Silver Linings...

It happened. After years of carelessly leaving my music equipment in plain sight in my back seat, someone finally smashed the window and took off with my stuff.  Every other time I've heard about it happening to other musicians, I've had pity for them but part of me (the asshole part) always said "...but it was your own damn fault for leaving your stuff in your car". I don't get to say that anymore...

Here's a fun picture of my car window right now:

Anyway, I'm futilely trying to use social media and wanted posters to try and track down the stuff (see below) but I'm fairly positive I'll never see my sweet Gretsch again.  I'm trying to stay positive, so I'm looking at all the silver linings around this dark cloud:

• I tend to abuse the Bigsby bar when I play, which means I frequently have to re-tune my guitar. My now-main guitar doesn't have a Bigsby so less tuning = more time to tell tasteless jokes between songs
• I like my Thinline Squier Telecaster a lot, and wasn't happy with it being my back-up guitar. Now it's my main guitar so I get to play it more often
• I own a bad-ass looking Dean Flying V that almost never gets played. Now I have a reason to get it fixed up because it's been promoted to back-up guitar
• So many offers from friends to let me borrow their gear if I need it
• New friend requests on Facebook, as my "stolen gear" photo spreads somewhat virally
• Attention. Anyone that knows me knows I crave attention. After the hubbub over the bullshit lawsuit last year, I felt a giant attention-shaped hole in my life. Now everyone's paying attention to me and talking about me as if I matter. Feels great.
• I get to learn how to replace a car window. I've always been mystified as to what manner of sorcery goes on inside a car door to make the window roll up and down. Now after watching several instructional videos I've learned that it's a fairly basic but clever mechanism and I can't wait to try to replace one on my own.
• Today I was able to put off writing my 2014-15 Commitment To Excellence, my work's annual lame self-review document, so I could do various theft-related follow-up activities.
• My car could use a good vacuuming anyway

Here's a list of what was stolen, let me know if it ends up in your local pawn shop

Patton Oswalt just "won the internet"

Update: I didn't get why this thing was happening at the time because I'd missed all the ridiculous outrage about some of Trevor Noah's past tweets.  Turns out this here brilliance by Patton Oswalt is in direct defense of Trevor Noah, which makes it a billion times more awesome.  Read more about said tweets here, and read an amazing rebuttal against PC ninnies by panty-sniffing rape-jokist Jim Norton here.

Every week someone wins at internet. This week it's Patton Oswalt, who at 3am my time posted a ridiculous series of joke explainers that should in no way offend anyone.

Presented to you in reverse order, because it's an easier read:

(1/53) Q: Why did the man* throw* butter* out of the window*? A: He wanted to see* butter fly*!

(2/53) "Man" in my previous Tweet should not be construed as privileged, misogynist or anti-trans.

(3/53) Nor should there be ANY assumption of said man's race or religion. It could be an African American man, Asian, or any one

(4/53) of the vast multi-cultural mosaic which make up the world we live in today. "Man" was simply an archaic placeholder for the

(5/53) "subject" of the joke, and thus should not denote privilege nor exclude any sexuality, religion, nationality or offend any

(6/53) feelings the joke listener may or may not have or have ever experienced in the past. Furthermore, the action of "throwing" is

(7/53) NOT meant in any way to imply an exclusion of the differently abled, or even someone who@may have ever felt excluded from

(8/53) And the choice of "butter" as the object being thrown was in NO WAY an insult to those with a strict lacto-vegan diet or

(9/53) ANYONE who may be lactose intolerant, might KNOW someone who is lactose-intolerant (or knows someone who is ka to-vegan) or

(10/53) may meet someone of those two persuasions anytime in the future. Also, "butter" does not mean the joke-teller is unaware of

(11/53) or insensitive to the abuses in our current factory-farming dairy industry, including neglect of animals or additions of

(12/53) hormones, pesticides or other contaminants. Also, PLEASE accept this pre-emptive apology if the word "butter" was a trigger

(13/53) for any time in the past the joke recipient may have been called a "butter face" or knows someone who was insulted in such a

(14/53) fashion. Aesthetic shaming is real and bullying hurts us all.

(15/53) Also, again, privilege. What else? Oh yes...

(16/53) "Out the window" was NOT meant as any sort of insult to the homeless population, in that the phrase "out the window"

(17/53) could EASILY be construed as placing the butter-thrower in a house which

(18/53) the butter thrower owns.

(19/53) The triggering potential for "out the window" is not to be underestimated.

(20/53) Nor should the act of THROWING AWAY food, which can be read as a violent, corporate-centric status maneuver.

(21/53) Privilege.

(22/53) Privilege.

(23/53) Privilege?

(24/53) PRIVILEGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'nnn

(25/53) The pronoun "he" in the 2nd part of the joke should, again, NOT be taken

(26/53) as a patriarchal assumption.

(27/53) Parts 28 through 36 will simply be the word "problematic" for your use in any other interpretation of the pronoun "he"

(28/53) Problematic.

(29/53) Problematic.

(30/53) Problematic.

(31/53) Problematic

(32/53) Problematic.

(33/53) Problematic.

(34/53) Problematic

(35/53) Problematic

(36/53) Problematic

(37/53) "See" is, we all know, VERY POTENTIALLY TRIGGERING to any seeing impaired or blind people hearing the joke

(38/53) And, again, a pre-emotive apology is meekly offered.

(39/53) And the fact that Twitter does NOT offer a Braille version of its website is part of a larger problem

(40/53) which the joke was IN ABSOLUTELY NO WAY making light of.

(41/53) Finally, the fact the man wanted to see butter "fly"

(42/53) implies a flippant attitude towards mental illness or the subjects lack of abstract or

(43/53) or symbolic/empathetic thought which was NOT the aim of the joke

(44/53) or the joke teller. But context, as we know, does not matter. Only individual words and feelings do, so

(45/53) as always, and from now on, no matter what the intent, aim, or satirical content

(46/53) the deepest apology is offered to ANYONE

(47/53) ANYWHERE

(48/53) for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER

(49/53) who found any offense in the previous joke.

(50/53) Jokes should always entertain. EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO HEARS THEM.

(51/53) A simple series of clarifying post-joke Tweets like the ones I just sent out will insure EVERYONE a gentle, comforting chuckle.

(52/53) Welcome to comedy in 2015, @Trevornoah!

(53/53) Also, the "come" part of "welcome" shouldn't be construed in a "faggy" way.

All this to welcome Trevor Noah as the new host of The Daily Show.

I don't get it, but I love it. That's wine talkin'

Both Kinds of Music: 10 Years And Going Strong

(The following is paraphrased and details and facts are sketchy at best. Sue me)

I remember back in my early Lefty McRighty days (back when I could still draw a crowd... *le sigh*), some weird guy approached me after the show. Bald as all hell up top, big plastic glasses, and way too much energy for someone over 40. I think I thought this is what a hipster was at the time.


"Hey Lefty, I've seen your band a bunch of times, I think you guys are really great. You're the real deal."

"Hey thanks, I appreciate it" (this was my canned response to all my fans. Now it's "Cool, wanna be friends? Please?")

"I want to do a tribute concert* for my favourite band of all time, Jr. Gone Wild. You heard of 'em?"

"No, can't say I have."

"You'd love 'em. Seminal Canadian alt-country. Anyway I want you guys to play at the show, I think it'll be amazing."

At this point I'm thinking Oh great, this nutjob is going to ask me to play in his garage** for him and his 4 friends. But then he says the magical words:

"Oh and I host a country music radio show on CKCU."

The first words out of my mouth were almost "I will do anything and everything possible to promote my band, I worship you now" - I'd never met anyone from the amazingly cool local college radio station. For some reason I mistakenly believed that this was a world I couldn't access.

Instead I played it cool: "Oh neat, I'd love to take part, sounds fun. What's your name?"

"Dick Altavista."

And so it began.  Since then I've come to know Dick Altavista and his show Both Kinds of Music intimately. I've spent many hours hanging out at the studio promoting this or that.

Me and Dick, promoting my latest turd, Nashville Roadkille

When I first approached Dick about helping promote the first ever O-Town Hoedown, he replied "Sure, love it, let's devote an entire 2-hour show to it." I was blown away.  Since then it's become an annual tradition to take over  Both Kinds to promote the Hoedown, and whenever I've needed airtime to promote one of my band's shows, Dick has given me open invite to drop by anytime to say what I have to say. 

I don't know if I've ever seen a man more excited about the very prospect of music just existing. I feel like Dick Altavista will be listening to a record and he gets really excited by the fact that someone thought to write all this stuff down and set it to tape for the world to hear.

And I guarantee you've never seen a more fervent supporter of the local music scene than Dick Altavista.  If you pick any random episode of Both Kinds of Music and read over the playlist, you'll find that at least half the songs on every show are from local artists. That's not even in the show description, it's not "the point" of the show. It's just Dick Altavista loving locals bands. Not to mention having a zillion guests on the show (local or otherwise). I thought I was special but take a look at the list of artists he's had come hang out on the show over the years:

Alice Kos, Bob Whitmore, Box Full Of Groundhogs, Brock Zeman, The Brothers Chaffey, Bryce Jardine, Catriona Sturton, Chris Cook, Chris Landry, Chris Page, Colin Wylie, Conor Mercury, Dan Deslauriers, Dang Guilty, Dave Norris & Local Ivan, David Hustler, The Dead Bees, Elvyn, Enjoy, Your Pumas, Eric Gilmore & The Mad Hatters, Ev Laroi, Fist City, The Flats,  Gareth Auden-Hole, Greg Kelly, Huntley Slim & The Suburban Cowboys, The Jack Grace Band, James Leclaire, Jehan Khoorshed, Jon Laurie-Beaumont, Julie Element, The Jupiter Ray Project, Kara Askwith, Kenny Voita, Kris Millett, Ken Workman, Lefty McRighty, Luther Wright, Mark Kiely, Mark Ripp, Marvin Etzioni, Matt Gower, Meredith Luce, M. Mucci, Morgan Friend, Mystery Pill, Nathan Hunter, Nicolai Dangeroso, Ninety Lbs. of Ugly, No Fly List, No Kinds Of Love, Pamela Brennan, Patrick Shanks, Ray Harris, Riley Taylor, Rob Snasdell-Taylor, The Rough Sea, Samantha Mouchet, The Shakey Aches, Shawn Tavenier, Slo Tom, Steph Clementine, Steve Stacey, Still Winter Hills, Tindervox, The Train Jumpers, Trevor Alguire, Uncle Sean, Winchester Warm, The Woodrunners.

I mean, geez.
 
With Dick making CKCU an open arms environment for me to come hang out at, I felt comfortable approaching the other DJs about helping promote my shows, and I got to know Matthew Crosier, the station manager. Over the years CKCU started to feel like home, and it was only natural that I start hosting a radio show there myself. I was welcomed with open arms and love every minute that I'm there hosting Friday Nite Truck Stop with my dad-in-law Ray Harris. Ultimately, without Dick's initial introduction, I don't know if I ever would have ended up as part of the CKCU family, so thanks for everything Dick, and congrats on 10 years on the air. Here's to 50 more.

Both Kinds of Music airs Wednesdays from 1:30-3:30 on CKCU 93.1 FM. Do yourself a favour and tune in.

*For some reason, the Jr. Gone Wild tribute show never happened. Hmmm...

**My favourite band that I was ever in, Ninety Pounds of Ugly, played their first show in Dick's garage for his annual neighbourhood block party Liquor Pig Fest. It was amazing.

Proof That The French Give Up Too Easily

Coming up with names of numbers, the French have historically said "Fuck it, I give up" way too early. However I do appreciate their ability to over-complicate things, something I'm frequently guilty of. Enjoy the following dramatic reenactments, and pardon my inability to properly conjugate French verbs or properly use French words.

Situation one:

On a besoin de noms pour tous les nombres entre dix et vingt.  Dix, onze, douze, treize, quatorze, quinze, seize, ....ummm.... septze? Non. uh... on a besoin d'un nom pour le nombre avec sept après le dix. Septdix? Non. Dix-sept? Parfait! Continuons! Dix-huit! Dix-neuf! C'est tellement façile!

Situation two:

Pour tous les nombres entre vingt et trente, entre trente et quarante, et cetera, nous allons dire "et" pour indiquer qu'on a ajouté un nombre a l'autre. Par exemple, vingt-et-un. Vingt-et-deu- mon dieu, c'est compliqué. D'accord, on utilisera le "et" avec le un seulement. Le reste, on ne l'a pas besoin.  Vingt-deux, vingt-trois, vingt-quatre... c'est simple. Non, on ne peu pas dire vingt-un. C'est stupide. Espèce de con.

Situation three: 

On a besoin de noms pour tous les groupes de nombres qui représentes chaque séries de dix, entre dix et cent. Vingt, trente, quarante, cinquante, soixante, et puis.... uh... mmmmmm... un nom pour le nombre qui représente sept groupes de dix. Dix-sept! Oui c'est ça! Oh. Un moment... zut, on l'a déja utilisé, çe nom là. Ok, un nombre pour sept groupes de dix.

     *takes giant swig of wine*

Ce qui est la même chose que quarante plus trente, ou bien

     *more wine*

cinquante plus vingt ou

     *opens another bottle, drinks half*

MON DIEU. SOIXANTE PLUS DIX. SOIXANTE-DIX. PARFAIT! (hic!) Le prochain... soixante-vingt? (hic!) Cinquante-trente? (hic!)Quarante-fois-deux? (hic!) Un bonne idée, nous multi-... mulit-... tulplim... multiplions! Quarante-deux! Non, c'est la même chose que le nombre quarante plus deux

      *on to the third bottle* 

vingt-fois-quatre? Vingt-quatre? Merde. Non...

     *drinks entire bottle of wine through a funnel*

QUATRE-VINGT. ET LE PROCHAIN S'APPELERA QUATRE-VINGT-DIX

     *signs off on official rules of the French language, asphyxiates on own vomit*

 

Wanna Sweat Less, You Disgusting Sack of Shit?

I stopped armpit sweat overnight with one neat trick: I switched from antiperspirant to deodorant. Backwards, I know. Read on...

About 8 months ago, I developed a rash in my armpits. It turned out to be a nasty-ass case of ringworm. It's all gone now, thanks to a fuck ton of cream and maybe tea tree oil soap. Before I knew what it was, I decided to try an experiment. I'd heard bad things about antiperspirant use and, while I'm not normally one to just try something that some uneducated yahoo suggests on the Internet, I decided to give it a shot - maybe antiperspirant was somehow giving me a rash?

The serendipitous results were instant and dramatic. Within two days of switching to deodorant, I had virtually no sweat in my underarms, as evidenced by the lack of gross-ass wet spots on my undershirt. I thought maybe it was residual antiperspirant still hard at work, but after several days and showers, still no sweat. 

Some background: I've been using antiperspirant my entire teen/adult life, with varying levels of success. I've always sweated somewhat while wearing it, but chalked it up to "it works ok I guess but holy shit imagine how much I'd be sweating if I didn't use antiperspirant". In fact it's always baffled me that people would use deodorant when antiperspirant is right there next to it on the shelf. Why would you use an inferior product? That's like ordering a cheeseburger, hold the cheese.

Several years ago, the sweating got worse, to the point where I had to start wearing undershirts to absorb the sweat so that it didn't show.  So I was at a point where my outer shirts were no longer drenched, but my inner shirts looked like hell even after I washed them because oh hey neat side effect of antiperspirant: it turns out that it ruins your shirts. From the yellow armpit stains to the actual glitter that you can see in strong light, it's aluminum-based compounds in your antiperspirant that are to blame. Click here to read more.

This whole thing is counter-intuitive.  Antiperspirant is supposed to stop you from sweating, with chemicals and medicine and shit, whereas deodorants are just there to make you smell nice, right?  I was surprised to learn that deodorants, besides the fragrance aspect, actually have antimicrobial compounds that kill the bacteria that makes your armpits smell in the first place. Oh did I mention that it's not the sweat that stinks, it's the bacteria? The bacteria thrive in a moist environment, so the strategies are to either a) reduce the moisture (antiperspirant) or b) reduce the bacteria in the first place (deodorant).

I'm confused because I'm now performing scenario b) above, and yet experiencing scenario a) for a final result of c) not sweating and also smelling nice. How is this happening? No fucking clue. Maybe it's some sort of sweat feedback loop, where my body overcompensates for the blocked sweating by somehow being able to sweat more? I don't know. It's bizarre but hey it works and I'm not the only one. 

There are other examples of people having the same experience as me, but there are also people who swear by antiperspirant over deodorant.  So you'll have to figure out your special recipe. But if you, like me 8 months ago, seem to sweat buckets despite daily antiperspirant use... this might be right for you. Do some reading, don't just listen to me. If you come across this in your internet research... don't believe the hype about aluminum compounds in antiperspirant causing breast cancer and Alzheimer's, those claims have been thoroughly disproven. 

Oh and here's fun: enjoy listening to bodybuilders talk about sweaty armpits. Those guys sound about as educated as you'd expect, brah

The Problem With Non-Scientific Reporting of Scientific Research

A lot of you may have seen a news story going around saying "Oh hey it turns out that being out in the cold CAN make you catch cold, your Mom was right all along"

This is a great example of non-scientific reporting/skewing of scientific facts because hey neat headline.

Background: I do infectious disease research with the Canadian government and while I have NO background in rhinovirus infections, I'm able to at least look at the original work and understand the findings a bit better than the average bear.

I just read the original research paper, here are some things to consider:

-The virus in question is well known to grow better at regular nose temperature (33°C) as opposed to internal body temperature (37°C). This is a long established fact and is not news

-The reason cold viruses infect the nose and only rarely the lungs is specifically due to this temperature difference. HOWEVER, the nose is 33°C when you're sitting around hanging out in the office, outside on a normal day, etc. That's the regular temperature of a wet surface that has air constantly blowing over it. So regardless of what time of year it is, your nose will likely be around 33°C. It may be somewhat colder if you spend a prolonged period of time outside, but this paper does not address what happens when a virus is exposed to temperatures colder than 33°C.

-The study was not trying to answer the question "Does cold weather make the common cold more contagious or severe", they were trying to answer the question "What is the cause of improved viral replication at 33°C, which is the normal temperature of the inside of a nose" - the answer was that it's a reduced immune response on the part of the host that contributes to enhanced viral replication. This isn't really newsworthy either. A lot of your body's functions will be impaired at 33°C, including the immune system. This is already well-known anyway, but this paper elucidated the precise mechanism by which the impairment happens. Interesting to scientists but boring to the general public.

-The study was done in mouse trachea cells in a petri dish using a specially mutated virus that's been enhanced to grow better in mouse cells. It took 5-7 hours to see a difference in viral titers between the two temperatures tested. These conditions aren't even close to what happens when humans catch a cold. This is fine, most animal infection models don't match human conditions.

Please don't read this as "I guess it's true after all, you DO catch a cold because of cold weather". Whether or not THAT is true, it's not even CLOSE to what this research paper is stating.

For shits and giggles, here's a link to the research paper (pdf download). Enjoy

A Neat Weird Thing Happened With My Brain The Other Day

I was zesting a lime and the damned thing tore a huge chunk of flesh out of the tip of my middle finger. It was a terrible demon zester. After having also maimed my wife's thumb, we decided it would go in the trash. We made a little photo collage and posted it on Twitter. It was adorable.

Later that night, I sat at the computer to write an email, and realized "Oh hey, one of my key typing fingers is wrapped in paper towel and electrical tape, and now I can't type properly".

I'm mostly a proficient typist, making correct use of all my fingers and typing pretty fast. I don't know the number of words per minute but it's up there. I aced typing class in high school (fun side story: my 1991 class was the last to use electric typewriters before the school switched over to Mac Classics. See? Fun.) and while I make plenty of speed-related errors while typing, I'm equally quick with the backspace button.

So with one gimped finger on my right hand, I had to resort to "hunt and peck" like surly old TV detectives do, but only my right hand. My left hand still made use of all five digits. I was surprised by how quickly I adapted to my handicap, all the while retaining the left hand's typing training. That was pretty rad, but there was something even more rad:

Normally when I make mistakes, I see them on the screen and my right hand quickly jumps up to the backspace key and fixes it. But this time, every time I made a mistake, I'd see it and hit the space bar, expecting it to autocorrect, like on my smartphone. Because I'd switched my right hand to single-digit typing like I do on my phone, my brain seemed to have switched to smartphone mode, and just expected all the errors to be autocorrected. 

How cool is that? It's pretty cool, that's how cool.