Weird Pepsi Flavours

I don't always drink cola, but when I do, I try to drink Pepsi. Because it's the least disgusting, and Pepsi Max has ginseng. And triple the caffeine of the regular brand. Zero fucking calories.

Yet Pepsi Max isn't in this list of 19 (actually 23) of weird Pepsis.

I'd try most of them.

Then again, I really, really liked Crystal Pepsi. As a teen, when my corner store stopped buying it, I emptied their remaining stock by myself, one at a time, for a month. Then I hit withdrawal.

Video Of The Week: Astral Gunk

A few years ago, young musician Joe Chamandy applied to have his band - oddly named The Beatles - play my annual UnPop Montreal festival, despite not knowing a thing about it. It didn't pan out in the end, and his Beatles are on hiatus these days.

But he's in another band called Astral Gunk, which he sometimes plugs on his blog, which consists mostly of artwork he's drawing, as independent pieces as much as show posters.

In any event, Astral Gunk - based not in Montréal but in Sackville, New Brunswick - made a video for their song Modern Life, and it's fun to watch:

Fallon Does Vedder In Tribute To Jeremy Lin

Jimmy Fallon can't remember the lines he writes for himself, can't really read, is awful at telling jokes and not really excellent at interviewing people either.

But he can sure do music impressions.

Last night, in a tribute to both Jeremy Lin and Pearl Jam, he did an impression of Eddie Vedder circa 1992 that was spot-on, to say the least...

How Music Is Made

Legendary guitarist Johnny Marr (of The Smiths and Gorillaz fame) has specific ideas on what makes music innovative, which he shared in an op-ed piece for Independent.ie, which was culled from a lecture he gave.

He makes quite a few valid points, but his conclusion seems to have hit many things on the head:

That's the first rule of thumb for any artist. If your friends like it, then you're on the right track. The second rule of thumb is that if you're going to follow the first rule, then you'd better make sure that your friends have got pretty good taste, or else you're scuppered. And I suppose the third rule of thumb is to make sure that none of your friends work for insider record companies. I know you can be mavericks within the music industry. I don't want to say you have to do this, you must do that, the gospel according to me is... What I mean is that all the greats did it from the outside. And that's a very, very inspiring thing. We live in an age of such conformity and uniformity and stifling conservatism. I don't know how that happened, but we do. This idea of the outsider has to be identified and celebrated, cherished, encouraged and theorised over. I want to see more people, and I know there are people, waiting to be like those I have described: the McLarens, the Oldhams and the Lydons.

To finish, the title, (Lou Reed's) "Walk on the Wild Side", came from the 1956 novel by Nelson Algren, A Walk on the Wild Side. Algren said of his book, "[it] asks why lost people develop into greater human beings than those who have never been lost in their whole lives." That song explains it all, that title explains it all – it might as well have been called "Walk on the Wild Outside".

 My friends have impeccable taste: they keep inviting me to play at their shows and fundraisers, they start bands with me - both of original material and covers... and I honestly love what they do as well. It seems we keep raising the bar for ourselves, amongst ourselves. And some people take notice, which is also cool.

Bad Parenting

Top-Ten list of bad parents.

Some are fakes, though, such as this one:

San Fran-hips-Co Beer Week

Because I had fallen behind on my Maxim, Summum, and Playboy reading, I had no idea February 10th-19th was San Francisco Beer Week!

How thoughtful of them to tack on 3 extra days to factor in hangovers.

Lucky for me, I've been on a steady diet of 10-ish beers per day since early December when my Life turned to shit. Although I've mostly been drinking Tremblays, so my shit has turned into pudding.

Video Of The Week: Kittie

Kittie is a metal band that formed in 1996 in London, Ontario (Canada) by sisters Morgan Lander (singer) and Mercedes Lander and two friends - while they were still in high school. They were surprisingly heavy for kids - let alone ''girls'' (to some macho metalheads) - and just got heavier with time.

To this day, the sisters (who play guitar and drums, respectively) are the only constant band members, the bass and lead guitar slots being pretty much a revolving door. Guitarist Tara McLeod has been on board for three of the band's 6 records, with Suicide City's Jennifer Arroyo on board for one before her. Bassist Trish Doan is back after a 5-year hiatus due to a serious battle with anorexia, during which time Ivana 'Ivy' Vujic held her place. The band was even a trio for a while, in 2001 and 2002.

This song is from their 2009 release In The Black, which came out the day after my birthday. It's fairly typical and generic (which you kind of expect from a semi-independent band) and doesn't showcase mad skills, but it shows you these chicks can rock hard and well, their versatility, and ability to construct well-written pieces.

R.I.P. Gary Carter

As a kid and teenager, my favourite baseball player was Tim Raines (still my all-time favourite), but Gary Carter was the one that got me interested in the sport itself.

Heck, when I was growing up - and even after he was traded to the New York Mets in 1984 - all of us kids in Montréal wore our caps backwards to be ''just like The Kid, as he was known, despite the fact that all catchers wore their caps backwards when behind the plate. To us, it was a way to identify with him even more than we already did, and we did a lot.

He loved the cameras, loved to smile for them, talk in front of them, pose for pictures - and all the cameras - and the people behind them - loved him back.

In a city all about hockey, he was as big a star as Guy Lafleur, the Montréal Canadiens' last star forward; he was the playoff hero in the failed 1981 NL run, one of four starting Montréal Expos at the 1982 All-Star Game (a fifth starter, Pete Rose, then of the Philadelphia Phillies, was a former Expo), the most charismatic figure in the history of the team.

I still remember when he was traded in 1984 (December 10th!) and against whom (Hubie Brooks, Floyd Youmans, Herman Winningham and the guy who replaced him behind the plate for half a decade, Mike Fitzgerald), and the World Series he won with the Mets in his second season in New York still stings.

He was treated like the living legend he was when the Expos brought him back to finish his career here in 1992, a year removed from Dennis Martinez' perfect game, two years before the kids (Delino DeShields, Marquis Grisson, Moises Alou, Larry Walker, Mel Rojas and John Wetteland) unexpectedly became the best team in the NL two years too early under the watchful eye of Felipe Alou.

When he was inducted in the Hall Of Fame in 2003, he said he'd want to be inducted as a member of both the Mets and Expos, but since Cooperstown decrees players can only represent one team, he favoured NYC because of his championship, but felt like a Montrealer despite this. The Hall decided to make him an Expo, and he was always bittersweet about it. He is now joined in the Hall by Andre Dawson, who was his enemy in the clubhouse. I hope Raines joins them soon, he is also very worthy of the Hall.

Today, Carter died from the multiple tumours in his head. Today, baseball died again in Montréal.

Truth: You Tell Me

Fucking politicians. Especially those who don't just lean to but are far into the right: fucking liars when it suits them, and predators the rest of the fucking time.

And assholes all the time.




We have cameras, motherfucker, and they're hooked to shit that stores whatever they fucking record. We have hard fucking proof of how much of a hypocrite you are in front of TV news crews compared to how bad a dick you are with your friends in your majority fucking government when taunting your opponents and trying to scare the voting public. Or the elderly among them, anyway.

There are probably more child molesters in your fucking Cabinet than there are roaming the streets of Canada. Sometimes I'm glad you're building more prisons, because we'll need the place to store all of you elected officials when we decide we've had enough. And if you bring the death penalty back, well... karma's a bitch, man.

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.