Well, after a long hiatus, TGIF is back!

There were a few reasons for the hiatus, and some big news is on the horizon for TTRO. I won’t say too much yet (stay tuned for another post), but changes are coming. Over the past year or so my life has changed quite a bit. I’m spending more and more time building a biz as a freelance writer, social media consultant and now speaker(!), which means TTRO is due for a major overhaul so that it represents my life in its new, slightly more grown up form.

You’ll notice over the coming months that I will be posting somewhat different content from what you’ve come to expect at times, but don’t worry – the music itself will never completely go away. It remains a vital part of my daily existance.

On that note, Canadian Music Week is in full swing in Toronto, and I wrote about Some Shows I Think You Should See at CMW for Notable, if you’re curious about my picks. Get out there and see some live music!

Now, for the link love:

• TourRadar is giving away three trips to Brazil, Cambodia or Australia Just thought you might want to get in on that, since it’s actually open to Canadians (unlike most awesome travel contests!).
• Take the quiz: Ontario’s new sex ed curriculum I have a whole lot to say about the absolutely absurd protests going on about this, but again, I’ll save it for another post. For now, take the quiz if you’re someone still thinking it’s a bad thing to have an educator teach your kids about their own bodies and about inclusivity and non-judgement toward those bodies and the bodies and sexual and gender identities of their peers. An initiative to reduce bullying (and suicide rates associated with bullying) is never a bad thing – no matter what your religion tells you.
• Here’s Why Saving The Mindy Project Would Be the Smartest Thing Ever In devastating TV news, Fox yet again cancelled their best show (I wept both times Arrested Development was cancelled by those monsters). But Mindy is literally my career idol, and her show will definitely be saved by a team that understands television as something more than just an outlet to showcase commercials. We need to see the Castellano baby!
• 14 Pieces Of Advice Mindy Kaling Has For Women Speaking of Mindy, this is great.
• Tattoo Artists Cover Breast Cancer Survivors’ Scars With Beautiful Tattoos This is awesome. Talk about turning battle scars into art. Beautiful.
• University Creates ‘Puppy Room’ To Help Stressed-Out Students There should literally be puppy rooms all around the world. Feeling sad, stressed, or bored? Puppy room to the glorious, adorable rescue. Puppies!
• Love Is In Small Things This artist series is perfect. Love isn’t getting engaged in Paris. It’s surprise hugs, someone to vent to after a bad day, Game of Thrones marathons, and all that perfect doing nothing together stuff.
• More Sex Means More Money Good news, everyone! Get it on more, for your paycheck.
• It was NEVER a dress! Gotta love this modern take on the universal ladies bathroom symbol.
• The Rise of Women on Comedy Central: Female Shows, Standup Specials Comedy Central gets it so much. Fox could learn a ton from them.
• Studies Link Social Anxiety To Empathetic Ability, High IQs, & Sentinel Intelligence Us social anxiety filled introverts will take this and run with it, thank you very much. #somegoodnews
• Lena Dunham Made Me a Feminist I’ve had so many discussions with guys about how they hate Lena, or Hannah, or whoever they think she is, and I just wish I could make them all read this mans words.
• Why Warner Bros. Axed Michelle MacLaren, and What That Tells Us About the State of Female Directors in Hollywood MacLaren directed the best episodes of Breaking Bad, and she probably deserves a better vehicle than a potentially hokey superhero piece as her first feature anyway. This piece is a great read.
• Forget Hollywood: Watch Documentaries if you Care About Women Hot Docs just wrapped up, and it was as incredible as ever. Most incredibly was the fact that this festival had 40 PERCENT female directors, which – if you look at the horrific percent of female directors in film, is an inspiring thing to see. Most of the docs I watched were actually also about women, which was amazing to witness.
• Why so few women on music festival lineups? and here’s what Canadian festival posters look like with the all-male acts removed You’ve likely already seen these, but as festival season is just beginning here, I think it’s still relevant and needs to remain a topic of conversation. More ladies on stage, please!
• Why Millennials Understand The Future Of Work Better Than Anyone Else Makes sense.
• Keira Knightley: “Where Are the Female Stories? Where Are the [Women] Directors and Writers?” It gives me great hope to see more and more actresses talking about this subject.
• The Shut-In Economy Highly recommend giving this one a read. The more money we make and services we have – the less we have to ever leave our home or talk to anyone. Someone will deliver your groceries, cook your food, do your laundry, shop for you, and you can get it all via an app. You don’t even have to look a single person in the eye anymore if you so choose. It’s a scary thought.
• Dear Daughter, Here’s Why I Work I read a rather horrific article from a stay-at-home-mom that was a response to this article, so rather than give that other gross article that basically shamed working mothers any more publicity, I will direct you to this. My mom was a stay-at-home mom all my life, for the record – and that shaped my feelings on this subject in a big way.
• Finally, this video most definitely cheered me up. Typical office email is such a weird pain in the butt:

[tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTgYHHKs0Zw[/tube]

Whoooa Toronto.

What a week. Seriously. There’s a whole lot to talk about this Halloween.

We have a new mayor, and while I’m happy it’s no longer a Ford brother, I firmly believe Tory is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and his policies will be no different than those that Ford loved. He was the CEO of ROGERS for god’s sake.

I am still shocked that the city somehow thinks another conservative mayor is what we need after 4 years of an awful conservative mayor. “At least he’s not Ford!” is what I heard from people I ususally respect – but if all you care about is the city not being on Jimmy Kimmel – then I guess you got what you wanted. This is a rich white man in office to support the rich white men – make no mistake on that one.

His very PR savvy act of asking Olivia and David to join his team was smart, but until he starts undoing the damage Ford did, I don’t believe in him as my mayor any more than I did Ford. Politically they are as similar as it gets.

We also had a “terrorism” scare last week that was actually someone with serious mental illness. How Harper found it appropriate to use it as an excuse to make us all George W. Bush America FUK YEAH I will never understand. The focus here needs to be on taking care of Canadians with mental illness – something Harper has zero interest in. His terrorist rhetoric on the other hand is much better for his “lets make us more American” agenda.

AND THEN – the ball dropped on Jian Ghomeshi. I’ve been silent about this on the blog after being told to ‘wait for the evidence’ but I too, like everyone in the Canadian music/media industry knew about Jian. I mean, I had no idea he was actually this sick – but I heard the warnings/whispers that he’s a real creep with girls and got that icky feeling of a snake crawling around when seeing him interact with young women at events.

A lot of men like to question that article I just linked to – wondering why, if so many in the industry knew about him – no one said anything. The whispers were generally spread among women, to protect women – or from men who knew, to protect women. No doubt there was a collective sigh within the industry when it all went public.

Finally, we don’t have to pretend like we’re not grossed out by him at Polaris Galas and Lena Dunham interviews. We don’t have to whisper to our eager interns at a music party to avoid him at all costs.

• What Kind Of Woman Won’t Report Sexual Assault? To those few people who somehow still defend him via the  – why didn’t they go to the police? – question, please read this now. Actually read it. Don’t just skim to the bottom and post a ridiculous comment. This is a lawyer talking about exactly why 9 out of 10 women do not report abuse. Because the 1 who does, almost always lives to regret that decision.
• A brief history of ridiculous things we’ve been asked to believe after famous men were accused of rape And if you need further proof – look only to the cases outlined in this article. Money and fame generally means you have legions of people who will defend you against your victim, as we initially saw with Jian.
• Owen Pallett wrote the best thing anyone in the music industry has put out there so far on all of it He considers Jian a friend – but he will not give his word more validity than that of 4 women, and now we know that number is 9 women and growing.
• I Care About Eight Alleged Victims, Not Jian’s “Due Process” Another great article on how the justice system is incredibly flawed when it comes to sexual assault and date violence.
• The top 15 lost music venues in Toronto On another note – here’s a nostalgic look back at the music venues that once were a vital part of our lives.
• Jeff Tweedy: why the album still matters Love this.
• 2014 is the first year with no platinum albums This is fascinating. I’m not sure what it will mean for the music industry going forward, but as usual, things seem to be changing every single day.
• Arcade Fire’s Funeral and the Legacy of the “WHOA-OH” Can you believe it’s been 10 years? I still remember being new to Toronto, living with my high school friends and having them play me this album. Nothing was the same after that.
• Sounds Just Like This project will show you just how similar most pop songs actually are.
• When Iggy Pop can’t live off his art, what chance do the rest have? Try not to let this depress you.
• Watch Emma Watson Deliver a Game-Changing Speech on Feminism for the U.N. (UPDATED) If you somehow missed it, her speech was excellent. Without men joining the conversation, progress will continue to stall.
• Lena Dunham Hilariously, Candidly Interviews Mindy Kaling I adore this conversation between two of my biggest role models.
• How We Love: TED Radio Hour This collection of TED talks on love is brilliant. If you have some spare time today give them a listen.
• Follow-Through Habits for Serial Quitters If you need a little help seeing things through, there are some good tips here.
• 10 Times When It’s Okay to Be Lazy Because sometimes you have to turn off your type A gogogo tendencies or you’ll burn out.
• 5 Ways to Reset Your Work-Life Balance When You’re Crazy Busy And if you are one of those type A’s, you’ll want to read this too.
• And if we needed any more understanding for why women don’t report sexual harassment and abuse of power by powerful men, look only to the way Monica Lewinsky’s reputation was DESTROYED when her name was thrown into the public. Of course, the Ghomeshi case is different in many ways, but the in the end she got shit all over while Bill lost next to nothing. Women don’t forget this:

[tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy7icJSTjL8[/tube]

Whoa everyone! TGIF is back. I know, it’s been absent most of the summer, and for that I can only say my summer has been – as usual, busier than any other time of the year. I took on a new gig writing for Notable five days a week, on top of my regular contributions to Dose and a new job helping with social media for a record label.

Not to mention vacations, festivals, family coming to town. I’m actually looking forward to the routine that fall will bring back into my life, if not the cold weather.

With that said, here’s a big whack of links that have built up over the past few weeks. Enjoy!

• Deep-Fried Tequila Is Actually A Thing, And It Will Get You White Girl Wasted Who’s trying this with me?
• What Makes People Look Like Their Pets? It makes complete sense that it’s in the eyes. They learn from our facial expressions, so it’s no surprise that their eyes would express what ours express. When you’re sad, your dog is sad. When you’re happy, your dog is happy. They mimic you, because they are walking furry balls of empathy and connection.
• 30 Years of Music Industry Change In One GIF This is interesting.
• The Rapper Killer Mike Instagrammed A Moving Letter About Michael Brown The things happening in Ferguson are terrible for so many reasons – what everyone needs to remember is what he talks about in this letter.
• Scientists Claim That Quantum Theory Proves Consciousness Moves to Another Universe at Death This is my favourite link of the summer. I’m non religious after the trauma of Catholic school, but I’ve always believed in the soul, and the idea that there’s something more to life. This science explains my ideas around the subject fairly well. I’m not so sure about the moving to other universes part – but I do believe our souls exist before and after our body, and our bodies serve as receptors to it in the same way that our TV is a receptor to our cable signal. It explains a lot about the idea of ghosts, mediums, near death experiences and past life regression. None of it has anything to do with organized religion.
• Dr. Dre’s letter to his girlfriend is the best thing you’ll read all day This is great. No wonder she married him.
• Photographer Takes A Self-Portrait On Her Birthday In Her Underwear For 40 Years It’s a powerful and beautiful thing to watch the body age through four decades.
• Alzheimer artist’s self portrait over 8 years’ time from onset until he forgot to send portrait to care facility management This is sad, but it also gives a world of insight into a terrifying disease. I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed a project that so profoundly displayed the idea of being trapped inside yourself so well.
• Five Lessons The Faltering Music Industry Could Learn From TV If you ask me, TV has learned all the lessons the entire entertainment industry needs to learn first, and that’s why it is having such a period of glory despite the internet. The music industry should definitely take note.
• Intelligent People All Have One Thing In Common: They Stay Up Later Than You Damn right we do. Mornings are just the worst.
• 7 Theories On Why We Evolved to Love Music Interesting.
• Photographer Shows Proof of Shocking Similarities In Human Templates Between Complete Strangers You know when someone tells you they saw your doppelganger, this explains that phenomenon fairly well.
• 40 Genius Travel Tips That Will Change Your Life Forever Lots of great tips here, bookmark it.
• Why Can’t You Ever Shut Up During A Concert? Seriously! Please, if you come to a concert, STFU. People who scream sing at the top of their lungs so loud you can’t hear the actual singer, STFU! People who come to a show to stand around having a chat, GTFO! Why are you even here? Did you really just pay money to ruin the show for everyone else??
• The Representation Test: Grading the Top Films of 2014 (So Far) This is fascinating. Support films that write female characters as real people, please.
• 18 Signs You Are Addicted To Collecting Vinyl Welp. That’s me. And probably most of you, too.
• How One Generation Was Single-Handedly Able To Kill The Music Industry
• Pressing Issues: Record Quality in Today’s Market Some good advice to keep in mind when buying vinyl.
• The seven digital deadly sins This interactive collaboration between the NFB and The Guardian is a must watch. Digital is an amazing thing, but all of the good doesn’t outweigh the bad.
• Finally, watch this amazing Emmy promo bringing back together my two favourites from the best show of all time, Breaking Bad. We needed to see Jesse and Walt together one more time.

[tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovqM72em1dA&feature=youtu.be[/tube]

Hey Friday! Hey friends! Are you ready for a month of non-stop festivaling? I sure am. I mean, I’m dreading the lack of sleep and already feeling insanely overwhelmed, but this is generally the best month of the year, so I’ll take the ups with the stress.

Tonight I’m headed to the Summerworks announcement party, then I’m headed to Field Trip where I get to see Broken Social Scene, aka, all is well in the world.

Also, there’s still time to enter to win tickets  to see TV on the Radio and Ziggy Marley next week, see the previous post for more details!

Anyhow, here’s a bunch of interesting reads to get you through to the sunshine, music, and fun that’s about to be your weekend:

• Top 5 things to do in Toronto this week [June 2 – 8th] ! – If you need more tips on what to do this weekend, check out my column over on Dose.
• Discovery: The Curators So how do we discover new music now? Interesting take on it.
• 29 sent to hospital from Avicii concert in Toronto Yikes. This is why I don’t go to EDM shows.
• Toronto ranked 4th most attractive global city And they’re talking about general living conditions, not how physically attractive the population is (as so many BlogTO commenters seemed to misunderstand).
• A brief history of Sneaky Dee’s This is great. I will forever love Sneaks.
• 6 Ways to Save Your Life — and Your Company “Actually, most of her generation will be leaving your company in its present form over the next decade. Why Because they know that if they work in your environment, within 10 years, they’ll be overweight, pre-diabetic, worn down by repetitive tasks, with burned-out adrenals. They’ll function at declining rates, finding it troublingly difficult to break the habits they’ve formed in your office.” Ain’t that the sad truth of office life.
• The conversation on fat-shaming is bigger than Louis C.K. It certainly is, but I appreciate that he was at least trying to give it some attention.
• Independent labels hit out at YouTube’s “unnecessary and indefensible” negotiating tactics Definitely a must read for indie artists.
• Beastie Boys ‘Sabotage’ Video Turned Into Vintage Comic As a Tribute to Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch This is awesome. I want a copy, please!
• 16 Habits Of Highly Sensitive People If you are anything like me, you’ll relate to almost everything on this list. Being highly sensitive doesn’t just mean I’m emotional and like to listen to Elliott Smith and have a good cry on the reg, it also means I’m super sensitive to pain, touch, smells, noises, light. Nothing gives me a bad headache faster than smelling someone’s perfume/cologne. Accupuncture was never the painless experience many claim it to be. If a food has an odd or slimy texture I can’t eat it. I always get annoyed at people who feel the need to put ALL the lights on – I’m also generally a night person for similar reasons. But for all the perceived downfalls, it definitely has its benefits. I’d much rather be sensitive than insensitive.
• Not All Men: A Brief History of Every Dude’s Favorite Argument Love this. #yesallwomen
• Let’s call the Isla Vista killings what they were: misogynist extremism Damn right they were.
• Elliot Rodger’s California shooting spree: further proof that misogyny kills But we also need to be aware that he was very, very mentally ill his entire life and it mostly went untreated. You can’t just blame the PUA community, as gross as it is.
• The Pick-Up Artist Community’s Predictable, Horrible Response to a Mass Murder But it’s still worth examining since he spent time there.
• Toronto police seek two men in sex assault, confinement case There may have been an update on this by now, but if not, please examine the photos and be safe out there, ladies!
• Paid apps gone free: This $50 app that teaches you to play guitar is now free Get it while you can! This is one of those rare times where I actually wish I had an iPhone or iPad. I kinda hate iPhone only apps, but this is a very cool idea.
• It Is Impossible to Believe How Mindblowing These Amazing New Jobs Are Hahahhah! If you’ve looked for jobs at all in the last 5 years, these parody ads will ring very true. Especially the low/no pay part.
• Finally, as if I wasn’t already excited to see BSS reunite this weekend, Kevin Drew will also be playing solo at the festival, and his new video with Zach Galifianakis and Feist is both adorable and hilarious:

Hey peeps! Happy weekend! Hope your week was lovely. The periods of sunshine have been glorious, even if they are almost always followed by rain. I’ll take 60+ degrees and rainy over 12 degrees and frozen. It’s finally beginning to feel normal in the city again.

I’m gearing up for another busy summer as festival season begins in a few weeks! Heads up, I’ll be doing giveaways for the first two festivals – Hot Docs and Canadian Music Week – so stay tuned.

Now, for the links:

• Why ‘My Husband’s Stupid Record Collection’ matters I agree completely.
• Where You Stand at a Show and What It Says About You Where I stand says nothing more than “I’m 5’1 and I can’t see shit all if I don’t make a point to get to the front.”
• CNN Wrote The Worst Kurt Cobain Lede Ever Yeah, that’s a good example of how not to write about someone who is no longer with us.
• Olivia Chow: To fix transit, we need a relief line — and more If you need even more reasons to vote for Olivia, read this.
• The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame of the Future With Nirvana just being inducted this week, this is an interesting read.
• MDMA could be a cure for tinnitus The idea of a cure for this nightmare of a disease is HUGE news – even if it means doing MDMA.
• How to Talk to Designers If You’re Not a Designer If everyone who ever worked with a designer or a creative of any kind could just read and follow this advice – the world would be a better place. I’ve had to experience first hand just how awful some clueless fools treat designers. It’s a horrific thing to witness the arrogance of laymen who truly think they’re designers.
• How not to talk about rape culture, as demonstrated by Q with Jian Ghomeshi Yeah, maybe don’t give crazy people a national audience to air their psychotic misogynistic views – that’s a Fox News trademark – don’t steal it, Q.
• The Talk – A new sex ed for boys This is so great, if only it could be implemented everywhere.
• Dear parents, you are being lied to Seriously – vaccinate your kids. It’s a disservice to the entire population – particularly the kids with allergies to vaccines – if you choose not to.
• David Letterman Retiring From ‘Late Show’ After 22 Years This was big news to me! But then again, as soon as I heard it – it made perfect sense. He waited for Leno to be off the air – he no longer has a nemesis he enjoys stealing viewers from – I love that he waited until just after Leno was kicked out (again) to announce it. Dave will always remain the gold standard whom I compare all late night hosts to. His harsh sense of humour is sadly a rarity in the hosting department these days.
• Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Will Play Sisters in New Comedy The Nest My ladies are back together. I couldn’t ask for anything more (well, other than hoping it’s actually good!).
• 19 Hard Things You Need To Do To Be Successful Get to it.
• Skin Tight Jeans and Syncopation Music theory is pretty cool.
• Music Criticism Is Not “Lifestyle Reporting”: A Response I posted the original article in the last TGIF with some mixed feelings, and I definitely love this response and agree with him completely. Music is about emotions and how it makes you feel – not about technical terms.
• Bluesfest Lineup Announced Check it out! Might be worth the trip up north to Ottawa this summer.
• Here’s a (crap quality) video of Dave Grohl, Krist Novolselic, Courtney Love and Kurt’s mom and sisters accepting Nirvana’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The reaction to Courtney is of course interesting – but it’s nice that she’s squashing the beef (for now) with Dave. I especially love his mom saying “He’d be so proud – he’d say he wasn’t – but he would be.” Truth, right there:

[tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfx2OvqxTvM[/tube]

• Gotta throw in more videos of the ceremony because it was a truly inspired choice to have some of the best females in music taking Kurt’s place onstage for the performances – St. Vincent, Lorde, Kim Gordon, Joan Jett? You know he would have loved this:

[tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9nT6mUMzE0#t=124[/tube]

[tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5Thj4W3WlQ[/tube]