Palin-itis is catching, no?

Can we blame Cindy McCain for having a little drug problem? Geez, I wish I could turn around a bad job interview McCain-style: “Uh, so, I couldn’t agree with you with him to disagree with him that you, and uh, the customer service to agree that we disagree that your qualifications store is the greatest! and I love your tie! *hire me*!”

Radius & Helena launch album (into space) at Massey Hall, Centuries Lounge

Ryan and Borg

Toronto band Radius and Helena released their album, ‘Precious Metals’ with a sold-out show at Massey Hall’s Centuries Lounge. The night was made special with a unique lineup of supporting acts, starting with arpeggio dungeon master, Discordant Euphony. Following that brutally awesome set, hip-hop’s cleverest, Wordburglar treated the crowd to his fantastic freestylin’ superhero sound, and Uncut delivered a high-energy set that sent the contents of the liquor cabinet chattering in their place. Radius and Helena took to the stage close to midnight and greeted the crowd with gold battle paint and dress shoes. Their set was like a whirlwind gravitron (without the ensuing motion sickness!), holding you up against the wall, and only letting you slide down every now and then just to remind you who’s in charge. The creepy, black magic groove of City of Fingers was made bad ass when Wordburglar jumped in to freestyle over the break, and at that point, I wondered how long it will be before this band is playing the Hall proper. I didn’t think this band could top their BSG promo vid, but it turns out, they did.

RAH do BSG: a Radius and Helena tribute.

CAUTION! SPOILER ALERT! This BSG tribute is so grand, it may be worthy of its own show…

I thought Cindy McCain looked familiar…

Cindy McCain’s look is such a desperate harkening to some white, “safe” nostalgic past. To me, it triggers images of stagnation, decay, and ultimately, horror. But as John McCain’s personal crypt-keeper, I must say, she looks fabulous.

Radius and Helena residency at the Velvet Underground

I’m posting this a little late but nonetheless, here is the latest promo video for my favourite band, Radius & Helena. Love that old-time piano tunes and those vintage disappearing acts! Hope you all enjoy and if you’re in the big smoke do come out and catch one of the remaining weekly sets at the Velvet Underground. RAH are, in the words of Tony the Tiger, grrrrrreat!

ANTM Look-Alikes Take Two: Lauren

First of all, I am a lazy blogger and I apologize. I won’t always take the time to find the right pictures to match up with what I’m trying to explain in my posts and i don’t know how to do my own screen caps (do you need digital tv for this? that’s how clueless i am…). This post is case in point. But if you do happen to waste your hour watching this “cycle” of ANTM, you will understand the connection I am making between Lauren and Martha Plimpton.

ANTM Look-Alikes Take One: Anya

There is something about Anya that leaves me unsettled for those few seconds after the ANTM producers give her screen time it’s not her bizarre Hawaiian accent (I’ve never heard anyone from Hawaii speak like that) or her overall aloofness…it’s just a creepy feeling I get when she’s posing hard and really into her ‘work.’ And then I realised: she’s a toned-down modern day Edgar Winter.

 

Screen-cap via fourfour

 

 

 

Good-Bye, Professor Bergman

R.I.P. Barry Morse 1918-2007

Read Mr. Morse’s achievements here.

Apologia, not apology

First, I’d like to apologise to anyone who might actually read this blog.  I’ve been away for a while after becoming disillusioned with the amount of hate mail I was receiving for one Zac Efron post and one Fergie post.  Both of these posts were in the spirit of distaste for these particular cogs in the entertainment machine, but of course, they have their followers who defend them in droves.  That’s fine.  KIFY was never meant to be a celebrity-bashing or gossip blog: there’re too many of them out there.  Instead, my passion is taking the everyday CRAP we are fed (through TV, ads, music, film and at the mall) and turn it upside down to get a different view.  Oprah and her unflinching consumerism become the icon of what disgusts me.  And ads that aim to target that “spiritual”/”quality of life” side are enemy no. 1.  All other product ads are enemy no. 2.  Still, I can’t deny that our entertainment is caught up in this advertising circus and so it is with this truism that I continue to consider celebrities on this blog.  So I leave you with this, an article that sums up why I felt the urge to make fun of Fergie.  She’s not the only one, but she is, for now, on the top of my list.  Enjoy.   OMG! Like, she’s, like, someone I, like, wanna be like…!

FOX is afraid we will learn what we already know…

Notoriously right-wing network, FOX, censors Sally Fields’ acceptance speech at 2:00 into the clip…keep watching, keep watching…Makes you wonder just how ‘progressive’ shows like The Family Guy really are? Women’s voices = Power. Women’s voices as Puppets of the Patriarchy = Pathetic (Joan Rivers, take note!)

Ulterior Motive of the Day: Dove’s “Pro-Age” Campaign

I’m SO SICK OF DOVE! OK, so they’ve had “fat” girls in their campaign, and now they’re on to old women. In a continuing effort to dupe the masses, Dove proclaims that everyone is beautiful and sexy, that they’re not “anti”-age but “pro”-age and that even 60+ y.o. women deserve to be exploited by huge corporations for their bodies. This particular “model” in the ad was on Oprah the other day (which was basically an hour-long Dove commerical, and PLEASE don’t tell me she’s not photoshopped) crying about how she never thought she’d get the chance to show people how beautiful she really was until Dove came along. Heartwarming. Pass me the scope so I can gargle the vomit out of my throat.

I already posed this question to Dove in my post back in June, but I’ll ask them again:

Dear Dove,
If we are all so very beautiful “just the way we are” then why the FUCK do we need your products?

Respectfully yours,
Miss Eye

P.S., my fluency in Doublespeak is rusty.
P.P.S. if this is a revolution, please stop the world–I want off.

“Winners” aptly named for Colonialist Tendencies…

If you live in Canada, you’re probably familiar with that giant outlet store that boasts new items daily–from clothing to home furnishings to lead-laden childrens’ toys. On a recent visit to my local Winners, I stopped by the home furnishing section only to be horrified by the cheap colonialist bric-a-brac festooned on their even cheaper glass shelves. Is this some sick corporate joke? The irony of a company that distances itself from racist slave labour by dealing with sellers, rather than the actual making of clothes, propping up a sort of colonialist idealism and nostalgia (with all the racism and slavery given a rosy hue under the fluorescent lights of the store) is enough to make me cry, puke and laugh violently all at once. So remember folks, history was written by the “winners” and so too shall home decor be. Below are pictures I took of various offensive bric-a-brac at a Winners here in Toronto, in a very multi-ethnic neighbourhood.

Rascist busts of what I suppose is an African slave in Western period costume. Notice the stereotypical accentuating of features and the clash with the ’soft’ European/Western pastel hues of the costume.

Here it was beside a very idealized, classicized bust of Mozart, icon of Western civilization (versus the savage slaves that ‘we’ civilized and tamed on the plantations). Are you convinced yet that conquest and domination are wonderful things of PROGRESS?

Never mind that here in Canada, First Nations have worked hard to inform the public that they ARE NOT INDIANS for chrissakes. COLUMBUS MADE A FOOLISH ERROR, remember? But, alas, here we are again with the “redskin in a head-dress” again with certain features accentuated to make him look “authentic”. Fuck you, winners.

Of course every wealthy colonialist needs his collection of African masks to prove he had a fruitful safari.

And let’s not forget coffee: remember if it tastes good, it’s because of the “EUROPEAN BLEND”, not because of the slaves who toil to pick the beans. Don’t you feel like going to Kenya and commanding your own coffee plantation? You could look hot in a little safari outfit, just like Keira Knightly did in her Vanity Fair spread.

Ahh, yet another fine colonialist sport, shooting elephants for their ivory and then making statues out of them. The utmost example of Man v. Nature. Bravo.

And to bring it all back to a respectable English flavour, a bit of hunting today, sir?

Bravo, Winners, for making explicit your Colonialist tendencies of raping peoples’ human rights, and justifying it through racism and Western privilege of a ‘comfortable, stylish life’.

Below: More from Keira Knightley’s Vanity Fair spread for Vuitton. Doesn’t she look so pretty against the primitive backgrounds?

Zac Efron is NOT GAY…

…he’s just trapped inside a woman’s body.

I mean come on, could he look anymore like the love child of Reba McIntyre and Laura Bush? He’s all woman…

And for anyone who’s wondering who this dude(tte) is, he’s starred in Disney’s High School MUSICAL and Hairspray the MUSICAL…not that starring in MUSICALS makes a person gay…I’m just sayin’.

Don’t Be Sad, Owen! Your Face Loves Itself

After being inspired by this portrait of Dubya, I thought I would do a literal rendition of how I think Owen Wilson’s face is basically having sex with itself. Cheer up, Owen; you’re uniquely handsome and, after all, love is staring you in the face.
**Disclaimer! These ‘naughty bits’ are PROSTHETICS!**

President of [What?] Skills, USA

Bravo to Caitlin Upton for carrying on a tradition of dumb blonde jokes. Her bio says she’s the President of Skills (probably the same skills Tara Connor had..?); you gotta be smart for that, rite? Perhaps she is a scholar in coding and encryption because I couldn’t understand a word she said. She’ll make the U.S. Military proud one day..

Separated at Birth: Fergie and Carrot Top

Maybe it’s the eyebrows, maybe it’s the busted plastic surgery on the schnoz and the bad collagen but I can’t shake the feeling that these two were either separated at birth or in fact are one and the same but different wigs…

p.s. please excuse very bad photoshopping today. i’ve got sunstroke.

Stephen Harper, We Demand an Inquiry!

Canadians are Naïve, Naïve, Naïve!”
Disclaimer: Part of me believes we, as a people, masochistically enjoy watching our governments slip into the nightmarish, Orwellian clichés just so we can say, “See? Government BAD! Government EVIL!” and feel totally vindicated for fudging our taxes; this only demonstrates how naïve we are here in Canada when it comes to fascism:

Undercover Cops Dressed as Protesters Attempt To Incite Riot
Wednesday August 22, 2007

It only takes one successful Beer Hall Putsch to slip into fascism…Canada needs to wake up and see that what appears to be no more than a slightly creepy ol’ boys’ club at the top of the government is really a fascist machine, slowly dismantling the rights that those before us fought constantly for and that we take for granted…

Like Easter, but every 2-4 weeks!

The system will keep finding ways to keep women too distracted and preoccupied with the way they look to amount to much more than an overly-decorated Easter Egg with a short shelf-life: dyed, stenciled, painted, put in a basket for all to see, and then cracked open and tossed out with the scraps, never getting the chance to grow past the yolkie chick stage into a mature hen:

So, considering the “Naughty” category of “pubic hair art” has been flooded by the market by companies like Nads, I’ve come up with a few more suggestions that I think fulfill the under-represented “Nice” category:

“SEXY” is NOT A RIGHT….


MILF CULTURE MUST DIE.

Morrissey: No, No, No, Yes, No.

Still choosing the greater of two evils, Morrissey announces his Fall Tour Dates. Implicit in the itinerary is his preference for a country whose government has instigated war, okayed torture, rape, civilian deaths, of tens of thousands of Iraqis – women, children and men – over one that has said ‘no’ to that war but who still sanctions the clubbing of young seals for pelts that are exported to countries like Norway, Denmark, Germany, China, and South Korea.

Then again, we could only provide him with a fraction of ticket sales that the U.S. could…

Oh, and 10 dates in LA?

Morrissey – 2007 Tour Dates
September 20 TIJUANA, MEXICO : El Foro
September 21 LAS VEGAS, NV : The Pearl
September 23 SAN FRANCISCO, CA : Fillmore
September 24 SAN FRANCISCO, CA : Fillmore
September 26 SAN FRANCISCO, CA : Fillmore
September 27 SAN FRANCISCO, CA : Fillmore
September 29 SANTA BARBARA, CA : County Bowl
October 1 LOS ANGELES, CA : Palladium
October 2 LOS ANGELES, CA : Palladium
October 4 LOS ANGELES, CA : Palladium
October 5 LOS ANGELES, CA : Palladium
October 6 LOS ANGELES, CA : Palladium
October 8 LOS ANGELES, CA : Palladium
October 9 LOS ANGELES, CA : Palladium
October 11 LOS ANGELES, CA : Palladium
October 12 LOS ANGELES, CA : Palladium
October 13 LOS ANGELES, CA : Palladium
October 15 SALT LAKE CITY, UT : Thanksgiving Point
October 17 WAUKEGAN, IL : Genesee Theatre
October 19 ROYAL OAK, MI : Royal Oak Music Theatre
October 20 MERRILLVILLE, IN : Star Plaza
October 22 NEW YORK, NY : Hammerstein Ballroom
October 23 NEW YORK, NY : Hammerstein Ballroom
October 26 NEW YORK, NY : Hammerstein Ballroom
October 27 NEW YORK, NY : Hammerstein Ballroom
October 28 NEW YORK, NY : Hammerstein Ballroom
October 30 BOSTON, MA : Orpheum
October 31 BALTIMORE, MD : Rams Head
November 2 WASHINGTON, DC : Constitution Hall

* Kristeen Young supports on all dates

Still I’ll beg again:

MORRISSEY:
Come to CANADA,
PLEEEEEEEASE?

John Stamos’ Secret Love Child: Adrian Grenier

Is Adrian Grenier (quasi celeb douche from Entourage) the secret Love Child of John Stamos and 1980s Boglin?

+

EQUALS

in other words:

Baby Björk Makes Me Happy Again

Okay, after that very saddening article, I thought I’d cheer myself up (and anyone else who might be reading..) with some Baby Björk Pictures!
ENJOY!

A Turtle in a Girdle and other Man-Made Deformities

Exerpts from “Our oceans are turning into plastic…are we?” by Susan Casey:

“…all over the globe, there are signs that plastic pollution is doing more than blighting the scenery; it is also making its way into the food chain. Some of the most obvious victims are the dead seabirds that have been washing ashore in startling numbers, their bodies packed with plastic: things like bottle caps, cigarette lighters, tampon applicators, and colored scraps that, to a foraging bird, resemble baitfish. (One animal dissected by Dutch researchers contained 1,603 pieces of plastic.) And the birds aren’t alone. All sea creatures are threatened by floating plastic, from whales down to zooplankton. There’s a basic moral horror in seeing the pictures: a sea turtle with a plastic band strangling its shell into an hourglass shape; a humpback towing plastic nets that cut into its flesh and make it impossible for the animal to hunt. More than a million seabirds, 100,000 marine mammals, and countless fish die in the North Pacific each year, either from mistakenly eating this junk or from being ensnared in it and drowning.
…
Most alarming, these chemicals may disrupt the endocrine system—the delicately balanced set of hormones and glands that affect virtually every organ and cell—by mimicking the female hormone estrogen. In marine environments, excess estrogen has led to Twilight Zone-esque discoveries of male fish and seagulls that have sprouted female sex organs. On land, things are equally gruesome. “Fertility rates have been declining for quite some time now, and exposure to synthetic estrogen—especially from the chemicals found in plastic products—can have an adverse effect,” says Marc Goldstein, M.D., director of the Cornell Institute for Repro-ductive Medicine. Dr. Goldstein also notes that pregnant women are particularly vulnerable: “Prenatal exposure, even in very low doses, can cause irreversible damage in an unborn baby’s reproductive organs.” And after the baby is born, he or she is hardly out of the woods. Frederick vom Saal, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Missouri at Columbia who specifically studies estrogenic chemicals in plastics, warns parents to “steer clear of polycarbonate baby bottles. They’re particularly dangerous for newborns, whose brains, immune systems, and gonads are still developing.” Dr. vom Saal’s research spurred him to throw out every polycarbonate plastic item in his house, and to stop buying plastic-wrapped food and canned goods (cans are plastic-lined) at the grocery store.”

Read the full article HERE. Coupled with my reading of P.D. James’ Children of Men it is about all I can handle before going off the edge.

And these pictures have left me totally speechless (and nauseous):

But then, why should we care about these mammal mutations and deformities? Women voluntarily deform themselves in a subservient show of male power all the time (some NSFW):

And of course, let’s not forget Pam-An, who’s Ilsa-bot look (the bottle-blonde hair, the collagen lips, the floating devices has more than likely inspired hundreds of thousands of women to follow suit in environmentally hazardous, self-deforming practices) and her rallying for PeTA suggest that hypocrisy is the ONLY thing about her that runs deep.

Resorting to Their Level: Joe Francis

After hearing a gossip piece on how Joe Francis is upset that Hugh Heffner did not come to his defense (as he claimed Hugh went through ’similar’ persecution for similar things…um..ok…) I got that rage bubble again. And as his face keeps showing itself like a pesky cockroach in the kitchen, the bubble grows and grows. I don’t enjoy feeling like I have to punch someone…so I’ll vent here instead in a three-pronged prayer to any pagan goddess with a black cat and cauldron:

A) I hope his jailmates forced him to sign ‘waivers’ while he was fucked on H
B) I hope his ass is perpetually bleeding and oozing shit from all the ‘consensual’ prison sex
C) I hope his Acromegaly progresses to the point where his tongue swells up big enough to feel like a giant dick is perpetually poking his gag reflex.*

The Price of Cheap Toys

Ok, so there are more recalls coming in of products made cheap by Chinese labourers so that Westerners can continue the illusion of wealth “here” versus poverty “there.” Having two young cousins and a baby niece, I feel the pressure of having to buy them lots of toys to keep up with the rest of our family — only I can’t bring myself to purchase these hunks of plastic and painted wood knowing they were made in (probably) poor conditions by people with children who are too poor to get a new toy every few months, let alone weeks. I’ll get them quality toys built to last, or, like this year–I’ll be painting them pictures. I’m so gonna be the aunt/cousin who lets them down in the presents-department. But not the love department.

From Yahoo! News:
China recall toy factory boss hangs himself
Mon Aug 13, 2:57 PM
BEIJING (Reuters) – The boss of a Chinese toy manufacturing company involved in a Mattel recall after its products were found to contain excessive lead levels has hanged himself, Chinese media reported on Monday.

Zhang Shuhong, a Hong Kong businessman in his 50s and boss of the Lida Toy Company in the southern province of Guangdong, was found dead in his factory workshop on Saturday, the semi-official Southern Metropolitan Daily said.

My Life’s Work ~ a Radius and Helena plug

So when I’m not procrastinating I sometimes help with the visual arts side of the band, Radius and Helena. Here’s a picture I took from some of our artsy-er shoots:


and:

But our piece de résistance is this promo vid:

which is, of course, a shot-for-shot remake of Space 1999, episode 1. Oops, I’ve now revealed myself as a geek.

I’m Baaaaaaaaaaack!

And to celebrate, I’m posting pics and a vid of America’s favourite feel-good kitty, Winston, by way of FourFour.

He’s the one who broke the news about Aquafina being tap water:

This one’s worth the sneeze at 00:32.

Mystery of WTF-Fingers Solved?

Remember these wtf-fingers?

I had harboured a guess that the condition was caused by touching Paris Hilton. Well, apparently creatures in Lake Ontario have been touching Paris Hilton too! Nothing is safe!

Torn Between Love and Hate: Morrissey Chides Madonna, Praises PeTA

So at a concert in Norfolk, VA, Morrissey made a few on-stage pronouncements about Madge’s timely shift in public persona as ‘eco-friendly’:

According to 24Sizzler.com’s spy, the eco-friendly rocker told concert-goers about fur-loving Madonna, “I wouldn’t be surprised if she [Madonna] made that African boy into a coat and wore him … for 15 minutes, and then threw it away.”

And these sorts of pronouncements are why I love Morrissey and feel safe and at peace that he is somewhere, just doing things in this world! But wait…then he had to follow it up with advocacy for an organization I find absolutely, frustratingly hypocritical: PeTA:

Morrissey balanced his unkind words for Madonna, with kind words for PETA, which he supports: “You haven’t even heard what I’m gratified about yet,” said the singer, reports the 24Sizzler.com spy. ”I’m very gratified to be so close to the international headquarters of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.”

As a feminist (does that ‘f’ word still make people cringe? Fox News really did a good job of demonizing it in the late 80s/early 90s, didn’t they?) and an animal lover, I find myself cringing at the thought of supporting an organization that uses porn-star iconography, Hep-Cat Pam-Am, and stereotypes of ditzy blonde women for they’re ad campaigns. I’m also a little uncomfortable with the Ilsa-esque Aryan nature of their ’spokes’ models…especially in the context of their downplaying the horrors of the holocaust and fascism by equating the slaughter of pigs with this historical tragedy. I’m all for a philosophical anti-humanism, but trading one kind of exploitation for another is still working within the lowest common denominators. And please don’t tell me the bleach that Pammy uses in her hair and the goo in her breasts have not come at the expense of animal rights or have not inspired a nasty strain of eco-trashing fem-bots chanting “das blonde ist besser”…

Bible Thumpers, Golfers and Metallica Fans Equally as Offensive to Thor

A man was struck by lightning as he was jogging and listening to religious music on his iPod. The electric current melted the iPod, traveled down through his pants and blew up one of his sneakers. Last year, a teen who was mowing the lawn while listening to Metallica faced a similar fate as lightning melted the earphones of his iPod, sizzled the iPod itself and caused the dude to vomit and bleed through his ears. Methinks Thor hath made his point with golfers and has moved on to openly judging people’s crappy playlists..Maybe iPods, like golf clubs, are merely the medium, not the message…

Probably the Best thing on Youtube

Try not to get hypnotized!