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Stupid Money
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1054
And the last day of my 5 day long stretch, Monday August first, the August Long, the day of stupid money. My first table tips $25 on a $50.00 bill.
And the day continues in that vein. Dag, $20, the Golfers, $50 in the hand, another couple, 20% on the bill, another $20 in the hand, another single man, $20 in the hand...
This was not all.
I'm a currency press.
The whole of the 5 days, the August long weekend, they've been the Mt. Everest for the restaurant, our busiest days of the year, and Monday, this is the Summit.
I make stupid money, which I argue against, but - come Tuesday I discover that stupid money only lightly pushes against the tide of unstoppable bills.
In a peculiar museum, the bottom of a disused pool
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 859
I'm in a house high up on a forested mountain. The basement, an empty disused tiled pool that spirals upstairs...I don't think to try and figure out how the pool keeps level, accepting that it spirals up over a couple of floors...
Upstairs, a dark paneled room, there's a museum or art exhibit of sorts, curiosities, books with leather-tooled custom bindings done in the fantastical shapes of demons heads and gargoyles. Opening them they're like the "Codex Seriphinianus", an inventory of colors, shapes, writing in foreign languages, they're all puzzles, riddles wrapped up in enigmas and mystery...
The objects are as well curious, of no discernable function or purpose, this resembles an orrery, but isn't, this a compass, or globe, but not, and so forth. Everything beautifully done, but inexplicable. Somehow I think that maybe it all explains itself...
Outside a cool fall day.
Discussing with the other visitors I find that the owners of this curated collection of absurdities explained it all the night before, at the gala opening, I missed it, but - somehow I think I know them - and I'm thinking of this bigger goth couple that would show up and buy my curiosities for sale in Calgary, these must be the people hosting this...
Shambala
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 663
Between the Dentist and Shingles I've got to stay out of sight.
Bloody Hell.
The heat, untenable, unbearable, 37 degrees Celsius, higher even.
Up early, on my way to Kimberley to check out some beryl crystals in the pegmatites at the headwaters of the Saint Mary's. On the way check out a few thrift shops, replenish my wardrobe.
I'd forgotten about Shambala.
Salmo, the town pump, packed with cars leaving the festival. Cars filled up with neon lycra leggings, feather boas, facepaint, glowsticks, tutus, tie-die, inner tubes, to the brim, overflowing, camping gear falling out whenever a door is opened, poorly packed. They're easy to identify.
Get coffee, supplies, then head off....
Into the 1 KM line for the check stop, there's check stops either side of the festival, a line up of tow truck drivers to seize impounded vehicles, it's too easy this, shooting fish in a barrel.
From here, a convoy of Alberta plates, eastward bound, past car accidents, careless, or not-so-obviously impaired drivers, through the perennial summertime construction zones, the obligatory stops - Tim Hortons in Creston, packed to the gills, the 7-11, party central...
I Make it as far as Cranbrook, getting out for an ice cream discover I've lost my wallet. I rack my brains, eventually remembering that - oh, no - I left it at the Salmo Town Pump
A quick call confirms it.
Now I'm lucky, I've enough gas to make it back to Salmo. Or I think I have enough gas. In any event it doesn't matter, and so the day is cut short.
The long drive back, just enough for a small ice cream and pop in Yak. And to Salmo, again wait out in the sweltering heat the check stop, then to the town pump.
I'm doubly blessed, not only do they have my wallet but it's contents are intact, including the $200+ I had in it.
Sit at the Subway and watch the show.
This, a super spreader Covid and (it will be seen, I'm sure) MonkeyPox event.
And, just as they sold tickets to Shambala, Salmo should be selling tickets to the aftermath. The most sketched out people - and these the ones that made it through the check stop - the Wolfman of Salmo, somehow escaped, now howling at a table outside the Salmo Town Pump, others, in various stages of recovery, many yet weeks away from any sort of baseline, an oversized girl in an undersized bikini shrieking at the Subway employees that "there's too much sauce...." before storming out, the Subway, fully staffed, a line-up out the door, vendors were in short supply this year, starving festival goers patiently lined up out the door,
...This has to be every service industry workers worst nightmare. Everyone hired must get the same spiel - gas station, bar, Subway employees: "Wait until Shambala...".
It's an economic boon, the busiest couple of days of the year, but at what cost?
The workers, the stony-faced response of having to work this the worst day of the year, for a minimum wage job, serving the sketchiest people in the nation, this, their worst day of the year, the day after Shambala, passengers passed out in their cars wearing nothing but facepaint, tattoos, pasties, there will be no prospecting today, merely sit and enjoy the show....
A week after the event the RCMP put out a call for a missing festival goer, trying to hitchhike out of Salmo, last seen "running through peoples yards", this a week ago, some people don't know when the parties over, a tragi-comedy unfolding...
Shingles
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 659
Again. Just 6 years since the last outbreak. Mother fucking bloody hell.
As soon as this clears up I'm getting the vaccine. It's supposed to be a once in a lifetime thing, this is - well, too much, must be the Native American blood that's making me sensitive to the pox, after the dentist, probably stressed, undoubtedly, a tingling in the extremities, I recognize this, ignore it, hope it will go away, but nope, nope, nope.
The pustules, leaking burning lymphatic fluid, acid, that lift the skin, blisters, on your eyes, around your face, fill your ears, groin, thighs, from the tips of your fingers to your wrist, wake in the middle of the night almost howling from the pain, it's as if someone sanded your skin down to the very nerves then threw some gas on you and set you alight, then begins the drying of the dead skin, the cracks, lesions, sores begin to heal - heal it's own form of torture, how many layers of skin have to be shed? 5 at least, feeling your finger tips, you can feel them, but not them, as if they were hidden somewhere inside a dead flesh glove, knuckles crack, around my mouth, eyes, I grow in my beard to conceal it, this is fucking murder.
When all of it is passed, and it is passing now, I'm getting the vaccine, fool me twice...
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