Three Times #KidsintheHall Helped Me Through Shitty Stuff

1) Hotel LaRut

I was married, once. At 20, I was probably not ready to be married. My erstwhile ex-husband was definitely not ready to be married. All in all, marriage was a mistake.  I got a couple of pretty amazing kids out of the deal, so it ain't all bad, though.

I usually don't like to use identifiers here, because privacy, but this joke may not make a lot of sense if you don't know his name was Tony.

After we split up, whenever I was down and listless and complaining and crying, my best friend would put on a fake French accent and ask "What's wrong, my Michelle?" (Full disclosure: My name is not Michelle.  But you probably already knew that).

At this point I would slowly start to smile, and put on my own fake french accent..

"Oh, Silvee.. I can't help thinking about Tony..."



2) But Do You Love *Me*

I dated a dude once.  A dude, who although he professed to like an awful lot of things about me, always came back to how he just didn't quite feel *that way* about me.  Me, being the sucker I was, let him come back into my life numerous times, only to have the same conversation again, until I finally had to say "Enough!"



I'm not so sure this was one of those times where laughter is the actually the best medicine but those nights of drinking wine straight from the bottle while sobbing "I'm an icky, icky tree!" sure helped me work through some stuff.

"ICKY ICKY TREE"

3) The Cause of Cancer

Shitty things happen in life. Sometimes terrible, horrible things happen to good people.  Or, at the very least, to well-meaning people.

But, I digress.

When horrible things happen, sometimes it is comforting to have some kind of faith that everything happens for a reason.

We call those reasons 'Scapegoats'.

So when I was diagnosed with Stage 1 colon cancer, I had the perfect scapegoat in Bruce McCulloch. It helped that Bruce was always my least favourite Kid, so in a twisted part of my mind, it made sense that in his vengeance, out of spite for being my least favorite, that he would maliciously grow a tumour in my colon.




Dave's right. He doesn't even sound sorry.

So did go all that is good and pure in the world.

My heart is broken.

I caught wind through fellow blogger, Lance, that during last night's taping of The Daily Show, long-time host Jon Stewart let slip that he would be stepping down from his hosting duties.

I may have cried a little.  I am not ashamed.

When I saw the posted headline, I silently begged "Please be the Onion.  Please be the Onion," but the AV Club's post had already been edited to include an official announcement from Comedy Central.

SOURCE

This is disheartening news.  It may sound weird, since it's not entirely kid-friendly fare, but watching the Daily Show has become family time around here.

Yes, my kids rock current events at school.

And even though Jon Stewart may have outed the Easter Bunny, he's also opened up dialogues with my kids about war, prejudice, injustice, politics, racism, sexism (but surprisingly, not make-believe holiday creatures).  I recall Reagan laughing at a joke Stewart made a few months back that pointed out the irony in gun-rights advocates invoking Martin Luther King Jr. as an ally.

Granted, she may have just been laughing at the faces he was making, but a little part of me thought she may have gotten the joke. The kid is pretty smart.

Humour makes ideas and current events accessible.  And I think that has been part of the appeal of the Daily Show.

I have a few hopes here.  My first hope involves a long-time desire to see Jon Stewart enter politics, as I am sure many others have also hoped.  Then if he ran for president, Rick Mercer could come out and renounce that time he shilled for the government with those "One-Ton Challenge" commercials and returning to biting political commentary with a northern touch, and make a run for PM and in the end we'd have an entertaining-as-hell Canada-US alliance.

That's just an idea I've been throwing around since pretty much forever.

Second, since Comedy Central's official statement seemed to imply that Stewart's departure would not spell the end of the Daily Show, I really, sincerely hope that they make Jessica Williams the new host.  Not only is she my favourite correspondent out of the current cast, she's pretty badass, but as a WOC she'd be a refreshing change of pace from the current white-dude tsunami that is the late night talk-show circuit (Although I haven't forgotten you, Larry).

SOURCE

I guess we have a few more months to find out what's in store.

Conversations with my kid: Know Your Fandom

A few years ago I took the girls to the Toronto FanExpo.  T spots a guy dressed as David Tennant.

T: Mommy, look! It's Mr. Bean!

Me: No, honey. That's Dr. Who.

Tech, nostalgia and the coming generation.

Once a week the household gets together with my friend Tess and her family for a 'dinner-and-a-movie' night.  We often revisit old family classics or newer family-friendly fare. On occasion the kids all decide to screw off to my eldest daughter's room to do kid stuff, so at those times we get to enjoy more grown-up fare.

A video came across my Facebook feed called "Kids React to Walkmans" where a group of children are given an early 90's style portable cassette player and asked to figure out what this contraption is and what it does.  As a whole, they're pretty much flummoxed and by the end of the video they have proclaimed modern MP3 technology to be far superior.

Well, duh.  Anyone who has ever had to repair an unspooled cassette with a pen could tell you THAT.

Image Source

My kids are fairly savvy with some of the more time-withstanding technologies of the past.  Our cabinet hi-fi sits in the front hall and occasionally gets some play when I get the urge to pull out my limited collection of LPs.  The thing has GREAT sound.  Thank you, Lori.

Watching these kids in the video struggle with what seemed like the relatively simple concept of popping a cassette into a walkman so music comes out the earphones made me think of some of the other near- or completely- obsolete tech that my generation takes for granted.

A few weeks ago for family movie night, we watched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty which, by the way, is now one of my favourite movies ever.  Surprisingly kid-friendly, too.  As we watched, the thought came to me that it was entirely possible that none of the children present even had any concept of film-based photography.  To the best of my knowledge my kids have only ever used digital cameras or at best disposable cameras.  They've not been exposed (ha!) to the fumbling involved in loading film in to a 35mm camera.

Okay, maybe other people found that sort of thing easy, but I have ruined many a roll in my time.

My kids would not be able to point out or name any of the equipment that used to sit in my dad's home-made darkroom when I was a teenager.  Negatives, slides, spools, washes, fixatives.  All completely foreign.

I wondered how much of this particular film went over their head, not being familiar with the process of photo development.

It's not only technology.  We also take the cultural references for granted.

A week later, we gathered and watched Saving Mr. Banks.  About two thirds of the way through I came to the realization that my kids had never actually seen Mary Poppins (Tess's kids had).  We've got an extensive collection of movies, some dating back to the early 20's, but somehow this one had gotten by us.

There's always this misconception that children and especially teens don't have appreciation for things that pre-date, well, them.  However, it's an appreciation that can be built up, with exposure.

One day in car I popped in a Mountain Goats CD and my eldest rolled her eyes and went "Ugh.. old people music.."  (Seriously?  The Sunset Tree came out in 2005!  Old people music.  Psh.)  My response was to put on The Complete Robert Johnson Collection.

You want to call something "old people music?"  There's your old people music.  Sorry, Grandma.

I dunno.  I guess I grew up with an appreciation of my parent's generation of music and film, because I was regularly exposed to it.  When other kids were listening to New Kids on the Block, I was into The Guess Who, Harry Belafonte and Stompin' Tom.

But there are some things that I guess we can't quite recreate, like the excitement of getting a custom-made mixed tape, or seeing animated penguins dance on screen with Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews for the first time.

Myself, I haven't seen Mary Poppins in years.

I think I may have the soundtrack on vinyl, though.

Post-Script:  Holy crap! Typewriters! I didn't even mention typewriters.  What kind of crazy old-timey shit is that, amirite?

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On Phil Robertson, hate speech and Christian persecution

I'll be honest.  I've only ever watched Duck Dynasty once.  I thought the episode I saw was fairly amusing. I have some friends and family who adore it.  I'm not here to offer my criticism of the show itself, but I do have a few things to say about Dynasty patriarch, Phil Robertson, and his recent GQ interview where he likened homosexuality to bestiality and also implied that black people were happier under Jim Crow.

More accurately, I'm going to reiterate a few points that come up every time someone gets shit for saying something bigoted in the media and everyone and their grandma starts yelling about "FREEZE PEACH!" 

Let's make one thing clear.  No ones constitutional rights are being trampled here.  The government has not stepped in prevent Phil Robertson from expressing his views, through threat of punishment or sanction.  Free speech does not mean that he is free from consequence or criticism.

The ability to criticize is also a part of free speech.  In fact, there was a whole lot of free speech going on here:  

- Phil was fully within his rights to express his views to GQ, knowing that GQ would be publishing his words.

- People who disagreed and found his words hurtful and/or oppressive were within their rights to contact A&E and tell them that they would no longer support A&E should A&E continue to either implicitly or explicity support Phil Robertson

- A&E is within their rights to verbally distance themselves from Robertson (even if hypocritically so, since they've apparently been aware of his views for years, and only now seem to have a problem when it could potentially bite them in the ass) and they are within their rights to refuse to give him a platform

- Supporters of Robertson are also within their rights to tell A&E that they will no support A&E if they DON'T reinstate Robertson.  They are also free to, rather disingenuously, claim that they don't agree with his views but care more about their comfort zone and viewing habits than the people that Phil has figuratively shat on, so they will hereby be boycotting A&E until Phil is reinstated so they can return happily to their comfort zone of apathy.

- edited to add: people were also within their rights to continue to watch or not watch the show without comment, because freedom of speech also includes the freedom to withhold an opinion.

See? Free speech abounds.

As far as the claim is being persecuted for his Christian beliefs.. Well, no.  He's being called out on his shitty beliefs.  It is my understanding that the family on Duck Dynasty make no bones about being faithful Christians, right down to ending every meal with a prayer.   As far as I know, I don't recall too many people complaining about their Christian beliefs before this interview came out.  I've not read about people up in arms about the Robertson's dinner prayers or references to God and The Bible.  People got complainy when those beliefs started to shit on marginalized people.

A part of my childhood just died.

I'm usually not one to get all emotional about death when it comes to celebrities and other public figures, so I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I pretty much burst into tears not too long ago when I found out that one of my childhood heroes, Stompin' Tom Connors had passed away at the age of 77.

As a child, I would go to my grandparents house in Bancroft where they had a big old 8-track stereo. If my paternal grandparents were Big Band, my maternal grandparents were Grand Ol' Opry. One weekend when I was about 7 years old, my mom dug out one of the 8-tracks and played a song called "Goodbye Rubberhead." The rhyming scheme and gratuitous use of the word "boob" appealed to me. I giggled at The Ketchup song, about a potato and tomato that get married, and at the long-sufferingness of "My Brother Paul".

My mom and dad found a 60 minute tape and made me a copy of that 8-track album, Bud the Spud and other Favorites, filling air on the B-side with East Coast fiddle music. For the next year or so, when we visited our trailer during the summers my mom would cue up that cassette tape before I went to bed each night and I would fall asleep to the music of Stompin' Tom. I held onto that tape until I was in my early 20's, when it was lost during one of many moves.

He came to Midland a few years ago to play the rec center, but at the time the ticket prices were out of my reach, or perhaps I had I unbreakable obligations to attend to, but for whatever reason, I missed this show and I swore I would see the man perform live while there was still time.

That time has run out and I don't mind saying I'm a little heartbroken.

R.I.P Mr. Connors

So, is Blonde-Washing a thing now? Also, this just in.. Slut-shaming still sucks.

So I may seem hypocritical here, considering my past stance regarding POC's portraying fictional characters that are traditionally portrayed white.  That stance being that I am generally pretty okay with it and think people should not freak out so much about it.  I still stand by that.

That being said, context matters.

So I, like many others, are less than impressed with the new cover for the box set release of Lucy Maude Montgomery's classics Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Anne of the Island.

Here's an older edition:

Source - Amazon.ca

And here's the new cover:

Source

This is wrong.  Mainly because Anne Shirley is a redhead and her being a redhead is pretty integral to the plot of the books and how Anne is perceived by the other characters in the book, as well as how Anne sees herself.  So making her a blonde is  ridiculous, at best.  

The other point is that these books take place in late nineteenth century Prince Edward Island.  So the flannel shirt and long flowing hair is a pretty huge anachronism.  So no, I am not impressed by this ill-though-out attempt to modernize Anne for a new audience and I sincerely hope some art director somewhere is having a strip torn off for clearly not picking up the damn book before designing the cover.

The new cover was posted this morning to a local radio station's Facebook page.  As expected, people were not amused and many voiced their disapproval.  Many more, frustratingly, took to insulting and slut-shaming the model on the cover, call her a tart, a hooker and otherwise speculating on this girl's sex life, because she is a blonde and posing in what can be considered a 'sultry' pose.  

People, this is a model.  I have not yet been able to find her name, but I would be willing to bet that when this cover was taken, she may not have even been privy to what they would be used for.  Perhaps just told something vague like "Oh, it's a cover for a book about a girl in the country" if that much information was even divulged.  Yet people feel entitled to judge this girl as though she personally went and defecated on Montgomery's grave.

 

That second last one makes me laugh out loud.  In what universe does a flannel shirt, buttoned up to the neck, qualify as "provocative" or "scantily clad"?  Oh, and butt-less chaps?  Where the hell did THAT come from??

It's pretty disgusting that people, out of a sense of indignation over a fictional character, feel entitled to insult and degrade the portrayer of said character with gendered slurs.  Anne Shirley is a fictional character, but that girl on the cover is an actual person*

*Unless, of course, she's the result of some really impressive photorealist-type illustration.

And in one fateful monologue, Jon Stewart kills childhood.

My kids are pretty cool in that they have a fairly sophisticated sense of humour for their respective ages.  Yes, some *may* call me a bad mother for allowing their preschool viewing habits be interspersed with episodes of Kids in the Hall and Arrested Development and I can and will accept some responsibility when and if it turns out that I have warped their fragile little minds with bawdy humour.  I've definitely had moments of shock and self-doubt when I find them guffawing at jokes that I thought would fly right over their heads.  But the love of comedy is one of the things that I enjoy sharing with them and they always surprise me in the most delightful way with their ability to appreciate different stylings.

One incident stands out, wherein they had been grounded from TV for some minor infraction.  This is a hard one for me to stick to since there are certain household chores that are so mind-numbingly tedious that I require something to occupy my mind.  Oh, hai, laundry-folding.  So my cunning plan was to put on something that would be so obviously over their head that it would bore them to tears while still keeping me amused.  Recalling how it had been an acquired taste for me, I put on "And Now For Something Completely Different" and hoped that the sort of drab 70's BBC quality image and obscure absurdist humour would cause them to roll their eyes and retreat to their room.

No such luck.  They were riveted.  Total backfire.

The last week or so, my nine-year-old has taken to cuddling up with The Well Travelled One and I to watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and surprisingly has really taken to it.  She's a smart cookie, that one, but the humour on the Daily Show tends to be very adult.. not raunchy or risque, but very current events based political humour.  Boring, grown-up stuff.  But she laughs right along, as I eye her wondering if she actually gets the jokes or just likes Stewart's funny faces.   Either way, I get to sit there and think "Man, my kid is just the friggin' coolest."

And then Jon Stewart outs the Tooth Fairy. 

Outta freakin' nowhere.   One minute he's talking about Lance Armstrong and the next he's undoing all my hard work and telling my nine-year-old there is no tooth fairy.

BOOM.  Just like that.  (That's a link to the clip.  It's right at the 4:05 mark.  Keep your kids out of the room.)

I froze and tried to gauge her reaction.  Kid DID NOT EVEN FLINCH.  It's possible she may not have noticed but my money is on the more likely scenario that she TOTALLY caught it and has since been calculating how to use this information to her benefit.

"Don't react. Just Don't. React.  Don't blow this, kid.  Free money for dead teeth.  We need to ride this as long as possible.  At least until those 12 year molars come in."

Exploiting Victims in the Name of Activism

So, as we already know, Chris Brown is a giant, girlfriend-beating douchecanoe.  Chris Brown the rapper, not Chris Brown that guy that used to work with my sister.  That guy was pretty cool and to the best of my knowledge, never beat anyone with an umbrella.

No, I definitely mean this guy. - Jeff R. Bottari/Getty Images

So, some folks in Sweden decided to protest one of Brown's concerts and in said protest, decided to put up a huge billboard and posters featuring the visage of then-and-possibly-now girlfriend, Rhianna, shortly post-assault.  You know the one, where he beat the shit out of her.

I am not okay with this.

Don't get me wrong.  My issue with these billboards has nothing to do with any desire to see Brown NOT punished to the further extent of the law by the court of public opinion.  I would love nothing more than for him to be forever known not as Chris Brown, Musician but Chris Brown, Giant Girlfriend-Beating douchecanoe.

Seriously, fuck that guy.

I love the fact that people are putting stickers on his CD's reminding people that this guy beat the shit out of a woman and maybe we shouldn't give him our money.  I'd love to see people do similar to Guns N Roses CDs, or Roman Polanski films or DVD boxed sets of Three and a Half Men.  (Axl Rose was accused of beating two exes, Roman Polanski drugged and raped an underaged girl and Charlie Sheen is.. well, Charlie Sheen).   Sing it from the rooftops.  "THIS GUY BEATS WOMEN."  Blow-horn that shit, seriously.

Can we do that without exploiting the victim?  That is my main issue with this postering effort. Given the fact that it appears that Brown and Rihanna are kind of off-again, on-again, I'd be willing to bet that she has not given any permission for her image to be used in such a way.  This is not a publicity photo from a magazine spread.  It's a picture taken in the wake of a horrific assault, when Rhianna, as a subject, was in a vulnerable position.  It's a haunting reminder of what he did to her, but is not for us, as the public, to consume.

As I said, I do not think Chris Brown deserves anything less than to have his name forever associated with being that guy who beat his girlfriend with, ironically enough, an umbrella and then was known to throw hissy fits when the media refused to just 'get over it'.  But in such cases, the victim's right to privacy should be respected, without being exploited as a poster child for a cause.  It reminds me of The World According to Garp and the Ellen Jamesians, who alienated Ellen James by making her a martyr and, through their movement, refusing to let her move past her own assault.

The use of Rhianna's battered face as a reminder of Brown's wrong-doing feels exploitative to me.  I feel like the people who created these posters were more interested in vilifying an abuser (which, on it's own is not a bad thing) than protecting the victim from further harm.

Oh, Toronto Sun, I guess I shouldn't be surprised..

But this seems sad, even for you.

I stopped reading the Sun years ago, not being able to take the sensationalist, pearl-clutching, chicken-littling right-wing rhetoric. I got tired of the blatant objectification that is the Sunshine Girl, Michael Coren's rampant bigotry and homophobia, and hell I even got sick of the snarky little comments in the letters section.

For a publication that started out as a youthful voice in the face of the Old Guard of Canadian news media, they're not exactly a bastion of progressive thinking.

So I guess I shouldn't be surprised when they show a distinct lack of sensitive for trans issues, by referring to Former-now-current Miss Universe contestant Jenna Talackova as a he/she on their front cover.

Source

Keep it classy, Sun Media.

I had hopes when I saw the headline on their homepage that read "A True Heroine" that Mike Stroebel's column about Talackova would be a little less insensitive and transphobic, but again, I was disappointed.

Disappointed but not surprised.

I can't put my finger on it but both yesterday's column and the follow-up today  seemed to ring with a bit of snarky condescension.  Maybe it's the reference to 'men-turned-women' and their 'advantages' in the beauty pageant circuit.  Because, sure expecting a contestant to drop trou in order to prove that they 'meet gender requirements' when none of the other contestants are expected to (I could be wrong.. is the lack-of-swimsuit or 'most-legitimate-vagina' competition a new thing I haven't heard of?) is nothing compared to the advantage of leaner muscles and no monthly bloating.

The Sun's lack of sensitivity not-withstanding, there are issues with the idea of having to 'prove' oneself as a woman in order to compete that are wholly problematic. Let's pretend for a minute that there aren't a MILLION AND HALF things about Miss Universe that are problematic.  One's gender and how they identify goes so much deeper than simply what kind of equipment resides in one's crotchal area.  I, for one, even without her having had gender reassignment surgery, would be willing to give Jenna Tarackova the benefit of the doubt when she says she was 'born' a woman and would thus meet the guidelines of being a naturally-born woman, since being a woman is more than the presence of a vagina or breasts.  Why shouldn't the Miss Universe pageant do the same?

Once again I offer the caveat that my knowledge of transgender issues is limited, so my grasp on some concepts and terminology may be shaky, and I totally invite people to call me out in the comments if I fucked up.

That said though, I would think that advising a major publication to avoid terms like He/She is a pretty obvious no-brainer.

Can we stop having this conversation already?

I haven't read, nor seen, the Hunger Games, although the more I read about it, the more I want to check it out, as it sounds pretty freaking cool.

It seems there's a bit of a kerfuffle over one or two of the major characters in the book being cast with black actors.

Can we gets over this already?

Every damn time a POC gets cast as a known character who is not explicitly Black, Asian, Native or whatever, a bunch of "I'm not racist but..." assholes get their collective panties in a bunch and start muttering about "polital correctness running amok", like a POC couldn't actually be cast because they are, you know, a Good actor or something. No, it's all part of some big liberal bleeding heart affirmative action agenda.

Can we just accept that, except in cases where you are dealing with historical context (like, real people who actually existed) or when race is a fundamental part of the overarching narratives, the race or ethnicity of the actor or actress being cast should not fucking matter, especially in cases where descriptions of the character don't really allude to their enthncity at all.

"If someone cast a white person as {Insert known POC character here} then it wouldn't be okay.. You're a hypocrite!"

Not the same thing, folks. There are oodles of roles for white actors and actresses, already. There are a lot less good, fleshed-out roles for Black and Asian actors that aren't total stereotypes. And even LESS for Native or East Indian actors.

Basically, if your enjoyment of a film can be tarnished by the casting of a POC, when you'd imagined the character as white, then at best, you're unimaginative as hell and at worst, kind of an asshole. And a bigot.

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New, happy post up at Different Paths, Same Destination. Go check it out.

You know Canada Has No Interest in its Celebrity Culture when...

.. one of our cultural icons DIES and it takes five freakin' years for anyone to even notice.

Or, more accurately, we're too interested in U.S. celebrity culture to notice when one of our own dies.

In the past I have expressed my annoyance with the disproportionate amount of grief that people express in the wake of celebrity deaths, as once again was demonstrated over the last week after news of Whitney Houston's death broke.  So in light of that, I feel more than a little hypocritical to say that I felt PROFOUNDLY FUCKING SAD when I found out that Neil Hope, who had played Derek "Wheels" Wheeler on Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High had not only died, but died FIVE YEARS AGO without anyone really noticing or giving a shit.

You said it, Ed the Sock.

I do have to add that I find it funny that I found all this out from a sentient, chain-smoking sock.  So that says something... about.. something.  I guess.  Score one for patent absurdity.

Anyway, maybe it's the affinity I have for those original Degrassi series' after they got me through weeks of being hospitalized in my late teens (along with Guiding Light, as well as reruns of Law and Order and Northern Exposure) or perhaps it's that it sounds like Hope in spite of his name had a pretty shitty upbringing not unlike his on screen counterpart but this made me sad in a way that usually doesn't happen with me.

Source

Maybe it's because after Degrassi ended, Neil Hope seemed to kind of fade into obscurity, popping up once for a brief cameo on the pilot for Degrassi: The Next Generation.  It's entirely possible  that the family purposely hid his death from the media, and if that is the case more power to them.  That would at least be a less wholly depressing thought than the idea that this guy died in a fire and it took five years for anyone to really notice or give a shit.

According to the story in the Globe and Mail, creator Linda Schuyler and executive producer Stephen Stohn had kept quiet out of respect to Hope's family.  Odd that the Globe cites natural causes, whereas the National Post says he died in a fire.

Apparently, the news was finally made public due to a Facebook group dedicated to bring 'the real' Neil Hope to Facebook.  I guess the family confirmed so as to not waste everyone's time.

In the spirit of blaming all that is wrong with the world on Mark Zuckerberg I say "Good job, Zuck.  Way to make things AWKWARD."

Here's a clip from the movie/series finale School's Out, where Wheels gets drunk and kills a kid and maims Lucy in a car wreck.  Trigger warning.



UPDATE: So most of the other news outlets are reporting that Hope died of natural causes (Wow.. out of context, that phrase is like.. really depressing). Our lesson here is that the National Post kind of sucks.

Son, Margaret Cho will F*** You Up But Good.

So, I can't say I've ever been a huge fan of Margaret Cho. No particular reason, her humor just never grabbed me. Shit happens. But Margaret Cho won about 867,482 cool points with me after I read her blog post Being Mad on Twitter, written after some negative backlash to some pictures she posted on Twitter of the new ink she had recieved.

First of all, I admire anyone with the guts to proudly post their ass on twitter. Second, I highly recommend checking out her post, as it is a very raw and powerful read.

Someone on the Jezebel article pointed out that out of all the positive feedback on her tats that she chose to focus on the two negative comments, and oh isn't that sad. Yeah, it is, but it's not uncommon. It is so easy to write off positive comments as 'just being polite' or 'sucking up' or 'you have to say that' but the negative chews at us and makes us doubt ourselves and feel less than. It becomes magnified in our psyche.

That is why such blatant negativity is so very toxic. Sometimes there is a time and a place for constructive criticism but sometimes there is no time and no place that doesn't make you an asshole for not keeping your damn comments to yourself.

Having once been a young girl who saw herself as fat and awkward and gawky, and being a woman who still struggles not to still see herself that way, I have to agree with Cho when she says "...no young girl should be told she is ugly. If she is, you kill her spirit..." I cannot fathom any scenario where telling some they are ugly or fat (and don't give me concern-trolling about health worries) accomplishes anything beyond kicking a chair out from someone and taking power in their suffering. There is nothing constructive to be had in binding someone, often an impressionable young girl who lives in a society that tells her hat her only worth is in her beauty, to your own personal definition of worth and stomping on them and telling them they are unworthy. It's a bullshit move.

Palpable in Cho's post is her righteous anger, and I fucking laud her for it. Even though fans may criticize her for going off on the naysayers, I say screw that. There is always such talk of forgiveness, and women especially are expected to be forgiving when others trample on our sense of worth. Even though I'm usually one to brush shit off, there is something to be said for anger, for anger can keep us from being complacent. Learning to love yourself is a tough road, even if you've been more or less supported your whole life. I had a loving family but still felt that the rest of the world was telling me I wasn't good enough.

I love the way Margaret describes her Learning to love herself as a kind of ongoing battle, defending her 'borders' and fuck anyone who doesn't appreciate or respect what she has worked for. She defends her sense of worth like a mama bear defending her cubs, and will rain down a storm of shit and hellfire on those whose aim is to degrade and belittle. And if people judge her harshly for not taking the high road, well so be it. She does not apologize for being angry at the hurt others have dealt. Nor should she.

Things I Love Today: #changethetweets (also.. 500th Post! or not)

So I guess today CBCRadio2 has been hosting a contest for tickets to see Kathleen Edwards. The idea is to tweet the song that has changed your life with the hashtag #changethetweets (which is apparently a take-off of Edwards' album 'Change The Sheets').

Myself, I had a hard time really coming up with a 'life-changer' but in light of my recent Mountain Goats obsession I decided to tweet 'This Year', with its refrain of "I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me", as my go-to song when I am sad, frustrated and in need of some strength.

Some of the tweets people have been posting are quite moving.  Here are a few of my favorites:

The contest is picking up a little steam, so my chances of having unexpected plans to go to Toronto this weekend are probably slim, but I've enjoyed reading the Tweets.

What are some songs that have had an impact on your life?

P.S. according to Blogger, this is my 500th post.  Except that it's not, because I copied a bunch of posts from my old MySpace blog over here so the actual number is either a lot less (if you want to count posts since I joined Blogger) or a lot more (if you want to count all the posts I've written in the time I've been blogging.. which dates back to sometime in 2005 over three different platforms).

So, uh.. happy unbirthday to me?

Canada has fake bands too, you know.

I'm kind of getting a kick out of HelloGiggles.com as a fun site for randomness and pop culture. (my massive girly-crush on Zooey Deschanel notwithstanding) However, I'm finding it unforgiveable that twice now they have posted articles on the best fake bands from movies and made glaring omissions.  Maybe it's a deep-seated prejudice against Canadian Content, or maybe they are just sadly ignorant of our offerings north of the border (god knows...  Canadians hardly recognize that we have a film AND a television industry, so I can't be too hard on the Americans).

The other possibility is that with the exception of my last choice, the bands I mention can only be considered 'good' if 'good' to you doesn't necessarily mean 'talented, with catchy tunes' but rather 'kind of goofy but nonetheless amusing as fuck.'

Here are some examples that have twice now been left off the list, and have thus prevented me from giving HelloGiggles full recognition as a credible pop culture website.

- OR -

Sometimes I just like to piggyback on other people's ideas.

Thunderface - Corner Gas

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Consisting of Hank on Vocals, Brent on guitar, Wanda on bass and Karen on drums, Thunderface decided to reunite for a show at the hotel after a 15 year hiatus, much to Paul's delight.  After kicking the Tragically Hip out of Brent's garage to practice, their one show is cut short by the fuzz, otherwise known as Davis (who is jealous that Karen got picked as drummer over him).




Rod Torfulson's Armada Featuring Herman Menderchuck - Kids in the Hall

Originally known as simply Armada, they're goal was to practice, always showing up on time and arrive having eaten.  The nameless singer played by Kevin McDonald basically did all the work, but was consistently over-ridden by bandmates Rod and Herman, whether it be to add backup singers, or even keep Kevin in the band (while keeping his songs).




The Zit Remedy/The Zits - Degrassi Junior High

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Joey Jeremiah, Derek "Wheels" Wheeler and Archie "Snake" Simpson only ever managed to write one song over their 3-4 year career and man, was it terrible but catchy in a way that after 12 hours of having it stuck in your head, you would begin to believe that the 'Something' that 'everybody wants' was probably something sharp to jab in your eardrum to distract you from this godawful song.  Still, you had to admire their persistence.  Maybe, I don't know.

(the only reason I can sit through this video is for the occasional glance at Clutch's ass)

You've been warned, though.

Hard Core Logo - Hard Core Logo

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All joking aside, this is really where I think the HelloGiggles article dropped the ball.  Hell, Barbie and the Rockers made it onto their list, but they somehow managed to miss possible the most bad-assed of fake bands.  I'm not saying this just because of my deep-seated desire to be the meat in a Hugh-Dillon-Callum-Keith-Rennie-Circa-1996 Sammich.

I can watch this movie over and over.  I will admit, I have judged people on their enjoyment of Hard Core Logo.  Who could watch the dysfunctional vaguely homoerotic relationship between Joe Dick and Billy Talent, the good-natured antics of Pipe Fitter and John Oxenbergers decent into madness and NOT want to join a punk band?

Well, I would.

Don't take this the wrong way, but to quote Mr. Joe Dick himself "You don't know shit from good chocolate, baby."



(I'm kidding, actually.  I just really wanted to used that line.  No hard feelings, k?)

Inducing rage on your Tuesday morning.

Quick post.

Last week, I posted about what I considered the best feminist children's book ever.

This week I'm taking you in the opposite direction, as I have caught wind of what could possibly be the worst book to get your little girl (or boy).  It's called Maggie Goes On A Diet.  It's about a little fat girl who goes on a diet to fit into a pretty pink dress and becomes popular and plays some soccer.

Can we get a big, collective, face palm right now?

It's about a 14-year-old girl, but the book is aimed at the 4-7 age bracket.  BRING EM YOUNG.  Let's look at some of the problematic messages:

Thinness is the ticket to popularity.
Only thin people are athletic.
You are valued for your appearance.

The comments and tags that are going up on the Amazon site for this page are heartening though.  It looks like people are getting that this is a craptacular lesson to be sending  to little kids.  I somehow think this book isn't going to be doing any great amount of sales.

I don't mind saying, for anyone who does buy this for their kids, I hope something very large and pointy falls on them from a great height.

Myself?  I wouldn't be caught dead.  I'd rather read my kids "Go The Fuck to Sleep"

It'd be less damaging in the long run.

The best feminist children's book ever.

The Paper Bag Princess

If you grew up in the 80's, in Canada especially then it's likely you are no stranger to the wonderful stories of Robert Munch.  I had a collection of teeny-tiny pocket versions of his books, which tended towards simple but humorous plots (a dad who sleepwalks, a kid who won't wear his ugly snowsuit, a kid who won't go to the bathroom until the last minute) and cute illustrations generally provided by Michael Martchenko.  As soon as my kids were old enough to focus their eyes on a book, I began collecting anthologies of Munsch's work so that I could share them with my kids.

Somewhere in the time between being a six-or-seven-year-old with a profound love of reading and a thirty-something mother-of-two I happened to learn a bit about the media and about feminist theory and social constructionism and how gender portrayals in the media tend to affect us.  So upon revisiting what is possible Munsch's most well-known work (aside from that unholy tearjerker that everyone sadist likes to give expectant mothers at baby showers, Love You Forever) I was pleasantly surprised to find a strong feminist message in this story about a princess who outsmarts a dragon to save her beloved.

Let's recap, shall we?  Princess Elizabeth is slated to marry Prince Ronald.  Oh, he's cute and all and she's rather smitten.  So it's understandable that when the dragon comes and destroys her (yes.. *her*) kingdom and carries off Prince Ronald, she is eager to get him back.

The book gets its title from how after her kingdom is burned to smithereens all Elizabeth has left to wear is an old dirty paper bag.  This comes into play later in the story.

By way of her intellect, Elizabeth tricks the dragon into exhausting himself by performing various dragonesque stunts until he collapses, leaving Prince Ronald unguarded.  Pretty clever, no?  Not even clever 'for a girl'.  Just clever.

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Here's the rub.  Rather than showing some gratitude towards Elizabeth for saving his useless ass, Prince Ronald turns his nose up and tells Elizabeth that she is a mess and should come back when she 'looks more like a princess.'  Rather than fret and be all apologetic for not living up to Ronald's gender and class expectations, Elizabeth firmly but respectfully informs Ronald that he's a narcisisstic asshat (my words, not hers.. this IS a children's book.  Elizabeth, I believe, calls him a 'bum') and lives happily ever after, ON HER OWN (or at the very least, without the company of the insufferable Prince Ronald).  This is the impression we're given anyway, between the line "And she didn't get married, after all" and Martchenko's illustration of Elizabeth walking off into the sunset, clicking her heels with joy.

So we have a princess who uses her wit and resources at hand to show concern and come to the aide of those around her, undeserving as they may be.  Her kingdom is describe as her own.  She outsmarts the dragon without doing harm to him, so she is an empathetic character.  She is able to recognize that her own self-worth is of higher importance than marriage to a prince.  Let's also add that this is not the stereotypical 'beautiful' princess.  Elizabeth is pretty in an average, relatable*  sort of way.

I love that the message in this book is not an overtly preachy one, and is one that is universal to anyone of any gender, ethnicity, class etc... Be resourceful, and you are not obligated to people who disrespect you.  The fact that Elizabeth is conceived in such a brilliantly simple manner as a Strong Female Character - that is, strong in character and intellect, not necessarily just a more ass-kicking object for the male gaze - is what makes this an excellent feminist children's book.

*I'll concede that Elizabeth may be more relatable if you're a little white girl.  However, Munch has made a point of incorporating characters of many ethnicities in his stories, generally without resorting to stereotyping

Got about 20 minutes before the work whistle blows..

So let's talk about censorship.  Well, an part of censorship that is often not talked about:  Radio edits of popular songs.

Ever listen to a song on the radio, find it really catchy, then get the album and go "Whoa, wasn't expecting THAT!"  Maybe it was hearing Thom Yorke sing "You're so fucking special" for the first time in Radiohead's  Creep.  When I first bought Hawksley Workman's Lover/Fighter (well, actually my friend bought it and burned it for me, and burned herself a copy of Between the Beautifuls that I had bought after his show at the Danforth Music Hall back in 2007, but I digress) and popped in my car stereo, I *may* have nearly driven off the road when the first line of We Will Still Need a Song chimed in with a resounding "Fuck you, you're drunk and acting tough...".  Up until then, I had heard only the radio-friendly lyrics "Baby, you're drunk etc etc"

On occasion I find the radio edit preferable to the uncensored version.  For years, I loved the innocent first-gushing-mooshy-puppy love feel of Liz Phair's Why Can't I with lines like:

Here we are, we're at the beginning
We haven't kissed yet but my head is swimming


When I heard the unedited version that replaced 'kissed' with 'fucked' I just felt kind of... bleh.  Like some of the uncynical, unjaded innocence I had always read into the song was lost.  Of course, I wasn't totally aware at the time that Liz Phair was all about jaded cynicism.  To this day, when I play this song, I refused to sing the original lyrics.

The album version of Eminem's breakout hit Hi, My Name Is was another one that left me cold.  I found the radio edit fun and mischevious.. Eminem was a troublemaker, a bit of a miscreant but in a likeable way, kind of like a grown-up fucked up Dennis the Menace.  Of course the album version is a lot closer to what we were to expect from Eminem.. violent, mysogynistic etc.  Meh.

The latest one to get my goat is Enrique Iglesias' Tonight I'm Loving (Fucking) You (depending on the edit). The radio edit is irritating at best, but the album edit is creepy and downright rapey.  Come on, Enrique.  What happened to you?  Once upon a time you were all "Oh, I could be your hero, baby" and now this?  I guess the bloom is off the rose and all attempts at romance have gone right out the door.  Now you just sound like the asshole boyfriend who was all nice and sensitive and on his best game in the beginning but now his idea of foreplay is "Hey, wanna screw?"

What would your dad say, Enrique?

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Addenendum:  In response to this piece, I got the following string of text messages from The Danno and I felt I should share:

"Oh poor, sweet, innocent 'Drea - if only you'd heard the original cut to "Hero" it may not have come as such an ugly revelation... I can be your hero baby (with my cock) I can kiss away the pain (with my cock)"

"Enrique has always been a rapey pig and a disappointment to his father-soft core conservative radio edits only masked it from us for the last few years ;-)"

Sweet Jesus! It's Reverse Objectification Wednesday!

.. and goodness gracious me, I'm not drooling over some obscure indie musician! Okay, in fairness, some of my previous posts weren't terribly Indie, and one was a T.V. guy (albeit a rather obscure one) but mostly I have a soft spot (or a wet spot.. tomato, tomahto) for the musicians.

I'm not much of a sports gal.  I'm definitely not much of a racing gal.  But I have long harboured an unapologetic dirty crush on Quebec race car driver Jacques Villeneuve.

Let's get to the objectification, shall we?

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So I was far more excited than any 30 year old woman should ever be when I saw the following:

Jacques Villeneuve to appear in Disney-Pixar’s CARS 2

Yeah, I'll be seeing this. It's definitely getting a pass on my moratorium on sequel making even though out of all the Disney Pixar movies, Cars was probably my least favorite (which is to say, I still liked it).  But I'll make an exception in this case because I'm a bit of a sucker for a good French-Canadian accent.  They'll make anything seem like a good idea, whether it's seeing the sequel to a film that may steal 90 minutes from my life I'll never get back, or making out with a 50-something Revenue Canada worker while on vacation.

Uhm... yeah...

Let's just forget I mentioned that last part mmmkay?  It'll be our little secret.

So yeah.. Apparently he'll basically be playing himself.. but.. as a car.

A pretty good-looking car, if you ask me.  How wrong would it be to fantasize about sprawling Whitesnake-video style across an anthropomorphized, animated version of a nummy looking race-car driver from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec?

...

Don't you judge me.

Conversations with my Kid: Pop Culture > Canadian Politics

A couple weeks ago, at my sisters place, we caught the energetic yet vaguely horrifying Iggy Pop performance on American Idol. (I say horrifying because put a shirt on already, Mr. Pop.)

This morning, the radio discusses the upcoming Canadian election and Michael Ignatieff's visit to Montreal.

T:  Mom! Iggy's coming to Montreal!
Me: Huh?
T: On the radio... they said Iggy's coming to Montreal!!
Me:  Not Iggy Pop, honey.  Michael Ignatieff.

*pause*

T:  Oh.