Video Of The Week: Chris Cornell

Coinciding with the release of a 64-song eponymous collection spanning his time with Soundgarden, Temple Of The Dog, Audioslave and as a failed solo artist, Chris Cornell's estate released this video of the late grunge star featuring his son, Christopher Jr., as a paperboy, tracing back his father's old route and footsteps in the Emerald City, with some of his lyrics and song titles spray-painted all over town:

It was masterfully directed by Kevin Kerslake (Sonic Youth, Liz Phair, Stone Temple Pilots, Nirvana) as a tribute both to the man and the city, and in that respect works extremely well.

The song also works as a reminder that Cornell's lyrics were very often sad, depressing and suicidal, which should be both a deterrent and fodder for the conspiracy theorists who think the late singer was murdered ("12 years sober!" is generally their rallying cry).

This wasn't Chris Jr.'s first video appearance, as he was also in Soundgarden's Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart, which was pulled from just about everywhere, as it depicts Cornell as a prisoner in the Old West getting ready to be hung, with one shot of a noose being fitted around his neck.

The boxed set itself contains a lot of live material, including Cornell's One, which meshes the lyrics to Metallica's song of the same name over U2's ballad, a Sirius XM studio rendition of Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U, a live duet with Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam on Wild World, and a duet with Toni Cornell (Chris' daughter) on Bob Marley's Redemption Song (which Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder famously did with Beyoncé).

Other covers include Led Zeppelin's Thank You and Whole Lotta Love, The Beatles' A Day In The Life, Mother Love Bone's Stargazer, Michael Jackson's Billie Jean, and John Lennon's Imagine.

Video Of The Week: Kandle

I haven't been able to stop listening to Kandle since I featured her last month - not that I ever did, really, as she's been playing steadily in my rotation since 2014.

I dove back into her first EP, her debut album, switched up my phone's song list to remove the oft-skipped Baby and replaced it with Gimme A Pill, a song she hasn't played live in a while because it sends mixed signals, often being interpreted as "pro-drugs" when in fact it is about her struggles with chronic migraines.

She shot a video for it in 2016, directed by Maya Fuhr, which depicts a day in the life of an opioid-addicted adult:

"I won't stop until the pain goes away" - the phrase that best describes the millennium so far.

Video Of The Week: Fergie

Unbeknownst to be, I've been following Fergie's career since I was six years old, as she starred in the long-syndicated in the U.S. (but hard to find in Canada beyond 1986) TV show Kids Incorporated as Stacy Ferguson, alongside Jennifer Love Hewitt, Eric Balfour (24), Martika (who sang the theme song, and the mega-hit Toy Soldiers a few years later), Mario Lopez, and Wendy Brainard (who went on to sing with Corey Hart and Donna Summer).

I fucking loved that show so much I'd get up at 5 AM to watch it on Saturday mornings in the second grade; my parents didn't understand what was up with me, but there was something about the five songs per episode (and maybe Hewitt, Ferguson and Martika singing them as well).

Then came the girl-group Wild Orchid, whose records I bought for the album covers (namely the self-titled debut and the Supernatural single) but seldom listened to.

In the mid-1990s (and pretty much my entire life, really), some pop music suited my ears, but rock and rap more so; The Black Eyed Peas' first two records were decent underground fare, but when they hired Fergie and turned pop for Elephunk, their career hit new heights of commercial success... and creative depths that represent pretty much everything that is wrong with modern pop music.

In 2006, she came out with her first solo record, The Dutchess, which was successful, but sounded like it should have been a Gwen Stefani album, what with the reggae-ska numbers, the semi-honest/touchy-feely numbers that hint at deeper turmoil but ultimately fail at being truly poignant. And the insipid pure-pop numbers just didn't make it for me - although they made my then-girlfriend dance and act wild.

Fergie has tremendous skill as a singer, in the upper echelons, but for most of her career, it has felt like she was either holding back or refused to exploit it correctly.

There are two ways to go when you have a voice like that: the Céline Dion/Frank Sinatra/Whitney Houston way, which is to have people write songs for you to belt out like no other, or to bare your fucking soul, which works whether your voice is great or unique (Tori Amos, Charlotte Martin, Joanna Newsom, Björk), "normal" (P.J. Harvey), or awful (Courtney Love, Yoko Ono).

Finally, at age 42, Fergie has chosen the latter, with A Little Work, from the album Double Dutchess, which is a tad cliché'd but still rings true. The long-form video (a.k.a. "short film") by Jonas Åkerlund brings the point home very well:

You may recall Akerlund's work - such as the 2002 indie film Spun, or his videos for Roxette, Prodigy (Smack My Bitch Up), Madonna (Ray of Light), Metallica (Turn The Page, Whiskey In The Jar), The Smashing Pumpkins, Blink-182's I Miss You, and countless others - is among the best in the business.

He was the perfect director to bring to life a story about drug addiction (be it Fergie's documented struggles with crystal meth or the current opioid crisis in America) and mental illness.

Video Of The Week: Halsey

Halsey is the stage name of one Ashley Nicolette Frangipan, from New Jersey.

She is a 23-year-old pop artist who is on her second record, Hopeless Fountain Kingdom, having released Badlands in 2015. She has toured with Imagine Dragons and The Weeknd, recorded with The Chainsmokers and Justin Bieber, and is emo to the core, citing Panic! At The Disco as her all-time favourite band.

She spent her late teens dating a heroin addict in New York City and dropping out of college, so he had the regular rebellious lifestyle worthy of a TV biopic.

Oh, and she's way more into P!nk than she lets on, as can be attested by the video for Bad At Love, which she co-directed with Sing J. Lee:

There's a lot of Thelma & Louise in there, as well, of course. Because empowerment.

And because watching and getting inspired by Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Gas Food Lodging, Bound, Set It Off, Mulholland Drive, Frida, Suffragette, or Lost And Delirious is not cliché enough for a young soul who only pretends to be interested in cinema.

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.

10 Hours Of Puddi Puddi

Whether you have a toddler that you need to park in front of a screen before you turn crazy of you just want to go insane yourself, here's a good option:


At heart, contrary to what your brain may be telling you, Giga Pudding/Puddi Puddi is not a Japanese brand of pudding; it is, in fact, custard.

It is also the street name for a new drug that is making the rounds in American elementary schools, mixing pudding mix with such known downers as Nyquil, Advil and Vicodin, as well as anti-freeze and Drano. Cool enough to give you a soft buzz with a sweet taste, but in the wrong dosage, very deadly and/or able to cause permanent damage.

S it's no surprise places like 4Chan went nuts with in this winter and it became a meme.

Speech Of The Day: Chris Christie

The cynic in me wants to say that Conservatives only get involved in social issues when it affects them personally, when the issue hits home. And, well, I guess I just went out and said it.

Still, a lot of these politicians - in part through training sessions and in part because their former jobs as lawyers demanded it - have the speech aspect of being a leader down. And hate him or love him, I believe one thing that can be said about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is that he isn't the type of schizophrenic liar Ben Carson can be - when Christie lies, it's because telling the truth will hurt him, but he doesn't make facts up, let alone two-thirds of his own autobiography.

Here he is delivering a moving speech about addiction:

Strippers On Deflate Gate

Well, everyone else had their opinions about the New England Patriots' trouncing of the Indianapolis Colts with deflated balls (which, in this case, had nothing to do with steroid use), so, yes, Busted Coverage found something to talk about on their daily outing to Rick's Cabaret in New York City so they could charge their champagne room bill to the company as a business expense.

Go on the page to see quotes and stuff, and more pictures than the two below... if you need to.

Please, no sexist remarks about how your city has better/sexier/nakeder/curvier strippers than New York in the comments section - they will be deleted; this one (Kimmie, I think, judging by the article) has decent football knowledge and was smart enough to let the idiots pretend to be journalists while she was earning her living. She wins.

What's With Florida?

No, I mean, like, seriously. Why do the weird small-print news that used to be a thing in remote locations and cabin-in-the-woods places now happen in Florida more than any other places combined?

Is it the water? The sharks? The failing sports teams? The douchebag sex clubs in Miami? The drugs?

Well, drugs might be an issue, yeah. For couples who lock themselves in a closet for days at a time with crack pipes and end up shitting in metal pans. For men who look like rockers from the 1970s wanting to smoke crack in a hospital. For those who merely smoke pot in the maternity ward. For men impersonating cops at the International House Of Pancakes who end up flashing/mooning employees when they don't get free food. For people who bite their neighbours' ears off for not giving them a cigarette.

For those who run for mayor while their court case for beating a drag queen with a tiki torch while wearing a KKK outfit is still pending resolution. For those who try to avoid their time in court by claiming they have ebola. For those who butt-dial 911 while cooking meth with their mom and have the nerve to think the cops are watching them. For those who get stuck inside vending machines.

For men who claim holograms kidnapped their wives (when she's actually just off drunk at a relative's). For men who try to rob a delivery man not just for his cash but also pizza and chicken wings. For men who attack family members over undercooked noodles. For men who think calling 911 will get them answers regarding their tax returns. For those who commit murder over a card collection. For those who confuse hot dogs with real dogs. For those who, when the ice cream man refuses to take their fake $20 bill, pull a gun on him.

For those who pee on rugs then make a big stink when they're kicked out of the house (especially if it really tied the room together). For those who get caught stealing 36,000 pounds of Crisco. For those who mistake a convenience store rooftop they're trying to steal from with where their family lives. For those who punch 80-year-old men at restaurants. Or the corrections officers who never noticed a convict escaping to buy beer - then his own trying to smuggle it back in prison.

For sex-related thieving such as stealing a Jenna Jameson sex doll, or stealing 850 pairs of underwear from Victoria's Secret, or insisting on showing their sex tape to a jury in court, or masturbating in a McDonald's parking lot, or soliciting an undercover police officer for sex in exchange for $3 and a chicken meal, or busting down a wall to steal $300 worth of sex toys from an adult store, or just the general naked sword-wielders.

For those who call 911 to complain that the cop who is writing them a ticket is too slow (then getting jailed for misusing 911). For those who throw chairs at the mailman when they don't get any mail. For the elderly (yet funny) racists. For those who decide to build their paramilitary neo-nazi war compound right next to Disney World. For people who throw dead bodies in the trash. For people who propose to their girlfriends using baby alligators (and the girlfriend being happier about the gator than the ring). For those who think a welding grinder is the right tool to scrape a tattoo off their face. For the delusional ones who not only think they're blood relatives of former Presidents, but that it means they own land and/or the country and gives them special privileges.

For elected officials who think state education tests make kids gay and/or LGBT-friendly.

I mean, I get those related to crack and meth. But the rest of them, the ignorant and profoundly stupid - there is no excuse for that shit in 2015. I understand that having no state tax means the public education system is pretty much zero/dead/non-existent. But still, this is taking it (way) too far.

Still, it's probably a better place than Canada if Stephen Harper gets re-elected later this year.

Marijuana As A Gateway Drug

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Florida Mayor Arrested for Dealing Oxycodone

When articles begin with a punchline - and you're the butt of it - you've sunken pretty low. Except in this case, I'm not sure of it's just Rob Ford or the whole city of Toronto who are ridiculed:

Hey, Toronto, we see your crack-smoking mayor with a coke-snorting congressman, and raise you a hillbilly heroin-dealing mayor. (...)

Upon announcing the arrest, the local sheriff couldn't help but take a shot at Rob Ford, either.

"This isn't Toronto. We will not tolerate illegal drug activity, in my jurisdiction, by anyone, to include our elected officials," Polk County Sheriff Gordon Smith said in a news release posted on his department's Facebook page.

So thank you, Barry Layne Moore, mayor of Hampton, Florida, for entertaining the masses while Ford's in rehab... and for looking the part, too:

Right out of Grand Theft Auto V.

He Took A Bite Out Of Crime, And Crime Bit Back

In other crime news, John R. Morales, a man who had previously worked as the mascot inside the McGruff The Crime Dog suit, was sentenced to 16 years in jail for a thousand marijuana plants and 27 weapons - including grenade launchers - and 9,000 rounds of ammunition in Texas.

All of these - well, the ammo, the grenade launcher, the sawed-off shotguns and the rifles, NOT the pot - are legal to purchase in Texas, but because he had previously been convicted on other counts and thus had a criminal record and was prohibited from buying any new ones.

And why did the young man turn to a life of crime?

Before being sent back to prison, Morales told the judge he was a humble, nonviolent person who got into the dope business to help his family, including a mother with leukemia and a sister with cancer.

Guess the cancer couldn't wait until Obamacare kicked in. Here's the kicker:

Morales' downfall came in September 2011, when a Galveston police officer with a drug-sniffing dog pulled him over for driving 50 mph in a 35 mph zone.

You think it had anything to do with the fact that he's Hispanic, or are they really serious about speed limits over there? In any case, if you've got a lot of compromising shit in your vehicle, you would do well to abide by the rules that would make you stand out and bring attention to yourself. Particularly ''with diagrams of two indoor pot-growing operations sitting on the front seat of his Infinity and a load of pot seedlings stashed in the trunk.''.

R.I.P. Philip Seymour Hoffman

Heeeeerrrooooooiiiinnnnnn
Be the death of me
Heeeeerrrooooooiiiinnnnnn
It's my life (...)
- Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground's Heroin

Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hofman - a perennial favourite of mine as can be attested in my ''best-of'' lists - died today of an apparent heroin overdose at age 46 in his Manhattan apartment.

The hype machine will likely go nuts - and if it does, it will be more deserved than when it hit Heath Ledger, for sure - but while I don't think he qualifies for the moniker of ''greatest actor of his generation'', he surely ranks among the most consistent, and constantly original ones.

Like William H. Macy, he was as good as the seventh-role in a blockbuster as he was starring in an indie character-driven picture, and my favourite performance of his remains the scene-stealing sexually deranged obscene phone caller in Happiness:

He could be at turns nerdy, shy, subdued, over-the-top, depressed, strong, conniving, lost... always on point.

He will be missed.

Rob Ford: The Sequel

Yes, I know, I too was under the impression that his 15 minutes were up, that not only had we had a sequel (if the crack smoking was Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, then the odd behaviour and ''plenty of pussy to eat at home'' was surely Episode 3: Revenge Of The Filth), but that we were probably at the Police Academy 5 stage of his tenure by now...

Except we had all forgotten the essential rules of sequels: they not only introduce new characters to the cannon, but oftentimes also take place in new surroundings (Hangover Part II, Vegas Vacation).

And so, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: Rob Ford in Vancouver. Not only did he get a ticket for jaywalking, he also tried to get out of it by contacting the chief of police. That's right: he bothered the boss of the police force for a $100 ticket, because he's an entitled fucking asshole. And he did so at this classy establishment: a Shell gas station, situated across the street from the bar where he'd been drinking all night (though he was to have stopped drinking last Fall):

Video is available on Twitter and YouTube.

Which begs the question: is he ever not in a drunken stupor?

R.I.P. Cassandra Lynn Hensley

(reposted from my collectibles blog)

R.I.P. Cassandra Lynn Hensley, who died two nights ago following an evening where cocaine and champagne were consumed after a time of not feeling well. She was 34 and leaves behind a daughter.

I didn't know the February 2006 Playboy Playmate Of The Month, but I do know models who did, and this has come as a shock to two of them in particular.

Her Twitter account still updates with her automatic daily horoscope, and the one published just hours after her death turns out to be eerie in retrospect:

Unspoken obligations prevent you from doing what you wish today. No matter what you do now, you might not feel completely fulfilled. Working harder isn't the answer, but neither is escape.

As a tribute, here is a card I got in a box of Benchwarmer's 2006 Holiday cards, an autographed insert (#15 of 16):

Meow Meow

My friend The Big E used to do a lot of cocaine. Then he stopped because of his girlfriend. Then he started again once in a while with his best friend. Then his dealer turned him onto Meow Meow, a.k.a. mephedrone, for ''all the effects of coke on your brain, but none of the physical signs (constant rubbing of nose or teeth, for example) nor hangovers''...

He thought he was incognito, but anyone who knows anything about any substance consumption could easily tell he wasn't just drunk when he was on that shit. Except his girlfriend.

Because its recreational usage is still relatively recent, no one knows for sure what long-term effects Meow Meow has on the body, but some - like John Mann, the in-house chemist at Queen's University Belfast - have suggested that because of its similarities to cathenone, it could very well render impotent.

Looks like one 19-year-old British guy didn't want to wait to find out, as he cut off his own penis after stabbing his mother:

After his mother called emergency services to the house in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, he was discovered hanging out of a bedroom window, blood gushing from his groin. Both were rushed to hospital with injuries described as life threatening after the December 29 attack, according to the Mirror. (...) When the police arrived they found him hanging from a window and then discovered he had cut off his penis.

 Denis Leary used to joke about cocaine being a drug that makes your dick soft... looks like its replacement one-upped it on that level too...

Hey kids: drugs are bad... mmmmkay?

Drugs And Christmas. Elf Edition

Sam Briggs is at it again.

He'd taken drugs then gone to work as a public servant before, and this time he's back as a gift-wrapping shopping mall elf, high on cocaine, LSD and Ketamine:



The Ketamine skit is both the longest-seeming and funniest, a dichotomy that represents the whole ''experiment'' very well.

Rob Ford Re-Enacted

That Downward Spiral Called Rob Ford

''Elect me as mayor, and I will clean this city up like you wouldn't believe.'' That was the attitude Rob Ford put forth just a couple of years ago, running to take over Canada's biggest economic center.

Like a true used car salesman, his first order of business was to eliminate bike lanes, and his second was to get as drunk as possible in as many public events as possible, a political Chris Farley if you will, without the visible and audible threat of ending up living in that van down by the river, yet you could tell just by looking at him that that was exactly where he was headed, probably in the near future.

Then came rumours about drug use - and not just marijuana, no: straight-up crack. And there could even be video footage... a video people have already died for.

After denying it - and the existence of the tape - for the better part of 2013, Ford has now admitted to having smoked crack, but he did so with his usual sense of grandeur:

"Yes I have smoked crack cocaine. But I am not an addict," he said in a stunning admission. "Have I tried it? Probably in one of my drunken stupors," he said, adding that he may have smoked it approximately one year ago.

Oh yeah - one of his drunken stupors. Makes sense. What else did he do in his (frequent) drunken stupors, kill a hooker? Waste taxpayers' money? Eat tons of donuts?

As if hearing that the police had found the video - and another one, rumoured to be a sex tape with an alleged minor - recovered from a erased hard drive (that's right, kids, hitting 'delete' is not a guarantee) wasn't enough, the mayor's boat is leaking from everywhere, and reports are coming out that he and his team hired a crack team (sorry) of hackers to erase the recording from online storage spaces.

Didn't work.

Now, I know it's never over until the fat lady sings, but I'm guessing that's merely one or two drunken stupors away from happening...

Worse Than An Actual Chemistry Playset?

Apparently some folks in the U.K. are going bonkers over a new line of toys by Citizen Brick (the actual Lego brand refused any involvement, so the Men With The Ideas went to a rip-off company instead) over a Breaking Bad-inspired line of toys dubbed SuperLab...

What's funny is that both sides are pissed off: the ''save our children'', religious/law-abiding (as if!) crowd are angry that a line of toys inspired by a TV series based on the making and selling of crystal meth that has so many underage views use such blunt dug paraphernalia throughout the playset; and those who'd let it be are mad that it sells for £160 ($250 US).

Here's what I think: if you're too dumb a parent to stop your fucking kids from watching a TV show that airs well past their bedtime and is based around the sale of one of the harshest drugs out there, you have no right to complain about the secondary market making a buck off of said show. There's a reason it's classified 18+ in most places (16+ in Québec): it deals with harsh shit, a lot of it illegal, most of it violent.

And if you're a collector willing to spend half your rent money on a line of toys, don't be surprised if an actual meth addict ends up stealing it from you at some point, either to resell it, or just to have memorabilia from the show that inspired them to start doing drugs in the first place.

I'm sure a chemistry play set like parents gave their kids 30 years ago mixed with some methylamine could do so much more damage anyhow.