Friday in Western Canada

If you're staying home tonight, and why wouldn't you, you might want to check out The Fifth Estate on CBC at 9 p.m., as they present "Staying Alive", their documentary on Vancouver's Supervised Injection Site. If you watch closely, you might see me in the background. But that's not why you should watch it, and don't let it distract from the most indepth look at the SIS in broadcast history.

The fine people at Flemish Eye have announced the May 19th release of the self-titled debut album from the Pale Air Singers (pictured above), a collab between two of my favourite Western Canadian groups, The Cape May and Run Chico Run. The track (below) they've released in preview showcases TCM singer Clinton St. John's wide prairie vocals and that's good enough for Gladys, as we used to say on the Bridge Building Crew.

mp3: "Convict Escapes" by Pale Air Singers

If you're in Regina on Saturday, check out Deep Dark Woods at the Exchange. Their new album, Winter Hours, is some kinda fine Saskatchewania.

mp3: "All the Money I Had is Gone" by Deep Dark Woods

Speaking of Regina, I can't get enough of Paul Dechene's municipal politics updates at the Prairie Dog's Dog Blog. Regina City Council meetings are a glorious, frustrating thing to behold, and I always appreciate that someone is there paying attention.

In this job you gotta be able to howl at yourself, or else you die inside.

I don't know if I've ever seen a Kate Winslet movie, but I know in my heart of hearts that she's never been as good in a movie as Melissa Leo was in Frozen River. And I'm not just saying that because I love Homicide. Which I do.

Frozen River is one of those small, flawless movies, like In Bruges or The Visitor, that quietly goes about its business of being a damned fine movie. It deals in the small truths of people doing their best to make through this world and into the next, all the while trying to take care of their own without losing too much of themselves.

Andre Ethier is like those movies. I've written about him before, and don't have a lot to add, except that sometime in the last few months, likely late 2008, he released a new album, Born of Blue Fog, which is the follow up to On Blue Fog, released on Blue Fog. No fanfare, no tour. Just an album. Just one hell of an album.

It's interesting to see the reactions to the just-published review of Saskatchewan's Needle Exchange Program. Sask. Health Minister Don McMorris would like to see a higher rate of rig return than the 90% they're reporting, which is a pretty freaking high return rate. I think he--and, in turn, the L-P Editorial Board--is just looking for something, anything to complain about in a report that seems to show success, both in terms of public health and public finance, through following harm reduction models. I'm curious about the report's finding of cocaine and morphine as SK's top substances. The "poor man's speedball" of Talwin & Ritalin has traditionally been associated with Saskatchewan, particularly among the too-often overlapping First Nations and prison populations.

mp3: "Polynesian Beach" by Andre Ethier
mp3: "Flash in a Bottle" by Dead Heart Bloom

Starring Eva Mendes as Me!

If you're curious about what I get up to when I'm not working on this thing, reading comics, or eating pecan pie, this will give you the basic gist of what a typical night in my life would be like if I looked just like Eva Mendes! Hey, we have the same initials, so we're practically the same person anyway!

Thomas Bryan Eaton lives in Brooklyn, where he maintains a MySpace page and makes folk-rock music. His new album, called Dreams, Demons & Butterflies, comes out in July and if you're in the New York area, you can probably make the time to see him live this summer. He has the same initials as arctic explorer Tyson Bradford Emerson, failed karaoke host Thelma Brenda Ellis, science fiction convention pioneer Thundarr Braintree Earache, shoe repairman (cobbler) Tennessee Bob Eggers, inventor of the painted rock Tuesday Brooke Eeling (pronounced "Oolong"), ten-time International Body of Sanctioned Bumper Pool Tournaments champ Theodore Banacek Edamame, and "Seventh Beatle" Tybold Brannigan Eisenhauer.

mp3: "Meant To Last (Radio Edit)" by Thomas Bryan Eaton
mp3: "Naked Ear" by Thomas Bryan Eaton

It's not Bertrand Russell, but what do you want?

I work the nightshift. Four nights a week, every week, since May of this year. I'm part Travis Bickle, part Bodhisattva. I see the worst and quite often the best this city has to offer about 350 times a night. And I listen to a lot of classic rock.
Things I've learned from listening to classic rock in a room full of constantly changing people:

• Everybody loves CCR. It's totally foolproof.
• Joni Mitchell, not so much, surprisingly.
• If you're desperate to hear the words "Turn it up, man!", lay a little Back in Black on a brother.
• AC/DC, reportedly, has a better song than "Who Made Who".
• That song might be "You Shook Me All Night Long".
• Sometimes Jonathan Richman does sound like Neil Diamond.
• "Coney Island Baby" from the album of the same name just might be Lou Reed's best song ever.
• When AC/DC gets overplayed, reach for the Nazareth (but avoid the ballads).
• People like the Band almost as unanimously as they like CCR.
• If you turn off Led Zeppelin's "Ramble On" and turn on Jay-Z's new album, you will get your ass beat.
• Even the toughest thug (of a certain age) will soften a little for the Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love".

mp3: "Sunset to Dawn" by the Sadies