Aluminum city

Enough.

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 00:23:00 -0400

For me, CP24 is what comes on every time I turn on the TV.

Channel 024 is that channel you leave on in restaurants or establishments when there isn’t a major sports event happening. On the screen, there’s constant weather updates, Toronto concert and event dates, stock numbers, and footage and major headlines from news stories of the day. Usually, it’s the channel that, when the TV is turned on, is changed from. Today was an exception.

Today, the quarter of the screen that constantly changes was filled with clips of riot scenes, live protests, and police cars being set on fire. Reporters in downtown TO were consulted every five minutes, all coming on out of breath, panting as they were chasing and following protestors down the city streets.

When the final preparations for the G20 were being made, when everyone in the city was griping about the billion-dollar price tag attached to this international photo op, everyone expected protests. How could they not?

Lots of businesses are being shut down because of the summit, and they’re not getting any compensation for it. There are many activists attempting to stage peaceful protests, some trying to raise awareness for a variety of social justice issues in TO and around the world.

And of course, there are the people protesting the fact that the G20 is actually happening.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t protest, and I’m even farther from saying that people shouldn’t raise awareness for overlooked issues of social, economic, and political importance- especially not when they can take advantage of such a highly publicized event like the G20 summit. I just can’t find fault with peaceful protest, at least not when looking at it from the perspective of someone who is neither a politician or an activist herself. There’s nothing that says that peaceful protesters shouldn’t be allowed to carry on with raising awareness.

However, I have no sympathy for the people who come into the city to cause chaos by smashing business windows and setting fire to four cop cars to “represent all revolutions of the past” and then get arrested by the OPP. I really don’t.

These people are not protesters, or activists. Calling the chaos-driven thugs trying to wreak havoc on TO “protesters” is an insult to the people that actually have causes.

There are no messages behind these thugs’ actions. There are no causes or issues that they’re trying to get people to understand. There is just a stupid amount of violence, chaos, and unnecessary destruction.

It just makes me mad. These people need to get the hell out of our city.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/06/26/g20-saturday-protests.html

G20 posts coming soon!

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 01:44:32 -0400

G20 posts coming soon!

Broken Social Scene. They’re one of the many Arts and...

Wed, 26 May 2010 00:09:00 -0400

Broken Social Scene.

They’re one of the many Arts and Crafts bands that I didn’t fully appreciate during the pop-punk and power-pop days of being 14. I wasn’t always the musically discerning person I am today, ha-ha. Truth be told, Dookie and You Forgot it In People didn’t really make much sense together in my head.

I saw them perform on Mother’s Day a couple of weeks ago in the basement on Sonic Boom with a friend. I don’t remember when I fell in love with this band, but being close enough to touch Kevin Drew definitely gave them a solid lock on all future mix CDs I put in my car.

The band performed a whole slew of songs- a good mix of favourites from You Forgot it In People and their self-titled album, as well as goodies from their new one, Forgiveness Rock Record. They closed the show with “Meet me in the Basement” (I think) - the instrumental 9th track on the album- which Drew said was “what they think when they think of Toronto”, or something like that.

Either way, it made sense to me when I listened to the song again in the car.

I’ve heard mixed reviews about Forgiveness Rock Record (and by reviews, I mean instances of “hey, what’d you think of their new album?”), but that’s exactly what Drew predicted in the band’s recent Maclean’s article.

I liked it. It was different, but a good different. Most of the songs are pretty catchy, meaning that it wasn’t hard for me to get into the album and pick favourites. You won’t find the same scratchy, chaos, and distortion everyone loved in You Forgot it In People, but when you close your eyes and listen closely, you’ll still like what you hear.

Bottom line: worth the fifteen bucks at HMV.

But hey, what do I know? I couldn’t fairly call myself a fan until about two weeks ago, when I snapped a picture of Kevin Drew with my phone and he looked right at me.

This picture? I didn’t take it, but that’s what it felt like.