Merry Fughin' Christmas

Christmas comes but once a year and it isn’t for the faint of heart, or the lily livered. I forget the catharsis of Christmas specials until I find myself in the perennial tradition of emptying a bottle of wine between a Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story. It’s my only respite from the group of cretins I didn’t, as much as my parent’s dating habits, chose for me as relatives. It’s enough to be elbows deep in the Christmas spirits.

I know it’s a statistical misnomer, and perhaps it’s because if I killed myself right now my mother would never let me hear the end of it. Between all the long johns and much appreciated video games, the best present my family ever gave to me was a morbid sense of humour, up for adoption withstanding. It’s an inheritance that’s allowed us to still love each other.

I’ll come down from the cross now, even if we’ve lapsed, Catholics keep the tradition of Christ in Christmas.

Bad Rap

“I be the RZA, call me that cause I
Never liked the name I received from my poppa”

-RZA (AKA Robert Fitzgerald Diggs), Cuttin’ Headz

No kidding, with names like these, I’d start a rap career just for the pseudonym.

1. Big L- Lamont Coleman
2. Mase- Mason Durelle Betha
3. Redman- Reginald Noble
4. Snoop Dogg- Cordozar Calvin Broadus
5. Masta Killa- Elgin Turner
6. NaS- Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones
7. Big Daddy Kayne- Antonio Monterio Hardy
8. Kool Moe Dee- Mohandas Dewese
9. U-God- Lamont Jody Hawkins

Oh-Canada-lympics

I'm so over the Olympics even though it's been two years since the last. I think it exists as a clearinghouse for shitty sports you'd never ever find yourself watching otherwise. Cross-country skiing how exhilarating, I’m glad we’ve supplanted speed walking into a winter event.

Also I've never ever under stood how the Olympics is about amateur sports which basically means non-sponsored athletes, when it's just so full of terrible marketing, like people in peak physical condition endorsing cheeseburgers. (edit: I found out that the Olympics started phasing out the requirements of amateur athletes because a bunch from the Eastern Bloc existed as full-time state sponsored athletes.)

Besides, I hail from Toronto, specifically North York, which unlike most of Canada is a true melting pot, so national pride comes as a bit odd for me. Further more I’m genetically too much of a mutt to care although my nationality of Irish/Scott Pollack/Ukrainian makes up the constituents of the people whose backs this country was built on. Until they have some geriatric Pole from the prairies representing the Great White North in a drinking competition I refuse to show any interest. I’m also refusing to step on any Faberge eggshells about my heritage.

I do have to laugh about the irony of while praising Native culture through the games and praising our own multiculturalism, despite pillaging the aforementioned, we’ve done a pretty good job of displacing a good portion of another native population, the homeless. Some of which I’m sure contain an actual percent of the Native population.

I guess headlines like this keep things appealing.

http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/luge/story/2010/02/12/spo-luge-georgian-alert.html

I applaud the ever-present tastefulness of the games, as the video of the crash was posted on youtube.

Over and out.

Christmas Music Time Redux

As an update to the last post, I don't know why anyone with a semi-functional family can say they hate Christmas. You get to eat the best food, usually made by your elderly grandmother who has decades of domestic experience, alot of drinking done between your family and friends you haven't seen in ages and until January, you haven't a care in the world. Occasionally you even get Phil Lynott playing with Paul Cook and Steve Jones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN2bcS9shuY

Do They Know It's Christmas Music Time

I've been hearing Christmas music since my birthday, which is in November, and all of it is the same song done over and over again, usually with weird falsettos. It's also usually the last attempt for a band to be commercially viable even though the general public has forgotten about them years ago so that weird falsetto thing Christina Aguilera does on Xtina's Xmas becomes a requiem for her career.

Anyways, I made a Christmas mix for novelty.



1. Merry Crassmas Side A-Crass
2. Last White Christmas-Basement 5
3. Punk Rock Christmas-The Alan Milman Sect
4. There Ain't No Sanity Claus-The Damned
5. Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight)-The Ramones
6. Fairytale Of New York-The Pogues
7. Merry Crassmas Side B-Crass

The only Christmas song I'm looking forward to this season, http://www.chartattack.com/news/76538/fucked-up-enlist-vampire-weekend-broken-social-scene-for-do-they-know-its-christmas-cover

Greatest Cop-Outs Of All Time

I don't know why I'm compelled to write this but these statements never cease to bother me. So for no one's viewing pleasure, the most annoying cop-outs I've ever have had the pleasure of hearing:

“Call me old fashioned” – In her day, my grandmother was an attractive young lady, albeit a bit of a ditz. Now in her autumn years, her looks have gone but she’s still a little thick and from her bygone days still holds her racism against Chinese people. Even though they were here building railroads while her family was running away from the Bolsheviks in the old country, she still talks about them like an invading hoard of Huns on the way to Sunday all you can eat breakfasts. Call it old-timey, antiquated, maybe even old fashioned, because at one time showing little respect for Asians was in fashion if you ever want to refer to Mickey Rooney’s performance in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__-unOqTPYk)

“That’s just the way I was raised” - I was raised Catholic, which for those of you who don’t know is a shitty system of beliefs where no matter what you do, you feel endlessly guilty and have to apologize for everything. It basically turns you into an anxious, juvenile Canadian. Do I still believe in this? No, I’ve grown up; this is just the way I was raised.

Comparing anyone to Hitler, a Nazi or a Fascist - Just because you’re fucking up in school and your dad has grounded you doesn’t mean he killed millions of people. He was your age once and used to cut class and go smoke pot in the ravine too, go check the back of his high school year book and see if anyone signed as Day Tripper.

“But they’re a legend” – I don’t see why this one gives people immunity when they turn into serious dicks. From a personal anecdote, I used to love Black Flag when I was younger and in turn thought Henry Rollins was the shit. As I grew older not only did I learn that all Black Flag’s fun songs were a result of Keith Morris, and Henry Rollins was responsible for turning the band into a shitty metal one, I also learned that he was incredible boring and lame. To begin, I even forgave him for his terrible show, and hate to admit bought one of his poetry books at Value Village without questioning why it was there in the first place. It was so melodramatic and angst ridden, and it would later remind me of why listening to angry punk music is for teenagers. At the same time I went to a spoken word tour he was doing at U of T and was incredibly bored. Later, I found out he was always a dick (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_3g4QPojMc), as well as before not becoming Black Flag’s main songwriter was the manager of a Häagen-Dazs store.

That's all for now, I recently moved into an apartment in Montreal with a bunch of Parisian roommates. Some of them are so cultured and European that they're also fans of early afternoon drinking, that and there is a pool table in the basement. I have things to do.