Wreckless Conjecture

Splittage

2009-07-18T21:26:00.000-07:00

A couple of quick items:

- On the CFL front, how do the Winnipeg Blue Bombers keep sniffing out such abject clowns to take the head coaching reins? Hot on the heels of the cartoonishly hardassed Doug 'Ready, Set, Alienate' Berry (who, incidentally, looks like the type of guy you really wouldn't want to use the bathroom after), this Mike Kelly character has pretty much discredited himself three games into his meagre tenure. It's not like he was exactly bathed in glory (or dignity, for that matter) before the mini-Spygate foofraw due to offseason hijinks, but they even lost to Hamilton! Ha, losers! Oh, uh, wait a minute...

Rapidly changing the subject, I never did get a chance to post my CFL predictions, so am doing the honourary thing and slapping down the picks I made to friends before the regular season kicked off (Montreal is already clearly going to win the East, so I'm chastened from the get-go).

WEST

1) Calgary Stampeders
2) Edmonton Eskimos
3) BC Lions
4) Saskatchewan Roughriders

EAST

1) Toronto Argonauts
2) Montreal Alouettes
3) Winnipeg Blue Bombers
4) Hamilton Tiger-Cats

I also have the fourth-place 'Riders crossing over, as they'll finish higher than the Bombers.

I plan a lengthy state-of-the-Lions blog within the next couple of weeks, but, mercifully, they're off the schneid after a huge victory in Edmonton. More to come, but how glorious are those retro unis? Seriously, the Leos current threads are amongst my favourites in the sports world, but I won't complain if they designate a couple of dates later this season to rock the old-school duds again. In other news, Geroy Simon is god.

Jarious rocking the retros! To American readers, yeah, that same Jarious Jackson.

- Let's just pretend my preseason baseball blog never happened, okay? Cleveland has been a massive disappointment, Florida was schooled by Philly over the past couple of days after somewhat climbing back into the race, the Giants, Tigers, and White Sox are decent, and Trey Hillman ain't winning no trophies.

Sadly, it appears as though my 5th-place Jays prediction is going to come true. For those who don't know, after growing up worshiping the game, I essentially stopped seriously following baseball around the '99 season: the dumbed-down juiced ball era was the biggest culprit, and minor factors were my disillusionment with pro sports in general when the Grizzlies skipped town, combined with the fact that, as a suddenly anti-everything punk kid, my previously crazy sports-fan wattage dimmed a bit, save for the 'Nucks and Lions (happily, I very much returned with little prodding, but MLB continued to take it on the chin until around mid-decade...I regret nothing). That '05 Jays team, starring the O-Dog, a rookie Aaron Hill, and other heroic protagonists brought me back to the game, but nobody was more responsible for my supplicatory return than one Doc Halladay. I actually began planning my schedule around his starts, and, as one who favours the cerebral (yes, I prefer the NL version of baseball, and miss the 'Spos) aspect of the game, flat-out marveled at his ability to gear ground balls based on the particular alignment of his fielders. The power-pitchers get all the ink, but Roy is downright virtuosic in this respect. Of course, his season ended horrifically when Halladay was nailed on the leg by a frozen rope in Arlington, but the damage had been done: Jared was a baseball junkie again.

The function of this preamble is to serve as a warning to ridiculously inept Jays GM J.P. Riccardi. I fully understand that we're rebuilding and, after refusing to accept the notion for a solid week, am willing to accept a Doc trade. This said, if he's dealt to Boston or the Yankees, I'm done with baseball again, and this time for good. The thought of having Halladay come into Toronto to wipe out the Jays three or four times a year while the spoilt fans of the Sox / Bronx Bombers cackle is just too much to bear. I realize, and grudgingly accept, that Toronto has rolled snake-eyes by ending up in the AL East with these twin leviathans, but refuse to have my nose rubbed in it to this extent. The ball's in your court, J.P. Fuck, he's a Massachusetts guy, isn't he?

- Check out Craig Dodge's preseason NFL Powerlines at his always entertaining Vertically Striped Socks blog. I plan on posting my list o'32 within the next two or three weeks as a rebuttal: there's a fair amount of common ground, but, as a sneak preview, I have issues with his placement of the Chargers and Cardinals (should be lower), plus the Bears and Seahawks (should be higher).

Apologies

2009-05-30T00:43:00.001-07:00

Hey, everyone. I apologize for the lack of updates lately, but there has been a heap on my plate. Long story short, I was laid off from my job about a month ago: in blogspeak, this makes for short-term pain, long-term gain. I'm still at the gig until late July, see (which makes for welcome hoarding towards my existing nest-egg), plus I get a nice summer break. Oh, the quote-unquote 'gain': I plan on reading and writing a lot (mostly on a beach and/or alternate sunny setting) during August and September while I weigh my future, so will be adding content frequently then. Thanks for your patience, and, truth be told, I am pretty enthused about this turn of events. Not only do I get an actual vacation, but it's driving my ass back to school.

Cigarettes and chocolate milk

2009-04-28T14:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, a bit of housecleaning here. First and foremost, I figure that a running series will function as an effective spur to my writing more frequently, plus I've largely ignored music commentary for the past couple of months, so here's the scoop. I've been going through my records for the past two hours, and plan on writing blurbs for each five star album I've ever heard over the coming months. Literally thousands of discs have graced the stereo over my lifetime, and especially over the past decade, but I'm pretty chintzy when it comes to doling out perfect ratings. At last count, fifty-nine artists managed to pull it off (there are numerous instances where a single entity has two or several five star efforts) . There's also a lengthy honourable mention list of 'four-and-a-half-bordering-on-five,' which I'll publish shortly. My selection criteria was basic: if there was even a nanosecond of dwelling upon whether the record in question belonged amongst the cream, it was punted to the runner-up stack.

Record-geek list-fetishism aside (Nick Hornby's legal team on line one), some commentary on a couple of other things.

First of all, I'm loath to bring up the subject, but Susan Boyle. Can we stop the self-congratulation about this, please? If you watch that clip, and who hasn't, there's literally laughter coming from the audience before she bursts into song, yet we're supposed to accept that a single competent performance from a figure viewed as a bog monster mere seconds earlier had inalterably morally shifted this bunch of judgmental, shit-for-brains jackals? I'm sure Ms Boyle is a nice lady and all, and she sings well, but this isn't even about her: it's about us. We're hypocrites and marionettes: the entire scenario was obviously jerry-rigged by the show's production team, essentially heartwarming-by-numbers. If there were a show full of Susan Boyles, nobody would watch. I've crossed swords with many people about this already, and suspect that it would be more socially acceptable to blurt that Terry Fox was a complete asshole rather than question the piety of Saint Susan. Enough! Again, this isn't about Boyle herself, but can we go back to manufacturing genuine emotion ourselves, within our own social circles, without having media conglomerates do it for us over the teevee? I'm willing to be tagged a grump and curmudgeon on this. Matter of fact, it would be a badge of honour. Now, let's talk about something else.

Secondly, on a more positive note, I'm a huge fan of the new phalanx of basic Facebook fan pages. What I refer to is friends becoming fans of generalities, such as music and sleep. In this spirit, I searched for pages using these terms, and each had their backers. There's no fudging any of these figures, and they're the real deal:

Oxygen - 19,366 fans
Trees - 24, 189 fans
Breathing - 43,573 fans
Blinking - 344 fans

Like, aren't we fans of life's wallpaper by default? When did supporting these things require an opt-in clause, like a Ralph Nader PIRG or something? This is my personal fave, as shared with several co-workers:

Existence - 262 fans

Do we really need to fly the flag that we're happy to basically exist? Is anybody really on the fence about this issue? Good times. I work in front of a computer all day, and have become mildly addicted to Facebook, so I notice these things. I'm not proud or anything; it just sort of happened...

Finally, on the lighter side, a right-wing luddite spewing blue-collar patois over demonstration-button techno. My brother Jud put it best:

This is horrible. Horrible. But I couldn't resist the lure of sharing a video of Don Cherry hesher-toasting over a flaccid Eurovision-lite backing track. Honest, I have to warn you that - to quote Charlie Brooker - your eyes may very well spin around and vomit down their sockets.

In all honesty, this clip has long been the great whale to my Captain Ahab, and it finally surfaced on YouTube. I recall watching it as a dumb kid on Rock 'Em Sock 'Em 5 (I believe), and even my then sarcasm-bereft junior self recognized this as a serious shark-jumping moment. If you can make it to the forty-five second mark before your small intestine begins leaking, you're a stronger person than I.

Anyway, yeah. My top rekkids coming soon.

Gopher balls (NL)

2009-04-04T20:23:00.000-07:00

For your perusal, I present the belated Senior Circuit picks. I wrote most of this on Monday, so it doesn't really factor in Tuesday's action, which included a blue-ribbon performance from my under-the-radar Wild Card pick. Of course, the best news to emerge from yesterday's slate was the mammoth 6 RBI performance from my boy Adam Lind, as Toronto went on to crush the woeful Tigers 12-5. And this came mere days after a suddenly feisty Cito Gaston called Roger Clemens 'a complete asshole' - maybe this year isn't going to be so bad after all!

National League

NL East

1. New York Mets. Despite playing in this killer of a division, I truly do believe that they have a shot at baseball's best record, and are probably the most complete team top to bottom. Much like those Rivera-Wetteland Yankee teams, games have essentially been reduced to six or seven innings with J.J. Putz and K-Rod waiting in the bullpen. There's been much wringing of hands about Rodriguez's drop in velocity, as he's mostly hitting 90-92 nowadays, but you wouldn't have known it from watching him last year. Johan Santana will get his NL Cy Young one season late, and the remainder of the rotation is serviceable, if unspectacular. In terms of the lineup, the only truly weak link is Luis Castillo at second (Brian Schneider couldn't hit his way out of a wet paper bag, but is good defensively and handles pitchers well, and Daniel Murphy is going to be fine in left, as he hit .348 with 17 RBI during spring and then homered in the opener). The bench is presently a bit iffy, but look for Omar Minaya to recify that during the season via prying bats from financially-challenged bottom-feeders.

2. Florida Marlins. I think I love them, so what am I so afraid of? Their general scrappiness and pluck under the tutelage of manager Fredi Gonzalez caught my eye last year, but they're graduating to Wild Card status this season, mark my words. Hanley Ramirez is your 2009 National League MVP, Cameron Maybin will take top rookie honours, and expect to hear Ricky Nolasco's name in the Cy conversation. Nolasco finished fifth amongst starting pitchers last season in my beloved WHIP (1.10), and the remainder of the young rotation, which features anti-household-names Josh Johnson, Chris Volstad, and Anibal Sanchez (okay, I think he had a no-no a couple of years back, so is marginally known) should be gangbusters. Buttressing Ramirez in the middle of the order is future Yankee/Red Sox/Mets second baseman Dan Uggla and a rejuvenated Jorge Cantu, who, aside from their cool uniforms, provided some of the only highlights for a disappointing Mexico team at the WBC. Owner Jeffrey Loria is a fucking scumbag (ask me about his ransacking of the Expos), plus Miami is a gawd-awful sports town, so it pains me to make this prediction in a way, but the 326 or so die-hards should start saving for playoff tickets.

MVP.

3. Philadelphia Phillies. They're going to be good again, but I just don't see them keeping pace with the top two. Swapping Pat the Bat for Raul Ibanez is a wash offensively, but the latter is a comically bad fielder, regularly driving my M's-fan buddy Corey to forehead-slapping and expletive-spewing. Seriously, watching him from the outfield bleachers at Safeco gives you a genuine perception on how wonky he really is out there. Generating runs isn't going to be an issue, but after Cole Hamels and the wizened Jamie Moyer (who you just know is going to get his 10-15 wins), the rotation kind of alarms me. Joe Blanton looked good okay after being acquired during the stretch drive last year, but his early season numbers in Oakland's pitcher-haven of a park were awful, plus I don't trust Brett Myers. Key setup guy J.C. Romero is gone for the first 50 games for juicing, and the law of averages says that Brad Lidge can't pull off another perfect season as closer.

4. Atlanta Braves. There are many question marks on paper, but this is a solid team that has an opportunity to put on a decent performance in baseball's toughest division. Chipper Jones is only playing his usual 90-120 games, but will post the numbers he always manages to, Brian McCann is one of the better hitting catchers in the game, and I was a backer of young'un Jordan Schafer even before he hit one out and was later intentionally walked (!) in his first career game the other night. Pitching seems a bit dodgy: Derek Lowe and Javier Vasquez will effectively chew innings, but Jair Jurrgens sounds like the name of a shampoo, and I don't know what the Jesus a Kenshin Kawakami is (after doing some research, he's a Japanese import who seems to have pitched his way into the rotation, but walked more than he struck out in spring). Never count out a Bobby Cox team, the cagey old bastard.

5. Washington Nationals. The most entertaining thing about this team is that both recently acquired Scott Olsen and lunatic outfielder Elijah Dukes are graduates of an anger-management program, so maybe they can bond over beating the shit out of teenaged ballboys they perceive as looking at them askance. Dukes seems to be getting a lot of love from fantasy columnists in the leadup to the season, but I'm more of a Lastings Milledge fan. With Dukes, Milledge, Adam Dunn, Josh Willingham, and Austin Kearns all active, this team has way too many outfielders, while largely bereft of talent at other positions. It kind of reminds me of playing franchise mode in video games with the 'computer teams can make trades' option selected. What always happens is that clubs end up with, say, both David Ortiz and Albert Pujols at first base while some stiff like Sal Fasano is the everyday catcher racking up 160 games played. Still, the simple departure of shady Jim Bowden is a step in the right direction for this team.

Oh, I just have to get this off of my chest: the Sporting News yearbook is listing the top three third basemen in team history for each club, and number one for the Nats is Tim Wallach. Um...no, he's an Expo, so spare us the defiling of my childhood. I've never been a supporter of transplanted teams maintaining histories of franchises over that of cities: fans in jilted towns are distraught enough without the indignity of having prized civic milestones and revered figures adopted ready-to-wear by a new group of backers that wouldn't know them from a hole in the ground. It reminds me of when the Winnipeg Jets were spirited to the Arizona desert (to Count Bettman's delight), and the 'Goals For Kids' jersey shoulder patch and fans doing the playoff 'whiteout' were adopted. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure fans in Phoenix thought they were doing the 'Peg a favour in maintaining those traditions, but it only served to keep old wounds open. In the interest of full disclosure, this burst of nationalist sentiment could have something to do with the fact that I'm spinning Stompin' Tom vinyl as I type this.

NL Central

1. Chicago Cubs. Respect. The Z is a bit of a head-case, granted but the rotation is top notch overall, the bullpen's loaded, and, with the likes of Aaron Miles and Joey Gathright, the bench is strong and flexible. Apparently Milton Bradley has been behaving, and if Lou can keep him from being a distraction, he should have a monster year batting between Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez. I love Geovany Soto, and gritty Reed Johnson is platooning in center field: he was one of the more underrated Jays during his time in Toronto, and a fan favourite due to his hustle. Easily the class of this division.

2. Cincinnati Reds. This is my backup sleeper behind the Marlins: unfortunately, I don't think they have quite enough to catch the Cubbies, but it should still be an overall enjoyable season in the Queen City. Start with the dynamite young rotation: Aaron Harang is going to bounce back, Edinson Volquez and Johnny Cueto are exciting, Homer Bailey should improve, and Bronson Arroyo is decent. I could easily see four of the starters winning at least twelve games. I'm also impressed with the batting order that GM Walt Jocketty (which, by the way, is one of the best baseball names out there, along with Skip Schumaker of the Cards: somebody get these guys a snuff endorsement already) has put together. If Willy Taveras can stay healthy, he's an ideal leadoff guy, Brandon Phillips borders on five-tool, and there's adequate power with Edwin Encarnacion, Joey Votto, Ramon Hernandez, and phenom Jay Bruce in the mix. Ditching Adam Dunn's one-dimensionality should be addition by subtraction, as this is a lineup of useful multitaskers. Ninety wins isn't out of the question.

3. St Louis Cardinals. Average. Based on the sum parts of their talent alone, the Cards look pretty decent, but I just don't have a great feeling about them. If Pujols remains healthy, he'll take his usual run at MVP, Khalil Greene is an upgrade at short (though the idea Tony LaRussa was floating about batting him in the cleanup spot is ludicrous), plus Rick Ankiel should be good for thirty homers. That said, Troy Glaus is out for the forseeable future, and I have questions about starting pitching. Adam Wainwright is a serviceable number one, but journeyman Kyle Lohse was re-signed for over $10 million per year: I don't particularly want to live in a galaxy where Kyle Lohse is making lottery money. I'd love to see ex-Jay Chris Carpenter battle back, but that's a massive 'if.' Making matters worse, the team drafted Scott Boras' kid, which is just a total karma-killer.

4. Milwaukee Brewers. The major question mark for the Brew Crew concerns pitching, though CC Sabathia moving on means that the catering budget may have dropped sufficiently to free up money for pursuing an arm. Yovani Gallardo has fantastic stuff, but he's still fairly unproven, and the team did reach terms with Braden Looper, who should eat up quite a few innings. Offensively, this group should steam right along. I see Prince Fielder leading the National League in homers this time around, which would be one giant leap for maligned vegetarians such as myself. By the way, would it have killed someone to have snapped a photo of Prince and Sabathia sitting side-by-side on motorcycles during CC's brief time in Wisconsin? It will be interesting to see if Rickie Weeks can finally break out; he may need a change of scenery at this point. Ken Macha is the 'that guy' of managers, in Sports Guy parlance.

Best mascot ever.

5. Houston Astros. People have been predicting the demise of this bunch for the past three or four years, yet they always seem to end up around the 85-win mark. Still, the run ends here: I see them being fairly dreadful this time around. It's a bad sign when the redoubtable old warhorse Doug Brocail is still kicking around in their bullpen. Roy Oswalt is Roy Oswalt, and Wandy Rodriguez should be a decent sleeper, but the bottom three rotation spots are seriously suspect. I figure that karma also feeds into their impending suckitude, as they play in a park named after juice (which is just weird, and I feel the same way about Tropicana Field), plus it has that fucking train and idiotic hill in center field that reeks of trying too hard. Moreover, it was originally corporately christened for oil company succubi.

6. Pittsburgh Pirates. First of all, I'm not exactly sure what happened to that Tom Gorzelanny guy: somehow he managed to win 14 games for a putrid team a couple of years back, yet people have figured out that he actually sucked like a bucket of ticks the entire time. Secondly, Nate McLouth is fantastic, though I don't see him duplicating his all-world season from a year ago. Third, their offensive fortunes largely rest on the shoulders of the brothers Laroche, so pardon my skepticism. Fourth, I freely admit that I know nothing about this team, and why would I? They're so forgettable that, before writing this, I undertook a crash course of sorts, yet actually did see them on WGN last season several times. This could seriously be the most anonymous team in pro sports of the past ten years, supplanting that New York Islanders team from a couple of years ago that Mike Comrie led in scoring. And the worst part is that there's not even really an excuse: yeah, they're a mid-to-small-market club, but their payroll is around $50 million. I have the Marlins going to the playoffs, and theirs is around $30 million! Sigh.

Where have you gone, Tom Gorzelanny? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

NL West

1. Los Angeles Dodgers. I'm not completely sold on the LAD, but they should essentially take this division by default. As far as offseason signings go, that Manny guy is okay, but they had me when they inked the O-Dog. Biases aside (he's a personal favourite), I think Hudson will fit in nicely with what's looking like a pretty solid infield also featuring Rafael Furcal, steady Casey Blake, and young gun James Loney. Also, I'm solidly on the Russell Martin bandwagon nowadays. While never doubting his talent, for some reason I believed that he was kind of a head-case, but seeing him grit it out for Canada in the WBC (seemingly #1 on the give-a-shit meter) disabused me of that idea. Jonathan Broxton should succeed at closer, but Hong-Chih Kuo is waiting in the wings should he falter. Though young, the starting pitching will be fine. Speaking of which, is Jason Schmidt still lurking around? If yes, it's kind of like a hobgoblin rattling chains in a manor attic at this point.

2. Arizona Diamondbacks. Their pitching depth is admirable, but a .251 team batting average last year? Sweet Jesus. The majority of the lineup is young and strikeout prone (Mark Reynolds in excelsis), plus the bench is pretty thin, with the only truly plausible options sitting at has-been Tony Clark and the heinously overpaid Eric Byrne. Still, they simply can't be worse offensively than they were last season. The aforementioned hurlers give the team an outside chance at a pennant: besides able veterans Webb, Haren, Garland, and Davis, phenom Max Scherzer, who was brought to my attention by workplace arch-nemesis Jason Li (check out his Hobbyboxco card store found in the 'Honourary Conjecturists' links above) has a chance to make a real impact. The bullpen is a bit iffy: Chad Qualls converted his first save opportunity today, but he and incoming setup man Jon Rauch rival a truckstop whore (my old job) in the blowing department. In other news, this blog has no class.

3. San Francisco Giants. I'm not quite as high on this bunch as a sleeper as many others, since obviously the offense reeks to high heaven. Bengie Molina is in the cleanup spot, and he couldn't even wrest Toronto's starting catching job from the immortal Gregg Zaun a couple of years back (though, admittedly, Zaun's unique ability to turn opposing players to stone with a single glare may have also played a role in maintaining that platoon situation). On that note, watching Bengie leg out his sole triple as a Jay was easily the most entertaining moment for T.O. fans since Joe Carter's 1993 round-tripper, and it actually gives that milestone a run for it's money. Digressions aside, I maintain that they'll finish behind the Arizona Dirty Snakes: the Tim Lincecum factor is essentially cancelled out by Brandon Webb's presence in Phoenix, and the remaining D-Back starters are better 2-5. If Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' is ever made into a TV series (I smell a sitcom...), casting Barry Zito as The Albatross is a no-brainer. Apparently he had a good spring, and, to his credit, there was a bounceback of sorts during the second half last year. The 'pen is looking pretty decent with steady Jeremy Affeldt and Bobby Howry setting the table for closer Brian Wilson. One sleeper worth keeping an eye on is young first baseman Travis Ishikawa, who hit over .300 with 7 HR in the spring.

Gregg Zaun. You'll be granite soon.

4. Colorado Rockies. Downside: Good B.C. boy Jeff Francis is done for the year, the Matt Holliday trade has left an gaping crater in the lineup, Todd Helton will inevitably be injured within the calendar month, and no more Brian Fuentes. Upside: Clint Hurdle smacks gum like nobody's business. This is going to be a generally dreary summer in the Mile High City, but there are a few things worth watching. Foremost amongst the positives, Ubaldo Jimenez naturally possesses some of the best stuff in the National League, only he's presently afflicted with a bad case of Daniel Cabrera syndrome (meaning his control is roughly on par quality-wise with that of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). Secondly, although losing Fuentes is obviously a complete and total drag, it does give Manny Corpas an opportunity to regain the role he occupied during the Rocks' Series run a couple of years back. Huston Street has first crack at the stopper job, but even if Corpas has a nice year in the setup role, it could bode well for his future prospects as a ninth-inning guy. I've read nice things about this Ian Stewart kid as well, and he ended up starting at second base in the opener. Denver sports fans are really taking it on the chin at the moment, what with the middling Rocks, Cutlergate, and the suddenly lousy hockey team. My advice: take a deep breath and focus on the Nuggets instead, plus I just have a weird hunch that the Avs are going to win the NHL draft lottery and wind up with John Tavares.

Come on, we all knew that I'd work hockey into this somehow.

5. San Diego Padres. Potentially one of the worst teams in my lifetime. Wasn't Chris Young, like, a super-prospect as recently as a year or so ago?

NL Wild Card: Florida.

NL MVP: Hanley Ramirez, Florida.

NL Cy Young: Johan Santana, New York.

NL Rookie of the Year: Cameron Maybin, Florida.

NL Manager of the Year: Fredi Gonzalez, Florida.

Postseason

ALDS: Indians over BoSox, Rays over Angels.

NLDS: Cubs over Marlins, Mets over Dodgers.

ALCS: Rays over Indians in six.

NLCS: Mets over Cubs in four.

World Series: Mets over Rays in five.

Champs.

Gopher balls (AL)

2009-04-03T21:43:00.000-07:00

Hey, guys. The season is almost upon us, so welcome to Jared's 2009 fearless baseball predictions!* I plan on posting the American League today, then the National League and postseason picks tomorrow. Before reading, bear in mind that I'm a music/hockey geek masquerading as a diamond authority, so take these picks with a grain of salt. Actually, nah: kneel before them, and commit this post to memory, because truer picks were never presented within blogospheria. I sort of went chalk, but there are a couple of surprises that I genuinally believe will occur. There are brief synopses for each team, but I plan on writing a full Blue Jays preview within the next few days, so essentially their capsule is empty. Well, save for a shot of raw pessimism. I love them and all, but Jesus wept. Oh, and my fantasy league this year is AL-only, so I'm less-versed in the Senior Circuit. Anyway, here goes: the only other thing I feel requires mentioning beforehand is that the NL East is the best division in baseball, not the typically slobbered-upon AL East. There are four teams in that NL East group who I feel have a legitimate chance of making the Series, and when was the last time you were able to say that about any division?

* There was actually fear aplenty. Oh Christ, the fear...

American League

AL East

1. Tampa Bay Rays. Don't believe the backlash, gang: the notion of having the Yanks and Sox once again contesting the division is traditionalist comfort food, but this bunch isn't going away. I steadfastly think that Joe 'Hipster-Glasses' Maddon has the best group of talent in baseball, and what is rarely factored in when analyzing their chances for the coming season is that Carl Crawford, probably their best player (with apologies to Evan Longoria, who will be amongst the best anywhere within 365 days or so), had a dreadful season last year. He has something to prove, and now has Pat Burrell batting behind him, which, by the way, may turn out to be the best acquisition of the offseason (no more heckling Philly fans). The rotation goes four-deep, with Shields, Kazmir, Garza, and Sonnanstine. Wait, what am I saying - a measly four? Factor in David Price, who will be in South Florida within a month or so, and they throw out five total studs. I think Dan Wheeler will end up with the closer role ahead of vet Troy Percival due to injury/attrition, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Not to spoil my playoff picks tomorrow, but expect an epic Rays-Tribe battle at some point during the coming postseason.

2. Boston Red Sox. Harrumph. Alright, so they'll be good: Nicky Lau* will sleep well this year, since even though the lineup is suspect, the forty-six-deep rotation will head to the rescue. Isn't Brad Penny anchoring the rookie ball rotation or something, considering that they have nowhere else to really stick him? Sporting! Complaining aside, this crew is clearly superior to the Yankees: they've becoming acclimatized to the Manny void, and good-guy Jason Bay has largely won over Fenway in his place. Granted, there are health questions about Big Papi and Lowell, but those circles can be squared. On the mound, I'd happily go to war with Lester, Beckett and Matsuzaka, plus they have Smoltz (who is apparently amazing in the room, no matter what he physically contributes) and Buchholz waiting in the wings. Papelbon is obviously one of the best closers in baseball, but an underrated pick-up was Takashi Saito, who I've always really liked: move over, Scot Shields, as the premier AL setup guy. In sum, they'll battle the Rays to the bitter end, and emerge with the Wild Card spot.

*Cameo from a Red Sox fan friend of mine.

Jon Lester: I hate you for your competence.

3. New York Yankees. Simply put, I'm not sold. I could easily see A-Rod missing more time with phantom injuries, the lineup is creaky from age, and AJ Burnett is a monstrous ass who doesn't show up unless a new contract is in the offing. Joe Girardi deserves better than this soap opera, as I think he's a great manager. I believe Torre was the perfect alpha figure for this bunch, as he's a 'reluctant' celebrity, while Girardi is more of a nuts-and-bolts baseball man, which doesn't alway succeed with the pinstripes. To wit, he thrived with underfunded Florida. Blame Billy Martin. I sincerely do think CC Sabathia will come through this year with 17-22 wins, but it won't be enough: Wang will end the year as the second starter, displacing Burnett, but the overall hijinks will reduce the team to 80-85 wins. Girardi is fired, destined to take a job in a smaller market where he can thrive.

4. Baltimore Orioles. Nick Markakis is one of my favourite players in the league to watch, but I would still charitably give them 75 wins at best. Matt Wieters will be up soon, which is kind of a drag, since my guy Gregg 'Grumpy' Zaun is catching in the meantime. I see Canadian TV analysis in his future: fuck, in the interest of full disclosure, he very well could be my favourite player. Bedraggled intro to this preview aside, they're in the wrong place at the wrong time: if they were stationed in, say, the NL Central, I could see them achieving .500, but it's perpetual cannon-fodder status in the AL Ea$t. Pitching-wise, I'm not entirely sold on George Sherrill as the closer, and think Chris Ray will retake the gig. The rotation is pretty goddamn shaky: Adam Eaton and Mark Hendrickson are both pencilled in, so do a few dozen rosaries for O's fans tonight.

5. Toronto Blue Jays. Le sigh. As mentioned above, my full team preview will be up within a few days, so, in two words: lost season. Vernon Wells is an idiot. Aaron Hill and Doc Halladay rule. JP Riccardi getting shit-canned is my World Series.

Some JP action.

AL Central

1. Cleveland Indians. I'm going off the board with this pick: not only do I think that the Central is Cleveland's to lose, but they'll win more than the 85-90 games that are generally prescribed to take the division. As a matter of fact, bet the Tribe to challenge for home-field throughout the ALDS and ALCS, partly because the AL East titans will be cannibalizing each other, but mostly because I just think this group is going to succeed mightily. First of all, Grady Sizemore is my MVP pick: he put up a gaudy 33 homers and 38 steals last year, and should have a better Travis Hafner (who everyone has written off) batting behind him this time around. Victor Martinez will have a bounce-back year, Kelly Stoppach will pick up where he left off, Mark DeRosa epitomizes 'solid,' and Shin-Soo Choo will build upon a stellar WBC, plus Asdrubal Cabrera will flash a nice glove at second before being granted honourary citizenship in Narnia after the season thanks to his name. Pitching-wise, I'm a big Fausto Carmona fan, and think that the loss of Jake Westbrook for the first couple of months will easily be mitigated by Cliff Lee and the emergence of Anthony Reyes. People expected big things of Cleveland last season and were bitterly disappointed, hence the lukewarm prognostications this spring. I'm buying low and planning on selling high, though: those moon-sized expectations were a year early, but look for the Indians to come through in ought-nine.

2. Minnesota Twins. Ron Gardenhire is the shit. Please, you have no comeback. He looks like a slovenly tool-and-die representative, but possesses one of the best minds in the game: hell, you know you've made it when people have to hesistate a second to remember who Tom Kelly is. I'd see Minny challenging Cleveland for the division title, only Joe Mauer's health is a major uncertainty at this point, plus the rotation is greener than T. Boone Pickens' born-again environmentalist persona. That said, Francisco Liriano is going to be in the Cy discussion, plus Glen Perkins is a total sleeper. Joe Nathan is back as well, which is never a bad thing. In terms of hitting, Justin Morneau will get his .300-25-110 from routine, Delmon Young came on in the second half last year, and Denard Span has a chance to establish himself as one of the league's better leadoff hitters. Mauer or no Mauer, they're still going to bump their heads on 85 wins.

3. Kansas City Royals. In spite of crummy crowds during the lean years, I think that Kansas City is a great baseball town, so it's fun to see a young bunch the area can rally around this season. Trey Hillman is a nice manager, and he handles young players remarkably well (prima-donna, Jose Guillen veteran types not so much, but who fucking cares). The endorsement from Bill Simmons has kind of led this bunch to fashionable pickdom; I don't see them in the postseason this time around, but they should challenge the Twins for second, and have a really sporting chance at cracking .500. It starts with the pitching. First of all, Joakim Soria in the 'pen: I honestly do think he's the best closer in the majors presently. Zack Greinke has always had Robert Kron syndrome for me*, and I think he's going to be spoken about in the company of the top five AL pitchers this season. Gil Meche is never pretty, but he'll get his 12-15 wins. I think that Alex Gordon will experience a mini-breakout at third this year, plus I just dig the look of this lineup. It appears destined to manufacture runs efficiently, what with Crisp and DeJesus at the top, and reliable Gordon and Jacobs to knock them in.

*Robert Kron syndrome: Back in the early 1990s, the Vancouver Canucks had the titular Czech winger in the fold, and he was noticeable every shift, making a pest of himself against the top line of the opposition. Alas, he rarely scored, so his contributions weren't particularly chronicled. It was much the same with Greinke throughout the first few years of his career: he always owned the Jays, but didn't have spectacular overall stats.

4. Detroit Tigers. This is just wholly depressing: apparently attuned via osmosis to the great state of Michigan's sinking fortunes, the team is essentially carrion. On the bright side, I do see them topping their 74 wins of last year, but Dave Dombrowski essentially assembled this unit like a sports neophyte lumping together a stacked video game team. Miguel Cabrera is going to battle the aforementioned Grady Sizemore tooth-and-nail for the MVP, Granderson and Mags are rad, plus Justin Verlander is going to have a bounce-back season, but the rest of these retreads? Please. I'm a believer in Armando Galarraga (most outlets have him greatly regressing), but have no faith in Bonderman, Edwin Jackson, or Nate Robertson. Fernando goddamn Rodney is the closer, and Joel Zumaya (the should-be finisher) is hurt yet again. Is Jim Leyland still allowed to smoke in the dugout in these enlightened times? Probably not, but we should grant an exception: the man is going to need a good butt or two this year.

Jim Leyland radiates dissatisfaction via his constipation face.

5. Chicago White Sox. These guys are due to combust. Kenny Williams is one of the top five GMs in the game, and Ozzie Guillen is...Ozzie (read: wildly entertaining), but I just see it all going pear-shaped this season. Jim Thome is ancient, Paul Konerko is visibly on the decline, and Jermaine Dye has seen his best days. One thing I do like about this club is their young pitching (Floyd, Danks, et al), but they aren't at the point where they can right the ship. Carlos Quentin will rebound after the hothead incident that possibly cost him an MVP, though.

AL West

1. Los Angeles Angels. Halo-bashing seems to be de rigeur this offseason, and the detractors do have some nice ammo. Key position players are aging and brittle, they've lost K-Rod, and the rotation is being held together with gum and twine. I appreciate the negatives, but, conversely, they're still in a weak division, have a nice bullpen, an above-average lineup, and the best manager in baseball roams the dugout. As per usual, the remainder of the clubs in the division will serve as a mere annoyance: the only obstacle this team faces, and it may be formidable, is injuries. John Lackey's return date is uncertain, and apparently Ervin Santana could be on the receiving end of a visit from Tommy John.

2. Texas Rangers. Andruw Jones somehow made this team, when he should realistically either be eating competitively or shagging flies in Rancho Cucamonga or some such outpost. Making matters worse, his roster spot was secured when the club cut blood-and-guts scrapper (and beloved ex-Jay) Frank Catalanotto. Fine, fine work, Jon Daniels: in the spirit of his predecessors, I can hear him yowling 'ah can't quit yew, washed-up veterans.' Questionable personnel decisions aside, I kind of like this team. I've been a big fan of Jared Saltalamacchia since he was brazenly stealing ABs from my then-fantasy-catcher Brian McCann in Atlanta a couple of seasons ago as a rook, Michael Young is one of the more underrated hitters of the last five years (I maintain that his stats would be strong in any ballpark), Josh Hamilton is the real deal, and their second baseman is named 'Elvis.' Taylor Teagarden looks like a beast, and should spell Saltalamacchia at catcher plus DH fairly regularly. Those assets aside, please note that there are no kind words extended towards their pitching staff. I'm not sold on Vincente Padilla, Kevin Millwood is Kevin Millwood (a workmanlike innings-eater, nothing more), and the remainder of the rotation is unproven. I do think that Frank Francisco is going to do a nice job as closer, though.

Saltalamacchia rules!

3. Oakland Athletics. Picking this hastily restocked bunch to make noise is roughly on par fashion-wise with auto-tune abuse in pop music (seriously, that Kanye record is amazing, but he has a lot to answer for), but something smells funny here. Yeah, they snared Matt Holliday and Orlando Cabrera, plus the washed-up husks of Giambi and Nomar, but the rotation is a septic tank. Justin Duchscherer, the one starter you could plausibly take home to meet your mother, starts the year on the disabled list, and last year's pleasant surprise Dana Eveland nearly pitched his way to Sacramento during spring (and yes, I did draft him on my fantasy team, goddamn it). My best guess is that they'll be within a few games of .500 in July and decide to blow the thing up and start anew. Trevor Cahill is an interesting pitching prospect, though, and should get a good look.

4. Seattle Mariners. Yeah, I gave second and third thoughts to the idea of this team somehow being a 'sleeper' of sorts in this division, as I quite like the M's and want them to succeed, but fuck it: they're just terrible. As if the potpourri of has-beens and never-will-bes fouling rookie skipper Don Wakamatsu's lineup card aren't egregious enough, Ichiro starts the season on the DL with a bleeding ulcer (which probably surfaced when the enormity of his woeful teammates hit him), plus for some insane reason they're starting Jeff Clement in the minors this season. On the positive side of the ledger, I've always been an Adrian Beltre fan, as his stats are more than respectable considering he plays 50% of his games in hitter-unfriendly Safeco. And, even though it's going to cost Clement playing time, only a scrooge would complain about the return of Ken Griffey Jr. It's blatantly designed to throw the fanbase a bone, but so what? They aren't going anywhere this season, so it's neat to have the favourite son come home for a farewell lap. I plan on hitting Safeco as per usual sometime this summer, and seeing Junior in M's colours one last time should be a trip.

AL Wild Card: Boston.

AL MVP: Grady Sizemore, Cleveland.

AL Cy Young: Roy Halladay, Toronto.

AL Rookie of the Year: Taylor Teagarden, Texas.

AL Manager of the Year: Trey Hillman, Kansas City.

Back tomorrow with the Senior Circuit, playoff picks, and record of the week. It won't be done until after the 'Nucks game, though. Yeah! Oh, I forgot one of my favourite facets of baseball season: going to Vancouver Canadians games at Nat Bailey Stadium. I have Wednesdays off this summer, so should be bleacher-bumming at many a nooner, especially since my place is within walking distance of the park. Let it begin!

The Nat.

Sad scenes and dodging paranoia

2009-03-14T22:36:00.000-07:00

Hey, everyone. I haven't posted in ages, but there's a valid explanation. See, I started this blog at the beginning of January as a New Year's resolution intended to spur me to write more often. However, Chinese New Year rolled around at the beginning of February, and my main resolution for that holiday was not giving a shit about the blog. No harm, no foul. By the way, my secondary Chinese New Year's resolution was to find out if resolutions are even part of Chinese New Year, lest I come off as a dumbass cultural imperialist with egg on my face. In all honesty, I haven't gotten around to that one yet. Can someone help me out?

In addition, I've been saddled with a horrific cold virus, which I'll explain in geopolitical terms to spruce up the symptoms. See, imagine the top-half of my head being western Pakistan, and the lower half plus neck and chest Afghanistan. Disasterously, mucus jihadists overran the entire works about ten days ago, but international forces (represented by assorted over-the-counter remedies) beat the insurrection back and have reduced it to a smaller, localized rump. Unfortunately, mucus has centralized their operations around the inner-ear region in largely uninhabitable terrain that has been essentially ceded to them (much like the Swat Valley). So while I'm not sneezing and coughing as much, the beachhead in my inner ear/Pakistan endures unmolested, which is incredibly annoying. In other news, suddenly I feel like playing RISK.

Dimensions of the Swat Valley. Not pictured: Jared's anthropomorphized snot warriors.

Anyway, I remain pretty wonky health-wise, so don't feel like doing anything lengthy: here's some abbreviated rants, questions, and general crap. As per usual, it's all over the map, so will hold the attention of approximately nobody.

- It's the eve of Selection Sunday for the upcoming NCAA basketball tournament, and I'm already ridiculously excited regarding potential matchups. There's not really much drama personally, as my team (Wake Forest) is in and locked into a high seed, but the crazy conference tournaments from this week have only served to whet my appetite further. As a bonus, this is the first time in recent memory that the favourite clubs of my entire small college-hoops-watching posse (Wake, Gonzaga, Washington, and Michigan) are all going to appear in the same tournament, so the beery hijinks and smack-talk should be for the ages. I was also reminded of the upcoming tourney at Safeway earlier this evening upon spotting Jeff Teague's photo on a milk carton. Hey, I kid the Teague. Well, sort of. I'll give my picks in a post over the next few days once the matchups are announced, but have no problem sneak-previewing my sleeper team: take a bow, Villanova Wildcats. In a stunningly uncharacteristic display of competent prognostication, I successfully picked them to go to the Sweet 16 last year as a twelve, and they return essentially the same personnel this time around. As mentioned, more to come on the pending roundball buffet in the near future.

Final Four or bust.

- While in the basketballian vein, a simple request to the NBA: stop talking to Canadians like we're stupid, okay? You've been here for fourteen years now. I had Raptors TV on a couple of weeks back, and watched the network's coverage of Toronto's introductory press conference of Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks following the Jermaine O'Neal trade. Before the scrum started, Sherman Hamilton, who really should know better, noted in a disturbingly faux-soothing tone that 'a good trade is one where neither general manager gets fleeced and both teams can move on' (not exactly verbatim). Um...what? At the risk of not sounding sporting, a good trade is one where the other party is on the business end of an egregious goddamn rip-off. This isn't just a basketball thing, Sherm: even in elementary school, kids instictively know that bartering a mealy apple with a clod of dirt to be named later for a chocolate bar is the best possible outcome.

See, the thing about the demise of the Vancouver Grizzlies is that it wasn't about a lack of fan support, passion, or knowledge. It was due to the then-62-cent Canadian dollar and uber-incompetent, silver-tongued Stu Jackson running the team into the ground. For God's sake, the man couldn't even grow a moustache properly. I'll leave it there, as talk of the Grizzlies always leaves me cranky, but we knew the game.

- Am I wrong, or has Gary Roberts retired about five times this season already?

Go away.

- I plan on doing a lengthy music-centric post in the near future (seriously) but, quickly, here are two albums I heartily recommend. The first is Circlesquare's Songs About Dancing and Drugs, which is 2009's first really fantastic record. Circlesquare is the project of one Jeremy Shaw, a native Vancouverite who wisely escaped to Berlin. The disc came out on the K7! label, so I naturally expected pep, but it's actually a laconic, comedown effort with an endearing backdrop of looping instruments and capering observation. The other is a compilation by a band called Manhattan Love Suicides titled Burnt Out Landscapes. I've never been a fan of artists nakedly aping their forbears, but for whatever reason, The Jesus & Mary Chain lends itself exceptionally well to imitators. A miasma of feedback, distortion, female vocals, and subterranean pop hooks, this is really excellent. The JAMC influence is ridiculously visible, admittedly; one of the songs essentially rips off the introduction to 'Upside Down' wholesale. The band hooked me anyway, so their ably covering Daniel Johnston's 'Life In Vain,' which is one of my favourite songs of all time, is gravy. My only gripe about their version is that the guitars in the chorus kind of make the track sound like the theme song for a prime-time soap from the mid-to-late nineties.

- Has the word 'bane' been used even once outside of a heavy-metal context within the past couple of decades?

- I work in Burnaby, and we have crows. Not merely the odd murder, but a veritable blackout commencing each twilight that has been immortalized in at least one Douglas Coupland novel. I've always hated them, especially since they shit all over my beloved Brown Car with impunity. However, I read an archived article about their history on the site the other day, and it kind of made me feel sorry for them. Apparently this was their primary regional roost: the birds come from all corners of Greater Vancouver each night. Rampant development (the office park containing my company's building, a car dealership, Costco, and The Keg) has left the area essentially barren and treeless, so the confused crows perch upon any standing edifice as a poor substitute (I've noticed that they've especially gone hog-wild recently at the construction site of the Morrey Auto dealership across from McDonalds, especially since the walls have started popping up).

Adding insult to injury, apparently the building next door to my workplace thinks that crows are abject morons. As a deterrent, they've mounted several fake owls on the roof of the building. See, that's just not necessary; not only are crows acknowledged as fairly bright amongst the avian set, but they haven't seen nature documentaries, plus I highly doubt they sense predators purely visually. Not surprisingly, the crows aren't buying the whole thing; the nadir probably came the other day when I was outside on break and spotted a crow perched upon one of the owls.

All of this devil's advocacy aside, though, I really do wish they'd stop crapping on my ride and fuck off toward Burnaby Lake already.

The real deal.

- The Koivu brothers, Saku and Mikko, are probably the closest entity that hockey has appearance-wise to Patrick and Don Swayze. In both instances, the younger brother (Mikko and Don) kind of look like a bastardized, cartoon version of their more recognized sibling.

- What's up with those Vancouver bus shelter ads for CTV Olympic coverage that have the network's talent swathed in white, puffy winter gear? Bill Good and Pamela Martin look like cosmonauts from planet WASP.

- That new Apple commercial bugs the hell out of me. Yeah, so the thing is that 'funnest' is TOTALLY NOT A WORD!!

That's enough. I really do plan on writing more going forward, health willing. Enjoy Selection Sunday, basketball fans.

Mark E Smith reads the soccer scores

2009-02-17T09:03:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to my brother Jud for pointing me in the direction of this clip, where the legendarily caustic genius behind The Fall has been invited to give the days footy results. His obvious boredom in reading the scores themselves is strangely hypnotic, and when the task is completed (around the 4:30 mark), Smith has a brief interview with the studio guys, which includes mocking the host's haircut. I kind of love this.

For those of you not familiar with Smith's work (The Fall have gone through at least forty lineups - Smith is the only constant - while releasing innumerable records over the years), here's the clip for 'Mr Pharmacist' from the Bend Sinister album, one of my favourites.

And now for something completely boring...

2009-02-04T14:46:00.000-08:00

There was a really interesting piece in last weekend's New York Times Magazine that presented recommendations and alternatives for the Obama administration in resuscitating the American economy. What caught my eye was a policy map advocated by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (titled Rahm's Doctrine), which is essentially a lay-person edition of University of Maryland scholar Mancur Olson's 1982 work The Rise and Decline of Nations. Basically, what it advocates is seizing the financial crisis as an opportunity to lay a new social groundwork, with the infusion of dollars into recharting such decidedly unsexy arenas as health care, infrastructure and education.

At this point, anyone who has read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine is probably noticing some serious parallels. Klein's thesis, which was thoroughly verifiable based on historical events, added another notch in its belt with the recent $700 billion bailout package bestowed upon failing U.S. financial institutions. What she posits is that governments have utilized instances of disaster, be it physical, financial, or military conflict, to unfurl a slew of freeper-friendly measures and programs designed to enrich their corporate boosters. These changes are codified and acted upon in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, as the populace is often too weak and traumatized to put up any sort of opposition. Pertinent recent examples include the 2003 Iraq invasion (the plunder of the country and establishment of security industries by the likes of Halliburton and Blackwater) and Hurricane Katrina a few years back (where the Bush administration outsourced essentially everything in the aftermath, even to the crass point of awarding a contract to a major campaign donor to retrieve bodies of the dead once the floodwaters receded).

Emanuel's proposal essentially turns Klein's theory on its head while simulatenously validating it. In his world, changes are similarly made while the population is in punch-drunk, only the shifts are to benefit the commonweal rather than bloated corporations and greedy executives. For instance, Obama's new stimulus package would essentially double the education budget, which predictably has Republicans and states-rights types spoiling for a fight. Here's the thing, though: not only does increased program spending make moral sense, it makes economic sense. Matter of fact, Rahm's Doctrine is ultimately the most feasible method of salvaging the American economy; it's going to require a healthy degree of trial-and-error and, above all, patience, but how is the alternative of pitchforking money into the maw of existing unsustainable industries and financial schema even remotely sane? Instead of lending and opening the credit spigot, what have the banks done upon receiving their stimulus cash? Hoarded it. Well, save for expenses incurred attempting to tenaciously maintain their disgusting opulence.

Much like a smack-addict, deregulated capitalism operates on jolts and insularity. Looking beyond the next fix simply doesn't occur; there's a myopia and tunnel-vision that manages to ignore (or merely pay lip service to) happenings without, but change won't occur unless its through painful sacrifice. In the case of the junkie, it's the excruciating path to rehabilition. For the U.S., it's eschewing rigid economic dogma and instead taking a hard look at social determinants: a recognition that increasing numbers of undereducated and unhealthy citizens are providing a drain on the economy without precedent. Reinvigorating the school system to create a generation of engaged achievers is going to require an assload of cash and political capital, which is why it's normally a non-starter amongst elected officials. The financial turbulence presents an opportunity to examine ideas generally branded 'unorthodox.'

Despite Obama's popularity, I remain pessimistic. Bafflingly, the Republicans have managed to co-opt the idea of the 'American Dream,' which they've used as a cudgel to beat down detractors of the unbalanced status quo (which is probably a reason why Democrats haven't been able to mount an effective challenge to this greed-heavy school of thought, although their general spinelessness and the fact that their noses are nearly as deep in the trough as the GOP are the major factors). If you question America's brand of capitalism, you're disparaging wealth and industriousness, no questions asked. I was at a bookstore the other day, and have developed an ongoing game: when I see a book on display by a right-wing media figure, of which there are a depressing amount, I open it up to a random page and see how many nanoseconds it takes to completely debunk the first claim I read. The other day, it was a tome called An Inconvenient Book by some guy named Glenn Beck, who apparently is a particle physicist (nah, I'm just fucking with ya: he's an angry, doughy radio screamer, just like the rest of them). The first line I saw was along the lines of 'liberal fun fact: they think government were awful during Hurricane Katrina, yet they want them in charge of a massive, complicated plan to manage carbon credits.'

First of all, huh? Secondly, Beck is flaunting a tried-and-true right-wing trick, which seems to have spread to the general public through the airborne, anti-intellectualist disease that has overridden the country: the distinction without a difference. No, we weren't repulsed by the government response to Katrina, we were sickened by that government's inaction. The same holds true in this debate: when myself and like-minded people question U.S. capitalism, we're disparaging greed, not wealth. Earlier today, President Obama spoke of an admirable initiative to cap the salaries at a half-mil of executives with companies receiving taxpayer bailout money. You'd think this would be common sense, really, and that it wouldn't be necessary for the President of the United States to intervene in remedying such blatant injustice. Upon announcement of the administration's endeavour, a rebuke was issued from a 'compensation consulting firm' called James F. Reda & Associates. Their managing director had this to say:

“That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus.”

Okay, to expand upon my earlier claim, we're disparaging greed and shitheads, not wealth. Simply unreal: as working-class people lose their jobs and homes, the entitlement knows no bounds. When it comes to the idea of wealth, if you invent something or otherwise make an honest impact, fine, and there should be a carrot. However, if you're simply head bean-counter for a gaggle of white-collar kleptomaniacs, this is entirely different. Menial labourers receiving minimum wage often make a far more quantifiable contribution to society than CEOs, and it's ridiculously unfair that they're the ones suffering through this downturn. Personally, I'm a democratic socialist a la the Nordic states: I believe firmly in markets, but think they should be closely regulated, and that a strong social safety net and equitable wealth distribution is imparative. In short, I think a rising tide should raise all boats, not just the yachts.

Weighing the peril of the times, let's hope America casts aside established orthodoxy and opts to construct a fairer, more just society out of the ashes. It's going to take a strong stomach, but the Obama administration has a chance to entirely discredit the prevailing ethos of greed while forging a more equitable country. Such a change doesn't mean that prosperity and individualism won't flourish. Let's use Klein's Shock Doctrine benevolently instead of greedily.

By the way, sorry this wasn't very funny or anything, but hearing the news today about those avaricious executives spurred me to write. Also, it wasn't supposed to be this lengthy. I'll return to tomfoolery going forward, promise.

Jared's 25 biggest NHL creeps

2009-01-22T21:53:00.000-08:00

The subject of the largest jerks to ever haunt NHL rinks recently arose; while most lists named a few offenders, my quickie brainstorming session exposed a whopping thirty-five or so roaches to the light. I've managed to boil them down to a tidy, round group of twenty-five. Before starting, bear in mind that this group only includes players, so any off-ice culprits get a temporary reprieve, though their day of reckoning will surely come. This means that the roll-call won't include figures such as Marcel Aubut, Harry Neale, Leafs fans, lame mascots, Mike Keenan, local Benedict Arnolds who jumped on the Flames bandwagon during the 2004 playoffs, PJ Stock, Peter Karmanos, the intermission blimp at GM Place that never drops prize envelopes in my direction, Brian Murray, any Canucks owner since the Griffiths family sold the team, Ron Wilson, or Gary 'The Count' Bettman.

'Ten, ten failed franchises, AH AH AH AH AH!'

25) Frank Caprice - Let me explain: I don't actually dislike the 1980s Canuck backup netminder, even if his numbers were pretty wretched (eep...one year he had a 4.81 GAA and .851 save percentage in 28 games), as he seemed like an affable enough sort. However, for part of his Canucks career, I recall him sporting an oily attempt at some sort of quasi jheri-curl, which is unspeakably tragic once you bear in mind that he's caucasian. I tried sleuthing out a picture of this tonsorial quarterlife-crisis on the interweb, but all I could find was a stock photo where the hair is cut straight across his forehead like a six-year-old boy.

24) Craig Janney - This dead-eye passer, who would be incapable of locating the defensive zone with the most expensive GPS device on the market, would have snared a much higher spot if only his fuckfacingly stubborn refusal to accept a trade to the Canucks didn't end up abetting Vancouver reaching that season's Stanley Cup finals. After Janney refused to report to the west coast, GM Pat Quinn dealt his rights back to the Blues for Jeff Brown, Bret Hedican, and Nathan Lafayette, all of whom were stellar contributors during the 'Nucks Cup drive. Janney's repeated, infamous answer to media inquiries during his pout-a-thon when pressed on why he wouldn't report was 'I just need some time.' Huh? First of all, you were traded, not dumped: man up, Jennifer. Second, you were dealt to Vancouver, a beautiful city merely two time zones over, not sent to a remote outpost like Abu Dhabi, Kandahar, Antarctica, Neptune, or Cleveland.

23) Vladimir Krutov - Canucks fans rejoiced (well, excepting local reds-under-the-bed types, I assume) when the team announced during the summer of 1989 that they were involved in the offseason's initial Russian NHL influx (which also brought over the likes of Slava Fetisov and Sergei Makarov), and that Red Army standouts Igor Larionov and Vladimir Krutov would bolster the forward corps in the upcoming season. Well, one out of two ain't bad: while Larionov proceeded to win Stanley Cups and justifiably landed in the Hall Of Fame, Krutov ate his way out of the league after one season. He also bore a striking physical similarity to that Soviet cable guy who wanted to hook Jerry up illegally in an early Seinfeld episode.

22) Keith Tkachuk - A textbook version of the bristle-haired, prototypically villainish fratboy type, Tkachuk openly gushed about his team leaving Winnipeg for Phoenix right in the midst of their final Manitoban homestand. Moreover, he was seen at a 2004 Busch Stadium World Series game wearing Red Sox apparel. Annoyingly, his mouth is consistently agape, as if he proceeded to close it for a nanosecond the earth would go flying off it's axis and careening towards the Horsehead Nebula.

21) Derian Hatcher - Possessing all the cunning and quickness of a retarded snail, Hatcher was the poster boy for defensive success throughout the NHL's interminable dead-puck era. Which means he was really big, and, uh...what else? When not looking for the smallest opponent to latch onto during post-whistle scrums, Hatcher was often seen grinding forwards to a halt by the most boring means possible. When the league re-convened following the lockout committed to a more free-wheeling style of play, Derian was exposed pretty quickly.

20) Martin Rucinsky, Keith Carney, and Eric Weinrich - I actually liked these three on other teams, but all were acquired by Vancouver with much fanfare at the trade deadline over the past few years, and each failed spectacularly. Given Mats Sundin's slow start, I'm wondering if this bunch have founded some curse on Canuck midseason acquisitions.

19) Jordin Tootoo - Remember those heartwarming stories a few years back when Tootoo managed to emerge from isolated Nunavut to win a spot with the Nashville Predators? Those tales seem oh-so-long ago now, as the plucky Inuk has established himself as one of the dirtiest players of this or any other decade. I was really rooting for this kid at first, but he's going to end up seriously hurting a fellow player; the nadir of his misdeeds thusfar is probably the surprise, turnaround gloved-punch against Stephane Robidas of Dallas that left the defenseman unconscious and concussed.

18) Joe Murphy - One-dimensional, whiny, and, by all accounts, a wretched teammate, Murphy made a career of hitching his wagon to talented linemates. He also bore an uncanny resemblance to Carl Spackler of Caddyshack fame (alright, I promise I won't compare physical appearances of pucksters to pop cultural figures going forward - two is enough).

17) Glenn Anderson - I never much cared for him as a player, as he was undercover-dirty (a fun memory is a shirtless, batshit-nuts Gino Odjick chasing him around the rink after the play during 1995's Canucks-Blues series), but my antipathy stems mostly from encountering him directly when I was a child. We were fortunate enough to attend an Oilers morning skate at Pacific Coliseum during the 1990-91 season, and nearly all of the players were exceedingly generous afterwards in granting autographs. Not only did Anderson refuse to sign, but he was clad in a ludicrous fur coat. And here you all thought that Wilt Chamberlain was the number one pelt aficionado in pro sports.

16) Tom Barrasso - One of the most intemperate jerks to ever lace up the skates, his aloofness and outright harshness with media members and fans is the stuff of legend. I was in attendance at GM Place for his first game with the Senators after being dealt to Ottawa earlier that week, and it was enjoyable to watch him get torched in Andre Racicot-esque fashion.

15) Standup goalies from the 1970s and 1980s (read: pretty much all of them) - When tuning into old games on ESPN Classic or the NHL Network, watching the goalies from thirty or so years ago is downright maddening. They never, ever, ever go down. Someone can be doing a wrap-around and they'll be bolt-upright, hugging the post, and swatting impotently at the puckhandler with their stick. The most comical is when there's a shot between the face-off circle and blue line in the attacking zone - when the puck comes towards them, they'll kind of half fall-backwards as the disc inevitably whizzes by. My younger brother is a goalie, and he thinks it's hilarious. On behalf of puck fans everywhere, I just want to give a heartfelt thanks to the province of Québec for illustrating how to play goal properly and rationally, starting around the mid-to-late 1980s.

14) Gary Roberts - After courageously battling his way back from early retirement following a chronic back condition, Roberts gained a sort of amnesty standing with me, despite the fact that he was a prime mover with the hated Flames during the first phase of his career. It didn't take long for the goodwill to dissipate, however, as he resumed an identical, chippy style of play, and even worse, eventually turned up with the loathsome Maple Leafs. Consistently overrated by the Don Cherry set (I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that this 'winner' won a single Cup, and that was during his third year with Calgary when he was only a minor contributor), Roberts never carried himself like a bona fide grown-up in his late thirties like real leaders such as Steve Yzerman and Joe Sakic did.

13) Joel Otto - I never really had a serious gripe with this guy other than the fact that he was lumbering, boring, and played for the Flames, but that all changed in round one of the 1989 playoffs. The gutsy, underdog Canucks had pushed Smythe Division champ Calgary to overtime in game seven; with the first extra session nearly over, Jim Peplinski threw a pass toward the Vancouver net, which was directed into the cage by Otto's skate. Remember, this was pre-instant-replay, thus the goal stood. I was just a little kid and found the whole thing unspeakably traumatizing; it felt like a pet dying. In all honesty, I'm getting worked-up just typing this: Google 'Joel Otto kicked in,' and it returns 43,000 hits.

12) Marty McSorley - The frightening incident where he struck Donald Brashear on the side of the head with his stick leaves me sickened to this day. Making it worse, he hid behind the ref afterwards when Brashear's teammates came to exact revenge (the team's furious on-ice reaction illustrates in itself what an egregious act this was, as that forgettable edition of the Canucks had no jam or grit, plus I'm pretty sure they all hated each other) Granted, McSorley was widely condemned afterwards in media circles, but there naturally remained a small coterie of apologists who wrote it off as justice meted by a 'good Canadian kid.' If a Euro had committed the offense, the same bunch would have ordered him crucified.

11) Dan Woodley, Jason Herter, Libor Polasek, Alek Stojanov, Josh Holden, Nathan Smith, Michael Grabner (potentially), etc - Few teams have as grim a record as Vancouver when it comes to first round busts. Well, at least Stojanov fetched Markus Naslund in return; many thanks, Craig Patrick. Grabner is putting up nice numbers in Manitoba this season, but I just have an overriding bad feeling about him adjusting to the pro game.

10) Ed Jovanovski - There are creeps, and then there are creeps so repellant that one can't help disliking them even when they suit up for the home team. Jovo falls into this category for me: his arrogance, carelessness in his own end, and penchant for stupid penalties ensured that I'd never take to him. Expanding on the latter complaint, Jovanovski managed to take an undisciplined penalty during the last minute of the third in game seven against Calgary back in 2004. Naturally, the Flames scored at the beginning of overtime while he was still in the box to end the series. To borrow a quote from Bill Maher, that's powerful stupid. What's especially annoying is that the rock-solid Mattias Ohlund toiled in relative obscurity while bombastic Jovo grabbed the headlines. Good riddance.

9) Rick Tocchet - I'll bet you that I can go this entire paragraph without making a gambling-related pun. Oh, never mind. A dirty player turned dirty coach, and I can't believe he actually landed a head coaching job (albeit in the circus that is Tampa - I give it six months before both Len Barrie and Oren Koules are residents of the crowbar motel). I was going to ladle on more gratuitious smartassery and further indictments on his playing days, but there's a guy lurking outside of the window with a violin case.

8) Eric Lindros - Formerly among my top-three least favourite players of all time, but he seems to have morphed into a sincerely good guy upon retiring, so I'll cut him some slack. Still, the fact remains that he was a first-class creep during his heyday. Who can forget his shunning of Les Nordiques de Québec on draft day? Shame! To play devil's advocate, however, he was saddled with perhaps the most demanding, horrific hockey parents of all time, which is a tough environment to emerge from. In hindsight, maybe I should have placed Bonnie and Carl on this list instead.

7) Alexei Yashin - Alright, three contract holdouts in five years is bad enough, but he's also the first person I've ever heard of who donated to charity and then later took it back. This happened back in 1999, when Yashin donated $1,000,000 to the National Arts Centre, only to insist upon it's return when the museum refused to pay his parents $425,000 in 'consulting fees.' Amazingly, this sordid arrangement even makes the aforelampooned Rick Tocchet seem squeaky clean by comparison. On the ice, Yashin was the epitome of a me-first player, and has never been highly regarded by teammates. He's currently toiling in Russia, but there are occasional NHL comeback rumblings. Don't hold your breath.

6) Brad May - Along with Jovo, another rare Canuck whom I couldn't stand. May's purportedly a 'tough guy,' yet has never met a bout he couldn't lose. Fittingly, he was recently dealt to the Leafs, and scored his first goal with the Buds the other night when a puck careened off his ass into the net, which is pretty much a microcosm for his career.

5) Chris Simon - Simon's insanely reckless cheap shots are without peer. Here are a few 'Greatest Hits': Imagine the following scrolling down a screen K-Tel commercial style.

- Stomping on the back of Jarkko Ruutu's leg with his skate blade.

- Cross-checking Peter Popovic across the throat.

- Baseball-swinging his stick into the face of Ryan Hollweg.

- Hurling racial epithets at Edmonton's Mike Grier.

Thankfully Simon's finally out of the NHL, but it's pathetic that it took so many incidents before the league finally turned it's collective back on him.

4) Tie Domi - Jeff Blair of the Globe & Mail put it perfectly the other day when noting that Leaf Nation, punch-drunk from years of failure, have 'turned mediocrities such as Tie Domi and Darcy Tucker into folk heroes.' I recognize that enforcers are often amongst the most popular players on a club, but the Domi-adoration took it to a ridiculous new extreme. What's rarely noted is that Domi was never even a that great of a fighter; I remember storied pugilist Jiri Slegr bloodying Tie's nose and handily defeating him back when he still played with the Jets (the camera caught him smashing furniture back in the tunnel, which made for nifty television). Following his playing days, Domi was briefly hired as an NHL studio analyst with TSN, but the network relieved him of his duties a few weeks later upon realizing that he can't actually string a sentence together. It's hardly a coincidence that the letters in the man's name can be rearranged to spell 'me idiot.'

3) Gary Suter - Strike one: playing for the strong Flames club that frequently steamrolled the hapless Canucks. Strike two: injuring Wayne Gretzky during the 1991 Canada Cup after smashing him into the boards from behind. Strike three: inflicting a serious ACL injury on Pavel Bure during another dirty play, starting the Rocket's slow decline to early retirement, and robbing the hockey world of one of it's most exciting talents right at the cusp of a period when his brand of play was sorely needed.

2) Dale Hunter - I remember watching the 2005 Memorial Cup, which featured as the host club coach Hunter's London Knights. They eventually beat Kid Crosby's Rimouski squad in the final, but what made me throw up in my mouth was that Hunter had clearly bequeathed his unsportsmanlike ethos on a bunch of impressionable kids. The Knights were the dirtiest team I'd yet seen at the junior level. Hunter's lionized in hockey annals as a blood-and-guts tough guy, which conveniently ignores the fact that he was at least as likely to swing his stick as drop his gloves (especially during the latter half of his career). His most egregious and infamous moment, laying out a prone Pierre Turgeon via the cheap-shot to end cheap-shots, is only the most visible lowlight.

1) Mark Messier - What can be said, really? I wouldn't know where to start, and time is short, so I'll hold my fire (lest it lead to a 10,000-word, splenetic denouncement). The only remotely positive contribution Messier made to the game, in my opinion, is this inarguably hilarious picture.

Yeah, that is Gary Coleman, if you're wondering.

This was negative, so I'll do up a list of my all-time favourite players in the near future.

The Year In Music, 2008. Part II.

2009-01-14T10:53:00.000-08:00

Alright, here are my top records. Disclaimer: while a voracious listener, I'm not a music writer, and bear in mind that this is meant as gushing, not criticism, plus it was a bit of a rush-job. I'm a busy man *. To put it another way, if competent music writing is a well-behaved, impeccably groomed showdog, this is a gamboling, drooly-jowled, three-legged mutt going in for the crotch-sniff. I'm not a chin-stroker, but a forehead-slapper. I started linking to the MySpace pages on Wednesday night, kicked off the writing itself around 9 PM tonight (after much procrastination: it's the 17th of January, for god's sake, which is why not everyone has synopses), and am publishing a few hours later; yeah, I'm officially losing interest in the blog already.

* I'm actually not that busy, in the grand scheme of things.

Now that I've set the bar suitably low, here we go.

Oh, if you're so inclined, as alluded to above, the names in the top records list are all clickable and will open the artist's respective MySpace page, which include sound-clips and songs. Technology is my homeboy.

25) Mogwai - The Hawk Is Howling

I freely admit that their being included in the top 25 has the faintest whiff of lifetime-achievement to it, but they also have to contend with the tyranny of high expectations; even an effort that's considered mediocre by Mogwai's standards could easily be considered a lesser band's career highlight. The mere presence of 'The Sun Smells Too Loud' guarantees a spot on this list, plus the group re-released their seminal Young Team debut this year, which is one of he finest records of the nineties - bonus points for that.

24) Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 - Many Things

Fela's youngest follows in his late father's formidable footsteps and releases a straight-up Afrobeat record thankfully unadorned with hip-hop cameos, contemporary electronics, or other obtrusively 'modern' measures meant to generate some sort of artificial crossover that have popped up within the genre over the past decade. Even better, he brings back the Egypt 80 band, who backed Fela on my favourite record of his, 1989's underrated Beasts Of No Nation.

23) Atlas Sound - Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel

Deerhunter hogs most of the press (and they're great as well), but Bradford Cox's other project also micro-employs a myriad of indie-influences. The difference is that, while Deerhunter zigs into (admittedly offbeat) song structures, Atlas Sound zags expansively and ambiently.

22) Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

This sagacious warhorse, and author of the most depressing novel I've ever read, has spent the past thirty years plumbing the dank cellar of the human condition and personally conquering the potentially tragic (heroin addiction, mullet flirtation). What's emerged is a songwriter more willing to trade in levity and, dare I say it, fun.

21) Young Jeezy - The Recession

20) Cursed - III (The Architects Of Troubled Sleep)

19) Nomo - Ghost Rock

18) You May Die In The Desert & Gifts From Enola - Harmonic Motion Vol. 1

17) Times New Viking - Rip It Off

Low-fi haters need not apply, but for the sane amongst us, TNV tear off sixteen bratty, fuzzed-out songs in a half-hour. This album sounds like it cost about ten bucks to make, but impeccable pop-hooks are clearly audible beneath the persistent hiss. Glorious.

16) The Bug - London Zoo

Kevin Martin goes dubstep, and the results are stunning. Tracks that would rock a club, political ruminations, and general kvetching. This is a gem.

15) Parts & Labor - Receivers

It's not up to the lofty standard of last year's gloriously spastic Mapmaker, which has all the earmarks of a career-definer, but the NYC lads show that reining in their loose ends hardly crush out adventurism. The best warped guitar pop of '08.

14) Li Jianhong - San Sheng Shi

One of the year's most pleasant discoveries, Jianhong is a Chinese avant-garde noise artist who makes records using only his guitar. On paper, this is comparable to someone like Orthrelm alum Mick Barr, but there are significant differences in their respective sounds. While Barr is more of a pure shredder, Jianhong layers and sprawls his compositions in a drawn-out manner, birthing simultaneously intense and contemplative soundscapes. This effort, a 51-minute monster released as a single song, ripped my face off.

13) TOBACCO - Fucked Up Friends

12) Russian Circles - Station

11) T.I. - Paper Trail

10) Nico Muhly - Mothertongue

No record this year was more outright compelling: it's variously brilliant, pretentious, adventurous, annoying, precocious, and bold, but the bottom line is that I haven't been able to stop coming back. In a quick capsule, Muhly is a twentysomething compositional wunderkid who was born and raised in New York City, and has worked with Philip Glass and Bjork in the past. This album is divided into three compositions, each encompassing several movements. Upon hearing the first, 'Mothertongue,' I nearly threw a shoe at my stereo: it opens with a mezzo-soprano, which I naturally have an aversion to, singing out random addresses over strings, before being joined by other voices and having the strings fade out to be replaced by the sound of a shower and spare piano. It grates, and I still need to be in the mood for it.

Where this album weakened my knees, though, is on the third piece, The Only Tune. A reworking of an old English murder ballad, it alternately features organ, walls of feedback, and multi-tracked vocals, and brazenly shapeshifts while still maintaining the plot. While not a 'song,' per se, this composition is easily the best fifteen minutes of music released in 2008.

09) Fleet Foxes - s/t

Reams of ink have already been spilled on this record, so I'm not really sure if I can add anything fresh to what's already been said. Impeccable harmonies.

08) M83 - Saturdays = Youth

07) Fennesz - Black Sea

06) Genghis Tron - Board Up The House

05) The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride

It's a kick to have John Darnielle creating lyrical character sketches again after a series of inward-looking albums over the past several years. When he's on his game, few are better: the fabulous closer, 'Michael Myers Resplendent' (written from the perspective of the titular Halloween killer), was described by Darnielle on the band's website as 'about a negative epiphany arrived at through the glory of progressive trance.' Which is a weird coincidence, by the way, considering that the first time I heard the song, the immediate thought that popped into my head was 'wow, talk about your negative epiphanies arrived at through the glory of progressive trance!' Also, 'San Bernadino' is glorious, and I'd advocate it as a gateway drug to anyone unfamiliar with Darnielle's storytelling.

04) Aidan Baker & Tim Hecker - Fantasma Parastasie

Two of my favourite experimental artists, and both Canadian, come together to release this effort. Why is it that both wallow in relative obscurity in this country, yet Metric has a healthy career? Whatevs. This skews more towards Hecker-esque drone, but Baker brings some Nadja-esque guitar to the proceedings.

03) Gang Gang Dance - Saint Dymphna

This is a polarizing unit; some are turned off by the yelping, ululations, and generally spacy disposition of singer/percussionist Lizzie Bougatsos (I bought merch from her once at a concert, and after I chose a CD she woozily exclaimed 'woooah, you guys really know the discography,' which has become a bit of a running gag with friends), plus the live show has been known to reduce hipsters to moronic, new-agey convulsions that can't even generously be filed under 'dancing.' I love them, though, and this newest effort even manages to trump 2004's excellent breakthrough God's Money. Aside from bringing back the endearing polyrhythms, freak-folk traces, and electronics that made it's predecessor such an unclassifiable marvel, GGD includes elements of dubstep and hip-hop this time around. Rather than coming off as mere dilettantes, they manage to fold it into their sound seamlessly and naturally; like Radiohead, GGD can seemingly incorporate anything and yet still managed to unmistakenly sound like themselves, which is an enormous compliment and underrated asset. 'Dust' is one of the best closing tracks I've heard in years, a shimmering conclusion that brings the album in for a smooth landing.

02) Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing

I knew nothing about this duo other than they were opening for Caribou at an upcoming local show, so didn't know what to expect upon cueing up debut Street Horrrsing for a first spin, really. I figured that it would be somewhere in the same ballpark as Dan Snaith's warm, intricately concieved kaleidoscopic pop. This speculation seemed to be confirmed for the first minute or so of leadoff track 'Sweet Love for Planet Earth,' which opens with what sounds like a burbling music-box. However, once a forboding buzz creeps in around the 1:05 mark, we're not in Kansas anymore. Granted, there's a non-linearity to the music of both Caribou and Fuck Buttons, but that's about where the similarities end: from it's defanged introduction, 'SLFPE' morphs into a ten-minute-long maelstrom of concussed propulsion, drone and frenzied, unitelligible screaming (for good measure, an added landslide of fuzz is piled on around six minutes in). What makes it more gloriously unsettling is the constant presence of the music box lingering at the bottom of the mix throughout, like the cries of a child trapped in a well. This track dissolves into the terrifying primivitism of 'Ribs Out,' which is essentially four minutes of rhythmic pounding augmented by disembodied banshee wails.

I adore formless noise records, but also have a weakness for pop, so a great selling point for me here is that the barbed mien of droning noise obscures occasional melodic flourishes, believe it or not; this isn't Wolf Eyes or anything. The finest example is 'Bright Tomorrow,' a hazy kicker which employs a hearty 4/4 thud behind looping organ.

01) Why? - Alopecia

Whither 'indie?'

Whatever happened to the original indie spirit: y'know, the fuck-shit-up-and-take-names one that didn't lead to gigs in St Andrews-Wesley church on Burrard? The records that didn't sway into a buoyed-off, Sufjanesque safety zone; the albums that brazenly challenged, elevated, and offended? Here it is, kids; this LP fits the bill, though Steve Albini would hardly be folding his arms and chuckling over rank discordance; this is (sort of) a pop effort through-and-through. In short, Yoni Wolf and company elevate themselves to a similar stratosphere not through naked aggression, but rather pop nous, unorthodox instrumentation, and junkshop patois. Why? had me from the Sanddollars EP, but this is a cut above, and it actually took me a few months to fully appreciate it's greatness: ragged, babbling, yet somehow entirely cogent. It helps that Wolf is a lyricist without peer nowadays, and here are a few examples:

I'm not a ladies man, I'm a landmine. (The Facebook status update of every fellow Why? fan at least once this year)

At your house / The smell of our still living human bodies and oven gas. (This is my personal favourite; it's Elvis Costello-esque in terms of wringing imagery out of a single line)

You're the only proper noun I need. (Fuck gloopy love songs, 'Simeon's Dilemma' is the best crush-track since the Dead Milkmen's 'Punk Rock Girl.' Uh, it is a stalker waxing on his beloved, but divorce that from the equation and it's gold! Okay, I admit that may be hard.)

By the way, honourable mentions go to Girl Talk, Benga, King Creosote, Black Milk, Deadbird, Lawrence English, Autechre, Santogold, Adem, David Byrne & Brian Eno, Leona Lewis, Destroyer, Lindstrom, No Age, Woodhands, Wolf Parade, Flying Lotus, Sun Kil Moon, and Headhunter, all of which narrowly missed the cut.

Nice work, champ.

Here are some of my favourite reissues, anthologies, and compilations of the year:

*Various Artists - Emergency Room

*Various Artists - Nigeria Disco Funk Special: The Sound of the Underground Lagos Dancefloor 1974-79

*Various Artists - BIPPP: French Synth Wave 1979-85

*Various Artists - Mary Ann Hobbs Presents: Evangeline

*Various Artists - Disco Not Disco: Post Punk, Electro & Leftfield Disco Classics 1974-1986

*Carl Craig - Sessions

*Mogwai - Young Team (remaster)

*REM - Murmur (remaster)

*Michael Jackson - Thriller (remaster)

*The Jesus & Mary Chain - The Power of Negative Thinking

*Pavement - Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creeders Edition (remaster)

*Big Dipper - Supercluster

*Gas - Nah Und Fern (remaster)

I was going to include the year's 'Worst Albums' list in this overview, but will make that a stand-alone post sometime in the near future. I'm not cranky enough to do it now. To close, here's a list of the best shows I attended this year. These are in no particular order, and I may be forgetting some.

*Daniel Johnston, Richard's on Richards

*The Doers, Little Mountain Studios

*Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Richard's on Richards

*M83, Richard's on Richards (twice!)

*Laura Veirs, St. James Hall

*R.E.M. / Modest Mouse / The National, Deer Lake Park

*Silver Jews / Monotonix, Richard's On Richards

*GZA, Richard's On Richards

*Mission Of Burma, The Plaza Club

*Mogwai / Fuck Buttons, Commodore

*Holy Fuck / A Place To Bury Strangers, Richards

*Alejandro Escovedo, Pat's Pub (first time) and The Biltmore (second time)

*Buck 65 / Cadence Weapon / Skratch Bastid, Commodore

*Neko Case / Destroyer / Andrew Bird / Deerhoof / The Evaporators, Malkin Bowl

*Neil Diamond, GM Place

*Why?, Media Club (first time) and Richard's on Richards (second time)

*Bob Mould, Richard's on Richards

*Acid Mothers Temple, Pat's Pub

*Gang Gang Dance / Marnie Stern, The Biltmore

*Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, GM Place

Here's to a great 2009!

Flavour Country Revisited

2009-01-10T20:34:00.000-08:00

One of my favourite new television shows is AMC's Mad Men, which chronicles the drama and tension (of both the professional and sexual vintages) rampant within early-1960s Madison Avenue advertising culture. The show's steely, unimpeachably cool protagonist, Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm), spends his days alternately devising pitches for soap flakes, striving to uphold a typical suburban household, bedding comely women, and wrestling with demons from his past. The secretaries, underlings, and higher-ups are superbly portrayed, bringing to life a savage brand of office politics that makes the average workplace look like student government by comparison. Don's long-suffering wife Betty (January Jones), besides being ridiculously foxy, is a vivid case-study of the era's restless housewife, shackled to subservient child-raising and a generally anomic existence. The sets are spot-on, the characters superb, the storylines clever, and the dialogue never fails to bring it's A-game. In fact, in light of the manifold factors that go into making the show an absolute winner, I only have one minor complaint.

The smoking.

In stellar period re-creation by the program's writers, essentially every character is rarely seen without a Lucky Strike dangling from their lips. The men smoke. The women smoke. Children, the elderly, and household pets smoke. It's a wonder that we can make out scenes through the carcinogenic haze generated by the show's talent.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em, Don.

Before I go any further, don't get me wrong: I heartily endorse the abundance of on-screen puffing, as it undoubtably accurately captures the age and environment. No, my complaint is bred purely from personal weakness: see, I'm a recovering cig-monkey. I quit on my twenty-seventh birthday, after roughly seven years of dancing with the regular-filtered, king-sized temptress (wow, 'king-sized temptress' kind of makes it sound like I have a fat fetish). The reasons for my deciding to surrender the habit were threefold:

1) Saving money. I figured that any cash freed up could be re-routed to my first loves, hookers and blow.

2) I'm already cursed with garden-variety looks, room-temperature intelligence, and an overly large head, so figured that not reeking like an ashtray would help keep my then-girlfriend from coming to her senses and ditching me.

3) Blah blah health blee blee whatever.

Fast-forwarding to the end of the story, I managed to quit fairly painlessly. My secret? I was aided by determination, fortitude, and pluck. Well, those combined with the fact that, about a week after my last cigarette, I was afflicted with a painful, mononucleosis-like viral infection that left me hospitalized, and it ensured that sucking Du Mauriers was the last thing on my mind for a few weeks. In all honesty, I'm not sure if I would have been able to kick were it not for said affliction. Still, at the end of the day, I'd recommend trying out nicotine gum or patches to assist in quitting before contracting a dangerous illness. Any port in a storm, I guess, but just an FYI.

But back to Mad Men. I hadn't felt nic-twinges in ages, but, to get down to the brass-tacks, Don Draper is just such a goddamn fantastic smoker that it occasionally makes me consider running to 7-11 for a pack. The man really knows his way around a cigarette, suffice it to say. I haven't succumbed or anything, and I don't really see it happening (after drunkenly accepting a smoke at parties or bars since quitting, I've always regretted it immediately and end up crying 'uncle' after a few drags), but Draper's cig-virtuosity deeply undercuts a taboo promulgated by the health-care industry, authority figures, and the terminally dull: that smoking's a rote, joyless addiction practiced by dead-eyed adherents. I couldn't disagree more: smoking is addictive and extremely dangerous to one's health, but the dirty secret is that it's kind of awesome at the same time, at least when you're young and bulletproof. When I was a student at UBC, I lived to smoke; there was no better feeling than stepping outside following a particularly dull lecture or whilst knee-deep in term papers and lighting up. It enhanced concerts I've attended, plus I met a ton of interesting people in outdoor venue smoke-pits over the years. Stopping off on long road trips for a stretch and a cigarette was just glorious.

Wait, what was my point again? I suppose the underlying message of this blog is that, if you're a recent tobacco quittee, avoid Mad Men like grim death (you may also want to give it a miss if you're a recovering alcoholic). For everyone else, purchase the DVDs immediately.

The Year In Music, 2008. Part I.

2009-01-07T01:38:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my review of what I believe to be a pretty strong year for music. This didn't always seem as though it would be the case; the first few months were mostly creatively arid, but 2008 salvaged itself with a great latter-half of the calendar year. Personally speaking, I'm finding it to be an outright thrilling time to be a music geek; my tastes continue to grow more eclectic, and the broad expansion of read-write culture that digital technology has enabled allows us to explore and engage with artists or fellow fans in a manner unimaginable even five years ago.

I've decided to break my year-end synopsis into two posts, mostly for the sake of length and readibility. Part I is centered around my list of the top songs of the year; also included is some assorted music-related stuff that doesn't really fit anywhere else (disappointments, trends, rants, pleasant surprises, etc). Part II, which is to be posted over the next few days, features my top 25 records of the year, plus the top compiliations, reissues, live shows, and the always-entertaining worst records of the year. Come on, who doesn't love a good hatchet job?

Anyway, I want to get the negative stuff out of the way first, so am starting with a roll-call of 2008 records that didn't live up to expectations; in shorthand, the biggest disappointments. Before starting, I just want to stress that these aren't necessarily bad records, but merely tepid efforts from artists who are capable of doing better.

Man Man - Rabbit Habits: The weirdness on their first seemed enlightened and inspired; the strained grasps at oddity on this sophomore release are calculated and uninteresting.

Jonathan Richman - Because Her Beauty Is Raw And Wild: It has it's endearingly whimsical moments, but there's an undercurrent of tiresome preachiness, which seems anathema to the Richman ethos.

Crooked Fingers - Forfeit-Fortune: Not bad, but more ingredients are added than Eric Bachmann's previous post-Archers outings, which gives the album a bit of a too-many-cooks feel. On the whole, it doesn't measure up.

Eric Bachmann of Crooked Fingers: no, this isn't creepy at all.

Islands - Arm's Way: I loved their first record, and really wanted to like this. It was spun about 10-12 times before I ultimately gave up; there isn't a single track that sticks to the ribs. Still, what with the great debut and a quality Unicorns catalogue, they deserve a mulligan.

Opeth - Watershed: This wasn't enjoyable at all; the slower moments sounded like something from the 604 Records stable. Remember what I said at the commencement of this category that these weren't necessarily terrible records? Go ahead and waive that caveat for this one.

The Breeders - Mountain Battles: I've never been a huge Breeders enthusiast, to be honest, but this may be their most boring yet. I'm a major Pixies fan who firmly contends that Kim Deal rules, but this project should be put out to pasture; they haven't really done anything memorable since 'Cannonball.'

Beach House - Devotion: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. This is exactly the type of rounded-edged 'indie' that sneers at the adventurism of predecessors from a less-charitable distributive age.

Del The Funky Homosapien - Eleventh Hour: The fact that he's probably my all-time favourite MC while never releasing a solo record that I'd grade over a middling C-plus (Deltron 3030 is an A-plus album, but that was done with Automator, so it doesn't count) bespeaks the quality of his extracurricular projects and live presence. I was excited to hear that he'd signed to Def Jux, and this is a servicable effort, but, as per usual, it's mostly frustratingly spotty.

From here, we delve deeper into the thicket of crumminess.

Worst Song Of The Year: My Morning Jacket's 'Highly Suspicious.' I can say without hyperbole that this is one of the most offputting songs of the decade, and I'll never look at the group in the same way again. Here's the scoop: MMJ, a collective of bearlike, hairy Southern rustics who have built a career upon releasing albums of smart, experimental Americana (2001's At Dawn, in particular, is actually a really great record) decided to cook up a Purple Rain-era Prince pastiche. Amazingly, it's even worse than it sounds on paper; the dichotomy between lead singer Jim James' burly, blue-collar appearance and the nuts-in-a-vice falsetto he employs here is truly jarring. The nadir comes partway through when the aforementioned singer begins giggling coquettishly. I'm sorry, but I really can't do it justice. Summary: I'd rather be beaten with a table leg than hear this ever again.

Phew, I'm glad that stuff is out of the way. Now, in the parlance of Dave Dameshek's Jerk List, it's time to bring a little sugar to the proceedings. First off, here are a list of the year's pleasant surprises.

Paul Weller - 22 Dreams: 'In The City' aside, I've always found The Jam to be little more than plodding dadrock, plus Paul Weller's solo career has been a snooze-inducing streak of piss. I'm not sure how exactly it even ended up in my Winamp, given his track record, but this is a legitimately interesting, ambitious album.

Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer: I didn't mind their first record, but was obviously drinking different Kool-Aid than the majority of the slavering music press, who rushed to not only crown Apologies To The Crown Mary 2005's album of the year , but essentially elevated it to the pantheon of indie rock classics. I couldn't disagree more - one only needs to listen to the Swan Lake record to hear that Spencer Krug doesn't yet measure up to a Carey Mercer or Dan Bejar in terms of songwriting heft - but this sophomore effort was much more satisfying.

Conor Oberst - s/t: I'm allergic to the fundamentals of emo, but have always loved Oberst's Bright Eyes; despite the media attention they've received, I think their catalog will be viewed as surprisingly strong in ten or twenty years. That said, Cassadega was the first Bright Eyes record that didn't really do anything for me at all, thus I figured the Nebraskan pretty-boy had reached his artistic ceiling and was settling in for a career denouement of diminishing returns. Boy, he sure showed me - this record's a delight.

Chad VanGaalen - Soft Airplane: Confession: I've often found CVG's records trying and overcooked, plus his live show bored the ever-loving bejesus out of me (especially when the excellent two-fer of The Doers and Fond Of Tigers opened said gig and served to set the bar ridiculously high). This is a step in the right direction, though; it's more judiciously edited and coherent than his previous work while still maintaining an experimental bent.

Crystal Castles - s/t: In a textbook example of judging a book by it's cover, I ignored this record for ages because the duo came off as buffoonish hipsters in the press. After finally giving it a chance, I felt shame; don't get me wrong, I still think they're buffoonish hipsters, but they've made an icy, intriguingly varied hum-dinger of an electro record.

This next list are also pleasant surprises, but fall under the 'old warhorse' category.

Stephen Malkmus - Face The Truth: Obviously it doesn't measure up to Pavement, but he's at least made a solo record comparible to the stellar Pig Lib.

Local H - 12 Angry Months: I've always enjoyed the caustic Scott Lucas; back when I was in high-school, he made bullying jocks pogo to a song insulting their entire culture simply due to the inclusion of a naughty word. Always too clever and subversive to make it big, yet with enough polish on their records to alienate the indie crowd, Local H has always been the above-average tweener of post-Nirvana rock (think Ben Gordon, basketball fans), and this concept record spanning 12 months following the end of a relationship is alternately splenetic, heartbreaking, and hilarious.

REM - Accelerate: A nice, taut rock record from one of my early favourite bands. The last couple of REM releases have been pretty ghastly (though I'd take a bullet for Up, which most unfairly lump in with the remainder of the subpar post-Berry output), but the punchy songs here make for a nice live experience.

Portishead - Third: I always came down on the Massive Attack side of the fence during the great trip-hop debate of the late nineties, but the music of this bunch has aged much better. Moreover, this comeback effort following a lengthy hiatus is a classy augmentation of their sound.

Here are a few loose-end categories.

Biggest journalistic starfucker: For the fourteenth straight year, take a bow, Rob Sheffield. He used to be solely confined to the already wretched Rolling Stone, but seems to have taken his sycophantic junk down the freelance path: his Blender cover piece on Katy Perry was a fawning disgrace. I'd almost admire his plucky attempts to render such obviously two-dimensional figures in IMAX, if only they ever actually succeeded.

Tangent: when the NHL's Lady Byng trophy was instituted back in the late 1920s for gentlemanly play, it was won by New York Rangers forward Frank Boucher seven of the first eight years. As a sort of tribute, the NHL decided to just give the trophy to Boucher following the seventh win, and the Byngs donated a new award to the league. That's essentially the point we're at with Rob Sheffield and the starfucker award: just keep the thing.

I'll bet you didn't expect to see Frank Boucher and Man Man come up in the same post. That makes two of us.

Most overrated claim that's gained a depressing amount of traction: Death of the full-length album in the age of the iPod. Records haven't changed for the worse, and fantastic ones continue to be churned out by the dozens each year. To the leading proponants of this theory, no offense, but your attention span probably just sucks. I realize that some listeners are just more singles-oriented by nature, which is fine, but the debate is being being portrayed as a zero-sum-game. The entire theory points directly to consumerist, gadget-driven overstimulation, which is what I find really annoying.

Most frustrating record: L'il Wayne's Tha Carter III. Rather than having the chance to listen through the entire record in one sitting, I first heard this in three chunks upon purchase. At that point, I figured it was headed straight for the year's best list, but that prospect dimmed with each ensuing spin. There are a lot of incredible tracks on this disc ('Lollipop' excepted, which is retarded), and Weezy's rhymes are as wonderfully out-to-lunch as I expected, but Jim DeRogatis hit it on the head when he noted that there's a bit of a mixtape quality to this record. I love tearing it up for parts, but find it difficult to make through in a single sitting.

Best Record of 2007 (in hindsight): With apologies to last year's winner, Parts & Labor's Mapmaker, it has to be Kanye's Graduation. Even the hookiest tracks, which by design can be prone to losing their flavour like a piece of gum, are finding new ways to endear themselves to me, and there's hardly any fat. The only thing keeping it from being considered one of my top-five hip-hop albums of all time is the unfortunate presence of Mos Def on the lunkheaded 'Drunk And Hot Girls.' The unwavering critical appreciation of Mos Def has always really bothered me, and, going by his cameos on other records, I've come to the conclusion that he pretty much ruins everything. Here's a game you can play at home: wrecking historically venerated feel-good events through insertion of Mos Def guest spots. I'll get things kicked off.

[SCENE 1: Charlie Brown arriving to find his famously puny Christmas tree decorated beautifully by the neighbourhood kids]

Lucy: Charlie Brown is a blockhead, but he did get a nice tree.

*group starts humming 'Hark, The Herald Angels Sing'*

Charlie Brown: What's going on here?

*pause while he incredulously inspects tree*

Everyone else: MERRY CHRISTMAS, CHARLIE BROWN!

Mos Def: She spot me like paparazzi / shot me a glance / in that catwoman stance with the fat booty pants, hot damn!

*Christmas tree bursts into flames*

[SCENE 2: The moon landing]

Neil Armstrong: One small step for man...one giant leap for mankind.

Mos Def: Up top is you getting up with it? / Dirty dirty is you getting cronk with it?

*entire galaxy is sucked into a black hole*

See, it's hardly brain surgery. Create your own.

Mos Def enjoying his new hobby, zeppelin pilotry.

Best Record Store: Vancouver's own Red Cat Records. Unpretentious staff, great vinyl selection, and close to my house; what's not to like? I still can't believe it took me so long to discover this place. Audiopile and Zulu are strong runners-up.

Anyway, without further ado, here's my list of 2008's top songs. I've left the tracks unranked, with the exception of awarding a gold, silver, and bronze for the three best. Admittedly, the medal-based reward system may not be entirely kosher at the moment, as it makes myself and probably any other Vancouverite reading this think of white-elephant venue construction, general cost overruns, and insufferably smarmy, reptilian VANOC CEO John Furlong. Sorry, there's no hyperlinking to sound clips, but I'm sure these can be tracked down relatively easily over the interweb. Via purely legal channels, of course. Wink.

Silver Jews - Strange Victory, Strange Defeat: The reviews for this album were tepid, but David Berman's return can be filed under 'triumphant' for this cryptically astute nugget alone. The chorus is bigger than one usually finds on Joos tracks, but, as per usual, the lyrics steal the show.

Robert Pollard - Gratification To Concrete: The one where everyone's favourite beer-swilling, hyper-prolific former elementary school teacher comes up with his best track since 'I'll Replace You With Machines' five years ago.

Robert Pollard wrote thirty-two songs in the time it took to read this caption.

Ill Bill - My Uncle: The Non Phixion alumnus wrings a chilling anti-drug screed from familial experiences with heroin addiction. Commencing with a creepy sample of Bill's smack-ravaged uncle, what could have been a preachy no-mark instead resonates with a charged, Dead Prez-esque willingness to flout hip-hop convention.

Nas - Sly Fox: Many critics wrote this song off for it's hunting-sheep-with-a-bazooka targeting of Fox News, but the fact that cable's number-one coven for bloviating fucktards is an easy target shouldn't detract from the brutal elegance of the lyrics. The reply to a feud instigated by race-baiting alpha figure Bill O'Reilly, Nasir Jones knocks Papa Bear six ways from Inside Edition with this tour-de-force.

Bill O'Reilly came a disappointing third in the sack-race at the Fox News summer picnic, but later redeemed himself with a first-place harrumph-off finish.

Sun Kil Moon - Tonight The Sky: The SKM album narrowly missed my top 25, and it's highlight is this sprawling road-tripper, replete with irresistable chorus. Mark Kozelek's own 'Cowgirl In The Sand.'

Slow Down Tallahassee - Never Be Lonely Again: I'm quite possibly biased, as both my twin brother and arch-nemesis were both once members of this Sheffieldian unit, plus the primary songwriter bought me numerous beers and complimented hockey when I was visiting England (he was pretty hammered at the time, I think), but that doesn't change the fact that this summery track has glorious hooks aplenty.

Terrence Dixon - Unit: Dixon is one of my favourite discoveries of the year, even though he's been kicking around for ages (I'm late to the party); he released three EPs this year, and this gem from Point Of View best shows off his Detroit-leaning techno.

Parts & Labor - Nowhere's Nigh: The Brooklyn-based Record Of The Year emeriti tone down the kitchen-sink element and emerge with an anthemic-yet-warped nugget.

The Bug - Fuckaz (featuring Spaceape): In this grumpy slice from an already dyspeptic album, an ornery Spaceape tees off on greed, materialism, self-absorption, and your old man (okay, that last one's made up), amongst other things.

White Lung - Therapy: Some local content, this track is probably the finest sautering of seminal forbears (elements of Sonic Youth's 'Trilogy', Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, etc) and contemporary jagged noise energies that graced my stereo in '08.

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Out Of Reaches: The song starts off in a fairly average manner, but works it's way into an endearingly widdle-y Malkmusian guitar solo around the three-minute mark. By the way, when the term 'widdle-y' works it's way into a music review, it's fairly obvious that we're not exactly dealing with Robert Christgau or Peter Guralnick here.

Stephen Malkmus is off to the deli for his usual pastrami on wry. Har har! Slide whistle.

Cloud Cult - Love You All: Far and away the best track from an otherwise unremarkable album, this song starts with isolated, vocodered singing before gradually building into a gloriously lush climax. The brand of twee indie rock Cloud Cult trades in has mostly bored me shitless over the past few years, but this is a cut above. Beautiful.

Bvdub - It Could Have Been So Beautiful: Cinematic ambient dub really doesn't get much better than this exercise in lush, sweeping bob-and-weave. It was hard picking one song from his I Never Cried A Tear EP, as every track was stunningly accomplished.

TOBACCO (feat Aesop Rock) - Dirt: Combine Black Moth Super Rainbow's woozy, seasick psych-pop with Aesop's flow (crazily enough, he seems to be getting even better with age) and you have the best of both worlds.

Dr Dooom - R.I.P. Dr Octagon: Kool Keith, hip-hop's last word on batshit craziness, resurrects one of his underrated personas to re-murder Dr Octagon. By the way, Octagon is also a Keith creation. The villainous Dooom (Keith) had already previously knocked off Octagon (Keith) back in the 1990s, but after Octagon (Keith) rose from the grave earlier this decade, Dooom (Keith) arrived back on the scene to 'beat him (Keith) to death with rocks'. Follow? In other news, Kool Keith is a fucking lunatic. Great line about 'the critics giving him (Octagon) mouth-to-mouth' while in his death throes the first time around.

Kool Keith with an Elvis wig glued to his skull. No wisecrack required.

Skelm - 9 Ball: With the possible exclusion of the aforementioned Spaceape-helmed Bug track, this is probably my favourite dubstep cut of the year. Nearly ten minutes of crepuscular shiftiness, and it's even better on headphones.

T.I. - No Matter What: This is one of the biggest pop songs I heard this year; meat-and-potatoes thumping beats, a five-alarm synth-line, and a chorus built for arenas (ironically enough, T.I. couldn't actually go to said arenas due to his being under house-arrest, but that's neither here nor there). The obvious pick is the ubiquitous 'Live Your Life,' which is also great, but Rihanna's taking part in the 'ayyyayyyayyys' is hugely unbecoming. She sounds like a dude; it reminds me of Daphne Zuniga singing 'Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen' while imprisioned in Spaceballs.

T.I.'s hat nearly pulled off the great escape, but eventually ended up back in the cooler.

Alejandro Escovedo - Swallows Of San Juan: One of my favourite songwriters of the past twenty years released a sort of concept record this year ruminating on his fascinating career, from his time hanging out with Sid Vicious in NYC to the present-day. Some of the songs are too beholden to a rockist template for me, but it makes for a really fun listen on the whole; the best song, though, 'Swallows Of San Juan' is more classic-nineties Escovedo, which I feel is his best phase.

And, without further ado, here are my favourite three songs of the year.

BRONZE

M83 - We Own The Sky: The track closest in spirit to the captivating rococo of 2005 predecessor Until The Dawn Heals Us (somewhat-interesting fact: Jared's '05 Record of the Year), this French unit's exercise in candy-coated ethereality is absolutely spectacular.

Anthony Gonzalez of M83: 'My kids need wine.'

SILVER

Adem - To Cure A Weakling Chile (Boy Girl Song): Taken from a record of covers released by the less-famous half of Fridge, this staggeringly ambitious spinning of an Aphex Twin track into breathy, pastoral folk (!) is nothing short of a marvel. Just absolutely stunning, and I encourage anyone to track this one down - it's appeal should be fairly universal, unlike the often-difficult source material.

Adem: for my next trick, I'll convert *Windowlicker* into spoken-word.

GOLD

Subtle - Day Dangerous: The full-length was a bit of a disappointment, but Anticon's favourite supergroup (I don't tag the mighty cLOUDDEAD with the same designation, as they're representing a sort of ex post facto supergroupism) comes up with the left-field pop song of the year. The soundtrack to my summer, it still pops into my head each time I drive near Jericho Beach.

Subtle. Didn't the guy in the back make *Super Size Me*?

Anyway, the top full-length albums (as well as top compiliations / reissues and the year's worst records) are on deck. Unlike this wisecrack-laden mess, I'll try to maintain some semblence of reverence in that piece. Well, except for the 'worst records' part. If you made it this far, please feel free to post some of your favourite songs from 2008 in the 'Comment' section below. Cheers!

Jazz Is

2009-01-04T21:40:00.000-08:00

It didn't take long for the first truly wretched decision of 2009 to happen (outside of the Israeli offensive into Gaza, but that's another rant), as iconic polymath Nat Hentoff has been let go by the Village Voice, the NYC weekly he's maintained a column at for the past 50 years. The old cost-cutting saw was given as the reason for his being included within a round of job cuts at the Voice. Given the current precarious environment traditional print media finds itself in, layoffs within the industry don't come as a huge surprise, but releasing Hentoff when he's 83 and in possession of such an augustly tenure at the paper is pretty tacky. Mysteriously, the just-okay Tom Robbins emerged unscathed.

Hentoff: giving your Pop Pop a run for his money in the terrific sweepstakes since 1925, see.

If you're not familiar with the man's career, he's done yeoman's work advocating pretty much everything that's important and/or cool. Yeah, that's an overstatement, but here's a quick overview of Nat's achievements:

Hentoff's known as perhaps the foremost jazz authority of the past 60 years who isn't an actual musician; he's advocated, recorded, presented, and written tirelessly about the form, and his credibility was bronzed a few years back upon being the first non-player given the Jazz Master designation by the National Endowment for the Arts. Nat was a great help in introducing me to jazz as 'the sound of surprise' with his liner-note essays for albums I bought over the years, which is actually where I first stumbled upon him personally. By the way, is there really anything cooler than the jazz sleeve essay? C'mon.

He's been a tireless journalistic attack-dog for First Amendment rights, and actually testified on behalf of Lenny Bruce at the profane comedian's trial (some would call it a witch-hunt) back in the 1960s.

Even in his twilight years, Nat's been one of the most tenacious, effective critics of the Bush administration during it's interminable time in office. Not given to the embarassing rhetorical propensity that has crept into print media from the shit-show that is cable news over the past couple of decades, his dignified-yet-pointed pieces exhibit the thorough research, shoe-leather journalism, and sheer instinct that can only be procured through years of experience.

He was immortalized on a hilarious Patton Oswalt stand-up riff about bookish NPR types (see the underrated No Reason to Complain DVD performance). Ah, I love me some Patton.

I've been profundly depressed since hearing the news, so spent today at work staging a bit of a mini-celebration of Hentoff's career; I scoured the web and found hours of audio and YouTube interview material (including his inclusion in a 1995 Charlie Rose roundtable with Allen Ginsberg, which was the poet's last media appearance before his death a few weeks later - skip ahead to 22:35 in that clip), and played it in the background while busting fraudsters. It really served to cheer me up, and it's not like Nat's dead or anything; he's still going to be contributing to other outlets. Still, I'll greatly miss his Voice column.

Even while doing the press rounds expounding on his recent firing, though, the man still has things to say. This is from the NPR piece I linked to above:

"It's happening more and more: Those small papers in those small towns, some of them are folding," Hentoff says. "And that, of course, means... the Internet — which is fine, except what you get most of the time is people going to sites and blogs [with] which they already agree.

This very subject is fodder for an upcoming post of mine: the ideological divide in the wake of traditional print media's demise. Sounds like a barn-burner, hey? Well, I think it's interesting, and will spruce it up, I promise (I plan on alternating between goofy and serious pieces with this blog). By the way, I realize that I'm out W-Axl-Roseing Chinese Democracy, but the 2008 music lists are on tap for this week. I think I was overly ambitious in terms of length and variety of subjects, and may actually break it up into two pieces over a couple of days for the sake of readibility.

Take care, and, in conclusion: fuck snow. I'm writing this on Sunday night, and so Vancouverites will get that.

Things to be frickled

2009-01-02T00:13:00.000-08:00

The merry year is born
Like the bright berry from the naked thorn.

Hartley Coleridge penned these words; in them, the eldest son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (and who, frankly, I'd never even heard of until around ten minutes ago; I suspect he had his labour swapped for opium numerous times as a child by the old man) spins a simple, comforting rumination on the passing of time. In this spirit, it serves to remind contemporary society to take time and savour the transistory aspect of this annual milestone. Perhaps you spent the first minutes of 2009 surrounded by loved ones and reflecting upon the previous year, be it on triumphs or missed opportunities. It could be that you made silent, solemn pledges for the coming months. Or, if you're like me, you watched daredevil spawn drive his motorcycle over a gigantic motherfucking jump.

That's right, I was at a friend's place yesterday evening when the ball dropped, and FOX's thermo-nuclearly cheesy New Year's Special had the house transfixed. Diversions included performances by has-been (Scott Weiland) and never-will-be (David Cook) musical hacks, plus a bizarre piece on an apparently pantsless Cirque du Soleil revue currently running, but the production was built around the late Evel Knievel's son, Robbie, jumping over a spanking new faux-volcano at The Mirage in Vegas. All I could think about during shots of the burping, flaming edifice was how much fuel was being wasted on such a useless diversion, but the people seemed happy. Who am I to complain, at the end of the day? I guess.

Robbie Knievel jumps 21 Hummers in June 2008. Not pictured: the 21 assholes who own them.

Anyway, the funniest, albeit most macabre, part of the lead-up, which included interviews with Robbie's main stunt co-ordinator and sundry crew members, was a lovingly CGI-ed sequence done by the network that graphically illustrated each potentially deadly unhappy-ending should anything go awry. As such, along with cartoonishly grave narration, we were treated to visual simulations of flaming Robbie, Robbie flying from the bike and landing in a crumpled heap on the ramp, and Robbie dropping directly into the heart of the volcano after failing to attain the required speed. Believe me, I scoured the internet for the better part of a half-hour trying to find this footage, but came up empty; it was just so wrong, yet hugely entertaining. By the way, this was tape-delayed, so we knew nothing gory happened, lest you think our group was a pack of rubbernecking ghouls.

After this warm-up, the jump itself seemed a bit anti-climactic, to be honest.

What's amusing is that, as I scoured YouTube for a clip, there were already heated debates in the comment sections about whether the jump was a 'hoax,' or if it lived up to his father's formidable legacy. My two cents: it's difficult to bring dignity into the argument when the subject is wearing a doo-rag.

Hope you all had a great New Year!

2008 In Review, Part 1 (The No-Music Section)

2008-12-30T23:21:00.000-08:00

By the grace of God, I've decided to break up my 2008 Best-Of into two chunks. The first, contained here, is everything that doesn't have to do with the year in music. You may notice that I also haven't touched upon books at all; that's because my favourite title of the past 365 merits a post to itself, and that will be up soon. This is a bushel of fully arbitrary categories that is grander than planned; originally it was going to serve as a quick opening act for the music gunk, but has sort of taken on a life of it's own. Anyway, enjoy. Nay, tolerate. Oh, and apologies for any crummy HTML-ing; I'm a rank amateur.

Favourite Movie: Iron Man. There's an saying amongst actors that the next role is always the best one, which is probably true unless you're Seann William Scott. Coming off of a show-stealing performance in Tropic Thunder, Robert Downey Jr had palpable momentum, and he really makes this picture (well, that and the special effects). I honestly can't believe that a superhero flick takes my top spot, which has never happened before, but there you go.

I should point out that I haven't seen Doubt yet, though, which has 'Year's Best' written all over it. At the moment, Religulous is probably runner-up.

Worst movie: Juno. Yes, I know it came out in 2007, but it's so obnoxiously mannered and rotten that it carries over an extra year for further ignominy. Diablo Cody must be stopped.

My hipness knows no plausibility.

Best commercial: Shamwow! is legendary, but a bit overexposed at this point, plus Russell Oliver and Lastman's Bad Boy (yes, that Mel Lastman: Toronto's two-term mayor) have already been kicked upstairs to Hall Of Fame status. It's crazy how 95% of unintentionally hilarious spots have their roots in airing on channel 87 during The Sopranos - it's kind of serves as the Book Of Genesis for bush-league advertisements. This year's winner, however, actually aired the other day on the Big Ten Network while I was watching a college basketball game. The Italian-American Defamation League is going to have field day with this one; the tipping point / best part comes when the complaining guy starts gnawing on a convienently located slice of pizza.

Most distressing commercial: Disaronno Amaretto, which features the two most unabashedly randy figures to ever appear in small-screen advertising. The woman orders a drink before proceeding to, apropos of nothing, lick at and slobber over an ice cube. Subtle. The bartender looks like a date rapist. Where's Bob Barker selling the value of spaying and neutering when we really need him?

Best forgotten outrage: CBC losing the Hockey Night In Canada song. Don't get me wrong, I always loved it, but does anybody even notice or care anymore? I'm a traditionalist at heart, but the furor was a bit embarassing. The most satisfying facet of the entire brouhaha was passionate anti-tax crusaders hypocritically up in arms about maintaining a jingle that cost significant bucks for the public broadcaster with each airing.

Hidden TV gem: Bill Moyers Journal. The timeslot is horrific for those of us with Seattle PBS (Friday night at 9 PM), but all episodes are available online. Moyers is one of my journalistic heroes; granted, he skews left (which is fantastic for me), but he has no tolerance for wasteful spin and cuts right to the beating heart of any given issue. This is the anti-CNN partisan jamboree.

Media find of the year: Dave Dameshek. What a fella; I first discovered him when he made a cameo on Bill Simmons' podcast late last year to promote his Los Angeles ESPN drive-time radio gig. Seeing that, despite being an incurable sports geek, I hold sports radio in roughly the same esteem as Madonna or a punctured testicle (after all, besides the enjoyable Don Taylor and Barry Macdonald, the old grey ladies of the Vancouver scene are the over-serious, moronic likes of Bob Marjanovich, Dan Russell, and Fat Fat David Pratt), Shek's show was a revelation. It's smart, not lunkheaded. Give him a try; to those who've heard me use the phrases 'hooey and applesauce' or 'a thin slice of heaven,' they're completely plagarized from Dameshek.

Best sports moment: Without a doubt, Trevor Linden's jersey retirement night earlier in December.

That 1994 Canucks team probably provided at least three of the top five moments of my (extremely happy) childhood, and I still smile and get goosebumps when I hear the inimitable Jim Robson on that clip. As we all know, he did play, and nearly singlehandedly willed Vancouver to victory in game seven back at MSG. Enjoy your retirement, Trev.

Honourable mention: Kevin Garnett finally winning an NBA title (his teary, post-game interview in the immediate aftermath of Boston's clinching win has polarized people in a way not seen since Sally Field's 'you like me, you really like me' Oscar speech, but I thought it was off-the-cuff and fantastic), A.J. Burnett leaving the Blue Jays (don't let the door hit you on the way out, jackass), Cam Wake's reign of terror on the BC Lions defensive line (the fact that he wasn't CFL MVP is criminal). I'm holding off on the Sundin signing until I see how the 'Nucks react to it, though it should be a great thing.

Worst sports moment: Calgary winning the Grey Cup. Not only do I despise the Stampeders, but no crowd deserved a home Cup win more than Montreal fans; Canadian football is thriving in Quebec right down to the grassroots like nowhere else in the country.

Honourable mention: Seattle losing NBA basketball (even though I kind of hate the NBA, I follow it in spite of myself), the Bengals finishing 4-11-1 (it's bad enough that they were terrible, but they had to get a TIE! In FOOTBALL! Pigskin draws are my most hated outcome in all of sports), my hockey pool team continuing to exist.

Thanks for coming out, Ocho.

Worst sports playing surface: Bronco Stadium at Boise State University; the turf is blue. I have the Humanitarian Bowl on TV as I type this, and it's actually a bit painful on the eyes to watch the game. I'd hazard that somebody steamrolled the Smurf's village and had football markings painted on top, only Papa, Brainy, and company would almost certainly set up shop somewhere more interesting than Idaho. The runner-up is the ice surface in any NHL sun-belt city; the upside of the financial meltdown is that it could lead to bankruptcy in the feeble, warm-weather markets, which would mean sweet, sweet contraction. 21-24 NHL clubs would lead to near-optimal puck, I'd guess.

The Smurfs do Idaho; Peyo as potato-socialist.

Best channel find: Game TV (channel 155 on digital cable for those in the Vancouver area), which mostly airs old game shows, and is the best illustration I've seen yet that the pre-irony era might as well be vacuum-sealed. Here are my favourite two case-studies:

Supermarket Sweep: Essentially a half-hour commercial, albeit one with a toothy host lording over. A pack of brand-saturated contestants show off their consumerist bona fides by answering questions about shopping before racing through the store in spree-like fashion to procure as many products as possible. I loved this show when I was a kid, but you can't go back; the women are all heavily made-up born-again Christians, and mullets bob to-and-fro amongst the males.

Game On: I actually remember this sports quiz show from the late nineties, and it's an ideal petri-dish of classic game show culture floundering in the overly self-aware late nineties. The two co-hosts are a perpetually chattering, quite possibly coked-up male quizmaster and an icy, leggy blonde-for-hire who spends most of the twenty-two minutes perched on a stool making sarcastic remarks and glaring contemptously; I can't possibly convey how entertaining this is. If I had my way, there'd be a marathon every night (though I'd guess that less than ten episodes were actually filmed).

Speaking of game shows, I was flipping to Million Dollar Password the other night during commercials in the football game, and unfortunately bore witness to Regis Philbin giving Betty White a neck-hickey during banter time; I only wish I was making this up. The entire ordeal can basically be boiled down to high-school earth sciences, specifically plate tectonics; a billion-year-old continent encroaching upon aged oceanic crust. Tangentically (and bizarrely), Adam Carolla was also peripherally involved.

Best polysyllabic excuse to call in sick: Neurasthenia. I first read about this in a Don Murray-penned piece on the CBC website; apparently it's a 19th century diagnosable malady that's been widely discredited. The condition arose, it was said, as a 'result of exhaustion of the central nervous system's energy reserves by modern civilization.' Um, can we find a way to re-credit this; like, everybody would be on disability. Shit, just trying to find a parking spot in South Granville would reduce me to a certifiable case.

Best evidence of Canadian media decripitude: Scaremongering around a potential governing coalition. Granted, civics education in Canadian schools is weak, but this was deliberate skewing of parliamentary reality so media titans could maintain the status quo in which they have a vested interest. I'm a lefty, and thus think that complicated problems have complicated solutions; we can't just bludgeon an idea or concept with the 'separatist' epithet until it goes away. Harper should be embarassed, and could be were he capable of feeling actual shame. This fiasco is going to make up a post in the near future, so I'll cut it off there.

MOOB BOMB!

Most prescient quote to describe 2008: Ralph Nader’s father, Nathra, opined years back that 'capitalism will survive as long as socialism is used to save it.' Another apt citation came from economist William Krehm, who got right to the brass tacks when he stated that deregulated banking is 'governed by mathematics of the atomic bomb.' Years back, I subscribed to the Globe And Mail, and once a month the Report On Business magazine was included with my paper. Once per year, there was a piece on the 20 top CEOs. It was literally nauseating to read; doughy, white fat-cats were celebrated as 'mavericks' for essentially screwing with the livelihoods of the hoi polloi - layoffs were a celebrated as some sort of tidily quantifiable abstract figure, like sports stats. Doesn't the bailout and ensuing hoarding of taxpayer money by the financial institutions go to show that big business is essentially playing with house money, and that they know they're not going to lose? What's so 'independent' and 'mavericky' about that? The dismal science, indeed. More to come on this.

Oh, and before the commie alarm starts ding-a-linging, I believe in capitalism, albeit a regulated one in the vein of the Nordic countries. They must be getting sick of all of those 'Best Place to Live' designations year after year; colour me socially democratic.

Scariest deficit: With apologies to the financial meltdown, the ongoing dignity deficit. Reality television and the fame reflex forces forward unabated, and every week seems to bring a fresh tent city outside of electronics stores for the latest new gadget. Imagine if we were preoccupied with things that are even marginally important.

Anyway, on that preachy point, this is the end of part one. My music lists, which are the real pride and joy, should be up over the next few days. Happy New Year, all!

Welcome to my resolution.

2008-12-30T20:03:00.000-08:00

Hey, everyone! This is a bit awkward, but whatevs; long story short, following in the distinguished wake of quitting smoking (2006: successful resolution), and failed pledge to finally read Ulysses (2002, 2003, 2007: didn't happen), this blog is my '08 New Year's resolution. At the end of the day, as foreshadowed by previous Auld Lang Syne pledges, it could go either way, really, though I'd like it to be a success. Those who have been acquainted with me for years know full well that I really enjoy writing, and also that I practice a precise/maddening form that lends itself to nitpicky perfectionism. As '08 was dragging towards a merciful end, though, and I realized that 30 approaches rapidly, I was getting a bit tired of writing only for myself in journal-form; I want to get my haughty, unpalatable opinions out there, and yearn to encourage debate and argument. Politics, sports, culture, commerce, etc; all of my passions are going to be aired.

My blog is called 'Wreckless Conjecture,' and I hope you'll become a subscriber/follower/whatever. It's going to be a bit bumpy at first, as I'm trying to learn rudimentary HTML to incorporate pictures and prettiness as a respite to text blobs (my main goal is wiseacre picture captions), but bear with me. A crash-course, really, but I'll learn as I go - I'm old-fashioned in thinking that content trumps visuals. Besides, being a smart-ass knows no tagging.

Anyway, I'm planning on getting the first week off with a bang: my two-part '2008 In Review.' The first half should be up within the next day, and that's the 'amelodic' portion, meaning essentially everything but music (sports, TV, movies, everyday mundanity, etc.). The lengthy music best-of (part two) will be posted within 2-3 days, and will feature my albums and songs of the year, to say nothing of duds and other miscellaneous categories.

Rain in Spain, and here's hoping you'll read and contribute.

Jared