God Bless Funkys and Goodbye

Unleash the Archers, cellphone pics by me, taken tonight at Funky's


Right, so: I got ripped off tonight!

Don't get me wrong: Funky Winkerbeans is a wonderful place. While it would be great for her to get a place of her own, it's jes' (I'm a bit drunk) terrific that wendythirteen is settling in to ol' Thrasherbalts', making it feel more like home. When first I visited the place a year ago, it sure didn't, but murals now decorate the once brick-red walls, and airbrushy, mood-metal appropriate paintings of Victorian streetlamps have replaced at least some of the kitschy but out-of-place vintage burlesque posters. The sound system, as Wendy proudly noted whilst smoking outside, is now pretty damn good, and there's a pleasantly familiar "scene" feeling that reassures me that even though the Cobalt might be gone, some of its spirit, but not its smell, lingers on in a new, admittedly smaller, admittedly demographically different form. It's not the walls that make a home anyhow, eh? (Tho' menacing gigantic tentacles graffiti'd on 'em sure help). I'm happy to see that the blow the punk and metal crowd experienced with the closure of the Cobalt (as we knew it) is slowly becoming a thing of the past, that the scene is healing, morphing, persisting. Long may it run.

And bear in mind (I am probably too drunk to blog without embarrassing myself later), I in no way hold the venue to blame for tonight's theft. I set a plastic bag down at my feet, leaning on the protective monitor-casings, feeling a little drunker than I ideally wanted to be, while waiting for Auroch to set up. I relaxed thus for a few non-vigilant minutes, and when I sharpened my mind a bit and looked down for my bag, it was gone. Bits of pacing and poking netted me nothing but a hand somewhat wet from whatever had been thrown in a Funky's garbage bin (there were some shoes down there, but they weren't what slimed me... I'd seen some plastic bags in it, dig, that COULD have been mine, but weren't).

For the curious, in that stolen bag - and now permanently, for all I care, lost - were: one copy of William Goldman's Marathon Man, 3/4's finished (THE FUCKING BOOK I WAS READING! THAT I WAS GOING TO FINISH TONIGHT!); two CDs by bands whose names I could barely read and cannot now replicate, purchased at Scrape on an irresponsible whim based on their cover art earlier today; one Auroch CD ("to support the band"); and, since I bought and changed into an Auroch T-shirt in the men's room, one faded, XL Bison BC Quiet Earth shirt!

The Golers, taken at Funkys on a previous night, also by me!

....that being my favourite, most-worn t-shirt!

Also in the bag: with sincere apologies to Harlow McFarlane of Funerary Call and Sistrenatus, the Funerary Call CD he gave me to review has now been pilfered, plundered, mislaid. It is the loss that most impacts me - because it equals what will likely be a broken promise, made when I ran into Harlow earlier today and agreed to write about it. I apologize, Harlow, for my carelessness in laying my possessions at my feet thus in a venue so clearly in the heart of the downtown eastside! It is all my fault! It is all my fault! (It is also the first time in my life, a couple of internet/mailorder scams aside, that I have been RIPPED OFF by someone. I am rather in shock, and keep checking by my feet to see - even though I am no longer in Funky's - if my bag will mysteriously re-materialize).

The lesson to this, the moral? (...Other than don't lay your bags on the floor where you can't see'em at Funky's and cease to pay attention to them?). I am going to choose to read it this way: I have been spending too much money, too much time, too much effort on pursuits that fundamentally do not matter - that will not, in any significant way, advance my own interests, those of the people I care about, my community, my planet, or so forth. Much as I love the punk and metal scenes of Vancouver - much as I crave the sense of community I get from them, mostly absent otherwise in my daily life - they do not really need what I am doing, on this blog or in general. While it has been fun and in many ways profitable and life-enhancing for me to have explored these avenues, I realize, in plumbing the meaning of this evening, that I have been investing a great deal of time and energy writing about things that do not objectively matter (much as they seem to, to me, at times) and neglecting real, meaningful impacts I could be making on the world, purposeful, world-enhancing activities - such as might come if I took the role of "teacher" more seriously and furthered myself that way, say. Or got involved in my actual PHYSICAL community, out in Maple Ridge, such as it is. What a waste of life, devoting my time writing about... entertainment! Jeezus, it's time to grow UP, innit?

I have a few outstanding writerly debts, that I will fulfill, but I think tonight's rip-off was an omen that it's about time to retire from these hobbyist obsessions and start living like my choices and decisions actually mattered... Vanity, guestlistings, and the meagre pay that I get are not enough to justify not heeding this lesson.

Note: this is not a petulant fit, because mostly I'm amused by having so carelessly ALLOWED myself to be thus pilfered from. What a stupid, amusing turn to the evening. Shit!

Blind Mark of the Dayglo Abortions (by me! At Funky's).

By the way, once I sober up, I may feel differently about all of this. I reserve that right.


Funky's Listings:

THURS AUG 18 – NO BOLLOCKS PRESENTS – UNLEASH THE ARCHERS - CELESTIAL MACHINE – AUTERIC - TRIBUNE
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=224127800965555
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=205790522799233

FRI AUG 19 – NO BOLLOCKS PRESENTS - EXCAVATOR – GATE KRASHER – EPIDEMIC - CADAVOR DOGS
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=178702185524769

SAT AUG 20 – NO BOLLOCKS PRESENTS - MORTILLERY – DIRE OMEN – THE JEN HUANGS – M16
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=191070667616818

SUN AUG 21 – NO BOLLOCKS PRESENTS - TARANTUJA – SHITHAWK – M16
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=216744531681543

THURS AUG 25 – NO BOLLOCKS PRESENTS TOURING STONER DOOM – DEVOTION - LORDOSIS – BLOATED PIG – GRAVES
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126802000747368

FRI AUG 26 – BRUTAL ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS – GROSS MISCONDUCT – HARVEST THE INFECTION - WORLD CLASS WHITE TRASH – PROLOGUE TO THE OMEN
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=192180994176879

SAT AUG 27 – EAST VAN METAL FEST – MARES OF THRACE – AHNA – JOYCE COLLINGWOOD – CATHAR
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=144313505643584

SAT SEPT 3 - NO BOLLOCKS PRESENTS – TIMECOPZ – THE THROWAWAYS – STREET LEGAL DIRTBIKE – DURBAN POISON

SUN SEPT 4 – NO BOLLOCKS PRESENTS – UNLEASH THE ARCHERS - VANQUISHED – THE KILLING FIELD
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=241180269247902

FRI SEPT 9 – NO BOLLOCKS PRESENTS – RAVENSUN - SUGAR COATED KILLERS – GYNOSAURUS X - CLOACA

SAT SEPT 10 – MY ANNUAL BIRTHDAY AND JAKS SK8 COMP AFTER PARTY - DAYGLO ABORTIONS – FUQUORED - GNARCOLEPSY - CHACHI ON ACID – DAN SCUM SOLO
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=146086202142876

FRI SEPT 16 – NO BOLLOCKS PRESENTS HONG KONG BLONDE – LIMM VOCIFEROUS – GRAVES – DOC HOLLIDAY

SAT SEPT 17 – NO BOLLOCKS PRESENTS JESSES TRIBUTE LADEN BIRTHDAY BASH WITH - HAM WAILIN (VAN HALEN) – SNAGGLETOOTH (MOTORHEAD)

SAT OCT 1 – NO BOLLOCKS PRESENTS – ABRIOSIS – AKAKOR – SUPER MASSIVE BLACK HOLES

THURS OCT 6 – NO BOLLOCKS PRESENTS - ALONE AGAINST ROME – DATURA

FRI OCT 7 – NO BOLLOCKS PRESENTS – WITHOUT MERCY – SCIMITAR – CARNIVITRIOL – ANTECEDE

FRI OCT 28 – NO BOLLOCKS PRESENTS – SKULL FIST - STRYKER

FRI NOV 4 – NO BOLLOCKS AND THE INVISIBLE ORANGE PRESENT - WARBRINGER – LAZARUS AD – LANDMINE MARATHON – DIAMOND PLATE
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=225971560773822