Awooooooooooo

Uh-oh. And I have to walk home tonight...

More Yes Men Shenanigans

They did an effective bit of culture jamming during the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December (DogBlog), now they're undercutting a World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland by suggesting that poverty should be the focus instead of over-regulation of the financial sector. (YesMen)

Six In The Morning

1 OH PLEASE OH PLEASE LET IT BE TRUE Polsters at EKOS say Canadian voters want to toss out the Tories. (Globe and Mail)

2 IRANIAN GOVERNMENT MURDERS A COUPLE MORE PROTESTERS Assholes. (New York Times)

3 HEALTH NEGOTIATIONS HIT IMPASSE Saskatchewan's health unions say a 9.5 per cent raise over five years is not enough. They says it's below market value and won't solve problems like recruitment and retention of specialized workers like medical radiation technologists. And they say the government's take-it-or-leave-it negotiating from behind the new essential services legislation is ridiculous. (Leader-Post)

4 SOTU! I didn't watch U.S. President Barack Obama's state of the union address last night because what could he possibly say about his broken, doomed, ruined, depressing country that would cheer me up? Well, there were at least a couple of interesting moments, apparently. Obama slammed a recent, terrible U.S. Supreme Court decision to let anyone spend as much money on political campaigning as they want, and one of George W. Bush's right-wing dipshit "activist" (ha! take that!) judge appointees was filmed mouthing "not true". (Washington Post)Sorry dude, it is true, you're stupid and you helped hand your country's democracy to those with the most money even more than it already was.

Obama also promised to have Don't Ask, Don't Tell repealed this year. DADT is the U.S military's stupid policy that demands gays get kicked out if they don't keep their sexuality a secret. Now, Obama could and SHOULD just suspend enforcement of DADT immediately--in fact he should've the week he took office--but this promise isn't a bad one. But he's up against some uptight opposition--check out these photos of the unhappy joint chiefs of staff: they clap for war, they sit for gays. Assholes. (Joemygod)

5 HA HA, SASKATOON SUCKS Regina will plow suburban streets, Saskatoon won't. Eat that, Bridge City! (CBC)

6 A RAINBOW OF DINOSAURS Was on the Guardian's site reading up on Apple's new iPad last night looking for something to link to in this morning's post. Well, instead, I stumbled across this story on the Guardian's science pages and it's more interesting than Steve Job's portable web-thing: Science (which is great!) has apparently been able to figure out the colour scheme of a dinosaur by studying fossilized pigments under a microscope. Sinosauropteryx was brown and had a "a raccoon-like tail marked with alternating russet and white stripes."

Also on the Guardian: why aliens are having trouble hearing us.

Science is supercool. Way more interesting than musty old fairy tales about how Noah couldn't fit the brontosaurs* on his ark.

*Yes, yes. Apaptosaurus. I know.

Pick of the Day: Motley Crue

Inspired, in part, by Emily Zimmerman's tremendous cover story in our Jan. 14 issue on the relative merits of Guns 'n Roses, who played Brandt Centre Jan. 20, and Motley Crue (pictured), who take the stage there tonight, my pick-of-the-day post on G 'n R (Dog Blog) turned into a rant on how shitty the decade that spawned both bands (the '80s) had been.

If you check the link, you'll see the post drew a response from a reader named Dewdney who took issue with me dissing the decade and insisting that, unlike me, he wasn't "appaled [sic] and offended" by the '80s. Fair enough. Everyone's take on the decade is obviously different. In the early '80s, I got a law degree at the U of S. Then I more or less did a 180 and started working toward becoming whatever it is that I am today (as a writer, critic and man, I mean). I don't regret the direction my life took. But the transition happened in the '80s, and it wasn't easy.

As societal participants, artists, through their work, can both subvert and reinforce dominant socio-political values and beliefs.

In the early '80s, for instance, punk defiantly worked in opposition to the stridently conservative and reactionary Thatcher/Reagan revolution. You could argue, I suppose, that through their hedonistic L.A. lifestyles bands like Motley Crue, Guns 'n Roses, Slayer, Skid Row and Poison subverted conservative Republican values. But though their boorish off-stage antics and fanatical allegiance to poseur cock-rock they also embodied them.

In her article Emily, at one point, writes that Motely Crue were "so impossibly straight that they could run around in makeup and heels and look even more masculine for it." But as far as looks go, it's pretty high maintenance, isn't it? And while I guess I can understand why a not insignificant portion of women would find a man (or men) like that attractive, it's not anything I'd ever aspire to emulate.

For what it's worth, the Leader-Post's Christopher Tessmer gave the G 'n R show a pretty glowing review. In his missive to me, Dewdney said he'd rather see the Crue. As Emily noted (and Dewdney conceded), the Crue are touring primarly as a nostalgia act now. And while the current incarnation of G 'n R is mostly an Axyl Rose solo project, with him being the only original member, he apparently has access to the entire G 'n R catalogue, has a crack band behind him, and he recently put out some new music that, while 15 years in the making, was positively received. Hence, my preference for G 'n R over Motley Crue.

I won't be there to see them when they do it tonight, but here's grainy video from a 2008 concert of the Crue doing "Kickstart My Heart" (YouTube)

And for those looking for something a little more sedate, Do-It-With-Class Young People's Theatre opens a two-night run of Wind in the Willows at Conexus Arts Centre at 7:30 p.m. It's a Broadway musical based on Kenneth Grahame's 1908 rural English children's story about the exploits of Mole, Rat, Toad and other woodland animals. Here's a link to a scene from an '80s era British stop-animation Wind in the Willows TV series . (YouTube)

Also worth checking out is the Coffeehouse Controversy tonight at Chapters at 7:30 p.m. Speaking is Journalism professor Gennadiy Chernov on Commercial Speech on Television: Stealth Advertising in Local Television News. And Attack in Black is at the Exchange with Lonesome Weekends in support. Finally, Alexis Normand is performing at the Club.