TWO DAYS IN AMERICA (in four photographs)

savant garde

Hello,

I have been lazy. HotClique still lives. My commitment to posting on a regular basis as waned in recent times. I still surf the internet though:

http://birdpack.tumblr.com

as they say,

"BRB"

yes HOTCLIQUE can

Obama won. Thank god. His speech was flawless. And then after all the fanfare with Biden and the families they played THE BOSS. Come on up for "The Rising" America. WOOOO! CNN was scanning the crowd in Chicago - people had tears in their eyes and were singing to Springsteen. Fuck, Obama should appoint Bruce as his Chief of Staff.

To confirm Alex's query a few posts below, yes, both of our work will be displayed at the Plastic Photographer show tonight. It's the first time I've been lucky enough to have a picture of mine displayed at a gallery. Actually in high school I was part of a group exhibition in Capilano Mall, but the picture was of Megan Dawes and she is really cute so that's probably why it chosen.

So come. I think they had beer last year. Maybe they will again? I hope so. If you can't make it tonight then try and swing by 221A E Georgia sometime before the 23rd.

But if you don’t like photos you probably like getting wasted. Everyone likes getting wasted. Mike Cerka will drop tunes that get le femmes wet and you ready to GO POUNCE playa. Before he was a famous DJ, Alex talked to Mike as what I think was the first in our short-lived “get -to-know” feature. TIME WARP HERE

Happy Thursdays.

bOOOO

There are a few events that standout on a twenty something’s social calendar: birthday, new years, end of exams (if you’re lucky enough to be in school), valentines day (if you’re lucky enough to be in a nice relationship), and Halloween. These events demand extra attention, extra shitfacery, extra planning, and generally just extra bullshit to augment the usual bullshit associated with a big evening out.

By nine thirty I was in a self imposed sphere of chemtrails and perma grins, staggering south Granville looking for the right bottle of nine dollar chardonnay. Then I bought a mask worth three dollars from Shoppers Drug Mart, it resembled a zombie Mike Tyson with more tattoos and metal facial studs. It was the only mask left in the store besides a werewolf one that looked like it would be sweaty and claustrophobic. The Halloween section looked like it had been ransacked by last minute ghouls. Pieces of candy and plastic skeletons were strewn about the floor.

Later on, approximately halfway through a clichéd viewing of Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, I took a knife to the long sleeved thermal shirt I was wearing. My costume was now complete.

A big party was happening and I made it. The bus was hellacious. The party was too, but in technical aspects it was probably the best house party ever. I didn’t notice any fights despite the high population of jocks and there were multiple bars and multiple djs on multiple floors. Yet the dynamic nature of the party only lead to my stagnancy; I could be found in a chair on the fringes clutching a perspiring plastic cup.

I left with friends and we tried to go to another party but it was full. We called roadside booze delivery after exhausting all other options. In a fitting close we smashed our pumpkins and I passed out fully clothed on my bed. Halloween was over.

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.

dust, drugs, thugs

This sprawl comes a few weeks after the event itself. The whole ordeal was unbelievably exhausting as was trying to regurgitate my feelings about it. You can tell the result is sloppy, flawed and erratic. However, I think those words authentically convey the Pemberton experience, a weekend of highs and lows.

A member of my camping party just referred to his haircut as a “brohawk” and I have no clue where I am. Our camping field is open but filling up fast; sweaty people are streaming in looking both rushed and flushed. One of my group took a stand and negotiated a large expanse of land to accommodate the horde of Deep Cove affiliates who, in a short while, will contribute to the deplorable conditions of our three day home.

We paid sixty bucks for this. It was easy for me to sensationalize the festival camping experience – the parties, the drunken babes, maybe even a slight wind of camaraderie and brotherhood. Maybe I thought I would get laid (WRONG!). In reality there’s a bunch of garbage and fucked up idiots (myself included).

Everyone had reasons for being here. It could be the bands or the party, or maybe even just to say they were there. After all it’s the first one, and everyone knows you never forget the first one.

It’s Thursday and the campsite is taking shape, hints of the eventual evolution into a cesspool are already visible. Anticipation, for the beer tent at least, is building. Once those floodgates open the gouging of the wallets will begin, and won’t stop, for another three days.

It’s Friday and bands are playing today. The sun is hot. A quick scan of the campsite reveals that it has indeed developed into the inevitable favela. I eat a shitty breakfast and feel ready to take on “Pemby”.

Minus The Bear ends with “Pachuca Sunrise” and the outro is disrupted by the unfortunately close proximity of the Guitar Hero truck/stage thing.

Some people were under the impressions that being here is, in some hyperbolic way, comparable to being at Woodstock. This is heinous. Our generation is too fractal, too divided in it’s agendas and interests, to a point where a music festival is barely an instrument of unity.

Wolfmother takes the mainstage and the high five bros show themselves. There is good music somewhere amongst the nostalgic solos, but it has been diluted, packaged, for the Guitar Hero slaves, devil horns included.

I mentioned high five bros. A lot of other bros are present: hackey sack bros, cowboy hat bros, and “Tapout” shirt bros. Most of them wear board shorts. A few hipsters can be spotted slinking about. Some fleeting pixies, braided belts adorning their soft heads, run by.

Stumbling through this melting pot of social sects is intimidating.

I rendezvous with the other half of the clique and his companion, mutual friend (and all around great guy) Connor Knickerbocker. Interpol is so gripping our jaws hurt. Immaculately dressed and sounding totally on point they tear through their time slot, with almost equal portions of Turn On the Bright Lights, Antics, and Our Love to Admire.

Fuck NIN. We’re rolling hard. Beer tent.

Blackout.

The next day follows a now solidified pace; up early, waiting/drinking, some bands. This evening brings my sole reason for attending Pemberton.

Tom Petty’s music has been seared into my memory since early adolescence. His tunes always found an opportune place to nestle into your life. “Even the Losers” assured my 14-year-old self that one day I would get a blowjob, while “Don’t Do Me Like That” helped console a heart stretched across continents. Tom Petty conducted himself with the grace and eloquence you would expect, the Heartbreakers corroborated their status, and I went home happy. We were all grins and glow.

The next night I drank enough to forget Jay Z ending with “Numb/Encore” and to blank two songs into Coldplay.