- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 2281
Now last year, last summer, in the midst of the prospecting season and into a couple of weeks of homelessness I had need of a cellphone.
I'm morally opposed to cellphones. I, I don't need a cellphone. But when you're living out of your car and people want to keep in touch, children, family and such, a cellphone or some means of contact becomes a necessity.
I went to "The Source". Set up with a new phone, phone number, all to be billed later on my bill. And they up-sold me on their extended warranty - if anything went wrong, for $70 extra bucks, I could just bring in my phone and exchange it for a new one.
From everything I've heard things go wrong. Mostly screens breaking, occasional dips in water, I'm going to be off in adverse circumstances in the bush, generally I'm aware that the extended warranty is a scam, but in this instance it just seems prudent. I buy the extended warranty.
On Monday my phone doesn't charge. A connection issue. I fiddle with it, screw around, it's not working, time to cash in on the extended warranty, back to The Source. Thank god for the extended warranty.
The clerk requests a receipt - by some miracle I have it, and by another it's survived a year and a half in my car's trunk without (mostly, in essential parts) fading, they print these receipts like this on purpose, I swear, cheap thermal fax paper that is unlikely to survive even a week of your extended warranty...
...and he pulls up my account, hums, haws, acknowledges the extended warranty, then explains that they'll return it to the factory for refurbishment, it'll take 2-4 weeks,....
I can't go 2-4 weeks without a phone. Who can?
OR - I can upgrade my cell-phone plan, pay out the balance, get a new phone....
I choose the latter. More fiddling, swapping out the sim card, 10 minutes and $150 dollars in unanticipated charges later I have a new contract, a new phone....
"Would you like to buy the extended warranty?" the clerk suggests..."Only $70.00...3 years, anything goes wrong with your phone and you can just swap it out for a new one...."
Uh-huh. NO. The Source, Extended Warranty, Zero out of 5 stars.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 1571
Something different, or not so given the past couple of weeks, with the boy, we're going to take in the Story Slam at the Library.
I'm under the mistaken impression that it's a youth slam, poetry, referred by a website that mentioned "Youth Poetry Slam" in it's title, but I'm mistaken.
We're early. The stories have yet to begin.
And I joke with the boy about taking him to see his peers, because so much of what I take him to - theatre, film, the books I recommend, is for adults or more mature audiences, and it's got to sting a bit to suddenly do something that might be "age appropriate".
He rolls with the punches.
Eventually the box office opens, we buy our tickets, find our seats. 5 contestants today, 2 girls, 3 guys, vying for a prize of $25.00.
Ouch.
I like stories, like the spoken word, listen and watch the moth podcasts, poetry slams, but I'm seeing the best of the best, I've failed to process this, I take it for granted that the stories I've heard will be the standard of all stories.
This is not the case.
A perhaps 16 year old, slamming some poem he's written about the innocent victims and perpetrators of war.
Uh-huh.
Polished, well done, rehearsed, he's in a performing arts program somewhere, that's for sure.
Next up a girl, again polished, rehearsed, talking about her imaginary childhood friends and adventures. She was very imaginative. Again, polished, rehearsed, actions and gestures and expressions to the words, less a story than a monologue or a performance art piece, somehow I'm missing something, this isn't it, I'm annoyed. She's dressed in a bright red skirt with oversized buttons, blue shirt, stockings, I don't get it at first but then I realize: It's like she's the host of a children's program, and the story she's telling, her overly dramatic gestures and mannerisms, it's as if she's projecting herself through the camera to a host of unseen children...
An older hippy, craggy, good looking in that let-himself-go sort of way, talking about the glory days of drugs and some hotel in Toronto and a police raid and a gay pride parade outside and he's as unrehearsed as the girl before him was polished, he's a natural raconteur and is doing this to meet the girls, the story, it doesn't wrap up, as chaotic as the events he's describing...
Another woman, again overly polished, talking of fairy tales and Iceland and fairies and speaking in an appalling Celtic brogue, singing what you guess are Icelandic songs, no explanation provided or required, she's the woman you shouldn't have taken home from the bar, the penultimate in bad dates, a "natural storyteller" she'll assure you, but despite her reassurances and practiced rhetoric you somehow just feel embarrassed for her...
Finally, another unrehearsed, unpolished contestant, I like him, the lack of polish reveals a certain vulnerability, sensitivity, but his story doesn't wrap up as well.
There's supposed to be an elimination but the audience hasn't the heart, all the contestants go again.
Different stories, there's no chance to leave or sneak out and I'm gradually feeling more and more soiled. It's not the stories you see on YouTube, more just the suspended judgement and disbelief you employ when you see somebody embarrassing themselves in a major way in public. It's testing the limits of my empathy.
Give them credit, it takes a lot to put yourself out there. And the audience - myself included, tries to be supportive with their clapping, not too judgmental, but I've made my notes.
I hadn't considered how many ways things could go wrong. This story slam, it's the visceral illustration of possibilities I hadn't considered.
The winner's decided, the female children's host, then the MC tells his story.
And he wins hands down. He wasn't competing, but he's got the proper blend of polish and impromptu, silly gestures and expressions, irrelevant but the audience likes, he wins but he didn't need the $25.00 so bad and so chose to MC the proceedings, if anyone should have won it would have to be him, but he wasn't in the running and so the afternoon ends.
Another event starts in an hour at the Auburn, invite the boy but he's done as well, oddly this was exhausting, draining, the well of empathy has been emptied and we both need to recharge our batteries.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 1449
Last Friday, getting out of my box, tickets to "Demonika"
Clips on YouTube if you're so inclined, links not provided here. An event at the Distillery, and I pick up a ticket for the Nephew just in case he wants to come with me...
I show him clips online. He's not interested, surprisingly conservative for someone who professes such liberal vices...
I make it.
Completely. Out. Of. My. Box.
Post-Apocalyptic is the theme, a series of skits or vignettes on topics in the line of slave girls getting revenge upon overlord, various other S & M related themes, 4 hours in told but far less counting breaks, contests for best costume, underwear, etc, a S & M "Swing Party", as it were, hosted at a bar downtown. Sold Out.
500 Audience Members. Skits, lamely done with great gusto and elaborate costumes. 500 members in the Audience, 400+ of which are dressed in "appropriate" costumes, S & M gear, Mad-Max styled post-apocalyptic costumes, etc, etc, OVER THE TOP.
The skits, lame, what your child might perform in an underfunded high-school without the censure of a drama prof, still, there's a vitality, a devoted clique of followers, it's completely over the top but - for the first time in a long time, I'm completely outside of my box. Not a bad thing.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 1505
So out with the boy on another failed Sunday - Farmer's market for lunch, we try some organic, free range, hormone free burgers. $12.00 per burger, no sides.
They're shit. Lots of meat, but overcooked, you could get a far, far better burger at Notables or any other fine restaurant served to you, not a mall style kiosk, for far, far less, sides included. I have the feeling of having been ripped off in a big way.
Mini Donuts after, the lady running the mini-donuts stand looks exactly as you'd expect, in that "One for you-One for me" sort of way. Someone in a neighboring kiosk gets her attention, she takes our order (small bag - $5.00), then she turns and ignores us for a few minutes.
I'm getting pissed off, starting to suspect that we just paid her to eat our mini-donuts, and I voice my concerns - perhaps a trifle loudly - to the boy....
...She turns and gives us our donuts with a saccharine smile upon her face. They were being fried fresh, this isn't the comic-con where they're scooped hot - always hot, always in demand...they're delicious, we trade a few for some samples of bacon, together an amazing combination....
Lunch done, we head off to the Archery Lanes in SE Calgary. Deep South East.
Something new, we haven't done this before.
It's busy, surprisingly busy, who would have guessed such a subculture existed? More of a family atmosphere than the gun range, with men, wives, children all taking part in the glorious sport of Archery. There's no hope of us getting a lane today, and nobody to talk to about when is a good time to come. Another long drive for nothing.
While we're there we look at the bows, the merchandise, there's a clearout bin of old VHS "Archery Videos" - "Corn Crazed Does" and "Legends of Old Mossy" - a hundred other titles that are somehow suggestive of ripped off porn classics. Archery porn.
It's a different world, we've gone far enough outside of our box for the day, "Next Week..." I tell him "Bring your swimsuit and friends and we'll just go swimming. Everyone has fun at the pool...."
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 1430
For something different I take the boy to a poetry reading. He's never been to one.
It's at the Auburn Saloon, beneath the Calgary Tower, an interesting crowd, poets, poetesses reading their work. And every poem uses the word "Fuck".
Every single one.
Now I can see using it if the intent were to shock, you don't generally see it spoken aloud in public forums other than by Comedians. It would appear that comedians and Poets have something in common. But, as we listen to more and more of this poetry, the power of "shock" is eroded, it has been overused, shocking, now, would be a poet who got through their work without using it.
The boy, he's not so impressed, not his thing, really, it's really not that interesting, I have to agree, we'll try and attend a poetry slam, where there's a little more audience involvement and the possibility of more interesting, less poetic material.