Today is Martin Luther King Day, and also inauguration day.  Four years ago today, when Barack Obama was being sworn in as President of the United States, I was in an Ottawa courtroom, fighting a case initiated by a former diplomat who had been associated with anti-Semitism and white supremacy. (My side won, right up to the Supreme Court of Canada.)

So, today is a good day to hear this remarkable speech once more.

Comments (4)

For those interested – and some of you certainly seem to be – one son’s coach didn’t even show up at their weekend tournament. The boys accordingly won the tournament, and my son got to play and score goals, and I haven’t heard him that happy after a game in a long time.

The other son’s coach? Well, I did what I never, ever do. I wrote a note of complaint. Here’s what it said: “How do you expect [son’s name] to feel confident, and play better, when his coaches show so little confidence in him?”

They kept the other boy in. He let in more goals. And so on and so on.

Once again, my pet theory hasn’t changed: the worst part of kids’ sports is the adults.

Comments (9)

Every year, I post my top ten albums of the year around New Year’s Day.  This year, I didn’t.  Apart from my buddy Scott Sellers, I had become convinced nobody read and/or cared.  So I held back.

Lo and behold! I received a number of emails and comments from folks who were Not Scott, wondering where the list was.  Turns out people actually read it, after all!  Who knew?

So, here it is, a bit late, but much-reflected upon, nonetheless.

1. Menzingers – On The Impossible Past:  This is not just the top album of the year.  It is one of the best records I have ever heard, period.  Hailing from Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, these four guys were thought to be heading towards greatness since their formation as a punk outfit in 2006.  Each new release, each new song, revealed the Menzingers to be far, far more than their punk beginnings suggested they could ever be.  With this record – which does not contain a single note that isn’t pitch-perfect – the Menzingers have revealed themselves to be Against Me! (without the willingness to sell out for a hit record), plus Dylan (without the tunelessness), plus The Clash (without the latter-era pretentiousness and self-indulgence).  This is, truly, one of the most extraordinary records you will hear in this year, or any year.  If these guys don’t change your life, you haven’t been listening.
2. Jimmy Cliff – Rebirth:  I have been listening to Cliff, non-stop, since I was 15 years old.  Like most first wave punks, my introduction to reggae – and ska, and bluebeat, and dub – came in the form of the soundtrack to The Harder They Come, in which Cliff stars and sings.  For us skinny, pale, acned young suburban misfits, reggae became the alternative soundtrack to our punk rock lives.  And Jimmy Cliff, more than anyone else, was responsible for that.  He should have been as big, or bigger, than Marley – but he made some bad career moves, and he never quite attained the mythic status of the Tuff Gong.  It is ironic, I think, that Cliff’s greatest record since The Harder They Come was partly the brainchild of another formerly skinny, pale acned young suburban punk – namely the brilliant Tim Armstong of Rancid.  From the side one ‘One More’ to Cliff’s take on Paul Simonon’s ‘Guns of Brixton,’ this album will lift you up – and probably right out of your seat, too.
3. Japandroids – Celebration Rock: Lala and I saw them when they recently came to Tee Dot, playing a sold-out show at the Phoenix.  To say we were disappointed is an understatement.  The mix was lousy, the crowd was annoying, and their performance was choppy – at best.  Part of the reason we were expecting so much is Celebration Rock itself.  It is widely called (by Rolling Stone, Spin, et al.) as one of the top albums of the year, and it is – because it delivers so much.  On it, the Vancouver twosome churn out epic punk anthems for the ages – and their ‘House That Heaven Built’ is the best single of 2012.  You know it’s perfect when (as I did), you bounce along Summertime New England backroads with four young boys in your Jeep, and they are quite content to play that one song over and over, joyously hollering: “When they love you, and they will, tell ‘em all they’ll love in my shadow! And if they try to slow you down, tell ‘em all to go to Hell!” Indeed.
4. Santigold – Master of Make Believe: Like the Menzingers, Santigold is another Pennsylvania-born musical visionary.  Like the Menzingers, Santigold (nee White) got her start in the state’s nascent punk scene, and then went on – improbably – to do A&R work for Epic Records.  Her first album, 2008’s Santogold, was what caught the attention of me and many others: Diplo plus members of Steel Pulse and Bad Brains lent a hand, and the result was a breathtakingly ambitious record, sampling everything from the Clash to Devo to classic hip hop.  Master of Make Believe is just as good, if not better: while Santigold has a broader (and possibly more hit-making) vision, she remains fiercely independent, and she still produces some of the most original rock’n’roll/R’n’B you could care to hear.  Give ‘Disparate Youth’ a spin, and it’ll stick to you like a drawer full of fish hooks.  Genius.
5. Pennywise –All Or Nothing:  Jim Lindberg helped me out, big time, with my book Fury’s Hour (the one of which I will always be proudest), and I was stunned and saddened to hear that he and his Hermosa Beach, California cohorts had parted ways.  Pennywise without Lindberg?  It was inconceivable.  But Ignite’s Zoli Teglas was up to the challenge, and All Or Nothing – despite Lindberg’s absence – is one screamin,’ howlin’ slab of punk rock, and one of the best punk records of the year.  ‘All Or Nothing,’ the title track, also kicks off the record, and is just as memorable as anything that the band ever recorded with Lindberg.  After a back injury, Teglas was sidelined, and devoted himself to encouraging Lindberg to rejoining his old friends. Late in the year, he did, and punk is the better for it.
6. NOFX – Self-Entitlement:  Despite his well-documented fondness for pharmaceuticals, Fat Mike is a prolific producer of punk.  He churns out records the way Octomom creates babies.  As such, you are entitled to wonder if the quality might suffer somewhere along the way.  But on Self-Entitlement, it doesn’t: funny, punny, hummy.  I met up with him again at Toronto’s Riot Fest in the Fall, and gave him one of SFH’s FREE PUSSY RIOT T-shirts.  “Free pussy,” said Fat Mike, without blinking.  “Where do I sign up?”  Some things never change.
7. Soundgarden – King Animal:  Kim Thayill, in my view, is the greatest rock guitarist in the history of the planet.  He is a God.  This band, meanwhile, remains as one of my clichéd Guilty Pleasures: they’re heavy rockers, sure.  They’re heavily metallic, sure.  They’re occasionally emo-style screamers, sure.  But they remain as fascinating and as relevant as they were twenty years ago, too.  King Animal is the band’s sixth waxing, and the first offering from Soundgarden in more than a decade.  ‘Been Away Too Long’ was the album’s debut single, and it told the truth – they’ve been away far too long.  They’re playing in Toronto the weekend of the Ontario Liberal Party’s leadership convention: I don’t know how we’ll get to see them – but we will.  Glad they’re back.
8. Liars – WIXIW: Just when I thought they couldn’t do something totally news and innovative and extraordinary again, they do.  There is no band on Earth as creative as the Liars.  Period.
9. Bruce Springsteen – Wrecking Ball:  It probably isn’t easy to pull off being a multi-milllionaire, and paying tribute to the Occupy Movement’s 99 per cent, all at the same time.  But Springsteen – who I haven’t really paid a lot of attention to since the bleak genius of ‘Nebraska’ – does it on Wrecking Ball, and then some.  Before campaigning (appropriately) for Barack Obama in earnest, the sexagenarian surprised everyone, as he howled against the yawning gap between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless.  Here, he sings for union labourers, Mexican immigrants and civil rights heroes, and he gives you the feeling he means every word, every note.  “[America’s] promise, from sea to shining sea,” remains unrealized, Springsteen sings – but hope, somehow, never fades.
10. WDYHM – SFH: Yeah, yeah, I know.  It’s the band I’m in.  We are too old for this stuff, we’re ridiculous, and we are now down to one original member (that would be me). I know that too. But we got some great reviews on this record, and we had fun doing it.  Here, for instance, is the heretofore unseen ‘Jesus Got Wood,’ Ritalin Boy’s treatise on the Messiah’s chosen profession.  The song was picked for the soundtrack of Julie Pacino’s film, Billy Bates.  We fervently hope it offends.

Comments (12)

Here.

Comments (1)

Good morning, Your Honour.
 
We appear before you this morning to argue for the proposition that the defendant, the National Rifle Association of America, hereafter referred to as the NRA, is properly classified as a terrorist organization.  And, accordingly, that the NRA’s directors and officers have been engaged in a campaign of terror against civilian populations.
 
Our indictment of the NRA, as you know, arises out of section 802 of the USA Patriot Act, No. 107-52, which has expanded the definition of terrorism to cover “domestic,” as opposed to international, terrorism.  Therein, the Patriot Act, which was overwhelmingly supported and passed by all parties in Congress, sets out that a person has engaged in domestic terrorism if they do something that is “dangerous to human life,” which the NRA has in fact done since the earliest days of its 1871 charter in New York State.  
 
To be successful in prosecuting a crime under the Patriot Act, it must be shown that the NRA, one, intimidated or coerced the civilian population – which they have done, ceaselessly, for generations.  Two, that they have influenced the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion – which they have done, with armies of millionaire gun lobbyists, threatening elected representatives with defeat and disgrace if they do not do the NRA’s bidding.  And, three, most crucially, we must show that the NRA has attempted to affect the conduct of our government by “mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.”
 
We cannot state for a fact, Your Honour, that the NRA has actively engaged in assassinations or kidnappings. They have certainly attempted to kidnap and murder democracy.  
 
We can state, however, that the NRA will be shown to have energetically advocated mass destruction, even in the wake of the killings of 20 innocents – mainly children – before Christmas in Newtown.  Their most recent advertising campaign, which offers up the president’s own children as rhetorical fodder, is ample evidence of the NRA’s willingness – like any terrorist organization – to terrorize children, and parents, to achieve their political goals.
 
The political goals of the NRA are simple, Your Honour.  While the NRA repeatedly claims that it seeks to protect the Second Amendment to the Constitution –  and said Amendment states that “a well regulated militia [is]necessary to the security of a free state.”  We take the view that the NRA and its cohorts have willfully twisted the meaning of “a well-regulated militia” to mean the sale of assault weapons, with high-capacity ammunition clips, to the mentally ill.
 
We also take the view that, at the time Thomas Jefferson and other founders ratified the Second Amendment, they did not intend it to be applied to the mass murder of five-year-olds, using assault weapons.
 
We are aware that the definition of terrorism is broad, Your Honour, and that there is a robust debate about when it applies.  But under section 802 of the Act, we remind you that this court need only find that the NRA has – within the territorial confines of the United States – engaged in a campaign of intimidation of coercion of our government, and our citizens.  You  need only find that the NRA seeks to affect the conduct of government by advocating “mass destruction.”
 
Lobbying for guns in schools is that, Your Honour.  So is threatening members of Congress into lifting the ban on assault weapons. So is helping teenagers to purchase AK-47 assault weapons at gun shows.  So is calling law enforcement “jack-booted government thugs.”  So is suggesting the President of the United States facilitates murder.  So, most of all, is assassinating minimal efforts to prevent something like Newtown from every happening again.
 
All these things the NRA has done, Your Honour.  All of these acts of intimidation and coercion are not dissimilar to the campaigns of the Taliban or al-Qaeda.  
 
They may wear expensive suits, Your Honour, but the NRA is not much different from the terrorists.
 
They deserve to be treated as such by this court.
 

Comments (50)

I’m not one of those parents who yells at my kids’ hockey games. It’s supposed to be for fun. None of the kids – none of them – are ever going to play in the NHL. So I generally keep quiet, unless I see a child get hurt.

One of my sons has a coach who sends lengthy, preachy emails, talking about “respect” for the coach. Then, at games, the boys get sworn and yelled at. By the coach.

The other son is a goalie. He gets scored on and gets pulled, instantly. The other goalie gets scored on as much (or more, as today) and stays in.

The worst part about kids’ hockey is never, ever the kids.

It’s the grown-ups.

Comments (15)

Comments (3)

Take this headline-grabbing Friday afternoon revelation, for example.

It came right around the time Sandra Pupatello was giving a major, much-anticipated speech.

I’m sure it’s all just a great big coincidence.

Comments (4)

Sleep on pillows made in Singapore
Wrapped in comforters
Sweating through sheets
Drinking coffee in the morning
Floating on Airplanes across the vast seas

And your house is made of wood
Central air, central heat
You got your furniture of particle board
Your doors are locked for, for safety

And you walk in leather shoes
Pants of denim, a black cotton sweatshirt
And you do what you do
because doing can start to form a habit

And you drink all night long
And you sleep through the morning
And if something doesn’t break
I’m just gonna go, go fucking insane

And you sweep up the floor when it’s dirty
You do the dishes, when the sink’s full
And when the refrigerator’s empty
well it’s time, it’s time, it’s time, it’s time to go the store

You put your books on a shelf
Clothes arranged in the closet
You hang the things on the wall that you don’t wanna be so easily forgotten

I hate these songs
I hate the words
That the singer is singing to me
I hate this melody
I hate this stupid fucking drum beat

But I’m not gonna tell anyone
What I’m really thinking about
Keep them conversations on the surface
Just keep on smiling
Just keep on saying
Everything’s gonna be alright
It’s gonna be alright [x2]
Alright [x11]

Comments (0)

From “John Hanus,” whose name is perhaps unfairly misinterpreted as “Anus.”

From: Johnmarymac@rogers.com
Subject: Your time has come
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 08:50:47 -0500
To: Warren.Kinsella@sunmedia.ca

You will be exposed…GOOD BYE KINSELLA…YOU FUCKED UP…and we’re pissed off.

Comments (18)