The only problem with Aband*nthecar's show last night
was that not enough people saw it.
This was due to some really bad scheduling on the part of Stylus Magazine, who hosted the show at the Rose n Bee last night where there were two kickass acts and one wtf in between.
Usually I don't go around slamming local musicians. Yr grl can't read music, sing, or play an instrument to save 'er life but I know tone-deaf when I hear it and the second act (who shall remain nameless) was tone-deaf.
The first band, Hana Lu Lu, were amazing. Check 'em out if you're in prairietown and like new wave and fog machines and lead singers with long hair who are kinda smarmy.
They played a really good set and their music was top-notch, so when dude got on stage with a guitar and an amp got on stage we were all
"alright let's do this. rock our socks guy"
except he kinda totally did the exact opposite.
I won't rag on him too much but it was bad news. He kept losing track of where he was in his songs, was tone-deaf, and for his last "song" did an a cappella terrible karaoke-style version of Like A Prayer complete with ad-libbed hoarse-screamed ad-libbed versions of the lyrics about how he didn't know why he was still singing.
Protip: neither did we.
By the time he was done the bar was basically cleared which was sad because Aband*nthecar's set was so sweet and lovely and even though we were out way too late it was worth it.
Needless to say I'm unimpressed with how the Stylus people handled the show. The minute they realized the guy was bombing they should have pulled him offstage, because they did a real disservice to a musician who clearly took the show seriously.
So for those of you that didn't get to, you can hear the stylings of Aband*nthecar here, and in the video below:
I can see why people are kinda hating on Bioshock: Infinite
.jpg)
which isn't to say that I don't absolutely effing love it for those exact same reasons.
some of the themes that people don't like in the game are:
- racism
- extreme religious behaviour
- zealots
- exploiting others
- ideological societies
- crazy-go-nuts American nationalism
- extreme violence
among other things which I think is total BS.
What it is, is that the game is exposing and discussing things
(particularly about American society)
that make people
(particularly Americans)
uncomfortable.
It's shitty when someone points at you and goes "these are the ways you're fucked up, this is what you could be/are becoming" which the game really does.
And that hurts, I get it.
But what I think is shitty is that we have games like Call of Duty which totally demonize other countries/cultures
(okay some are about Nazis but not all of them)
which are perfectly okay even though they're just as violent and graphic
and we let little kids play them.
But when a
(beautiful, stunning)
thoughtful
video game comes out that makes a statement
and ruffles feathers
(as a good piece of art/creativity should)
people get upset
because it doesn't demonize the people they want
it points to them and says
"you're fucked up, too"
now go fight this giant mechanical monster.
Today is Komus' birthday
I met Chris Komus once upon a time at a bar called Sonar which is now a gay bar I think.
It was a regular haunt for the people I now consider to be my dear friends and I was just getting to know everyone at the time, so it's all kind of a blur of beers, dancing, loud music and new people. Somewhere in there I met Komus, though we didn't really start hanging until I started dating Tyrone because they have the weirdest bromance ever.
However in the few short years I've known him I've managed to accumulate a ton of amazing memories such as:
- when we all went to Montreal for MUTEK
- running into a freezing lake in the middle of the night completely wasted
- way too many potlucks
- robot costumes
- gross Santa Suits
- educating the people of Connect about narwhals over the speaker system
- the pedobear costume
- and the epic Komus Party Halo:
Last year I had the privilege of driving out to Motion Notion in BC with him, Morley and Tyrone, and have so many ridiculous stories involving cars, ponchos, and air conditioning, plus getting lost in the mountains, Fatty Arbuckle's, wearing too many tshirts, awful lime beer, broken Styrofoam coolers, and a failed attempt to walk to the bathroom in the dark in the pouring rain where Komus proceeded to get lost and I had to run around with a sad, flickering flashlight, soaked to the bone, screaming
CHRIS KOMUUUUUUUUUUS
into the pitch black BC forest trying to find him.
Some of my best memories have been made while I've been in the company of this ridiculous man, and even though he's never on time and he and Tyrone totally get out of hand sometimes, I hope he never, ever changes.
HBD mang, thanks for being my summer bestie.
Sam Katz & Friends vs. Gordon Warren
A few people have asked for my opinion on the recent article published in the Winnipeg Free Press concerning local blogger Gordon Warren, who is being sued by local media group Direct Focus Marketing, as well as Sandy and Robert Shindleman, owners of Shindico,
Non-Winnipeggers interested in what I'm talking about can read the Free Press article here, but here's a snippet to give you some background:
The injunction was sought by Direct Focus Marketing Communications Inc., its owner Mark Hofer and the firms’ employees – all whom were named by Warren in a recent blog post on a move at city hall to sell off and lease out civic golf courses.
Direct Focus had been hired to conduct a media campaign to promote the sale of John Blumberg golf course and a 20-year lease for four other civic course. The campaign appeared to be spearheaded by an independent community group calling itself Responsible Winnipeg, but it turned out that group was the creation of one of Mayor Sam Katz’s political advisory bodies.
In case you missed that last bit, let me spell it out for you: our mayor ran a campaign without using City of Winnipeg logos to try and further his own political agenda and someone called him on it.
Important to remember: they're not going after him for libel, they're going after him for defamation of character because what Gordon Warren is saying is true.
Anyway, onto why you're here. You asked for my opinion, here it is:
I haven't read the blog posts in question, because due to the recent ruling they're unavailable on his blog, but from what I can tell everything Warren has been doing -bringing light to a shady political campaign, criticizing our mayor and his friends, and generally being politically active online- is completely within his rights as a Canadian citizen, and should be protected under Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
But you know what really bugs me about this whole thing?
We have people publishing much more malicious, hateful and half-true stories in our local tabloid, the Winnipeg Sun, every day. I'm speaking in particular about Tom Brodbeck, who uses his articles in the Sun and his blog (which I refuse to link to) to shamelessly criticize anyone who politically opposes him and his masters. I have heard more vitriolic commentary coming from this one "journalist" than I care to remember, yet to my knowledge nobody has taken him to court on Greg Selinger (our Premier)'s behalf -which is exactly what is happening with Warren. Sam Katz isn't suing him, but all of his buddies are.
A lot of people are saying "what did Warren say that was so upsetting?" and I think we're asking the wrong questions. Instead, we should be asking ourselves "how is suing someone over talking shit about you on the internet a reflection of your character?", "are these the kinds of people that we want running our city?" and, perhaps more importantly "is this how we treat people in our society who expose their dirty little secrets?"
**Alyson Shane is a blogger chick from Winnipeg and not a journalist. FYI.
I still wanna see The Great Gatsby
Even though it's not doing super hot in theaters and it's only got a 51% rating on rotten tomatoes.
I can't help it, I think it's because Leonardo DiCaprio is in it.
Scratch that. I know it's Leonardo DiCaprio is in it.
A few weeks ago the cat was bugging me at like 4am and I couldn't get back to sleep. So since it was Saturday I decided to go hang on the couch and see if I was going to fall back to sleep eventually, or what, and wound up watching Titanic, which I haven't seen in a few yrs.
It was actually better than my youthful self remembers. Though that might be because I could pause it and go pee halfway through without having to push past an aisle full of peeps just trying to enjoy the movie, dammit.
Anyway.
Leo was great in it. I always forget what an amazing actor he is until I'm watching one of his movies. Then I'm all
"holy shit, he's handsome and talented"
which is why I want to see Gatsby, even though from what I know there isn't any nudity à la Kate Winslet's fabulous boobs like in Titanic.
But I can deal. Plus Carey Mulligan is pretty effin cute.
The thing that puzzles me still is this:
Why did people expect the movie to be so great?
It's a mediocre movie based on a mediocre book
except the movie has a zebra in a fountain.
Very Green Tuesday with Vine and Frogbox
Our internet was down for most of the morning today which meant that besides a really kickass meeting with a new client I was unable to get much done.
It's sad how much we rely on teh internets to get our work done. Wow.
Anyway Joseph and I used it as an opportunity to go on a field trip to get some plants from the office, which are now happily living in our space:
(so much better than before -it's crazy what a difference a few plants can make)
To help with carting everything over we used Frogbox, which were provided to us by one of our amazing clients and were super helpful in moving all the plants, pots and soil into the office -way better than cardboard boxes, which would have been an awful experience considering that it's pouring rain in #Winnipeg right now.
Frogbox is also running a contest right now which you can enter to win money and free stuff (who doesn't love free stuff?) which you can check out here.
We also brought in a wonderfully green plant which completely changed the atmosphere of the workplace and is now our mascot.
Snakes on the plains
Fun fact: Narcisse, Manitoba has the highest concentration of red-sided garter snakes in the world and is protected by the Government of Manitoba
it's also garter snake mating season right now
which meant that despite a hangover and being tired as fawk
yr heroes made the trip out to the Narcisse Snake Pits to go see some snake balls n play with snakes
(you can't really see, but there are huge snake gangbangs going on down in that snake pit)
For those of you who've never played around with garter snakes it's a ton of fun
snakes usually freak me out a bit but these little doods are so cute and have no problem being picked up
tons of little kids were doing it but I don't have any pictures of them because taking photos of other people's kids is creepy
so I took photos of my lovely lady-friends and Tyrone instead.
We also packed a tasty picnic and some on-the-go vodka & apple ciders
which I highly recommend for any type of outdoor group activity
(good call on that one, Shawna)
Someone had a lie-down while we drove home and listened to episodes of Radiolab.
Snake mating season is wrapping up soon (within the next few weeks) but if you're in Manitoba and want a fun mini day-trip I can't recommend it enough!
Hip Hop Sunday #73 A Tribe Called Quest - We Can Get Down
Today I:
- played in the sunshine with my friends
- saw snakes have sex
- chased & held some snakes
- had a picnic
- drank spiked apple cider
- listened to Radiolab in the car on the way home
- held Tyrone's hand
- had the perfect Sunday
Hope yours was great too! xox
remember these lists?
Stolen from busblog, the only blogger who can make these cool.
1. a few
2. I've fucked up my life here n there
3. on everyone
4. many
5. water
6. try "strong dislike" -hate is wasteful
7. the best
8. you haven't lived if you haven't (yes)
9. currently working it
10. was, am, will be
11. today (contacts)
12. purple
13. average
14. 11/11/87
15. blue
16. boring
17. you
18. Internet
19. kiss
20. Shaner
21. norwegian wood - the beatles
22. the beatles or library voices or matt good
23. it's happened
24. worrying about what other people thought
25. book
26. game of thrones
27. I can't choose, my life is great
28. I write a mean blog (or so I'm told)
29. Tyrone, Kat, my secret blog
30. cracking joints, being dumb
31. above all else.
32. okay shouldnt be a goal [kept this because it's good]
Also this track, because it's what I'm listening to and it's great:
