Boring people

"Only boring people can be bored," my Eighth Grade teacher used to say. About four years ago, I saw those words postered on a wall just outside Blood Alley every night during a string of graveyard shifts in one of Canada's most notorious slums*.
It wasn't the first time since 1991 I had reason to think of Mr. C, and it wasn't the most recent. How do you not constantly go back to the lessons you learned when you were 13? Inside and out of the classroom, that's when we shrugged off the final crumbs of our childhood and learned how to walk in adult bodies. It's when we got our first glimmers of having to take some responsibility for ourselves and when we were lucky, we got a hint of the power that lay in that responsibility.
And we were lucky.
Mr. C told us that he became a teacher because Education was the last thing you could get into at the University of Saskatchewan after you'd flunked out of everything else. He'd briefly been a punk rocker in his youth, he said, until he realized that you couldn't be a punk rocker if you were riding around Moose Jaw in your parents' stationwagon.
Mr. C ran a music appreciation class where we would bring in our own music, play a song and then the class would talk about it, with Mr. C usually schooling us on why the music we liked wasn't as cool as we thought it was, but not in a condescending way. During one class someone (it might have been me, but I don't think it was) played "Kiss Off" by the Violent Femmes. Mr. C asked for a show of hands if we liked it. All hands up. He asked for a show of hands if we identified with the lyrics of the song. Again, all hands up. I still don't know what to make of that moment, when I realized that all of my classmates, to some degree, felt the same as I did: alienated, shunned, hopeless--even the ones who made me feel that way.
Our school canceled the Valentine's Day dance that year because it fell during Lent. Our class try to reason with Mr. C. "Isn't Christian sacrifice meaningless," our class posed, "when the one making the sacrifice doesn't have a choice?"
"Yeah," I agreed. "If we have to give up dancing, you should have to give up something you enjoy...like music!"
"I'm way past enjoying music. I do it because I have to," Mr. C answered, and we were reminded that the forces that ruled us were often ambivalent.
Mr. C later confided in me that he was just being tough, he still enjoyed music. And, y'know, I was young and naive, but not that naive.
At the beginning of the school year, Mr. C told us that despite what we may have heard about him, we shouldn't get our hopes up. He'd turned 30 over the summer and his good years were over, he said.
I'm older now than Mr. C was when he taught me so much. I wonder how much of his Weltschmerz was a put-on and I wonder how thick he lays it on now.
Mr. C turns 50 today. Happy birthday to one of the coolest people I've ever met. If you're entering his class this fall, I hope he promises the same to you that he did to us, and I hope he keeps that promise in the same way.



mp3: "Summer Nights Lakeside" by Gospel Claws
mp3: "Visions of You" by Modern Superstitions

*in case the face that I was working in a place called "Blood Alley" didn't make that clear enough

Vanhattan? More like Vanhassle!

Last spring, I’m waiting for the #3 Downtown bus at the corner of Main and Broadway. I’m on my way in for a 12-hour shift, on a Sunday, so I’m not in a great mood to start with. The bus, unreliable at the best of times, seems to follow no schedule at all on Sundays. So I’ve got to get out way ahead of time just be on time. I’ve got to hustle like a keener just to keep from being a slob.
But here comes the bus, I can see it way down the street.
During the week, the #3 is like any other bus I’ve ever been on in Vancouver, packed. By the time I get on, no more than ten minutes from the city core, it’s standing room only, usually with the pleasurable view of the sleeve of someone’s wet raincoat. But Sunday mornings before 8, it’s mostly shift workers like me. Security guards in turbans with shopping bags full of groceries from the 24-hour supermarkets, nurses in their colourfully printed scrubs, and the occasional straggler from Satuday night’s revelry. Sunday mornings, I can count on sitting down on the bus.
The bus stops at a red light across Broadway, and I can’t believe my eyes. The digital display reads “Sorry. Bus full.” The light changes to green and the bus carries on in the centre lane.
As it goes by, I see them: Sun Runners, in their T-shirts and shorts. Chipper with their power shakes and lattes. Laughing, ha ha. As I watch the bus make its way down the hill, I quietly pray for rain. Hail, even.
Another bus passes by. As if!
Finally, I get a break. The third bus is no less full, but the driver is at least a reasonable human being.
I edge on to front of the bus sideways, like a Tetris block. I can’t even get in far enough to validate my Faresaver. Upfront we’re elbow to eyeball, but craning my neck, I can see empty seats at the back. Lots of them.
The Sun Runners, these fit folks who ride the bus maybe five days a year—to hockey games or fireworks—are bogarting their personal space. They’re doing stretches in the aisles.
And I’m late for work.


To live in Vancouver is to deal with frustration. If it's not the Sun Run--an annual 10km race sponsored by the city's broadsheet publisher of the New York Times Crossword Puzzle--it's made-for-TV film shoots, infrastructure mega-projects, Victorian-era zoning bylaws, or gang-related shootings. It's not the awe-inspiring natural surroundings that lead so many Vancouverites to yoga, it's the hope of learning to cope with constantly thwarted plans.
The Olympics will just be an extreme manifestation of this essential Vancouverism.
What's saddest about the Olympics as an event--aside from the 800 teachers the province might lay off to help pay for it, or the dozens of innocents who will inadvertently read a Shelley Fralic column--is that visitors are going to miss out on the best parts of Vancouver. Parking restrictions and transit priorities will leave little opportunity for tourists to see what daily life in the Soggy Apple is really like. It won't be impossible, but it won't be easy for the determined to get to the other side of Gastown and drop in on Robert at Solder & Sons, the Downtown Eastside's coffee and books emporium (the coffee is new, the books are used) where you can challenge the regulars to a match of Scrabble, or just hang out with the fixed-gearheads from Super Champion, the bike shop next door. Or take your Americano down the street to Crab Park Fight your way back to the Downtown side of Gastown for a Najib's Special at Nuba, arguably the finest lunch in all of Vancouver. Or, how about Cambie Village? The area paid a dear cost during construction of the Canada Line, and now, in the hinterland between City Hall and King Edwards stops, will they reap any benefit?
Of course, the real best parts of Vancouver have nothing to do with the city itself. Without the bridges, without the SkyTrains, without the souvenir shops, without the people, the mountains and ocean would still be here. There are wild parts of the city, such as the steep banks of the Millennium Line at Commercial Drive, overgrown and lush, that remind us how we've changed the landscape to suit our needs. Raccoons and coyotes, great blue herons even, roam the city streets before dawn. Many progressive agencies in the Downtown Eastside acknowledge the idea that Vancouver sits on unceded Coast Salish territory, and the persistence of these nocturnal fauna is a reminder of our late arrival here.


Gary Stephen Ross, editor-in-chief of Vancouver magazine, wrote an essay on "the idea of Vancouver" for the current issue of The Walrus. It's accompanied by brilliant photos of Vancouver by Grant Harder that capture the range and depth of Vancouver life. Also in the issue, a powerful piece by Marian Botsford Fraser on the Canadian penal system, and a fantastic report on Rush by Jason Anderson. In fact, my favourite part of the issue is on the Contributors pages, where it says that Anderson is working on his second novel, about the Canadian film industry. It's a hell of an issue, you should buy it.
Ross compares Vancouver to Philip Seymour Hoffman, who starred in the film Owning Mahowny, which was based on the book Stung, written by Gary Stephen Ross. Hoffman, you'll remember, also played Lester Bangs in that terrible Cameron Crowe movie about ten years ago, and Bangs, who died in 1982, wrote that The Bells is Lou Reed's best solo LP. Bangs didn't live long enough to hear Mistrial, but I don't think it would have changed a thing. Bob Seger is reported to have written a song about Lester Bangs, called "Lester Knew." Bruce McCulloch definitely did write a song about Bob Seger, called "Bob Seger." It's on his album The Drunk Baby Project. It is also better than anything on Mistrial.

mp3: "Nobody Can Turn Me Around" by the Sojourners
mp3: "Bob Seger" by Bruce McCulloch


BONUS TEN GREAT SONGS 2009 #8: I WANNA KNOW GIRLS
mp3: "I Wanna Know Girls" by Lambchop

You mean I gotta vote on my day off???

Sick of elections yet? Too bad if you live in BC where municipal elections are set to take place this Saturday, November 15. Saturday??? What the heck is that all about? The rest of the country does their voting during the week, which seems natural and good. But BC likes to think of itself as supernatural, so go figure.

Having spent not quite as much time as I'd like lately engrossed in Lee Henderson's The Man Game, a wrasslin' epic set in an alternate universe 1880s Vancouver, I kinda thought there might be some ridiculous reason going back to frontier times. Back in Regina, my go-to-guy on weird and interesting civic/historical factoids was Will Chabun, a veritible warehouse of Saskploitative arcana. But if Will has a Vancouver counterpart, I've yet to meet him or her. So I asked Frances Bula, longtime Vancouver reporter and probably the best blogger on civic issues around. Even the execrable Alex G. Tsukamis reads her blog! Maybe I didn't phrase the question enticingly enough, or maybe I'm the only one who finds this interesting, but here's the complete reply I got from Bula:

Not sure why it is Saturday, but it's been that way forever. Third Saturday in November, written right into the legislation.

At least it's in the fall, and not the spring, like BC's provincial elections.

Saturday or not, we still gotta vote, and to be honest, I've barely got a clue who to vote for, and I'm actually interested in this stuff!

Does "jib" mean something different in Regina than it does in Vancouver?

If not, why on earth is SaskTel sponsoring a crystal meth party hosted by Andrew WK? Boy, that new Sask Party gov't is really shaking things up. Speaking of which, this might not be the kind of transparency of government voters were hoping for.

This City, or Any City

It's been a year and a half since I left Regina, and I'm only now starting to do some of the things I came to Vancouver to do. I mean, I needed a change, that much was sure. And for a while, change was enough. The novelty of shedding my by then five-year-old routine was exhilerating. I was doing different work in different clothes. Well, mostly the same clothes, really. But now I feel overdressed in the same clothes that used to feel underdressed.

So Tuesday afternoons now have a purpose, which is welcome and overdue. Now I have a reason to get out of bed before 2 in the afternoon at least once a week. I feel like the choice to live in Vancouver is finally right, when before it was merely convenient. It could have Toronto, it could have been Montreal. It probably wouldn't have ever been Calgary. I'd say I've got nothing against that city, but I'd be lying. My distaste for Cowtown doesn't run so deep that it includes the people who live there or the music that comes out of it.

It's mostly coincidence that I came across this song, by Kara Keith (formerly of Falconhawk, whose website is still advertising an "upcoming show" from 2005), today, as I was thinking about cities (Saskatoon's been on the brain lately, as well).

Maybe you can tell, but I'm not blogging as much lately, and there's good reason for that. I'm busy writing other things. But I'm going to try to post at least twice a week, whether I have something to say or not.

mp3: "Kick This City" by Kara Keith
mp3: "The City's End" by Falconhawk

High Prices Going Up

Ten days in, 2008 is looking to be the most expensive year ever. Here in Vancouver, going to work and coming home has gone up by at least 50 cents a day. If you want to go to Surrey--or more likely, if you want to leave Surrey, it'll cost you a whopping five dollars. Unless you wait until dark--and who wants to be in Surrey after dark?--then you can escape for a mere $2.50.
Even the pizza on Hastings has gone up in the New Year. What once simultaneously filled and rotted your gut for nothing more than a loonie now flies out the door for a $1.25 per slice. Ranch dressing is still free, though, so drench that streetza.
The one-point cut to the GST has so far yielded zilch. Most retailers seem to have merely bumped their prices up so that what was a two-dollar coffee in 2007 remains a two-dollar coffee in 2008, keeping the extra two cents for themselves. So, hurrah for business, small and large, I guess. But for consumers, so what? The GST cut isn't bringing me any closer to my 150" TV or my $28 million condo.

mp3: "Pride of Egypt" by Andre Ethier

Vancouver Stuff Worth Doing...

...or at least thinking about doing.

First up, our old pals the Neins Circa will be playing at Cinderpop's CD release at the Railway Club on January 11. Also on the bill is Winnipeg's Paper Moon, a band I quite like.

mp3: "String of Blinking Lights" by Paper Moon

Next, on February 2, comedian Jim Gaffigan will be at the Centre for the Performing Arts. Gaffigan is pretty awesome. Here he is on Dr. Katz, Therapist:



Then, on Valentine's Day no less, Dean & Britta will be performing at Richard's on Richards. Dean Wareham's memoirs are going to be published in March in a volume called Black Postcards. Might be cool.

mp3: "You Turned My Head Around" by Dean & Britta

Ten Great Songs #2: Black Water

Roger Dean Young & the Tin Cup is yet another group of musicians I've blogged a lot about this year. I know I've already posted this song, but I don't want to give away the whole Threshold album here when I know that a lot of work went into making it.
Hear the song, get the album, live a happier life.
The song "Black Water" is about Regina, or at least RDY's impression of such. And aside from being a great song, it's got me thinking about R-Town and what I've left behind. I really miss good old CJTR and X-Ray Records. And I already missed Buzzword Books before I left. I miss my parents, and I miss my youngest brother, even though he's not there anymore either. I miss my old apartment and its working fireplace. The Christmas night snowfall here in Vancouver made me miss the Saskatchewan winter. Give me -30 plus windchill over day in and day out of rain. At least for a week.

If you dig on Roger Dean Young, you should also check out guitarist Chris Rippen's solo stuff on his MySpace page. It's similarly quiet and sublime.

mp3: "Black Water" by Roger Dean Young & the Tin Cup

Finally, something cool about the 2010 Olympics

The mascots are revealed! And they are pretty rad. I particularly like Quatchie, the baby Sasquatch. There's been a bit of criticism that the characters are "too Asian-looking", to which I can only say: Shut up.

First of all, they're not that Asian-looking. If anything, they look like a very nice blend of Japanese pop art with West Coast First Nations flourishes. Second of all, so what? Have you been to Vancouver? Asian cultures are at least as much a part of the local fabric as Western traditions, and just as emblematic of West Coast life. If you don't like that, to paraphrase Bruce Allen, go home.

Bottom line, they're fun

My Suspicious Midwest

About a month ago, I registered this blog with one of those tracking devices that SPIES on YOU, dear reader, and lets me know WHERE you are, WHAT you've read, and WHAT brought you here. Mostly, the results have been pretty uninteresting. I look at this blog the most, and most random visitors are only here for the MP3's. Howling Hex fans, in particular, but also a fair amount of Parkas enthusiasts and Lightning Dust supporters.

Sadly, there haven't been any especially wacky search terms. For a brief moment, I was excited to see that someone had found my blog by Googling "Rock & Roll Hair Superman", but then I remembered that was probably me.

What's most disappointing, though, is that it seems that I've been thoroughly abandoned by the Prairies. It's only fair, I guess, since I left them first. But I'm going to make a point, from now on, of shamelessly pandering to the Saskatchewan taste.

Tell Me About Gary Haché!

This is kind of an old song, but it's new to me, and maybe it'll be new to you:
Gary Haché by Andrew Vincent & the Pirates

In a recent post, I wondered where the hell AV's new album is, and then my brother sent him an email, and AV replied that it was coming. So there you go.

"Gary Haché" is a nearly perfect song. I kinda wish the vocals were a little louder in the mix, cuz that wicked riff kinda overpowers them, which is a what a wicked riff like that will do, so, like, whatev. I like the way the perspective goes from third to first person after the first verse. It doesn't really make any sense, so it's rad. It reminds me of the time I went to Stratford with Chad and we got loaded and I got kicked out of some bar because a guy next to me dropped his glass and it smashed on the floor, and I...I think I had only just barely begun to booze it up at that point, but I got the blame. I may have even been waiting in line for my first drink. Regardless, there were many other places to drink in Stratford that night, and we hit most of them. I ended up falling down in the mud near one of those quaint stone footbridges Stratford seemed full of.

Newer and just as cool is Houdini: The Handcuff King by Jason Lutes and Nick Bertozzi, from The Center for Cartoon Studies.

That's right, introduction by Glen David Gold, who wrote one of my favourite novels of recent times, Carter Beats the Devil. It's a fun and deliciously illustrated biography of Houdini (whose corpse is in the news again) very much in the same vein (though a little more lively) of Chester Brown's Louis Riel comic biog.

And in newer MUSIC news, and also civic whateverhood, I STILL DON'T HAVE THE NEW RTX ALBUM. VANCOUVER HAS LET ME DOWN AGAIN. None of the stores I've visited have even ordered Western Xterminator yet. I know for a fact that if I was still in Regina, Dave woulda had that sucker in my hands within MOMENTS of its release. I guess that's what's cool about Regina.
Last month, Drag City was giving away "Black Bananas" from Western Xterminator away for FREE. This month they're giving away "Sycamore" by Bill Callahan, formerly known as Smog or (Smog). It's pretty great. AND IT'S FREE.

The new pink layout is dedicated to Lindsay, the world's coolest 14-year-old.