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Vancouver to Nanaimo
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Tuesday, week last, a trip over to the Island to visit the boy.
Nanaimo Via Horseshoe Bay - Over the Lions Gate, into West Van, the houses, pleasant, no external clues as to their astronomical value, neighborhoods that I remember vaguely from childhood, the "rural & suburban" Vancouver, Horseshoe Bay, a stark contrast to the industrial Tsawwassen Ferry, a smaller, tiny terminal, mountains, peaks, inlets and islands, it is the very picture of an ad for "Travel BC".
The ferry ride - long, Nanaimo, well, there's nada in Nanaimo, we check the thrift shops for my bag, no luck, lunch - an overdone burger at a well reviewed pub - my own review would be substantially more damning - the boy, the island life, makes it a little, a lot tougher to "treat" him to a decent meal as I would the daughter, a short, few hour visit - but this change, to the island, the pace of life greatly slowed - it's worth it to escape the East Side, if only for a day...
Window Dressing
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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(Gonna be jumping around a bit - Vancouver, Edmonton, Nelson. Going back to Vancouver for the next few posts...)
2 Weeks worth of set dressing put to rest with a single nights filming.
And now, a week later, they're cleaning it up. The brief neon cleaver, gone, scraping the letters off the tiles from the wall, undoing the floor, cleaning off the gilt on the windows that advertised the "Tongue and Tail", all the fridges, plastic meats removed, 2 weeks to build, 1 night shooting, another week to "restore" the property to the condition in which they rented it. A very short lived gentrification.
An older couple, walking past, looking at the "Tongue and Tail" writ large on the alley wall, discussing loudly "They better clean that up..." - when in fact the clean-up is the damage to the neighborhood, the film crew is busy scrubbing, replacing the gum, filling the doorway back up with the syringes, foil, feces, trash, graffiti tags on the window and alley, they'll have no improvements here...
New Bag...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Made in Bolivia, out of real Llama Skin. They spell it "Lama" but I know better, I mean, I found it in Nelson. And - while not EXACTLY what I wanted, it's close enough, and having canvassed and searched a dozen thrift shops in Vancouver, and a couple of others in Edmonton, this will be the bag.
Thrift shops, Nelson, terrific, have missed them greatly. Vancouver thrift shops are mighty fine too, merely exorbitant - and I didn't find a bag.
Now there's an awful lot more treasures to be searched for...
Aussie Gold
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Christmas at my fathers, the first night, TV - The Star Wars Trilogy. The digital Lucas-remix, infinitely inferior to the original.
The second night, the John Wick Trilogy - by the third episode really more occasional commercials for "Parabellum" intermixed amongst commercials for any number of other products. Glad I watched the movie in theatres, because if I was trying to watch it on HBO I would have been immensely discouraged.
And, night 3 - AHA - found it - my own particular brand of drivel - "Aussie Gold Hunters".
I didn't know this existed, but - I could have predicted it.
These shows, they're terrible, scripted "Drama", predictable outcomes, the big draw I suspect is that - even if you've never found anything in your life, not even a missing sock from your dryer, you know you could do better than this.
"Don't pick that up mate, you'll hurt your back, look for something a little smaller" and "..."Goldzilla", reality "stars", never the best or the brightest - not only by design (adds in the 'drama' and 'human interest' - and, really, if you were in the least successful or competent why on earth would you consent to being followed about with a camera crew?), their scripted lame-ass 'dreams' and 'targets', it confirms my every prejudice about Australia, my new favorite...
And after that, 3 more shows that have the exact same formula, "Bering Sea Gold" and "Aussie Opal Hunters". I still don't need a T.V., although this helps to make the plan for the summer months...
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