So I am back here, writing again. I tried to sneak away, but Bosses Gloomchen and Widro beat my knuckles to a bloody pulp with their rulers, and ran enough tasers through me to power an entire city block. I’m back, with the same salary as I had before, and I’m now out on the East side, in Toronto.
…and you can’t really talk about Toronto without talking about the Maple Leafs or hockey in general. Especally if you’re me, writing a music column after a rather lengthy hiatus. You’ll forgive me if I don’t attempt to use this rather small platform I have to preach to the masses to sound off against the idiots that comprise the sports writers here in Toronto (Damien Cox, I’m looking at you!), but, since I don’t want to be abusing my position as a writer quite YET, I’ll keep it short and sweet for this week.
Todd Bertuzzi is on Team Canada and YOU’RE not, ha ha!
Right. Immature, inane and completely off topic. We’re about par for the course, it looks like.
Since I am currently ignoring my rather sizable chunk of Poli Sci readings to write this column, I guess I should get serious for a moment and address the ongoing Canadian federal election.
Public Service Announcement (Not A Rap Skit)
Now, I’m not going to try and impress upon the other Canadians who might be reading this column as to who specifically you should vote for. Frankly, the situation in Ottawa is a bigger mess than Courtney Love (What the hell do you mean she’s clean and sober? I go away for a couple of months and my whole world is CRUMBLING. The hell?) Anyway, the federal situation is a bigger mess than Mike Danton’s brain, and I’m not going to advocate a specific political party at this point in time.
That said, there is some very interesting, and very relevant stuff going down in the riding I happen to be living in at this moment. Stalkers, this is where you should be paying attention, k?
My riding, of High Park/Parkdale, is basically coming down to a race between Liberal incumbent Sam Bulte and NDP candidate Peggy Nash. Yeah, there’s a Green Party guy and someone from the Conservatives running as well, but come on, this is TORONTO, folks. Now, Ms. Bulte stands a very good chance of re-election and, assuming that the Liberals are able to eke out a victory, something that doesn’t look to be a possibility right now, has an excellent chance of becoming Canada’s new Heritage minister.
Now, as law professor Michael Geist has managed to uncover, there’s something fishy going on with Ms. Bulte.
Bulte was the only MP who had accepted personal donations from a number of special interest groups focused in the copyright sector. While one might think that it is not a a huge deal if she does, the fact that these campaign donations focused solely on her, and have continued on with the current election we are in, culminating in a $250/plate dinner late last week. She has, on numerous occasions, spoken out in favor of pro-corporation/US-style copyright reforms in Canada, and has advocated revisions in our current laws that would effectively tether and chain our public school systems.
The Liberal MP has also gone on record as stating that she is speaking out in favor of the artists, yet the copyright reform she advocates would serve to seriously cripple Canadian artists and put corporations, publishers, et al. in an even greater position of power over them.
I’m not going to try and take some sort of pro-piracy stance here and state that Bulte should be ousted simply because she favors copyright laws that would allow things like the Sony-BMG spyware fiasco from last year to happen. Cheap shot there, I know, I apologise.
What does concern me, though, is the fact that her influence as a politican and, more importantly, as a representative for myself as a person living in her riding, does not reflect my own personal views. I am currently going to school to try and become a writer. Whether or not I am going to be successful is another story entirely, although I would like to try and have some sort of control over something that I spend months slaving over. I don’t think an editor, a marketing genius or anyone else who works for a publisher has the right to do whatever they like with my book, and I am in support of laws that support this concept. Pair that up with Bulte catering to the lobby groups that are exactly against this mindset and calling people like me zealots, and you have someone who is pretty well pissed off.
So, my advice to anyone here who happens to live in the High Park/Parkdale riding in Toronto: Do not vote for Sam Bulte, do not support her, if you are against draconic US-style copyright laws making their way north here to Canada.
Again, it looks as though the Liberal party is DOA, but stranger things have been known to happen.
PSA #2
Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Sabrina the Teenage Mother.
Yikes. Girls, let this be a lesson to always insist your beau has a rubber before he gets down with you. Seriously, I don’t know if this is just Hart post-pregnancy or the Olsen Sisters using their Wonder Twins superpowers ‘Power of…A HIPPOPOTAMUS and a…THYROID!’
Yuck. Let’s get down to covering substantial, shall we?
Da Noows
– Sweet merciful Christ. Kevin Federline has recorded a duet album with wife/sofa Britney Spears. The poor man’s John Cena is using this as a bargaining chip will only release the album IF his debut album is floundering and needs a sales boost is a success. Well Kevin, since you and your wife has become the poster couple for Wal Mart types around the Southern United States, I have a feeling that you might just be able to sell a couple of albums.
Seriously, what the hell is the fascination with this guy? He’s ugly, he’s stupid and he’s married to the Trailer Trash Princess, Ms. Spears herself. Couldn’t the media go and invade Christina Aguilera’s life and focus on HER? Girl is at least talented, hasn’t let herself go, and is slightly classier skank than Britney is. Plus, she had an actual wedding, she didn’t go to some hole in the wall shithole in Nevada or whatever the hell it was Britney did.
Moving on..
– Speaking of a match made in heaven, looks like Michael Jackson is going to have to square off against PETA now. No, he’s not f*cking the chimp, that’s too easy. No, apparently Jackson has completely and totally abandoned his Neverland Ranch and is looking to be brought up on charges of animal cruelty. Claims have come forth stating that a crocodile was found in ‘cramped conditions’, a giraffe was found in a pool of it’s own blood, and Macauly Calkin hadn’t been fed or given water for over 3 weeks. I know, I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel making Calkin/Jackson jokes. I’ve been away for several months and I’m rusty, gimme a break.
– Reel Big Fish got dropped from their record label. Cue major label bashing from bitter bandmembers-slash-positive-‘well, now we can be horribly irrelevant and ignored by doing things the way WE wanted to do them’. And an album that no one will buy and/or care about 6-9 months later. Yawn.
– Axl Rose will supposedly be putting out the new Guns ‘N Roses disc sometime this year. Honest to God, I think if I just took a small sampling of my columns and just put them on a random shuffle, NO ONE would notice.
– Courtney Love doing something retarded and/or stupid? Check.
– Axl Rose promising new music sometime before his entire fanbase becomes incontinent? Check.
– Incoherent babbling about hockey? Check.
– Same old boring and tired jokes from the Canadian? Check.
See? It’s not that hard!
– U2 fans in Brazil were screwed out of their chance to see the band perform down in Sao Paulo the other day. Fans had waited up to 12 hours for a chance to snag tickets, only to discover that the ticket selling machine had malfunctioned and that another, greasier ticket selling machine outside the venue was selling tickets for five times the listed price.
– Ricky Martin apparently really loves giving golden showers, and has said so in the mighty pages of Blender magazine, no less. I say this only because if I have to suffer with the knowledge of something as terrible as that, the rest of you have to as well.
– In yet another pairing, Megadeth and website deviantART are looking to redesign band mascot Vic Rattlehead. Prizes include a number of different Dave Mustaine signature guitars.
Quick side-rant here: What is it with metal bands and them having ‘mascots’? It’s really strange, as they’re really the only genre that has a sizable number of mascots, and I can’t really think of any other genre that has a horde of mascots ready to represent their beloved metal bands.
Erm, anyway….expect Victo become a closeted homosexual, possibly resembling Harry Potter and/or an anime character, lacking proper proportions, possibly looking as though he was colored by a dog or drawn by someone without the use of their fingers (or possibly using a WACOM tablet, either/or!), and so on and so forth.
Just kidding deviantART, ya knows I loves ya!
I think it’s time to draw this trainwreck to a close. I will end this column on a high note, though, with a recommendation.
Check out the soundtrack to Stubbz the Zombie. Yes, it’s a video game soundtrack and yes, it’s nothing but covers, but I happened to really enjoy it. Better than the seagull shit that constitutes modern pop music these days by a country mile, that’s for sure.
Anyway, that should do it for Hump Day. Have a great rest of the week and I should see you all sometime soon!
