NAFTA Please: 2008 in Review

You know you're getting old when the coolest band in your hometown is led by your friend's kid. True, Marshall Burns of Rah Rah's dad Mike is, like, way older than me. And y'know what? I'm fine with being old, cuz I was young long enough.

I try to think of Regina with nothing but affection, but sometimes I can't shake the feeling that it really is the cultural wasteland it pretends to be sometimes. Putting aside the question of whether or not there was any real merit to spending $18-million so that a handful of privileged kids could vie for glory while a dozen or so blocks away hundreds of kids live in abominable squalor, the most annoying thing about the Big Dig was the unimaginative and tiresome name. Nobody asked, in commemoration of the Big Dig's fifth anniversary, here are five better names for the megaproject:

5. The Excavation Proclamation
4. Shakes on the Plain
3. The Behemoth Burrow
2. The Fiacco-Goodale Canal
1. The Tunnels of Moose Jaw

As easy as it is to laugh at Regina from afar, there's no denying the musical renaissance underway right now led by Rah Rah and the Polymaths and who knows who else?! Rah Rah released their debut long-player in 2008 called Going Steady. It's a heady mix of pop, politics and pah-rump-a-pah-pum-pum hapless romance and it's worth mentioning again.

mp3: "F--- NAFTA" by Rah Rah

Of course, it might be because of all the drunk drivers...

Bob Hughes tries to figure why Macleans is so afraid of Regina.

Other news:

-Arthur C. Clarke, 1917-2008 - Jesse hated 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I think that's just I made him watch it when he was 12.
-"Science is like an unfinished painting" - Which reminds me to link to an awesome, Canadian, online sci-mag called Seed that was first brought to my attention via SignalResponse.
-Andrew Matte has a worse time at an Avril Lavigne concert than I ever did, but still manages to get in a Tommy Hunter reference. Sometimes, I really miss the LP entertainment desk.
-High housing costs in BC unaffected by world markets "turmoil".

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

Things To Do With A Million Dollars in Saskatchewan

A Wheatland librarian made off with $1 million in a fake book scheme. Just think of what he could have done with all that loot!

I'm gonna put on my Ron Petrie hat (which would be a non-ironic--well maybe ironic, but more sarcastic-ironic than hipster-ironic--farmer hat with a patch from an Ituna bait & tackle shop) and list all the things you could in Saskatchewan with an ill-gotten million dollars.

• Bedazzler two blocks of 12th Ave. in Regina and rename it Bedazzlergina.
• Put a down payment on a Yaletown loft.
  
• Hire one-twelfth of the Rolling Stones to play 2-nights at the Vibank curling rink and civic centre.
  
• Secure the naming rights for Moose Jaw's WHL team. New name: the Moose Jaw Cuddlers

That's all I got.

mp3: "Mail Fraud" by the Minor Thirds

WOW: An acronym that doesn't stand for anything

My good friend and chronic Bulldozer-reader Pat Fiacco announced earlier today that the City of Regina is going to spend a whopping $1 million to make downtown Regina less of a gaping blight amidst the outlying big box retailers that have needlessly sucked most of the economy out of the city's centre.

Maybe I've been in Vancouver too long, but $1M doesn't seem like that much money for such a lofty goal. I mean, this is a city paying tens of thousands of dollars a year just to have 24-hr security on a clock.

Regina to possibly lose landmark eyesore

The old Albert St. Superstore building has been sold. Of course, there's a bizarre non-competition type clause in the deal:

Francis Bast, the president of Dome Land Development Ltd., said one of the conditions of the sale -- required by Loblaw's -- prohibits the development of a grocery store or a pharmacy on the property. That means downtown Regina and the north-central area of the city will continue to be without a major food store, at least for the immediate future.

What's that all about?

And does Stephen Harper really think that acting like a total dick will help him win a majority?

frontin'

house
Originally uploaded by emmetmatheson

Here's our weird Regina link of the day.

This is what my house looked like that time the lawn got mowed. It was a group effort. I kinda binged on comics this afternoon, buoyed by a reading of Douglas Wolk's excellent Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean and hungry for some good comics after not visiting RX in three weeks. I don't know if the comics I got are any good--in fact, I'm willing to bet most of them aren't. I've been real ambivalent towards comics lately. Ever since 52 ended and Countdown began, I've felt oddly dissociated from the DC Universe. I suppose the ennui goes back further than that, but 52 was such a remarkably FUN ride, that its absence is sorely felt.

I've quit reading most of the series that initially got me back reading comics a few years ago. Green Lantern, Green Arrow and the Flash have all gotten terrible in the last year or so (though the most recent issue of the Flash, by Mark Waid and Daniel Acuna, shows considerable promise of goodness to come). Titles that were really exciting me only one year ago--Kurt Busiek's Superman, Dan Slott's She-Hulk, and Action Philosophers--have, for various reasons, become less and less enjoyable.

But here are some comics I am enjoying:

The Brave & the Bold (DC) - Mark Waid and George Perez reinvent the team-up book and throw away the rules. I make comments that don't mean anything. Anyway, the scope is huge, the art is grand, and it's everything that's fun about DC Comics.

Punisher War Journal (Marvel) - Matt Fraction and Ariel Olivetti deliver what Frank Miller and Jim Lee think they're doing in All Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder. Loud and grotesque ultra-violence that parodizes as it celebrates.

hmmm, that's about it in terms comics that I really look forward to. Whatever Grant Morrison's up to (especially his All Star Superman), Ed Brubaker's surprisingly awesome Captain America, Blue Beetle, Keith Giffen's Midnighter, and Duncan Rouleau's Metal Men are all satisfactorily thrill-engaged. The current Batman Confidential storyline is great, too.

p.s. I have more to say about Reading Comics, and I'll say it real soon. I just want to make sure I finish reading it before I endorse too heartily, just in case Wolk non-chalantly sucks up the joint in the Tomb of Dracula chapter.