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Ranchmans
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2718
And the big "night out" with the boys, Saturday, the first of Stampede. G, the new Italian waiter and I set out for Ranchmans after work.
Strange to say, in 20 years of Calgary, I've never been. It's amazing. By which I mean, I'm not a cowboy by a long shot, but they do it up well with all the western props and such, it's a proper hillbilly bar, many a bar outside of Calgary could learn something here. This is what you expect to stumble into in the Bayou or one of those dire pubs hidden in the wastelands of Montana. And, being Stampede, it's packed. Packed with maybe a thousand people, maybe more, hard to guess, all in various stages of inebriation, all held up by the press of the crowd, I've been nominated the designated driver and so the boys take turns buying me diet cokes, and with a sober eye it's hard not to laugh, but still I'm impressed, the new Italian waiter, it's the first time he's been properly out, he's only seen Calgary through the skewed lens of the restaurant, 100 year old dowagers feted by 80 year old children, he's pleasantly astonished: "It's a pussy paradise!!" he tells me, and sets off to find some prey. There's no shortage of prey here, only his tastes range towards the asian, and there's only a few of those here, guarded by rather large pumped boyfriends, I worry a little about the possibility of a brawl.
Not to worry, as hammered as he gets he's too charming to take offense to...
Cue circus music, boys get inebriated, G finds his way home via a girlfriend, I drive the Italian waiter, he's enthused about this bar, wants to come back, solicits my promise to return next Saturday, exactly what I need, more sober nights out, ...
Simmering
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2701
And the weather, hot, the car overheating, overheating in the car. Maybe five miles to work, head down 14th Street, then down 20th Avenue, but it takes 20 minutes, half an hour, the lights on 14th aren't synchronized, traffic backs up, you wait in your car, sweating, simmering...
At every intersection - 17th, 12th, 11th, and then again in Kensington there are the bums, the career homeless, staggering into traffic with an old coffee cup, or walking in abject humility between the cars, eyes downcast, cap in hand, every car has it's window down, some are old hands at this, some are new, this panhandling from cars is a new thing, new as in the past 5 years, before then it wasn't a thing at all, now, on 14th at least, they've cornered every intersection.
Sitting in the car as they walk past, avoiding or catching your eye, everyone has their own trick, the thermometer rising, the temperature, early 30's, a menacing haze that promises thundershowers and hail if you can just survive until you get to work ...
Stalker (1979)
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 2564
And after a bit of a run of nonsense, finally a film worth watching. At 2 and a half hours long, it's too short, the cinematography is brilliant, the settings, amazing, the plot, well, it's a bit of crawl around the Soviet subconscious, but well worth it. Hard to believe it was made in 1979, but they still used writers then, and not computers...
Link: Wikipedia on Stalker
Link: YouTube Trailer
Italians & Filipinos
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2778
Longest day off EVER.
Begin, wake at 7:00, prime, prime, at 9:30 go out and lie beneath the Jetta for 2 1/2 hours to replace the rad hose. I've procrastinated this for weeks. 2 Hours reaching up, cutting, pulling with pliers, to remove the old hose, covered in rad fluid, a mere half an hour to add the new hose. The day grows hotter and hotter.
Job done, drive off, replace rad fluid...drive a bit, the car overheats. It's the damned water pump. This is a repair I don't want to undertake, don't have the finances, tools, bloody hell, so for the moment it's stock up on cheap radiator fluid and ride it out. I'm a one-man ecological disaster.
3:00 it's time to head to G's, pick up the new Italian waiter, head up to the old basement suite. It's his Mom's birthday, we're invited, more obligated, to attend, she's 60.
Well attended, fed, liquor & wine, it's a grand event. About 25 people in attendance, not counting me and the new waiter, 5 of whom are elderly Italian men, the other 20 Italian women, average age somewhere between 70 and 200 years. Conversations in Italian, a hot summer's day, 32, 34 degrees, too hot to eat or drink, merely pass the time and ride it out...and the conversations, mostly in Italian, occasionally someone takes pity on me and translates, mostly they leave me alone, how long to stay here, how long, exactly, is polite? The grandmothers break into arguments over who has the most grandchildren, it's less the number than the loudness of the argument that wins, everyone has their turn, I'm thinking I should win because I have none, then they pass around their phones with the pictures of their grandchildren on them...
One old lady, perhaps mid 70's, she's contrived a dislike for me...I remind her of an actor in an Italian movie who played a drug dealer and murderer, "a very bad man", she tells me, she tells the other ladies and broods upon it. And she returns to it again and again, and I'm being damned by association, I finally have my epiphany and say: "But he was doing it for his mama...!!!" and the other old ladies titter in agreement, if it's for his mama it's a different story, and absurdly enough I'm off the hook...
Another old lady, older even, perhaps 90, she looks at me and smiles ... "Lots of pretty girls here for you...", she says, she's taking the piss, I have to admire her malice...I can only hope to be that lucid and malevolent at that age...
We escape, finally, the Italian waiter and I, after happy birthdays are sung, now to the next party...
The Filipinos of Rundle.
Our Chef, having invited us a few times for dinner, we can postpone it no longer, we go for dinner. A case of beer, but it's too hot to drink, we arrive at around 7:00, the chef is so glad to see us, these people, packed 20 to a house, the landlord, shirt tied up around his chest like a halter-top, others, all temporary foreign workers, paying $500, $600 a month for a small room in an average house, shared, the landlord, he's doing well enough he doesn't have to work. I count 7 rice cookers on the counter. But they've put on a feast for us, shrimp, chicken, pork, rice, asian noodles, it's all fine and close enough to Chinese food that I have no problems with it. The Italian, he has problems, doubts the chicken is really chicken, when we leave I'm treated to an hours speculation as to what it was, what breed and species of purloined pet, but I don't notice, merely different flavors, and souse anything with enough chili oil and it will become edible.
Conversations, mostly about work, a few of the other TFW have better jobs, much better, and I feel for our chef that he got so shafted in this, one of the Filipinos makes $17 per hour, and has use of the company truck. Nice. Foreman for a local landscaping company, he's no complaints, I'm impressed, of course, no one in the world, not even Satan's minion's themselves, have the working conditions of our chef...
2 hours here and it's time to leave, we could stay later, but for no good reason, merely to drink, and it's my day off, there are still yet obligations...
Jurassic World
9:45 and I meet the boy, "Jurassic World", after the day, today, I just want to see people get eaten by dinosaurs, damn the plot, gimme hungry dinosaurs and deserving prey...
And everyone is deserving, but only a few get eaten, exactly the same silliness, plot, as the first, but the dinosaurs are first rate, I knew what I was getting into, for sure, no surprises, but for once, just once, I'd like to see the dinosaurs win, eat the damned annoying children, eat the stupid woman and too-cool Chris Pratt, hire Quentin Tarantino as director for God's sakes and just make it a little less predictable, I'm begging you...
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