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2002: December 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 ¶ 2003 →
Renée, en passant, nails the essential fallacy, indeed fraud, of Buy Nothing Day: You just end up buying it all in advance. And “buy” here is really a synonym of “consume”; how many people bought nothing that day but also consumed nothing? (Let’s imagine you fasted for the day; it was already Ramadan. But what about shampoo, soap, and toilet paper?) Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Fred does a pre-arranged header onto the floor. A meta-moment that samples the actual chunk of glass embedded in the eye of a caméraman lo those several Bingos Volt ago?
Renée “FUCKBUDDIES FUCKFRIENDS” Gallien continues to blaze a trail for petite tightly-dressed, oversolicitous bilingual New Brunswick libertinettes who, instead of transferring their obsession with, say, rallying to the editorial content of their television employer, instead displace an obsession with sex and shit. It’s all supposed to be very emancipated because she’s a girl, and blonde, and small.
I am not buying it. Renée Gallien, when it comes to your “chronicles,” every day is Buy Nothing Day.
Good “chronicle” by the Ottawa chick about the Imax theatre at the Museum of Canadian Civilization. The shepherd, Jean Pageau, seems like one of those highly-engaged geeks: You can see the smarts in his eyes. Rather like Charles “CJAXX” Duchesne, actually, whom he resembles. The report could have used some more attention to the technical aspects, like how gigantic and fast the film stock is. Ask me sometime about the work I did, however indirectly, for Imax.
I saw the bumper for Fred’s reportage on the International Day of Disabled Persons (my book launch, you mean?) and cringed. Noncrips spending a day in a wheelchair has been done, and Fred fell into the usual trap of using a crap wheelchair which, moreover, he does not know how to push. (Real paras have narrow, short chairs with low backs and no arms, and they lean forward to push.) What the fuck is this, Bangladesh? I don’t know any wheelchair user with a piece-of-shit chair like that.
Fred plays dead on the show. Best part? The chest hair. And the barely-suppressed laughter: Check the rictus.
I’ve seen that guy on the 97 bus running north of Eg before. Wheelchair users are, in any event, a rather overrepresented minority of disabled people. This is, I remind you, my business. Good on Fred for at least mentioning (not very adequately, but there you go) the MoPix system. Bit too much of an emphasis on captioning, as ever; deaf people aren’t more important than blind.
I would say that disability, like so many other issues, could feed the ever-gaping maw of Volt story ideas on many occasions over the course of a season. How many rally segments have you run by this point? Could you perhaps branch out a little? Should we consider this a good start?
And I loved Fred’s deathbed dedication! Even if he croaks, go ye and interview people who live “that way”! I know a redhead in a wheelchair whose claims to speak French need to be put to the test. And he’s now the chair of the provincial advisory council required by the ODA. Who am I talking about?
You realize, with all this barely-concealed, barely-revealed chest bareness, screen captures of Fred lying dead on an operating table are likely to start floating around gay cruising sites? Note to readers: I don’t have a video capture card. But they are widely available.
Good segment with the embalmer. And I never thought of repressed gay funeral co-owners once. It’s still a bit morbid by definition. I liked the guest’s matter-of-fact style, though; I expect it derived from being a tad nervous, but it worked. (“Of course we open them up below the clavicle and expose a vein and an artery.”)
«Charles Duchesne est de retour de l’hôpital.» He was in the fucking hospital? You tell me that about any gay man and obviously the first thing I think is AIDS. This is what people think of when gays go into the hospital. It doesn’t have to be true, but it is a first impression.
Also, being shirtless but covered mostly by bedsheets makes Fred’s arms look even longer. B-Boy Fred, we hardly knew ye.
Frankly, I can believe Félix is in les Marmottes aplaties. Unintended consequence of compositing Nadyne’s on-the-street interview with the lads over footage from their music video: Mangled captions leak through.
Well, they’re mangled even when transmitted correctly, but let’s set that aside.
A punk band with full heads of hair, and often very good teeth. And they’re French. What’s not to like?
Cripes, the «De quoi tu parles de?» promo with Félix and Nadyne («Canada, 1534») is fantastic. Please keep running it. I adore Nadyne’s bile.
And I miss Mathieu Pichette’s. I saw him ad-libbing on La revanche des nerdz one day, biliously, and I realized I had not been properly appreciating him all those years.
Well. I hope he’s reasonably content in the distant-second-most-important city in Canada.
Still loving these impromptu droppings-in on Volt viewers. The Voltistes are good that way.
Great «La Bande 100 pareil ROCK» segment on assimilation. It’s that simple.
Crystal et Monique grow more Crystal et Hermétique with each passing week. I don’t quite get it, but I do quite enjoy it. Today’s Socratic dialogue over the relative merits of “Céline” albums could have derived from the sidelines of the dancepit at Fly.
Nadyne’s really fluent, and a good actress. When will she branch out?
Videos. How dare Frankie ask Francine if she were a “dancing queen”?
“Sister Surround” by the Soundtrack of Our Lives, a simply grisly video, like the feverish dream of a wastrel trying to beat smack. It’s the fluorescent lighting. «Tchi Cum Bah» by Superbus, all too hideously adorable. I don’t do adorable, save for kittens.
“There Goes the Fear” by the Doves. “There Goes the Career” by Mathieu Chantelois.
“From the Church to the Palace” by Snoop Dogg, the ugliest negro alive.
Nadia Campbell gives us some kind of reportage on some kind of band that would only be tolerated by pea-soup Francophones, what with the country-style violin and other antediluvian musical forms.
Question: Why is Chuck Labelle an object of derision while Swing (which in fact does not) merits an entire segment and a previous mention?
Gadget Boy returns to perpetuate the outright falsehood that video games have anything going for them whatsoever, save of course for PaRappa the Rapper and UmJammer Lammy. Why not just call up hunchback video-game apologist Neil Morton of Shift and put him on the air?
Anyway, Daniel «Gadget Boy» Paré seems reasonably credible and intelligent, also no-nonsense. And possibly has good shoulders, but I dunno. He has that sort of steady gaze you find from time to time.
But is that frosted hair? Is he gay or is he French?
Fred continues Volt’s ongoing anticonsumerist mania (Volt is anticonsumerist the way the Daily Tubby is anti-Kyoto) in a segment about overpackaging. Packaging is actually a surprisingly small component of municipal landfills, and if you consider the volume of material in the packaging as opposed to the volume of the assembled package (i.e., imagine flattening the box), then it becomes obvious that an unheeded issue could be increased transportation costs, because fewer items can fit into a truck, necessitating more trucks, hence more fuel usage.
Ever thought of that?
Nadia, who has failed to grievously offended me thus far, files a report on some kind of improvisation tourney. I would be so pathetic at that. Sometimes it takes me three tries before I get a zinger perfect; I have come to rely on editing.
We are promised a segment featuring whatever their names are (Carlita & Pétulia?), the drag alter egos Fred and Frankie, on Wednesday. Now, will we get it?
Frankie’s sick, and Fred needs a new T-shirt.
You do realize Fred’s a natural?
It’s because there is a Fred. He has a personality.
Fred perhaps unwisely notes the new census figures on language usage. You do realize that a mere 1.53% of GTA residents speak French as a first language?
Why is TFO headquartered in Toronto?
Hmm. Volt spends weeks ragging against consumerism, then sends Nadia Campbell out with two punters – the male one, surprisingly enough, seeming passably heterosexualist – to replicate What Not to Wear on a budget of $75 each. How much overpackaging did they buy, Nadia?
We are again promised a segment involving Fred and Frankie in drag. Oh, and Fred gives us a complete intro about the «Dossier consommation» in store for us tomorrow.
Now Renée seductively runs us through a list of gag Xmas gifts. With how much overpackaging?
A little bumperette before the show has Francine claiming that the entire Volt “team” is sick, so they’re running a repeat.
Norwalk virus, or some further malfeasance by Volt staff, as last year?
Videoclips: “Resurrection” by Fear Factory. (Play more Godsmack.) “Satellite” by POD, with its nauseatingly telegraphic opening; you’ve heard the whole song right then and there, and all you feel is dread at your ineluctible fate. «Ragga Dub» by Dubmatique, so silky-smooth it’s fake and alienating. “Time and Time Again” by Papa Roach: What exactly is wrong with “Time and time again, you think about yourself before you think about me” as a philosophie de vie?
How is Mathieu Pichette’s dog?
I had my friend in from Japan. He continued on to Enfield, and now I’m so bored I’m writing a Volt recap.
In search of the loveliest cow in Canada. You know that the combination of Volt and any kind of wild animal is a recipe for disaster – either faux-joke loving closeups of diarrheic bowel expulsion or wanton depictions of animal cruelty in violation of broadcast standards.
Yet such disasters seemed to have been averted. Perhaps the Voltistes are growing up, or JS has had his wrists slapped enough times to act with a certain fear of God.
I don’t quite get the segment on entombing off-brand canned cranberries in off-brand Jell-O®. I suppose that a typical uncultured bachelor (a plausible combination even if you’re also French) with access only to the Dominion at Yonge and Eg could not be expected to come up with better.
B-Boy Fred has like totally long arms.
Today we have «L’affection entre amis: Quand c’est trop, c’est trop» and a set of segments of Santas beating the shit out of each other. Sublimation?
I certainly like the Santa segments, which must have been tons of fun to shoot. Note that the guys keep their heads pulled back at all times while delivering blows. They need to commit. Volt without a bloody nose is a waste of time.
Like the bit with Fred as Justine! Give us more.
A roundtable on the dolls and teddies of Voltistes’ youth, which was quite honest and real. And an entire Christmas pageant, which wasn’t. Get Simon Garneau back! And Charles with the bloodied calves!
An alleged best-of show. Like you’re fucking overworked this time of the year.
Music videos today. (I said play more Godsmack.)
Voltistes’ picks! “Alive” by the Beastie Boys, whose avatars will still be around in the year 3500 (JS). “[Marvin the] Paranoid Android” by Radiohead (Félix). “The Scientist” by Coldplay, with the unmatched goodness and radiance of Chris Martin’s face (Nadyne). «Marcia Baïla» by les Rita Mitsouko (hardcore Rita Mitsouko choice by B-Boy Fred, who almost visibly danced on the show).
What is Sylvain Lavigne doing? Perhaps less interestingly, whom?
Also: The Volt fuckers are gonna be away till January 13? What is this – if you represent part of a piddling 1.53% of the population you get to knock off for three weeks?