. Unlike the vast majority of the planet, I can no longer get passionate about sports played with round balls - be they soccer/football, basketball, baseball, golf... Tennis I can sort of get into once in a while, but never a whole week, and just the women's game, because most of them play a well-rounded game, not just based on one or two skills they dominate with mixed with obvious weaknesses the way the men's game has become.

When it comes to world-class sports, I also have huge problems with the games-behind-the-games, the corruption and politicking that goes on, and the constant exceptions to / breaking of laws, be it temporarily, in the name of someone making billions of dollars. FIFA and the Olympics fit in this, as does Formula 1.

And perhaps it can be blamed on not having my own nation to root for, but I also have a thing against rooting for countries and nations representing man-made borders, usually delimited after useless wars. In hockey, I usually root for Slovakia - a country which attained independence through peace in 1993. I wouldn't be against rooting for their former invaders, the Czechs, if only because they too know what it's like to be owned by others, in their case the Russians. I'd also root for Ireland and Chechnya, I guess, to root for the underdog, but the only country I really feel a bond to is Slovakia, and they usually get eliminated pretty quickly in most competitions.

In any event, I learned that the World Cup final would pit Argentina against Germany, two countries that at this point in history probably house the same number of former Nazis within its borders - which I would estimate as half that of the U.S.

I heard that a couple of weeks ago, one guy bit another guy, and will be suspended for years, but even that didn't put a dent in my spirit; this, however, I may have tuned to watch:

I have no idea what's going on, and I'm guessing Schweinsteiger is German, which would make the other guy Argentinian. But if that's how they break ties nowadays after 100 minutes of tied-game play, I wonder how many turns will be needed until a winner is declared.

And then I assume the camera turns to fans like this one, celebrating:

R.I.P. Tommy Ramone

One by one, all the members of The Ramones will have moved on soon. Already, yesterday, Tommy Ramone (born Erdelyi Tamas), the last surviving member of the band passed away.

He was the first drummer the public associated with the group - Joey had started out on drums but quickly moved to singing. The rest of the original line-up had passed away more than a decade ago: Joey (lead vocals) died in 2004, Dee Dee (bass) in 2002, and Johnny (guitar) in 2001.

C.J. (bass, 1989-1996), Elvis (drums, 1987 and 2004), and Richie (drums, 1984-1987) are still alive, as is Marky (drums, 1978-1982, 1987-1996), who many consider the band's ''real'' or ''classic'' drummer, seeing as he was part of every incarnation of the band with all of its members save Tommy.

The band was inducted in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2002.

Jim Flaherty Is Dead

After attempting to kill the CBC by slicing its budget to death (while financing private-sector TV networks like CTV and Global), I was hoping the network wouldn't cover Canada's Conservative former 8-year Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's death except by holding an office party.

Instead, they first reported on his death like it was just anyone's, then ran a whole other story to say he will have a state funeral in Toronto.

I understand the ''state funeral'' part, not because he was in charge of running Canada into austerity until just a few weeks ago, but because his friends and Party are still in charge and that's what those people do: spend our tax dollars amongst themselves.

But why Toronto? Hold it in Ottawa - the capital - where he worked and did his evil deeds. Picture this:

Flaherty died of a heart attack Thursday. Colleagues, including opposition MPs, are remembering him as a generous friend who could spar heatedly with someone in Parliament and later laugh over a drink outside the House of Commons.

Laugh over a drink. ''We sure screwed most Canadians on that one! No more benefits for the unemployed, let's toast with this 15-year-old bourbon!''

I don't mean to be an asshole, but the media overall are acting like fucking fanboys now that he's dead, and even the NDP's Thomas Mulcair saying how ''great of a man'' he was though pretty much every single thing Mulcair supposedly stands for and has been fighting for his entire political career was in complete and total opposition to Flaherty's views.

One piece stands in contradiction of them all, and I can't just quote from it since all passages are important, so here it is, from Socialist.ca:

Flaherty was part of Mike Harris’ government in Ontario, whose cuts to water inspection services led to an E.Coli outbreak that killed seven people in Walkerton, Ontario. The same government imposed massive cuts to welfare and social housing, killing Kimberly Rogers in the process, and years later people continue to die from homelessness.

Flaherty was also part of cuts to healthcare at both provincial and federal levels. As the Council of Canadians wrote last week in an article titled Broken Promises and Abdication: Flaherty’s Healthcare Legacy, “March 31 marks the end of the 2004 Health Accord and the last day Canadian health care will have equalization payments to have-not provinces, national standards, and federal funding tied to achieving set benchmarks. March 31 is also a day to mourn the fact that we remain the only wealthy country with a universal health-care system and no national pharmacare plan.” Healthcare cuts kill, including the Tories' inhumane cuts to refugee health--denying basic health care to people who had fled rape, torture and war.

Flaherty was also proudly part of the Harper government that turns its back on global health crises—boycotting the International AIDS conference in Toronto, imposing a maternal health plan denying abortion, cutting humanitarian aid to Gaza, and defunding Sisters in Spirit that investigates missing and murdered aboriginal women.

While destroying social services, Flaherty and the federal Tories have poured billions into the military, which has killed countless people in 13 years of occupying Afghanistan, the bombing campaign in Libya, and the UN occupation of Haiti. At the same time, Flaherty’s budget policies included the New Veterans Charter—cutting benefits from veterans despite an epidemic of suicides and protests across the country.

Flaherty also pioneered the technique of using omnibus budgets to hide life-threatening cuts, from Bill C-45’s attacks on environmental protection and indigenous sovereignty that sparked Idle No More, to the more recent Bill C-4 that attacks workers—including their health and safety.

We mourn these countless victims of Flaherty’s policies of austerity.

Too soon? It's never too soon for the truth.

R.I.P. John Pinette

Another beloved talent left us before we could find a cure for mortality, yesterday. John Pinette was a very funny overweight man, who was a regular at the Just For Laughs festival, and he died at age 50 of ''natural causes''... he had long-standing liver and heart problems.

His two stand-up specials remain with us (Show Me the Buffet, I'm Starvin'! and Still Hungry), as does his role in the Seinfeld finale, though most fans of that series would prefer to have it wiped out of their memory.

Here's a sample joke:

Skinny people decide what they want at McDonald's... Now skinny people, I love you, we're all God's children. But the food situation, you piss me off. You browse, you pick... get out of the line! Get out, go over there, and think! Skinny people decide what they want when they get to the front of the line; what were you doing in line, your tax returns? I knew what I wanted before I parked the car.

R.I.P. Dave Brockie, a.k.a. Oderus Urungus (Of Gwar)

I wasn't the biggest fan of Gwar (I prefered their half-cousin band Green Jellÿ as a kid), but I did love the spectacle that accompanied them whether they were playing a show, doing interviews, or appearing on Jerry Springer...

And, to be honest, as far as heavy metal slapstick goes, Scumdogs Of The Universe (1990) and This Toilet Earth (1994) are pretty much classics, and are still listenable today - provided you know what you're getting into (which is the story of alien characters here to kill off the human race and spread sex and violence).

Their long-time lead vocalist (and one-time bassist and/or guitarist) Dave Brockie, a.k.a. Oderus Urungus was found dead in his apartment yesterday. Though he wasn't the first member to die while an active member (guitarist Cory Smoot, who had portrayed the now-retired character Flattus Maximus since 2002, was found dead by his fellow band members in the band's tour bus in 2011). But Brockie was the lone original member left, the voice of the band - both in song and in the public eye.