James Jewel Osterberg – Iggy Pop, Iggy Stooge, the Risen Rock’n’Roll Messiah, age 60+ – played with his Stooges in front of TWENTY THOUSAND PEOPLE in Dundas Square in Toronto tonight. It was extraordinary.

Even more extraordinary, something that made it a rock’n’roll event for the ages: hearing 20,000 sing ‘Now I Wanna Be Your Dog.’ And knowing all the words.

Lord, take me home now. It won’t ever get better than this.

Comments (6)

• The Summit Scandal: The fake lake, the roads to nowhere, the airport no one will use: where these revelations hurt the Harper government the most, I think, is with their own base.  I’ve received quite a few emails and comments from card-carrying Conservatives who are perfectly livid about the summitry excess.  I mean, even Pierre Bourque – whose race car bears the CPC logo – has been alleging 80 per cent of the G20 supplier contracts have been issued without competition (is that true?).  The Reformatories have become, fully, what they said they were coming to Ottawa to eliminate.
• The Secret Circle: Laureen Harper was very kind to my daughter, a few years back, and I’ve been a fan ever since.  I may disagree with many of the policies of her husband’s government – but the Canadian First Lady is one of the nicest folks you’d ever care to meet, hands down.  A great Diebel read, comme toujours.
• The Sinister Stories Syndicate:  My God Almighty, why have so many knickers gotten in a knot over the plans of former Harper spokesman Kory Teneycke and Quebecor to (i) invest in Canadian journalism and (ii) provide more choice for news consumers? I mean, why is Don Newman – who is a nice man, but who has never exactly been the most exciting thing ever seen on television – so apoplectic about Kory’s plans?  Why is Official Ottawa so aghast and atwitter?  Christ, you’d think someone had forgotten to remove the crusts from the cucumber canapés at a Kingsmere garden party! Read Wells for an account that doesn’t hyperventilate.

Comments (43)

I was on John Tory’s Newstalk 1010 show tonight and, shortly thereafter,  a well-known local Tory (not Tory Tory, but a Tory who is a Tory – that is, not a Tory named Tory) asked me to post the banner below.  Link to the web site is here. (And, yes, I did the Who Is on it, too. Nada.)

It’s Summertime.  Lighten up. We can dream, can’t we?

Comments (6)

That little-known nostalgia act, Little Timmy and the HSTs, are touring Ontario – and the reviews are pouring in!

Adam Radwanski has a column about Timmy’s tune-making in today’s Globe:

“Mr. Hudak’s Tories don’t have [the ability to make “a principled and non-conflicted case” against the HST]. Their ties to the federal party that championed the HST, combined with the fact that they don’t fundamentally oppose the nature of the reform, have limited their ability to benefit from the issue in and of itself.”

And there’s also this boffo review, from the Guelph Mercury yesterday:

“Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak was once again all talk and no promised action during a visit to Guelph.  As he did in previous stops — Hudak has been in Guelph four times during the last 14 months — he lashed out at Premier Dalton McGuinty and the looming harmonized sales tax, which takes effect July 1. But the leader again failed to offer a concrete solution to the tax.”

Then, there’s my latest favourite, also from yesterday, in the Toronto Star:

“While Hudak insists he opposes the tax, he has also pointedly decline to promise to repeal it.  Party sources say that’s because the leader, who has a masters in economics from the University of Washington, sees the merit in taxing consumption instead of income to spark productivity.”

What a tune! “We Really, Really Hate It, But We Won’t Get Rid Of It, Because We See The Merit In It!”

Long song title.  Doesn’t sound like a hit to me, but what do I know?

Comments (8)

My pal Richard – who I am really, really proud to call my friend – has racked up yet another win.  First it was the National Post, now it’s some of the kooks at a far-right hate site called Free Dominion:

On June 16, 2010, the following post appeared on www.freedominion.com.pa under the new thread title “Apology to Richard Warman”

“In 2007, I published on the Internet material that attacked the personal and professional reputation of Richard Warman. These attacks were unjustified and I retract and apologize for them without reservation.”

“Andrew Spencer (Droid1963)”

Spotted by BCL, natch.  Richard’s web site is here.

Go, Richard!

Comments (5)

• The Canadian Press: “The current and former Liberal leaders have been at odds of late over whether their party should find some way to join forces with the NDP, be it through an electoral non-compete pact, a coalition or outright merger. Chretien has publicly suggested the party should pursue some sort of co-operation with the NDP in order to defeat Stephen Harper’s Tories in the next election. And he’s admitted he’s had casual discussions on the matter with former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, although he’s stressed he has no mandate to negotiate anything.”
• Amherst Citizen: “Some Canadians are still wondering how Harper, whose partisan approach and controlling behaviour have kept him at a distance from most, managed to become our prime minister. The answer is simple. He swallowed his pride and merged the Canadian Alliance with the Progressive Conservative Party, to create the ruling Conservative Party of today…”
• Rick Salutin, Globe: “This has often been a subject of speculation. It has now moved into serious discussions. However, an anonymous Liberal organizer told the Toronto Star it won’t happen, because “They’re socialists, we’re not.” Would that it were so, as they say in the Talmud. It would be nice to have someone at least make the case.”

UPDATE: Related, and worth reading.

Comments (2)

Last night, after a SFH get-together, we saw Mudhoney at Michael Hollett’s (hey, Michael!) NXNE in Dundas Square.

And then, at 10 p.m….X!

X!

I’ve waited thirty years to see these guys; when I was a teenager, I reckoned they were the coolest outfit on the planet. Having seen them, I can now die, a contended man [wild cheers go up, country-wide – Ed.].  X was as tight and fast and as passionate as ever – they were amazing.  The only disappointment: they didn’t play ‘Blue Spark.’ To get Friday started right, here they are, many years back, playing on Letterman (and featuring a hilarious exchange between Dave and Billy Zoom):

Comments (5)

A loonie boondoggle: Ostentation in a time of austerity

Jun 17th 2010 | Ottawa

FOR all his gifts as a political tactician, Stephen Harper, Canada’s Conservative prime minister, may have miscalculated how much Canadians want to pay to host the G8 and G20 summits from June 25th to 27th. As the government struggles to close a large budget deficit, it is spending C$1.2 billion ($1.2 billion) to host the world’s leaders-60% more than Japan, the previous record holder, coughed up for the G8 gathering in Okinawa in 2000.

Mr Harper points out that Canada is holding back-to-back summits-doubling the cost, he says. The government also notes that it can hardly be blamed for providing airtight security. It has built a steel fence around the woodland cottage resort at Muskoka that will receive the G8, and deployed special forces on overtime to lurk in the water and surrounding forest.

But critics counter that Mr Harper could have saved money by inviting the G20 to Muskoka as well, rather than receiving them separately in Toronto, 200 km (125 miles) to the south. Moreover, they note that much of the budget has gone on items of dubious utility and taste. The prime minister has become the butt of jokes for commissioning an artificial lake, complete with mock canoes and recordings of the call of the loon, for the G20 summit’s media centre-which sits just yards from the real Lake Ontario. In Muskoka taxpayers are on the hook for a refurbished steamboat that won’t even float until the summit is over, and new outdoor toilets 20km from the meeting site. So much for small government.

Comments (12)

• Norm Spector: “Personally, I’m with Mr. Chrétien on this one. Who better than he—having run successfully three times against a divided right—to understand that the division of the opposition vote, if it continues, will likely mean the election of a third consecutive Conservative government?”
• Brent Noiles: “Liberals shouldn’t summarily dismiss the NDP as a fringe party of socialist wing-nuts, and NDP members shouldn’t pretend they are so morally superior that they can’t co-operate with anyone but themselves. The combined arrogance must end. Instead of dismissing each other, their parties and their policies, the respective leaders might try rising above the small stuff for a change. A closer, more honest look might reveal there’s more that unites than divides.”
• Browne and Lang:  “Coalitions, governing accords, or other novel arrangements might not be the best option in the minds of many Canadian progressives — particularly Liberals who are used to winning government without making concessions to other parties. But new approaches might be the only option to forming a progressive government any time soon in light of these structural political trends.”

And that’s just this morning.

Comments (38)

This is wonderful news – and long, long overdue.

To celebrate, here’s a detail from Bill Reid’s extraordinary Spirit of Haida Gwaii sculpture – which you may have spotted at Vancouver’s airport, or the Canadian embassy in Washington, or (almost certainly, since 2004) on the back of a twenty dollar bill.  To me, he was the greatest Canadian artist.

Comments (5)