Christmas break was kind of a dud. The first week and a bit was pretty great, but everything after New Year's was really strange. I effectively attempted to try to forget I existed after R---- broke up with me. Gotta love alcohol and marijuana and, you guessed it, porn! Really I kicked that one, didn't I. Yeesh. I was going to go on for longer but I ran out of things to say after this. I guess it's self-explanatory enough. I think you feel me on this one.
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Right at the start of Christmas break, the fellas and I went to this ClubClub show. I guess they are something close to a sound system, even though everyone seems to refer to them as being a physical nightclub space as opposed to the "intergenerational collective bringing the principles of peace, love, unity, respect to diverse and inclusive crowds in so-called Edmonton" that their website proclaims. I just thought they were like a concert series, though that seems like a backhanded thing to say. They're phenomenally nice people. Anyway, N----- invited me out to it, and then we invited R-----, E---, and S----- the night of. It was the day before everyone went back to their hometowns for Christmas break, so I treated the night as a send-off to a turbulent semester. Despite the sentimentality and potential ritualism of that notion, the night was mostly unsentimental, save a few moments.
It began with S----- giving everyone these mice ornaments for E--- and I's meager, vaguely cute A Charlie Brown Christmas-esque Christmas tree in our living room. I was surprised she thought to give me one even though it would be incredibly weird of her to single me out in giving gifts to everyone. I just think she doesn't like me for some reason. We talked about nothing, discussed our game plan for getting to ClubClub, getting back, and the better films of Lucifer Valentine (you know him from Slaughtered Vomit Dolls but he's apparently a much better documentarian in Black Metal Veins). E-- and I what we could manage to pour into shots of vodka from what was leftover in the bottle we got a thing a few nights before, which I felt to be excessive in the seconds prior, but stopped caring by the time I felt it on the walk to the train. We were blessed with the city's first brown Christmas in 20 years, and what would be the winter sky at the effect of being barren in a way it shouldn't have been for another four months. The weather of Christmas break always registers to me as eerie. The train into downtown felt like it had to dig to it.
Alberta, like most places, isn't particularly hospitable to 'alternative culture' or whatever you want to call it. In fact, they're actively hostile to it. Name a part of what would be its infrastructure - a venue, a record label, a radio station, etc. - and it has either gone bankrupt, been closed, shut down, or has been on the verge of falling apart for the past 15 years. Think of the 2015 closing of Calgary's Fast Forward Weekly (an alternative weekly newspaper). Again, that's not unique to this province, nor is it all that surprising. We're a notoriously conservative, overwhelming rural place, and I'm talking about the economic sustainability of an 'alternative' culture. Obviously, that shit isn't going to last, but it's nice when people go for it at all.
E--- and I felt ClubClub looked like a middle school dance. The space was small, the decorations were on a budget, and a view of the snow-pummeled parking lot offset the view of the decks, where the DJs - who were buddies of most people there - spun some shit that we mostly didn't care about with all due respect (except for Khotin, who always rocks). E--- told me on the drive to Red Deer the next day that "That shit wasn't worth $22. If that was $10, sure. But $22?" Personally, I kind of had to agree. I mean, I'm willing to cough up the money for shit I think wherever I'm living needs, and in a city ruled by Beercade and Whyte Ave., I'll put whatever to wherever plays ambient techno. Lord knows I have the means. But, at the same time, the vibe - if such a thing exists - being off enough to delegitimize the price of admission bums me out a little bit. Surely, it's not like this everywhere.
