June 29, 2009 | weird news

Plug your nostrils everyone. We just passed Week 1 of the city-wide garbage strike (well, city-wide except for one borough that has private pick-up), smack dab in the middle of one of the city’s biggest tourist draws—Gay Pride.

Here is Christie Pits park, in Toronto’s Korea Town / Annex West Neighborhood. It’s one of the temporary landfill sites that the city has set up, much to the chagrin of everyone in the ‘hood and one of the authors, who lives a few blocks away.

In another few weeks, this outdoor rink [above and below left] will be filled to the brim with stinking trash, which is already smellable a kilometer away. If this keeps up, we might have to compare New York City Versus Toronto garbage strikes.

As you can see below, trash bins have been wrapped up with cellophane and are ‘temporarily out of order’.

In Windsor, across the border from Detroit, their strike has dragged on for more than 10 weeks. We hope to get photos of that soon. Luckily, the moronic government monopoly that holds our hand when we go to buy liquor, averted their strike [please see our LCBO Strike post] so we avoided the perfect shit storm. We’ll be back with more shortly, if we aren’t overcome by the fumes.

June 26, 2009 | Heroes, celebrities, music

We were uncertain whether to blog about Michael Jackson’s death since we’re in the business of flambéing tabloid-fodder celebs whenever we have the opportunity (though we must stress how much we also relish poking a stick in the common man’s ribs).

Michael Jackson was the king of the tabloids (who until yesterday were referring to him as “The Self-Proclaimed King of Pop” – get ready for more shameless post-mortem backstepping than after Diana’s death), the wellspring of more checkout-aisle drivel than anyone who has ever lived – yes, we stand by what would be hyperbole about anyone else – and the punchline to more late-night monologue jokes than OJ Simpson and any two American presidents you got combined. Hell as recently as Monday, we were pulling out of the gift-that-keeps-giving Jacko joke bag.

But we’re also children’ of the 1980s, a decade that thankfully preceded the YouTube generation. Had somebody’s mobile phone camera been trained on us back in those days you might have seen one or both of us in those leather jackets with zippers, pitting a Michael Jackson doll in an uneven fight with a Mr. T action figure, or wearing one glove (doing so and coming through Canadian winters with all fingers accounted for was just good luck). Neither of us would ever own up to behind-closed-doors moonwalking, but let’s just say that Michael Jackson was as much a part of 80s childhoods as He-Man, bad cinema, and insatiable yuppie greed that shat on the hopes and ideals of the two decades that preceded it.

Chris remembers hearing Thriller for the first time at his cousin’s house and it blowing his mind. Noel remembers a running feud with an older neighbor kid who ridiculed him for saying (in the chirpish voice of youth) that Thriller and Bad were awesome. The neighbor insisted that Michael Jackson was just a poor man’s Lionel Richie and was not afraid of doling out a noogie to get his point across. (If that guy’s reading today, let’s just say that, Thriller, the best-selling album of all time – which in effect is an untouchable record because computer piracy has killed the album – well, it wasn’t put out by Lionel.) What we both remember are sounds that will forever be there in our minds. We think back to our childhoods and remember this music and – unlike the majority of 80s television and the second Terminator film – it stands the test of time, and we give ourselves credit for not having tin ears at that age.

Of course, then there were the 1990s. Michael Jackson’s musical output deteriorated and things got from cute weird – who wouldn’t want a pet chimpanzee (though maybe not to hang around with an aged Liz Taylor) – to the kind of weird that made liking him as a musician an awkward thing to admit.

It seems that if you’re a celebrity from a humble start, that included in the welcome gift bag you get upon entry into the club of the super fabulous is a posse of bloodsuckers incapable of giving advice other than “I think it’s time you sign the monthly pay slips, boss.” Throw in a mind that is not exactly a specimen of sound health and the results are inevitable – Howard Hughes insane and pissing in specimen bottles while his fortune crumbles, Mike Tyson boxing tomato cans for the minimal cash that’s in it, Michael Jackson building the Neverland Ranch, and inviting children into a world that screamed, “We find on behalf of the plaintiff”.

The charges against him lose some steam when you look at those making them.  What manner of person sends their kids for pajama parties at the home of a pop star who is, at best, a troubled middle-aged man who thinks cotton candy should be available on demand?

We’re not the types to look back on Annie Hall or Hannah and Her Sisters with a perspective skewed by the Soon-Yi affair – they remain classics… though we will drop Woody like a turd from a tall horse if he does another film with Scarlett Johansson. (Some things are just unforgivable). A creative work of merit stands above and apart from the personal shortcomings of its creator. Thank the pharaohs for that or we’d be in trouble.

For those of us who grew up with his sounds causing us early ear drum damage, his music gets the first two or three tracks of our life soundtracks.

Michael Jackson produced more great music between the ages of six and eight than any of the Idol programs will produce in their entire run. R.I.P.

June 24, 2009 | Drunk Stories

As we’ve noted previously, when it comes to booze and consumer choice in our province, much like the tavern that pours only dregs from the bottom of one keg, there is very little. In fact, it’s completely absent in the People’s Republic of Ontario where real competition is stifled like fixed Mafia ‘Bum of the Month’ fights.

Why this is so is anyone’s guess (Freemasons?), but as it stands, a state-owned enterprise with annual revenues of nearly $5 billion dollars a year with the Orwellian handle, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, has a firm grip on the market, like a drunk brown-bagging a Colt 45 (which you can purchase at the LCBO, but it’ll just cost you three times as much, mostly because of taxes—definitely out of the reach of your average brown-bagging rummy).

Now this ridiculous enterprise, born out of Canada’s prohibition era and just as relevant is set to strike, coinciding nicely with the city of Toronto’s garbage strike, thus far in its second day of baking garbage like ziti out on the sweltering city streets, as Gay Pride hits its stride and the city readies itself for Caribana and the Jazz Festival.

For our American readers, LCBO outlets are incredibly opulent, not only by the standards of the interstate liquor barn—hell, they’re like grabbing a bottle of vino at a Macy’s department store (when you’re a monopoly, busy counting the endless $$$ like in a bad hip hop video, guess you have to spend it somewhere) and the prices reflect it. And this is despite the LCBO being the largest purchase of liquor in the world. (In second place is the thoughtfully-named PLCB, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, with a pricing scheme that would be the envy of a Peruvian cocaine cartel. Wine and Spirits stores in Amish country, were allowed to be open on Sundays (gasp!) only as recently as 2003).

Boosters say “well,  the selection is incredible!” and of course this is the case. If there wasn’t, people would complain bitterly and question the practice of state-run booze peddling. Pro monopoly advocates also suggest that the LCBO is considerably more strict than say, backstage security for your average rock band, when it comes to checking ID. This is a red herring, as anyone who’s attempted to buy liquor underage knows (that is, those people who’ve ever been between the ages of 16 and 18), it’s best procured by somebody’s older brother or by hanging around outside the parking lot and looking for someone who from outward appearances, is lacking in moral scruples.

Stock up everyone and sign whatever petition you can get your hands on to rid the province of this lumbering dinosaur, so we can buy booze where we please, you know…like adults.