Month: December 2002

I’ve pointed you to Moscow’s hilariously biting alternative newspaper, the eXile before — once for their delightfully scornful reviews of Moscow clubs, and another time for the basty-but-true article about what Europeans think of each other. Written by expat Americans now living in the Socialist Workers Paradise™, it reads like a bitter NOW magazine (people not in Accordion City should imagine their local alternative weekly paper, or the Village Voice if there isn’t one in your burg) written by people who loathe Moscow only slightly less than they loathe the monotony back home amd who might drink more than my online buddy Stavros the Wonder Chicken.

Now let me point you to Buffalo. Back in the 1950’s when Toronto was the Protestant-gripped city known as Toronto the Good — a bastion of stultifying WASPish goody-two-shoesness with no movies, newspapers or even playing football in the park on Sunday, anglophilia was the order of the day, and all food had mayonnaise on it (perhaps a little parprika on special occasions, but only for colour). One of the factors that turned Accordion City around was the influx of immigrants, who brought with them a labour force that built up the city, the sea of multicoloured faces that you see on our streets every day (my handsome mug included), and even more importantly, some dceent recipes. Buffalo, Albany and other cities in upstate New York suffered the exact reverse — a mass exodus from their cities that started in the late seventies as both slid into American mid-sized city urban blight. American TV channels here are fed to us by Buffalo-based affiliates, and from watching their local news, one would think that that happened in Buffalo were fires, liquor store robberies, and snowstorms. The image of Buffalo in the popular imagination — I’m going by conversatiosn with friends as well as a helluva lot of stand-up comics’ jokes — is that it’s cold and permanently covered in snow, bleak and overridden with crime, dull with nothing to do for kicks.

Kind of like Moscow, eh?

This brings me to The Beast, a new alternative paper in Buffalo. Currently on their fourteenth issue, The Beast is run by former eXile editors. While they’re not sure what their mission is, they seem to be quite sure that there are a lot of reasons to complain about Buffalo. In the current issue, there’s a story about “Peegate”, in which Buffalo transit bus drivers have erm, no place to go and another about how the Buffalo police have dossiers on people who have appeared at protests. They’ve also got a very eXile-like piece titled The Beast 50: The Most Loathsome People in America 2002 and some pretty odd “person on the street” interviews.

I’m not sure what it’ll do for the city’s image, but it should be an interesting read from time to time.

If you have Windows Media Player, point it here to see a movie of Joe Eigo doing some pretty wild flips, kicks and other acrobatics during his visit to Toronto this summer.

(Thanks to P. for the link!)

Wednesday: Kick Ass Karaoke

It’s the Christmas/Eid-ul-Fitr/Post-Chanukah/Pre-Kwanzaa/Pre-Tet edition of Kick Ass Karaoke this Wednesday! Join your host, Carson T. Foster, me and all the not-very-regualr regulars at Toronto’s Legendary Bovine Sex Club. The mayhem starts at nine at rages on into the night.

Thursday: Give a Little

Phat beats will abound this Thursday night at the Cadillac Lounge (1296 Queen Street West, just west of Dufferin) at this event that’s raising money for Womens Habitat shelter and collecting canned goods for the Toronto Food Bank. The night will feature DJ Slowhand who’ll be playing deep house, Dr. J. Booty showing his mad turntablist skillz and the improv dub jazz outfit Chameleon Project will perform live. All this funk for five dollars (or seven if you don’t bring a canned good).

Shake your booty, and do your good duty.

Friday: GTABloggers party chez moi

The Greater Toronto Area Bloggers are having a party and it’s at my house! It’s a pot-luck event, and I still have a fair bit of booze left over from last month’s birthday megabash. I’ll probably fill only one of the tubs with ice this time, but it should still be fun. Bloggers and other literary types are definitely welcome — you don’t have to be a member of the GTABloggers to partake! Drop me a line if you’re interested.

Saturday

I’m triple-booked for parties, but that’s a good thing in my books.

I love playing tour guide, and I got my chance to do it for Bridget and Joe. They’re from Minneapolis, and they’re friends of my friends and fellow programmers Justin, Ry4an and Luke. Bridget had e-mailed me earlier, asking about places to go and things to see, and I sent her a list featuring things that are — and more importantly, aren’t — in the guide books. Bridget suggested that they give me a ring when they were in town and catch up for drinks. I suggested that we catch up at one of my favourite pubs, Smokeless Joe.

As its name implies, Smokeless Joe is a smoke-free bar. Here in Accordion City, such a thing is still extremely rare as we haven’t yet phased in restaurant/bar anti-smoking laws. As it name also implies, it is owned by a guy name Joe. Joe is sometimes called “New Joe” as he’s neither the original owner nor the founder of the pub; that honour goes to “Old Joe”, who still stops by for the occasional drink. Both Old Joe and New Joe greet customers at the door and talk to everyone who comes in. That same friendliness also shown by the bartenders, who introduce themsleves to you and jot down your name so that they can address you directly (“Another stout, Joey?” “Why, yes please, Pete.”). They certainly know their beers, which is important for a place that for which even respected microbrews like Amsterdam and Creemore are considered too run-of-the-mill.

(They also make a mean clam chowder and serve it in a king-size bowl.)

After I’d had a couple of drinks that Bridget kindly bought for me, someone sitting beside me turned to me and asked that question:

“Can you really play that thing?”

I asked her if she’d like to hear a number and then cleared it with Joe.

“Hey, Joe, can I –“

“I’m already turning off the stereo. Go for it.”

What a guy. I decided to start with You Shook Me All Night Long, which always gets good sing-along action and gets the audience clapping. I asked Joe if there was something that he wanted to hear, to which he yelled back “Britney Spears!” Very odd, considering he’s a big blues aficionado, but what the hey. Baby One More Time it was. I finished with Born to Be Wild, bowed to the crowd and return to my barstool to find Pete pouring me a bottle of Belgian cherry beer.

“Compliments,” he said, dropping his voice to stage whisper, “of someone who wished to remain anonymous.”

“Okay, Pete,” I said, pulling my stool closer to the bar. I wasn’t going to find out who it was; at Joe’s, bartender-drinker confidentiality is even more sacred than that between a doctor and patient. “You can at least tell me if it was a girl, can’t you? You can do that for a brutha?”

“Okay, it was. But that’s all I’m saying.”

“Can’t mack tonight, anyway. I’m out with friends.”

“Well, thank you, who ever you are,” I said, raising the glass to no one in particular.

I love this instrument.

Along with getting back to more regular posts in this weblog, I’m also double-checking the links in the right-hand side column. If you’ve linked to me and I haven’t mentioned you in my blogroll, please let me know, either by e-mail or in the comments.

From Giles Coren’s column in The Times:

I READ this week that Leonardo da Vinci’s blueprints for advanced machines of war contained deliberate mistakes that would make them impossible to build. A tradition maintained to this day by the little diagrams that come with flat-pack furniture from Ikea.

Looks like I’m not the only programmer in with a cash-flow problem: fellow P2P programmer Darius Bacon is also selling off a book collection. In his collection are the smarty-smart computer, science and science fiction you’d expect to find, but he also has a healthy selection of general interest material too. Give him a hand and buy his books!