MATTHEWGOODONLINE

Battle of the sexes, don’t need it, far too tired this morning. We’re all to blame, porn is to blame, the pipe fitter makes $70 bucks an hour! The world’s just like Beauty And The Beast, except not a cartoon and without the talking inanimate objects – though that depends on your state of mind really.

And I haven’t even fucking seen Beauty And The Beast.

I have, on the other hand, read Skinny Legs And All, and would claim that it’s a far better love story. It too involves talking inanimate objects. Then again, given that it was written by Tom Robbins, he’s probably had a conversation with a spoon at some point in the past, so at least there’s a chance that it’s somewhat autobiographical.

Talking inanimate objects aside, if you’re a Vancouver resident don’t forget that Dave Eby is running for city council. You can check out his official website for updates and information.

I have decided to stop posting demos. It seems that there are those that don’t view it as something special, rather as a right with regards to their ownership of them – such as complaints that they weren’t left up long enough and therefore couldn’t be ripped in time to be saved.

My initial reason for posting them was to allow people a look at the process, to see how something is initially created and then grows from that stage to its final stage in the studio. I get a lot of email from aspiring musicians about it, and therefore thought it would be a positive thing.

You know, it’s funny how quickly positive intentions on the web are taken advantage of. Given the facelessness of the medium, there’s no questioning the fact that it has fostered a mindset that rarely takes into consideration the fact that were such things to occur in any other form it would be seen as something very special. Imagine if I were to sit down with people in a room and offer them glimpses of the process. That would be seen as something very special indeed. But when it’s done on a computer, it is not seen as all that special. In fact, after a while, it is something that almost becomes expected.

I didn’t grow up with the internet. In fact, when I was young the thought of a household computer was rather otherworldly in a way. Hell, Atari blew the minds of my generation, and compared to what young people have at their fingertips today an Atari is laughable in comparison. The internet, to people my age, is a rather fascinating thing to be honest. Perhaps that’s why, at times, I am still naïve about it. I view it as something that offers connectivity, resource, and a medium with which to freely, and without censure, express and share ideas and opinions. But one thing that I have always found strange is that it also fosters a complete lack of respect in many instances for a great many things. While a milestone in human achievement, it sadly reflects a growing state of incivility, something that many have come to simply accept. Interestingly, prior to its widespread popularity, the sort of incivility prevalent on the web was not something that was nearly as apparent in the normal course of daily interactions.

Obviously, given that I post entries on this website on a daily basis, I am a fan of the web and its possibilities. Then again, I am also very aware of its negatives and, at times, seriously wonder if the freedom that it currently offers us will continue to be more and more regulated because it was something that could not be used without being tarnished by those unable to translate real world respectability to their online behaviour.

It’s game time. It’s 1976.

I was just updating a post from earlier today and accidentally deleted it. The new interface has the update and delete buttons pretty close together, and when you’re watching playoff hockey at the same time, hitting the wrong one can certainly become a problem. Anyway, it’s probably still out there in RSS land.

Updated

Now that was a comeback.

I’ll admit it; I’m hooked on flickr’s new video feature. I think it’s utterly brilliant, primarily because I can’t stand YouTube – for some reason everything Google touches looks like crap.

This morning alone I have posted four different video clips. Hopefully, as flickr develops the feature, they’ll increase the file size to allow for more than 90 seconds.

Given my new found love for it, I may add a permanent link somewhere in the menu to my Video set, so that readers can wander over and keep up to date on them if they’re at all interested.

Speaking of the site, and our never ending graphic psychosis, here’s a little preview of some of the changes we’re about to make…

The new backend admin features for Wordpress are pretty cool. Even cooler is the fact that Dale customized our layout. One of its downsides, unfortunately, is the fact that audio upload sizes are pretty restricted, making it basically impossible for me to throw up teasers on a whim.

Another cool development is the addition of video to Flickr. I know that a lot of Flickr purists are against it, but like anything, you just don’t have to use it. The clips are limited to 90 seconds, but can be embedded, so I’m probably going to use it primarily for quickly answering fan questions. If you’d like to ask a question, you can email me at matt@matthewgood.org or by using the Flickr mail service. If you chose to, please include your real name and where you’re from, because I won’t answer anonymous questions. Obviously, I won’t be able to get to everyone’s questions, so forgive me in advance if yours isn’t chosen.

Anyway, a few film reviews…

John From Cincinnati

I wasn’t sure what to make of this HBO series, but bought it anyway given that the creators of Deadwood are behind it. I must admit that I was refreshingly surprised – so much so that I watched the entire first season in one sitting.

There Will Be Blood

To say that this film wasn’t the best film made last year would be a profound understatement. While I have always been a massive fan of the work of the Cohen Brothers, there is simply no way that No Country For Old Men is even in the same league as this film. The acting, the dimension, the cinematography and depth – they are all representative of the sort of superlative filmmaking that is becoming increasingly rare.

The film opens with almost fifteen captivating, dialogue-free minutes; a powerful achievement and one that certainly speaks to not only the ability of Daniel Day-Lewis, but also the vision of Paul Thomas Anderson.

How this film did not win Best Picture is entirely beyond me.

First, my entry last night entitled ‘you see’, was actually a just a test post, so it shares no relevance to this entry.

I didn’t watch the Junos last night. In fact, I don’t own a television. But on this occasion I wish that I had watched, just for the diatribe of host Russell Peters.

If there’s one thing the Junos are known for it’s how utterly painful most of its hosts have been. Last night, from some of the excerpts that I have read, it seems that curse was broken.

Here are a select few…

“I can’t believe they have a post-apocalyptic theme up here. We’ll let a brown guy host, but the world has to end first.”

“South Asians, my people, are now the largest visible minority in Canada. Do you know what that means, Calgary? Pretty soon your cowboys are going to be Indians.”

“I never actually have seen the Junos before, which makes me Canadian.”

“The Junos people have been treating me really well. They actually got me a driver - Chad Kroeger.”

One wonders if that last remark will lead to Kroeger claiming in an interview that Peters is due for a good old fashion country ass kicking.

My Recent Canucks Entry

If you subscribe to the website using the RSS feed then you still have access to it, even though it’s been deleted. My reason for doing so is that I’ve been receiving a ton of email from Canucks fans lambasting me for everything from my lack of knowledge to the fact that ‘my music sucks’. Normally that wouldn’t bother me too much, but when you start to get emails that claim that Rolling Stone voted you the worst song writer in North America, which is a total fabrication, then you know you’re in for a shit storm that’s best avoided. If I’m going to be attacked for anything, let it be for commentary regarding something that’s actually relevant to the state of the world, not a bloody hockey team. At least Hockey Night In Canada analyst Jeff Marek said he liked it.

Over the years this website has been mentioned in numerous notable publications and has been linked to by various well-known websites. I have also been contacted by the likes of the BBC in the past with regards to getting a hold of authors, in that particular case it was Samar and their desire to interview her about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon after reading her entries on the site.

But today I got a bit of an enjoyable shock. While reading the Comment Is Free section of the Guardian’s website I noticed that an entry that I recently wrote is featured in their ‘Best Of The Web’ listings. Given the paper’s reputation, to me such a hat tip far surpasses being mentioned by the likes of the New York Times, The Globe And Mail, and similar publications. It was, I must admit, a very pleasant surprise.

First, concerning my last entry, I just wanted to say, quite matter of fact, that writer’s write. My grandmother, who is largely responsible for nurturing my imaginative side when I was young, always told me that dishonesty was perjury in the face of the Lord. My mother, an equally brilliant woman, raised me to believe that half measures were not something that decent men relied on to protect themselves from scrutiny. So last night, or, more to the point, very early in the morning, after getting off of a flight, I put down in words how I have honestly been feeling over the last few days. I am not ashamed of it. Nor am I unaware of its import. Of course, it shouldn’t be discounted that having been bed ridden because of food poisoning and having my body coursing with drugs is bound to stir up some interesting things, but I don’t believe that anything that I wrote was too far off the mark. Do I feel lost? Yes, I do. But having said that, who doesn’t? I suppose it just comes down to whether you’re willing to admit it or not. I have led a very peculiar life, one that in my twilight years I’m sure I will reflect on with a great deal of perplexity. But, in the end, this is the life that I have chosen to lead. There have been positives and negatives, just as there are in most things. And as in all things in this life, you take the bad with the good.

That said; giving up isn’t an option. But being human enough to write about feeling as though you would like to certainly is.

Mental Photographs In The Land Of Plenty

America. A nation caught between its infatuation with celebrity, sex, consumerist zealotry and ‘traditional values’ replete with contradictions, loopholes, and hypocrisies. Cities teeming with tensions both new and old attempt to hide them amidst the serenities of calming home furnishing outlets, gleaning new car paint, and identically constructed strip malls conveniently placed to provide a sense of comfort and familiarity. And yet, despite the continuity of its common surface features, the hearts of America’s unseen ghettos and disparaged communities still beat, living testaments to an experiment long gone awry. It is from these places that her ‘best and bravest’ have been routinely plucked and sent thousands of miles to defend a way of life that most of them have no understanding of. And on the other side of her now weed covered tracks, the parlors and front rooms of the well to do are aglow with the eerie blue light of massive plasma televisions tuned in to images of their neighbours, never met or befriended, marching through foreign landscapes laden with weapons and the heaviest of all burdens – the self proclaimed possession of the moral high ground.

I have, in my life, traveled this nation extensively. I have had members of my own family serve in its Armed Forces and fight in its wars. I have seen her best and her worst. I have seen the growing obesity that plagues her population, the insularity that many Americans cling to so as not to have to face the realities of the actions of their leaders, nor their own role in empowering them, and, of course, the rising religious fanaticism and xenophobia that has become vastly prevalent. America is rotting from the inside out, and while those at its core are willing to admit as much, those distanced from it refuse to believe it possible.

Kids no older than twenty wander through major US airports with plastic limbs, reliant on canes and wheelchairs. They are America. They pass through the throngs of other travelers like apparitions, prosthetic limbs where arms used to be, haircuts that feebly cover up a patchwork of scars that one might expect to be depicted in the pages of a Mary Shelley novel. When you see them it hits you. That despite the majority going about their daily business, this is a nation at war – a war that has become dangerously silent. It is a phenomenon that is not limited to this nation either, but one that exists at home as well.

There are those that call them ‘heroes’. There are those that call them ’survivors’. They may very well be both, but one thing they will always be is ‘victims’. That no matter how they feel about their personal conduct, or the politics behind their deployment, they will spend the rest of their lives plagued by the frozen photographs locked in their heads. And that is a price that no man or woman should have to pay.

Though many of you might not be aware of it, Roy actively served in the 82nd Airborne from 1984 to 1986. All toll he actively served in the US Army from 1983 to 1989. During that period he spent time ‘liaising’ with locals in El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua - even though the United States Armed Forces were never ‘officially’ there. He also served in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. During that time he also saw some rather disturbing things, things that still cause him problems decades after the fact. In one instance he had to treat a fellow soldier who had an unexploded RPG pass right through the center of their body. All he was able to do was shove a bag in the hole in hopes of containing the man’s insides, which obviously did nothing to help. When something has passed through the middle of a person’s body in such a way that you can see clear through them, there’s nothing that can be done for them except to react as you’ve been trained to react, which is to expediently treat the wound before the individual in question is whisked away to a field hospital where they are subsequently pronounced dead. Of course, the soldier that died in that instance perished in a ‘training accident’ because, as I’ve mention, the US military was never ‘actually’ in the location in which it happened, another tidbit that has also haunted Roy for decades.

Listening to him talk about it is not at all pleasant, and it is more than apparent that it makes him massively uncomfortable. “Dead Priests and Nun’s”, he repeats, his countenance blank, as if attempting to repeatedly ram home the severity of the actions of those that his contingent trained while in Central America. He does not elaborate, emphasizing instead little horrors confined to simple sentences.

Roy, it seems, even after all these years, is American too.

As you can all see, we have a new site design. The truth is that it’s not actually new; it was a design that we used over a year ago. After re-designing the site after its use, Dale made it a Wordpress theme available for download, so if you want to use this theme, and have a Wordpress blog, please do. We’ve obviously made some changes to it for our use here, but it’s basically the same.

One of the alterations is the addition of the little ship logo, which, as is usually the case, I designed to look like a football crest. The little ahoy! is a guilty pleasure that we included because, well, we have a soft spot for base nautical humour.

The favicon was also my idea, though we might change that in the days to come because most people will automatically assume that it’s the Cross of St. Andrew, the Scottish flag, which it isn’t. I, myself, have some Scottish heritage, so it’s nothing against Scotland. It was just meant to be, once again, a little inside nautical humour.

I have always had a thing for ships, primarily 17th and 18th century vessels, so it’s really no surprise that I would use a ship’s silhouette in the design. That said, it will stick around until we get bored of it and, ultimately, find something else to replace it. We are, after all, design freaks, though this latest change was made primarily to trim some fat from the site.

No matter how many changes we make, the content, and the archives, remain the same, so there’s no worries on that account. I personally like single column designs when it comes to blogs if they include a clean top menu, which this one does, so.

If you read the site via the RSS feed, make sure to take note that the author of each entry is now listed below the post itself. I have to take the blame for that, as I didn’t think putting that information above the entry text looked clean.

The ‘Featured’ Icon

You’ll notice that a few entries at the top of the main page of the website have this arrow icon next to them. These are entries that are ‘featured’, or been pinned at the top of the site because of their popularity or because they contain important announcements. New, regular posts, will appear below them. So make sure to scroll down to see if anything new has been posted.

Recent Film Views

I purchase and watch a lot of films, so providing in-depth reviews of all of them isn’t something I have the time for. So when I do, I’ll be short and sweet. Anyway, here are three that I picked up this week…

Beowulf

The classic Anglo-Saxon tale Hollywoodized. That’s to be expected. The use of Rotoscoping was an excellent decision, and makes the film.

The Darjeeling Limited

Like his films or not, Wes Anderson has a natural gift for making films that focus on the nuances of dialogue, something that is sorely lacking these days. Both Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman were excellent.

Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale

Would I go so far as to say that Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant have redefined comedy through works such as The Office and Extras? Yes, I would. This series finale is so good, in fact, that it overshadows the brilliance of the entire first two seasons.

The lynch pin, though, is the acting of Ashley Jensen, whose performance is, in my opinion, outstanding.

Need A Boob Job?

Jump online…

“Karla-Rae Morris is getting an $8,000 boob job for free – and she owes it all to bosom buddies she befriended on a controversial website.

Since the fall of 2005, the petite 26-year-old Fort McMurray mother has been racking up donations on www.MyFreeImplants.com – a California-based site that allows men to invest in breast augmentation surgery for flat-chested women who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford it. In exchange for donations, the women chat online with the charitable men and send them photos and videos of themselves.

Morris, a married stay-at-home mom with two young children, reached her goal of $8,000 last month. She joins Strathmore mom Candace Leadley, also 26, as the only known Canadians to reach “Hall-of-Fame” status on the site.

The five-foot-six, 98-pound Morris, who initially took some grief from her husband and two of her sisters for her quest for a treasured chest, plans to undergo surgery this spring to expand from a 32AA to 34C cup.

“I’m going to be really super happy,” she told Sun Media. “I always felt like less of a woman and more like a little girl. It’s going to make me more confident wearing a swimsuit. And I won’t have to buy padded bras anymore.”

A few clarifications regarding my last entry. With regards to Afghanistan, obviously the rhetoric that I employed was extreme. My reason for doing so was simple – to show that, despite what many Canadians believe, there is really no middle ground when it comes to our participation in direct combat operations. Peacekeeping is another matter altogether, as is aiding in reconstruction efforts, the first obviously being required to provide security for the second, but under a mandate that is not overtly aggressive. But that is not where we find ourselves at present, and Canadians should realize the difference between the two.

I find it interesting that the force employed during past conflicts seems to get overlooked when it comes to present conflicts, as if war has become something in which death and horror is not a reality any longer, or at least comes as a surprise when we find out that it is. During the Second World War, the bombing campaigns against both Germany and Japan were devastating, and did not go out of their way to minimize collateral damage. In fact, civilian demoralization was a goal, and one that produced significant results.

Now, I do not say this as an advocate for the use of such force, simply as a reminder that that is what war entails. There is no such thing as a clean war, though many have come to believe that such a thing can exist.

The second clarification that I would like to address is my reference to AFRICOM being headquartered in Ethiopia. If you research AFRICOM, which is the acronym for The United States Africa Command, you’ll discover that, according to the Department Of Defense, it is currently headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. AFRICOM was authorized in June of 2007 to the outrage of numerous African nations, among them Egypt, a long time US ally, who was ultimately excluded from its sphere of influence. The initial mandate of AFRICOM is similar to other US regional commands that were created after the Second World War. Though some of their names have been changed since, those initial commands are now represented by CENTCOM, EUCOM, PACOM, NORTHCOM, and SOUTHCOM. With the addition of AFRICOM, the United States now has joint military commands that encompass every region of the world. And while the Department of Defense lists the headquarters for all of them save EUCOM and AFRICOM as being on US soil, the reality is that adjunct regional command centers are, by no means, a thing of fantasy.

In the case of AFRICOM, there is widespread hostility towards it by many of the African nations that it covets. There are, of course, exceptions. Liberia, for example, has openly stated that it would host the command, though given the state of affairs in that nation it is entirely impractical (though that is not to say that some from of adjunct office might not ultimately be instituted there). Others that have been scouted include Gabon, Senegal, and Cameroon.

One nation, however, that has already stated that it will be working with AFRICOM is Ethiopia, a position that the country’s Prime Minister, Menes Zelawi, confirmed last fall. Ethiopia is also no stranger to US military training assistance. In 2004, a temporary base, Camp United, became home to training elements of the US 3rd Infantry, located near the Ethiopian Military Academy in Hurso, who were responsible for instruction in infantry fundamentals.

In December of 2006, Ethiopia, aided by the US Air Force and Special Forces teams, invaded Somalia to overthrow the ICU. In June of 2007, AFRICOM was authorized and then instituted in October of that year.

Added to this is the use of notorious Ethiopian prisons known for their use of torture to house detainees that have been used by the CIA and FBI for interrogation purposes.

Ultimately, AFRICOM’s ‘official’ residence might not ultimately be in Ethiopia, but there is no questioning the fact that, given US assistance to, and involvement with, Ethiopia, that its presence in that country is by no means slight. Of course, the United States has adamantly denied that AFRICOM’s purpose is geared towards the militarization of Africa. Unfortunately, given their complicity in the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, that stance is highly dubious.

Therefore, for the sake of factual accuracy, I will retract my previous assertion (for the time being, at least).