The Stranger

Things all did change much after that morning.

Even the evening after the stranger rode in, the town was different. He was mystifying and, my, when he swung his heavy self off that black-as-night mustang, the toughs running this outpost must'a, I swear, felt something skitter up their spine.

As black as his horse was his hat. People who doubt the story have said to me that this impenetrable colour could not have been: felt fades and clothes wear out, the dust of the trail sinks deep and just because you get off the range a while, don't mean that fine dust is staying on the range. I would be lying in the face of God if I said the material he wore was anything but the darkest night.

He came in the same doors that most patrons of my saloon use, but them two rickety things flew on open before he laid a foot on the walk under the arcade. I looked out towards the noise of the bustle outside, horses and mud sticking and a drunk just out of sight, moaning. When I seen him first, the stranger that is, he was ten feet off the doors, yet they swung open. I got the jug out before he had the chance to ask, needless to say. This man would either be a big tipper or a big problem, and those two sometimes go hand in hand, all the way to the bank or all the way to the grave.

Sitting down right in front of a tumbler filled with gutrot, he slugged it back and put that tumbler down. I asked him if another would do him just fine and he answered that another would do him just fine.

After that one, he caught my gaze dead on in his eye and said, without the slightest hint of just how preposterous his question was, said he was looking for Laughtry Dean. After a second, I hesitated for good reason, he added that he was here to send him down. Dead.

Now, let me clarify. If anyone else had wandered into the El Pico and said what this man did say, I would have laughed and charged them double for their drinks. I ain't afraid to laugh at no comedian, and I keep a twelve-twentytwo handloader under the bar. But this fellow, well, something just wuddn't funny 'bout this man. He was like a shadow creeping along the desert close when the evening comes. It moves towards the foothills, making your forget the pain of the sun and reminding you 'bout how damned cold its going to get.

That said, I couldn't see myself making it through a night like that. This shadow might just pass me by if I answered it. I told him Dean ran this town, ran the next town, and two towns after that; Dean ran this very establishment this very stranger was sitting in, enjoying this fine gutrot. His very office is upstairs even. And with that, he was gone.

All that was left was two bits of Sonora gold and the tumbler, sitting alone on the brass, much like they had been placed as flowers and trinkets ought be on a gravestone. A body rolled down the stairs straight off the bar's left.

It was Skin McIllroy, one of Dean's muscles in town and on the range. Again, the sound of dead weight hitting worn wood, but this time at the top of the stairs, beside Dean's office door. Another sideman dead, done extortin' what little any rancher had, done killing too.

I recall one lone gunshot let off, seemed like some minutes had gone by since Dean's two boys had dropped their bodies. No man walked down those stairs and there was no stranger up stairs to be found. Dean was dead in his chair, head slumped back in what looked much uncomfortable were he alive. His six-shooter was in his hand, five full and one empty casing. The bullet shot made a hole in the far wall and gone out t'other side, and no blood was on the ground or the wall.

The stranger was gone. He left three bodies and a town full of slack-jawed speculation. People said they thought Dean had messed around, owed someone something big; surely that was truth, but I don't believe this shadow of a man was collecting debts. Not stacked-up money debts at least. Some say they saw his mustang at full hollering pace and a man jump out Dean's window, land on the horse and keep high-tailing it out. Didn't leave no trail, though these people, reputable folk mind you, swear they saw him ride off into the horizon.

Things all did change much after that morning.

syringes/cringes

There is a bunch of money flowing through this city. Cranes peak higher, sweaty laborers carry material and traffic gets jammed. Nice buildings appear: cookie cutter designer interiors, packaged lifestyles. There are a lot of fancy cars driving around this city too. Vancouver is a highly desirable city with stupidly obvious natural beauty – of course it will attract wealth. Oh, the Olympics are coming and with glowing hearts, a ton of cash is being spent on that. Anyone who has spent five minutes in this town could’ve come to these revelations. Some other things they probably noticed: a mild breeze of urine stink, an abundance of pan-handlers and inexorably, the post apocalyptic desolation of the Downtown Eastside. Capilano film professor Charles Wilkinson’s documentary Down Here opens with a few frank shots of atypical DTES sights. For the next forty odd minutes the film attempts to voice the stories of those who are dismissed daily as Vancouver’s lost souls.

One of the first things Mr. Wilkinson allows the audience to learn about his subjects is simply what they wanted to be when they grew up. Is this question a humanizing equalizer that takes us all back to the innocence of childhood? Or, are the responses (eg – “I wanted to be a figure skater”), being exploited as a direct route to our emotional heartstrings, which seem yanked not plucked?

Following this opening, Down Here covers a standard list of issues including prostitution, violence, crime, disease, housing and ineludibly, drug addiction. Mr. Wilkinson tries to take these problems out of the context of the DTES by prohibiting his subjects from mentioning the area by name. He also refrains from showing us any iconic Vancouver imagery and chooses a black backdrop for the interviews. This earnest de-contextualization is valid but ultimately undermined; if removing the particular connotations of the DTES was the goal then why ask a subject to smoke crack? Hearing stories of the horror drug addiction brings is already effective enough, and arguably more tasteful. Once again yanking at those heartstrings, Mr. Wilkinson zooms into the cross worn around her neck and forces the obviously apparent contrast right down our throats. Could there be redemption?

Down Here finishes by asking its subjects to look forward, and their outlook on the future is expectedly grim. We’ve heard their past, present and thoughts on the future yet nothing about Down Here really moves us- the problem is so evident that awareness is not a solution. It is certainly commendable for Mr. Wilkinson to try and give the people down there a voice. What they really needed was a shout.

get get get get it

In the opening seconds of Paper Trail’s first track T.I. calls to producer du jour DJ Toomp: “hey man they been waiting on this shit since “What You Know” huh?”. This utterance may be a subtle reference to Toomp’s absence from last year's T.I. vs T.I.P. and the accepted consensus that the album was a flop both critically and artistically in comparison to 2006’s triumphant King. It is doubtful though, that the man born Clifford Harris spent any time dwelling on this. Soon faced with the possibility of decades in the slammer for buying a militias worth of guns off the feds, T.I. undoubtedly had bigger problems to think about. Now, almost a year after getting busted, the Atlanta hustler has emerged with some community service under his belt, only a year of jail time ahead of him, and a sixth studio effort.

The first tracks of Paper Trail convey a pent up urgency obviously cultivated by the personal and professional turmoil T.I. experienced since King. On the directly vindictive “Ready For Whatever” he pleads, “yes officially I broke the law but not maliciously” and provides what we can imagine is an abridged version of his actual defense. As the final soliloquy of that song fades Paper Trail quickly shifts; Ludacris pops up seconds later and the celebrations begin. “On Top Of The World” sees T.I. and Luda basking in their success, on “Live Your Life” producer Just Blaze throws internet memes and Rihanna together along with some didactic moralizing from T.I.P while #1 single/ringtone “Whatever You Like” is mostly about providing his bitches with, um, whatever they like.

A scan of the track list evidences a departure from the gangsterisms that previously defined T.I. (and landed him in legal hot water). Notwithstanding the all-star team on “Swagga Like Us”, most of Paper Trail’s guests are pop stars. This ultimately divides the album between self-helmed declarations of perseverance and songs aimed straight towards the charts. At times he sounds like a motivational speaker and at others he approaches tracks with Snoop Dogg like apathy (two choruses with Patron shoutouts?!?), but predictably where T.I. shines is when his arrogant boasts are allowed to strut uninhibited alongside bangers from the likes Toomp and Swizz Beatz.

After mentally preparing for his looming year in the pen, T.I. solicits “My Love” co-conspirator Justin Timberlake to help lament his past on closer “Dead and Gone”. Mediocrities aside, Paper Trail sees Clifford Harris finish his grandest hustle: maturing from rap superstar to superstar and developing a self-awareness that makes a king worthy of his crown. However, if his trap star days are truly “Dead and Gone” one can only hope he does more with his future than complain about the paparazzi with Usher.

fail

POOP.