Tuesday, January 12 If you’re a fan of 99.3 the Fox, or just enjoy radio rock in general, check out General Motors Place for 3 Days Grace and faux ska punk band Il Scarlet. However, if that does not appeal to you, the Fox crowd can be seen hanging out at the Roxy for expensive drinks and grooving tunes from The Synapse Fire. My Pick: Both shows are under the category of “meh,” but I’d choose the Roxy. Wednesday, January 13 Are you religious? If you are, then check out the Commodore Ballroom for Switchfoot, one of the hardest hitting god-rock bands in this era. Not your thing? Head to the Orpheum for passable Saskatchewan artist Colin James, if that strikes your fancy. Feeling dirty? Check out Devildriver and Goatwhore playing the Rickshaw Theater. My Pick: Unless you’ ve converted, Commodore Ballroom is your best bet. Thursday, January 14 Heavy metal groups Scythia, Marching Mind, and Douglas College band 13" Prophet are all hanging out at the Princeton Pub tonight. Show is five bucks, yet they should be charging 50 for this line up. My Pick: Don’t miss this show; the boys in Prophet will blow you away Friday, January 15 Fuzzcat and Whitey are playing the Railway Club, so that generally means a fun time. Not your thing? Make your way over to Toby’s Bar and Grill on Commercial for Johnny and the Walkers. My Pick: It’s hard to turn down a night at the Railway. Saturday, January 16 Are you a fan of classic punk? So classic, they’re credited as being the first punk rock band in Vancouver? Go to Malone’s for The Furies show, and hang out with the most original punk band this side of the Rockies. Not into anarchy? Wanna get techno? Psy-trance group Infected Mushrooms are playing the Commodore Ballroom, featuring both a live music set and a DJ set of their drug-influenced electro jams. My Pick: Furies, unless you’re on drugs. 13th Prophet Politicians say no more Jersey Shore Universal outcry towards the latest MTV reality series Angela Espinoza ince its inception, MTV has had the dirty habit of steering its programming far from its namesake. When MTV made its debut on August 1, 1981, the channel made history, going on to break boundaries and influencing many aspects of pop culture within the next few generations. Unfortunately MTV has recently become notoriously famous for associating itself with the ever- demeaning “reality” show, beginning with The Real World in 1992. Amongst the filth, shows such as Laguna Beach, A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila and My Super Sweet Sixteen have gone on to make a mockery of current society, influencing only the stereotype that our generation is over- dramatic, unintelligible, immature and spoiled. As is customary with MTV, it has been this image that the channel cast’s obsession of making stereotypical asses of themselves. Egotistical, social monsters as any other MTV reality cast, they are only separated from the rest by their insensitive take on the Italian culture, as well as their inability to see any social and cultural differences between New Jersey and New York. Since the show began, several New Jersey politicians have spoken out to get it off the air. Senator Joseph F. Vitale, who is also the chairman of the New Jersey Italian American Legislative Caucus, with Richard Bilotti, chairman of the New Jersey Italian and Italian American Heritage Commission, wrote a letter to Viacom, the television company that runs MTV, demanding the show be stripped from the air for both its misrepresentation of Italian- Americans and New Jersey residents. Also stated in the letter was that the show’s cast members are violating New Jersey’s hate crime laws in a spiritual sense. UNICO National, an Italian- American based service organization, became involved when current has chosen president, a “These unbelievably moronic cast = “®4"¢ DiMino, “nt members have embraced a racial slang ‘SP0K¢ out about generation ‘term that is meant as an insult towards ‘** show's yeu the Italian community for marketing _fensiveness. into; what’s purposes.” Several worse is that investors, it’s been including working. Domino’s Pizza and American Family With the debut of MTV’s newest bitch slap to society, Jersey Shore, they have immediately stirred up controversy over just about everything the show has to offer. First of all, only one of the eight cast members is an actual New Jersey resident, while another hails from Rhode Island, and the other six are from New York. The show also has a bad habit of glamorizing excessive use of tanning, with several cast members owning their own tanning beds. This falls into what happens to be their biggest controversy; glamorizing the “guido” stereotype of Italians. These unbelievably moronic cast members have embraced a racial slang term that is meant as an insult towards the Italian community for marketing purposes. Their use of racial slurs has also proven to be humiliating for the Italian- American culture, delving back into the Insurance, have also pulled out from the series for similar reasons. From the responses MTV has given in response to the negative outcry, it can be said that they will not be pulling this series off the air. Within MTV’s responses to the backlash, they’ ve excused themselves by saying that the cast is just an average group of young adults going about their daily lives in the Jersey Shore setting. I suppose we can take MTV’s response as a suitable answer, but I feel the words of Jersey Shore cast member, Nicole “Snooki” (yes, they all give themselves nicknames) Polizzi speak for themselves: “I just have one thing to say to Domino’s, Dell, UNICO and all the other haters out there. Fuck you! If you don’t want to watch, don’t watch. Just shut the hell up! I’m serious... fuck you!”