December 2008
6 posts
Flashback: The Time Vice Magazine Hurt My Feelings
I’ve been in Vice Magazine twice: once when they published a feature I wrote while on an internship in Kosovo, and prior to that when they straight-up dissed me on the letters page. The latter is a far more interesting story:
It was around 1998, and I was still in journalism school. A (former) friend and classmate who worked for Vice invited me to do some proofreading with him, and I...
Nom de plume: What Are You Hiding?
I’m going to keep this as vague as possible, what with Montreal being a small city and not a place you want to piss off your professional peers. That being said, I write for a local arts/music/urban culture monthly of note, and it seems like every second contributor has some sort of convoluted pseudonym for their byline. Now, I can understand if, for example, you’re a DJ or...
ATHF Live Action Casting Contest!?!
omigod omigod omigod - the Cartoon Network is doing a live-action episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and they’re holding a casting contest for the part of Carl! Described as “the prime, Grade-A cut of all-American man-meat who lives next door”, Carl is a human colostomy bag of middle-aged white male depravity. He also got raped by a talking dish glove called Hand Banana -...
Zen and the Art of Dubstep
Our good friends over Music is My Sanctuary just posted Flying Lotus’ Essential Mix, and it’s a real lulu: Daedelus, Portishead, Slum Village, and all sorts of moody, broody goodness. Run by the one of the hardest working DJs in the 514, Lexis, Sancutary is probably the best music portal in the city, and a well-written one at that. So, uh, check it out.
I (heart) Theme Parties
For those of you outside of Facebookvania, this is a shot of me at the Reitmans Christmas party last Friday night. I was the DJ, and one of about five people dressed up according to that night’s theme, Brow-Furrowing Virtuoso Composers of the 18th Century (but seriously, it was something like Catherine the Great).
I played to a predominantly female crowd, so I more or less knew what...
November 2008
1 post
CFCF Leftovers
Has it been two-and-a-half months already? Boy, time sure flies when you’re avoiding the creeping guilt of giving up on your blog. As a peace offering to our zero readers, here’s what was left on the editing room floor of my interview with the mysterious Mike Silver, aka CFCF (Myspace page here). Dude’s 21 and he’s already remixed Crystal Castles, The Teenagers and The...
September 2008
4 posts
You Should Write That Down
Always keep a notebook and pen handy. The missus and I watched Commando the other night when I scribbled down the following gem:
I *think* I was referring to Tommy Chong’s daughter, Rae Dawn Chong, who played Schwarzenegger’s sidekick/love interest. And for the record, I don’t think she’s ugly at all…that said, “horse-faced dog monster” is officially my...
Ask Michael! What Obama Means
Forget the platitudes, the promises and his uphill battle against a once presumptive candidate - Barak Obama is the Democrats’ brightest hope since that sax-playing chubby chaser from Arkansas. But what does this firebrand mean for America? More importantly, who the hell is he, and why do I care? For these answers and more we go to Michael R., fresh back from his trip to scenic Boulder,...
SkyMall: Slice Me Nice
In your FACE, pizza wheel! SkyMall’s Labour Day sale is on, and you know what that means: big savings on essential kitchen accessories like the Pizza Pro, a combination scissor-spatula that cuts serving time in half:
Pizza lovers rejoice: serving slices is easier than ever!
The Pizza Pro - Slice and serve pizza easily with this new invention. It combines kitchen shears with a...
August 2008
19 posts
Arnold Vs. Hitler
The final script for Commando must have undergone some heavy-duty re-writes judging by this Schwarzenegger-less synopsis provided by the vigilent cinephiles at Canwest Media’s’ Showcase Action channel:
“Commando - Churchill’s vision of a commando force to strike back against the dark days of 1940 is born. Bakers, journalists, curators and boxers are taken to Scotland and...
Vive le Québec Fétiche
The unstoppable Bianca Beauchamp lands another cover, this time for Summum, the Quebec equivalent of Maxim or FHM (“lad mags” as they call ‘em in the UK).
We here at Panty Raid! are huge supporters of Bianca’s every endeavour, not just because she looks great drenched in baby oil, but also for the fact that she’s fetish culture royalty and the biggest local export...
Celebrity Encounters: Kevin Spacey
Courtesy of Amory Blaine here in Montreal:
“It was 1998 and I was in London, England for a year on what would end up a botched academic exchange. I had gotten pub work north of the city centre in the posh Islington neighbourhood, not far from the famous Almeida theatre.
“I was working the lunch shift (pseudo-gourmet pub grub: pasta, sausage, etc) and this guy comes in and sits at...
Facebook Wall Messages Not Intended for Public...
Another stolen idea, but I doubt Liam will hold it against me. Here’s an unintentional outing that scrolled across my news feed recently:
“Hi [blank], miss your warm touch and friendly roaming eyes LOL!!!!! Give me a call.”
Hotties for Jesus
Christianity just got interesting. According to this BBC article, Father Antonio Rungi of Italy is organizing the first-ever beauty pageant for nuns. Why? To quash their image as dowdy prudes, of course. Miss Sister Italy begins this September, and will be decided by online votes via Rungi’s blog (still looking for the URL - will update soon). Nuns have the option to wear their full...
Archie Digested
Archie is an anti-semite.
SkyMall is Your God
As any self-respecting spy will tell you, these ironman blade shades are the best way to blend into a crowd and conduct some serious counter-espionage. Better yet, you can listen to your own personalized spy music playlist on the built-in MP3 player! Just don’t lose the remote control as manual operation may arouse suspicion:
Sunglasses have a 1.3 mega pixel pinhole camera that captures...
Nostradamus Wept
Old magazines are the best. Here’s a clip from a 1994 issue of Premiere Magazine touting CSI squinter David Caruso as the next Bruce Willis. Can you believe this joker got $2M+ for Jade?!? Poor William Friedken…
Ask Michael! China, Africa, and the New Cold War
This week’s Ask Michael! is sort of a sequel to the previous installment, Africa: what the fuck? Here, our favourite former activist and lover of fine jazz music deals with China’s relationship to Africa, and what that means for the rest of us.
Q: Is Chinese world domination imminent? Also, why are they so interested in Africa?
A: It’s become a commonplace to say that China is poised...
Facebook Tuesdays
I totally spaced on last Friday’s events (let’s blame the tonsil infection), so here’s a special Tuesday edition instead.
WHAT: The War of the Others, a photographic search for evidence and answers in the wake of Lebanon’s 15 year civil war. WHO: Liam Maloney, who also does a night at Blizzart called Mixtapes. Check it out. WHERE: Papeterie Nota Bene, 3416 Av du Parc...
Flickr'd!
Flickr community, you are the greatest. I can’t decide which is better: the grabby emperor penguin in the centre, or the name of the picture itself - I Love This Red Shirt (no, really). Thanks to SMHowey for this glimpse into the adults-only realm of Antarctica.
UPDATE: Gah! SMHowey took down her penguin pic, so here’s one I call “goth trying trying not to smile.”
Mandatory CanCon
In accordance with sweeping reforms to the CRTC, blogs must now offer a minimum level of content that pretends Canadian celebrities matter. Here’s a May 1994 clipping from UK geriatric tome, Q Magazine. Oh, Mutt…why must you be so impulsive?
Nigella Lawson Topless Milk Jugs
Smooth and round, ideal for holding cream. Grab a pair while you can (thanks to Aaron for this).
Metal Bonbon is Gay for NPH
A big Panty Raid! salute to Eli over at Metal Bonbon for posting NPH’s TV spot for Old Spice. A couple weeks ago I posted the print ad without realizing it was a multi-platform campaign, and so as a tribute to my neo-feminist counterpart I offer this sweet albeit illegal Presets download.
Archie Digested
Archie hunts moose with his bare hands. Reggie, meanwhile, seems fairly confident that Moose won’t kick his ass, and even goes so far as to pull a Ferris Bueller (Paramount made You Tube take down the original shower scene montage, so here’s Martita’s re-enactment). Finally, there are a whopping eight exclamation points in just five panels. Who wrote this, Tom Wolfe?
Facebook Fridays
I’m tired of giving you people options. From now on it’s just one event. Eye 2 Eye are back, and this time they’ve got rubbers. Their live shows are total devastation, so get there early - the party goes off promptly at 11pm. Don’t sleep!
WHAT: hip hop (download “1982” here) WHO: Eye 2 Eye, the flyest white boys in the game. With special guests Brockway...
July 2008
38 posts
Free CDs - for Realsies
I review CDs for a local “magazine.” My editor gets more music than he knows what to do with and ends up giving it all away to the writers. Some of it is gold, some is good but not my bag, and the rest is unlistenable garbage not fit for a Soviet discotheque.
Since selling them is more trouble than it’s worth, I’ve decided to give them away to you, the loyal Panty Raid!...
Are You There God? It's Me, Panty Raid
Please excuse the recent gap in updates as I’ve spent the last two days moving my favourite record store into their new digs. We’re not talking about puny little CDs here - this as-of-yet to be completed migration (three days and counting) involves thousands of records (as in vinyl) sorted into hundreds of boxes that weigh well over 45 pounds each. Get an eyeful here.
Add to that a...
Skymall Catalogue Update
Gentlemen, we have the technology. Introducing the Bionic Golf Glove from the good people at Skymall. While it’s alleged to be a boon for arthritis sufferers, I can’t seem to find anything in the product description about lasers or the ability to un-snap bras from a distance of 200 feet. Click here for more gadgets to improve your short game.
This glove is scientifically designed...
Blessings by the Pound!
We’ve all been accosted by Jesus guy at one point or another - I was buying an empanada when one of god’s self-appointed emissaries compared my empty stomach to the spiritual void in my life. They’re impossible to talk to because all they do is talk AT you, so I usually just nod, take the flyer and beat a retreat in the opposite direction.
This one, however, caught my eye....
Ask Michael! The Africa Edition
Africa: what the fuck? AIDS, genocide, massive corruption - I get sweaty just thinking about it. My grasp of the background material is patchy at best, so I got former activist and bon vivant Michael R. to produce this abridged explanation.
Q: Is Africa doomed? Also, what the fuck?
A: Africa is, of course, in very serious crisis, with the situation being particularly egregious in Sub-Saharan...
Facebook Fridays Newsflash!
Not sure who’s going to see this before going out tonight, but WHOA, DOGGY! This one looks like a hum-dinger. Because nothing says summer like laptop crunk and secret loft ragers.
Pompe tes Pipes II
WHAT: glitchy hip hop remixes, other party fare WHERE: see the flyer - RSVP ASAP!!! STARTS: 10pm / ENDS: 10am
Flickr'd! Private Photos For Your Amusement
Sad. Just sad. In IMG_3839, two equatorial youths are reduced to imagining that it’s winter, and that their sleds are coasting across the crystaline crunch of an arctic landscape. Least amused by all this are the family dogs (out of frame), who, despite incessant cajoling, refuse to pull their young charges across the lawn.
Facebook Fridays (on Thursday)
Meh. Not much happening this Friday, but that just means you’ll have plenty of braincells left for Mathew Jonson at Piknic Electronik on Sunday. In the mean time:
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHT SHOW! Featuring:
Angus Byers (Fast Eddie jr) Stef Elie Danielle Isherwood Sheena B King Len Caterina Rizzi Jenny Schades Hilary Jane Caroline Joy-Elizabeth Elie SPACR Olivia Mew Nick Oaks David Majer Nathan...
Celebrity Encounters: Kate Perry
Today’s celeb encounter comes at a price. J, a childhood friend of mine, made me promise that I would recount an incident where I was late for supper one night and, in an act of desperation, threw myself off my bicycle and rolled around in the dirt to make it look as if I’d been in an accident, thus exonerating me from being tardy. He still finds this hilarious. With that out of the...
Blogs Don't Kill Children, "Lifestreams" Kill...
Maybe Dave wasn’t so off in his scathing sideswipe at blogism. To call it “Lifestreaming” is like referring to sex as “genital on genital interfacing”.
Still, he can’t be all bad - check out Thom’s July 21 post, entitled “Nerdtacular 2008 Was A Blast”. Is that a Booka Shade track he uses at the beginning??? Edited together with the cowbell...
Why the Pixies Suck, by Lydia Lunch
My favourite record store is moving next week so they’re holding a big clearance sale. I grabbed a mint condition copy of About Love by Gladys Knight & The Pips, and a Chevy Chase comedy album that defies description. I also picked up an issue of Forced Exposure from 1989 in which actress-singer-performance artist-writer-director and noted bisexual Lydia Lunch rails on the music...
Blogs Suck - Read my Blog!
We get it, Dave - you think blogs are gay, but did you really need 500 words to get your point across? More south asian tales, less hipster jabber, OK?
Seriously though, I love him - which is why I rag on Dave like a brother. Here’s an awesome post he wrote on the ultimate in consumer hyperbole: Skymall.
Why Little Girls Love Horses (and sorry, it's not...
As part of Panty Raid!’s ongoing investigation into the sudden departure of Archie Comics’ “fairy blogmother” Patty and her subsequent reappearance as the moderator of an equine fan fiction site for girls, I had promised a juicy think-piece from one time trotter a sometimes jumper Rhiannon Brock on the female obsession with horsies. This one’s for you, Flicka fans!...
Celebrity Encounters: David Arquette
Stolen from Vice, but they stopped doing it years ago so GAME ON. Anyway, my friend Jay was in Toronto when he caught sight of a pro wrestling legend. and no, it wasn’t “Rowdy” Roddy Piper.
“My David Arquette story is my favourite story of all time. I was sitting having breakfast at a restaurant with my wife and my parents. Our seats were near the window, and I was...
Archie Digested
Before we get into this week’s strip, it appears I’ve stumbled ass-backwards into a hot Archie scoop.
I recently visited the Archie website for the first time, curious to know more about Riverdale’s preeminent teens as expressed through the characters’ blogs. But when I clicked on Betty’s, I found the following farewell note from the now former site moderator,...
Art es la MUERTE!
Welcome to yet another inaugural feature in an ongoing series here at Panty Raid! Each week (or as time permits) we’ll profile what’s new in local art, and if possible, where to scam free wine and cheese in the metropolitan Montreal area.
Francis Bacon meets Mexican retablo in Danielle Isherwood’s Mary de la Muerte (pictured above). The piece is part of ARRRRRRRRRRGHT SHOW!!!,...
Too Soon? Fox/Global Bleep Tim Russert Gag on...
Fox/Global TV erred on the side of good taste tonight as they opted to bleep out a random Family Guy jab at recently deceased journalist Tim Russert.
The episode - a rerun, actually - was the one about Brian’s bastard son. In the very last scene, the boy’s trailer trash mom comes to reclaim him, and as they’re leaving the Griffin’s house, Peter remarks to Brian,...
Overheard in Montreal (FHaHB, all rights reserved)
The idea is poached from Rhiannon Brock of Fag Hags and Handbags, so I have to give her full credit. The following was eavesdropped yesterday at Chez Vito on Saint-Urbain and Fairmount:
“I’m sorry, but you’d have to be an alcoholic to get a Grey Goose Tattoo.”