Current honour roll:
TV on the Radio, Howe Gelb, NIN, Chad Van Gaalen, QotSA, Twin Fangs, Whitey Houston, Wet Secrets, Vertical Struts R.I.P., SYL, All Purpose Voltage Heroes, Vail Halen, maybe a few more. Check out the Eurthymics first album, In the Garden, when Dave Stewart had full control. But even more importantly ---> IRON MAIDEN and JUDAS PRIEST.
Movies
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; La Dolce Vita! Most of the pretty Miyazaki cartoons - Howl's stinks; Wild at Heart; Dead Man; Coffee & Cigarettes; Wild Zero; AC/DC's Family Jewels; The Complete History of Iron Maiden Vol. 1; To Kill a Mockingbird; Gladiator (pretend it's a western and you'll get it); anything nerds like, especially Blade Runner with the ambiguous ending. Serenity's fucking awesome, too. And any movie about Rome or Jesus or both.
Television
Besides Miami Vice and SCTV, Sopranos and Battlestar Galactica - fucking seriously! OK, by now everyone knows it's the best show on TV, especially e306.
Books
Big Cormac McCarthy revival going on. Also see heroes, then add Haruki Murakami; the non-fiction historical wonders of Erik Durschmeid; that fabulous Louis Riel comic; and the Waldo-finding books of Martin Handford. You should also check out Lapinot, French bunny cartoons by Louis Trondheim - fucking gorgeous. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Glossy photo books, especially about Japan. Then, you know, the usual self-loathing shit we all smile at. And porn.
Heroes
Hunter S. Thompson; Bill Murray; David Sedaris; David Suzuki; David Bowie; David Byrne; Wayne (David) Gretzky; Cat and Sophia (David) Griwkowsky; David the statue.
About me: Seeing as I'm not in the market for any dink-greasing, I may as well do the ol' nervous resume thing. Recently won "best local journalist" for the third time - this one meant the most. I also won a contest to name Exclaim!'s punk section: No Future. I have several weekly columns about politics, music and videogames. I do and or have written or shot or cartooned for: U of A's Gateway; SEE Magazine; Vue; Edmonton Sun; Edmonton Journal; ed; Montreal Gazette; Toronto Star; Exclaim! national music monthly; Penguin Eggs roots mag; Rue Morgue; Beat Route; Art Magazine; Maxim; CMJ ... plus I get picked up by various Sun papers nationally, including Winnipeg. Thanks to glam photos for various bands and the Loyal Loot Collective, my shots have been in magazines and newspapers around the globe (eg. England, Germany, lately Sweden's Plaza), and I was interviewed by CBC for the umpteenth time, this time about Ezra Levant. I once drew a US/Canada/UK-distributed comic called Uberbabe and later illustrated a book called Monsters of the World written by Darren Zenko, though quit both because I'm a bitch and won't comprimise my good name for any reason, especially when it comes to creativity. I'm the oldest continuous Gateway volunteer (since 1989) and my strips Space Cat and Varsity Happenings have there run on and off since '93 and '95. Sheesh. I'm also secretly another paid cartoonist in town, penning the news-related Eh-political. What I really dig most is manual labour, though, like building steel grain bins.
I have a massif load of dead Star Wars toys I never peer at, and have roamed the world from Japan to Indonesia, through western Europe, Mexico and of course that insane bitch, the United States. Spain and Switzerland are new arrivals and there is no city as captivating as Barcelona.
I've interviewed Merle Haggard, David Suzuki, Ron Jeremy, C-3P0, Metallica, Frank Black, Alice Cooper, Ministry, Shania Twain, Worf, Franz Ferdinand, System of a Down and even shaken hands with David Bowie (paid gig) and Bill Clinton (had to buy his book first - DAMN). Sometimes my hands smell funny.
My grandpa was a captain in the Russian Army during WWII and when some of his own soldiers showed up drunk on the front line, he SHOT them. Ironically, he was well-known for his boozing and loud poetry in later life. All I know is that he didn't shave enough and that I loved him and that he died coming home from his best friend's funeral, hit by a truck outside the Transit Hotel. His real last name was Zoz, which I use of the gaming column.
I thankfully escaped a soft nihilism brought on by David Suzuki and Carl Sagan's repeated descriptions about the scale of the universe, both in terms of time and volume. I still loved you, it's just that in a 15-billion-year cosmic effort, it was hard to believe anyone would notice for long. Still, the vastness soothes me.
I miss Sailor a lot, but Walnut's been an exceptional cat. And lest we forget Lady Dara, who I'll marry before you know it.
UPDATE: 070707, Bowman's farm. Be there.
Hope to see you down at the Heart of the City Festival Fundraiser May 15 at the ARTery. The festival promotes downtown Edmonton's grassroots artists and musicians.
Still feel burned because the Dub Vulture show was smoked out at the Blackened Dog? Sob no more. Dub Vulture plays the Empress Ale House this Saturday. 4PM! No Cover! Sue!
