It’s no wonder Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse have drug problems. They’re so bloody addictive.

(From top - Amy Winehouse; Feist; Lily Allen)

Ok, sidebar note here. I don’t do musician reviews. I can’t. I barely enjoy writing music reviews. They don’t make any sense to me. When I read drivel like “the lyrics seem inspired by the artist’s own past strife, a cathartic journey measured in equal parts of angst and copulation” I get dizzy. Either you enjoy the music or you don’t. I don’t care about the musician’s journey. I’ll save the introspective analysis for myself and evaluate the work on broader terms, using criteria like…hmm, oh, I don’t know, whether I liked it or not.

It may be a little late to jump on this particular pop culture bandwagon, but being such a patsy of record-label commercialization, I’m sure someone has saved me a seat. I just wonder who I’ll find first; Richard Branson waiting to shake my hand or Noam Chomsky itching to spit on me.

About 6 months ago, this girl I sort of fancied sent me an mp3 of someone called Lily Allen. She said it was English-folksy-jazz-nova with a slight dance beat and that I’d love it. Not being one who regularly embraces female artists (unless their boyfriend isn’t around) I didn’t think much of it. Well, let me qualify that. I make a distinct distinction between the titles labels “artist”, “musician” and “singer”. Yoko Ono? Artist. Norah Jones? Musician. Victoria Beckham? Singer.

Smile - Lily Allen

I love female musicians but I have trouble even tolerating female artists and singers. They’re either trading off their sexuality or their lack of it. Every single is accompanied by a dance number seemingly choreographed by the understudy crew of Grease or a pretentious unplugged guitar solo that is only striking for its incredibly short shelf-life in my mind.

Long story less long – I loved it. Fast-forward to me today – I’ve just downloaded Lily Allen’s album “Alright Still”, Feist’s album “The Reminder” and Amy Winehouse’s album “Back to Black”. Three entire albums by three female musicans, and I’m loving them all. I got ballads. I got jazz. I got beats. I got smoking lyrics. I’m thrilled to my core and, again, bless the iGods for their bounty.

1234 - Feist

You know what’s scary? It almost didn’t happen. By the slight misdirection of a single fluke, I might’ve never even heard of these musicians. Why? Well, I’m terribly, terribly lazy. I mean, sure, one Lily Allen song was great. But am I supposed to download her entire album, listen to 11 potentially nauseating tracks just to discover they’re not iPod-worthy? Of course not.

This is why I term myself a patsy of record-label commercialization. Before, when an musician needed exposure and public recognition, her managers would book concert tours in malls and other similar-sized venues, film music videos for heavy rotation on MTV and MuchMusic, and of course push radio stations to play their singles over, and over, and over…

I don’t go to malls anymore. I hate music videos. Radio? Ha! And I’m not alone. My generation has mostly given up those iconic 90s traditions in favour of the Internet and…ok, just the Internet. So what does an exec do if he wants to reach me and my peers? He puts the music on TV. Smallville, Entourage, even House – I’ve downloaded great music because I’ve heard it first on those shows. I think it’s a terrific medium. I’m not distracted from my enjoyment of the show – in fact, the music often adds rather than detracts from the plot – and I don’t have to change any of my entrenched behaviour to be exposed the new music.

In fact, I got turned onto Amy Winehouse and Feist from advertisements. I saw this killer song on the new iPod video Nano commericial, did a little research and voila, I got Feist’s “1234” plus the other album tracks on my iPod (sidebar note: most of the other tracks suck). Then I was watching an Internet ad for the new season of House and heard Amy Winehouse’s song “Rehab”. Love it! Commercials for things I actually will buy download.

Rehab – Amy Winehouse

Obviously my system is not perfect and I probably do miss out on a few musicians who I might dig, but frankly, if the alternative is to sift through tons and tons of noise baggage before I can find the few good pieces, the choice is simple. I’d rather be ignorant than bored.

Dawson Shooting - Take Your World Back

On Wednesday, September 13, one man decided to give us all another reason to fear this world.

He entered Dawson Cegep brandishing a machine gun, shooting some 20 people and killing Anastasia DeSousa. Police came and wounded him in the arm. He then shot himself in the head.

She was 18.

Just think back to when you were 18. Try and remember what you were like. What you were worried about. How you looked at the world. Think about how you dressed, what movies you liked, what jokes made you laugh.

Now, look at yourself today. Big change, non?

Anastasia was 18. She’ll never change again.

I can't help but think about all the things she'll never get to do. Books she'll never read. Places she'll never visit. She might not yet have fallen in love.

A lot of people are focusing on the shooter. There is much examination and conjecture as to his motives, his goals, his childhood, even his drinking habits, and I understand why. If a tragedy can be rationalized, then it’s no longer a tragedy; it’s an anomaly. If extreme violence can be explained, then it can be controlled.

I don’t want to spend too much time discussing the shooter. Frankly, I don’t even want to provide him an acknowledgement by typing his name. To me, he is not a real person.

Every person has the potential to do violence. It’s a biologically, evolutionary and psychologically valid response to appropriate stimuli (fear, survival, etc.). But a civilized person can temper these urges. Through social doctrine or innate morality or sensitized intelligence or religion or whatever you want to call it, there’s a mechanism in each of us that says, “No. That’s too far.” We all make a conscious, deliberate choice to adhere to this, to control ourselves and process the world without succumbing to a base, primordial compulsion.

The shooter did not. Oh, he may have had a rough childhood. He may have had no friends. Girls could’ve rejected him, his football team might have lost and maybe somebody made fun of him because he spoke with a lisp. I don’t care. He has forfeited his claim to humanity. He gave up. He made a choice. He said, “No. That’s not far enough.”

To give up on this world, to consider yourself an outsider or a rebel is both extremely arrogant and extremely cowardly. This world is a good place. There are good people and good things in this world, and the civilized amongst us make every effort to better it by bettering ourselves. Every community, every city, every country is simply a reflection of the people living in it.

And now our community is suffering because of one man.

We are all victims. Our sanctity, our peace has been violated in the most disgusting way. Our world has been taken from us, and in it’s place we have fear and grief. But only if we let him.

Just as every civilized person makes a conscious choice to do evil, every victim can eventually make a choice whether or not to continue to be victimized.

It’s too soon now. There is still much hurt and anger in us and we must properly grieve before we can move on. But we will move on. We will take our sanctity back, we will reclaim our peace and we will never let anyone violate us again. We suffer, but can be comforted. We grieve, but we can take strength.

Anastasia was 18, and she’ll never change again. But this world is a good place, and that will never change either.

A New Laptop is Better Than Sex

Well obviously not, but it's a catchy title. Anyway, the rumours are true boys and girls; Sanjay has bought himself a brand new Toshiba 410 Notebook. It's perfect for staying mobile, updating blogs and making sure the porn industry maintains its high standards online. Actually, I like to think of it as the most expensive pen and paper I'll ever use. I never thought I'd be all into this technology stuff -- cell phones, iPods and now a latop. Next I'll get a flying car and a hot robot maid.

Virgin Post

I met a traveller from an antique land who said:

"whenever a person creates a blog, somewhere in the world an Editor cries."

Since I haven't much love for editors anyway, I call this blog my public service to all writers.

Aside from that small act of altruism however, this will be a purely selfish and self-serving site devoted to things that interest me interlaced with my own particular commentary. The Internet is the great equalizer which tends to translate anybody's opinions into publishable material, potentially available for the world to read. It's a crime against prose to allow this trend to go unchecked, so I've decided to either enter the ranks of the inspired poseurs or as a standard-bearer of the the written world here in cyberland . Whichever title I wear depends the outcome of my endemic fight against apathy and inertia.

I have big ideas - periodic quotes and jokes I come across will be posted here. Photos and pictures, important news, cool websites, ideas (or schemes, if you will) and your basic trash-talk will all be here. Expect some messy layouts at first, gently and subtly evolving into rough features and finally into a sporadic genius.

Oh, the joy of publishing editorials without the untalented hand of an Editor!