The White Stripes - Black Math Live
The White Stripes have released a documentary film and accompanying live album entitled "Under Great White Northern Lights" which documents their 2007 tour across Canada.

I'm enjoying the live album and I'm sharing "Black Math" because it's one of my favourite White Stripes tunes.

The White Stripes: The best band of the past decade. Agree or disagree?

For many, St. Patrick's Day has become an excuse to party and drink to excess. For me, it's a reason to remember good times with my Grandma. We were told she wouldn't be with us by Thanksgiving Day 2009, but she's still with us today. Grandma, may the Lord keep you in His hand and never close His fist too tight.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

When they say "powered by YOU", they really mean "stolen from YOU". Here's the sequence of events that ticked me off, in chronological order.

1. I Post An Exclusive Interview on My Blog
I conducted an interview with Rick Hodge, using questions I wrote, and with Rick's explicit permission, I posted this interview on my blog.

That's my content, licensed under a Creative Commons License that permits anyone to "copy, distribute and transmit the work" so long as it's noncommercial and I'm attributed as the source with a link back to my site.

2. Airchecker Posts My Content On Their Blog
Airchecker takes my entry, likely from my RSS feed, and reproduces it on their blog. They don't credit the source, they reproduce almost the entire Rick Hodge interview with "Posted by Airchecker" in the footer. Here's a screen cap of how my entry looks on their Blogger blog.

3. Airchecker Tweets About Their Interview With Rick Hodge, Linking to Their Blog
Now that Airchecker has my exclusive content on their site as if it's theirs, they may as well promote it via Twitter. Their tweet, of course, doesn't include @torontomike or a link back to my blog. Here's their tweet:

I'm aware there are thousands of scraper blogs out there, stealing content from RSS feeds for SEO fodder, but this is different. This Airchecker is an attempt to provide a Canadian radio news aggregation service, and that's why this practice of theirs has me peeved. It's just wrong. It's stealing.

Airchecker, I'm sentencing you to five minutes in the sin bin for unethical blogging and tweeting practices. If you need good content, write it yourself. If you want to borrow some of mine, at least mention that it's mine and link back to the appropriate permalink, or put me on the Airchecker payroll. Play by the rules or Colin Campbell will suspend you... or not.

At some point, McDonald's stopped selling them. I'm guessing they weren't selling enough to make it worthwhile. It's too bad, I think the kids would dig them.

Here's an old ad for the shamrock milkshake, circa 1986.

Four years ago, after having enough of Rob Ford's Neanderthal comments, I wrote a definitive list of Rob Ford quotes. Here are a few of my favourites:

"This is an insult to my constituents to even think about having a shelter in my ward!" - April, 2002

"I don't understand. Number one, I don't understand a transgender, I don't understand, is it a guy dressed up like a girl or a girl dressed up like a guy? And we're funding this for, I don't know, what does it say here? We're giving them $3,210?" - June 2005

"People do not want government housing built in the city of Toronto. They want roads fixed, more police presence, but they don't want more government housing that will depreciate the value of their property." - July, 2005

A year after I wrote that entry, he chimed in with a beaut about bike lanes.

I can't support bike lanes. Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it's their own fault at the end of the day.

Rob Ford, they seem to like you in Ward 2, Etobicoke North. Please run there. Toronto's next mayor won't be a bike lane hating, Transit City killing social conservative who promises to "cut everything but police spending to tame the city budget. Libraries, parks, whatever."

Surely we can bring accountability to city hall spending without this extra baggage and complete lack of big city vision.

Rick Hodge is no longer on the air, having been booted from the radio by Astral, but he's now writing very interesting prose on his blog. All bias aside, it's a very interesting perspective and he occasionally tells some pretty cool Toronto radio stories over there. I strongly urge you to check it out.

Here's an interview I conducted with Toronto radio legend Rick Hodge earlier today.

Q: I can't tell you how many Sunday nights I spent listening to you host the Sunday Night Funnies on CHUM-FM. How did that program come to be? Are you aware of how awesome it was?
A: I inherited the Sunday Funnies after the original host left. It was kind of make shift at the time so I thought it would be a good idea to get it organized. Because of content and language a lot of the material couldn't be used and it would take the producer hours to find all the edits. So I catalogued the entire library. Then I made a point of going to the big record stores downtown and bought up anything new I found. I remember coming across Jeff Foxworthy for the first time. I bought him, loved him and played him. After a couple of weeks I got a call from Sam the Record Man. The guy said "what the hell are you doing?" They were getting a non stop stream of people coming into the store asking for Jeff Foxworthy or that southern guy I heard on the Funnies. I also made runs to Buffalo about every 3 months because they had material that wasn't available in Canada. Don Ferguson from the Air Farce told me I had the largest comedy collection he had ever seen.

One thing I took pride in was promoting as much Canadian talent as I could. The 2 comics I got to know the best were Gerry D who cut a name for himself on "Last Comic Standing" in the US and Frank Spadone. I just happened to pick up Frank's cd one day and started playing it. I used it on the Funnies and he called to ask if he could do a ticket giveaway on the morning show. He did and the venue, which was only half sold, sold out. And he did it on Super Bowl Sunday.

The program director at the time wanted me to start cutting back on the older comics. He wanted the young comics I told him the problem with the young comics is that most of them live and die with "F" bomb. If he'd allow me let that word go in their bits it would open things up for all sorts of new material. He did and we only got one complaint.

To answer the question, no I never did realize how awesome it was.

Q: I used to catch you on television hosting Rinkside, a weekly AHL highlight show. How did you score that gig?
A: Actually they came to me. It was just after I won a sportscaster of the year award. I'm not a television guy so thank God it was pre-taped. The most fun I had was with the co-hosts. Brian Kilrea of the Ottawa 67's did regular bits one year and he was a hoot. Brad Smith (Motor City Smitty) was fun to work with. We discovered Jim Ralph when he was a goaltender with the Newmarket Saints. I knew from the start he had a career in sports casting. I also got to know Gord Stellick. Truly one of the nicest people I have ever met and another former non broadcaster who's done very well on hard work and talent as a talk show host.

Q: "Roger, Rick & Marilyn" was my mom's favourite radio show. The CHUM-FM morning show was tops in this city. Why did you leave?
A: Roger Rick and Marilyn was, and remains, the highlight of my broadcasting career. I was honoured to be asked to be part of Roger Ashby's induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. So, why did I leave? The station was evolving. My commentaries had been dropped, the Funnies were dropped and finally the sports casts in the morning were dropped. I disagreed at the time but in an industry that had become specialized I understand why they did what they did. I wanted to get back to doing sports and commentaries and I wanted to get involved with talk radio. There's more to the decision but basically when I was presented with the opportunity, I took it.

Q: Astral never seemed to know what to do with you once they landed you. You were on the EZ-Rock morning show, while running down the hall to be on CFRB. Then, without giving you a fair shot, they kicked you off the air. What the hell went wrong?
A: Good question.

Q: Do you have any resentment towards Astral?
A: No. Sometimes you forget it's a business and the people running that business will do what they feel is best for the company. I understand that. That doesn't mean it doesn't sting when it happens but at least you understand.

Q: What's next for Rick Hodge?
A: Well, I have to check the kitty litter, I have to fill out my NCAA brackets for the pool, Pardon the Interruption is on in about an hour (best show on TV), then I'll read some of the new book I just picked up. Lord I've got cabin fever. Actually I want to stay in radio. It's the old Joni Mitchell line "you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone." Getting up at some ridiculous hour never really bothered me. I love the early, early mornings and the drive to work at 2:30 am with virtually no traffic on the road. Where I'll end up I don't know and who knows, I may not end up anywhere.

[via Vintage Leafs]

This season, we added a couple of new guys and a new girl. Here's your 2010 Raging Storm slo-pitch superstars.

Men
Booner
Engell
Kicster
Mofo
Pats
Gregger
Andy Mac
Will The Thrill

Women
Kitchenette
Colleen The Dream
Mighty Mouse
The Sakker

SNL is pretty hit and miss these days, but the Digital Shorts from The Lonely Island are consistently good. The Pearl Jam ep featured a Lonely Island tune called "Boombox" featuring the vocal styling of The Strokes' Julian Casablancas, and well... I really liked it.

Here it is until NBC pulls it.

I'll always remember him as Captain Clarence Oveur from Airplane!

I wasn't just listening, I was recording the web stream with Audacity so I could share all 11:30 with you. Here's Metric Julie talking about Toronto Mike on Game Points.

I'm glad they laughed off this Leafs conspiracy angle that's gaining steam. This topic runs a little deeper than your run of the mill team rivalry.

Great job, Metric Julie!

I stand by my claim that The Wire is The Greatest Show On Television, Ever™. I've opined openly on the subject at http://www.torontomike.com/the_wire/. Treme is from the makers of The Wire, and here's the description from Wikipedia.

Treme is an upcoming American drama television series created by David Simon and Eric Overmyer. The series takes place three months after Hurricane Katrina where the residents of New Orleans, including musicians, chefs, Mardi Gras Indians and ordinary New Orleanian try to rebuild their lives, their homes and their unique culture in the aftermath of the 2005 hurricane. The series is scheduled to premiere April 11, 2010, on HBO. The first season will consist of 10 episodes, including an 80-minute pilot episode.

Note: I originally embedded the trailer below, but it was inexplicably pulled from YouTube. Instead, here's the less exciting teaser.

Welcome back, Bunk! I'll be watching on HBO Canada... there's no way I'd miss this.

Here are the soloists:

• K'naan
• Nelly Furtado
• Sam Roberts
• Avril Lavigne
• Pierre Bouvier
• Tyler Connolly
• Kardinal Offishall
• Jully Black
• LIGHTS
• Deryck Whibley
• Serena Ryder
• Jacob Hoggard
• Emily Haines
• Hawksley Workman
• Drake
• Chin Injeti
• Ima
• Pierre Lapointe
• Elisapie Isaac
• Esthero
• Corb Lund
• Fefe Dobson
• Nikki Yanofsky
• Matt Mays
• Justin Nozuka
• Justin Bieber

In the chorus my eagle eye caught old friends Jim Cuddy, Tom Cochrane, Colin James and Jim Creeggan.

Buy it here. All proceeds go to designated charities World Vision, Free The Children and War Child.

It all started when I saw a photo of two Habs fans wearing blackface and afro wigs on Deadspin. That prompted me to write Subbanator Habs Fans Find New Way to Offend. I couldn't believe these guys were allowed in the building, nor could I believe they were actually shown on television. Of course I had to write about it.

While I slept, friends of the two guys who wore the blackface and afro wigs found my entry. In addition to justifying the behaviour and ridiculing me for buying the media's lies and writing for hits, xmod threatened to bring down this entire site.

I have connections... ddos... ever heard of that..

A DDoS is a distributed denial-of-service attack and is usually carried out by consuming a web server's computational resources, such as bandwidth, disk space, or processor time. Somehow, despite xmod's threats, this site stayed online all day.

Then, the flood gates opened. All day long, comments poured in. Eventually I heard from one of the two men in the offending picture who went by the name "wantthis1488". He's the guy on the left and throughout the day we communicated both in the comments of that entry and via email.

wantthis1488 argued long and hard in defense of his blackface and afro wig. The arguments got more and more absurd, ranging from the movies "White Girls" and "Tropic Thunder" to the fact many Habs fans wanted pictures with the two and "we have now a black president". He closed with one final baffling threat.

wow man i am done with this forum u r going to be stupid and say that i am saying its ok to use th n word .. then it is no point to talk to you dumb ignorant douchbags thats how you said it.... what i was is that we are moving on and moving foward and u can now be proud .. and u can let go and stop trying to be the publics fan... and i have not even been contacted about this whole slander so i will be getting a hold of my lawyer .... ill see you soon mike

Assuming I survive his friend's DDoS attack, I'll be hearing from his lawyer. I'm more concerned with the several people who came to his defense and this promise wantthis1488 made in the comments.

ill do it again and again sweetheart ... and i dont have to tuck anything between my legs i am proud of what i did.... anyways everyone here is one minded theres no talking to you guys bye and toronto mike you said u were not doing this for promotion or to make yourself popular then stop twittering it and stop promoting it

That was my 9907th entry. In 9907 entries, I don't believe I've ever been as dismayed and disappointed in the general content of the comments. Still, amidst the ignorance, insensitivity, racism and generally offensiveness oozing from the majority of comments, a few sensible voices gave me hope.

Thank you Jim and Ajax Mike, for having my back and fighting the good fight, but I'll close this entry with the words of diehard Habs fan metricjulie.

Oh dear. Oh god. Oh, the humanity.

I am SO sorry, you guys. I, myself, am a Habs fan. I love Subban just as much as anyone and want him to develop in the AHL as long as he can before Montreal calls him up and ruins his career like we have seen happen so often (Latendresse, Price).

But man. Like Roy said, "The logic being used by the black face defenders is hurting my brain."

It hurts my brain too, and it hurts my pride and hurts to show my face as a Hab fan when these things happen.

Not to plug myself or anything, but I have written an entry on my blog called Your Guide To Being A Habs Fan: http://tinyurl.com/yzrm6fc

It's bad enough we are known for booing the US national anthem. I never thought I'd have to go and edit it to add a #6: Be blatantly racist, then defend your actions to the death.

It is so shameful that people are not only doing this, but that others are defending them and saying that they either "didn't know", "didn't mean to be offensive", "were supporting them, hence weren't trying to trash him so it makes it better", etc. Shame on all of you.

It is embarrassing enough to be a Habs fan without the people of Montreal looking like complete racists and senseless morons.

So for everyone on this thread who either wore blackface, defended blackface or was not completely appalled by blackface, I apologize. I apologize to the world for subjecting you to such blatant ignorance, insensitivity and hatred. And don't give me the "oh but they love Subban and were supporting him." DUDES PAINTED THEIR FACE BLACK. That is some aggressive perpetuation of racism. So don't even. Don't even.

Mike, you said "But thank you for validating my life-long hatred of Habs fans. Really... that's the fire you've truly fuelled here today."

and I don't blame you. I just hope that like me, you believe that 92% of the population ANYWHERE is stupid, and that somewhere in the shallows of Montreal are the 8% who are opposed to their behavior and are truly embarrassed and saddened that in TWENTY-TEN these events are still happening.

Because we exist, and we are so sorry for what happened.

A gentle reminder that there are reasonable, intelligent people who cheer for the Habs.