And then…

A fair bit to mention, but little really to say.

Well, there’s the weather. It’s fucking hot here. Mid-thirties, and pretty damned humid for Vancouver. I’m reminded of hot summer nights back east. Myself and RC have set up camp in the living room, the darkest and coolest of the four chambers we live in. The cats barely move, the keyboard on the Mac is sticky and the fan runs while the computer sleeps. No rain, no cloud, it doesn’t get much less Pacific-Northwest than this.

Chinatown really stinks this week.

I’ve been on vacation. Last week we were on the Isle of Van, visiting S&G and the Little Acadian Hippie. RC and LAH picked right up where they always do, laughing and bitching at each other, little made-up dances and giant doobs.

It was good to be in Victoria. I like it, though it made me homesick. People always call it “the other Halifax”, and it’s largely true. Vancouver is nothing like Halifax, but Victoria is overwhelmingly so. It’s quieter than Vancouver and smells a hell of a lot better too. The demographic is pretty white, with lots of rich old people and upwardly mobile couples, “Newlyweds and Nearlydeads” quips S as we weave though traffic. Did our bit for the economy, lots of shopping. The secondhand stores and shitshops aren’t picked over there the way they are here. I picked up some vintage nes carts, a copy of the very rare Yoshi’s Island for the snes, and a goddamned Vic-20 still in it’s original packaging (Gorf anyone?) Stocked up on Kyoto incense too, hard to find it here.

Saw Barrington Levy (that’s lee-vee “I a man, not a parking ticket, I a rocker, not a dam”). He’s gained a few pounds over the years, but he sounds exactly the same. Apparently if you’re lucky, a thousand pounds of collie won’t do shit to your pipes. The opening act was pretty blah, but then the Detour Posse (Barrington’s latest backup band) came on and played some damned nice roots instrumentals. After a few songs, the Man Himself came on stage, dressed head to toe in white with a bright red kangol hat, belting out his trademark “Skiddi-doo-da-doo-da-doo-da-daaayo –see!” The place went fucking nuts, and appropriately so, and he went on to play an amazing marathon set. He mostly worked the classics, starting off with “Murderer”, hitting “Here I come”, “Black Roses”, “A Yah We Deh”…etc. Strangely, “Englishman” was left off the set, and I was disappointed to not hear “Send A Moses” either. Having said that, they played for almost three hours, and despite some weird pacing, and Barrington’s sometimes pretty cringe-inducing rants on the gender wars, it was a slick damned production.

Three highlights:
1. A really fun singalong session of “Here I Come” (you try and do his scat!)
2. Barrington grinning at his band after getting 1000 white people to denounce themselves and praise Tafari. If it was “Praise Allah” those hands wouldn’t have gone up so fast would they Victoria?
3. “There are too many fat girls in the world!” A quote to remember, and clearly a challenge to William Shatner. C’mon Bill, you can beat that…

Most of the rest of our time over there was spent eating and meandering. Now it’s back to work, me at the institute, and RC techin’ the hell out of VI and festival co-ordinating her ass off.

Okay, that’s two of us. What’s going on with youse?

-m

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Author:
marko
Published:
22.07.06 / 2pm
Category:
Random