Happy Valentines Day to the 10% of the population who thinks they're in love.

Happy Let's-Be-Bitter-Bastards-and-Ruin-Everybody-Else's-Fun day to the rest of us.

Song: Pigeon Teeth
Band: Untitled (not really a band)
What makes it good: Just when you think you hate all rap and hip hop, you hear a song like "Pigeon Teeth", and you get proven completely wrong. Pigeon Teeth, as far as I can gather, is the product of a couple electronica musicians attempting to create a Hip-Hop song. Amazing lyrics, good beat, nice array of instrumentation.
What (potentially) makes it bad: If you think Modest Mouse is strange (which they are), this is even further off the edge.
Where you can hear it: The Radical Face Tour Website - scroll down to the "Hip Hop Project" section.  

A taste of the lyrics:

While we chew the fact, we steal some souls and find a place to sleep
Gotta make the best of things, 'cos we'll be dead in a week

A hundred televisions playing the same thing
Throwing up all over the world
The airplanes land on airwaves
Nothing makes sense
Not even tapping on the window
Meeting all the smiling people
... they all ride escalators

A month can be a lifetime,
A lifetime, a minute
But what's in anything?
It is all a false advertisement

The roof is on fire and my eyes are getting rusty
But a bird in the hand is safer than one overhead
So play it cautious and tip toe through the day
'Cos you never test the depth of a river with both feet

Sitting at the busstop next to the womanizer
Who told me he would like to sue her (was like a sewer)
... full of shit
And the guy who never makes a mistake takes orders from the one who does
and that's the way the cookie crumbles, son.

You sold your soul to get a woman's
Guaranteed efficiency
carefree security system
But I won't mention that it's called denial

Now we're all a little crooked
Let's get one thing straight
The less you fall apart
The more you break

Now that I've just finished my diffcult exams for this semester, I've made a very important and exciting decision that I'm sure will benefit both my health, and sanity for this coming semester (and the work load it promises to bring).....

I'm quitting school and joining the circus.

When I was very young, my friends and I used to play soccer every lunchtime recess. The games were rough, juvenile and ultimately frustrating - featuring plenty of cheating, lying, kicking and yelling. Why, might you ask, am I reminded of these darker moments of my childhood? Because, the Federal election this year isn't much different at all. Sure, the "teams" are Nationwide organizations of hundreds of people (instead of haphazardly chosen groups of six of seven school kids), and the stakes are a LITTLE more serious... but ultimately it's the same thing - a big, juvenile, rough, and frustrating game featuring plenty of cheating, lying, kicking and yelling.

The scary thing is, as with all games, somebody has to win. But, who will it be?

Team Captain: Paul Martin
Team Name: The Liberals

Strengths: Despite his weaknesses, the teachers still prefer the bumbly Paul to his rough, cold peer, Steve
Weaknesses: They asked for money to fix up the soccer field, and then went out and bought themselves popsicles and comic books with the money instead (Sponsorship scandal), they kick people while they're down, and play dirty in the stupidist way possible (juvenile attack ads)

Team Captain: Gilles Duceppe
Team Name: The Bloc

Strengths: ... err....
Weaknesses: He's asking EVERYBODY on the playground to support him, but has no plans to be friends with anybody except his posse of rude French kids, standing in the corner of the schoolyard and refusing to associate with any of the other children (separatism)

Team Captain: George Bu... oops, I mean... Stephen Harper
Team Name: The Conservatives

Strengths: Steve may be a cold, meanspirited sort of child, but he keeps his team in line, and knows what he thinks... which is more than can be said for little Paul.
Weaknesses: Steve is constantly in detention for threatening to send the goons on his team after the foreign kids on the school yard (war mongering), and he never lets girls, feminine boys, or minorities play on his team (anti gay marriage, etc.)

Team Captain: Jack Layton
Team Name: The NDP

Strenths: His report card reads, "Jack is a very intelligent young boy, and is always kind and fair to all his peers"
Weaknesses: While all the other teams are battling it out in the spotlight, Jack and his misfit team of girls, minorities, and feminine boys are standing around cheering everybody on and generally just being nice about things. They're constantly passing to each other instead of shooting (and so often end up loosing the ball) and are always getting knocked over by either Paul or Steve.

As you may well know, I have a habit of collecting notes that I find on the ground. In the last few weeks, I have found three different poems, all written by different people. One was found in the city, the other two at school --

"Erich
J'aime Louise et Pepsi
Pour le dejuner
Complet, et parfait
C'est delicieux
et bon pour
votre sante
comme l'huile de Moreau
et les femmes Francaise
avec barbes
et si tu les refusais elles vont le CRUSHER!"

"There once was a man from Nantucket
He lived with a cat in a bucket
He often threw shoes, bounced them off shrews,
And then went home to eat pastromi!!"

"Let me tell you about,
A porcupines balls,
Their small and they don't
give a shit. Holyfuck, damnit!"

This was drawn by a boy who I've gone to school with my whole life named Tim. Pretty impressive stuff.

www.deviantart.com

Today, I'm hoping.

I'm hoping for a new year that brings friends closer; a new year that offers protection from the evils that lurk (however fictional and illogical they may be); a new year that takes all of us further away from the confines of our own space and our own self-conscious minds and into the world around us. I'm hoping for a new year that renews the idea once held so dear of hope, of love, and of a world that is truly worth living in; a new year that renews faith in the beauty of this world, and the people who live in it.

I know that the world is backward right now. I know that things aren't going right, and that darkness is stealing into the bright world of our childhood we once knew. I remember when you told me that hoping for something better was futile, because the world I hoped for was one I had created for myself in my heart and in my mind, and wasn't possible. But I also know that what exists in our own consciousness is just as real as what exists around us, and that the only thing that stands between you and I and the world that we dare to hope for is the indifference and apathy of humanity; our own indifference, and lack of motivation.

So, here's to a new year that sees us willing to hope for that which we have deemed impossible. Here's to a new year in which we allow ourselves to realize dreams, to love that which is imperfect, and make the energy of our being the bright light that will scare the dark away forever more.

Happy new year to the lot of you.