craig'z lizt

big deejays don't cry

2008-07-12T16:32:00.000-07:00

as if in a waking nightmare, i had been powerless to prevent myself from entering funky winkerbean's a little before 1am in nothing but my heart-patterned underpants and walking up to the karaoke machine to screech the words to Talk to Me, Dance With Me into the microphone. if this wasn't bad enough, steve bays, singer of hot hot heat, walked into the bar at this exact moment, catching me in the act. i wanted nothing more than to stop singing and act like it had been some sort of a misunderstanding, but the words kept scrolling forward on the monitor. there was no way out: i had to complete the song. he glared at me from the doorway for the duration of my performance and then dissapeared out the door when i had finished.
afterwards i ran out into the street to try and find him and aplogise and make him understand that i hadn't meant to butcher his song in front of him, but he was nowhere in sight. i ran down the street, taking corners randomly, looking around desperately for that tall red hair and ignoring everything else when i was tripped by something and went flying through the air, smashing my beautiful face against the filthy curb. i rolled over to see what i had hit and was horrified to discover a short, pudgy man with wild red eyes accompanied by the rank stench of hatred and street living standing over me with his fists clenched.

"you think you're so fucking great, blitzcraig, but i've got news for you: you aren't." he stopped to wipe his lips and continued, "you're just a stupid music selector, little better than itunes' party shuffle, not a real dj. you don't know the first thing about being a real dj. you're just a little bitch."
"that's just like...your opinion, man."
"hah! a bitch like you couldn't possibly understand my people's struggle. you think this shit is a game, boy? you think people go to the club to dance, get drunk, and talk to girls?? THEY DON'T! they fucking go to listen to my turntable virtuosity. what could a fake dj like you know about that? you don't know shit, boy." i wiped his spittle from my face and stared back at him in terror once he had finished his tirade, unsure of whether to defend myself again or try to knock him over and make my escape. i quickly recalled that because of his petite stature his centre of gravity would be much lower than a normal man's, so knocking him over was out of the question and i was forced to make a stuttering reply.
"well uh, maybe like...no one is like sober enough to uh notice...or something...i mean, no one has complained yet, sir."
"that doesn't mean shit! i've seen you play music and anybody watching you will know that you're a fucking joke, an insult to the holy brotherhood of real djs. you don't spend the whole time jerking off the various knobs and buttons, you just put a song on and dance behind the table. PEOPLE DON'T COME TO PARTIES FOR THE SONGS THEY GO TO WATCH THE DJ YOU IGNORANT PIECE OF SHIT!" he became so caught up in his anger that he turned his crazed eyes away from me for a moment to scream his rage to the stars that i was able to make good my escape.
when i finally arrived at my home, i remained parked in the middle of my long, tree lined driveway crying my eyes out. had that man been right? was i nothing but a pig party ruining phoney? would people stop having fun because i was unable to masturbate the knobs appropriately? did people really come to watch the awesome spectacle of a dj slaving away over a hot turntable all night to make you a decent beat and not, as i had believed, to dance and have fun?

all these questions and more will be answered this friday, the 18th of july in the 2008th year of our lord when craigzlizt (this very blog) turns 7 months old and the blitzcraig will show you all how much you mean to him with music. and if a dj who actually knows what he's doing is important to you, the beautiful and talented tyler fedchuk will be there to bail his ass out and hopefully prevent you all from demanding your $5 back.

there is obviously no facebook event, so have this information tattooed onto your heart:

the sweatshop (1947 e hastings)
july 18th (friday)
tyler fedchuk and the blitzcraig

facebook ruins everything (pt 1: parties)

2008-06-23T17:08:00.000-07:00

dear mark zuckerberg, founder and ceo of facebook incorporated,

you do not know me, but i know enough about you to know that you are the man responsible for destroying the only ray of light in the otherwise grey and cloudy day that is my life. i am, of course, referring to having fun on the weekend which has become increasingly difficult as a direct result of the 'service' you provide. every time i go to a party and see a line up of strangers or enter an unbearably hot room and find the privacy of my person violated by the boney elbows and filthy hands of beginner club urchins, people whom i have never met yet who recognise me from my picture on the internet and presume to ask me where cocaine can be readily purchased i know it is your doing and i reaffirm my vow of someday exacting slow and lingering vengeance upon your body.i went to no tofu on friday for the andy warhol party and, what should have been an enjoyable night was turned into some sort of horrific where's waldoesque nightmare of heat and confusion (the heat might have been made worse because of the tin foil covering the walls which cooked us like turkeys, but that part was actually pretty awesome and i'm sure the place would have been too hot even without it). my friends all dissapeared into the hungry crowd of strangers or sat in the smoke room with the few people they were able to recover from the carnage. afterwards i had to axe myself "who were all those people? how did they find out? how were they able to ruin a pretty interesting theme, fun decorations and good music with just their presence, like so many ants at a picnic?" and then when i was at home, feeding my facebook cat, it hit me: facebook.

now, you might ask, "how do you know it is me doing this? maybe this would have happened without my website?" but i do not believe this for a second. before facebook maybe one or two idiots would show up because they happened to be in the neighbourhood or got sick of waiting in line at the blarney stone, but so long as they didn't drink all the jager at the bar, leaving me with nothing to chase down the horrible taste of redbull or get into too many fights then it was fine. it only became a problem when they were able to invite all of their stupid friends from facebook who probably aren't even their friends but just added them because they went to highschool together, creating a sort of shit-domino effect. none of this would have been possible without your involvement, mark zuckerberg.

and so, when the news reporters are asking why i did what i did, please have your estate direct them to this letter.

with all my heart,

The Craigler

back from the dead

2008-06-15T21:56:00.000-07:00

i had an absolutely terrible experience in highschool, which i'm sure everyone who has not recently become fat or pregnant shared with me (because if you become fat or pregnant within the first few years of graduating you were probably one of the cool kids who still get together at the foggy dew or the blarney stone to talk about the highschool days without a trace of contempt or horror). i hated everything about the place: the classes were boring, the people were jerks, there was nothing to do at lunch, and all of our sports teams were miserable failures. In addition to this, the "perks" of being in highschool were almost as bad as the school experience itself: all the girls at my school were either offensively ugly or dating some fucking douche bag from another school, there was nothing to do in my neighbourhood after school, and even if there was, everybody secretly hated each other so they wouldn't have wanted to do anything anyways, but the worst part was definitely the parties which were horrible and boring.

parties at my highschool were always held at poor kid's houses, as they had the least to lose as well as the most absent parents, and generally consisted of a bunch of people sitting around a kitchen table drinking bottles of vex and sticking their filthy fingers in bowls of no-name brand "party mix" while the person with the worst taste in music in the room controlled the stereo and people would drunkenly gyrate once they had drank enough. even if you were interested in hooking up with ugly people it was not going to happen at these parties - a girl instantly became a slut if she had sex with someone who wasn't older or going to a different school. my most vivid memory of all this is of someone screaming "DAVE IS GETTING A HANDJOB UPSTAIRS! EVERYBODY COME WATCH!" followed by a stampede of drunk dudes running up to get a view of the action. i stopped going out shortly after this.

i think this explains my enthusiasm for 1/2 alive at the columbia and my continued fondness for that cockroach infested pit. the first time i went there i was amazed by all the pretty girls, the absence of the stench of vague future-failure that accompanies all popular highschool kids, the unselfconscious dancing, as well as the glamorous use of cocaine which was exotic to a kid just out of a suburban highschool and not nearly as widely used by hipsters and skids as it is now (i don't do any 'research' for this blog so you'll have to take an old mountain man's word on that one). since that first party i have stopped talking to almost everyone from my highschool and remove myself from facebook events they invite me to because i really don't need to be reminded of how bad school was - i don't think i could possibly forget, no matter how hard i try.

so you can imagine my horror as i was able to observe 1/2 alive's slide from the only fun party i had ever attended to an off granville tran-show frequented by fratboys with a thirst for jagerbombs and a hunger for justice. and not the good kind of justice, the french kind. i understand that the second to last richard's night was cancelled because the week before somebody showed up in a floppy cowboy hat. things were bad.
this is why i was so glad to hear that they were moving the whole thing to pub 340, which was probably frightening enough on the outside to keep the worst of the idiots away. on my way there i drove past richard's and saw a large group of big guys in polos with popped collars and those palestinian terror scarves looking really confused. definitely a good sign.
pub 340 was fantastic, the venue is just the right size, and they can play punk and metal without emptying the dance floor. it was full of strangers, but i guess that isn't necessarily a bad thing so long as they're good looking. but curiously, even though pub340 goes till 3am, the place started emptying out at 2; after such a long time people aren't ready to stay up late on a friday.

if i were australian i'd want to tour as much as possible as well

2008-04-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

i am no friend of tourists. in fact, i hate them. this is mostly because they take up valuable sidewalk space, crowd stores, ruin the beaches, and support the moose-dressed-as-rcmp-officer industry singlehandedly. whenever i am in gastown i stand infront of the steam clock with a sad expression on my face like i'm having the worst time ever and someone is forcing me to have my picture taken, just to stick it to those foreign dickwads. everytime i bump into a tourist i wish they'd go back home to whatever lousy country they're from and leave me alone. apparently the city wants to attract more of these pests because they're good for the economy or something, which is such a load of shit. i don't own a restaurant, hotel, or tacky store, why should i have to suffer so those jerks can get rich?

the worst tourists of all are australians. they're loud, rude, and usually drunk. additionally, all the australians who come here tend to stay for weeks or even months at a time. i don't know why this is, maybe it's to escape the poverty and oppression of their awful homeland? if it were up to me, i would deport every person with an australian accent back to their prison colony island. i'm not being unreasonable here, i've met one or two australians who weren't all bad, and even they were embarassed by the drunken stupidity of their hostel dwelling, beer swilling, outdoor voice inside talking countrymen.

for example, the last time i spoke with an australian was at the cambie (before i started avoiding them), he sat down beside me and started telling me how great vancouver was with lots of swear words i didn't understand. i remember he leaned over to me, pointing at a very fat girl at the other side of the room and, in that drunken slur they call english, informed me that you were not a man if you hadn't had sex with a woman you couldn't lift. charming.so it was with this attitude that i went to richard's on richards to see midnight juggernauts. i even brought a bag of rotten kiwis to throw at them and spent the better part of the afternoon looking up australian swear words, just in case.

as it turned out, the band was actually pretty good so neither of those things were necessary (i left the kiwis in the men's room behind a toilet and forgot the slang). this was actually the first pleasant evening i have ever spent in the company of australians. even though they're apparently justice's favourite band they were pretty listenable. also, the guys in the band were quite skinny, so they were probably all men unless they secretly have really strong upper bodies.

they were loud and cheerful, but not in a drunken frat boy way, more like a klaxons with more bass and less neon way, which was really nice. anyways, these guys and cut copy are about the only australians i don't mind bumping into in the evening.

reckless abandon

2008-04-19T21:26:00.000-07:00

the rising sun found me sitting alone in the master bedroom of my country manse holding my head in my hands, a dead prostitute sprawled on my bathroom floor. not knowing what to do, i stood and began to pace. obviously i needed some sort of alibi: there is no prison safe enough for a man as handsome as myself. my mind began to race, concoting and rejecting wild stories to tell the police when the inevitable questions began.

after what seemed like hours, my frenzied imagination finally seized upon one plausible enough to work: i would tell them i was at the teenagers show!

but i knew a good story would not be enough. i'd need details. i checked on the girl in the bathroom one more time, still dead. think craig, think.

they'd probably ask general questions about the show, like what time it started and how big the crowd was. i'd have to tell them something that sounded plausible.

the show was scheduled for 10, so i decided it would be safe to say they started at 11 because french people are rude and don't care about other people's time. that sounded pretty good, i knew if i were a cop i'd believe that. and if they asked me about how many people were there i'd have to tell them that the crowd was pretty big, but nowhere near capacity, which is probably for the best, because there is nothing worse than a room packed with people you don't know.

believing this to be a workable solution, i stopped worriedly pacing. the whole thing was just an accident, nothing more than a simple misunderstanding, really. a misunderstanding i would be able to clear up as soon as the cops arrived and i told them my story.

unfortunately, things didn't go exactly as planned. i met with them in my large rose garden, my face a picture of shock and innocence, but the cops who questioned me asked a lot of specific questions i hadn't prepared for. i told them that the new song (i even made up a name - streets of paris or something lame like that) was pretty boring but homecoming was still badass and i would have given them all high fives if it were a true story. they pressed me further and i told them that this time only two girls went on stage, but they both seemed to know most of the words which was better in some ways but far less awesome in others. gaining confidence, i told the officers that the teenagers' problem was that there weren't enough beautiful women on stage. they need more attractive session musicians and they also need to sing blink182 style pop punk ballads about making out with girls at parties or pretending not to be high when your parents come into your room because that is what i think of when i hear the name "the teenagers."

things seemed to be going well until i was asked about their clothes. the cops wanted to know if they were better dressed than last time. i began to sweat. was this a trick question? the band had only been touring north america for 3 months, do they still look like the drama team from my highschool? did that one guy with the tape holding his shoes together get new shoes? i had no idea. my story was ripped to pieces, and i slumped down to my knees and stained the floor of my gazebo with tears while confessing the entire thing.

i guess the cops took pity on me or i was able to explain my position very reasonably, because after i had recovered my composure, i was told i was free to go, but warned never to do it again. i can honestly say that this weekend i learned a very valuable lesson about honesty and french people. also, it turns out they were better dressed than last time.

birthdays are terrible

2008-04-01T16:52:00.000-07:00

i've never really understood why people make such a big deal about birthdays. they were fun until i turned 14, but after that they've just become a lot of work and another reminder that i am getting old and will die soon.

birthdays are very similar to new year's in that they're supposed to be big milestones and people get desperate to have a good time, even if it makes them miserable. why should getting older and recieiving a dozen facebook comments from near-strangers saying "hppy bday!" be a milestone to celebrate? maybe it wouldn't be so bad if you only had to see your good friends, but birthdays become a terrible reminder of your wasted life when every drug addict loser you know from highschool wants to talk to you. the only times i've been able to have fun on recent birthdays have been when i've managed to forget that it was actually my birthday because they're fucking depressing.

i've always wanted to have a fun birthday, or atleast know what one is like, which is why i ask everybody i meet from california if their 16th birthday was on mtv. no success yet. all my friends must be poor. i bet having just one fun birthday party would change my entire outlook and maybe even be the one ray of sunshine in the otherwise grey and cloudy day that is my life which keeps me from killing myself. it wouldn't matter if my daddy bought me the lexus or not.

perhaps it is foolish of me to invest so much hope in what could still easily become a catastrophe for the ages to be recorded in a thousand largely-unread blogs, but i am very excited about this year's birthday party even after it was forcibly rescheduled at the last minute: my one chance of ever being happy was very nearly stolen from me by a Cormac McCarthyesque twist of fate. i've put a bit of work into this one so everyone should come if they want to still be my friend in the morning. or don't, see if i care... actually that isn't true, i base my self worth on how many people show up so if you don't come i will feel like a miserable failure for weeks and not even my mom will be able to cheer me up by telling me how smart and handsome i am.

finally, getting older has been a totally bogus experience for me. sure i can vote and drive and feature in pornographic films, but i have yet to attract one teenage girl who grew up without a strong father figure with my chest hair and partial beard. when i was younger i was always getting cockblocked by older guys who had tricked girls into thinking they were cool, why isn't it working for me?

fake shark really understands me

2008-03-24T20:37:00.000-07:00

i have a hard time leaving my house. i don't know if this is because of crippling social anxiety problems, my busy life, fear of running into people i've offended on the internet, or some unholy combination of the three, but it is becoming a real problem. i'm late to everything - months ago i showed up at seylynn hall at 10 thinking i was really early but missed curtis santiago, this weekend i couldn't get out on friday or saturday until 1:40am.

usually this isn't that big a deal because i only go to bars and, i, like everybody else, only go out to have my picture taken by anyone with a camera, disguise my drug and alcohol dependencies as a purely social behaviour, and get laid, so i can do that all by appearing at the last minute, saying hi to the right people, and then swooping off with the drunkest girl i can find. but it makes going to shows nearly impossible because they usually finish before i can get my pants on.

the last time i can remember actually being on time for a show was patrick wolf last year and that was only because i hadn't planned on going, it was kind of an impulse decision. i'm not exactly sure how i managed to be dressed and downtown before the show started, i might have just stayed out the night before. anyways, this is kind of a problem for me because sometimes bands i actually like come to town and it always makes me sad when i miss them as a result of my inability to get out of my house in time. i cried when i missed afrika bambaataa the other week and i swear it will never happen again. missing afrika bambaataa, that is, i'll probably cry lots more before i go to bed tonight.

this is why i was so happy when i found out that fake shark real zombie would be playing their cd release party at midnight, a much more reasonable hour than 7 or 8. i somehow made it there by 11, and so did everyone else i know who has the same problem, which was basically a mini-miracle bigger than the mighty ducks beating iceland but smaller than jesus, so we all got to watch the fashion show and everything. i even got to hear the band tune up which was like beautiful tuneless music. i was a little dissapointed that nothing got broken, but i guess there wasn't really much to break so it isn't very fair to complain. anyways, the show was lots of fun and if anybody wanted to know what 1/2 alive sounds like in a small room not on friday the answer is pretty good.

some people were upset that the party was on easter sunday, they claimed to have families or jobs or something, which is total bullshit. the only thing people should be talking about is that i finally made it somewhere on time, and so did lots of other people.

go be fat somewhere else

2008-03-12T23:13:00.000-07:00

i have devoted my life to fighting injustice in all its forms and i must admit that i have met with very limited success. some days i believe that this world is too corrupt to ever be redeemed by a single person, no matter how handsome he is, but deep down inside i know that i must do what i can. while i get great pleasure from this, do not think that i do it for personal reasons, sure i prank call telus operators from pay phones to get back at them for their horrible cell phone service, but i am also concerned about larger problems, infact, the problem i am most concerned about could be the single greatest injustice in the entire universe: ugly people who somehow manage to convince attractive people to have sex with them. this is so perverse that many would say it doesn't really need any explanation, but it persists to this day so i feel it is important to discuss why this is so wrong.

the real problem which must be overcome is people calling me shallow for saying this. it has often been the case that when i see a situation where an ugly dude has an attractive girlfriend i will mention it and whoever i am with will say, "he's probably a really nice guy. there is more to people than looks!" first of all, sometimes i'm not sure of that, and secondly, what proof do you have that the douche bag isn't some kind of reptile who only got her because he somehow tricked her using black magic or insulted her so much that her self esteem collapsed in on itself and she was willing to take whatever was offered? you don't. the assumption that people who are unnatractive have better personalities than people who are is ridiculous and unamerican, it might seem like the pretty girl who turned you down is a dumb bitch compared to her hambeast friend who really wants to comfort you, but this isn't science, it's just sad; so the argument that "they're together because she sees past his hideous face and big gut" is totally based on speculation, whereas my argument that he is ugly is pure fact.

and the whole notion of inner beauty is ridiculous: i could tell all sorts of lies about the sort of person i am and even behave in a certain way when i know people will find out about it, and how would anybody know i wasn't being honest? on the other hand, no one could possibly get away with telling people that they were really attractive if it wasn't true. an individual looking for certainty and honesty in his or her life really has no option but to simply choose someone based on looks and just hope for the best personality-wise because at least you're certain to be happy with half of the package.

futhermore, people change their minds all the time, people stop being communists or wiccans or mac users and decide to become something totally different and useful to society, so what will happen to a relationship based on mutual interests? compared to liking someone for how they look, which is far less likely to change, this sounds like a recipe for disaster. additionally, a personality is a pretty big thing, so how much of it will you really be able to say you like? if you're interested in someone for their sense of humour, kindness, and loyalty, that is only three things (which might not even exist in reality), whereas i can think of 5 or 6 things i really like about jude law's appearance. who's shallow now?

so, you are a fool for entering into a relationship with someone less attractive than you because the intangible qualities you claim to be attracted to could just be an elaborate lie, like in there's something about mary, and even if they are real at the time, people change their minds so often that it seems the pinnacle of shallowness to be attracted to someone for a view they might hold for a week and then change. nope, the only way to avoid being lied to or entering into a relationship for a reason which might dissapear days later is to go for good looks. they can't be faked and, barring a car accident or crocodile attack, they are much more long lived than personality traits or opinions. so be "shallow" and happy and for the love of god, please stop having sex with ugly people.

i came here to hate and chew bubble gum, and i'm all out of bubble gum

2008-03-09T22:45:00.000-07:00

i have been accused of everything from aggravated sexual assault to being unfunny and boring, but one thing i have never been called is a hater. infact, i devote a depressingly large amount of my copius spare time to denouncing haters of all shapes and sizes (although i prefer it when they are fat because that makes it easier to discredit them). i have seen many haters and been hated on myself more than enough times to know that the worst kind of hater is the kind who goes out specifically to have a bad time.

i have been guilty of this in the past: i was tricked into going to alexisonfire and i stood there scowling with my arms crossed the entire time, breaking my frown every few minutes to ask if the redhead was alex and that was why they said he was on fire (none of them have red hair). i believe that history will forgive me because alexisonfire is terrible and i was in a bad mood, but on friday i went and saw dandi wind and my night was made slightly less pleasant than it could have been by these assholes behind me who kept saying stupid shit to each other in their outside voices about how much they didn't like the show because they thought it was weird and they did not enjoy the way particular people in the audience were dressed or dancing or some bullshit like that.

seriously, who the fuck gets dressed up like an urban outfitters mannequin (plus a bandana around the neck for good luck) and pays $12 to go to a show which will obviously be full of people dressed in varying degrees of ridiculousness and having a good, noisy time and then complains about the whole thing? i went there to have fun and be screamed at by a crazy 105lb woodland nymph dressed like a zombie, not to hear how "totally weirded out" by the thundering squall the fat guy behind me is or how his idiot girlfriend thinks it is lame that people are (at the request of the band) dancing on a speaker. why did you come out to be mean? it's almost as bad as a grown man insulting a teenager on the internet; the only purpose people like this have is to make me wait 20 extra minutes in line at the walk-in clinic when i'm in desperate need of getting the tingle in my dingle checked on.

i mean, i guess it's cool that they paid their money and everything so they're basically entitled to behave however they want, but can't haters who stand around in clumps busily gossiping to each other, pausing only to look up at the crowd for a few seconds (without making eye contact with anybody) to gather new information about how relatively uncool everything is, particularly the people who are dancing, look exactly like social misfits at a highschool dance who have talked each other up about how they're soooo going to get laid tonight but then lack the confidence to talk to anyone but themselves and end up just brainstorming excuses for why they're unable to have a good time and going home alone, extremely unlaid?

if your social anxiety prevents you from having fun and not being a little bitch, maybe you should just stay home instead of breathing down my neck and driving me nuts with your stupid high pitched nervous laugh. unless you're there to blog about it you should at least pretend to enjoy yourself.

i apologise for the terrible picture, larry took it

also, dandi wind was awesome and girl who was wearing the blue and white dress, i thought you looked nice so forgive them, they know not what they do.

i'm so over this town

2008-03-05T21:31:00.000-08:00

there aren't very many young girls in this city who haven't at some time said, "i'm so sick of vancouver i really want a change so i'm going to move," or something else equally ridiculous and attention whoring, and i always have to ask myself why this person is so unhappy with the city. it is unfortunate that these remarks usually follow a statement like, "i've been going out since i was 14 and i'm 15 and a half now and i'm so done with going out, i just want to stay in forever," because it causes many people to dismiss the concerns of these girls offhand with no real attempt to understand them. i, however, believe that it is important to understand all sides of the argument and even if i didn't, i've been in the hospital and haven't updated for a while and can't think of any other ideas except barack obama so i'd probably do it anyways. so i ask: what's the deal with vancouver? is it really that different than anywhere else? i'll try to make a list of everything that is wrong with the city.

terminator 2 is quite possibly the greatest film of all time for far too many reasons than the poverty of language allows me to express in this blog, but one thing which should not go unmentioned, because it is relevant to vancouver's problems, is the setting: the los angeles of the late 80's and early 90's. while not quite the hive of scum and villainy that new york was at the same time, los angeles had the benefit of having large areas which were nearly abandoned and allowed a young john connor to piggy back on his mulleted friend's motorbike and go to the arcade instead of school. and isn't that the ultimate city? a place where you can just say fuck school, i'm going to the arcade and i'll get there by speeding down this abandoned drainage canal and no parent will say shit to me because they won't even know and my mom is in the insane asylum so they can't call her? sort of like having your very own private city.

vancouver is absolutely nothing like this, there aren't really any neighbourhoods without high rise condo towers with a starbucks in the bottom where you could get away with something like that. infact, there are fewer and fewer places where a guy can take a leak in a dark corner without some yuppy prick tapping him on the shoulder and being all, "excuse me, young man, but you are urinating on my petunias." seriously, it is a sign of a sickness in our community when a man can't even take a piss on a public street without some latté swilling jerk web designer giving him a hard time about it.

actually, that's probably the only thing i don't like about vancouver: that it isn't like los angeles from the late 80's and it is full of rich jerks who come home just as i'm peeing on the porch of their yaletown condo. otherwise it's pretty nice: we've got the ocean, mountains, the public transit is alright, and lots of bands come here on tour. i don't know what the fuck is wrong with those stupid spoiled bitches. case closed.

sex attack ends in strategic retreat

2008-02-09T21:51:00.000-08:00

quote of the night: Lindsay (the non twiggy one) "this was a shitty, shitty night."

anyone who follows politics is probably used to being lied to by now, how many times have we had our expectations raised only to have them come crashing down like something that crashes down and takes our hopes and dreams with it? it happens to us every day - the promised play station 2 with sonic heroes and capcom vs snk does not arrive but the money has already been diverted from paypal to the first bank of nigeria and there is nothing you can do to get your it back.

last night a very similar thing happened to me - i had been promised a wonderful night with a group of djs i'd heard such good things about, but it was a bigger let down than the cloverfield monster!

seriously, for the past 4 months i've heard nothing but sex attack! sex attack! sex attack! and so i finally gave in and went to my first sex attack rave at no tofu.

i just don't understand why people would say nice things about these idiots, all of my friends were raving about them and telling me i absolutely had to hear them and my friends are not idiots about this stuff, at least not usually, but after last night i don't know if i'll ever be able to trust them again.

first of all, they're a bunch of effeminate pretty boys who spend more time flexing their muscles and smiling at mirrors than actually playing music; which brings me to the music: terrible. also, they had these fucking homemade cardboard cutouts of themselves which were way more entertaining than the actual djs.

seriously, stop the hype! if any of my friends try to tell me about how great sex attack is ever again i'm going to flip out and scream, "sex attack plays crappy rave music because they don't care what comes out of the speakers, they obviously just want to be able to tell girls they're djs!"

sorry, there isn't a wii at the end of this line

2008-02-04T16:38:00.000-08:00

the decision to spend money which can just be earned back whenever we want is a much less important decision than the one to spend time which will never be seen again, and yet i know i am much more generous with my time than my money, and, judging from the cheapness and idleness of my dearest friends, i am not alone in this. indeed, spending time is probably the most popular activity in the world, everyone does it and you can do it however you want, you could criticise leggings (and their wearers by extension) on the internet, write mean-spirited but reasonably accurate letters of complaint to los angeles based clothing companies regarding local outlets, or build a time machine so you could go to the newly renovated biltmore cabaret on saturday the 2nd for a night of vaguely gypsy themed wallpaper, fancy lamps, deer heads and daft punk related madness. there are possibly too many ways in which we can spend the fleeting hours and minutes of our lives, so how is it that a single event, like saturday at the biltmore, could draw so many people that 400 too many unfortunate souls waited more than an hour in a lineup on a freezing cold february evening outside of what used to be a very scary hotel bar?

the line outside of the biltmore on saturday represented an absolutely ridiculous amount of free time being spent with very little immediate gain except for cold fingers and the warming hope of an awesome party. arriving at 8:40 didn't even guarantee a place at the front of the line and arriving much past 10:30 pretty well negated any chance of getting in until after 1 when the crowd started to slow down, and yet people were willing to wait in a long line stretching almost up to the street and be treated like cattle by the meaty jerks at the door who were so drunk on power that they were willing to work with an honour system for the guest list line (too bad not many people knew this). while i had a great time there (A++ seller, item exactly as described, would buy from again) i spent quite a bit of time wondering how so many people could be convinced that waiting in a long line in bad weather with little hope of success was a good use of their time and this graph is the closest i have come to understanding.

people are certainly not entirely rational about how they spend their free time, the proliferation of presumably unread blogs in vancouver is evidence of this, so the above graph is not entirely accurate but it was kind of a lot of work to make because i just got the new microsoft office and it is totally different from the 2004 edition and i couldn't find anything in that stupid menu thing at the top so i'm not about to make a better one. fortunately, everyone knows a good time is rated on a 15 point scale which includes the number of your friends who will be there, the number of attractive stranges expected to be present, the dj's reputation, the weather outside, the cost, and the existence of other, more fun, alternatives. m!g!h! and hana have been throwing parties long enough to know this and saturday night they nailed all of them in people's minds, but i'm certain they were still pleasantly surprised by the number of people willing to wait in line to see them (even though they can be seen with relatively little wasted time every friday and wednesday respectively, not that i'm complaining, jus' sayin' is all).

anyways, the host isn't in charge of much more than their reputation and the cover charge, everything else that would make a person wait in line is in the hands of the people doing the waiting, the dj's probably didn't invite all of your friends or convince you that there was nothing else worth doing that night; additionally, people presumably found out about the event through facebook and knew that nearly 1200 people had selected the legally binding "attending" option and so they made a choice to show up with full knowledge that there would be much waiting, but they expected the party to be worth it so they came anyways, which is why i was kind of puzzled to see all of the negative comments on facebook complaining about the line as if it was the fault of the hosts that people were FORCED to wait, and not a conscious decision on the part of the guest, but then i realised that this is the internet and people are entitled to complain about anything and expect an apology.

walking on sunshine at the ukraine hall and richards

2008-01-26T13:07:00.000-08:00

last night, after all the excitement of fake shark real zombie and you say party! we say die! at the ukraine hall and bend sinister at 1/2 alive, i found myself separted from my friends and led, as if in a dream, to a secret grotto of hedonistic pleasure on the top floor of some large residential tower. my next memory is waking up, entirely naked, stomach deep in a hot mud bath with my arms spread out luxuriously upon the warmed marble tile into which the tub was set.

looking down, a girl i recognised as katrina leskanich of katrina and the waves was gently massaging my feet, stopping occasionally to suck on my big toe when she had a mouthful of iced dom perignon to tickle me with. we were soon joined by the rest of the band who were all very eager to hear about my night.

"well," i began, "you guys are probably huge fans of my blog so i don't need to tell you how much i love all ages shows, and not just because of the little girls," i winked and katrina giggled while rolling my big toe in her mouth, "i'd never heard of the first band, i/i or something, but they did their best to break the spirit of the dancing teenagers by playing a noise rock set that would not end and at one point, in a bizarre homage to spinal tap, playing a bass guitar with the mic stand, i half expected him to try to tune the mic stand before continuing."

"and the audience was willing to sit through all that?" asked vince in honest amazement.
"yes, the teenagers in the audience even managed to dance to the wall of wailing guitars and feedback."
"fucking incredible!" shouted an exceedingly drunk alex.
"fake shark played a really energetic set, except at one point some dickwad in the audience hit the drummer in the face with a football. kids."
"and then you say party played? how were they? they're huge back in england! did they play the gap?" asked vince again with as much excitement as last time. before i could answer i let loose a fit of giggles as katrina began licking in between my toes with champagne bubbles on her tongue.
"actually, i didn't stay for their entire set, i went to bend sinister at richard's on richards so i don't know if they played the gap or not." i sheepishly admitted.
"are they a band?" hiccuped alex who could barely keep his balance on the poolside.
"yeah, they're from vancouver and awesome and very similar to les savy fav in that their singer is a hairy fat guy who screams his guts out, except he smashes a keyboard with his powerful hands as well." alex and vince nodded at eachother, wished me a good night and left the room. when they were gone, shy kimberly who hadn't said a word the entire time undressed quickly and slipped into the tub, sliding up beside me she said, "you sure do a lot of talking for a guy with your reputation." i laughed, put my arm around her, and drew katrina up to my side.

party photography is the greatest thing since parties

2008-01-24T18:39:00.000-08:00

there is a native american legend about a groundhog and a man named bilmu ray. in this legend, bilmu ray, who has made many bad choices in his life, is serving as his tribe's weather shaman, predicting how much winter is left, when he is cursed by an evil groundhog to relive the same day over and over again until he mends his evil ways and becomes a good man. they play this native american legend like 4 times a week on the channel that used to be TBS. anyways, the point of that fable is that man, by nature, seeks to extend his experiences because only by reviewing the previous day can he really make sense of what has happened to him.

party photography is, in many ways, analogous to that ancient indian story: you run through the actual party without thinking because time is precious, but you can take as much time as you want to thoughfully evaluate how good looking the dude you were making out with when you were drunk last night actually was when you see a picture of both of you together the next day. this is the only way we can learn.

now that i'm not in highschool anymore and i actually get invited to parties (with real live girls) or even if i don't get invited nobody minds that i'm there, i can finally understand what all the fuss is about: all your friends are there, the music is great, the girls are pretty, and the morning after i can see myself being awesome on the internet without having to do anything except party.

why, just the other day i was leaning on the railing of my veranda, admiring the splendid view of my family's estate, sipping sophisticated adult drinks with my beautiful and over-educated friends, when, during a brief lull in the friendly contest of wit which is our idle conversation, i made the general comment that party photography is a part of the actual party, extending it well into the week. for example, i said, you go out on friday or saturday and on monday you're on lindsay's diet scanning the index looking for every picture with a little bit of you in it and it takes you right back to the party. it even affects people before the party, the knowledge that a photographer is probably going to be there induces people to dress up or at least wear pants for much of the night which is arguably an improvement. i then went on to say that the knowledge that they would be able to get their picture taken as though they were really important must provide some incentive for the common people to leave their meager homes for the night. all present expressed their agreement with this profound observation.

unfortunately, not everyone thinks the way i and my wealthy friends do. there are some people who see the party and the party photography as two completely seperate things, generally with the party photographer cast as some sort of parasitic leach, building a name for themselves by attaching themselves to the idea of parties, which are generally agreed to be pretty alright. people who think like this are friendless loners who don't have any group pictures on facebook because they are always alone in their dark rooms venting their jealous rage in text form on the internet. alone.
enjoying having your picture taken and then posted on a popular website isn't vain or shallow, it's totally human and fucking awesome! anyone who doesn't feel like a celebrity when a particularly good picture of them gets posted somewhere without them having to do anything either is actually a celebrity or didn't know there was a website to check.

i would go so far as to say that we owe the party photographer our lives. i say this because most people wouldn't remember any of their weekend without the assistance of party photos; those minutes and hours spent partying would be lost to them forever, as if they never happened and they had just aged rapidly without being able to live their lives, so it could be said that they rescue pieces of our lives from the void, just like firefighters or paramedics.

when you are old and gray and full of sleep

2008-01-20T21:16:00.000-08:00

getting old is the most terrifying thing most people will ever experience in their lives. the real horror is that it is not a single event, but a whole series of little ones which slowly eat away at you like atm fees. it begins when you notice that the hottest girls are no longer 19 or 20 but instead are 15-16 and your friends will make fun of you if you talk to them and ends in grey, sleepy death. the transition from being too young to being too old is nearly imperceptable, i can't remember when i was exactly the right age for anything and it is possible that i never was, i might have just gone from being a stupid teen to being a dirty old man overnight with nothing in between.

i suppose getting old isn't the worst thing in the world, i can finally be that douchebag older guy who always managed to cockblock me in highschool by making me look and feel like a little boy, and people sometimes listen to me now, which is nice. the problem for me is that to get here i've had to give up so much else. how old is too old to hang around in the dark woods outside of an all ages show with a plastic cup of warm underage beer in one hand, with your other wrapped around the girl you're making out with whom you just met that night? are you still a badass if you stay out till the last bus with your friends because you're afraid of your mom smelling alcohol on your breath after your 20th birthday?

hanging out at an unsupervised community centre with your friends, drinking underage, doing e or getting high, and hooking up in the woods are some of the best things about being young, but for me, and most people i've talked to, these simple pleasures dissapear in the mists of time like the faint echoes of hardcore drifting through the warm summer night when i'm trying to pay my fucking visa bill on time because if i don't those thieves will charge me 20% interest. seriously, 20% interest on a student card, how the fuck can anybody afford that without getting a second job or dropping out of school? it was in this state of world weary forgetfulness that i returned to seylynn hall for the first time in more years than i care to remember. the bill was pretty large, but i had only ever heard of the sessions and curtis santiago and i didn't get there until 10, which i thought was pretty early, but it turns out that shows start at about 7 and end around 11. this is either because the crowd promised their moms that they wouldn't have any more late nights this month or because everyone plans on going out again afterwards. so i ended up missing curtis and being just in time for the sessions, which is a shame because i really wanted to watch curtis rock a crowd of teensters who probably came for a punk show and would also probably go and post about it on nexopia with nothing but a microphone.things have definitely changed at seylynn. to my great surprise the posters deterring "drugs, drinking, and jerks" weren't ironic, as the only drunks there were the inconsiderate jerks i showed up with and i was always conscious of the suspicious glare i was recieving from the group of suburban parents standing behind the merchandise table, but they didn't prevent me and the crowd from having an awesome time. for a brief moment i came close to believing that you don't NEED drugs or alcohol to have fun, but i quickly shrugged it off and laughed at my naïveté.

it was really different to be at a show where the fans seemed to be holding a contest about who can get the most excited for bands they have mostly never heard of. the winner was a little girl who wanted her picture taken with every member of the sessions and i would have taken her picture to post here except i have a no going out and taking pictures to ridicule people enjoying themselves at parties on the internet policy which is strictly enforced.

watching the kids in the audience rock the fuck out brought back all kinds of wonderful and awkward memories of being younger and not knowing anything or having a blog. those kids had such a good time that i'm almost ashamed of myself for being old and boring and writing about it on the internet instead of calling a girl i just met after my parents think i went to bed and talking to her all night. the music was different (i don't think there will ever be another endthisweekwithknives) but still pretty cool, there was a lot less drinking, and i found myself staring at a few of the little girls because parental supervision means nothing to me, but if i were 15 again i'd probably still party there, creepy older guys and all.

just like i like it, there were no mosh pits

2008-01-19T11:37:00.001-08:00

i was falling through the sky with nothing to slow my horrific descent save for the earth's still cloud-obscured but rapidly approaching surface. with the frictional wind wipping my hair back and stinging my unprotected eyes like cold little knives, i felt my hands instinctively reach backwards to grasp at the parachute that must be there and come up with nothing but air. my fate was sealed.

it was then that i noticed i was not alone: dorian dumont of the teenagers was falling along with me with a serene smile on his olive face. "as today seems to be your last day on earth, how was your last night?" he asked me.
"i really enjoyed your show," i told him, "the vocals could have been turned up a bit, but you guys are all foreign, so maybe it is for the best that i couldn't hear every word, and the crowd was really good, probably the best i've seen in a long time." i used all my strength to turn my head up so i could briefly look into his face, waiting for him to say something, but he didn't. he just looked at me and seemed to be asking me to say more.

"i must admit that i wasn't expecting to have the greatest time of my life because it seems like frat guys always get access to presale tickets whenever anyone comes to town. i don't mean to be a jerk about it, i'm sure they have fun too, and thats awesome, but, it seems that whenever they show up at parties in their shiny dress shirts and axe body spray they steal all my girls. i don't have the confidence to approach a strange woman, start grinding with her and grab her ass like grade 9s at a highschool dance...and i know all the girls are judging me for it. it is especially bad when i see them approach girls and lean way in to ask them if they want to do shots with them. seriously, how can i compete with that? i'll never be as romantically successful as them and i know it and i also know that any girl i talk to knows it as well." by this time the tears in my eyes were not caused by the thought of my impending impact or the wind mercilessly cutting at them, but tears of impotent frustration. "anyways," i continued, "there weren't many of them there. probably because they were all at guns and bombs or something which was really nice for someone like me."

"craig," dorian spoke in the most soothing voice i had ever heard, producing sound without even moving his lips, "i am glad that no one tried to mosh at my show, but i noticed that there were about 4 bloggers for every dj, which is kind of weird and something you should all be ashamed of."

at this point all i could think of was how awesome it was when the band asked for girls to come up on stage to sing homecoming with them, but the girls who went on stage didn't know the words but that didn't matter because they played the recorded girls voice anyway. and also i'm pretty sure the girls just went on stage to be noticed, not to sing so everyone won. with that beautiful thought filling my mind i smiled and waited for the earth to come up and strike me.

dorian slowly vanished, leaving me alone again. i began to reflect on the events that had lead me here: last night, after prying off the beautiful women who clung to me like lampreys because they couldn't find any real men to buy them shots, i returned home to my sprawling country manse and flung myself down onto my king size water bed, vowing to update my blog first thing in the morning when i had thought of something kind of funny to write.

an open letter to victoria potter

2008-01-17T17:29:00.001-08:00

victoria,

were i not petty and vain i believe that i would have been the bigger man and ignored your hastily withdrawn and terribly embarrassing blog post (since removed) regarding the party at no tofu on saturday the 12th, put on by, among others, the girls of lindsay's diet; however, i am kind and caring so i could not stand by as you made a fool of yourself without pointing out some of your mistakes and laughing.

as i am a dreadfully busy individual i shall not try to refute your arguments, as ridiculous as they may be, but shall instead concentrate my scornful energies on pointing out the inconsistencies and hypocrisies in your venomous attack. i do this not just out of mean spirited fun, but because your article was poorly thought out and executed and it is my single, humble request that in the future, all hateful criticism of events i have anything to do with will be given the respect of a well written diatribe, and i believe that my active instruction is the only way that dream will come true.

the first time i read your post entitled who let the scene out i believed it to be subtle self parody, your portrayal of a lonely youth who self identifies as a hipster and attempts to belittle other people who do the same to build themselves up was so dead on i actually managed a small grin. Sadly, upon rereading my heart was broken and i feel i have been used in some way because i have come to realise that you meant every word you wrote, even the really, really silly ones. in this essay i will be quoting particularly embarassing passages from your "conjecture" and providing my able and unsolicited assitance in correcting or improving them in the areas mentioned above.

When you go to parties in Vancouver aimed at the atypical hipster crowd, one expects to have a prevalent “scene” presence. By scene, I mean these kids who get dressed up in silly unimaginative outfits, dance around like they are absolutely the hottest thing in the room and try a great deal to look plain and have a bed head when they’ve spent two hours before the party to get said look. These kids are also obnoxious, and most won’t laugh or actually cut loose for fear of looking not so chic and calmly cool.

first and foremost, thank you for telling me what i, the reader, expect when i go out, that is very helpful because usually i end up being either unprepared for or horribly surprised by whatever awfulness greets me when i go to any party anywhere so you can imagine how excited i was when i read this; unfortunately, i do not expect to have a prevalent scene presence. if i were erik deveraueuaueuaux and people recognised me in public then perhaps i would, but i am just me, the reader, so while i might expect to be greeted by a scene presence when i step into the scene (lol) i don't expect to have one.

secondly, you refer to the crowd as "atypical" which bothers me because, if these really were atypical hipsters (as opposed to hipsters of the typical variety) shouldn't it follow that you are unable to make sweeping generalisations about them which betray a tearjerking desire to be loved, accepted, and thought of as an intellectual for six paragraphs and a conclusion? your miraculous ability to do just that forces me to conclude that you either meant to type typical but didn't because of some sort of nervous tick or, more likely, you believed that the extra a transported the word from the everyday to the realm of the geniuses and you just ran with it.

furthermore, your unflattering description of hipsters as attention starved (lol, starved) , vain, elitist losers marks you as a hipster wannabe from 4 years ago. i also remember when it used to be totally hip to hate on hipsters for all those reasons as if you were somehow different from them, all the while being secretly envious of their success and attempting to make yourself appear better in comparison. i am willing to accept this description because it is time honoured, partly accurate, and reminds me pleasantly of all the scene hate and envy that makes vancouver nightlife such a treat, but then you rescind your accusation that they 'dance around like they are absolutely the hottest thing in the room" and replace it with the charge of being too cool to have fun, in the immortal words of a cultural icon, which is it, bitch: ms briggs or ms mathers?. you are guilty of trying to stuff too much stuff into your hybrid hipster stereotype.

Imagine a whole room utterly packed to the ceiling with these people. My friend Meg and I walked in, and you could cut the scene with a knife. Everyone was either dancing like maniacs or standing around and having muted conversations drowned out by the pounding beats. We spent most of the evening watching people, and taking a few photos. It was very entertaining, in a stressful sort of way.

"i went to this party with my friend and i didn't know anybody else and also nobody would talk to me because they were all too busy talking to their stupid selves and i was really nervous because i have social anxiety problems and then there were people dancing but they were enjoying themselves and didn't notice me and that really hurt my feelings so i had to pretend that i didn't care and i was only there to gain a deeper understanding of mankind by 'people watching' when secretly i was crying on the inside and just wanted to be noticed and oh god i want to be invited into this group more than anything...i am so alone."

the next three paragraphs are largely alright, although, if you are trying to accuse a room full of people of being pretentious snobs just living to judge or be judged in the manimal kingdom, perhaps you should be a little more forgiving of their clothing? i mean, if you're already judging people for being too judgemental then perhaps you shouldn't judge their body coverings? i'm not trying to tell you how to do your job or anything, i'm just sayin' is all.

The best part about the night was while we were waiting in the coat check line, this girl (pictured below) stopped in front of us and after a few seconds said “…well?! Aren’t you going you going to take my picture?!”. She then proceeded to make a kissy face while wildly waving her arms around in a sort of pseudo trance dance. Needless to say, I took her photo if only to laugh at the ridiculous occurrence later on.

if i were a party photographer at a party hosted by a party photography website with a professional photographer who takes pictures at parties, i would be absolutely horrified if someone asked me to take a party picture of them. although, i would take the picture but only so i could be really mean about it and judge her from the safety of my room... if only my mom would fuck off. i would then post that picture, along with all the other ones i took that night, on the internet and ridicule them because those people should have known better than to let me take their picture. additionally, i have never done anything remotely embarassing while drunk (unless i write mean blog articles while intoxicated) so i have license to say whatever i want about their mildly silly but harmless behaviour.

yes, i had absolutely nothing better to do and i admit it with pride.