Okay, if you don’t know it yet, I am somewhat of a Humble and Fred fan. I have never been shy about that. People who know me know it. And so do Humble and Fred.

So it was with great joy that the news that their podcast is now going to be available across the Rogers radio network was greeted! It will be on a bunch of radio station websites across the country as well as the Rogers Mobile Radio App!

If nothing else, it gives them some muscle in the marketing department and ensures this little venture gets to have a full go of it!

You can watch them announce their partnership on CityTV’s Breakfast Television here.

You can read the Toronto Star article here.

Another article in the Torontoist here:

Listen to their latest Podcasts on Rogers, iTunes or here!

And for some fun…

Humble and Fred’s interpretation of Walk Off The Earth covering Gotye:

And for reference, Walk Off The Earth Covering Gotye:

And of course, the original:

Tired of it yet? Yeah, me neither!

Okay, you have to love the band’s name. I mentioned them a long while back. Of course many djs have decided USS was good enough but hey, what’s wrong with saying it? It’s fun! The first sng I heard by these guys was Hollow Point Sniper Hyperbole. Say the whole thing!! Today’s track is from their latest EP Approved.

Lyrics here, more below:
Every day, every day

Start panicking, turn into a mannequin
Take a breath now, ahh, begin again
Open your eyes please
Turn your smile on
Realign with now as well
You start freaking out
Wishing you were peaking out
Hold it together now
Instead of leaking out
Turn your smile on
Turn your smile up bright

Remember the days when your laughter was meant
Remember the days when you did what you said
You’re counting the days til you get high again
Chill out, be easy on yourself

You stop choosing it
Suddenly you’re losing it
Give it a kiss now
Instead of bruising it
More than a mean fear
Pieces whole here
Let the past go boys and girls
You start stressing out
Time to learn a lesson, doubts
Not in your jeans, so please stop your guessing about
Turn your smile on
Turn your smile up bright

Remember the days when your laughter was meant
Remember the days when you did what you said
You’re counting the days til you get high again
Chill out, be easy on yourself

Every day, every day
Every day in 50 million ways
I like to play with each cell of your brain
I call and say Yo Hello Hooray
I’d like to wake up a moment from your smile

Remember the days when your laughter was meant
Remember the days when you did what you said
You’re counting the days til you get high again
Chill out, be easy on yourself

Every day, every day
Every day in 50 million ways
I like to play with each cell of your brain
I call and say Yo Hello Hooray
I’d like to wake up a moment from your smile

Every day, every day
Every day in 50 million ways
I like to play with each cell of your brain
I call and say Yo Hello Hooray
I’d like to wake up a moment from your smile

Okay, so some people may focus on the line about getting high again.  I have listened to this track a hundred times and I really don’t think it’s about drugs.  It’s about feeling good about yourself.  Like you are low on yourself.

For me the same two lines keep running around my head: “Remember the days when your laughter was meant.  Remember the days when you did what you said’.  And when we live in a world where we are lied to daily.  When everything at work, in politics and so many areas of our live is ‘spin’.  We live in a world where artificial is new real.  Look at that, I just used one of those stupid ’Thursday is the new Friday’ analogies.  It is everywhere.  The fucked up artifice of reality, looks and thoughts in our media driven world.  It’s the twisted view of anorexic models combined with Food Network.  How do you balance that?

So for me this song is a rarity.  A positive force picking you up in the darkness that surrounds us.  Let go of your pain, don’t be so hard on yourself and for God’s sake SMILE!  This one makes me feel good!

There was a day
Or a week or a moment
Memories in ground glass
The subtle hues a symptom
But I was not there

I switched from the desperate voice
To the awkward, standing silence
And while the perspective changed
I found myself locked in
Where I used to be

The sensations of touch and taste
Gave way to a frail contemplation
The motions imperceptible
But the rhythms so familiar
I skipped in my vinyl shell

In an aggregate of agitation
And the lye of the lie as I lay
Brought bitter wind’s condemnation
As I recollect and reconnect
With what I used to be

The weight of the wait sits upon me
The typhoon of circumstances dictate
The measure of what was and what is
Accumulates as flakes before dawn
Plowed clean to fill again

Distant thunder demands
Rooster vane whirls unabated
Nerves fire like permafrost lightning
Could I ever get used
What would never be?

As the darkness shattered
And the seas baptised the night
The vessel lost in Black Harbour
Found the narrows pushing the limits
Dagger rocks at the ready

Startled by the flash and flame
Discarded like the broken doll
Prostrate and waiting for absolution
For what I was used to
Only to be

Watch/Listen here:

Many of you probably know this one but if you don’t you should. Above is Gotye’s original version and at the bottom is the cover that is a Youtube sensation by Walk Off The Earth. Both videos are quite amazing. Gotye’s brings out memories of Peter Gabriel videos in the 80′s.

Lyrics here, more below:
Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and it’s an ache I still remember

You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well you said that we would still be friends
But I’ll admit that I was glad that it was over

But you didn’t have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don’t even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough
No you didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number
I guess that I don’t need that though
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know

Now you’re just somebody that I used to know
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know

Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believing it was always something that I’d done
And I don’t wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn’t catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know

But you didn’t have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don’t even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough
And you didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number
I guess that I don’t need that though
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know

Somebody
(I used to know)
Somebody
(Now you’re just somebody that I used to know) [x2]

Not much to say. The story is obvious. Just enjoy this version of the same song!

Most of us live in a fog about food. There’s fast food on every corner. There are restaurants everywhere. There’s shows about food on 24/7. Grocery stores are stocked to the hilt with goods from all over the world. Sounds awesome! But it also sounds unreal doesn’t it?

There’s a reason for that. Because it is.

While many of us live in this unrealistic, wasteful, disgusting (I include myself in this absolutely!) and completely unsupportable system that surrounds us, we really have no idea what is behind this abundance we see. The amount of food we toss away without a thought is insane.

We have little to no idea of how overfishing is rapidly destroying a major food source for much of the world. We have no thought to the fact that our population is growing at such an accelerated pace that our food supply will be unable to keep up. And we are talking within some of ours, and definitely our kids, lifetime

As I was finishing reading Anthony Bourdain’s Medium Raw, he discusses the fact that for most of the top restaurants in our major cities, the reason those meals are so expensive isn’t just the quality of the food and the preparation. In many cases, such as fish, they will only use a very specific piece or pieces. They pay top dollar for a quality fish but the bulk of that fish is wasted, trashed. Just so you can have that ‘just so’ piece. You don’t have to spend much time looking at New York City alone to realize the level of waste that comes from just that one place. There are few chefs who try to really use the entire fish for other dishes. Education around that is required.

I got started on this thought stream recently after watching a BBC documentary The Future Of Food. Part 1 left me very depressed. When you really look at what is going on, it leaves you, and certainly did me, a bit empty and feeling like a selfish whore for the way we live in the industrial world. Part 2 was a bit more uplifting as they discussed some possible ways to alleviate the pressure.

The problem is that we need to start doing things now. There is no doubt there will be pain in the decades to come. Everything we can start to do now will help lessen some of the impact. Please. Take the time to watch the videos and think about changes you can make.

If you want to get very much more informed, the two videos I watched are available online.

The Future of Food – Episode 1 here.

The Future of Food – Episode 2 here.

This is a local Toronto band I’ve taken a shine to in recent months. Diamond Rings is just the stage name for John O’Regan. This song is from a very good album called Special Affections. John used to be a member of the post-punk band D’Urbervilles which some of you locals may remember.

Lyrics here, more below:
Falling into something different
How should I know?
Whether I should trust my instincts
Farther than I can throw

Playing with a double-decker
Changing the rules
Hanging down and out past midnight
With the freaks and the ghouls

Feeling like a bit-part actor
I work in-between the lines
Saving up for something faster
I’m waiting upon my time
For your heart’s sake

Don’t you wait around
For me to decide
What I want to grow up to be
I’ll just let you down
If I do decide that
I just want to wait and see

Memories of verbal violence
Talk in my face
Retaliating with silence
Running away in place

Chancing upon situations
Out of my league
I just need some provocation
And I’m down on my knees

Feeling like a bit-part actor
I work in-between the lines
Saving up for something faster
I’m waiting upon my time
For your heart’s sake

Don’t you wait around
For me to decide
What I want to grow up to be
I’ll just let you down
If I do decide that
I just want to wait and see
repeat 2x

Don’t you wait around
Don’t you wait around
Don’t you wait around
Don’t you wait around

I just love the guy’s voice. It’s deep but not crazy deep but still manages to sing instead of talk-singing you often hear with that type of voice. And the song itself makes me think about bad decisions. We’ve all been there. Whether work, friends or relationships, we all make them. And so often we are rushing through life so fast we never take a second to think, breathe and really evaluate what we’re doing. So I love that he’s saying go on ahead while I take a pause. Too often we follow. Let’s look at where we are and whether the path is the leading us to joy or stright to hell!

One of my most popular posts is Get Yo Shit (listen/read here) by these guys. There’s so much going on in their music, so much energy, you can’t help but get moving listening to it. This is a very cool, raunchy number from their latest album Scandalous.

Lyrics here, more below:
Hey we got a job on our way
From Salt Lake City to San Francisco overnight
It’s a long drive man
Ain’t nothing to do
We were bored on the way
Me and Bill up in the front
I said ‘Man is that a UFO’?
He said ‘I think it is
I think there’s two’
I said ‘Man is that place Mustang Ranch on the way’?
He said ‘Yeah, let’s call ‘em up’
Called the girl up on the phone
She ‘hello’
I said ‘How much would it be
For me to come over and get my, my, my,
My ham glazed’?
She said

wooooooooooooooo

How fast does love come for
You know its gonna have to come real cheap

We pulled up there
’round 7 o’clock in the mornin’
Big old fat dude come up
Comin’ around the car with a gun on his hip
He said ‘Watcha all want’?
‘We just hop in the van to get our ham roasted’
He said ‘I need to see some id’
Showed him id and
He got up in the van
Dagwood sleeping back there like he always is
Dude put his flashlight in his face
Dagwood looks over and says ‘what’s goin’ on’?

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyy

Gonna need some id boys
You don’t come in here
Messin’ with my place

Went in there
And two good ol’ bad girls come on
Sitting on both sides of me
They say ‘What’s up baby’?
I said ‘Now what’s going with yo’?
‘Whatchu want?
I said ‘I want my ham to get glazed’
She said ‘Well come here in the back
And we’ll talk about it’
‘Say, you need a threesome’
I say ‘I only need take one
To get my ham glazed’
She say ‘How much money you got’
I say ‘I got about twenty dollars’
She says

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

You gonna need more than that boy
I ain’t no bad free wild girl
Gonna rock that Ranch to pay
Gettin in the way you drink

Now Bill got to find wandering eye
She came out the back
Lookin’ fine and he was jealous
She took him by the hand
And he went back to the jungle room
And his teeth were chattering
And he was sweating bullets
Cause he was so damn scared
And she sat him down on the couch
Put her hand on his leg
And said ‘Whatchu wanna do with me’?
He says ‘I want my ham to be glazed’
She says ‘How much money you got’?
He says ‘Twenty dollars’
And she says

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo

You gonna need more than that boy
If you gettin’ gonna get with me
At the Mustang Ranch you pay
Gettin in the way you be

Definitely a favourite in the Canadian rock band category. They’ve always been a bit of a mix between rock and alternative. I feel like I’ve listened to them forever. This track is from their yet to be released album – I believe it is due in the spring.

Lyrics here, more below:
I’m looking for a sign that I can’t see
The good, the bad is somewhere in between
These warning signs
And the servant grinds, me down

The kids are building fires by their homes
The smoke is sending signals out in code
These safety suits
These parachutes
I don’t know

Gotta stop, drop, roll

When all these walls come down
They’ll shake us
We fight not to be
Not to be weightless

Oh when all these stars hit ground
They’ll wake us
We fight not to be
Not to be weightless

I’m choking on the words that I can’t say
My lungs are full but everything’s misplaced
And these junkyard dogs
These cherry bombs, go off

The sun, the sky, the moon
Will fall apart
Come tumbling down just like a house of cards
These fire escapes and this lush landscape
It fades

When all these walls come down
They’ll shake us
We fight not to be
Not to be weightless

Oh when all these stars hit ground
They’ll wake us
We fight not to be
Not to be weightless
Weightless

I can feel this heavyweight
Hanging around my neck
I can feel your heartbeat
Bringing me back
Back again

When all these walls come down
They’ll shake us
We fight not to be
Not to be weightless

Oh when all these stars hit ground
They’ll wake us
We fight not to be
Not to be weightless
Weightless
Weightless

This may be the best thing they’ve done in years.  Musically there’s a real fire-in-the-belly feel to it.  I really love the gear switches and full stop three-quarters through.  I found myself attached to the drum beats in this.  Really hit the core.

Lyrically I think there is a lot going on.  It has the feel of relationship in the throes of a rocky road.  But truly I think this song is about society today.  The environment, the economy and the politics of lies that pervade every aspect of our lives.  I feel like they are screaming out to hang on, don’t get taken up in the madness of the bullshit we are fed.  Hang on until it all comes crashing down around us.  And it will.

Don’t be weightless.  Don’t get taken up in the fear and propaganda.  Make sure YOU mean something because you do.  Fight it.  Every fucking day, fight it.

I can’t deny I am a foodie. It isn’t something I say with any measure of pride or joy. It just is. I like watching shows that deliver the wanton feeling of need that comes with juices flowing from far-to-large burger or some over-the-top food truck fare. It is something I’ve found I had to limit in recent years because even watching this shit is not good for me. I can hear the gym calling. It has missed me in the days of gluttony and excess that we call Christmas.

One of the presents that I had asked for and received this year was a long overdue book for me. Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain. I have always had an affinity for Bourdain. He is the antithesis of everything Food Network. Over the years of watching his show No Reservations I never tired of his honesty or his complete lack of fear in smoking on tv, eating whatever guts and gore was presented and basically running away from the tourist road and getting into the actual lives of the people who live in whatever town, village or megalopolis he’s visiting. Where most shows presented the high-end, he wanted to know what the locals eat.

So when I was reading on chapter on the state of food and especially the simplest ingredient of daily life, ground beef, I had no idea how bad things were for the majority of us who try to cook a basic meal on a day-to-day basis.

His discussion centred around how, back in our parent’s day, ground beef was just that. A reasonable cut of quality meat ground up. Sufficient quality where you could take a pinch and eat it raw. And it tasted good. It had taste. I can remember any time my mother had it out on the counter, I had to have some. Sounds gross to many I’m sure. I’ve eaten raw beef sandwiches and thoroughly enjoyed it. Simple salt and pepper topping. Sort of a pathetic version of steak tartare if you will.

Would you do that today? Would you trust that what you are getting is safe enough? Do you believe that there is no dangerous bacteria in there now?

Bourdain points out that instead of quality cuts of meat now, ground beef is made up of a myriad of parts. What we are fed these days is the equivalent of dog food. Bad dog food. Snouts, feet, organs and believe it or not, ass! Yes rectum, breakfast of champions! As he tells it there are parts from several different slaughterhouses brought together with the most disturbing element of all.

The worst bits that are most likely to make you sick are sent to a place that ‘cleans’ the parts. How? Great question! How about ammonia? Yes, ammonia. Would you feed that to your dog let alone your kids? Yup, cleaned and shipped out. The beauty is that only the very worst bits are cleaned. The other questionable stuff, with a reasonable chance of having bad bacteria, is just used.

You would think that at least if there was any kind of e coli outbreak, they could trace it back to whatever slaughterhouse provided the dirty meat. Ahhh, but in a fit of brilliance in purely sick strategy, the slaughterhouses won’t allow any testing done on the provisions until AFTER they are combined. How disgusting is all this? So we have no way to really trace back any issues.

So, how do you feel right now? A bit nauseous? Me too.

When I look back I know the ground beef is different. Today’s ground beef has almost no flavour. I love the distinct taste of beef. Or at least I used to. Now it is truly just a filler with whatever spices you add. And a risky one at that. Bourdain also points out the blasphemy of cooking a burger well. But using store-bought ground beef? What choice do you have?  In fairness, the flavour issue may have as much to do with the feed these days as the parts.  Corn (genetically modified in many cases) is used to accelerate the fattening process.  Grass-fed, pasture-fed cows have all but disappeared in this corporate farming culture.

Our food system is a disaster. Ground beef is just one of many items that is nothing like it was. Have you tasted your chicken without spices? Tasted a vegetable without dip or dressing. Bland and tasteless is the order of the day. And we can’t blame the farmers because the seeds are controlled. Small farms are swallowed daily bu corporate farming conglomerates. The likes of Monsanto and Cargill and the two or three other companies that control almost every aspect of our food system. Read some articles on Monsanto and how they control seed distribution. Watch films like Food Inc. to understand what this all is.

We should all be angry and fed up. Occupy Wall Street? Hell, Occupy Food too. We need to fight back. Why have we allowed the basic staple of our lives to be corrupted and controlled? If you have not heard of buying local and supporting small farmers, look into it wherever you live. I know first hand how difficult it can be to afford what should be our standard for food. The control that forces the lower prices for our staples will break in time. And when the prices for the crap we buy is more in line with reality and the few outlets of real food out there, maybe the pendulum will swing back. Because when you can afford and choose between the swill we have access to and the stuff that is actually good, it won’t be difficult.

Please, just think about all this.

I’ve seen my fair share
Of years and change
The weird and strange
And all that might mean

In early years
It was party time
Tequila and lime
And dancing the night away

As I’ve aged (it’s true!)
It’s gone from self-destructive
To much more reflective
A look at the world at hand

And lately it’s hard to say
That we have moved an inch forward
As what we’ve moved toward
Is a world of ignorance sans bliss

We are lied at daily
By pundit and protagonist
Politician and capitalist
It is always going to get better

Our food is manufactured
Not really grown and picked
But shoveled like shit
Without a hint of nutrition

The credit card world
Of escalating debt
Without need we get
The stuff is a loss for meaning

The broken moral decay of
The disposable life we all led
A hamster wheel spinning with greed
The ads that sell us these empty lives

I’m so tired feeling like crap
About the world in which we live
If all of us could just give
A damn about the important things

Let’s clean up this polluted home
And actually think about what we hear
Stop living the cycle of fear
And stop buying so we can give for a change

Let’s give some account for our life
Stop letting those hacks off the hook
For stealing our future by crook
Banks and politicos should sweat

Let’s look and buy local
And let the mom and pop’s
Keep their hometown shops
And give some real for once

As another year sets to begin
It starts with you and I
And the will to do or die
Make it a happy Renew Year’s Day