Monday, April 14, 2008

Legalization of Marijuana

I'm apprehensive in going off on all of the reasons why marijuana should be legalized. To be honest...from a casual users point of view, things aren't all that bad right now. It is fairly easy to find safe and clean marijuana almost anywhere in Canada these days. Obviously skeptics will say there is nothing safe or clean about it but when I say that I mean it is not laced with a more harmful drug.

Numerous studies have been done by differing sides and it seems at this point in time that it is pointless and naive to seek out the truth about it's effects and choose one side over the other. Basically, what it all comes down to is personal experience. The fact that no one has ever died from an "overdose" of Marijuana, yet many, many people have died from alcohol poisoning speaks for itself. I'm not saying alcohol should be made illegal (for one it would probably result in nation-wide anarchy) but I think things need to be put into perspective.

Marijuana is not LSD, nor is it cocaine or heroine etc etc. The fact that it is labeled as a "drug" and "drugs are bad" immediately taints it in the views of the ignorant. Marijuana is a plant that is smoked. It is not a powder that is extracted and snorted or a chemical made in a lab. It is a plant. Comparing it to tobacco is at least sensical, though even those similarities are debatable.

Marijuana should be legalized and that's the way it is. I don't know how or why it was ever made illegal but it makes no sense whatsoever. Like I hinted at earlier, I'm afraid of how it would be handled by the government if it were to be legalized, but the reasons for it being illegal will always be a mystery to me.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Kiko

This was the odd yet affectionate name of our beloved (and only) dog. I've decided she was worthy of doing a 15 minute podcast on. Call me a sap if you like but this dog had quite the impact on my life. I basically grew up with her. We were the same age in human years so that created an immediate bond, I think.

Anyway yeah that is my idea. Make of it what you will.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

"I Was Raped."

An article was brought to my attention by our Media Writing instructor Jill. It talks about a woman who has created a t-shirt with a particularity contraversial graphic on the front. There is an open safe with a small note inside. On the note is a small yet powerful message: "I Was Raped."

Although I'm sure everyone has an opinion on this topic, through much consideration, I have decided to take a step back from making any further judgements...and I think my fellow male comrades should probably do the same.

My basic stance on this is much the same as a fellow class-mate of mine...the very fact that we haven't been raped in our life-time makes our opinions 100% irrelevant. We don't know what it's like and will probably never know what it's like to feel used to that degree. We can't possibly fathom the confusion and frustration that comes with such a horrific experience. For that reason alone, guys, despite what you may think of the concept, we should probably just shut up and back off.

Perhaps through observance and empathy we can "get it" one day.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Phases pt. 2

Pop quiz: What happens to a Metallica-obsessed 14-year-old kid when he starts listening to Classic Rock radio? Well the answer, of course, is he becomes a AC/DC obsessed 14-year-old kid!

Yes of course, what could possibly catch my attention quicker than a midget playing guitar in a school-boy uniform? Yes, the ridiculous antics and high-adrenaline rock of AC/DC became my second obsession. I was one of those many annoying kids who praised Angus Young and ignorantly believed he was the greatest guitarist of all-time. But who could blame me? This kind of rock was all new to me. I couldn't get enough of the shrill, screetching vocals, thumping beats and catchy guitar riffs. But as embarassed as I am about this, it was Brian Johnson's vocals that I confused with one of the truly greatest bands of all-time.

I remember being in my dad's truck when I first heard the lyrics, "hey hey mama, said the way you move, gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove." The following guitar riff immediately caught my attention and I was then determined to find out what AC/DC song it was. I checked 92 citi fm's website when I got home and was shocked to find that it wasn't AC/DC at all. It was the legendary Led Zeppelin. I had heard their name mentioned many times in the past but all I knew about them was that they had a song called Stairway to Heaven. I then downloaded that song, along with many others and before I knew it, yet another obsession was born. Although I no longer listen to them, AC/DC served as a gateway to many great bands like Zep, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, The Police, Heart, ZZ Top, Nazareth, Black Sabbath, Cream, The Scorpions etc as well as a reason for deeper exploration of bands like my beloved Beatles, The Stones, CCR, The Doors etc.

Eventually I realized that I was falling back into old habbits and only listening to bands of the past. I immediately resolved the situation by seeking out new bands and new sounds. One music scene that has intrigued these days is the Indie scene. Bands on Indie labels, I find, are consistently coming up with fresher sounds and putting out more music relevant to today's society than most. The Shins are my current obsession. Although relatively unknown in Canada, they have taken the Indie music scene by storm in the USA. Their latest release Wincing the Night Away has barely left my CD player in the last 6 months.

And that about brings us to now. I hope this blog has been at least somewhat interesting and has possibly even inspired you to relive your own musical history.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Phases pt. 1

Everyone goes through them. They can be involving anything in your life, really. But what I'm going to focus on today is the many different phases I went through in music.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm a big fan of the Beatles. The first song that I remember catching my attention as a child was "Twist and Shout." I've loved them ever since I can remember and the fact that I still do surprised even me. But aside from the Beatles, my musical tastes have gone through many different phases.

I think for the most part, my musical tastes - as is the case for many people - have reflected the phases I've gone through in life. When I was a child I looked up to my dad and liked pretty much everything he liked. His favourite band is the Rolling Stones and not long after the Beatles I found myself intrigued by the darker tones of Mick and company. My dad, like most people his age, was a big fan of Oldies radio. So along with the Beatles and the Stones came a host of big names from the past, including: Elvis Presley, the Mamas and the Papas, Simon and Garfunkel, The Byrds, The Kinks, CCR, The Doors, Terry Jacks, Neil Young, The Guess Who, The Moody Blues, the Dave Clark Five etc etc. Oldies radio was basically all we listened to back then. Either that, or mix tapes with our favourite oldies singles on them. Needless to say, I'm a lot more familiar with music from the 60's and 70's than any 21 year old probably should be.

Unfortunately, this was all I really knew. I was completely oblivious to any current music. I remember being laughed at in grade 5 for saying the Beatles were the greatest band of all time. Not to say that that isn't quite possibly true, but considering 99% of the music I knew was recorded 25 years before then, it was a pretty ignorant statement. It was around this time that my eyes began to open to more current music. I remember two friends of mine on the bus debating over who they liked more; Bush or Our Lady Peace. Having never heard of either band, I decided I liked Our Lady Peace's name better and set out to buy the album Clumsy. Considering the darkest music I had heard to this point was The Rolling Stones, this album was quite a shock to me. It was dark, raw and heavy. Even the softer songs on the album such as Carnival and the title track had a definite edge to them. I loved it, and immediately craved more music like it.

When my next birthday rolled around, what I wanted was a given. The only thing I asked for was a CD player. I got that, along with OLP's first album Naveed. It was even darker and heavier than Clumsy, thus furthering my craving for the dark and heavy. I started listening to new rock radio around this time and making my own mix tapes of the music they played. There was one song that immediately caught my attention, highlited by the raw voice and guitarwork of the late Kurt Cobain. The song I'm, of course, referring to is Smells Like Teen Spirit. Thus beginning my 90's Alternative/Grunge phase. Through friends and the radio, more and more bands came to my attention. Bands like Green Day, Silverchair, Rage Against the Machine and I Mother Earth were suddenly being added to my meager CD library.

The fact that my parents didn't like the music I was listening to, in my mind, immediately made it cool. And because of this my desire for the loud and heavy continued to grow. I remember a vivid dream I had. I must've left my radio on that night because in my dream I remembering listening to The Memory Remains by Metallica and asking my mom who the singer was. Her reply? Well it went a little something like this; "That, Scott, is the devil." This dream, at the time, both intrigued and scared the hell out of me. Perhaps my mom was right because shortly after this dream I became all but obsessed with Metallica. Their music was the fruit of the forbidden tree and I was going back for seconds, thirds, etc. I eventually collected their entire CD library. My Metallica obsession opened the doors to many other Metal bands of the past and present. But to this day, no Metal band has done it for me like 'Tallica.

Around this time a local rock radio station called 92 Citi FM converted to a 'Classic Rock' station. My favourite era of Metallica was definitely their early work (1983 - 1988) and I found that 92 was playing more music from that era. And so began my Classic Rock 'rebirth' phase.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Left and Leaving

It is with a slightly heavy heart that I write this post, as my brothers are leaving as of today.

Everyone that's every gone to College or University has had to deal with the departure of friends at one time or another. Especially in this day and age with immigration being much more common than it used to be. But today the impact of it seems heavier than it would be with anyone else.

I first met Ahmed and Mohammad, two brothers from Saudi Arabia, early this September. At that time, although we had never met eachother yet, we were in a similar situation. Our meeting could not have been more akward. Two of my classmates and I were hanging out and talking outside when suddenly Mohammad and Ahmed came out the door. One of the guys I was with (who was slightly intoxicated at the time) greeted them in Spanish, immediately assuming they were Mexican exchange students. As if this wasn't embarassing enough, upon finding out that they hailed from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the same idiot went on to with them a "Happy 911." The very idea of saying something so ignorant infront of ANYONE, let alone two Muslims, was enough to make me want to punch him myself...but they showed no signs of anger...in fact, they laughed about it. At that moment, I knew there was something different about these two.

Now whether they were laughing with him or at him really doesn't matter. The point is that laughing about such an ignorant, stupid comment immediately indicated to me that these guys were both self-confident and didn't take life too seriously. Two qualities in which I like to take pride in. Upon discovering we lived on the same floor, we started hanging out regularily. In fact, I don't think a single day went by that we didn't hang out for at least a little while. I learned so much from them and in return, tried to help them with whatever they wanted to know.

I had never met two more generous people in my life. It seemed they just appreciated company more than anything else in this world. We had so many good times over the past 7 months that I can't even collect enough of my thoughts and memories to record them here.

Of all the things I learned from Ahmed and Mohammad, there is just one moral guideline that I gained from them that stands out above all else: No matter where you come from, no matter what race, religion or colour you are, good people are good people.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Killing Mr. Griffin

I'm sure many of us read this book in either high school or junior high, and as of yesterday, the cast just got a little bit younger. Here's is a link to the story to which I am referring:

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/04/01/third-grade-teacher.html?ref=rss

Well it looks like the next generation of gun-happy, school-shooting maniacs are coming along just fine.

Is this as shocking to everyone else as it is to me? Perhaps it shouldn't be. School violence is getting more popular every day it seems. How does it happen that a teacher scolding one child for standing on a chair gets her put on an adolescent hit list?? What happens to these childrens' parents when they scold them? Thirty lashes??!

Maybe that is just it. Are these children being disciplined at all at home? It's pretty easy to blame the parents when anything like this happens, but are they really to blame? We don't really know - and more than likely will never know - how issues of this sort are handled in the homes of these children, so we really have nothing to base that sort of arguement on...unfortunately.

Asking this many questions with so few answers is pretty frustrating. It reminds me of the frustration I felt after every one of the school shootings that have occured over the past decade happened. There are no answers and no good reasons. Isn't it supposed to work that where there is a problem, there is a solution? If only it were that simple. Schools have taken significant security measures since the Columbine tragedy, but in reality, nothing has changed.

School is no longer the safe place that I once knew it as a kid. Perhaps it's just the world in general that isn't as safe as it once was. But there are so few reasons and answers. Only questions.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

The Amazing Playoff Race

So here we are, 3 games away from the start of the NHL playoffs. It has been a very interesting season this year with pretty much the only consistency being Detroit's complete and total domination of the Western Conference. But who really cares about the West? Certainly not the NHL. Just kidding...sort of, but what I really want to talk about is the East anyway. I remember watching Sports Center about half a season ago and Bob Mackenzie was analyzing away as only he can. I recall him saying on this particular day, "aside from the Ottawa Senators, the entire Eastern Conference is very mediocre."

...What the hell happened?? By now we're all used to the Ottawa Senators choking, but it's not even playoff time yet! Now they find themselves with three games left and actually in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time in...who the hell knows! How does a team with so much talent always seem to enjoy toiling with failure? Well part of the reason is easy, I can't remember the Sens ever having a bonafide #1 goaltender. Ray Emery had an impressive playoff last year, but there was just always something about him that led me to believe he wouldn't be able to continue that success. Low and behold, this year he is barely holding on to a job. Martin Gerber was a good pick-up last year but has also proven that he is not a starting goaltender. Before that they tried to quash the issue by signing future hall-of-famer, Dominick Hasek. I thought it was pretty funny when that plan 'flopped'. And even before that it was the Patrick Lalime story. Ahh Patrick Lalime...the goat to some of the greatest Maple Leafs playoff victories in recent history. There is no sweeter memory than Joe Nieuwendyk scoring twice...from the exact same spot on Lalime in game 7. But I digress. So is that the only/main problem with the Sens? No. If anyone remembers the Stanley Cup finals last year, they had 2 prolific scorers that it seemed only came out to play on a full moon. Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley. So much was expected of these two but they, for lack of a better term, shat the bed. Then there's coaching and management issues and yada yada yada.

The bottom line is it's coming dangerously close to cleaning house time for the Sens...but do they have the balls to actually do it? When the media keeps telling you what a great team you've got, it's hard to see past all the 'unfortunate injuries' isn't it Bryan Murray?

Monday, March 31, 2008

Impatience

Do you ever find yourself wishing you could put your life into fast-forward? I don't know if that's a common feeling among others, but that's kind of how I feel right now. Maybe I'm just not a school person, but I'm in this state of mind right now where all I can think about is how much I want school to be over and done with so that I can go on to bigger and better things. Considering I'm a Media Production student and all we ever seem to hear about our futures is how little money we will make, you would think I'd be somewhat reluctant to step into the future. But I'm an optomist and I always have been. I can't help but take a positive approach, in this case anyway. Therefore, I am not too worried about my future job prospectives. Perhaps it would be smarter to worry a little more but I just don't see the purpose in that. There are a lot of things I'd like to do with my education when I graduate next year, but if things aren't looking good, luckily I can always just go back to school (preferably not 2 hours away from my girlfriend). Ahh there it is! It was only a matter of time before the girl factor got brought up. I have been dating an beautiful girl with an incredible personality for nearly 7 months now, pretty much since the school year started. People always say long-distance relationships don't work. I would tend to agree, having experienced that in the past, but this has been more of a part-time long-distance relationship, and I could not ask for it to be any better by this point. I go home usually every second weekend - I'd go home more often if gas wasn't so damn expensive - and although it doesn't seem like I see her nearly enough, it has sufficed. I guess that's what I'm most impatient about. After school is done, jobs will come and go, but I can't wait until I can be with her every day.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Hard times

Well that's it folks. Our beloved Toronto Maple Leafs have officially been eliminated from playoff contention...again. For the first time since 1928 the Leafs have missed the playoffs for a third consecutive season. It's times like this that make it really difficult to be a Leafs fan. While the haters will undoubtedly be questioning my loyalty I feel as though I should make it apparent that I tend to question my own loyalty at times. But you see, I didn't choose to be a Leaf fan. I was born into this. Sure, I loved the Jets like any native Winnipeger, but when they packed up and headed south, there was no way in hell I would be caught cheering for a team from Phoenix (although I still love Shane Doan). So naturally the influence of my dad took over from that point on. The Leafs were always my second favourite team, and when you're dad is a hardcore fan like mine, that sort of influence is pretty hard to overcome (keep in mind, I was only 10 when the Jets left). So don't be furling your brow at me when I express my undying loyalty to a team that has given me very little to cheer for. That is what a real fan is supposed to do. I can't stand all these people who jumped on the New Jersey band-wagon - or any other band-wagon worthy team - when they were winning cups. It sickens me. You don't just switch favourite teams based on who is winning, and if you do, then you're not a real fan. At the same time, who am I, a lowly Leafs fan, to be speaking from atop some high horse. Maybe you band-wagon jumpers have got the right idea. Regardless, that's not for me. So if you don't mind, I think I'll just pout over another disappointing season until this next year...at which point I will undoubtedly be pouting over yet another disappointing season. Hey, at least my Leafs are breaking some kind of records.