rock and roll eclectricity
Go spend some time laughing your butt off at this awesome blog called Fuck You Penguin. Click the song below so you can listen to David Byrne scream about these creatures while you read FYP. See if you can get through either before your three cats start bothering you for food or attention. I think there’s something going on.
Animals – Talking Heads
Got Johnny Boo for Aidan for xmas and found a collection of American Elf for me, which I’ve been reading all week.
Found this awesome Dramatic Reading of the book on Kochalka’s site.
I love James Kochalka.
Listen to the thing. Yay whoever did it.
In place of the usual anti-Christmas ranting, a sweet song performed by a true calling bird. Get through the day, and I’ll see you on the other side.
Late to the game as ever, I just learned of this youtube phenom and found this wonderful little video. Yay for this kid! Boo to the haters!
I get out to about 5 shows a year these days, so what were the odds I’d have to choose? But tonight, in the calm of the eye of Snowmaggeddon 2008, we have Yellowjacket Avenger at the Tranzac – and CATL at the Dakota (for their album release party). (See comments for explanation).
Either way’s a winner. I need myself a Decider.
Yellowjacket Avenger Geoffrey Pye is performing solo tomorrow night at the Tranzac Club in the Annex (Toronto), warming up the stage for John Tielli’s new band the Metal Kites. That’s Saturday December 20th, 2008, btw. I haven’t seen him perform since his Killers played with Jack Breakfast waaaay back, which is when I discovered how much I dig his music – so I am feeling pretty keen.
Look below this poster for a video. Search this blog for many more mentions, and go to yjaonline to read see and hear more. Then go see the show.
I live in Leslieville* – a Queen East neighbourhood in TO which you may well read about in Toronto Life or the New York Times or anywhere else concerned with finding the latest Swell Location For Young Urban Professionals who can’t afford to live where they really want to live.
The neighbourhood hosts a large number of overpriced nick-nack shops and antique stores, with a sprinkling of Dog Pampering spots, organic butchers and snooty restaurants. In between these shops are dive-bars (of the non-hipster, actual-drunks-within variety), hooker corners, gas stations, and stores that must be fronts for something else (like a [removed]).
When I moved here – about 8 years ago – it was sort of a non-descript “not the beaches” neighbourhood. It was said to be Up and Coming, and I was hopeful that that meant it might gain a bookstore, or a small grocer. Maybe a falafel joint? But my hopes have been dashed: this bit of Queen turns out to be a magnet for the useless and precious. Proof? Last month, right on the edge of a massive recession, a store called [removed] moved in. They sell party favours.
Anyway, if you’ve heard of this neighbourhood, you’ve probably heard of the No Big Box In Leslieville campaign. I won’t restate the issues – just look here and here. I just want to add my two cents to the debate, and to make it clear that not all of the newcomers to this neighbourhood are self-righteous control freaks. Whatever the problems are with the big box stores – and there are plenty – I think this knee-jerk Upper-Left “not in my Leslieville” campaign is utter horseshit.
First, the spots the big boxes will land in are not parks or housing or even nice – they’re giant empty industrial (film-industrial) lots. They’re already ugly.
Secondly, I have no doubt that the wankers who oppose them also shop at Big Box Stores, in someone else’s neighbourhood. I don’t believe that the relentlessly renovating young professionals get their lumber or their tiling or their stainless steel appliances at independent mom and pop shops. Maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt it.
Thirdly, these new Giant Stores are not in competition with any of the merchants who sport the No Big Box in Leslieville signs in their windows. Neither WalMart nor Home Depot sell hilarious postmodern baby clothes, or bags made of old records, or special cheeses. The new shops will be in competition with Gerrard Square and the Canadian Tire. So … what are they on about?
Fourth, these stores will employ SO many more people than any of the boutiques – even if they’re “icky” jobs that apparently belong in the suburbs (shame on you, Paula Fletcher).
Fifth, this is not some quiet little village that will be overwhelmed by the new traffic. Eastern is a huge, fast, dangerous road. Traffic might slow down the racers. And Lakeshore? Lakeshore might as well be a highway. It takes two lights for a pedestrian to cross the road. Nobody’s daily walk takes them strolling through this land: it’s dead. Paula Fletcher wants office buildings there – as if those are warm neighbourhood hangouts.
To be clear, I don’t like WalMart. I regularly oppose their shoddy practices – by not shopping there. If this movement is about WalMart, it should address whether WalMart exists at all – not just try and keep it out of one precious neighbourhood. If it’s about Smart Centre and Big Boxes, then I challenge the protestors to stop shopping at them.
But I think this is really about class. I think it’s about sculpting a little oasis of yuppiedom right downtown. I think it’s about a certain type of jerk who votes NDP because they really like the environment but give not a shit about actual people. So I’m throwing in my vote by saying, Come On In, big offensive store!
(To again be clear: there are no doubt some legitimate urban activists with solid ideals and good intentions involved in opposing these stores. I mean them no harm or offense. I support the right of any 20 year old communist to groove on those ideas. But I hope they know that their allies do not like or agree with them on anything but this one issue, and for different reasons.)
Here: let me fill out my rant by describing the sort of weasel I think is really behind this shit. On my street, some of the other newcomers suggested that we have a street party – to get to know each other. That’s a sweet idea – very nice. But when it came down to it, this fun Street Party had sponsorship from the Sierra Club, to pay for the insurance they got for the event. The street was shut off to cars unilaterally (meaning they wanted even the cars of people who always park on the street moved out of the way). And while a fair number of neighbours came out, the numbers quickly dwindled due to widespread unfriendliness and stilted conversations. In the end, the party was pretty much for its organizers and their children, who had a rollicking time. I tried to like it. I volunteered to help, did my job, and even tried to “get to know each other”; I quickly felt like the loser who thinks because he’s painted a sign for the prom that he can talk to the mean girls in charge. It really felt awful.
I realized afterwards that the people on our street who want to be friendly neighbours already know each other – there’s a lot of Hello’s on this street. Few of these actually friendly folks attended the street party – because the people who needed a special event to connect with their neighbours were exactly the unfriendliest people on the street. The street needed to be closed off to cars because that’s the only way they’d allow their children to play outdoors (they don’t use the very nice, crowded playground everybody else uses).
The second year of this event was attended only by the people who organized it. Next year I hope it’s gone altogether. I’m certainly not moving my car for them. They oughta go play in the park.
I think that’s all indicative of the whole Leslieville problem. People who choose to live downtown (as opposed to those who grow up there, already say Hi to their neighbours, and play in the park) should join their neighbourhood, not try to sculpt it in their own image. The Leslieville Elite are over-empowered, self-important and irritating. No wonder at all that some want to chase them out.
Today’s the sad anniversary of John Lennon’s murder.
I think I’ve posted this song before, but Blossom Dearie’s Hey John is a sweet way to remember Lennon’s life.
Peace.
I know that The Monks (the late-1970s fake punks, not the 1960s army rockers) are on the untouchable lists somewhere, due to the total insincerity of the act, but I like them. 60s folk-weasels who spent time with all-time ecch-yuck Rick Wakeman, these former Strawbs followed up Bad Habits with some 1930s pastiche act; they were genre-hoppers, pretty much taking the piss with this album.
But to kids, does any of that matter? Long before I heard any real punk or even much sincere punk-flavoured pop, I heard Drugs In My Pocket at Sarnia’s long-gone Records on Wheels, and it seemed real enough to my ten year old ears – even a little dangerous.
What seemed even more dangerous was the gay love song (sort of love… relational, anyway) that ended side one called Dear Jerry, Don’t Try to Kill Me with your Love, Norman.
There were a few key gay-flavoured moments that opened my young mind – few enough that I remember them all. The line in Hotel California about the “pretty, pretty boys” scared me and thrilled me more than the “you can never leave” ending; a photo of Frankie Goes To Hollywood fascinated and scared the crap out of me; and Springsteen’s Backstreets, in my interpretation about a male Terry, was equally mind-expanding. (His stage-smooching with Clarence Clemons solidified that possibility.)
Whatever the intention of Springsteen and/or The Monks, the songs opened my straight mind to gay love’s legitimacy, and opened my political and social mind in a clear and important way (without “turning me gay”, interestingly). Which makes me wonder if the kids listening to I Kissed A Girl will feel the same way, however the song is received and interpreted – or even intended.
Anyway: from the vinyl archives…
Good day for a lesson in Female Power.
I’M GONNA BE AN ENGINEER
When I was a little girl I wished I was a boy
I tagged along behind the gang and wore my corduroys.
Everybody said I only did it to annoy
But I was gonna be an engineer.
Mamma said, “Why can’t you be a lady?
Your duty is to make me the mother of a pearl
Wait until you’re older, dear
And maybe you’ll be glad that you’re a girl.
Dainty as a Dresden statue, gentle as a Jersey cow,
Smooth as silk, gives cream and milk
Learn to coo, learn to moo
That’s what you do to be a lady, now.
When I went to school I learned to write and how to read
History, geography and home economy
And typing is a skill that every girl is sure to need
To while away the extra time until the time to breed
And then they had the nerve to ask, what would I like to be?
I says, “I’m gonna be an engineer!”
“No, you only need to learn to be a lady
The duty isn’t yours, for to try to run the world
An engineer could never have a baby
Remember, dear, that you’re a girl”
She’s smart — for a woman.
I wonder how she got that way?
You get no choice, you get no voice
Just stay mum, pretend you’re dumb.
That’s how you come to be a lady, today.
Well, I started as a typist but I studied on the sly
Working out the day and night so I could qualify
And every time the boss came in, he pinched me on the thigh
Said, “I’ve never had an engineer!”
“You owe it to the job to be a lady
The duty of the staff is to give the boss a whirl
The wages that you get are crummy, maybe
But it’s all you get, ’cause you’re a girl”
Then Jimmy came along and we set up a conjugation
We were busy every night with loving recreation
I spent my days at work so he could get an education
And now he’s an engineer!
He said: “I know you’ll always be a lady
The duty of my darling is to love me all her life
Could an engineer look after or obey me?
Remember, dear, that you’re my wife!”
As soon a Jimmy got a job, I studied hard again
Then busy at me turret-lathe a year or two, and then
The morning that the twins were born, Jimmy says to them
“Your mother was an engineer!”
“You owe it to the kids to be a lady
Dainty as a dish-rag, faithful as a chow
Stay at home, you got to mind the baby
Remember you’re a mother now!”
Every time I turn around there’s something else to do
Cook a meal or mend a sock or sweep a floor or two
Listening to Jimmy Young – it makes me want to spew
I was gonna be an engineer.
I only wish that I could be a lady
I’d do the lovely things that a lady’s s’posed to do
I wouldn’t even mind if only they would pay me
Then I could be a person too.
What price for a woman?
You can buy her for a ring of gold,
To love and obey, without any pay,
You get a cook and a nurse for better or worse
You don’t need a purse when a lady is sold.
Oh, but now the times are harder and me Jimmy’s got the sack;
I went down to Vicker’s, they were glad to have me back.
But I’m a third-class citizen, my wages tell me that
But I’m a first-class engineer!
The boss he says “We pay you as a lady,
You only got the job because I can’t afford a man,
With you I keep the profits high as may be,
You’re just a cheaper pair of hands.”
You got one fault, you’re a woman;
You’re not worth the equal pay.
A bitch or a tart, you’re nothing but heart,
Shallow and vain, you’ve got no brain,
Well, I listened to my mother and I joined a typing pool
Listened to my lover and I put him through his school
If I listen to the boss, I’m just a bloody fool
And an underpaid engineer
I been a sucker ever since I was a baby
As a daughter, as a mother, as a lover, as a dear
But I’ll fight them as a woman, not a lady
I’ll fight them as an engineer!
Words and music by Peggy Seeger
(c) 1970 Stormking Music, Inc.
