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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
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This is it, my send-off to myself, a Halloween rave in the Valley, I finish my shift - final shift at the Pub, the night waitress comes in, she's been all sorts of sporting swapping shifts with me while I got my shit together, she's drunk, now she wants it off but she can see it in my eyes, I'm outta there-done, done like dinner, done done done.
She lets me go and I'm gone. I only needed a sock.
My costume, a black sweater, black pair of paints, hand painted glow-in-the-dark rendering of an impressionistic skeleton, some skeleton gloves and a bikers scarf complete it. Not much, but enough.
The Valley, for those who don't know or have never been, is a place of perpetual enchantment. Entering the valley all cell phones stop working, and not just because there's no towers, but because the locals want it that way. The demons of technology have no sway here. This is where the nations pot used to be grown. This is where all the best parties are...
An address, a few lights beside the highway mark the turn, a muddy road, directions at the first-aid tent (because every responsible rave has a first aid tent, cheap insurance against bad drugs or irresponsible usage), pull in and park. The parking lot, a muddy cow-pasture, and I think about pitching my tent. No. Too muddy, too rainy, and I'm shortly afterwards returning to Calgary, there won't be time to dry the tent out, clean it up. And I make a pleasant discovery, that the driver seat so fully pushes back and reclines that I can - almost - comfortably sleep here. I'm a connoisseur of sleeping in cars, having spent too many nights curled around a gearshift or huddled bent double on the back seat, and this is as good as it gets.
Go and survey the scene. Twinkling LED lights guide the way, across a fairy bridge, there's the chill-down tent, the Stage, a covered dance floor, various set-ups for bonfires, and the party is slowly underway...
This is the land of the fairies, of perpetual enchantment. Costumes, there are more than a few unicorns, to be expected, onesies with glittering satin horns, there are witches and devils, garden-gnomes and Christmas Elfs, a new one to me, wearing little glittering eye masks and stuffed upright toques, costumes that compliment the bearded wearer, there are the disturbing latex masks and gorilla suits, disturbing because even through a costume we want some sense of who we're talking to, there's a clever Spy-VS-Spy costume on a leggy blonde, clever but impractical, the mask keeps slipping, there are the home-made and store-bought lycra skeletons, I could go on...
It's cold, raining, wander between the dance-floor and the bonfire, huge, 20 feet across, a circle surrounds it, a tall, elegant woman presides over it, she introduces herself. Manon. She is beautiful, elegant. French Canadian, queen of the fairies, warming her hands she's got skeleton gloves, her concession to costume, never has death looked so fetching, in her own space, quiet and with her own thoughts wrapped about her preserves her regal bearing, her aloofness. There's Lindsey, I know her from another rave, careening all about, to the dance-floor, back to the fire, always at 70 degrees to the ground, she's drunk, I guessed tripping but she denies it, just drunk, she's out of control, others express concern, she gets annoyed, it's only once a week, Saturdays, why can't she get drunk on Saturdays? And I'm her touchstone, safe-zone, she knows me and so circles about on random errands, to the dance-floor, to the fire, into the shadows and again returning, clumsily barging into people and stumbling, checking in with me that everything's OK, then off again. There are the drunk Albertans, you saw their plates in the parking lot, jumping over the bonfire, six-pack or mickey in their hand, trouble waiting to happen, the wrong drug at the best party on earth, they don't get it, something about the Albertan mindset, raves, they advocate for responsible drug use, Alcohol is not a responsible drug. There are elders, older men and women, older than me even, in their 60's, 70's, they console the younger ravers who mixed their weed with too much liquor, or are in the midst of a bad trip, they've been there, they know, and their experience here is shared to good use.
There's no judgement. Well, maybe a bit. Everything's ok but the booze, people don't like that. For good reason, people get drunk, they get into fights, they're assholes, the other drugs, they're not so - well, vicious, but everyone here polices everyone else.
The night passes, and everyone makes their introductions, if you don't know them you probably know of them, 1, maybe 2 degrees of separation, talking you recognize them, one grower, she's introduced herself, describing her situation, and I recognize her, inwardly laugh, I gave her ex a ride, I know her from a very different viewpoint, and there are more, make eye contact, conversation, there's none of the awkwardness that permeates encounters at bars or nightclubs, no expectations or misreading of intentions..
It's a fine evening, cold, rainy, move wood onto the bonfire. Go dance, warm-yourself, chat, repeat.
Soon the light's breaking and time for bed, 6:00 AM and the parties still going, but it's time, time now, the road winds long and longer, cold and raining...my mind is both quiet and brimming...full and silent...remember the fire and Manon, beauty is always an inspiration, especially when it doesn't speak or bend your ear to it's mischief...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1224
Election day in the Kootenays, and The Owner's Son, he's up and at-em like, well, like an aspiring politician.
I've kept my mouth shut, wished him well, what choice do I have? I work there.
In the morning, visiting his parents, I catch him making a bee line for the car, ask him his chances, he's pretty cock-sure in his $20 suit, he thinks a second and tells me:
"It'll either be real close and I'll win by a narrow margin...or..."
"or?" I prompt him -
"Or it'll be a landslide".
They've planned a little celebration after the election, his wife has been busy baking and there are well wishers coming and going all day.
The pub, it's dead.
As the night goes on there are calls, there's more calls, it's more about routing calls to the family than it is about business. The votes are being counted, being counted...
The next day the results are in. He's lost. Lost by a humiliating margin - of 1000 voters, the incumbent beat him by over 300 votes. And there's no shame in losing, only in not trying, and he certainly tried, put on the miles, had easily 10 times the signage, 100 times the signage, the pamphlets, this isn't a loss, this is a complete and utter rejection, and he disappears. This was less about what he could offer than what he could take, and he didn't prepare for this, people saw through him, and it's for him - financially, a catastrophe, socially he's a pariah, and the status, respect and acceptance he imagined the role of politician offered him - well, it's gone.
And now it's back to serving all the people who so loudly said they'd vote for him, then didn't, but he's gonna lie low until the New Year.
During the last 3 weeks at the pub I didn't see him once - vanished to lick his wounds, off the face of the earth.
I'm leaving at the right time...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1438
And I've brought a few specimens in for identification, the Chamber of Mines in Nelson, talking to the curator, he's showing me local specimens, ways to work the MTO, I could be here all day, he's great, he's got all of my enthusiasm and a hundred, a thousand times my knowledge...
...he's showing me local aquamarines, garnets as big as golf balls, no he can't tell me where from, I have to find out for myself, he's showing me advanced features of Minefile, the MTO, underlaying Google maps, finding specific resources, he's got kimberlite pieces from his own claims, nobody knows about these, filled with Pyrope garnets a full centimeter across, Chrome Diopside, he's got Lamproite samples, everything that I've got he's got better, more, and I'm jealous, not even jealous, just glad to have him, it's rare to come across these, even if it's only a single shared interest, but I appreciate them, like minded people.
I need to meet more.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1353
A charming, nice guy, professional, from the big city, new waiter, I renamed him after a restaurant I saw in Revelstoke, it suits him. And he doesn't mind, parries wits, it's so nice to have someone "real" to work with, but I don't think it's going to last...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1159
There's been an unending stream of employees coming through the restaurant, they come, they go, often just here long enough to grab a cheque and then continue, thumbs out, towards the coast. For many the Kootenays is the dream, for others it's just another waypoint on the road to bigger and better things...
And every crew of new recruits the owners put through an "Orientation", a 2 hour introduction to house policies, regulations, etc, etc. Which is ridiculous if you consider that at best there's only another 6 weeks of summer, and 90% of these new recruits will be gone, and in 8 weeks it'll be the bare bones of the owner's son, another server, and 2 or 3 people covering all shifts in the kitchen...this "Orientation", it's more of a "Legal-cover-your-ass" sort of deal, and it's a chance for the Mother of Owner's Son to pontificate kindly upon her corporate sociopathy and abundant (not really, and largely irrelevant) experience in the industry. And, as I've heard from some of the recruits, apologize for my behavior, apparently I'm a kindly tolerated but necessary evil...
One of our more charming recruits was "Lex", a small-town Albertan former "Rig Pig" who had moved to the Kootenays on a whim to officially change genders and reinvent herself...
We get a lot of that...
"Lex", (not her real name), was your standard flamboyant, overly-dramatic drag queen. Not to cause any offense but lets call a spade a spade. There was nothing even slightly "Trans" about her, in Calgary, Vancouver, any bigger center she (he) would have found her (his) place and been content, but she (he) had never lived in a big (or bigger) city than small town Alberta and subscribed to this hopeless binary fantasy that changing genders would solve all her problems...
40 Years old, boyish, close-shaven face, nothing even remotely feminine about "her", no amount of surgery will fix this, more the over-the-top parody of femininity that drag queens do so well, this "girl" needs to find her niche...
She's a hard drinker, has hormones, surgeries scheduled for the next few weeks, and I'm wondering how on earth any reputable doctor would even consider reassigning someones gender when they're drinking a bottle of Vodka or more a day, but then I think of prescription drugs and the general state of healthcare and I get it...
A day off and she's drunk, drunk as I'm going in to work, and the evening takes a turn for the dramatic, she's mortified at her cheque, the deductions for housing, they're excessive, and she confronts the owners, they quarrel, she tries to push her way past, into her accomodation, she's thrown out, boot-fucked by Sr. in the parking lot, there's the police, drama, and then she's gone...
I hear all the stories, from the owners, each of them, from their son, from the Chef who lives next door, they all vary wildly, from "Lex started it" to "She was another victim", and if I had to side with anyone it's Lex, but I can't say, wasn't there, the owners are pressing charges...
I've seen this show before. And, regardless of anyones point of view, the fact that they continually find themselves in this position strongly to me indicates their guilt. They've a stack several feet thick of complaints upstairs from the labour board, from disgruntled employees, and a stack several meters high of rebuttals written by the owner, but I can't help but think if 20% of your daily workload is responding to government inquiries about your treatment of staff then you're probably doing it wrong...