Pick of the Day: Blue Rodeo

Chris Morin did a preview of this gig in our Jan. 14 issue where Blue Rodeo kind of come across as being a little full of themselves. I doubt, for instance, that they'll enjoy the same name-recognition at their upcoming Olympics gig as when they played Pariliament Hill on Canada Day 2008. For that to be true, Blue Rodeo would have to be world famous, and they're not.


That's not to say that the band doesn't rank as one of the best ever to emerge from Canada. I laboured to phrase that sentence, by the way. I originally thought about saying "best bands Canada has ever produced". But that would imply that Canada, as a country, takes credit for their existence.

To the extent that we provide reasonable levels of publicly-funded education and health-care for all our citizens, along with a smidgen of money to help nurture the arts, that's true. But for a band like Blue Rodeo to have endured as long as it has, and to have enjoyed the success that it has, is a testament primarily to their talent, dedication and drive as the lot of cultural producers in this country is difficult to say the least.

Blue Rodeo is at Conexus Arts Centre tonight. Cuff the Duke's backing them up. Here's video of them doing "The Ballad of Poor John Henry". (YouTube) And here's Blue Rodeo performing "Rain Down on Me" off their 1992 album Lost Together. (YouTube)

Also tonight, and on Jan. 23 too, Rick Harris is playing jazz at the Mediterranean Bistro from 6-9 p.m.

Friday Afternoon Kitty: Special Bad Tiger Edition

Tigers have been getting a bad rap in the media in Canada lately. In October, a tiger at the Calgary zoo named Vitali dined on drunks' arms (an after-hours zoo treat). Last week, a tiger at an exotic animal farm got rid of his keeper once and for all. There are all kinds of bad tigers, from the Tamil Tigers to you-know-who. (Rwoar!)

Our bad tiger of the day pick is Kenny, who lives at a sanctuary in Arizona. White tigers (the kind that usually eat ambiguously gay Vegas celebrity duos) are actually not a type of tiger, but descendants of one poor white male tiger named Mohan who was forcibly bred with his daughter Radha in 1951. The inbreeding has gone on to produce thousands of animals, which populate zoos and Vegas shows and large cat rescues. Inbreeding is never a good idea. Many are deformed (and subsequently destroyed). Kenny is mentally retarded; his siblings have knock knees and breathing problems.

Apologies for the hootenanny music, and for anything it implies. To Kenny, I mean.

UPDATE: prairie dog called for an update on poor Vitali, the drunk-eatin' Calgary Zoo tiger. We're happy to report that Vitali is just fine: no injuries to his mouth or paws, and no repercussions for the attack.

Pick of the Day: Volcanoless in Canada

As it happens, Canada is not volcanoless. True, there are no volcanoes currently erupting in our fair land, but according to National Resources Canada there is evidence of three volcanic eruptions in the last few hundred years. And numerous other volcanos could potentially erupt in the near future. Before everyone freaks out, keep in mind that we're talking geological timeframes here, so "near future" could mean hundreds of years down the road.

Most volcanos in Canada, as you might expect, are located in belts like the Garibaldi and Wrangell on the west coast. Many are less than five million years old, so still have plenty of life left in them. Then there's the threat posed by nearby American volcanos in Alaska and the Pacific north-west. Mount Baker, for instance, at an elevation of 3285 m, is an active Washington State volcano located less that 100 km southeast of downtown Vancouver. It blows, things could get pretty messy for residents of VanCity.

But enough geology. Tonight at O'Hanlon's Pub the Saskaton-based quintet Volcanoless in Canada is performing a free gig. Here's video of them doing their song "Tiptoes" at Cameron House in Toronto in 2008. Backing them up at O'Hanlon's are the Regina band Tinsel Trees.

Also on tap tonight is a show by Val Halla at the Gaslight Saloon. Fronted by former Reginan Val McLeod (who was featured in prairie dog's Dec. 31 My Music) the band is expected to hit the stage around 10 p.m. Here's a link to an earlier Blog post I did on Val.

And if your taste runs a little more retro, Canuck rock legends Lighthouse are at Casino Regina tonight.

The Late, Late, Late Afternoon, Okay, Evening, News

1.) HAITI: IT JUST GETS WORSE Sounds like we should expect more Canadian deaths in Haiti. That's in addition to the 100,000 Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive is gussing were killed in Tuesday's brutal earthquake. Also, there are problems getting medical help, food and water and other aid to people who need it--the scale of destruction in Port-Au-Prince and other devastated areas includes collapsed buildings and impassible streets. What fun. At least Ottawa will match individul Canadians' donations (up to $50 million anyway). Then again, is that really an efficient or practical disaster relief strategy? Sounds kind of like a multimillion dollar version of a bake sale to me. Someone left me know if I'm off base here. (CBC)

2.) CONSERVATIVES CRASH IN POLLS Thanks to Harper's diabolical proroguerry, support for the Tories has tumbled. Yeah, well, that was the Prime Minister's gamble. We'll see where the voters sit when parliament comes back and everbody's forgotten about this. Harper's betting things will be just fine for his party. Think he might be right. (Globe And Mail)

3.) LOTS OF INTEREST IN MARRIAGE COMMISSIONER LAW Yeah, not so surprising. And I'll just add here that prejudices masquerading as legitimate religious values don't belong in all kinds of public spheres: education, science, medicine, politics, etc. (Leader-Post)

4.) YOU CALL IT A "STRUCTURAL DEFICIT", I CALL IT A PLOT AGAINST CANADA Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page says Canada can't have a balanced budget while it continues to spend far, far more than it raises in taxes. So do you suppose when the Conservatives sliced two per cent off the GST--which lost the government $8-10 billion in revenue--they knew they were manufacturing a fiscal crisis that would help create support for savage government cuts? (CBC)

5.) A RARE SHARK ATTACK Great whites don't usually eat people. This one did. (Guardian)

6.) HAITI: GOOD GOD, PAT ROBERTSON IS A DICK So what's he saying, Haiti deserved the earthquake? Yes, he is saying that. My question: what kind of an asshole worships a god who earthquake-nukes the poorest country in the western hemisphere anyway? A miserable creep, that's who. Sure as hell not any kind of real Christian. The only public forum Pat Robertson should have is his family's dining room table on major holidays. Get off the TV, evil loon.



(Note to woman nodding in sad agreement: Fuck you, too.)

Rally Time

If you check out the new prairie dog just hitting the streets now you'll find a news article by Stephen LaRose and an editorial by Stephen Whitworth taking issue with the parliamentary manouevring that a third Stephen (Harper) has been up to in Ottawa to save his government from embarassing questions concerning Canadian complicity in the torture of Afghan detainees, plus also buy himself some time to appoint more Conservatives to the Senate to consolidate the party's grip on that august chamber and the committee work that it does. If the democratic rights of Canadians get trampled in the process, why should he care? This is a man, remember, who's on a mission to revamp the country and turn it into his own personal utopia where religion trumps reason and priviledge trumps public duty and social responsibility.

Some Canadians probably couldn't care less. Fortunately, not everyone has been cowed into submission by Harpo's dictatorial ways. Saturday, January 23, a series of rallies are being held across the country to protest the latest prorogation debacle. In Regina, the rally will be on the Scarth St. Mall between 1-2 p.m. That's more or less on our front door step, and we'll have writers there to report on the event. We promise.

Pick of the Day: Coffeehouse Controversies

Back when the Cold War was raging between the East Bloc led by the Soviet Union and the West led by the United States, certain areas of the globe like south-east Asia, Africa and Central and South America were surrogate battlegrounds where forces funded by both sides waged guerilla and outright war against each other for regional supremacy.

Beginning with the elections of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and Ronald Reagan in 1980, the West ratcheted up its involvement both militarily and financially in order to overthrow what were often democratically elected governments that were regarded as being too closely aligned with the Soviet Union. Few British and American troops were in the direct line of fire, but civillians in countries like Nicaragua, El Salvador, Mozambique and Angola suffered horribly.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a lot of those proxy wars petered out. They've since been supplanted, of course, by what some commentators have described as a clash of civilizations between the West and the Muslim World. While all this has been going on, there's been a resurgence in leftist politics in Latin America in particular led by peasant, labour and indigenous leaders. How governments like those led by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia came about, and how they are faring in this age of global capitalism, is what University of Regina Political Science professor Jeffrey Webber will discuss in the first Coffeehouse Controversies of the winter season at Chapters tonight at 7:30 p.m. The formal title of the talk is The New Latin American Left.

To get you in the mood for a bit of rabble-rousing, here's Bruce Cockburn performing his song "If I Had a Rocket Launcher" which was initially inspired by a visit he made to a Guatemalan refugee camp in 1984. (YouTube)

Pick of the Day: The Rusty Augers

Yeah, I know it says in the Live Music listings in our Dec. 31 paper that The Rusy Augers are playing at Bushwakker tonight. But that's a boo-boo. See, listings info for the gig came in late, Christmas threw a wrench into our production schedule so we were rushing to get things done, I gave the listing to our designer late Monday to add in manually and he must have mis-read my hand-writing and I didn't discover the error until after the paper had been sent to the printer around 3 a.m. Tuesday morning so ...

Besides, as anyone with half a brain who was even remotely familiar with the south Saskatchewan music scene would hopefully realize, it's the Rusty Augers who are playing at Bushwakker. They're a country-rock ensemble based out of Moose Jaw. Here's video of them doing their song "Paint the Town Red".

Also tonight, the RPL Theatre has a free screening of the documentary Pig Business at 7 p.m. It's by Brit Tracey Worcester, and explores the negative impact of mega-pig farms on human health, rural communties and the environment. The RCMP Heritage Centre is also kicking off its 2010 Speakers' Series with a talk by Sgt. Steve George about his peacekeeping experience in Kosovo at 7 p.m. For more info, call 522-7333. Finally, the first installment of Combat Improv for 2010 is on at the Exchange.

This Week At City Hall

So much for my new year's resolution of blogging more often on city hall. Can't even get this weekly update thing done in a timely fashion. Two meetings have already gone by for the week. Fortunately, agendas are still on the thin side as most committees are hammering out when they'll be meeting over the course of the year. Anyway, without further ado, here's what's happening downtown....

Monday, January 11
Municipal Heritage Advisory: Setting meeting dates for 2010.

Tuesday, January 12
Finance and Administration (12:15 pm): Setting meeting dates for the year and appointing elected officials to administrative boards.
Public Works (4 pm): Setting meeting dates for 2010 and considering the annual infrastructure investment strategy.

Wednesday, January 13
Executive Committee (11:45 pm): Reviewing outstanding items and considering advance approvals for capital projects.
Community and Protective Services (4 pm): Setting 2010 meeting dates and considering the funding request for the transit fare assistance program and revised Sunday transit schedule.

As always, you can download complete agendas and reports on the city's website.

Six in the Morning

1. SEND YOUR SASK MPs SOME LOVE: Why is Harper proroguing parliament whenever he doesn't want to be held accountable for things his government's been doing? Because he reckons Canadians couldn't care less whether parliament sits or not. At least, that's what his industry minister is saying. According to Tony Clement, the only people who care whether we have a democratic, accountable government are a few in the chattering classes in Ottawa. Considering Regina's MPs are sitting around at home now twiddling their thumbs (with the exception of maybe Ralph Goodale who seems to be heading back to Ottawa to work with the Liberals on.... something), you can bet they'll be eager to hear what their constituents think of all this proroguery. If you live in Palliser, you can contact Ray Boughen at Boughen.R@parl.gc.ca; if you live in Regina-Qu'Appelle, you can contact Andrew Scheer at Scheer.A@parl.gc.ca; if you live in Regina-Lumsden, you can contact Tom Lukiwski at Lukiwski.T@parl.gc.ca; and if you live in Wascana, you can contact Ralph Goodale at Goodale.R@parl.gc.ca. Harper's gathering up his MPs on Jan 22 to find out what us proles have been saying, so if no one emails these guys to say their peace, they'll be able to report honestly that we don't care. (globe and mail)

2. FEDS HIDING TARSANDS TRUTHS: Mike Desouza of Canwest Newsservice has uncovered documents that question the accuracy of government assessments of the impacts of Alberta's tarsands developments. Seems the Harper government has been slanting information released to the public so that it represents the position of the oil industry. (Calgary Herald)

3. CANADIANS MORE CONCERNED BY CLIMATE CHANGE THAN TERRORISM: A poll finds that the changing climate is more of a worry to Canadians than any threat by terrorists. How does that jive with Harper's desire to focus G8 discussion on dirty bombs, I wonder? (DeSmog blog)

4. ANTI-SAME-SEX MARRIAGE LAW CHALLENGED: A challenge to California's Proposition 8 (which bans same-sex marriages) is headed to the courts. (Globe and Mail)

5. REGINA WATER RATES RISE: Expect to see an increase in the cost of water in Regina on your first bills of 2010. (Leader Post)

6. SPIDERMAN SQUASHED: Announcement came out yesterday that plans for a fourth Spiderman film directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Macguire have been scrapped. Instead we'll be getting a rebooted franchise with a young, hip director and a Peter Parker who's back in high school. And it seems the script for this new Spiderman is already written and will be "gritty, contemporary," whatever that means.

Pick of the Day: Leonard Cohen: Live at the Isle of Wight

This DVD came into our office a couple of months ago. It sat around for a bit before I bogarted it to watch. It documents a remarkable performance by Canadian poet/singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen at the Isle of Wight musical festival on August 31, 1970. The festival was tumultuous, to say the least. First off, there were around 600,000 people there. It was the height of the counter-culture movement, and some audience members acted out against what they regarded as the creeping corporatization of the festival by tearing down fences and setting fire to equipment and other structures on the festival grounds. The Who played the festival that year, as did Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix. Taking the stage at 4 a.m. after a fiery performance by Hendrix had further aroused the crowd, Cohen, as fellow performers like Joan Baez, Kris Kristofferson and Judy Collins recount in the DVD, captured and enthralled the crowd with calm stage presence and beautiful songs -- which , back in the day, he actually did a pretty good job of singing. The sound and video quality of this DVD are both excellent, and it's definitely worth a look. Here's a clip from the DVD of Cohen performing "Suzanne" (YouTube)