news feeds nov 27 #1

The Chris Farley off big city mayors has been removed from office and is currently receding back to his van down by the river. An Ontario judge has ousted mayor Rob Ford, who violated provincial conflict of interest polices. He allegedly used city letterheads to solicit donations for his football foundation. Pretty stupid move on his part, and while not as controversial as Marion Barry, former Washington DC mayor, smoking crack on video but it is still pretty untidy. The thing is, Rob Ford seems like a pretty fun guy. He like sports, he likes beer, he likes getting arrested in Florida. I'm not saying he's a terrible guy but you'd like to grab a pint with him not have him run a city that is home to 6 million people across the Greater Toronto Area. Ford has fourteen days left in office as of the ruling yesterday. Check out his football prowess:

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Bush vs Clinton in 2016? While Obama is just starting his second and final term as American President, rumours are already circulating that Hilary Clinton may get the nod as the Democratic nominee in the next election. In the red corner, we have former governor of Florida Jeb Bush, son of HW and brother of W, who was governor during the Florida recount fiasco during the 2000 election. His brother George W. Bush won the election following a ruling by the Federal Supreme Court which stopped the recount proposed by the Florida Supreme Court. If nothing else, it would rank up there with the most exciting elections of all time and watching the two powerhouses go at it in a debate setting would be great. Jeb couldn't do a worse job than his brother, and he shouldn't be judged based on his last name but he has had his share of boneheaded moves. I guess what politician hasn't? Jeb is much more likeable to me, speaks much better than his brother, and has been critical of his own Republican party, even being accused of being Republican in name only. Which is my favourite kind. Well, the lesser evil. 

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More controversy out of the Two and a Half men camp. The 'Half' man of the equation Jake, played by Angus Jones says the show is 'filth' and if you watch it you should stop. He recently had a religious awakening and doesn't think his new found faith and his role on the show can co-exist. "Oh, I can be a Christian and be on a show like Two and a Half Men. You can't. You can not be a true God-fearing person and be on a television show like that. I know I can't. I'm not OK with what I'm learning, what the Bible says, and being on that show. You go all or nothing." CBS did not comment on the remarks made by Jones, but you have to wonder how many more changes the show can take after having to kill off Charlie Sheen's character following the actors 'winning' 2010 meltdown. Ashton Kutcher filled the void left by Sheen, playing an internet billionaire who just kind of shows up at the house then inexplicably moves in. The show has been on life support ever since, and this may be the final nail in the coffin. Or it will keep going and eventually be a one man show with Jon Cryer doing the Vagina Monologues.

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Veteran astronaut Captain Scott Kelly will embark on the longest mission ever for an American astronaut. He and Russian Mikhail Kornienko will go on the one year mission to the International Space Station to help scientists collect more information on the effects of humans living in space. Kelly has already spent more that 180 days in space already. There has only been four people to ever log more than one year continuously in space, with Valery Polyakov's 438 days (January 1994-March 1995) being the record. Kornienko has being in space 176 days total and has been working in the space industry since 1986. "The one year increment will expand the bound of how we live and work in space and will increase our knowledge regarding the effects of microgravity on humans as we prepare for future missions beyond low-Earth orbit" said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for human exploration and operations at NASA headquarters. The mission takes off in 2015.

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One of the most influential bands in punk rock, the Descendents may be releasing new material sooner than later. Guitarist Stephan Egerton dropped the hint in a recent interview with Kill Your Stereo. "That is sort of in the works. We don't have any kind of a timeline set up for it yet, but everybody is definitely wanting to do it, and everybody is writing for it, so I'm very sure it will happen, and we're all very stoked to do it. We've been having a good time writing songs, and so I'd say we've got well over half of it written but not recorded yet. So unfortunately we can't follow a very strict timeline, the way we would if we were a full time band, just because it doesn't fit in for us. We have to sort of work around the rest of our lives, but I would like to think something could happen as early as the middle of next year." The band has released two albums since their reunion (shows here, albums there), 1996's "Everything Sucks" and 2004's "Cool To Be You." Their eighties SST Records material is among the most legendary punk music ever put to tape. If you haven't listened to the slightly angry "Milo Goes To College" or the progressive genius (and last album before their first extended break) of 1987's "All" you are seriously missing out. 

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"If you french fry when you should have pizza'd, you're gonna have a bad time!" - Thumper, super cool ski instructor.

news feeds nov 19

Those NASA folk can see far. Scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore have used the Hubble telescope to 'scope' out a galaxy 13.3 billion light years away. It is the most distant galaxy ever discovered in the universe. The tiny galaxy, named MACS0647-JD (catchy name), may be in the early stages of forming a larger galaxy and is only 600 light years wide, as opposed to our own Milky Way's width of 150,000 light years. Light years are a unit of distance in space which measures the distance that light travels in a year, and since MACS0647-JD is 13 billion and change light years away the light were are seeing has travelled 13.3 billion years to reach Earth, back when the small galaxy was a mere 420 million years old, and could be drastically different, or not even exist by now. For us to see it what it is like today, we would have to wait another 13 billion years, give or take a million but unfortunately I am swamped this week.

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Internet wise asses are having fun with the Mayan calendar this year. "Dick Clark dies. Can't ring in the new year. Well played, Mayan, well played." They are slightly amusing at best, as most memes are. Hostess brands have filed for bankruptcy and will be selling off all their assets including the twinkle, which was said to survive a nuclear holocaust (and confirmed by an early Y2K Family Guy episode), are going to stop being made, sparking more meme concerns: "Dick Clark dead. Twinkies dead. We are really all going to die this year," "So, Twinkies, which were supposed to survive a nuclear holocaust, die 3 weeks before the end of the world? Well played, Mayans." Sorry, I got googling twinkle and Mayan memes and have digressed. Don't worry people Hostess is selling off it parts, which include Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Ho Ho's to the highest bidder due to the high brand recognition and the goodwill associated with the name. Twinkies alone has already made $68 million this year alone.. so snack on that for lunch! 

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They have found an etching by Surrealist Salvador Dali at a Goodwill Store in Tacoma, Washington earlier this week. The hand signed pieced was spotted by an employee familiar with Dali/water bongs and has been place on the Goodwill auctioning website. The price started at $999, an absolute bargain and has soared to $10,500 and there is still three days left to go. It ranks among the highest items ever sold on their site, already in second place but a long distance behind an original Frank Weston Benson watercolour that went for $165,002. Just because those places smell a little strange doesn't mean you can find great things. Last time I was there I scored a copy of Doughboys "Crush" on cassette for 30 cents! I just need to get a cassette deck...

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Rage Against the Machine are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the breakthrough self titled debut album with about 10 different reissues of the album. Not really, but it will be put out in the form of a remastered CD, a double CD and DVD, a box set with two CDs, two DVDs and an LP, a picture disc and an 180 gram vinyl LP. They have always been a polarizing act, alienating as many fans as they have gained, but it's pretty much undeniable how great the record was. The band only released two other proper albums, 1996's "Evil Empire" and 1999's "Battle of Los Angeles", with the covers album "Renegades" dropping in 2000. Rage Against the Machine was born when Tom Morello left his previous band Lock Up, and when Zack De La Rocha's hardcore punk band Inside Out was dissolved when their guitarist left the band to become a monk. Inside Out only had on official studio release, 1990's "No Spiritual Surrender" on Revelation Records which is six furiously intense songs, with Zach trademark rapping completely absent, and along with the first full length, might be the best thing he has ever done. Inside Out had finished writing their debut full length, but never had a chance to record it due to the break up, and was set to be titled "Rage Against the Machine," named after a song of the same name, and a staple in their live set. Rolling Stone has put up a demo version of 'Freedom,' the last track from the first record on their website HERE. And an Inside Out tune to check out:

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Speaking of Rolling Stone magazine, their legendary movie critic Peter Travers has ranked all the James Bond films worst to best to coincide with the release of the 23rd official Bond film, Skyfall. I checked it out last week, a thought it was great. Maybe a touch under Casino Royale but light years ahead of Quantum Of Solace. I can't really pick my favourite Bond film, or actor that portrayed James, but I do know my least favourite actor who played Bond: Timothy Dalton. His two turns as the British MI6 agent, "Licence To Kill" and "The Living Daylights" were definitely the low point of the series, so bad that they didn't make a Bond film from fall 1989 to winter 1995. It was somewhere during this point where I saw my dad's favourite entry in the series, 1973's "Live & Let Die" (he loved the sheriff), follow by "Goldfinger" and "Thunderball." I was ready for this guy from that Remington Steele show as Bond. I'm not sure if it was the impressionable age, the exotic locales shot with much more clarity (technology can be a good thing sometimes), the gadgets, the cars, Famke Janssen - I loved Goldeneye. When you add an amazing video game to a movie that was such an epic return I made it a point to see every Bond film I could, if not all. By this point, I've seen every one, including the spoof Casino Royale, where many actors - including Peter Sellers and Woody Allen - taking on the role of Bond. The only one I haven't seen is the Sean Connery non-MGM film "Never Say Never Again" released in 1983, the same year as the official "Octopussy." I haven't seen it not due to any kind of boycott, but simply that it isn't included in any of the official sets I've gotten. Would be nice to see Sean's last turn as James with a young Kim Basinger playing the Bond girl. For some reason, I've always had a soft spot for the 1985 cheese fest "A View To a Kill." Maybe it was because you got to see Christopher Walken (with bleach blonde hair) as the main villian with Mayday, played by Grace Jones as his sidekick, forming one of the oddest couples I have ever seen on screen (James also slept with her). It was Roger Moore's last time out as 007, and even he admitted he was "about 400 years too old for the part," and although he appears to be struggling at times, it looks like everyone is having a good time out there, especially Walken. The new Bond film, Skyfall, is playing 1,000 times a day in every theatre in the world so go see it, and you can check out Peter Travers ranking of the Bond flicks HERE.

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'CAUSE WE WRITE LOVE SONGS IN C, WE DO POLITICS IN G, WE SING SONGS ABOUT OUR FRIENDS IN E MINOR, SO TEAR DOWN THE STARS NOW AND TAKE UP YOUR GUITARS AND COME ON, FOLKS AND TRY THIS AT HOME!

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08/08 AM notes

You know what $2.6 billion buy you these days? It'll send a little robot (the size of an SUV) to Mars and take pictures (that we could already do with powerful telescopes). It landed flawlessly on the Mars surface and is put work right away; day one the rover is tasked with putting up a high-gain antenna so its transmissions with Earth will be a lot quicker, then it will start to collect weather information. The rover will then cruise a couple miles over to Mount Sharp, which rises 3.4 miles above the base ("sea level") of the landing site, checking out soil samples and the composition of rocks. The aim of the mission is "to assess whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small life forms," NASA said. No life whatsoever, not even plant has been found in any past rovers, have been found on the martian surface even though that's where most people think the Bush-Cheney administration came from.

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Upcoming marriage? Looking to save money on your catering bill? Now you can! Denny's restaurant has leased a 6,400 square foot space in downtown Las Vegas' new Neonopolis centre that will house a wedding chapel at the centre of it. If the line up is too long at the Star Wars chapel or you can't find enough Elvis impersonators for guests at the Graceland themed one, you can have a wedding cake made out of pancakes! …"It's going to be an icon within Vegas. People are going to travel to see this Denny's. The wedding scene is such a part of Vegas, and who doesn't want a wedding cake me out of pancakes?" says Denny's chief marketing officer Frances Allen. Um, I was joking about the pancake wedding cake. They aren't. If you want your bride to say no, and possibly start seeing a psychiatrist, then for the love of God don't get married there.

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I saw a headline that said Roseanne reunion. I clicked it, read the story. There is no Roseanne reunion. And that's too bad, because did we get screwed on the last episode of that show. Such an amazing show, even the last season where the Connor's won the lottery and got rich (not like it mattered anyways as it turned out!), and then out of nowhere, it's over. That last episode was one of the most unexpected, shocking endings to a series ever. Or at least for a sitcom about a blue collar family(I'll just post the last episode below - it's one YouTube). Anyways, the Roseanne reunion reported was for the upcoming Comedy Central Roast of Rosie, where she was joined by Michael Fishman (DJ), and the two Becky's, Sarah Chalke and Alicia Goranson. The Roast airs on August 12 and includes roasters Sharon Stone, Carrie Fisher, Katey Segal, Jeffrey Ross, roastmaster Jane Lynch and an appearance by Roseanne's ex Tom Arnold.

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We all know Daniel Day Lewis can act. If you have seen any one of his movies you know the English star is good (my favourite Lewis character is Bill the Butcher in "Gangs Of New York"). Well, anyone who is a fan should look forward to his upcoming starring turn in Lincoln, slated for release this November. The historical drama has taken years to get off the ground, with producer Steven Spielberg buying the rights to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin's book "Team Of Rivals," before the book was finished. Apparently, the final screenplay doesn't resemble the 2005 best seller anyhow. The film focusses on the last four months of the presidents life and will hit theatres November 9th.

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At the Drive In have been playing reunion shows here and there since their show at Coachella and will hopefully be making their way Toronto again one of these days. Here's a new interview with the band for Rolling Stone (CLICK HERE). And a concert stub from last time they were in town… October 24, 2000 at the Reverb (which is now a Crate & Barrel store) for $11! There was a copy of NOW magazine out that week to coincide with their show that had the band on the cover with the headline "THE NEW NIRVANA?" Don't remember what was said, just that they were none too happy about it.  At the Drive In/International Noise Conspiracy/Murder City Devils. Great gig!

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