Canuckistani in Canuckistani Land Part Two - Alberta
2007-07-18
After four days in tha T-dot, we went to Alberta. It was nuts. In two weeks we drove more than 1500 kilometres, I ate five steaks (two in one sitting), we ate some decent sushi, went camping, drove quads, swam in glacier streams, ate pancakes, smoked a BC bowl (sorry mom, it was just one!), drank the city dry of Caesars and, of course, went to the Stampede.
I’ve seen the Stampede parade a number of times, and I must say it is a lot more exciting when you’re missing work to see it. When you watch it while you’re on vacation, it’s about as exciting as watching an old man pick a scab. What’s worse is that every year it gets whiter. There are three things I look forward to in that parade; the tanks, the bagpipers and especially the Caribbean floats. It takes a secure man to admit he likes watching parades, but I digress. The kettle drums and the skimpy feathery costumes usually make the Caribbean floats one of the more entertaining parts of the parade, but there is a weird phenomenon I noticed before I left that has steadily gotten worse. There are fewer and fewer fit Caribbean girlies and dreadlocked Rastafarians and more and more doughy middle-aged white women.
The last parade I saw, there were a few of these ladies in the skimpy costumes which let me tell you is not a pretty sight. You think to yourself “Oh well, at least the old bird is having a little bit of fun, there are still a few fit Caribbeans to look at.” The next year, it was ALL fat white women in the all-to-revealing sparkly getups, and I thought to myself, “Oh well at least the music is still good, who can’t get down to a kettledrum?” This year, even the bloody kettledrums were being played by menopausal crones. Fucking hell, next year they’ll replace the jingly jangly Jamaican sounds with Boot Scootin’ boogie! Now don’t get me wrong, I am all for experiencing other cultures, I’m living in England for god’s sake, but can I just say, YOU ARE NOT FROM KINGSTON, YA SILLY BINTS, YOU’RE FROM FLIPPING SUNNYSIDE.
The first time I witnessed this peculiar behaviour was at the Calgary folk festival a couple of years ago. The folk festival is rife with lonely Baby Boomerettes looking for something to fill the hole their grown up kids and impotent husbands have left. They go to watch a couple lesbian Joan Baez wannabes to remember the old times, and on the way they see a Haitian band on one of the other stages. They think to themselves, “Ooh, I like that sound” so they sit down and watch. Five minutes later they try to dance like the women on stage, but instead of the beautiful rhythmic movements of the Haitians, theirs is like a an epileptic “walking like an Egyptian” dance interspersed with bouts of manic, out-of-sync clapping. Yikes. It's a small step from folk festival watcher to kettle drumming fool in Calgary.
In other Calgary news, I found out the condo I bought for $97K and sold for $130K is now worth close to $300K. That was depressing, as was the fact that my two favourite bars are dust. Everybody warned me about all the (de)construction in the city, but it’s still weird to see. Luckily, they’re knocking down all the cool buildings and erecting condos, hooray for short sightedness!! My two favourite bars, the Mercury and the Night Gallery are now history leaving Calgary without a proper independent music venue. Looks like it will be Vancouver when we move back!
While we were visiting my folks in Brooks, a massive hail and lightning storm moved through. I thought it was a tornado, and expressed my concern by shitting my pants. In the figurative sense of course.
Here is a video of the last bit as it passed. It was much, much more impressive about 5 minutes before I pulled the camera out, but as I mentioned I was too busy with the shitting of the pants to worry about getting a good shot. While I was suggesting we go to the basement in case the roof gets taken off, my mom was getting out cheese and crackers to watch it with. You will never hear the words "Reporting from Baghdad, I'm Rob Cutforth, back to you in the studio".
Commentary is care of yours truly, my mom, my stepfather and a laughing Kate.