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.

Smells Like Spring In Montréal

Students are back protesting against a tuition hike the current provincial government was elected to not let happen, and cops are back at charging them with useless, mindless violence.

The Montréal Canadiens are back at the top of the NHL standings...

I guess things are back to normal.

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!

Bring The Noise

Anthrax told us about a year ago that they were working on recording some cover songs for their next release...

Well, the time is nearly upon us, and you can have a first taste at their reworking of the classic AC/DC song T.N.T. here. Yes, that's two AC/DC references in the same month.

Men’s Room Etiquette

If you’re taking a shit in a public restroom and someone walks in to pee at the urinals, wait until they leave to exit your stall. We don’t want to have to see the face of the guy forcing us to hold our breath while vomit enters our mouth.

That is all, carry on.

Video Of The Week: Alabama Shakes

So many choices this week (Nick Cave, Mindy McCready), but the one act that I just had to feature was Alabama Shakes. Up until a week ago, I had no idea they even existed, but thanks to lead singer-guitarist Brittany Howard and bassist Zac Cockrell playing in the Levon Helm tribute (singing ''The Weight'') at the Grammys two Sundays ago - Howard out-piped Mavis Staples, a very rare feat indeed - they are now a household name.

And this past Saturday, they rocked the hell out of Saturday Night Live performing two songs, including this one, which is a simple, repetitive groove, simple lyrics, but a gut-wrenching performance to bring it all home.

R.I.P. Mindy McCready

She was a tortured soul who felt alone, needed to feel loved and accepted, and never quite got past the brink of happiness. As a teen - some reports (quoting him) say she was 15, others (quoting her) say 16 - she met baseball steroid über-user and star pitcher Roger Clemens and they promptly started a long-term relationship that was ''sexual in its nature''; as a young adult, she entered the country music business on the strength of karaoke tapes she brought to Nashville labels (and was signed by BNA Records); apart from Clemens, she dated pop culture side-dishes Dean Cain and Drake Berehowski; her substance-abuse problems became so rampant that she spent a season on Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew.

That was the public life of Mindy McCready.

In the end, she shot herself on the same porch, in the same exact manner as her boyfriend (and father of her second child) David Wilson, who had done it a month prior. It was at least her fifth suicide attempt.

Most of the conversation regarding her death should center around her talent, then substance abuse and mental health - and hopefully it will.

But we should also reserve a spot to talk about Reality TV, and more specifically Dr. Drew's exploitation show. She is the fifth ''cast member'' of the hack Dr. Drew Pinski - the third from Season 3 alone - to die in the last two years. While some of those were deemed ''accidental'', all of them involved drugs and alcohol directly: Rodney King drowned but was found to have alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and PCP in his blood, and Grease actor Jeff Conway may have died from pneumonia, but the autopsy showed his life-long addiction to painkillers was the cause of it. Alice In Chains bassist Mike Starr and Real World participant Joey Kovar both died of overdoses, Starr on cocaine and heroin, Kovar on heroin and other opiates.

Some cynics claim it'd be a scandal if no one from a series about addiction had died, and Pinski agrees with them, from a CNN interview last night:

One of my hopes was, in bringing ‘Celebrity Rehab’ out, was to teach people how dangerous addiction was. If I was doing a show on cancer, there would not be much surprise when my cancer patient died. In fact, we’d celebrate a few years of good quality life. People don’t understand that addiction has virtually the same prognosis. If you have other mental health issues on top of that, it’s so much worse. This was not an addiction death, interestingly. This was related to - had her boyfriend not died, I don’t think there’s any way we’d be in this position right now.

Really? He drops the fucking towel this easily? ''Meh, I gave it a half-assed shot, spewed out a few clichés here and there, made her (and others) look like a complete ass, and I did all that while also seeing my regular, non-celeb patients on the side, raking money in from all sides while forging myself a reputation as the go-to guy. Come see me, you have a 1-in-3 chance of dying.''

Jack Kevorkian went to jail for helping people who wanted to die get there. This hack's job is to try to save the fuckers and he fails consistently - how is that not also murder?

Come Out And Play

Two North American soccer players have come out of the closet in recent years, only to stop playing: the Montréal Impact's David Tiesto, and now 25-year old Robbie Rogers (Columbus Crew, Leeds United). That's right - he's retiring. From sports. At 25.

Why coward out and wait until your career's over, though? Especially athletes - they spend most of their lives being watched by crowds anyway, they should know how to handle pressure, know they have a shot at being role models. The more of them wait until it's over - and some even ending it prematurely - the more the message to people stepping into their footsteps is ''hide who you are 'cause it won't be accepted'', which in this day and age, is pretty dumb weak.

Some black soccer players still get taunted - some even get bananas thrown at them! - in Europe, and this type of situation just makes it seem like some ''irregular'' white guys are trying to make believe they'd get it as bad in this ''macho'' sports where players fake near-death injuries all the time - what's so macho about that?

Man up and be yourself, whether you prefer men or not, and don't waste your talent in its prime. As individuals, we all have something that's going to piss off others. Some are gay, others are black; some are flashy like P.K. Subban, others are opinionated and refuse to meet the President like Tim Thomas; some like rock, others like rap; some go to jail like Michael Vick, others become lawyers like Stu Grimson. Some even kill their fucking wives.

Video Of The Week: Images In Vogue

Canadian New Wave? Yep, Images In Vogue have that niche market covered.

Equal parts Corey Hart, The Cure, Depeche Mode and Culture Club, but as jocks wearing glasses and leather jackets. Among their band members, though, lie dormant cEvin Key (founder of Skinny Puppy) and Don Gordon (founder of Numb, who has since quit the music industry and moved to Vietnam), proving that going cheese-pop once doesn't mean you'll stick with it forever. Those two do not play on this recording however - they'd both left two years prior to the release of this 1985 track, for cause of ''too poppy''.

Goalies Are Weird

I was about to write a post saying how I kind of disagreed with this The Gazette article in which Montréal Canadiens goaltending coach Pierre Groulx ''admits'' that ''goalies are weird'', when I came across this video of disgrunteled Austin Krause scoring in his own net then leaving the ice flipping the bird, costing his team the victory, in a Minensota high school game:



The reason? He was angry at his lack of playing time. Needless to say, it went from slim to none, after that prank. Goalies are weird. Fine.