Pretty Things brings in LA Heartbreakers
“They’re world exclusive designs,” says Pretty Things Boutique (5685 Cunard, 492-8329) owner Cadence Macmichael, who indicates that even though there are always new and exciting things happening at the store—which caters to those with a passion for the retro and rockabilly style of the 1940s to the 1960s—this new stock is especially exciting. The exclusive…
Kiss Imposter
I want my money back from Saturdays KISS concert. Did anyone else notice the fill-in for Gene Simmons? Why would the #1 mouthpiece for the band seem virtually invisible the entire night? He was barely on screen, he said virtually NOTHING during the concert, and for some weird reason when he was singing on stage,…
Reason number 363 to hate family gatherings….
Keeping with Pride Week: The old relative that everyone decided it would “be best not to tell them you’re gay.. it’d just confuse them”. who keeps asking “do you have a girlfriend yet?” —LOLs
Build a spaceship with Dusty Peas
Thanks to the artistic team Dusty Peas, you can build your own sculpture. The collaborative pair (James Kirkpatrick—also known as rapper Thesis Sahib—and Jamie Q, currently working on her MFA at Western) are launching their hand-silkscreened, limited-edition ’luxe zine, A Journey Through Time & Shapes, at the Roberts Street Social Centre (5684 Roberts) on Wednesday,…
Hey boozers: keep it down on the way home
To those of you who pour out of the bar at closing time, especially you Tuesday night amateurs: you are drunker than you think and you are louder than you think. Veteran drunkards stagger quietly home. If you’re going to invade their watering hole, at least learn from the experts. You like the fact that…
Ghost Bees play in Halifax this Friday at the Khyber
Ghost Bees float back into to Halifax for the summer with a show at the Khyber with Fall Horsie (first Halifax show this year!) and Cousins on Friday, July 24 (10pm). This is the folk duo’s first show this year after touring Europe for a few months and then across Canada with Timber Timbre in…
substituting sleep with sarcasm.
to the punks who set off firecrackers in clayton park in the middle of the night … thanks. i appreciate waking up in a panic at 2:15am. and i really love not being able to fall back asleep … i do my job so much better when i am sleep deprived, and i look fabulous…
Easy grammar
Even though it has been many many years (grade 2) since I was taught the difference between your and you’re, for some reason this lesson has always stuck with me. It’s like nails on a chalkboard to me when people mess it up. For those of you who cannot seem to grasp the simple rules…
floating reefer?
Do we really need another old navy vessel rotting in our harbour? I thought that’s what the submarines were for. —chile01
You shallow piece of shit!
We talked online 4 nights a week for almost a month. We had so much in common. Then we started talking on the phone. We would talk for about an hour. I totally clicked with you, and I thought I was falling in love. But I realized who you really were when we exchanged pictures…
Ze GOGGLES, zey do NOTHING!
Nothing makes my eyes bleed more than the last 7 episodes of the Gomer Times. Okay, Coast, you’re restructuring, I get it. So there’s only two comics instead of three. And the bitch section now only posts the bitches, and not the comments at the bottom. And I’m forced to look at Sea Dogs advertisements…
Keep it simple
What is it with all these fancy condoms being advertised like candy??! Really, vibrating ones, ‘her pleasure’, extra slim…what ever happened to getting down and dirty the old fashioned way? Sex is way to whored out these days (ignore the pun) —Gag
Swimming rock tag
Why, why, why did you have to tag the beautiful swimming rock at Long Lake? Why do you think you can improve on nature? Why do you think anyone else cares about your “artwork”? ADS, what does that stand for anyway? Absolutely Dumb and Stupid? Awfully Despicably Sinful? Please, just clean it up. And while…
Restaurant news: openings and moves around town
“The inspiration was to have a choice for quick and healthy food,” says Burrito Jax (5215 Blowers, 406-0088) owner Gordon Delano. The cozy burrito place, open since July 8, offers burritos done simply with, as Delano puts it, “conventional North American flavours” and basmati rice instead of Mexican, meaning if you don’t like hot spices,…
The Coast at Evolve Festival 2009
This past weekend, The Coast (along with some pals) headed to a big field in Antigonish to listen to music, sleep horribly in tents, and get thoroughly ripped. This is our third Evolve. For one friend, it’s his eighth year – for another, it’s his 10th. It’s hard to believe Evolve has, well, evolved from…
Plastic Ponchos!??
OK, where do we live? Does it rain here for half the year?…Yes!…Has it always and will it forever?…Of course! Who can’t get it into their head to invest in a proper rain jacket that is RE-USABLE?? Stones concert last year, Kiss concert this year, pissing down rain from the morning on..Right? Half the people…
Stop wasting money on Bums
To all those “kind hearted” and “self-less” people who hand over thier cash to the bums… wow, you’re really doing the world a favor. Every day these “full time” bums ask me to give up some of my hard earned money. Why should i? And why are the same bums asking me the same question…
Thank you “Bitch” Readers
To the repliers of “Why no nice people exist” I thank you whole heartedly, your words gave me a bit of hope and strength. If a bunch of strangers can relate to my plight and unanimously suggest I redirect my kindness, it means worlds to me. So thank you for being kind! I suppose I…
NS Power customer disservice
If customer service was a purchasable option, I don’t think it would ever appear on NS power option list. How rude is it to send a disconnection notice 8 days after the due date of a bill. And I am not talking about skipping multiple months, or being a bad customer. I pay all my…
Email Follow Up
Thanks to all for their comments and advice. I posted my Bitch so that said ex would shit her drawers thinking that there might actually be some ramifications for her actions. My husband did send her on her way, telling her he was happily married ( a follow up email from her gave me this)…
Envision kick off tour in Sackville
Envision get some air. Halifax’s premier straight-edge hardcore band Envision play an all ages show at the Sackville Heights Community Centre on Saturday, July 25 with Get Bodied, Last Laugh, Stay Hungry, Pest Control, Enraged Entity, John Doe and For The Hollow (6:30pm, $8 or $25 for a car load of people, and they define…
Queer Acts review
The first-ever Queer Acts Theatre Festival is off to a brilliant start with the affecting one-man show Obaberima and the Zuppa’s lovely little lyrical work Very Secret Ceremony.
Yukkin’ it up
Update, July 24: This move is apparently on hold, for the time being any way. No one’s giving details or explanation, but we’re told that Yuk Yuk’s will remain at the Westin through at least the end of August. Best bet is to call 429-9857 to confirm the location before heading out. Movin’ on up…
What is with the Racism and Anti Semitism
I am so fed up with racism I’m tired of white people calling black people the n word and all sorts of other things. I’m tired of the blacks calling white people crackers and all that shit. I’m tired of people making fun of Asian people! I’m tired of the Natives being made fun of.…
The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight
How dare those young thugs shoot live rounds in my neighbourhood! Of course, there wouldn’t be any police around since they closed the nearby Tim Hortons. How long do the citizens of this city have to put up with these goddamn animals taking potshots at one another? I just wish their damn aim was better…
Love from Away Visits
To all you friends visiting from away… THANK YOU! You know I’m broke – but I’m fun. Thanks for making summer in Halifax (and other spots in NS) as good as it was when you all lived here. —maybe sometime I’ll get to visit Hali
Reason # 362 to hate family gatherings.
I don’t eat meat because I think a vegetarian diet is healthier. For ME. I don’t have any ethical objection to meat, and I don’t care if you eat it. I choose not to. That’s all. I don’t care if my food is cooked in the same pan as meat. I don’t care if the…
Just too proud to beg…
Why do I feel like I wasted my whole summer here in Halifax. Oh that’s right, because there is no work for university grads here. Since I started the hunt in April, I have handed out over 100 resumes, and have had zero phonecalls. No wonder all my dating prospects are all losers sitting on…
Decency laws?
WTF is it with young women. PUT ON SOME CLOTHES!!! YOU LOOK LIKE HO’S. What exactly are you trying to prove and or sell? —HO HO HO
Photo Shoot with members of the KISS ARMY
Where can I find the pictures from the Coast people on Compton street after the KISS Concert..Possibly the strangest thing i have ever seen- but definatley one of the funnest and most memorable moments in Halifax. Facebook?! —want to see the picture of my dad licking your friends face…<3
Gone with the breeze?
Where did you two go? You fucked us over and ditched us more then once and we still forgave you, yet you go and disappear again? Seriously, are we friends or aren’t we? We aren’t your convenience, that’s apparent. Its been almost a year since we saw you last, why not call us or at…
Why no nice people exist
I try, I try and I try some more to be the nice guy, and it gets me FUCKED all the time. Everyone walks all over me, don’t you appreciate the things I do? All anyone can think about is themselves and no one else, and the few sorry assholes (myself included) who do give…
To a Spryfield Pizza place
Some praise you, others have less to say, I for one thank you for being an upstanding convenient and local place to get food for many years, and being totally understanding when things go wrong, my order took forever, and I’m sure other places would not have cared, but you did, without me saying a…
Posers in the KISS Army
I’ll start by admitting up-front that I am not the biggest KISS fan, but I went to the concert to have a good time and catch an impressive show. My experience was almost ruined by four douchbags dressed up like KISS. Yes, you looked impressive and you appeared to be big KISS fans – why…
Shoptalk-lets: local business round up
Looking for a new and effective way to train your dog? A local company is offering The Clicker Leash, which might just be the ticket, bridging the techniques of dog whisperers and other more traditional types of dog training. Clicker Leash expert Adina MacRae will be offering a free demonstration of the leash at Bark…
yellow shirt man
Thanks a million sunny summer days to the gentleman who helped me pick my motorcycle up today at Tall Ships- I was foolish for not moving the fence and I paid with a messed up paint job and a bruise on my leg the size of a C-cup. <3 <3 I owe you some of…
Halifax seems to uniquely unable to make an iced tea drink.
Does anyone in Halifax know where you can get drinkable iced tea???? I have tried about a dozen places since moving here and have not been able to finish an iced tea drink yet. The mass bottlers do a better job than any of the local cafe establishments. Many places offer fair to good iced…
Share box
Whoever put it there; it’s a great idea, thanks! —Share
Passing with gas…
To all of the asses who don’t know how to drive on a highway….here’s a little tip for you. When we get a limited passing lane, actually pass the old lady who’s topping 80. Why do you insist on crawling past her going 90? Commit yourself to the pass and fly by her with pace…
Update your Flipbook already!
Dear Coast. I am far, far away and dying to read some hometown smut. I recently found your flipbook of the printed coast and I think it’s fantastic. But it’s n.f.g if you don’t update it…… Get your act together. —A regular reader stuck in Tokyo for the summer
not so smooth criminal
to the enormous criminal who robbed me at work… your fat. – also on a side note, invest in a mask instead of franticly trying to cover your face with your dirty tshirt. – a well planned get away should be executed rather then smashing into the display on your ‘easy’ exit. don’t come back…
Douchebag Parents Can Kiss It
To all you idiots who can’t seem to stop spawning: DON’T EXPECT ME TO GIVE A SHIT. Don’t expect me to care when you dumb kid runs into my bike wheel, when you can’t figure out how to point your strollers in the right direction, when you can’t control little Tommy/Nicki/Freaky/Heaven/Lola in the supermarket and…
KISS rock ‘n’ rolls over the Common
The KISS army is nothing if not faithful to its generals, and on Saturday, 20,000 plus went to war with rain, fog and an overactive smoke machine to rock ‘n’ roll all night with the hottest band in the land. KISS headlined the Halifax Rocks 2009 festival on the Halifax Common and for over two…
Jazz Fest review: The Fred Hersch Trio
New Yorker described “poet of a pianist” Fred Hersch must have wondered if he’d ever get to play the closer for this year’s Atlantic Jazz Festival. Fog had enshrouded Stanfield International Airport, diverting both Hersch and his bassist, Drew Gress, both flying in from NYC, to Bangor Maine. When a window of opportunity arose enabling…
Drunk Punks
To the guy who broke my girlfriend’s foot: Fuck You. Are we now at a point in this city that a girl can’t go out with her friends and have a good time without having to deal with some fucked-up weirdo who won’t take no for an answer. Next time a girl says no to…
Thank you VG doctors and nurses
Thank you for taking me into the clinic on short notice because I was in so much pain. Thank you for taking care of me, admitting me an hour later, and giving me the much needed surgery four hours later. Although I am in a ton of pain right now, I know that my body…
Fenwick St. Construction is THE WORST!
F*** you, construction workers on Fenwick St! F*** you! Enough noise in the morning! Why is it that by the time I leave my house, all I see is a bunch of morons standing around doing nothing after being waken by early crashes and bangs?! Maybe if you worked more continuously this mess would be…
I can’t stand it any more!!!!!
What is it with the ‘musician’ females around here? There are so many needy, cutsey, ‘I-have- no- boundaries- I- just- want- what- you- have- because- I- need- to- feel- I -am -the -centre -of -the (my) -universe’ females in Halifax?!? YOU suck the life blood out of my BF and Me! They are all succubus!…
Jazz Fest review: The Bell Orchestre
Lanky Richard Reed Parry (double bass) led bandmates Sarah Neufeld (violin), Stefan Schneider (drums), Pietro Amato (French horn), Colin Stetson (French horn, clarinet, bass and tenor saxes), Kaveh Nabatian (trumpet and melodica) and Mike Feuerstack (lap steel guitar) onstage at St Matt’s United Church to waves of energetic applause from a large, astonishingly mixed-age throng.…
Jazz Fest review: Dreamsploitation
Lean bespectacled 24-year old Halifax musician Chuck Blazevic slipped quietly into St Matt’s United Church last evening, 20 or so minutes ahead of showtime. He ambled purposefully up a side aisle, pulled the cowl of his hoodie over his peak cap and turned off into a room flanking the stage area. On stage, a stand…
Morning Mood Music says auf wiedersehen
Gather the gang this Tuesday morning This Tuesday morning is Simon Thibault’s last time at the decks at CKDU, where he will be hosting his final episode of Morning Mood Music, the five year long running radio program featuring indie rock in Canada. “I started the show in 2004, and have loved doing it for…
Bouncer from the Paragon
To the lady who cut her foot, you are welcome. Hope to see you again and don’t forget your dancing shoes. —Bouncing back some love
Yummy!
Gotta love hot young sailors! —Tall Ships Volunteer
The Statue
In front of the Halifax North End Memorial Library there is this impressive statue but it is in such repair that it looks horrible. DID someone already bitch about this because I am sure it does nothing to uplift anyones spirits. It is all beat up and rusted…or is it art and I am missing…
whasn’t there some damn thing about coasttv before?
thats it. I thought it was cool. If you find it could you send me a linkypoo, thanks. —Web Designer
Crazy Drivers
To the lovely lady who honked and screamed at me from her car on the corner of Gottingen and Cogswell today just before noon. I realize I stepped out onto the intersection a couple of seconds before the light indicated I had the right of way, but by the time you got half way through…
Zuppa Theatre’s Queer Acts
Poor Boy lives on. Photo: Scott Munn There will be rainbow-infused drama on Gottingen as Queer Acts, Halifax Pride’s first mini-theatre festival, kicks off. Hosted at the Bus Stop and Paragon theatres from July 20-24, five productions are running through the week, including two from Toronto’s famous Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. See halifaxpride.com for…
Friendly tips from a receptionist.
I work in a government office where we mainly deal with in-person clients. I realize that most people don’t enjoy dealing with government bodies. Know what? I don’t either. But one thing I’ve found is that attitude changes everything. People who come in pissed off (often because of something unrelated), leave pissed off, whether they…
Jazz Fest review: The Bad Plus
NYC’s The Bad Plus (the deadpan irony a clever joke) incite extreme diversions of opinion. Give you an example. In the elevator descending from the eighth-floor Baronet Ballroom in the Delta Halifax, one elated concert attendee, face creased in a huge grin, exclaimed, “That was great!” From somewhere back of the crowded car, a weary…
The Best Day of the Work Week
Casual Fridays – love that shit. —Jean
I don’t fucking believe it..
To the assholes who broke into my car last night, YOU SUCK!! Do you have nothing better to do then break into people’s cars, steal their shit and pawn it off to make a quick buck? What the hell is wrong with you?! Why don’t you get a real job you lazy assholes? I can…
Tastless Tart
I thought I would mourn the loss of you/us for much longer But instead I feel like a heavy weight has been lifted from me A friend you are not ..you go out of your way to be critical of myself and others You could care less about anyone else’s feelings but your own You…
To All Clothing Stores
Is there a reason for the lack of choice in your establishments? Have the fashion victims taken over so much that you cater solely to them? The reason I’m asking is because of the lack of choices out there if a person is not into the latest trend. It’s nearly impossible to buy anything if…
Jazz Fest review: Love Upstream with Erin Costelo
Who approached who really doesn’t matter. The fact that it happened and a large crowd in the Jazz Tent yesterday afternoon got to listen to and thoroughly enjoy Erin Costelo with Love Upstream was, well, beautiful. This was a playback for me of a nervy idea: namely for a group of Costelo’s finely wrought original…
why do we need gay pride when we need to feed halifax homeless and the elders
CALL ME WHATEVER YOU NEED TO CALL ME HERE BUT THE FACTS ARE IN READ THE HOLY BIBLE THE LORD DID NOT AND I REPEAT DID NOT MAKE ADAM FOR ADAM and eve for eve HE MADE ADAM AND EVE!!! THIS IS FACTS THE BIBLE IS THE MOST READ BOOK ON PLANET EARTH. IF WE…
Love you Johnny
Can’t wait till Johnny Rogers comes to town, Halifax needs you and your salt-mine tears will make the street glow red, thank you Johnny R. for your sunshine sauce —JoshJohn
Harry Potter and the annoying bitch
To the pink sweatered woman with 3 kids under the age of 5 at the Park Lane Theatre Thurs night for the early Harry Potter showing: Go fuck yourself. How DARE you bring small children to this movie, who then act up and RUIN the viewing experience for everyone else. When the usher came in…
KISS MY ASS TICKETRON
Wednesday night I go on line to Ticketron and book 1 general admission for KISS and print out the confirmation. Today we get a call from them saying the ticket is not available BUT they can offer me a $300. VIP ticket or TWO general admission tickets at $92.00 each. I don’t want TWO tickets…
Not the fucking schoolbus
To the group of little grls and their inconsiderate troupe leaders riding the 20 downtown today, Get control of your children and learn to be considerate to the other passengers. not only were the kids all over the place, swinging between seats, hitting passengers with their backpacks and generally being unrully, but one overweight bitch…
douchbag old bag
why did you honk at me? why? i passed you on oxford and you pulled in in front of you and waited for the green at jubilee. i didnt cut you off, i was in front of you by, like a mile- it took you years to catch up to me (my luck driving through…
house stuck on vibrate…wtf
To the loud ass, inconsiderate, douchebag with the gold colored, shitty sounding, RX7 with the stereo so loud it literally makes everything in the house, including the windows rattle, have a little bit of respect for your neighbours. Nobody cares to hear your music and nobody cares to hear how loud your stereo goes. It…
Don’t buy your fear mongering
To the young creep who runs the crooked security company in metro (but is really based out of the US); your fear mongering and aggressive tactics are going to catch up with you sooner or later. Screw you for terrifying my sister and telling her about all the “recent break-in’s” in the neighbourhood that turned…
HRM Eco-DoDos
HRM ads advising we should use shopping bags for paper recycling is effectively encouraging people to at least sometimes use plastic shopping bags. I have always, without trouble, placed my paper in a blue bag set aside for paper products only. HRM should be encouraging people to be environmentally friendly. These ads promote a policy…
Don’t let the door hit you in your fat ass on the way out.
Dear Inconsiderate Bitch at the Alderney Ferry Terminal on July 15th around 2pm. Didn’t see me there my ass. You walked right by me pushing my daughter’s stroller, and said ‘thank-you’ for letting you pass with your stroller and other children in tow. Your friend held the door for you, and as soon as you…
Construction in HRM
yeah, so besides the fact the roads DO need improving WHY does it take 62 construction workers to fix 1 pot hole? Traffic is hellish, sidewalks are closed, people are killing themselves trying to pac man through a crosswalk that nobody gives an inch …and if this doesnt piss you off enough here you see…
Arrrgh!
I am SO SICK of people cutting me off when they pull out onto the street/road in front of me, when there are no cars behind me, and then take like 5 minutes to get up to the fucking speed limit, which is usually 50! Seriously, what the fuck?! If you felt that it was…
Still broken and waiting
It has been three weeks now since I originally had an injury at a sports game. Today I finally get the results of the testing back, I have a fractured lower jaw. Now I have a referral to see a specialist. I think this thing might heal by the time I get treatment. I guess…
Passport office rocks!
I love you guys 1 hour turnaround! You saved my ass big time —Buddy the Puffin
Halifax Commons Argument Ended!
And I quote from the HRM Website: “There is an impression that the Common cannot be used for commercial use. That is not the case. The Common has a history of pay for commercial events including horse racing, sporting events, concerts, circuses and fairs. To clarify this ambiguity, the Halifax City Charter was changed in…
little white dogs
They’re yappy, they’re ugly, they’re aggressive, and no, owner, just ’cause the damn thing is bearing its teeth at me does not mean it is saying “hi”. Get a Golden Retriever already and spread the love. — little white dog hater
Cabs in this City SUCK!!
I moved to Halifax a couple of years ago and for the most part like it here. However one thing I do NOT like are the cabs, or lack of, in this city. I live in Dartmouth and enjoy going downtown now and then. My wife and I will try and do the responsible thing…
Bullies
I was bullied as a kid, as a young adult, and even today. I was bullied by other kids, my parents, and today co-workers. Bullying comes in many different forms and types. I dress the way I want and do what I want these days, and have become pretty sucessful in my line of work.…
NDP victory: Don’t eat the rich
To the editor, I read with interest the feedback on Stephen Kimber’s question, “What now?” (June 11, Upfront). The notion that previous governments have not done enough for the poor due to their support for the rich is misguided. While I agree more needs to be done for those struggling, let’s not forget the hundreds…
Andrew WK: Raddest person ever or raddest person ever?
A serious party animal. Photo Atiba Jefferson. Andrew WK keeps busy. With television shows (Destroy Build Destroy just premiered on the Cartoon Network. The show features teens competing by building new machines out of other machines they blow up. “We do really big explosions,” he says), collaborations with a national treasure (a split 7” with…
Jazz Fest review: Haggai Cohen Milo: The Secret Music Project
Friends, the secret of The Secret Music Project can now be revealed. Last night in the Sonic Temple’s intimate surroundings, Israeli composer/bassist/improvisor Haggai Cohen Milo revealed over a set of ridiculously infectious music that he’s in the soul restoration business. Yessiree. He is! Bandmates, exquisitely talented Spanish pianist Alex Conde Carrasco, Keita Ogawa, a flash-hand…
Susan Bozic is picture perfect
Susan Bozic is stuck at the border, on her way from Vancouver to Seattle, where she’ll catch a flight the next day to Aspen. But Bozic’s not going to ski the slopes among stars and celebrities. (After all, it’s the first week of July.) An exhibition of her work, The Dating Portfolio, is on at…
Spinnerette
Brody Dalle sets a new standard for showing off the bod after giving birth: Try underwear close-ups ‘fore and ‘aft on the CD jacket. Before spawning, she was centrepiece of punk band The Distillers. Most of Spinnerette bursts in solipsistic LA style above keyboard grind, while guitars chirp and Dalle bellows, happy to be back…
LMFAO
All-over patterns, check. Forgotten nostalgia, check. Lenses-free glasses and skin-tight pants, check. Absolute dedication to partying, check. Hipsters: it’s officially over—will.i.am has found your cloning facility and is using it to produce MCs like Redfoo and Sky Blu (ZOMG their outfits are colour-coordinated to their names, sweet). Party Rock pulls together MSTRKRFT’s table scraps, unapologetic…
Pete Yorn
It’s refreshing to see Columbia supporting artists like Pete Yorn, who have yet to enjoy top-10 success and who probably won’t ever become commercially viable as a one-hit superstar. But Back and Fourth, Yorn’s fourth album, will quietly lure you back time and time again, due in part to his low-key, singer-songwriter vibe. While Back…
Catching a draught
Tension builds as Émélie Ouellet approaches the portable Stella Artois bar on the stage of the Halifax Alehouse. She’s won the first two rounds of this regional qualifier for the Draught Master title, and is looking pretty confident for this last round, pitted against New Brunswick’s Gary Burris. Ouellet is a young (but over 21;…
A Camp
There’s no getting around the voice. Nina Persson makes her mark on A Camp and the trio’s second album, Colonia, which follows up the first and self-titled release from 2001—a welcome return! The Swedish Persson’s inflections and intonations continue to give her voice that special character: a sophisticated and elegant sheen or surface shrouding the…
Yo-ho-ho, a pirate cocktail for me!
Weathering a hurricane in the middle of the Caribbean, a pirate watches water rush through the cracks in the hull. A huge cargo of rum, some ginger beer and cases of lime, are crushed, and leak into the salty water. The pirate, resigned to his doom, cries out. The mixture splashes into his mouth. Rum.…
Wanting to suck
Ask yourself this: who doesn’t want to drive a suck-up truck? OK, OK, suck-up truck isn’t the proper name. Technically, it’s the Tennant ATLV. That stands for All-Terrain Litter Vehicle. City workers call it “the Tennant”—it’s an alien-looking sit-on vacuum the size of a Bobcat with a wide ground-level sucker on the front and a…
Grey Gardens
It was only a matter of time before Albert and David Maysles’ groundbreaking, cultish 1975 documentary Grey Gardens was turned into a feature film. An uncomfortably intimate portrait of Edie Bouvier Beale and her daughter Little Edie, socialites living in unbelievable squalor, has already spawned a Broadway musical and endless fashion editorials, thanks to Little…
Keeping church and sex separate
Q You were recommended to me by an acquaintance familiar with your column and podcast. I am a 20-year-old male, and as such have certain desires that almost all 20-year-old males have (desires of a sexual nature). However, I am deeply religious. Religion has been for me a source of strength in my times of…
One Week
When English teacher/frustrated novelist Ben (Joshua Jackson) learns he’s suffering from stage-four cancer, he does what any self-respecting movie flake would: he buys a motorcycle, casts off his boring life and sets out for adventure—looking to “embrace randomness” and “searching for moments.” On his road trip, he has the quintessential Canadian experience—or at least the…
How to pick up a sailor
No one ever said picking up a sailor was rocket science, but there are ways to make seduction even easier. My friends and I crash the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron (376 Purcell’s Cove Road) at 21:00 hours. The club is members and guests only, but fortunately no one asks for our credentials. Common themes…
Jasmine Oore’s winning ways
“People would say, ‘What’s your film about?’ and I’d say ‘It’s about living glamourously with bowel disease,'” says Jasmine Oore, “and it would make the room silent. And then I would add, ‘It’s a comedy.’ And it would get worse!” The silence-inducing concept, Glamour Guts—a shrewdly timed, freeze-frame-filled laugh riot—was written and directed by Oore…
Larinda returns
Few stories can make a Haligonian as sheepish as the tale of the Larinda. It’s not the part of the story where the Larinda was built, over 26 years, in the backyard of Massachusetts auto mechanic Larry Mahan. Or the part where Mahan, as a child, was originally inspired to build the ship after reading…
TV: Entourage: season six premiere
Really, is a review of Entourage’s season-six premiere any different than a review of season two? Vince has sex, E is a tiny, whiny suck and Arie yells at Lloyd. However, when the emotionally stunted posse returns—Turtle is still in a committed relationship with Jamie-Lynn Sigler from The Sopranos, E is moving out and Vince…
KISS security guards a motely crew
Last Saturday, before McCartney plays, a Source Security worker tells me the papers will call the concert a disaster. He has dealt with a crowd constantly complaining that concession booths were blocking their view, and concertgoers were raging as they are pushed back and forth in the disorganized middle ground. The worker says that only…
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
If you have a tween in your family, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will teach them everything about puberty that public school didn’t. The sixth movie in the series is no longer wholesome family fun; instead it’s filled with innuendo (Dumbledore’s wand is made of anal beads) and tips on how to get with…
Not-so-Jolly Rogers
Although the theme of this year’s tall ships is naval, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic will still be presenting its usual pirate mascot alongside a costumed naval captain on the boardwalk this year. Museum curator Dan Conlin says the public’s interest in pirate culture remains as strong as it ever was, though he’s quick…
Where the shit flows out
Since the failure of the Halifax sewer plant in January, we’ve been dumping 100 million litres of raw sewage into the harbour every day. The crap flows through eight outfall pipes—four of which (arrows on map, above) empty right below the boardwalk, where the tall ships are moored this weekend. Festival organizers say there may…
Watchmen
Most of what’s good about Zack Snyder’s Watchmen was already good about Alan Moore’s graphic novel. But give credit: For a generally faithful adaptation, Snyder commendably lets Watchmen feel like a movie. Comic-book fans can be as bad as Harry Potter fans for flipping a lid whenever a film adaptation deviates from its source. Since…
Knots In Satan’s Service
It never rains but it pours in Halifax: Some weekends there’s nothing going on, other times there’s too much. This weekend is an example of the latter, with the jazz festival winding up, KISS playing the Common, pride week starting. And of course the boats! The boats! A multi-tasking fan can handle the cultural rogue…
Game face in the crowd
As you stroll demurely through the crowds at this year’s Tall Ships, delicately “ooh”-ing and “ahh”-ing at the Bluenose II and the Belle Poule, keep your eyes peeled for the people dashing erratically through the crowd wearing brightly coloured armbands. This is the Halifax Manhunt group and this Saturday night they’ll be using you as…
King Khan’s smoking BBQ
Mark Sultan calls during one of those sloppy Monday afternoons where the sun keeps peeking out tantalizingly from beneath a wet blanket of fog. His lovely voice is an unrecognizable rasp. He’s been in Mexico for nine days, drinking vodka and dodging drunks while playing in his band, The King Khan and BBQ Show. One…
Teenage swabbies take to the high seas
Many teenagers’ goals revolve around finding someone to buy them their next eight-pack. But some teens have loftier ambitions, like risking storms, squalls and potentially deranged cabinmates to sail across the Atlantic. With the help of Seastar, a local non-profit organization, 47 youth will spend a month at sea aboard tall ships participating in the…
Be a good guest on a tall ship
Don’t whistle when you visit a tall ship Nobody ever whistles on a ship. The reason is that if you whistle you could whistle up a storm. There are a exceptions—if you have sailed around Cape Horn you are supposed to have seen the worst it can get, and if you are a cook, you…
The V-E Day sailor party
Halifax’s wildest-ever sailors’ celebration began at 5pm on May 7, 1945, when Admiral Leonard Murray unleashed 9,000 war-weary, ready-to-party sailors on a city that didn’t want them. City fathers had made that abundantly clear. The head of the provincial liquor commission closed all its outlets until further notice in order to keep—or so he thought—…
Tall Ships were slave ships
Not everyone will feel a sense of Nova Scotian pride this week. King’s College professor El Jones believes that the festival is one more attempt to whitewash Nova Scotia and ignore the troubled history of the largest indigenous black population in Canada. “When I look at those ships I want you to think about the…
Amistad teaches
Freedom Schooner Amistad is probably the most famous of the Tall Ships, thanks to a 1997 Steven Spielberg film based on the story of the actual Amistad revolt and ensuing legal battle. In June of 1839, about 50 Africans who had recently been captured from Mendeland (present-day Sierra Leone) took control of La Amistad, the…
The Bad Plus is all good
“Wouldn’t it be great to hear a jazz version of Led Zeppelin?” That’s what Reid Anderson asked his bandmate Dave King, when the two first played together in high school, two decades ago. “It’s always been part of the jazz tradition to play the pop music of the day,” Anderson says. Playing a mix of…
Better off dead
What better way to appreciate our seafaring history than get acquainted with the spirits haunting our shores? Andrew Aulenback, The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic’s ghost story “guru,” is interested in uncovering tales few Haligonians know about. Aulenback tells the story of The Duc d’Enville, a French admiral who, in 1746, gathered his entire fleet…
The Pack A.D. kicks your ass
Don’t let a Monday night stop you: Vancouver’s The Pack A.D. will kick your Monday—and every other night—in the ass. For a two-piece band, they put on an intense performance, playing blues-fuelled garage rock. Their album Funeral Mixtape was released a year ago, but the duo’s still been touring since March, managed to record a…
The Halifax Street Railway
Originally coil-bound and self-published by the authors in 2000, this photo-heavy book shows how the growth of electricity’s delivery and usage—the business of the grid—was entangled with public transit for almost 100 years of this city’s history, from 1866 to 1949. The authors offer more of an economic history than a social one. They detail…
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
The band uses electronic music (wide, fuzzy analogue-sounding synths and samples), as a painter does underpainting: to combine with but mainly to ground the top-level, primary elements, which are drawn from early-era post-punk and new wave (bright guitar tones, lots of crashing cymbals and toms to fill in). Co-produced with Philippe Zdar, one-half of the…
ake black tranny
To the fake black tranny that hangs out at a certain gay bar, who are you trying to fool telling people you are a transexual, you are a drag queen, fake as the come. You need to stop giving people your nasty std’s. We all know you work the hill. —yuck !
tupid people
The stupidity of some people amazes me! When they open they’re mouth I just want to smack them. —shut up already!
bar city with no night bus? your joking
halifax has more bars per capita than alot of other cities, haligonians love their late nights, and with the efforts from the city in trying to get more people to take the bus, and them raising the fares, you would think it logical to throw a night bus or two on the roads, something that…
Frenchy’s on Robie burned down in February, but there’s been no repair or demolition work.
What’s wrong? Frenchy’s on Robie burned down in February, but there’s been no repair or demolition work. Who’s responsible? Bill Moore, bylaw enforcement, 490-4817. REMARKS This property was cited with a 60-day clean-up notice on June 24. “I understand they’re applying for a demolition permit,” says Moore. Er, good, but try leaving your house unpainted…
