Punjabbawockeez

Ohhh how we Canadians love our wacky artists and musicians. Blah. Tonight was a mediocre version of that yearly shindig we call the Junos. Every year I watch this awards show because i love Canadian music and I'm all for recognizing local talent, but it blows my mind how generalized the categories are, and how much music goes unnoticed. But i figured I'd start off my postings with a little opinion piece a la Juno play by play.

So the stars of the show, to my deep, deep chagrin, where those redneck clone rockers, the pride of some oil-worker's garage in Alberta, yes ladies and gentleman it was Nickleback. (booooo) So this shiety band managed to pick up Group of the Year, Album of the Year and, what shocked me most, the Fan Choice Award. That means that across Canada, there are enough tone deaf, mullet loving middle aged women to beat out a generation of music obsessed teenagers. I don't get it. Can we mulligan Juno awards? No? All bashing aside though, Nickleback managed to land the opening spot, and capture the hearts of Canadians, with a song whose chorus ends in "You look so much cooler with something in your mouth!". Russel Peters, who killed it as host for the second-year running, totally called them on it too: "Hey guys, my mom is watching alright". On to the brown man we can't get enough of, Russel Peters. Walks out on to the stage with Indian dancers (who he later calls the Punjabbawockeez) and does his little punjabi dance, then busts some pretty killer b-boy moves. Highlight of the night though... "common Barenaked Ladies, you know i had to say a few LINES about your lead singer quitting." ahahaha, loved it. Canada's first coke head scandal in a while.

Other awards given out were Best Rock Album and Artists of the Year to Sam Roberts (which is cool, a Montreal native, even though he beat out the man, the myth, the legend DG for the latter); Lights won for Best New Artist (She'd be Hot if i couldn't eat her in one sitting... she weighs like 32.. max 34 pounds); Loverboy was honored with some lifetime achievement or something (man did that lead singer get fat... someone turned him loose on too many cakes and pies); and finally, Kardi, who's totally anti-Juno, won for best Rapper or something. In his little video speech he totally called out the Junos for giving out all the awards to Nickleback and having too little hip-hop, which was good for a snicker.

There were performances by Brian Adams (gives hope to every man with a gap in his teeth, amen) and Great Big Sea among others. GBS was kind of a disappointment closing the show... they covered some song and the main singer with the wicked Maritimer accent didn't even sing. Lameee. Simple Plan also performed. I don't know how these guys are famous. It bothers me. Seriously. Stop toying around with thirteen year old faux-punk girls, you are lameeee.

And now we arrive to my favorite part of the night, my shout out to Dallas Green. He took the award for Best Songwriter, which was perfect and made me respect the junos a teenie tiny bit more. He also performed Sleeping Sickness with Gordon Downie of the Tragically Hip (his vocals were totally drowned out by some backup dude which was weakk but still much better than anything else at the show). Overall, i kind of hate how underrepresented certain styles were. I know they go mainstream and family friendly for TV but still. Cancer Bats, Stars, Chromeo, Metric, Moneen... all don't even get to sit in the stands for shits and gigs? Protest the Hero was also nominated for best rock album which totally doesn't fit the band... how do you stick Sam Roberts and Protest in the same category? But oh well. I'm all for Canadian music and the mad Vancouver Olympics promos going on the whole night lol.

As for me, I'll be posting mostly on music, the arts and news. You can expect an occasional deviation from this path though but don't work yourselves into a conundrum over it (totally pointless I'm just trying to expand my vocab like Swank.) Easy peeeezzzz.
- Brows

Is it the week's end?

There are the group of friends who are down to drink any night of the week because their schedules are based on fulltime jobs and don’t conflict with exams or assignments, where then there’s the group of friends who are seldom to escape their studies yet are astoundingly stimulating in terms of conversation. I’m asking myself at this point in my education, will there be a train that I get on that departs before those out of school can reach it, and will it be going somewhere that will distance us too drastically apart?

It’s Friday night, midterms begin in a week, your day has been an arduous one if any and nothing would appease your restlessness more than having cold beers at the local brass with all the guys. Where the plan commences in a different route is when those phone calls are responded with listless souls on the other end that depict a day that has been comprised of studious hardships and is nowhere near its end. You are dismayed, of course, but you’ve a call list that has yet to be exhausted, and eventually you collect a group of guys who always know how to prevent the night from ending too early. The beers get going, and all the classic laughable stories are told as the cards are dealt, yet you recall a notable moment in your day when your professor and class got into a good debate on whether, or not, Thoreau is an archetype of self-actualization experiences, and how the discussion ended with Thoreau being considered a pseudo-hermit, since he’d have cookies over at Emerson’s on Fridays. You begin to tell the story, then stop to expound on self-actualization, which is ambiguous enough with a background, and then as you still have to elaborate on who Emerson and Thoreau are, that excited pace you originally had dims, and your once worthy story is answered with a cold lack of appreciation.

I get it, and I know there are groups of friends appropriate for different occasions and moods, but when (actually happened) someone uses “interpret” in a sentence and the group turns to them and notes the big word and their “book-learning” adeptness, you can’t help but wish there was less of a distinguishing chasm between those groups.

Is it up to someone to get others intrinsically motivated enough that they all will be savvy on similar world topics, or should they just keep a part of them at bay at appropriate times? I realized that if I’m going to have both types of friends, then there shouldn’t just be this observer that controls me, but it’s up to me to make everyone feel comfortable, have the conversation flow back and forth evenly and colloquially if necessary because at the end of the day, variety, my friend, is sexy.

-Swank

Long Life/ Painless Death

Ok so this is the first blog I’m writing that’s officially called a blog.
People talk a lot about how the ideal way to end things is a long life and a painless death, preferably while asleep. This bothers me. Why don’t people realize that being ninety-fucking-six years old isn’t a good thing?
First off, I get the whole “I’m old and still active” thing. That makes sense. Unless by “active” you mean that you can still go for walks but your dick is forever curled up in the fetal position. Fuck that, I don’t want that. Walking can bite my raging hard-on if it means that I’m dying a few years earlier.
This doesn’t seem to be the case for most people, they’d give up living a really great 50 years if they get to drag it on to the point where gumming their food is a daily highlight. Fuck, I’d much rather reduce the world’s population, not to mention their tax dollars, if it means I don’t need to become the equivalent of a forgetful, wrinkled infant. Ask people if they’d like to live a long life, and they will always answer yes. Ask them if they want to be a 105 year old man, most will say no. What people want isn’t long life, its eternal youth. And even that is bullshit unless everybody else gets it too. Fuck living forever as a 20-year-old if everybody else is dead.
This brings me to death. I am not ready to die. I do not want to die in the next 40 years if I can help it. But I definitely do want to die eventually.
Most people (the same ones who are content with eating everything in liquid form and never having sex again) want to die painlessly in their sleep. I don’t.
I think that there are 3 factors that need to be taken into account when it comes to death. 1: age, 2: pain, 3: cool factor. Only the first two are usually considered. I am 100% willing to sacrifice some of the pain points to go for more cool points.
If it were completely up to me, the following is how I’d like it to go down.
Age: 70, Pain: excruciating, Cool Factor: ten billion cool points.
Now how do I define a cool death? For me to be satisfied with the cool points, I want to make national, if not international, headlines.
I want people to log onto their homepage and read “Montreal man dies fending off school of sharks at a nuclear test facility in Iraq”
That, to me, would be the ideal. Fuck the painless death in your sleep. If there’s no fire, spies, or deadly animals involved, then why bother dying.
Anyways, it’s getting late and I’m tired as fuck. This has been the first official blog.

-Thor’s Hammer