The 2021 IMU Award for Biggest Surprise goes to Big Nothing - Dog Hours!
I guess that it's fair to say that I was already a fan of Big Nothing, as I liked their debut 2017 EP a lot, and enjoyed their first full-length pretty well, if less than the EP, too. I also saw them play a great show supporting the EP in the summer of 2017 and it was one of those nights that reminds you that punk is good, the scene still exists, and that it isn't you, it's just what you do.*
*A band that my friend Autumn was in opened this show, but the singer started throwing up all over their guitar pedals out of nerves like 20 seconds into the first song and the band didn't start back up after that. I empathize with them, but also can't lie and say that it wasn't funny in a cringe way. After the set Autumn said, in classic Autumn style, "I don't know what they were upset about. It was mostly water." Big Nothing, making me respect them a lot, mentioned how much guts it took to perform at the start of their set.
I knew that I would check out their new album Dog Hours eventually, but it also wasn't at the top of my most-anticipated releases. Colour me dumb because it's by far the best thing that either they or Spraynard have put out. The punk is turned down and the jangle pop is turned way way up to huge dividends. Only at the end of February, but it's at the top of my list so far.
I first meant to check out Greet Death after they did an interview on blink-155 as a full band, which is basically the best thing you could do to win my attention, and I planned to go see them on tour in Montreal, but that fell apart like the rest of the world did with COVID-19 taking off.
They stuck around in the back of my mind since then, but I also lumped them in with Deafheaven as a blackgaze band for some reason. I listened to one of their new singles on my Spotify Release Radar playlist recently and thought it was good and then found myself thinking "Hey, this is good and right up my alley" when another one came on before I realized it was them.
That sort of experience convinced me that it was finally time and I put on their record New Hell twice today while I worked on my thesis proposal. I know I've mentioned a few times before that there a sweet spot in shoegaze for me and this is absolutely dead centre. The songs hit me pretty well and at certain points it felt like they knew it was currently that awful point between the middle and end of winter, where it's still dark, always wet, and lingering more than you thought it would. I figured that was a coincidence, but when I saw that they were from Flint, I realized they knew this feelings too.
Nothing else to say, just that I am really enjoying this record and it feels perfect for this moment.
Fair warning, I'm am reaching deep into the well of drafts of this one, so I can't promise that the level of thought and cohesion we all know is IMU's calling card will be present this months after the fact. Funny the way that happens, I'll jot down a few ideas to make sure that I don't forget an idea I found interesting, but the longer I go before writing it out, the more the connective tissue between the ideas disintegrates. In life as in blog.
A deeply embarrassing thing about me is that I was a "rap is crap" kid. I wasn't all the way there and had rap records that I liked as a teenager, an inevitability growing up in Scarborough, but I would say I was 60ish% of the way there. I feel like this part of my personality was especially turned up in early high school when I was starting to get into my local punk scene in Toronto and was digging my heels in to make "punk" my persona. It was also due to the commercial rap of the time being dominated by Eminem and G-Unit, which I still haven't come around to liking.
Still, most of my friends in my neighbourhood listened to that stuff and it was often a source of banter with us. I would tell them that 50 Cent sucked and had no talent and they would tell me that NOFX sounded like shit and nobody liked them.
During one of our debates, I was trying to make a point that punk bands were better musicians because they played their instruments live (in hindsight, full-body cringe) and they played the music on the albums (yet another FBC). Two of the guys I was with, Chris and Vito, said something along the lines of
"Are you dumb??"
"What do you mean?"
"The DJ plays the music."
"Yeah, from a record"
"No, they use the turntable."
They thought that a turntable was a musical instrument! And not in a poetic, "the DJ uses it like an instrument" way. They thought that turntables and the mixer were and instrument that played the actual notes of the song.
It was one of those crazy moments where a short statement succinctly communicates how dumb the other person is. A beautiful moment of catching the other person and them just having to sit with it. The extremely powerful feeling of "I know more than you."
In hindsight, is Get Rich or Die Trying or The Documentary better than Punk in Drublic or The Decline? Probably? A thought for a future draft?
Welcome to 2022 in I, Musical Genius. We are pivoting HARD this year and TRYING NEW THINGS. I, Musical Genius is going to INNOVATE and PUSH FORWARD. No more emo write-ups of albums. No more trying to sound intelligent when talking about movies or observations. We are putting our FINGER ON THE PULSE of culture. We will start with a discussion of a record.*
*I was reminded of the early viral video "Power Thirst" by Pinic Face today that my friends and I were all obsessed with in our university residence dorm. It's between that and "My New Haircut" for the things that best exemplify the early days of YouTube for me, though I wish people other than Pat and myself were familiar with the guy who did voice-overs of John Petrucci guitar instructional videos.** Maybe "Power Thirst" made me write out this dumb intro. Despite that, I still had to italicize I, Musical Genius, even though an moron probably wouldn't.
**My friend Katie married a great guy named Tom last year. I consider Tom a friend, but we were always kind of ships passing in the night. I feel like we have a lot in common and are two different versions of the same sort of Ontario punk guy. He's the only person I ever met who also knew these videos.
I found Esther Rose's album How Many Times last year, but didn't spend enough time with it for it to make it onto my year-end music list. Still, there are tracks on it and I've been enjoying it as some mopey winter music while the days are short and my mental capacity shrinks. I guess that giving a record its own proper write-up is actually more attention than something would get in a short list, but the prestige is reversed, I promise you.
Country is a bit of a weird thing for me and I don't think I've found my "guy" yet in the genre. I didn't listen to it much at all until Daniel Romano pastiched it on his first solo records, which is what opened my eyes to the good parts of the genre. I'm long past my days of believing that any particular genre is good or bad or more worthy or important than any other, but country is still a path that I haven't walked too far down. I'm sure there is a canonical great whose vibe clicks with me and who will kick off a gigantic country period for me, but that's in the future.*
*Apparently we're doing a lot of notes today. I bought the album Hard to be Humble by Mac Davis in 2019 and wondered if that would be something I would get into by virtue of owning. Didn't happen, but it's still a funny record. Also of note, I found this guy only just died and wrote songs for Elvis in the 60s (cool I guess? I don't know) and Weezer in the 10s (funny).
Sometimes though, the mopey forelorn vibe of a good country song does hit the spot and I find that Esther Rose's album is doing that for me at the moment. While Romano committing completely to the gimmick is fun, especially when the songs are that good, I also like Rose's personal lyrics on the record. "My Bad Mood" and "Coyote Creek" back to back is my favourite part.
Becks and I are almost done Game of Thrones and the end of the show is pretty dumb. I was saying that it was still extremely watchable, especially as a binge, but that was before every episode was 80 minutes. Why not make ten 50-minute episodes instead of six 80-minute ones? High on twists and CGI, but low on good conversations. While the early part of the show showed people traveling everywhere for episodes at a time, everyone now just zips around to all corners of the map, which cuts out all the great character building that happened along those trips. I would also say that I thought Daenerys was dumb from the first episode, but that would require to wade into dumb fandom conversations that the show was surrounded by and that ain't me babe.4
I will also say that I'm at the end of season five of The Sopranos and it is the complete inverse, with the writing being just as if not more sharp than any other point in the series and characters growing now more than ever. Shout out to my twin Buscemi.*
I feel like the last six or seven years have been really good for punk and hardcore and when you combine that with the constant creative push forward that is always happening in rap, it's been an especially great time for music. Maybe I'm just too enthusiastic and that's boring, but damn homie you're the one here reading!
Angel Du$t - YAK: A Collection of Truck Songs
Something I found interesting this year was that both Angel Du$t and Turnstile released EPs ahead of their full-lengths and that every song on both ended up on the albums. A new style of marketing in the streaming age? A quirk of the Trapped Under Ice family tree? I think that AD's full-length ended up a lot better and is by far the best articulation of their sound. A great slow song featuring Tim Armstrong! Probably my album of the year.
Turnstile - Turnstile Love Connection
Like I said, I think the EP format worked out a lot better for Turnstile. Glow On is still a great record with cool songs, but this shorter release is more cohesive. This blew me away and maybe my expectations were too high. In any case, the feature music video for the entire EP is one of my favourite videos ever and one of the coolest things to ever come out of hardcore.
Tyler the Creator - CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
Was never much of an OFWGKTA guy, but really enjoyed Tyler's last two records and how he's developed and changed as a rapper and producer as he gets further into his career. This album is my favourite yet and probably my favourite rap album of the year. Such an amazing vibe here that feels like you're touring Europe while listening to DatPiff.
Mach-Hommy - Pray for Haiti
Griselda Records and everyone associated with them has been pretty much bulletproof for the last couple of years and I've returned to this record more than any other. It has the same chill and mumbly/extremely hard contrast that Westside Gunn and Benny the Butcher have, but this record is super focused and the world-building is great.
Militarie Gun - All Roads Lead to the Gun I
For a while this year, I thought that this release might be my favourite release, but it felt like picking an EP felt like a copout. Feels like Dinosaur Jr. and the Lemonheads filtered through extreme hardcore and it's done basically as well as it can be. Would love to see what this band could do with a full-length, but am just as happy to see them continue putting out 4-songers.
Webbed Wing - What's So Fucking Funny?
Webbed Wing's first record Bike Rides Across the Moon was intriguing sonically but definitely unfinished in a few spots. This is a fuller version of their college rock from a punk background and is one of my favourites this year. Sometimes it's just fun to rock.
Mo Troper - Dilettante
Mo Troper was one of my biggest finds this year and I gave Beloved a tonne of spins ahead of the release of Dilettante. While this isn't as focused as the former, I really like them leaning into the Guided By Voices vibe of a 28-song record where most songs are under 1:30.
Just Friends - JFC Crew Vol. I &II
Nothing but Love was in constant rotation during 2020 and even though I'm sure Just Friends' mix of pop-punk/funk/pop/rap is not for everyone, I find it super refreshing to see a band be so focused on not sounding like anyone else in punk. Seeing them also try new stuff here, doing remixes of songs, singles that sound like nothing else they've done, and a SONG FEATURING LIL B, was even better.
Anna Fox Rochinski - Cherry
I don't remember how I found this record, as I had no frame of reference for AFR or her old band Quilt, but this was one of the more original-sounding things I heard this year. A little shoegazey, but never slow, poppy, but off-kilter, firmly post-punk but definitely dancy. "Party Lines" and "Epilogue/Overture" are two of the best songs of the year.
ALLBLACK - TY4FWM
I had high hopes for this one after NO SHAME 3 and even if it didn't live up to that, this was still a tight full-length that has everything that makes ALLBLACK one of the best rappers alive. It makes me want to yell "Thank you for fucking with me!" all the time.
2nd Grade - Wish You Were Here Tour Revisited
2nd Grade has dominated my listening over the last two or so years and though I'm jonesing for a new full-length, this re-release of their first record, with new full-band versions of 7 of the songs from the original is a great replacement. "Favourite Song" has, predictably, been my favourite song of the last few years, so hearing a new cut of that was particularly great. The band is so jubilant that you can't help but love it.
Was having a supremely hard day working through my thesis yesterday. Both now and in my MA I've found that the further you get into a self-directed research project like this, the more of a toll that it takes on your mental health. It sucks.
During this I started listening to the tracks that Bad Time Records has released from the forthcoming compilation The Shape of Ska-Punk to Come Vol. II. Included on this was a new Jeff Rosenstock song that made me start to tear up while listening and these are the reasons I can think of:
1. Rosenstock returning to ska and making a song that sounds like the early days of Bomb the Music Industry! that I love and connect to so much.
2. Rosenstock caring about ska as a genre enough that he still makes ska songs and wanted to contribute to this comp by an emerging label to give new bands the rub.
3. Me getting emotional while struggling with school reminding me of the bad old days of my undergraduate degree when it felt like Jeff Rosenstock was the only person in the world who understood me.
A pleasant part of the recent... renewal... of interest... in ska? (trying my hardest to not say revival) is that a lot of new media about ska has accompanied it. I was a message board rat during the 2000s, which I would say was the height of that culture, and during that time it felt like there was a lot of cool internet stuff and communities focused on ska that were both fun to read and helped really expand my understanding of the genre. As the 00s moved into the 10s, it felt like there was a lot less of that, though I guess I could also chalk that up to me becoming more focused on exploring other genres of music for a little while.
On one hand, I agree with the current view that saying ska died from like 2007-2019 unfairly glosses over the contributions of bands like the Fad, We Are the Union, and labels like Community Records.* On the other hand though, I think the generalization that the vast majority of ska shows were either headlined by Less Than Jake (still making good records then!), Reel Big Fish (vomit emoji, especially in 2010), or Streetlight Manifesto (opinion changes daily), or featured bands trying to be them, was correct. As sad as it is to say, I think that it's also fair to add the Johnstones to that list, specifically in Canada. I kept trying to find new bands, and I never got tired of listening to the genre, but shit did get pretty dark there for a bit and there was slim pickings.
*An interesting wrinkle is that this is also when Bomb the Music Industry's popularity began to really take off, but also when they began to feature less and less ska on their records, which I don't think is unrelated.
This is all to say that I am once again writing about happy I am with the current generation of new ska bands, all creating interesting music and none dressing like a caricature of a 90s cartoon character the way white kids from the suburbs did in 2012. Along with these new bands have come a bunch of new internet stuff around that, and I'm thinking of the In Defense of Ska podcast in particular. It's not always great, but I really appreciate that it always focuses on the bands and how important they are, which is not something that often happens with ska. More so than any genre of music I can think, ska bands seem to be subservient to the genre norms.
A recent episode of In Defense of Ska featured Dave McWane from Big D and the Kids Table, who were one of the most influential bands on me during my adolescence and legitimately played a gigantic role in shaping both me as a person and my outlook on the world. I've written about them and their effect on me before on here and I was about to say that I won't do that again, even though that's exactly what I'm about to do.
I haven't actually read that many interviews with Dave, who seems to be the main creative force in the band and is (I think) the only remaining original member, so I found his take on the history of the band interesting. In particular, McWane mentioned antagonism as a key part of the early days of the band, which was something I was always trying to name, but never really could. He mentioned that they never really enjoyed headlining shows because that generally meant that the audience was already on their side and was there to see them, whereas when they opened for other bands, whether that was the Dropkick Murphys or even bigger, but less punk ska bands, their was more of a friction with the crowd that the band thrived off of.
That sense of antagonism was palpable and was also a huge part of what drew me into the band. As much as they were still a ska band, they really did push back against other bands, labels, and trends in a way that, in my eyes, legitimated them as a punk band too. It felt like everyone in the band were actually punks, so that when they played fast parts or hardcore parts, it seemed completely natural, as opposed to the hackneyed "clean verse, kick on distortion pedal for the chorus" model that all bad ska-punk followed. A big part of that was me being young and impressionable and this being the first time I had heard the "fuck everyone else" message given in such an emphatic way. But even though I was a naïve teen who was inspired to take on the world from this record, that still matters.
A memory that sticks with me that kind of sums this sense of connection up is something that happened to my friend Pat in high school, who was just as into Big D as I was. It was definitely not cool to like ska at the height of third wave emo and Pat was wearing a Big D hoodie to school that had a checkerboard pattern across the front. In the halls, a guy we knew who was a hardcore kid, without even acknowledging or speaking to Pat, just said "ska sucks" under his breath. It felt like all the people who were into punk, in whatever way, hated ska, but Big D made it feel cool to say "Fuck them anyways."
Because Big D were "My Band" for a stretch of like three years, Good Luck, The Gypsy Hill EP, and How It Goes were all in my walkman on the way to and from school, something that seemed like a gigantic deal to me in like 2007 was the band starting to get a little bigger and also changing their sound slightly. From my perspective, on the band's new album Strictly Rude, which was released on the comparatively bigger punk label Side One Dummy, it felt like the antagonism was now clearly gone, though others didn't find the change as jarring as I did.
My take on the changes in the band's sound were that it was partly due to member changes. The liner notes to How It Goes featured notes from the members about the writing process of each of the songs (the best) and something I noticed was that saxophonist Dave Bush, who left the band between How It Goes and Strictly Rude, had lots of notes and seemed to figure into the writing process in a major way. When the band left their harsher ska-core sound for something that sounded a lot closer to regular ska-punk on Strictly Rude, my take was that Bush's absence was the reason for less interesting music. I've never heard anyone else mention this, but it's one of those takes that I'll probably carry for the rest of my life.*
*Another note on member changes: Guitarist Sean P. Rogen, who is maybe my favourite ska-punk guitarist, left the band somewhere after Strictly Rude. I think he was similarly integral to the band making good music and I feel like his absence is glaringly obvious on later stuff.
I had never heard the band, or I guess more accurately McWane, talk about this period of the band, aside from the usual puff pieces in music publications that always come out during an album promotion cycle, so when he started discussing the writing period of Strictly Rude, my ears perked up and I was eager to hear about it. He actually did echo what I thought about the songs, saying that they're happier or more positive compared to their earlier stuff, but he attributed that to the fact that it was a generally happy time in the band's existence. They were signing to a bigger label, touring all the time, and were still young enough to just bask in the fun of being a band and fucking around. When he phrased it that way, it made a lot of sense to me and softened the record a bit to me.
In hindsight, they didn't really sell out in the way I thought they did, but I also think it's fair to say that they did a little. There was a tone of political hope on the record, as I guess they were now done being morose about the Bush administration, but even then (and more so now) that type of political outlook didn't jive with me. Getting the band's perspective on the record made the context of the record a little more in focus, but I still think that 17-year-old me picked up on something real, so I've got to commend myself for that.
I recently saw somebody on Twitter mention the "third year of COVID" and that knocked me on my ass a bit. As much as it's possible to mark out the things that I've accomplished and remember events that show how long it's been, it also feels like no time has passed at all. Pierre has turned into an old dog during this pandemic, but I don't feel like I've aged at all (I have, dramatically).
One of the ways that I'm able to recognize the passage of time has been the TV shows that Rebecca and I have watched. In general, we've erred on the side of caution with COVID, which has resulted in a lot of TV watching. It goes through cycles, where sometimes I feel couped up and stircrazy and another night on the couch makes me feel like a personal failure, and sometimes watching TV is the only thing that feels normal. Behold the TV COVID calendar:
True Detective: The first week of the pandemic, when staying inside felt good
The Wire: Rebecca working support in people's homes and COVID weighing the heaviest it ever did
The Mandalorian: Rebecca working overnights and me being home alone on Saturdays
Sex Education: Vaccines being handed out and things starting to feel normal
There's many others that I'm missing, but this was all just a prelude for me to mention that Becks and I's current watch is Game of Thrones, which I'm coming to well after it was one of the biggest phenomena in TV history. We're now halfway through the show (shoutout to the Free People and Brotherhood without Banners) and I have some thoughts on the progression of the show.
Mostly, I've been thinking about the balance of adapting a series of novels while still bowing to the conventions of Peak TV. Game of Thrones moves fast and has already killed off a bunch of characters who I thought would be around for the long haul, so the natural reaction is to guess what the next major plot event will be. The show is pretty conventional and straight forward, so often conjecture is pretty easy, because a character will have said exactly what they were thinking and going to do on episode prior.
However, what I find interesting is that the events of the show have to follow the book. For example, when Tyrion was sentenced to death, I would have normally said that there was no way he could possibly die because Peter Dinklage was the breakout star of the show and was one of its most-loved character. Normally, killing off a character like that would be the absolute biggest move that a show could do (Stringer Bell), but what about if the character Tyrion died in the second book of the series? Must suck to be the writers have to say goodbye to the guy who's carrying the show, right? An added wrinkle to this is that the series started after the first bunch of books were published, but then ended before the last book came out. The production of the two entities are braided in an interesting way.
I guess that in this case, it's to my benefit that I haven't read the books, because the surprises are still fun. This will be the one time that I support TV over the book, due to fantasy books being very much not for me.
Even though I don't post selfies of me in costumes at home in my apartment, I love Halloween about as much as anyone. It's my favourite holiday by a wide margin and even though it's corny, I will cop to getting warm feelings once the decorations come out and you start seeing people in costumes. Similarly to how I went through all the times I went to Warped Tour, I figured I would do a quick shot of all of my Halloween:
First Halloween out with my class. We all met in Andrew's basement and there were girls there too, which was exciting, but I was obviously so nervous about that. I had my worst costume ever, which was "Scream the Thug" wearing a ghostface mask with a toque over it.
Smoked a joint in the ravine while all of us were dressed up as Magnum PI. We didn't have a plan and mostly just roamed around the neighborhoud, eventually starting to stop on the way to get candy because we were high. An old lady got mad at us and told us that we were too old to trick or treat and didn't even have costumes. We told her we were Magnum P.I., but she just said that we had vandalized her lawn. (We didn't)
Dressed up as the MC Bat Commander, with a homemade mask and belt over my dad's windsurfing wetsuit. Went to hang out with Erik in East York. Some guy talked shit to us and said he was from the Dawes Road Crips before eventually jacking our candy.
Blacktop Manhattan played a Halloween show and I dressed up as a hair metal guy. For some reason, I wore a sweat band under my wig and lost it that night.
In first year university, I re-did my hair metal costume with Brian joining me in it. Because I was now free to drink as much as I wanted and had unlimited booze available to me, I carried around a bottle of Jack Daniels all night and drank it straight. I got way too drunk, was hungover for three days, and had trouble swallowing food. Shortly after this night, I converted to skinny jeans full-time.
I made a Skeletor costume out of a hoodie I bought at Value Village and did my own makeup. It looked super shitty, but I liked it. Smoked a joint in a very fancy SUV.
Started to think of my costumes early in the year. Pat, Brian, and I went as B4-4 at Logan Street. Everyone still asks me to send this photo to them.
Started to watch old WWF Coliseum Home Video tapes and went as the early 90s WWF as a group. I was Macho, with Hulk, the Ultimate Warrior, Roddy Piper, and Bret Hart. Brian and I won a game of beer pong on the last shot and Brian ripped his shirt open as he sank the winning shot. I threw a necklace in celebration and it hit a girl in the face.
Went as Finn the Human while in the deepest part of my Adventure Time obsession, which I've already talked about here. Pat as Darth Vader in a fedora is the best costume that ever has or will exist. The two of us were the only high ones at the party and that was very funny to us.
Thought of going as Riff-Raff on the day of a Halloween cover show. Drew the cornrows onto a bald cap and did the tattoos with a sharpie. The Decay as the Misfits, Congratulations as Taking Back Sunday, Teen Violence as the Ramones, and Mighty Atom as the Stooges. Rebecca went as Lil' Debbie in our only ever couples costume.
Couldn't think of a costume all day. Vanja taught his class as a monk, and Coni hers as Andy Warhol. I held up a piece of paper that said I was "too po-mo for a costume" which is actually maybe my worst costume. Almost went to Abstract that night and was scrambling at the last second. JK suggested I wear a Jays jersey over a Raps jersey over a Leafs jersey and go as the Toronto kid. I ended up wearing a satin jacket that said "Alberta" over a lifeguard pinnie as "Chad the Lifeguard from Alberta", which was good for the last second, I think.
We hosted a party at our apartment and I dressed up as Pierre, while he dressed up as me. It was cute, though there was probably a better way to do the face makeup.
First Halloween in Montreal and I decided to just make a basic skeleton costume my go-to moving forward. Went to a concert at a goth bar and it was fun. A guy drank a bottle of beer through a straw, under an open umbrella indoors.
The latest in the torrential downpour of bad news over the last two years? Club Super Sexe burned down!
I kid. 1. It's been more than 10 years since I've been to a titty bar and I've never gone to Super Sexe and 2. The club has been closed for ages (I don't care enough to look up how long).
Still, Club Super Sexe is a hilarious integral part of Montreal history and the city's weird-ass identity. I remember driving by the club on a coach bus while coming into the city for New Year's Eve in grade 12 and just thinking "What the fuck is this place?" When I heard the news about the club, I was reminded of the story that Super Sexe always reminds me of, so I guess that warrants an A! A! post.
That same New Year's Eve trip I just mentioned was organized by the high school that all of my friends went to. It almost felt like a class trip, except that we were all out on our own and, being 17, were looking to drink constantly.* Having this amount of freedom was so new and exciting to us. After seeing the façade of the club on the way in, the idea of actually going there became a topic of conversation for the rest of the weekend, even though none of the people I was hanging out with had fake IDs to get in.
*This trip was the first time that I got too drunk.
However, a room of jocks from the school that we were hanging out with did have fakes and decided to go there the first night of the trip. At the time I felt so insecure because it seemed crazy to me that they were going to a strip club at our age, but in hindsight they were definitely such an awkward group of tiny boys in there.
The next day we were all hungover and everyone did a circuit through the hotel to visit everyone's rooms and talk about what they had done the night before. Chris and I went to go see Damien, who was staying with these bros and while we were there they filled us in about what it was like going to Super Sexe. One of the guys, Tom, had this very low, monotone voice that made most things he said sound funny.* His recap of the night was"
"Man, I was sitting there and the girl's pussy was right in my face. It was awesome."
His voicing of that will stick in my head forever and it still makes me laugh
*I got to know Tom a little better later because we both worked at Ontario Place, albeit in different departments. A fantastic dude.
Watched Dune last weekend and it rocked. I don't really have the eternal bond to the book that most fans do, but it is a great piece of sci-fi and does have the "it" factor that makes books stick with you. My dad has mentioned that when he was younger and both sci-fi and fantasy were still decades away from being mainstream cool, that Dune and Lord of the Rings were the two books that were these word-of-mouth interesting things you would hear about and have to read. For whatever reason, I really like that and it informs my enjoyment of both books a lot. Anyways, the movie rocked.
The other day, I was linked to the short Nicole through the Humourism newsletter. It's super funny and hits this exact sweet spot of great comedians making shorts as they emerge. Hard to describe why I like that so much, but I do. Please enjoy this very funny short film.
