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Vancouver to Edmonton
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 873
So a couple of days away from work - I'll come back to that in another post - and I'm ready to head to Edmonton for Xmas. It's been a long time. And my flight - a WestJet ticket out of Abbottsford, I'm regretting the "deal" - (!!NOT) I got on the ticket when I realize I have to spend another $50.00 and 2 hours on the bus.
Meh. The day is largely given over to travel, a few trifles before I leave, I'd planned to get some 'shrooms from one of the dispensaries around town, but they're too obviously packaged, there's no subtlety whatsoever. I compromise and get myself a gram of "African Goliath", fill in the required "Medical Disclosures" - essentially for medical reasons & not recreation - and far be it for me to enjoy myself - and I'm off to the Station to catch my discounted flight ($650? TO Edmonton? Are you PAYING ME BECAUSE IF YOU ARE $650 ISN"T FUCKING ENOUGH!!!!)
But nope...
Anyways, a rainy day, waiting to get on the bus and then waiting to get on my flight to Edmonton and then waiting to land in Edmonton...
Only, get to Abbotsford and I can't seem to find my flight. Where's my flight? Chill. Don't worry. Notice that I'm not commenting on the Abbottsford International Airport - or countless hectares of rainy parking lot, filled to the brim with cars. I mean...
Another time...
So, can't see my flight, wait for the "Departures" screen to clear and load the next screen. Grab a coke, Grab some twizzlers, wait. Go for a smoke. Wait.
And, weird, it's like - this Abbottsford International Airport - the "Departures" screen doesn't update...
And checking my ticket - trying to find what's up, searching for it, for the flight, and -....
FUCK I'm departing VANCOUVER. YVR. "WHERE IS YVR??" I ask someone - but, maybe, not "asked" so much as pleaded or shouted and shook them in a panicked and insane realization...
Then a mad dash into the rainy evening again and hail a $200 cab into the Vancouver International Airport.
$250 spent on the nighttime tour of Abbottsford. Burn it down I say.
And how - how exactly - did I come to understand I was leaving from Abbottsford? I have no clue, only that from the moment I booked my ticket I was 100% sure I was leaving through Abbottsford, and - take this as a lesson for life - 99% of our certainties are most certainly wrong. Hang on to only 1 % - let the rest go - because - well, you need an anchor someplace or you'll go insane - and when you've found new certainties let the old anchor go as well and drop a new one in better harbors.
So, finally, 5 hours and $250 later and I'm at YBR, smoking, getting ready to get on my flight, take my "African Goliath" mushroom - 1 gram, a microdose, and head through security.
Chatting with the daughter, who tells me not to grab a glass of wine inside - "It's OverPRICED" she tells me, and - this microdose - whew - wow- the colors are great and I'm feeling the release of waves of anxiety and I'm gonna grab a glass of wine, even if it is overpriced. And - it is. $24.00 for a glass of what I was pretty sure was Jackson Triggs. $24.00 and tip option on the machine that starts: "18 - 20 - 25%", and - fucking hell, I don't have to say it. She should have told me the price, not that it was "OverPriced", maybe phrased it more as "Would you prefer a Jeep or this Glass of Wine", at which case I would have made a better decision...
This takes my mushroom glow off in a hurry, but it comes back when I wander away from the bar and eat a chocolate bar. Also overpriced but not $24.00 overpriced. Fucking amazing.
And - definitely not a tripping dose, but a hell of a lot more than a microdose.
Finally, plane is late, board plane, cram-packed, full to the brim, a late departure - but a mere hour and 7 minutes to Edmonton. I mean the flight. The whole fucking journey, well, that was an Odyssey, an ordeal, but it seems I can't go anywhere lately without it turning into a shit-show of one sort or another, so - relative to all other adventures this ones a trifle, I'm glad I'm here, warm, and a few days away to pray the weather relents before I head down to Nelson.
Nightmare Alley
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 695
Guillermo Del Toro's Film Noir & remake of a classic film about a grifting sideshow carny. Permeated with a dark ambience, great set pieces and props, good performances by Cate Blanchett, Ron Perlman, Willem Dafoe, that said it grows a little stale and old when you can see the ending clear as day a mere 20 minutes into the film. After which it becomes a tired exercise in seeing how it realizes itself. Meh. Although - the sideshow attractions, the tarot cards, the good Psychiatrist's office - they all serve to inspire, merely a less predictable plot would have driven it along a lot better.
The Green Knight
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 948
Serendipity, this, downloaded on a whim, enjoyed it very much. A pretty clean, writ large layout of "The Hero's Journey", with some intriguing symbolism and details.
I'm pretty sure I read this once, should read it again, it fits in with a few of my own projects and was appropriate to the moment. I love it when that happens.
Very good. You might enjoy.
Window Dressing
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 880
They were filming a movie here - across the street in an alley - a couple of weeks ago. Lots of vans, booms, lighting, people gathered, actors, extras, pedestrians just watching.
It went on a couple of days.
And - the last couple of weeks they've been window dressing the building next to the Cambie - "The Tongue and Tail", making it into a fictional butcher shop. They've put decals on the windows, cleaned up and retiled the inside, brought in coolers, fridges, painted the butcher's signage on the building next to the alley - finally, now, they've filled the window with choice cuts of plastic molded to resemble meat - sides of beef, sausages, chickens, etc.
Every night, after work, there's security guarding the site - a "Teamsters" car parked out front, a security guard (or 2) on foot...
They've put more money into the "appearances" and the fiction of a butcher shop than most real butchers would put into a real butcher shop.
This is hilarious. And when the movie - or scene - is done shooting the building again will be vacant, junkies will shoot up in the doorway, use it as a toilet - but - for the moment - I'm living in a fictional gentrification of Gastown, an substantially upscaled neighborhood that will pass as a friendly neighborhood (or maybe not? I don't know what they're filming...) butcher - is this for a fleeting scene? Given the money spent on renovations I would expect a substantial portion of filming to be done here - maybe a new Canadian sitcom?
Wait and see...
**Update: Outside for a cigarette, street blocked off, booms and crew in place - looks like filming starts today. And I have to work a double and will miss it. Damn!!
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