Ugly in Pink

I just want to say this right off: I am not a seething ball of hate.

It’s true, I’ve expressed, within the Prairie Dogs pages, both actual and virtual, a fear and loathing of many things, from emo to the Smurfs to Twilight, to ill-mannered individuals who peel and eat hard-boiled eggs in public. (Okay, that last one got cut before publication. I’m expressing that one now.) But there are so many things I love and adore. Bicycles. Butterscotch. Too-clever power-pop lyrics. High heels. Ridiculously cheap banh-mi. Well-written television comedies. Sicilian-style lemon ice. Dirty jokes. Gender equality. Worn magazine. Nice-looking men. Independent retailers. Baseball statistics . Steampunk novels. Etc. Just to name a few.

But to blog is to vent, and somehow, I end up writing most about stuff I can’t stand. But I am really a sweet, appreciative, loving human girl. Really.

I am in no way capable of mourning John fucking Hughes.

Pretty in Pink was Reaganomics on a high school level, with Molly Ringwald’s Andie as the Deserving Poor, Horatio Alger type heroine. She is entitled to her mating ritual with the rich boy, because she is virtuous capitalism personified. The rest of the wrong-side-of-the-tracks characters? Who cares? Clawing/dating your way up the food chain is the way to win, losers.

Ferris Bueller was a high school Patrick Bateman. Cruel, narcissistic, obsessed with status, willing to walk on anyone’s face for a giggle. You think Ferris didn’t grow up to kill ladies? Ferris is a fucking nutcase. (Best 80’s film festival lineup evar: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Roger and Me, and American Psycho. You get the era’s self-congratulatory fantasy, it’s bleak reality, and posterity’s verdict.)

The Breakfast Club? Because all you really need, young lady, is to scrub that shit off your face and put a pretty pink bow in your hair. Then you’ll get a cute, violent wrestler who, no, never will take his nasty daddy issue temper out on you, and the rest of your life will be dandy peaches.

And let’s not even talk Weird Science, cause, as the existence of mail-order-brides and Real Dolls and lame-o plastic porn can attest, lots of people really, really dig the notion of not-real, biddable, robot slave girls.

So no, Stephen, I actually don’t find Hughes’ body of work “gentle” or “entertaining”. I find it creepy, patriarchal, racist, (You know what’s hilarious? An Asian guy with a name that means penis!) and repugnant, and have since I was a child. Hughes was responsible for what I consider some of the most insidious lies and fucked-up mythologies ever perpetuated on youth by Hollywood film. I’m sure his friends and family mourn him, it’s always sad when a human dies early, but that guy put a lot of evil shit in the world.

Folk Festival Countdown: The Deep Dark Woods

The show is getting close to starting, but here's a last-minute Folk Festival Countdown.



Using a Pitchfork review as a gauge of success is kinda lame, but all the same, when a band gets a 7.3 review, it's a cause for celebration. That's not the only victory the Deep Dark Woods have scored recently. The Saskatoon-based alt-country band's third album, Winter Hours, was just as well received as their previous two, and they've topped that off with a jaunt on the festival circuit this summer. That's the perfect place for them: they can be the rollicking party band or the quiet, lilting folk band in one set and draw people in with both.

The Deep Dark Woods are playing a full concert Saturday at 4:30 p.m., as well as a couple of sessions before then.

Aerosmith Postpones Regina Show

From my in-box:

Keystone Entertainment Group (Promoter for the Western Canadian Tour Dates) regrets to announce that AEROSMITH and special guests ZZ Top have had to postpone their scheduled Sunday, August 9, 2009 show at Mosaic Stadium – Taylor Field in Regina, SK, Canada. This postponed concert is a result of injuries AEROSMITH lead singer Steven Tyler sustained when he fell from the stage during a show at Buffalo Chip Campground in Sturgis, SD, Wednesday, August 5.

A rescheduled concert date announcement is forthcoming. Tickets purchased for the Mosaic Stadium – Taylor Field show will be honoured on the rescheduled date.

At this time, the scheduled concerts in Edmonton (August 11); Calgary (August 13) and Vancouver (August 15) are proceeding as planned.

In other news... Folk Festival weekend is nearly here! If you don't have tickets there's TONS of amazing free stuff going on tomorrow afternoon and Friday. WAAAY better stuff than Aerosmith. And yes I HAVE seen them live, so I would know.

Live One for Palliser

Noah Evanchuk (seen here getting ready to eat a freshly picked baby) has announced he will be seeking the nomination for the federal NDP in Palliser. 

Young, progressive, good looking, competent... I don't know if I can handle not being disaffected anymore. 

Oh, well. 

Friday Afternoon Kitties!

It's a special, panic-packed double bill featuring toenail-tingling suspense & heart-stopping terror! if you've got a cardiac condition you should immediately navigate away from this page!

You have been warned!








(Videos swiped from the yootoobes through the power of copyright violation.)

Folk Festival Countdown: Chad Vangaalen

This guy might be the act I'm nost looking forward to seeing at the Folk Festival. Chad Vangaalen is a musician and visual artist who animates his own videos. His stuff is... well, maybe I should just show you. Note: this video for the song, "Molten Light", which is from the Polaris prize-winning album Soft Airplane (Flemish Records), has cartoon gore and nudity and violence and might be Not Safe For Work (NSFW). Depends on your job I guess. Anyway:





Chad Vangaalen plays the mainstage Saturday night at 7:00 and will play a couple of free shows on the weekend. He's also got a show of his art up at Neutral Ground gallery (on the Scarth mall) which will be worth checking out.

Christian Wrong

I awoke this morning to an interview on CBC Radio's The Current with U.S. journalist Jeff Sharlet about his 2003 book called The Family. Families are good, right? They're wholesome. They're the cornerstone of our society. Well, not this one. Unless you're ideal society is a capitalist theocracy whose adherents believe that in killing, oppressing and exploiting their inferiors they're carrying out God's will. (Harper's)

Six In The Morning

1 INCREDIBLE VANISHING JOBS Canada lost 45,000 jobs in July. We've lost more than 400,000 jobs since the start of the recession. Unemployment is pushing nine per cent...and it would be higher if people hadn't given up. Yup, not good. (Globe And Mail)

2 COLLATERAL DAMAGE It wasn't an attack on Twitter and Facebook; it was an attack on a single Georgian activist blogger. Are the Ruskies to blame? (BBC)

3 GLACIER GLOOM A study reports U.S. glaciers are literally melting faster than ever. Meanwhile, assholes and the newspapers who publish them continue to make the case for a sick and dangerous do-nothing climate change agenda. (Guardian, Vancouver Sun)

4 PEDOPHILE PRIEST'S DIOCESE PAYS PRICE The Roman Catholic Diocese of Antagonish has settled a class action suit alleging a priest sexually assaulted young boys. The price tag: $13 million. (CBC)

5 ITCHY NERVES Armed with mice and experimentation, Science has identified itch-causing nerves--a discovery that could help people with skin stupidities like psoriasis, eczema and whatever. (Reuters)

6 DOTH WE SPAKETH TOO SOON? Aerosmith might be kaput after all. The Winnipeg show was cancelled (Leader-Post). I guess it's not surprising--us old folks know you wake up stiffer the second morning after an tumble. (Dirty joke: what do old men and young men have in common? They're both stiff the morning after a tumble.)