Irish eyes are smiling

Newly married, and still glowing with all that love and luster that comes with matrimonial bliss – I’ve frankly been too happy lately to be an angry, fist shaking old man. So happy in fact, that I’m at a loss to use this space for it’s usual pointed critique of the social and political surroundings…aka – my frothing bat-shit-crazy melt downs.

Next week sees myself and the missus off to Ireland for our honeymoon. So this post I’m gonna switch it up and offer some recommendations for you, my sole reader.

Cool website/ interweb feature – Stumbleupon

This is probably the coolest thing I’ve seen on the web since Two Girls, One Cup…just kidding. It’s honestly a great tool and an absolutely awesome way to piss away hours on the internet.

The premise is simple enough. It generates web pages depending on the topics and interests you choose. Here’s how it breaks down – you sign up for a profile, and select interests from a big list of things including, photography, humour, girls, cups, etc…then once you’re done, you download the little toolbar – which installs itself into your browser – and you’re off.

You just hit the Stumble button and it starts bringing up pages based on your profile. I’ll warn you now though…you will get roped in and constantly be wondering what’s coming next.

www.stumbleupon.com

Cool new album from a cool band – Wolf Parade, At Mount Zoomer

While I usually leave music suggestions and critique to my good friend Sniffy Von, I do feel the need to pass on this suggestion.

When I first sat down with Wolf Parade’s last album Apologies to the Queen Mary, I didn’t really know what to think. It was chaotic; the vocals were like yelps fighting against instruments that sounded like they were being forced to their very limits. And yet it was that same chaos that two or three listens later made it so unforgettable.

This year’s follow up is much easier to sink into upon first listen. It’s a trim nine songs and is complete with the same attacking sound and emphatic melodies, with lyrics fired at you like bullets from a machine gun. But there’s also a real nuanced subtly that wasn't quite as apparent the first time around. It's perhaps a softer side to a band that might have been discounted by non-indie fans as noisey.

Stand-out tracks: Soldier’s Gun, California Dreamer and Fine Young Cannibals

Cool New trend – being a traitorous bastard!

Hey Mats. How are you? It's been a while.

So listen, didn’t I see you the other day talking to that Bob Gainey guy? What was that about?

I know we’re on a break, but I thought you were just “thinking things over,” and then I see you with him?

Listen, I don’t think I can do this anymore. I need a definitive answer one way or the other. You either stay here or you go off with him.

Seriously – dude – you wanna play in a new city fine, but Montreal? Really? Why don’t you take a big steamer on your old jersey while you’re at it. That’s cold Mats – just cold.

Just remember, when thier fans burn down your house because you lost/won the game for them – don’t come crying to us.

Hope this works out for you and doesn’t ruin the last years of your career.

for examples see: Curtis Jospeh

hmm…seems I got a bit of a rant in there after all. Feels kind of good.

Toronto I love you, but you're bringing me down

7 Cops. That’s how many it took to bring me down the other morning. Seven of them! On a sunny June morning the only way to stop me in my tracks was seven of Toronto’s finest.

What was my crime?

“Your bike doesn’t have a bell or a horn,” commented Special Constable Dick Head.

Oh that’s right, I was handed a $100 ticket for failing to equip my bike with that ever important and life saving device – a bell (or a horn). Because when it comes down to living or dying – I choose to live, and I choose a bell!

Toronto – you’re fucking killing me!

I wish to God I was making this up, because that alone would be bad enough. But five officers stood around on this morning while two handed out tickets – as if for moral support. So officer D. Head and his six friends milled about snickering under their breaths, and of course “solving crime.”

Maybe I’m wrong, but weren’t 8 people shot in Toronto this past weekend, in three or four separate incidents? Perhaps the guy putting together the schedule could have pulled three or four cops away from this whole “bell” epidemic that’s sweeping the city and put them to finding people with guns.

But of course that would take away from Toronto’s love of punishment. Gosh, this city certainly loves to be punitive.

Parked 2.5 meters from a fire hydrant instead of 3? $100 ticket.

Your parking sticker is two inches out of place? $30 ticket.

No bell or horn on your bike? $100 ticket.

Here I am trying to help the environment, keep my car off the road, looking like a tool in my bike helmet and riding in the proper bike lane – but that’s just not good enough. You know what Toronto – sometimes you’re everything that the rest of this country hates about you.

But maybe I’m wrong – maybe Toronto just has my best interest at heart. Maybe the next time I almost get hit by a car instead of swerving out of the way, I’ll just ring my bell frantically…that should send a clear message.

Or maybe it just makes the cyclist easier to find after a crash – just listen for the honking goose sound when they’re pulling apart the wreckage.

Buyer beware

I'm fuming mad, pushing a bike across College St. in the hot afternoon sun. Sweat is pouring down my forehead and I can feel it pooling under the shoulder strap of my bag. Plus every third or fourth step I catch my foot on the bike pedal and trip a little, exacerbating my white-hot rage.

This was the scene the other day as my cheap, Canadian Tire Supercycle mountain bike came apart underneath me like Hilary Clinton's presidential bid, peddling furiously but going nowhere.

Looking down I notice the rear gear housing wobbling uselessly and in a way that made it clear I would be spending the next 45 minutes pushing this useless green frame home (uphill no less). The funniest part is that I had only purchased it a month and a half ago…hilarious right?

So as I made my way home in the heat (did I mention how hot it was?), my mind turned over a number of different scenarios featuring me, a lead pipe and the bike's designer – all of them bloody…all of them satisfying.

The point is I am still continually shocked with the outrageously poor and shitty way most things are constructed nowadays. I say nowadays as if I have some 50-year benchmark to measure against, but the fact remains most products these days are absolute shit.

When I opt for the cheaper model of something, I naively imagine that it's cheaper because it has less features or is painted an embarrassing green colour. I don't naturally assume that cheaper means it has an expiration date attached to it like eggs or Chad Kroeger's haircut.

I realize that getting worked up and acting surprised is as pointless as…well as that shitty bike, but it's my blog so fuck it…did I mention how hot it was?

Hip to be square

To take full advantage of the gorgeous weather this weekend, me and the missus headed down to Kensington Market for a spot of shopping and culture.

Also, I needed a reason to put pants on and stop playing Grand Theft Auto for a few hours and the promise of rubbing shoulders with the elite hipster crowd was enough motivation for me. And God knows if there was ever a bastion for the uber-cool it's Kensington.

A strange bunch these hipsters, what with their irony and tight pants. They're not defined by a style of music or even a trend in clothing but more by their complete dismissal for everything you like and think is cool. They are an enigma wrapped in a riddle - except they hate riddles and think enigmas are super-lame.

They're into bands you've never heard of, and – usually because they're complete shit – never will hear about. Everything they do is based around irony, but with an over-arching air of apathy and superiority. Basically they try really, really hard to seem like everything they do is effortless and end up coming across as total dickweeds.

Now I'm often described as "opinionated" and "disagreeable" by a small, minority of people, but if I hate something you like it's probably because it's stupid. Meanwhile, a hipster hates something you like purely because you like it – hate is their natural posture.

Also, any trend that you now partake in or came in contact with – they started. Like the second-hand thrift store t-shirt fad from a few years ago? Well man, they got there first and their t-shirt was funnier and more ironic than yours.

I'm actually wondering at what point this latest round of Walmart brand ironic tees will become so painfully uncool to hipsters that they'll actually be considered cool again. My God – that's more irony than anyone can stand. I fear the world would simply collapse in on itself leaving an over sized scarf and bits of beard where a hipster once stood.

I also wonder how one becomes a hipster. Like Fight Club, it seems like the first rule is – you do not talk about being a hipster. In fact, if you asked them, they would even tell you they hate hipsters.

But overall I think my favourite thing about them is how much work they put into their identities. Frankly, you almost have to commend them, because being that smug is a 24 hour job.

When they're not searching blogs and websites for the next trend (don't bother looking for these sites, you've never heard of them…only hipsters have), they're researching bands and haircuts and finding ways to make themselves look as disheveled and unkempt as possible. Because more than anything, they want you to believe that everything they do takes no effort.

The truth is, that mullet was no happy accident...it was groomed and honed to perfection. And the stinky looking dude with the mustache? He didn't just wake up with that on his lip - he's been developing it for a while.

The point being that they work doubly hard to look like they gave their entire persona no thought...which is kind of ironic...don't you think?

Wedding bells are ringing

With a wedding fast approaching I'm finding time is a commodity I'm sorely lacking. So that - coupled with the fact that I'm feeling sort of lazy and uninspired - has left me with just a few random thoughts rolling around in my head.

***

Is Madonna still in any way relevant? She's not putting out particularly inspired or life altering music, she's about as controversial as a pre-school and at the age of 63 still insists on parading around in her underpants like someone’s confused grandmother at a nursing home. Not to mention the super creepy flirting she does in her new video/commercial, with a guy who could easily be her son.

Now, I know what you're thinking, she's actually 50 and she looks really good for her age. But when you have to justify how great she looks with a caveat, then it shouldn't count. Like this food tastes great compared to garbage or my kid is really smart compared to the sidewalk. Either way I don’t want to see it, no matter how much yoga she does.

***

Some mysterious illness is killing all the sting rays at the Calgary zoo. Maybe it's the ghost of Steve Irwin. This has all the making of a classic Scooby Doo episode.

***

A Buffalo news feed cut into my television program the other night to bring breaking news of a stand-off. I know everyone loves a good high speed car chase, and who doesn’t enjoy a spot of police brutality every now and then – but by it’s very definition a stand-off with police infers that NOTHING IS HAPPENING!

Seriously, the point is that neither side is doing anything – they’re just standing…until the other person backs off…I hate missing my television stories!

***

Austrian’s are a crazy bunch, aren’t they? As if their tourism board wasn’t already having a rough time – this happens.

***

And lastly – kudos to the homeless guy I saw blow his nose into his bare hand the other day. Way to show the big tissue companies that you don’t need them.

To Clever By Half

As someone with an interest in politics the current Democratic race in the US offers up some good old timey drama. American politics has always been a little flashier and sexier then it’s Canadian brethren. This is mostly because Canadian politicians tend to talk about really boring things like policies and governance. They don’t touch on fundamental issues like who can answer a phone at 3 a.m. and who has the crazier pastor.

As so often happens south of our border, Americans miss the point. Sure their political races are much more enticing but usually for all the wrong reasons. So it shouldn’t come as any great surprise that story after story keeps harping on the same stupid thing: Barack Obama just doesn’t relate to the everyday man.

He’s too hoity-toity and too upper-class to comprehend people from the country’s heartland. Obama just isn’t the “common man.”

Well to put it bluntly, thank fuck for that.

You’re electing the leader of a nation not class president; by rights he should be smarter, more capable and generally superior to you in every way (like the $6 Million Man without the sound effects). And after eight years, while I’m sure a lot of Americans might think otherwise, the leader of any nation should be the most intelligent person in the room. In fact he should make the “common man” look like a mouth breathing sloth in a wife-beater and trucker hat.

Okay so apologies to all…the man is smart, but what else is wrong with him? He’s got money…he’s affluent? You mean he doesn’t blow all his money at the Casino? He doesn’t consider the lottery a legitimate retirement savings plan? What a douche! I mean God forbid you have someone with some financial savvy taking the reigns of one of the world’s super-powers.

Once you sift through the B.S. on this, it basically reads like Middle America feels threatened that an extremely smart, well educated man will be watching over them. They don’t trust him and don’t think he’ll have their best interests at heart when he makes major executive decisions.

The idea is pretty ridiculous, but why do Clinton and McCain instil such confidence? What is it about these two that somehow has people believing they would sit and have a beer with them? Hilary looks as wooden and stern as a history teacher – like someone’s mom trying way too hard to seem cool by using phrases like “jiggy.”

And McCain is about as “everyman” and “common” as someone worth $40 million can be.

I don’t think it’s a secret that to be president you need two basic things: money and smarts – unless you’re a Republican, then you just need Dick Cheney. Thankfully Obama has both and also has something lacking from so many modern politicians – charisma.

And yet because he writes his own speeches, is eloquent and uses big words, there’s a chance he may lose his bid to be the next US president. All because a portion of the US thinks Obama doesn’t understand your basic, God-fearing American. But trust me, he understands them, only too well…and after the last eight years watching a functionally retarded President, so does the rest of world.

When I grow up...

I’ve been feeling a little uninspired with work lately. It seems to go in these 6 – 8 month cycles where I go from disinterested and unmotivated to mildly interested and slightly more motivated.

My latest low came the other day while I was sitting in a rather ornate conference hall in a swanky downtown hotel listening (and I use that term loosely) to the finer details of real estate law.

I was trying to imagine under what circumstances this could possibly be considered interesting? I came to the conclusion that unless Batman and Jesus were having a light saber duel on the stage there’s just no way any sane person could have enjoyed it.

Editors note: I like Batman’s chances in that fight.

And yet from the first day I joined the working world I have been sitting in meetings and conferences just like this one, drifting in and out of consciousness. I show up with the best of intentions – I try so hard to pay attention – but the topics are usually so painfully boring that within minutes my brain is asking questions like – "How much pen ink could I drink before I got sick" and "how much would my life really change if I had a prehensile tail and wings?"

But such is the life of an adult it would seem. We all sit around these tables pretending like we care and acting as though we’re really very interested in what the other people are saying when in reality all we can think about is “has anyone noticed that I have no idea what’s going on here?”

Years ago I imagined there would be a day when a switch would go off and I would suddenly care – as if I found out that all this time I was actually a robot (*cough – cylon*) and not a human. I imagined that one day I would wake as an adult.

So far this hasn't happened and God willing it never will.

It’s safe to say I don’t “act” like and adult. I mean, at 31 – as my soon-to-be-wife will attest to – I still think the word poo is hilarious. I still think ninja stars are awesome, I play video games a fair bit and if there’s something more fun than a bouncy-castle, I don’t want to know about it.

I still party with the same group of friends, and we still make the same jokes (usually at Rob’s expense) and it’s still as much fun now as it was then.

That’s another thing, I don’t know anyone who “acts” like an adult, and frankly why would you want to. The stigma of being a grown up is something that no one truly looks forward to. It’s like some kind of untreatable disease that upon the mere mention makes peoples’ faces recoil in horror. “An adult? Damn-it, he was so young.”

So if we’re all just pretending to be grown ups and going through the motions, then why pretend any longer? Just about every male (and some females) I know plays video games on a regular basis but that doesn’t make them juvenile – maybe a little anti-social – but surely not juvenile. I’m also convinced the friends I know who have kids, had them so they could start to play with toys again.

Clearly none of use us wants to act like grown ups, so then why do we all feel so guilty about acting like kids? The only difference between me as a kid and me now, is that now I have the money to buy the toys I want. And mom – I hate to say this – but yes, sometimes I have ice cream for dinner – simply because I can.