Largely the Truth

The Un-Texan: A Quinn Martin Production

2012-01-29T21:26:00.000-08:00

"The birth of a child, your first kissfrom a new lover - neither compare to that sweet moment when your hangoverfinally goes away."

Thosesage words are one of only two things I accomplished today in the fog thatfollowed a friend's birthday party at Brown's Social House last night. The other "accomplishment" adorns the top of this page andmakes less sense even if it was more fun to make. I will try to explain:

Artist's representaton

This morning Ibrowsed Facebook while waiting for the hammering in my head to subside. It was there I noticed that one of my friends, writer, editor &fugitive American Bob McIntosh (@BobMcVictoria on Twitter),was himself friends with a man named Hud Bannon.

The name immediatelyappealed to to the child in me who spent hours parked in front of thetelevision watching re-runs of Quincy, BarnabyJones, & The Streets of San Francisco on WWOR. I could just imagine "hot-shot detective" Hud Bannon slidingacross the hood of his black '71 Charger (hemi, of course) as he chased downdrug kingpin Mookie Davis. So, in tribute, I created the above image andsent it along to Bob for laughs.

As it turns outHud Bannon is a writer, author of the blog The Un-Texan, amongother things, and though that’s not his real name it damn well should be. I haven’t yet had the chance to delve into the man’s work but what Ihave seen so far concerns things near and dear to my heart: America, truck stops, dusty roads and thestrange carnival of people who inhabit all three:

“Looking at Delta Dawn's bare shoulders and back was like gazingacross several acres of pale, drought-stricken ground in the harshest light ofday; from the front she looked like all of those acres had gathered themselvesinto a shivering heap that might collapse at any moment. None of that seemed tobother her in the slightest.”

- HudBannon, "The Un-Texan"

Click on over to the man's site using either the link above or by clicking the image at the top of the page. On a related note, does anyone know the name of the guy who narrated Barnaby Jones & The Streets of San Francisco? This is the stuff they should teach in school.

Photo Gallery: In Absentia - Waiting

2012-01-17T11:13:00.000-08:00

Of allthe things that smartphones can do - help us cheat at pub trivia nights or avoidhaving to talk to strangers, for example - their greatest feature has to be thecamera. Having a reasonably capable camera in your pocket at all times is usefulwhen your friends and associates decide to do something blackmail-worthy orwhen, like me, you’re walking around at three in the morning and say, “That looksspooky.” Portability, and the fact that it does all the heavy lifting for youas far as settings are concerned, has allowed me to use my iPhone to capture imagesI never would have bothered with if I'd had to lug around a camera the size ofOptimus Prime's lower 48.

In theyear I’ve been playing with the iPhone camera, first on a 3GS then a 4, I’velearned how to deal with at least some of its shortcomings - low lightphotography, for example, and how even at its best it cannot hold a candle to evenan entry level DSLR – and my pictures have improved considerably. Having a helpful smack on the ear every nowand then from a close friend who is an actual photographer (as opposed tomyself, a guy who likes taking pictures – this is an important distinction) hasalso been invaluable. Now, for my firstpost of 2012, I’d like to share some of my images with readers.

The following ten photos, unless otherwise noted, were taken with an iPhone 4and processed through the filter app CameraBag. As a collection I’ve taken to calling the images “In Absentia” because ofa deliberate emptiness in each, sometimes the result of taking the shot on oneof my nocturnal rambles sometimes just a lucky shot during the day. This particular grouping of pictures, taken during my travels in the last year and a half, iscalled “Waiting” because, well, I feel as though each scene is waiting forsomeone or something to restore it to life.

- Prestine Coin Laundry, Victoria, B.C., Canada

-Southmead Hospital, Bristol, U.K.

- McKinley Hill Laundromat, Tacoma, WA (iPhone 3GS)

- Fort Steele Heritage Town, Fort Steele, B.C, Canada (iPhone 3GS)

- Coffee #1, Clevedon, North Somerset, U.K.

- Southmead Hospital, Bristol, U.K.

- Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, B.C., Canada

- Ferry Terminal, Tsawwassen, B.C., Canada

- Clevedon, North Somerset, U.K.

- Open Air Transit Museum, Sandon Ghost Town, B.C., Canada (no filter used)

Breakfast in Victoria for $3.99

2011-11-04T11:42:00.000-07:00

This isn't a review, it's a public service announcement. The Fresko Cafe at 642 Yates Street, between Douglas & Broad, formerly the site of Great Cannon Pizza and several other unspeakably bad pizzerias, is offering a $3.99 ham, eggs, hashbrown & coffee breakfast special. You read that right - $3.99 for a greasy spoon breakfast in the heart of the Garden City.

The Fresko is a small, low-budget affair but the food is perfectly serviceable and the menu extends beyond breakfast with hamburgers, omelettes ($5.99) and donairs, to name a few. They're open until 3am on both Friday & Saturday night although you're not going to get late-night breakfast unless it's a slow night.

Check it out before it's gone. Not that the special is a limited time offer but rather it's likely to soon be replaced by a condo, ladies-wear boutique or maybe a timeshare made out of fair-trade coffee beans.

In Pictures: The 2011 Mr. Olympia Expo

2011-10-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

"I can't remember which makes you bigger. I'll go ask Alice."

Visiting the floor of the Mr. Olympia Expo was like beingpart of an organized tour to another planet; one where all food comes in powderor pill form, the water is electric blue and actually makes you thirsty, andall the natives have bodies straight out of comic books or the magazines I hideunder my mattress.

Click "Read On" to see my full photo set from the expo

Held over two days at the Las Vegas Convention Centre, theexpo hosts hundreds of vendors, thousands of products and tens of thousands ofbodybuilding fans in a roughly 220,000 foot exhibition space. Vendors - Optimum Nutrition, Met-RX,Cytosport, to name a few – hand out countless free samples of energy drinks,protein powders, and brightly coloured pills of mysterious intent to attendees;so many freebies are handed out that complimentary plastic tote bags are distributedat the door.

The laws which govern the American dietary supplement marketare notoriously lax, so with many of these products it’s up in the air as towhether or not they perform the function advertised on their package or simplywage guerrilla warfare on your organs. That didn’t seem to deter the throng of swollen-armedyoung men I saw dragging two or three of these sacks back to their cars like anarmy of overdeveloped Grinches sacking Whoville.

I couldn’t help but notice how many convention attendeesconformed to a particular type – the men with body fat in the single digits, bulgingmuscles and cleanly-shaved dome heads, the women with narrow faces, fitnessmodel bodies and clothing so tight it can only be removed with paint thinner. The uniformity was such that I wondered: dothe men wear differently coloured exercise shorts and sneakers so their girlfriendscan tell them apart? Do theirgirlfriends do the same?

“Hey Biff!”

“Baby, I’m not Biff, I'm Buff! Biff has the red shorts!”

“I’m not Baby, I’mBunny!”

And so on.

The convention floor was also home to a number of events, including official Olympia events like prejudging for Figure, Fitness, Bikini & Ms. Olympia, as well as the 202 Showdown (Mr. Olympia for guys under 202 pounds). Prejudging involves all competitors going through a series of mandatory poses while judges rate them for symmetry, proportion and who they're mostly likely to score with.

Also on the floor were non-IFBB (International Federation of Bodybuilders - the organization to which all professional bodybuilders belong) Olympia events like the Strongman Challenge, Powerlifting Championship, Kickboxing and others along those lines.

I was up until 5am editing and uploading photos to my Olympia Blog on the first night of the convention so I slept through much of the Expo's second day. That means most of what you're about to see is from the first day of the Expo. Enjoy?

Everything the light touches may give you the runs

Oh, the kidney stones you'll have!

"Do you too want to look like a long haul trucker? Ask me how!"

Strongman Competitors. If the buff guys who get chicks are Olympians, these guys have to be the Titans

He lifted and carried over 1,000lbs. But you go right ahead and complain about having to walk the groceries home. Also, yes, that's an energy drink called Cojones being advertised.

"These shirts are complimentary? You mean I get to advertise for you for free? Awesome!'

"No, keep talking, I insist. You're the most interesting person standing in front of me."

"Do people tease you because your head looks like a penis too?"

Shit, he heard me.

"We are so happy to be paid to see you!"

I don't know who the hell these people are but they seemed accustomed to being photographed.
You're welcome.

"All I have to say is 'He's cute' and my boyfriend does this to whoever I want! It's like owning an angry robot!"

""100% natural, bro. The cotton in this shirt, I mean. My muscles? Oh Christ, no. Steroids. A lot of steroids."

Competition was heavy in the Biggest Hernia category

I just missed the nosebleed this guy popped. Really.

Yes, that's a woman. Gentlemen, start your inferiority complexes.

"I got on the wrong bus, why won't anyone believe me?"

Dennis Wolf, placed 5th in this year's Olympia. That's right, those arms got him fifth. Go have another donut. Bring me one too.

"You will buy anything I tell you to."
"I will buy anything you tell me to."

Hey, it's Lou "$20 for a photo (your camera)" Ferrigno!

In Pictures: Occupy Victoria

2011-10-15T15:55:00.000-07:00

Today in Victoria, protesters came out in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement. My good friend Dan Eastabrook of Real Life, Real Light photography was on hand and has provided some of his photos for us here:

So You Think You Can Write

2011-10-10T09:44:00.000-07:00

This year I decided to participate in the Victoria Times-Colonist's writing contest. The first round was a free-form submission (poetry, prose, fiction, non-fiction) of no more than 500 words, due by September 9. From the pool of entrants, judges would select four finalists who would be given four assignments over the next month (1 per week). Each batch of assignments would be judged weekly and the winning entry printed in the Sunday Edition of the Times-Colonist.

My entry was a story about two brothers growing up in rural Tennessee, a fictional piece I put together the night before deadline. Fiction is new to me, so it was a challenge but the characters had been rolling around in my head for about a year so when I finally sat myself down to the work it wasn't as hard as I'd expected.

Almost immediately after this my trip down to the Olympia Weekend in Las Vegas (article forthcoming) and I more or less forgot about the contest. Then, while at a truck stop in southern Nevada on my return journey I received a call from Denise Helm, acting Editor-in-Chief at the Times-Colonist, informing me I had been selected as a finalist!

My first assignment arrived immediately and so I began work while making my way home, using my voice recorder to take notes while driving during the day and transcribing those notes in motel rooms at night.

As of today the contest is two weeks in and my third assignment was submitted yesterday. The judges notes will be sent back Thursday and I'll know by Sunday whether or not my piece was chosen out of the four on offer.

Readers are allowed to vote for their favorite piece on the newspaper's web site and the author deemed "Reader's Choice" wins an iPad classic. Overall winner receives a trip to a writer's festival next year on the Sunshine Coast.

Read my submissions and vote for me (Brennan Storr, in case you were unsure) as "Reader's Choice" at www.timescolonist.com/writingcontest.

The Road to Olympia, Part 6: Love Me, I'm a Liberal

2011-09-24T10:52:00.000-07:00

The Desert - still hot.

During my drive to Las Vegas, the Veteran’s Memorial Highway brought me through a handful of Indian Reservations. I’m not particularly educated on the state of Indian-Government relations but I’ve read Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and I’m a fan of Ward Churchill so I have at least a baseline understanding of the savage, locker-room rogering that was Manifest Destiny. All the same, actually seeing the Godless stretches of sun-withered rock that the government assigned to its defeated enemy really drives the point home in a way that books can’t.

Though I know full well that the Indian people had no voice in the decision I imagine that the U.S. Government, having thoroughly won the American Indian Wars, called forth a representative from the surviving tribes when it was time to assign living space:

U.S. Government: That is some lovely property you all were living on, wasn’t it?

Indian Representative: Yes, that is why we liked living there.

U.S. Government: Well, we need it

Indian Representative: For what?!

U.S. Government: Stuff.

Indian Representative: What stuff?

U.S. Government: Jamba Juices, hockey rinks, hot dog stands. White people stuff.

Indian Representative: But what about us?

U.S. Government: That’s what I wanted to talk to you about! Using the most scientific methods currently available we have located the absolute worst parcels of sandblasted hell in America

Indian Representative: Why?

U.S.G: Because we want to give them to you!

Indian Representative: I’m sorry?

U.S.G.: So you can live there, silly! All of you. Bring sunscreen.

Indian Representative: I have a few reservations about this.

U.S.G.: Great! That’s what we’ll call them. Now get out of here you crazy kid. Remember what I said about sunscreen.

Indian Representative: But I don’t…is that a shotgun?
U.S.G.: I said get

Since NPR liked to disappear on me whenever I got interested in a subject, thoughts like this were all I had to keep me company. I’d given up on country radio after hearing Tim McGraw’s “Indian Outlaw” three days running. It’s a criminally catchy song and I’m not a particularly sensitive person but every time I heard “You can find me in my wigwam /I’ll be beatin’ on my tom-tom / Pull out the pipe and smoke you some / Hey and pass it around” I wanted to throw up in my mouth.

A mild diversion came when I saw a sign advertising a Wildlife Viewing Area. The last several hours of driving had brought me endless vistas of windswept hardpan and I was a little sceptical as whether any wildlife not existing solely at the microscopic level could possibly thrive here. A tour guide would have to be a Zoloft-popping mixture of cock-eyed optimist and Spalding Grey to sell that particular Wildlife Viewing Experience:

“Here in front of us we have some rocks, heavy ones by the look of them. To our left if you look closely you can see more rocks, one of which looks like an anvil. Oh! Look! Just over there I thought I saw…no, no…that was a rock too. Isn’t this fun? Who else could go for a Jamba Juice?”

Night had fallen by the time I got close to Vegas and traffic had fallen off to almost nothing. As Highway 95 slipped by beneath the moonlight I had a look at the map and realized I was driving parallel to Department of Defense land. Then it hit me – this wasn’t just any DoD land – this was the Nevada Test Site, formerly Nevada Proving Ground, one of two nuclear testing sites used by America during the Cold War. Hey, I read books.

From 1951-1992 over 1,000 nuclear devices were tested on-site, often resulting in fallout that insisted on ruining the day (and genetic material) of anyone who happened to be downwind. These blessed souls are cheerfully called “Downwinders” by those who take an interest in the subject – I imagine this is because “Boy Howdy, You Are Boned-ers” is too much of a buzzkill. Over the years there were a number of settlements paid out by the government although the official figures are apparently well-hidden.

Scenes from The Hills Have Eyes came flooding into my head and in desperation I reached for the radio. Even “Indian Outlaw” was better than that.

Post Index:

Part 1: Get on the Boat, Son

Part 2: Radio Nowhere

Part 3: By the Side of the Road

Part 4: Cthulhu & the Dirty Shame

Part 5: Like a Bat Out of Hell

Part 6: Love Me, I'm a Liberal

The Road to Olympia, Part 5: Like a Bat Out of Hell

2011-09-24T10:49:00.000-07:00

"You spelled it how? You're fired."

The last thing I did before leaving for Nevada the next day was wash my car.It’s not that I thought it was going to stay clean on the drive to Winnemucca but I wanted to make sure I washed off every trace of John Day before advancing further. I was going to burn my laundry too but my car has suffered enough without the added indignity of coming into contact with my bare ass.

See you in Hell

Fittingly, the car wash was the second worst I’ve come across. The soap smelled like the chemical development team had started off aiming for “lilac” but given up somewhere around “How long has this sandwich been behind the radiator?” It did the job but only after the investment of six dollars and about a dozen passes with what may be the western world’s feeblest foaming brush.

I hit the highway at speeds that would have made the protagonist from Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” look like he was driving a float in the Tournament of Roses Parade. Trees, mailboxes and hitchhikers whizzed past as I desperately tried to out run whatever white trash Wendigo haunts that town.

This haste was to blame for the lives I took – for my becoming a murderer. A mass murderer, really. In my defense it’s hardly my fault – these hapless victims should have known better than to wander directly into the path of a man recklessly fleeing a Mayberry so awful that Andy Griffith would have eaten Opie at birth as an act of mercy.

The victims in question were hundreds of small white butterflies that swarmed the road at several points in the Malheur National Forest. At first I thought there were tiny balls of fluff bouncing off my windshield, then I looked closely and noticed they had wings.

I do not know how many of them I killed but should there ever come a day when butterflies rule the earth I will be the first against the wall.

Crossing into Nevada was a relief – not only was I able to put Oregon’s weak-kneed speed limits behind me but I was pretty sure that the Wendigo’s house-arrest anklet would stop him from crossing state lines.

I have no more affection for the desert than I do any other climate that will kill you without taking the slightest notice but I concede that it has a grandeur all it’s own with jagged outcroppings of rock silhouetted against the sky and the way shadows of clouds lay across the mountains like drop cloths.

It’s not all grand, of course. Much of it is, as my Saskatchewan-born grandfather once said of his own home, “as flat as piss on a plate”, and driving through it can become wearing over several hours. At one point the boredom became so acute I found myself listening to finance shill Dave Ramsey‘s radio show and being deeply concerned about the fate of those calling in. I actually teared up after one caller confessed that her husband was adamant about keeping their new truck, even though the prohibitive monthly payment meant they would lose the house they currently shared with their children.

The shedding of a tear not related to immediate physical injury or the loss of a sporting contest shocked me out of my stupor and I snapped off the radio. To reclaim my masculinity I turned up the CD player and sang along to “Sylvia’s Mother” until I arrived in Winnemucca. Before you talk smack about Dr. Hook all I have to say is this – there is nothing more distinctly male than trying to talk your way past a woman’s mother.

My hotel room at Winner’s Casino would have been unremarkable under normal circumstances but after the Little Pine Inn it felt like the Taj Mahal - ”I can walk around in my bare feet? I don’t need to sleep in my clothes? I have arrived in life.”

And in rarefied company no less

Post Index:

Part 1: Get on the Boat, Son

Part 2: Radio Nowhere

Part 3: By the Side of the Road

Part 4: Cthulhu & the Dirty Shame

Part 5: Like a Bat Out of Hell

Part 6: Love Me, I'm a Liberal

The Road to Olympia, Part 4: Cthulhu & the Dirty Shame

2011-09-24T10:44:00.000-07:00

It was late afternoon by the time I arrived in John Day, Oregon via highway 395. The light had taken on a beautiful golden tint you sometimes see at the end of the day – the kind that can make a garbage dump look like Venice in the spring.

395 turns into John Day’s main street, with most of downtown lining either side. Signs welcoming home 3 local boys from their tours of duty in Afghanistan were up in every window and there were yellow ribbons around the trees. Unlike Fox and Dale, two down-at-heel hamlets I’d passed through earlier in the day, John Day, seemed like a pleasant, welcoming example of Small Town America.

The first crack in that facade came when I pulled into my motel, the Little Pine

Looks nice, right?

Inn at the far end of downtown. On the outside it looked no worse than anywhere else I’ve ever stayed. Sure, the rough-looking woman who checked me in had a voice like Captain Beefheart and the only other guest was a bearded man who claimed to live in the mountains but I wrote it all off as part of being in a blue collar town well off the beaten track. Then I saw my room.

Where is your God now?

“Lived in” is one way to describe it, “I expected to find Bob Crane’s tenderized corpse in the bathroom” is another. The brown shag carpet was long enough to hide a marijuana grow-op from passing helicopters, several of the lights didn’t work and everything was covered in what is best described as a thin film made up of equal parts dirt and neglect. When I looked in the bathroom what I saw made me wish I’d found Hogan’s moldering corpse instead. Radiating out from the toilet’s base was a thick ring of accumulated dirt (I refuse to believe it was anything more) and nothing, from the sink to the shower stall, was quite what I’d call clean.

Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtagn!"

After dropping my luggage and vigorously washing my hands I set off down Main Street to find dinner. The sun was now almost fully set save for a pink band where the mountains met the sky. The downtown that had, not two hours before, felt like a living advertisement for war bonds now felt like a small seaside town an in H.P. Lovecraft story right before something tentacled rose from the sea and caused everyone to require fresh underpants.

The Mayberry facade cracked and fell apart when I noticed that in many of the windows – right next to the signs welcoming home John Day’s troops – was another sign forbidding entry to anyone displaying neo-Nazi apparel or tattoos. They warned that in the eyes of the community everyone was created equal and hate would not be tolerated. Suddenly I regretted shaving my head before leaving home.

Just then, as if to drive the point home, a scrawny twenty-something with a shaved head and swastika tattoo on his bicep rode past on a bicycle. I guessed John Day, like a lot of towns that have seen better days, was having a hard time keeping its young men occupied when work ran thin.

Dinner was beer and pizza in the Dirty Shame Saloon, not far from the motel.

And I'm pretty sure the pizza
gave me food poisoning.

It was your typical small-town watering hole where the menu incorporates the entire nutritional pyramid (pizza, hamburgers, chicken, deep-fried) and the locals eye you up as you walk in.

Ever paranoid I sat with my back to the wall and ate while a fat woman in a tie-dyed T-shirt sang along with the jukebox. To distract myself I set my mind to figuring out whether the mullet-sporting person who kind of looked like Meat Loaf in the video for “I’d Do Anything For Love” and was stood at the far end of the bar was a woman or a man. After 20 minutes I failed to come away with an answer.

When Aretha was done at the jukebox I could suddenly hear a group of middle-aged tourists at a nearby table discussing “The Celestine Prophecy”, a 1993 novel full of New-Age hooey. The conversation was more literate than I was expecting, given that the book has less intellectual value than “Go Dog Go”. Then one of the participants said, “I’d rather read a list of quotes than an entire book” & I realized I wasn’t listening to people, I was listening to organic tape recorders.

Then I heard “Where love rules there is no will to power” and decided it was a good time to head back to the motel.

Where I was murdered. The way my stomach feels right now I only wish I was joking.

Post Index:

Part 1: Get on the Boat, Son

Part 2: Radio Nowhere

Part 3: By the Side of the Road

Part 4: Cthulhu & the Dirty Shame

Part 5: Like a Bat Out of Hell

Part 6: Love Me, I'm a Liberal

The Road to Olympia, Part 3: By the Side of the Road

2011-09-24T10:35:00.000-07:00

Not for you, Storr

Leaving Bellingham with a stomach-full of breakfast quiche that wouldn’t have made the cut in a retirement home cafeteria wasn’t the best way to start my September 11 but it was all I had. The restaurant recommended to me by the

motel desk clerk turned out to have a 40 minute wait, unless I wanted to sit in the lounge next to the loud, pudgy blonde who had already started drinking. I didn’t. Instead I ended up eating the unfortunate quiche at a nearby Tully’s Coffee, just around the corner from Deseret Books (now selling the Mormon-approved Harry Potter alternative “Janitors”, in case you’re interested).

My target for the day was John Day, Oregon and traffic was heavy as I drove I-90 east. All the things I love about interstates – sudden lane changes, yuppies in SUVs whose engine power far exceeds their driving capabilities, and the idiots going too slow infuriating the idiots who want to go too fast – were in abundance until traffic thinned out just short of Ellensburg, which was, fittingly, when I had to break south.

Green forest gave way to sunbaked yellow grass as the landscape changed and the mercury rose. Just south of Yakima there was a family clustered next to a car that had broken down by the side of the road. The eldest son, a tall, slim, bespectacled kid in a yellow T-shirt was holding up a small handwritten sign and even though I couldn’t read it at speed I more or less knew the content: “It’s broke, we’re hot, this sucks. Please.” I kept driving and I don’t know why – I can still see that poor kid standing in the sun with a disappointed look on his face as hundreds of people drove their air-conditioned cocoons past him and his family.

In 2001, America was rocked by a sucker punch that shook the country and its people out of their insular, capitalist stupor. It reminded them that the people around them were neighbors and friends rather than competitors, stepping stones or dangerous lunatics. Ten years later, to the day, and no one, myself included, could remember that message long enough to stop for a family of five in obvious need of help.But hey – they remembered to put up flags along the highway.

The interstate eventually gave way to state highways, long, empty roads through farmland that stretched off to the horizon. The sky was a dark grey, threatening rain, and the air was rich with the smell of soil and raw onions. Dump trucks filled with these, thousands of fresh, fragrant bulbs would pass by at intervals and the smell would become almost overpowering.

As I passed into Oregon the smell of farmland faded and the temperature rose to to the low 90s, which was cool in comparison to the previous weeks according to Mike, a gas station attendant in Pendleton. Oregon is one of only two US states, New Jersey is the other, that doesn’t allow you to pump your own gas, and so Mike’s job is to run around outside in 100 degree heat for 9 hours while enjoying the heady smell of gasoline.

“This is fine,” he said, sweating and lying through his teeth. ”The breeze helps.”

Just outside of the Battle Mountain Forest on Highway 395 I saw another drama played out by the side of the road. A bright white motorcycle lay on its side at the edge of the gravel and EMTs were clustered in the high grass just beyond. Next to the ambulance was a cop car, it’s flashing blue and red lights unnatural among the yellows and greys of the landscape. Three other motorcycles were parked further down the highway, their riders standing together just behind the EMT crews. It looked like a group of white-collar guys on a motorcycle trip and their faces had the hollow, disbelieving looks of people who have never seen something go so bad so fast.

Suddenly slowing down seemed like a great idea.

Until I saw this sign:

Post Index:

Part 1: Get on the Boat, Son

Part 2: Radio Nowhere

Part 3: By the Side of the Road

Part 4: Cthulhu & the Dirty Shame

Part 5: Like a Bat Out of Hell

Part 6: Love Me, I'm a Liberal

The Road to Olympia, Part 2: Radio Nowhere

2011-09-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

Friday Harbor, WA. Photo by Brennan Storr

That old familiar road trip feeling – a spreading sense of wonder & possibility – didn’t settle over me until about an hour into the voyage, after I watched the sun set over San Juan Island’s Friday Harbor. My spirit rose at the idea I was off to see places I had never seen and drive roads I had never driven. In celebration I decided to browse the duty-free.

San Juan Island has had a long and storied history which includes being home to one of the longest running wars on American soil that didn’t cause unnecessary delay in airports and of course the famed “Pig War” that you should look up because it was called the Pig War. Friday Harbor itself was supposedly named for Joseph Poalie Friday, a Hawaiian in the employ of (then) island owner the Hudson Bay Company. As the Chelan set off towards a rose-hued horizon I realized that this more or less meaningless gesture (“British colonists may have brought about the ruin and subjugation of your homeland and people but hey – we named a sheep station after you”) would turn out to mimic western foreign policy throughout most of the 20^th century.

Night had fallen by the time our ferry reached the dock at Anacortes. I started making my way through darkened residential streets (I despise interstates and avoid them whenever possible) toward my destination for the evening, the Homestead Inn & Suites in Bellevue, Washington. During a pit stop on the Swinomish Indian Reservation I saw what may have been Skagit County’s most dilapidated functional automobile – some nameless four-door beast, vast in the way only American cars can be, painted the same shade of green as my grandparents’ bathroom.

It was covered at intervals in patches of rust, with a roof that had faded from black to a Library of Congress gray. Despite being rundown, the car somehow retained an air of dignity and sunset splendor, like an elderly drag queen. It certainly caught the eye of the overweight Latino women who had gathered in their Friday best outside the liquor store to get a solid buzz going before heading to the nearby casino. They tottered over unsteadily on too-tall heels to coo at the driver, an angular middle-aged man with iron grey hair cut close to the skin, while he polished the windshield. Never let it be said that small-town Friday nights are boring.

On my way off the reservation I found George Noory’s Coast to Coast on the AM band and kept it there as the miles slipped by. Coast to Coast is talk radio specializing in the kind of things that only make sense after the sun goes down – alien abduction, ESP and government conspiracy theories, to name a few. Tonight Noory’s guest was David Ruben, a modestly famous “life coach” and firm believer in “precognitive dreams” – dreams that are windows into the future. Ruben maintains that just such a dream had helped him save the life of his son.

As I joined the interstate for the final stretch into Bellevue, Coast to Coast’s signal started to fade and every cloverleaf that passed overhead brought with it a wave of static washing across Ruben’s voice like waves breaking over the bow of a ship. His thoughts on the continuance of life after death slowly began to disappear among the screeching phantom voices that live in the space between radio signals. I’m far too practical to take any of what Ruben says seriously but all the same, every time the rolling static took more of the signal and the in-betweeners screamed in triumph a chill ran down my spine. It was a comfort that my motel was only a few miles away.

Now I understand why no one listens to the radio anymore.

Photo by Nick Fisher, licensed through Creative Commons

Post Index:

Part 1: Get on the Boat, Son

Part 2: Radio Nowhere

Part 3: By the Side of the Road

Part 4: Cthulhu & the Dirty Shame

Part 5: Like a Bat Out of Hell

Part 6: Love Me, I'm a Liberal

The Road to Olympia, Part 1: Get on the Boat, Son

2011-09-24T10:25:00.000-07:00

On September 9th I began my drive down to Las Vegas to blog the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding competition. This six-part series of posts chronicles the people and places along my trip down Veteran's Memorial Highway 95.

Full blog coverage can be found at http://largelythetruthmrolympia.wordpress.com/

My trip officially started this afternoon at the Washington State Ferries terminal in Sidney, B.C. when the U.S. customs officer asked where I was headed.
“I’m headed down to Vegas to catch the Mr. Olympia competition.”

It was the first time I’d seen anyone fall asleep standing. I guess not everyone has my appreciation of the unusual things in life. Taking back my passport I pulled into lane 9 and shut off the car.

The ferry wasn’t due to leave for Friday Harbour & Anacortes until 5:55pm, which left me a little over 80 minutes. It was only 82 degrees but on the tarmac of the ferry ramp it felt hotter and so I moved into the shade of the small gift shop/cafeteria at the rear of the ferry line-up.

Inside, shelves were lined with the expected fuzzy sweaters and Canadian-themed shot glasses. I don’t know when these became ubiquitous but given all the hand-wringing about binge drinking it says a lot that transit hubs still sell them. Call them decorative all you want but we both know that their sole purpose is to expedite the delivery of alcohol to your beleaguered liver. Should marijuana ever be legalized I’m looking forward to seeing our ferry terminals and airports proudly displaying their collection of novelty Canadian bongs underneath a wallpaper of “stop toking” ads.

The counterman was trying to sell a group of tourists on blueberry scones ‘fresh from the oven’. Someone finally took the bait but specified the scone at the very bottom of the pile and the look on his face was worth paying what I did for a hot dog & a bottle of Coke.

Afterward, I finished my food at one of the shaded picnic tables and took a walk through the lanes back to my car. Most people were stewing in their vehicles, tapping away on their phones, reading the newspaper or arguing, just for something to do. A pretty young American couple sat on the tailgate of their truck eating food from a blue and white Coleman cooler, their bronzed skin somehow impervious to the heat.

A while later, a man in the Nissan next to me took a break from playing with his car’s electronic locks and turned on a mambo CD, which wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn`t been keeping time by loudly slapping his steering wheel. Every now and again he would look to his long-suffering wife and loudly lament how all the great mambo kings were dead. By the time our ferry, the Chelan, began loading I was prepared to send Mr. Mambo Nissan to join them.

On board the Chelan

Post Index:

Part 1: Get on the Boat, Son

Part 2: Radio Nowhere

Part 3: By the Side of the Road

Part 4: Cthulhu & the Dirty Shame

Part 5: Like a Bat Out of Hell

Part 6: Love Me, I'm a Liberal

Meet Your Olympians: Jay Cutler

2011-09-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

This is the beginning of my coverage of the 2011 Mr. Olympia Competition. Further updates will be published on largelythetruthmrolympia.wordpress.com

Current Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler is exactly the kind of person you want as the spokesman for your sport – he’s conventionally handsome, personable and capable of assembling words into sentences that express thoughts more complex than “protein!” and “woman!”. Granted, many of those sentences concern either the mechanics of lifting heavy things or plugging the various supplements for which Cutler is spokesman, but then this is the sport of bodybuilding and not the National Poetry Championships. That’s not to say Cutler isn’t intelligent – he has an Associate Degree in Criminal Justice & has invested his contest winnings into real estate rather than, say, an Escalade made out of cocaine – it’s just that erudition and business acumen are not what get him on the cover of Muscle & Fitness.

What gets Cutler’s name in lights is the fact that he looks the way Pinocchio would have if Gepetto had been wishing Sherman tanks into life instead of wooden children. In an interview given two weeks ago he gave his current weight at 275lbs, which at 5’9” and with a body fat percentage he claims gets as low as 3% (the bastard), means that Cutler is more or less the human equivalent of the marble statues Miami drug lords buy to decorate their atrium.

Born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1973, Cutler grew up in nearby Sterling and attended Wachusett Regional High School where, at least by his own account, his teen years more or less resembled the happier parts of Friday Night Lights.

Football, along with working on the family farm & in his brother’s concrete business meant that Cutler had a well-developed physique even before he started bodybuilding on his 18^th birthday. But, apparently it wasn’t enough to look like the proverbial brick shithouse, he wanted to be able to life one too.

It didn’t take long for his competitive drive to take over and in 1993 Cutler won the National Physique Committee’s (NPC) Teen Nationals Middleweight competition. In bodybuilding, the National Physique Committee is the organization which governs amateur athletes & in order to progress to professional status in the IFBB (International Federation of Bodybuilders) an athlete must first win an NPC pro qualifying national contest. With help from mentor Bruce Vartanian, a Worcester businessman and bodybuilder, and diet guru Chris Aceto, Cutler swept the 1996 NPC nationals and turned pro.

Since then he’s been top dog in 15 other competitions, including 3 wins at the Arnold Classic, the Golden Globes to Mr. Olympia’s Oscars, but it wasn`t until he claimed the Mr. Olympia title from reigning 8-time champ Ronnie Coleman in 2006 that Cutler became king of the bodybuilding world. After a surprise loss to Dexter Jackson in 2008, Cutler came back to win 2009 & 2010 and heads into the 2011 Olympia the defending 4-time champion.

The $200,000 Mr. Olympia prize purse is just the beginning of theperks that accompany winning bodybuilding’s top title – there’s also opportunity for product endorsements (Cutler reps for MuscleTech, among others), guest posing spots (paid, non-competitive appearances onstage at bodybuilding events), and merchandising (Cutler’s online store sells his line of apparel and a host of other products).

It`s well that there are other ways for a championship bodybuilder to earn a buck, as the title does not come cheap – in an interview with Muscle Mag, Cutler claimed to spend $30,000 a year on massage therapy alone. His dietary requirements, between 4,000 and 7,000 calories a day including a full 5lbs of fish (which he despises), translate into an estimated $100,000 annual food budget and in a 2009 interview with the blog Vegas Deluxe, Cutler joked, “I am single-handedly supporting CostCo.”

Showing the kind of foresight one rarely sees in professional athletes, Cutler acknowledges that his career as a professional bodybuilder has an expiration date and he has planned for his future, “I have invested in real estate. I have contracts and sponsors that I continue with even after I retire,” he tells Vegas Delxue. “I will still promote bodybuilding to the best of my ability.” He says too that while he intends to continue weight training, his retirement will mean the end of the intensive training he goes through for the Olympia, “I am going to shrink down,” says Cutler. “And I’m going to throw the fish out the window.”

Die-hard fans have said that going into the 2011 Olympia Weekend Cutler looks confident and happy but based on the few interviews I’ve seen I don’t know that I agree. Physically he looks good but he seems tired and unenthusiastic, but then maybe it’s difficult to summon energy when a camera is shoved in your face shortly after you’ve finished throwing around a few hundred pounds.

One imagines that if Cutler were to lose this year’s Olympia to a contender like Phil Heath or Kai Greene we could see his retirement announced shortly after the Sheru Classic in Mumbai, India, on September 23-24. Bodybuilding is a heavily political sport, however, and the IFBB could certainly use a spokesman like Cutler for a few more years.

Time will tell.

Other Meet Your Olympians profiles:

Kai Greene
Phil Heath

Jay Cutler at the 2011 Mr. Olympia:
Thursday Afternoon Press Conference Gallery Friday Night Prejudging Gallery Saturday Night Final Gallery Phil Heath is the New Mr. Olympia

Largely the Truth @ the 2011 Mr. Olympia Competition

2011-08-24T16:17:00.000-07:00

You read that right. Less than three weeks from now, on September 9, I will be firing up Etta, my sleek, silver Corolla S, and driving 2100km down the Veteran's Memorial Highway to Las Vegas for the 2011 Mr. Olympia Bodybuilding Competition.

The culture of bodybuilding has fascinated me since I started lifting weights six years ago. The behavior I've seen in the gym, from simple preening to grunting that would make a rutting bull in the next room say, "There must be something serious going on over there", is as strange as it is hard to ignore. Documentaries like Pumping Iron & books like Harrison Pope's The Adonis Complex - presenting as they do a world teeming with insecurity, neurosis and human bodies pushed to extreme - have only cemented that fascination.

Now I've decided to take in that world's biggest event - the Joe Weider Olympia Weekend 2011 at the Orleans Hotel & Las Vegas Convention Center. My Silver VIP Package (keep your remarks to yourself) secures me access & reserved seating as follows:

Early Entry to Meet The Olympians - Thursday, Sept. 15, 7 PM
Olympia Weekend Expo - Early Entry - Friday, Sept. 16, 9:30 AM - 5 PM
Olympia Weekend Expo - Early Entry - Saturday, Sept. 17, 9:30 AM - 5 PM
Fitness / Figure / Bikini/ Ms. Olympia Judging - Friday, Sept. 16, 10:30 AM
Fitness Olympia Finals/Ms. Olympia Finals/Mr. Olympia Judging - Friday, Sept. 16, 7 PM
Olympia 202 Showdown - Reserved Seating - Saturday, Sept. 17, 10:30 AM
202 Showdown / Figure Olympia Finals / Mr. Olympia Finals - Saturday, Sept. 17, 7 PM
Olympia Victory Gala, Saturday, Sept. 17, 11 PM

From my base of operations at the Circus, Circus Hotel & Casino I will be blogging events, uploading photos and generally trying to make sense of it all at largelythetruthmrolympia.wordpress.com. You can also keep up with events via my twitter account @largelythetruth.

Meet Your Olympians:

Jay Cutler
Kai Greene
Phil Heath

Riptide, Body Condoms & the Jealous Sea - Surfing for Beginners

2011-08-22T12:12:00.000-07:00

Come into my web, said the spider to the fly

The oceans are vast, cold, unknowable sirens that have called to mensince the day we left the garden and as with all distant maidens we are drawnback each time in the vain hope that they will soften - that they will show usand only us some tiny token of affection.

Instead of affection, however, all the oceans haveever provided are krakens, tidal waves and a place for barrel-chested fishermento avoid their wives, sometimes permanently.

It wasn't affection that I was after this pastweekend as I stepped into the sea at Vancouver Island's Long Beach for my firstday of surfing. Instead I was trying to figure out exactly how I had ended upin that spot, with my considerable bulk squeezed into a wetsuit, a rentedsurfboard under my arm and the vicious expanse of the Pacific Ocean before me.

Though I own a gym membership my day to dayfitness regimen consists mostly of walking back and forth between the sofa andthe fridge, so when my friends enticed me to join them on a surfing holiday Iwas apprehensive.

My first concern was the wetsuit - after all, a260lb man in a neoprene body condom was the sight for which the word"ridiculous" was devised. And I did look ridiculous as I stood thereon the beach, the hot Tofino sun beating down on my shiny pate, but then so didalmost everyone else. Unless you're built like Armie Hammer the wetsuit willseek out your every imperfection and broadcast it to the

Don't look directly at it

world whether theywant to see it or not - like ugly people making out on a Jumbotron.

My other, more pressing concern was the sea itself. In addition to being an ardent H.P. Lovecraftdevotee I have seen Wolfgang Peterson’s ThePerfect Storm several times and reason that if something can be both hometo mighty Cthulu and executioner for bands of rugged seamen led by GeorgeClooney then maybe it’s a bit beyond me. Perhaps, I suggested to my friends, the surfing experience could be approximatedby covering me in cling film and having me sit in a tub of cold water.

The suggestion was pooh-poohed and I was accused of being “dramatic” butmy apprehension remained and every time the sea hurled me end over end like adiscarded cigarette butt I wanted to scream, “See what you’ve done, youbastards! It took Swooney and now, formy hubris, it will take me too!” That Isurvived is a testament not to the mercy of the sea but to the pleasure ittakes in toying with its prey.

The capriciousness of the ocean was confirmed when, once I’d gotten thehang of walking my board against the current and even managed to catch a waveor two, I noticed that my friends seemed to have swum a great distance awayfrom me, and, strangely, so had the beach. After a great deal of furious paddling failed to remedy the situation Irealized that I had been caught in a riptide, which sounds like a sea-faring G.I.Joe villain but is actually an ocean current that pulls hapless idiots like meaway from the beach and into Cthulu’s clutches.

I don't know how but it looks hungry

I vaguely remembered being told that if you are caught up in a rip tidethe worst thing you can do is try to swim directly towards the shore, againstthe current, and so, clinging to my board I tried to move diagonally towards apatch of ocean not intent on my murder. My frantic movements brought me no closer to safety and the coldness ofthe water slowly gave way to icy tendrils of panic that worked their way up myspine. Every mouthful of seawater becameharder to expel than the one before it - hoisting myself up on the board wasonly a temporary solution because the movement of the waves and my total lackof balance meant I could only stay atop for a few moments. Suddenly I regretted paying in advance fortwo nights at the hotel.

It was then the sea tired of its sport and I felt a wave pushing metowards shore. After reaching an areashallow enough for my feet to touch bottom a warm wave of relief washed over meand I heaved a great sigh standing there in the waist high water. I was still standing there when the seadelivered one bracing final bitch slap and I decided to break for lunch.

Afterward I hesitated to go back into the water but eventually realizedI didn’t have much choice; the final wave had knocked out one of my contactsand without it I couldn’t eye up toothsome young bathing beauties without closingone eye and squinting the other so I that I took on the aspect of a lecherouspirate. Defeated, I pulled out my otherlens then hauled my board and bulk back into the waves.

The jealous, frigid sea had made sure she was the only woman for me.

Run the other way, you idiot

Recession? There's a Wicker Man For That

2011-08-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

Alan Greenspan's early policies were his best

An update for those among you who are either wilfullyignorant or living in a system of caves near Peshawar: we are now in the midstof an economic recession. To the uninitiated, me included, this didn't sound sobad at first. After all as children recess was a frolicsome time free ofsupervision. When you learned whether you were going to spend your life beingpicked first, second, third for kickball or whether you were going to be moreor less permanently pinned under the monkey bars by Booger the school leper. SoI confess that when economists started bandying around the "R" word Igot a little excited and started looking for my knee shorts and bobby socks.Then I learned that recess is different for adults: the kickball team doesn'ttake resumes and Booger's too busy repossessing cars to return your calls.

Despite having investments I am trying to pay aslittle attention as possible to these most recent stock marketfluctuations. If I wanted to tear outwhat little hair I have left trying to control things that are inherently impossibleto control I would have had children. Also,my understanding of the stock market has always been terrible, so my comprehensionof the current situation is that US Debt & the Tea Party have hopped intotheir Fleetwood Brougham and driven off across the badlands of the NASDAQtaking potshots at lawmen and your 401(k).

Really, I don’t even know what a 401(k) is otherthan it seems to serve the same purpose in your life as a dog in a countrysong: it’s the last thing the world takes from you before you decide to seewhat 9mm ammunition tastes like at speed. I would love it if most newsreaders and television pundits currentlydiscussing “the markets” would be as honest.

Ben in simpler times

From everything I’ve heard, “The Markets” sound likethe financial equivalent of a circus bear known for flying into unprovokedrages: everyone tiptoes around thesubject and keeps their voices low so as not to set it off but in the end theyhave just enough time to tell “Gentle Ben, no!” before another clown is sent tothe big top in the sky. The sole differenceis that you can tranquilize the bear if “The Market” gets a wild hairit can easily bring down the whole circus.

The only other comparison I can think of is that ofa pagan god – except even they could be sated with sacrifice. If Poseidon was battering your ship with wavesyou could toss an ensign or two overboard and soon enough the sea would smoothout. If your island commune had a stringof failed crops you just duped Edward Woodward into a giant wicker man then setthe bugger alight. If the trees stilldidn’t bloom you called Nicolas Cage and did the whole thing again.

It seems that there's no calming the market, however; no matterhow much you rub its feet or bring it breakfast in bed it still won’t tell youwhat’s wrong, because “if you have to ask then you’ll never understand.”

Despite this irrationality, the people in mytelevision talk about the situation, dropping terms like “Chinese bond market”and “fiscal irresponsibility”, as though they have any more idea than I doabout what’s going on or how to fix it. Thereis a chilling vacancy in the eyes of those spinning bullshit about importantthings. The next time you watch a newsreport about the economy, remember back to when your parents said, “...butmommy & daddy still love each other very much” and try not to spit out yourMr. Pib when you realize they all have the same look on their face – a mixtureof fear, regret and the deep hope that we’ll all get out of this intact.

And we will. But let’s build that Wicker Man just in case. Does anyone have Nic Cage’s number?

Don't forget the bees.

Hot, Fast, Dirty: Fast Food is Good for the Soul

2011-07-31T10:39:00.000-07:00

Come check out my new project - Hot, Fast, Dirty: Fast Food is Good for the Soul - news and reviews from the independent fast food scene (with a few good words from the big boys thrown in).

Largely the Truth will still be updated regularly but HFD offers a tighter focus in a shorter format - (all reviews are 500 words or less) so it will be a nice change of pace.

I'm aiming for it to be a more collaborative effort as well, so if you've got passions for fast food, writing and humor then click through to HFD and let's talk.

So far places reviewed include some here in Victoria (La Fiesta Cafe) some from B.C.'s interior (Donut King - Kamloops) and some from the good ol' U.S of A (Donut Storr - Westminster, CA).

Follow Hot, Fast, Dirty on Twitter (@hotfastdirty)

At the Vancouver Island Music Fest

2011-07-09T01:34:00.000-07:00

CFUV 101.9FM, the University of Victoria campus radio station, has seen fit to turn me loose on another event. This spring they had me cover the first Victoria Spoken Word Festival and I must have managed to mix just enough insight in with my dirty jokes for them to trust me with covering the Vancouver Island Music Fest in Courtenay. The event runs from Friday, July 8 to Sunday, July 10 and features headlining acts like hip-hop legends Arrested Development and (my personal favorite) Randy Newman. I'll be updating the CFUV VIMF blog with posts several times a day and have so far been keeping up a steady stream of photo updates on The Twitter.

All the photos are now up on the Largely the Truth Flickr account if you don't feel like wading through Twitter,

Post I:     Tomorrow's the Big Day All that boring, "getting to know you" stuff
Post II:    The Road to VIMF The old man & the motorhome
Post III:   Getting Started The girls in their summer clothes
Post IV: Oh, the Baton Twirlers MarchFourth...marches forth.
Post V:    In the Evening Folk, blues, hope springs eternal
Post VI:   Arrested Development Like Public Enemy without the alarm clocks
Post VII: Saturday Begins... Hamburgers, jazz & an inferiority complex
Post VIII: Jon Anderson of Yes The Long Distance Runaround
Post IX:   Of Roots & True Love Sunburn & my forbidden love
Post X:    Randy Newman Live! Taking a good long look at Randy
Post XI: Sunday Morning Coming Down Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys
Post XII: Albert Lee, John Jorgenson... Guitarists extraordinaire
Post XIII: Holly Cole Smoky classics just before the finish line
Post XIV: David Crosby Goodbye to All That

Pieter Vorster of Continual Palingenesis Social Media Socials (I don't know either) shanghaied me into doing this interview. To Stephen Colbert: your window of opportunity is past.

The Moon Under Water Pub & Brewery | 350B Bay Street | Victoria

2011-07-07T10:16:00.000-07:00

There is no end of talk here in North America about the “English Pub Experience”. We imagine quaint little buildings in the country where rumpled men in patched jackets talk about the weather, the footie, and make off-color jokes about their wives. Where a barman with rolled-up sleeves serves pints of nameless “lager”, “ale” and “bitter” from great brass taps and sets them down on the dark, polished bar. If a disagreement should arise it can be settled with a game of darts or, if absolutely necessary, a gentlemanly bout of fisticuffs outside after which the winner helps the loser to his feet and then buys him a drink.

Come in, have a laugh, get stabbed.

When I was living in England with Nicky the television liked to remind us that “country pubs” were closing at about the rate of one a day. In the pubs that remain you are more likely to find teenagers in short skirts screeching football songs than you are anyone who wants to talk about the weather. The barman is still there but he’s pouring out pints of Budweiser, Carling and Strongbow Cider to ratfaced men with wispy moustaches and the social graces of fire ants. If he can be bothered to put down his mobile phone long enough to work the taps, that is. Disagreements, if they arise, are settled with a knife in your back, or if absolutely necessary, a savage kicking outside by a group of hoodied jackals, one of whom will use his mobile phone to record the event for posterity.

It makes me wonder where The Moon Under Water fits into all this - advertised as an “English-style” pub it doesn’t look or feel particularly English and the menu is caught somewhere between the Old & New Worlds. It’s neither Coronation Street nor Clockwork Orange but the food is hearty and filling and their session ales are the best English beers I’ve tasted in the three years since coming home.

The restaurant itself is spacious, with tables a good distance apart, and it feels almost like a converted warehouse space or something like it. It’s nicely appointed with some very pretty (and expensive) original art and a smattering of sports paraphernalia. Considering that so many other places around the GVRD have more televisions than Best Buy (I’m looking at you, West Coast Tap House) I was expecting to find at least one here but came up empty and I cannot tell you how refreshing that is. Overall, the Moon is very comfortable even if conversation with neighbouring tables is unlikely unless one or both of you take up yodelling.

Orders are placed at the bar & you pay beforehand, in the English pub style. Some might have an issue with this but I prefer it as you’re free to go once you’re finished – there’s no wait for the bill. My only problem with having this reduced style of service here is that in England tipping is not compulsory and when it is done it is not to the level expected in North America. I find it hard to swallow tipping 15-20% at the beginning of a meal with no clue as to the level of service you’re about to receive. That said our server was very welcoming and made sure to keep checking in on us.

Ten Four.

It was mid-afternoon when we arrived at the Moon and left the Monte Carlo in the lot. There were four of us but only two eating and we had our choice of spots. I was thinking about Blue Moon Wings ($9.95) followed by a steak & kidney pie ($12.95). Nicky only wanted a plate of onion rings & I said a pint of bitter sounds fine.

The Blue Moon Wings were covered in a mixture of blue cheese and hot sauce, a combination I don’t often see. The two elements made for a very creamy, spicy pairing and the heat they generated didn’t fade for a while after finishing. The only other plate of blue cheese & hot sauce wings I’ve tried in Victoria is over at The Beagle in Cook Street village and these were considerably better. It should be mentioned too that these wings were only lightly battered, making them less heavy than other offerings around town. Kelsey’s at Tillicum Mall is particularly notorious for over-battered wings.

Some people shrink from eating organ meats, which I have never understood. We’ve already divested the animal of its life and skin – isn’t it adding insult to injury if we then say “the rest of you is not good enough for my intestinal tract”? Besides, I’m still convinced that one day a cow is going to use his hoof to scrawl “Let my people go” in the dirt and we’re all going to collectively shit our pants and become Vegans, so we may as well enjoy as much of the cow as we can until then.

The Moon Under Water’s steak & kidney pie didn’t disappoint; it’s made-in-house pastry was tender and flaky, and the gravy, made with the house Bitter, was thick and rich without being cloying. My only real complaint about the meal is that the fries were a bit soggy.

The Moon’s award winning Blue Moon Bitter was the perfect accompaniment to everything and, as I’ve said, the best English-style ale I’ve had since coming back to Canada. It’s a strong-tasting beer that manages to stay very smooth and at only 3.8% you can enjoy a couple without being laid flat out.

It feels as though I’ve spent most of this review criticising the Moon Under Water when, in fact, I very much enjoyed my visit.

The service is efficient and amiable, the food good and reasonably priced and the restaurant itself open, airy and welcoming. The location, next to the Bay Street Bridge, is out of the way and not likely to attract foot traffic, particularly in the evening when the Rock Bay area transforms into Victoria’s “hoe stroll”, but the Moon’s “no tow” policy means that you can drive there, take a cab home if you’ve had a few too many & your car will still be waiting for you in the morning. The decor may be as British as Madonna but if you want fantastic English beer in a relaxed setting then the Moon Under Water is the closest you can get without a young man in a hoodie breaking a beer glass across your face.

Fernwood Bites

2011-07-02T11:31:00.000-07:00

...but in a good way

Bacon notwithstanding, I am no great fan of pork. Maybe because my grandmother – God rest her soul –served us pork chops coated in that tasteless sawdust called Shake N Bake roughly three times a week while growing up. Or maybe because I have heard a number of my friends and acquaintances who work in emergency services compare the smell of cooked human flesh to that of pork. It could also be that pork does not digest as easily as other meats, that cannibals refer to human flesh as “long pig” or that I have seen Babe: Pig in the City 12 times. Whatever the reason, I spend sleepless nights staring at the ceiling of my bedroom thinking, “I don’t understand what they’ve got against foreskins but I think the Hebrews might be right with this ‘pigs’ thing.”

Considering all this, most of the pork options available at Fernwood Bites, Fernwood’s second-annual celebration of local artisan cuisine, were of little interest to me. The lone exception was the Cuban-style pork with orange cilantro aioli being offered by The Little Piggy. It had a wonderful orange zest with a prominent but not overpowering heat. Though other items on offer caught my eye I have to say that this was my favourite. It was so good that even Yahweh might sneak a bite while his wife’s back is turned.

Held on Sunday, June, 26 this was the second annual Bites, held in Fernwood Square at the intersection of Gladstone Avenue & Fernwood Road. The event plays host to two dozen or so local restaurants, breweries & wineries offering up samples of their finest wares. The event is a fundraiser for the Fernwood Neighborhood Resource Group, an organization dedicated to preserving the spirit of Fernwood for its many dreadlocked residents.

The event is marketed directly at Victoria’s foodies, which explains why I had never heard of it before a press release from Fernwood NRG arrived in my mailbox. I am not a foodie - other than one being a vegetable and the other a bunch of fruits I couldn’t tell endive from N’Sync. Programs like “Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives” are exceptionally popular right now but personally the next place I would like to see Guy Fieri visit is the bottom of the sea.

The sold-out event was scheduled to run from 5:30-8:00pm and though Nicky & I arrived early there was already an impressive line-up. Rented steel fencing ringed Fernwood Square, which was filed with vendor tents and looked not unlike a festival beer garden.

I hadn’t read the e-mail from Fernwood NRG very thoroughly and so all I knew was that there would be food & alcohol. I was expecting to be handed a number of “sample” tickets which I would quickly burn through and have to replenish at great expense but was delighted to be wrong. Once inside the gate, I was told, you were free to sample as much or as little as you liked. I will forever remember the subsequent thunderbolt of joy which struck my heart and loins.

The aforementioned pork from The Little Piggy was my favourite but a few of the other vendors also stood out from the pack.

Kulu, an Asian Fusion restaurant across from the Belfry Theatre, impressed with their beef & cucumber-wrapped kimchi. Kimchi is a total mystery to me – I know it only as the crunchy, vinegar-tasting stuff I put on my plate at the Mongolian BBQ on Vancouver’s Davie Street. I don’t know what’s in it or why – I know it looks terrible, like something zombies might pull from a wailing victim’s stomach – but I know it tastes of vinegar and is often spicy. Pairing it with the crisp freshness of a cucumber and tender roast beef was a killer combination.

My insatiable lust for bread dipped in melted cheese was served here by the Oak Bay Bistro, a recent – and well spoken of - addition to the city’s food scene. They were also offering a selection of artisan cheeses on small, easy-to-steal slate tiles that everyone was kindly asked to return. No one laughed in the face of the person issuing the request but I pictured at least one of the assembled yuppies mentally weighing their lactose intolerance against the amount of cheese they’d need to eat if they wanted enough tiles to resurface their patio.

The Parsonage Cafe, too, was serving their pulled pork sandwiches on tiles, albeit wooden ones, and making the same request. Towards the end of the night their food was being served onto napkins and, eventually, your bare hands. I didn’t have a chance to ask the Bistro reps what their tile return ratio was but I can’t imagine they fared much better. For the record, I returned mine – I only steal from hotel rooms.

My final favourite was the table for the Fernwood Inn. They were offering one of the few vegetarian selections, a mixed veggie soft taco. As far as I’m concerned, vegetarian cuisine is to food as dry humping is to sex – something that appeals only to people afraid of getting their hands dirty & teenagers wanting to piss off their parents – but I would proudly order these tacos in a restaurant without caring what it said about my sexuality. I can’t remember what was in them – probably tomatoes, something green – but they were refreshing, filling and very spicy.

The event turned out to be a better time than I imagined. The amount of food and booze you can cram over the 2.5 hour duration makes the $45 ticket a steal and the quality of food is leagues beyond what you expect to be served within the confines of a chain-link fence. I’m no foodie but even I’m looking forward to next year’s Fernwood Bites.

Under the Sea We Off the Hook, or Why I Want to be a Hermit Crab

2011-06-26T13:13:00.000-07:00

We got no troubles / life is the bubbles
Under the sea!

I have a pet theory, one that I dreamed up during moments of great reflection –usually while sitting on the toilet or waiting for traffic lights to change. My theory is that this world is the spiritual equivalent of a rock tumbler. The rough, jagged gemstones are new souls: immature, wild and unaware of the damage they do to others.

Through the love and hardship of a thousand lifetimes the rough edges are worn smooth and we emerge from the other end as wiser, kinder old souls - polished gems - and we make our exit. I haven’t gotten as far as figuring out where the stones come from or go to but if you’re looking for hints I always recommend the “Three B’s” - Bible/Bhagavad Gita/Battlefield Earth.

The reason I mention this is because I recently moved apartments and with the hassle involved in moving this middle-class circus from one fairground to another I have decided that in my next life I want to be a Hermit Crab.

Imagine the simplicity – shells are abundant so you can house hunt wherever you like, rent is low because the water makes paper currency impractical and everywhere you go is oceanfront property. You’re mobile, too, so if those shiftless European Crabs move into the neighbourhood and let their yards go to seed because they’re busy playing dice or pitching woo at your women then you can just pick up and go without having to file a forest worth of paperwork.

Contrast that with moving from one apartment to another. First, you have to decide you want a different/bigger/smaller apartment. Then you need to start shopping for a place and hope that once you’ve found one you like, the owner/manager hasn’t established a set of prerequisites which weed you out right away: “We only rent to couples/single people/people with no children/an odd number of teeth/who dress in spandex and fight crime in the evenings.”

Once you’ve established that you are eligible for the privilege of paying them too much money in exchange for a place to live you fill out a number of forms which give the property management company permission to prod their finger up your background.

Remember, too, that you must do all of this at least one month in advance of when you intend to move. Two months is preferable. The machine-like precision of six months notice will curry you favour when robots wrest control of the world from man. Giving exact notice before you’ve even left the womb will assure that you'll be the first one chosen to go back in time and kill John Connor.

When Nicky & I found an affordable two-bedroom apartment it was four days past the 30-day deadline set out in the rental agreement for our current apartment. I took our “Notice to Vacate” form to the property manager for our building, a perpetually frowning chubby woman prone to wearing cat sweaters and who looks, more or less, like a forlorn Care Bear. I saw then the appeal of rules to the mediocre.

“You’re four days late!” she said, puffing herself to appear more threatening, like a squirrel. I apologized and explained that our new apartment had more or less fallen into our lap and asked if she could simply backdate the forms. After all it was only four days, two of which were Saturday & Sunday. That appeal for clemency brought about a startling metamorphosis and this wan, rotund woman suddenly came alive with the possibility of delivering unto someone else a portion of the misery that was her life: “Late is late! Unless we can fill the apartment you will have to pay next month’s rent AND right now we’ve already got one apartment vacant, so finding someone for yours is VERY unlikely.”

My first attempt a failure I then tried to take the same tact at the office of the property management company. I understand the point of rules - despite what the anarchists say, most of us could not function without some kind of external control and without it would barely have time to smash Piggy’s glasses before the entire planet was reduced to a cinder. That said, rules need wiggle room because life as a human gets messy and rarely unfolds according to plan.

This argument was of zero interest to the woman behind the counter at the property management company:

“Sorry, but you’re four days past the 30-day window.”

“I know, but I thought maybe because we’re moving from one building managed by this company to another...”

“You’re four days past the 30-day window.”

“...and both buildings are owned by the same man...”

“You’re four days past the 30-day window”

“...and I’ve been a good tenant for the last four years...”

“Four days...”

“ ...that you might backdate the forms for me.”

“...past the 30-day window.”

I would have had better luck arguing with a calculator.

Then I was given a “Late Notice to Vacate Form” which except for the word “Late” was identical to the “Notice to Vacate” form I had brought with me.

So now we were on the hook for $830, one month’s rent, unless Texas Instruments and the Human Ottoman managed to fill not one but TWO apartments. Nicky & I decided that this was unacceptable and so embarked on an ad campaign that could have sold American flags to Ho Chi Minh.

This resulted in the building manager, to whom Nicky had given the Troll-esque nickname “Grumpygrogs”, spending so much time showing the two apartments that hundreds of Billy goats must have merrily trip-trapped across her unattended bridge.

After a week of this she found tenants that she couldn’t turn away and stopped by our apartment to tell us before tromping home to watch “Toddlers & Tiaras” with the blinds drawn. The look on her face was that of a chubby-cheeked child who has been denied the opportunity to fry ants with a magnifying glass:

“We found people to take your apartment so YOU can take the ad off Used Victoria.”

“That’s great news! We’ll take it off Craigslist too. And Facebook. Twitter. Google Wave. The bulletin board at Thrifty’s. Safeway. Fairways. Quality Foods....”

She walked away before I could start on the coffee shops. Or mention that this all could have been avoided had she just backdated the forms in the first place.

Or how I intend to avoid this issue in future by being a Hermit Crab.

Not this crab, you understand. Think Younger. Stronger.
With all parts attached.

Interview: Committing 'Curious Crimes'

2011-06-19T10:24:00.000-07:00

This is the third and final interview I conducted for the Victoria-based music website What's Up Victoria!

2009 was a big year for the Sunday Buckets – the Victoria-based funk rock band released their debut album, In Case You Hear This, were subsequently chosen by local radio station The Zone 91.3 FM as October’s “Band of the Month” and played a number of gigs around the city to promote the new release. Now the band - brothers Kale & Jarrett Penny, Eric Frazer, Nick McRae, Chris Taylor & Adam Sutherland - are readying their second album, Curious Crimes, for its debut at Sugar Nightclub on Sunday, May 22.

Curious Crimes, produced by former Armchair Cynics guitarist Adam Sutherland, was recorded in early 2010 but had its release postponed. One reason for the delay, Jarrett explains, was that the group needed more time to promote their first album – no easy task in a market dominated by major labels. Kale jokes, “We called the first album In Case You Hear This for a reason.” Another reason came when the group parted ways with drummer Spencer Moyes: “We lost [Spencer] shortly after recording [Curious Crimes],” says Kale. “He...decided to go in a different direction.” Sutherland took Moyes’ spot behind the kit and though the group is actively seeking a drummer they’re in no hurry to see him go.

Of their sophomore release, Jarrett says “[Curious Crimes] is about being in your early 20s and...having a little too much fun every now and again.” The brothers estimate that about half of the new material was written at the same time as In Case You Hear This, but say that as the band’s identity emerged the album began to evolve. “The themes became more concrete,” says Kale. “We had an idea of what we wanted to sound like and what kind of music we wanted to play.”

When asked about their musical influences, Kale laughs and says, “I’m addicted to Kanye West right now, which is a bit embarrassing.” “When we were writing [Curious Crimes] it was all Kings of Leon,” Jarrett says, “but lately we’ve been influenced by...local bands like Said the Whale and Aiden Knight.”

Curious Crimes comes out on Sunday, May 22 with a CD release party at Sugar Nightclub. “We’re really excited,” says Jarrett. “Opening for us is a band called Carmanah. We saw them at Song & Surf up in Port Renfrew...they’re awesome.” DJs Nigel, Tedder & Primitive will also be on hand, with Gordon Blunt, of Bluntfaktory, handling visuals: “When you walk into Sugar it’s not going to look like Sugar,” says Jarrett. “It’ll look like our place for the night.”

The group is hoping that the new album will provoke a response from the music community and open doors into larger markets. In the meantime they are looking forward to playing the Tall Trees Music Festival in Port Renfrew, where island favourites Jets Overhead and Vince Vaccaro will be headlining.

As far as a follow-up to Crimes the band is in no rush. “We’ll take our time writing this next one,” says Kale. “Not to say it will be about being in your early 30s.”

Official website for the Sunday Buckets

Interview: Girls Like the Guitar

2011-06-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

This is the second of three interviews I conducted for the Victoria-based music website What's Up Victoria! The site has gone offline so I'm posting the interviews here..

Like so many people with natural talent Winnipeg native John Bakowski makes it all sound easy: “I just picked up the guitar when I was fifteen-sixteen....I was bored on a Saturday.” After four years of practicing 2-3 hours a day Bakowski makes it look easy too - when I first saw him outside Victoria’s Bedford Regency Hotel he was playing the Counting Crows’ “Mrs. Jones”, complete with vocals, and hitting every note.

Bakowski has been in Victoria six years and has been busking for the last two, playing covers of rock favourites to passersby. This year he plans on upgrading from his spot on Government Street: “I just applied for my Inner Harbour license...[I’m hoping] to find out soon,” he says. John smiles nervously then, the only sign of uncertainty I see from the laid-back 20-year-old.

When he’s not playing “Hotel California” to eager tourists Bakowski works part-time in a local eatery. Like many young musicians he wants to break into the industry and play music full-time: “I’m the kind of person who wants to be on everyone’s T.V., in everyone’s house....and” he says, a mischievous grin on his face, “girls like the guitar.”

This is all too apparent when partway into “House of the Rising Sun” a pretty young blonde in yoga pants joins in. She doesn’t know all the words but then, when you look like that, you don’t need to. After the song she trades smiles with John then walks away and turning to me he says humbly, “I think that had more to do with you taking pictures.” The hell it did.

A smile and a guitar go a long way in this world and as I take my leave of John, just as he launches into a tastefully edited version of Sublime’s “What I Got”, I can’t help but envy him just a little bit.

Interview: Now You See It...

2011-06-13T11:04:00.000-07:00

This is the first of three interviews I conducted for the Victoria-based music website What's Up Victoria! The site has gone offline so I'll be posting the interviews here..

Jordan Blaikie, better known as Jordano the Great, has been working his magic on Victoria's Inner Harbour for eight years now. A former Ashtanga yoga instructor and lapsed devotee of the raw food diet, Blaikie has always had a fondness for the mystical arts. “As a kid...I saw David Copperfield on TV and I was amazed,” he says. “Any magic show that was on I couldn’t wait to see.”

One of five children born to a Brentwood-based chiropractor, Blaikie, 31, was born in Ontario but spent his formative years in the state of California. In addition to being “Jordano the Great” Blaikie also writes articles online under the name “Liver Flush Man”, giving tips on how to do exactly that. “I’m...a liver flush expert,” he says, “I’ve done over 120 of them in a 2 year period.”

Blaikie was the second among his siblings to find themselves in the business of illusion. “[My] older sister... got into magic quite a while back,” he says. “She took classes from Tony Eng.” Eng, who died of cancer in 2008, was the owner of local Tony’s Trick & Joke Shop (now Murray’s) and a legend in the North American magician community. After Jordan’s sister put down the wand for good she passed the tricks and knowledge she had learned from Eng onto Jordan and he took them to the Inner Harbour.

“Being on the street like that...makes you a good magician,” says Blaikie. “If you’re practicing at home ...that’s good too but nothing beats a live audience.” His act includes magical standards like coin tricks along with ventures into new territory such as “Black Light Magic”, something Blaikie claims is new to the magic world. Gesturing to his table he says, “This is all made with fluorescents...they glow under black light.” Recently he began demonstrating his skills at the Sunset Room, Victoria’s after-hours rave venue. “You have got to be that much better,” he says. “If you flash anything...it glows in the black light...and [audiences] see it.”

As he launches into his grand finale, a complex version of the classic Cups & Balls routine, or shell game, Jordano the Great tells me to keep my eye on the ball. My eyes struggle to keep up with the shuffling cups until finally he comes to a halt and invites me to point out where I think the ball ended up. I, of course, choose the wrong one, and that pleases him no end. “Every magician wants to trick people,” he says. “They just don’t want to get caught.”

Check out Jordano's website, Tricky Magic Productions.

You're a Champion, Eagle-Eye

2011-06-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

Two cooks, a thief. Not pictured: his wife, her lover.

For those of you new to the site Largely the Truth was nominated for "Best Blog" & "Funniest Tweet" in the inaugural West Coast Social Media Awards. The awards dinner was just over a week ago and wouldn't you know, out of 18 nominees Largely the Truth placed in the top 5 for Best Blog. That's no small thing when your website consists of one guy shoehorning dick jokes into restaurant reviews.

As for Funniest Tweet? See above, baby. At first I was chagrined by the fact that my reviews & articles take hours to write yet I won an award for jokes that I cast off like cigarette butts, but then I remembered the words of my mother: "Shut up and say thank you!"

So thank you very much to everyone who voted!

Oh, and the winning "tweet"?

"It's like The Omega Man out here except instead of vampires I keep running into feral packs of douchebags."

If you're on the Twitter you can follow me by clicking here

Now let's get back to work. Any new restaurants I should be visiting?

Vote Early, Vote Often

2011-05-16T10:55:00.000-07:00

Vote by clicking the link below. Then tell your friends

In a bizarre twist of fate Largely the Truth has been nominated for two West Coast Social Media, or "Westie", awards - Funniest Tweet, for "It's like The Omega Man out here except instead of vampires I keep running into feral packs of douchebags", and Best Blog.

Voting has opened and though I do not have a naturally competitive nature I feel compelled to crush those who oppose me. You can help me do so by clicking here and voting (will open a new window).

Update:

As a former sixth grade student council president I'm no stranger to the campaign trail but even I was shocked and saddened to find "attack politics" being used for such a minor prize. Watch the video but don't be swayed by their smooth talk.

In Pictures: Sprawlapalooza, or That Time I Agreed With the Man in the Hemp Trousers

2011-05-02T11:15:00.000-07:00

What is it that makes Victoria so special? It could be any number of things I suppose: a mild climate, clean streets, or the Mr. Magoo-like way city hall overlooks the thriving sex and drug trades while fussing over how new downtown liquor licenses will affect public morality. Perhaps it’s the way so many talented people nod knowingly when the discussion turns to the job market and how it’s harder to get into than Doris Day’s business back when the getting was good. Or the heartstring-tugging way they wave goodbye, like kids on the way to a weekend at their mother’s, when’ve run out of money and steam and they light out for points east, taking all their enthusiasm and creativity with them.

My decision to move to Victoria rather than Vancouver was based on two things, the first being that I thought the place was drop-dead gorgeous. The second? Victoria was a busier place than the one I left, with far more options for work and play, and yet it managed to retain the feel of a small town. What’s more, you could see the horizon downtown without having your view obstructed by some priapic concrete monstrosity built solely for the purpose of providing foreign investors with somewhere to put their money other than Switzerland.

It was with some disappointment I learned that instead the city was dotted with smaller, more tasteful condominiums affordable only to Hong Kong businessmen looking for a place to stash their third mistress.

Since there’s no end of people moving to the city who would like to own their own property development has expanded outward, towns like Langford growing fat on Victoria’s exiled middle class. That has, in turn, driven up property prices in those bedroom communities and pushed development even further.

If you were to get in your car and drive west from Victoria you’d run out of road in a little town called Port Renfrew. Aside from the very beautiful Botanical Beach and the always-dependable Port Renfrew Hotel - try the “Angels on Horseback” oysters - there’s not much out that way that the average city-dweller would call entertaining. For those inclined to the outdoors, however, the west country is an almost unparalleled treasure.

In 1996, four small parks between the Port Renfrew Highway and the coastline of the Juan De Fuca Strait were connected by a strip of parkland and named the Juan De Fuca Provincial Park. According to a February 20, 2011 article in the Times Colonist by David Anderson, “[the Juan De Fuca Provincial Park] was designed to protect the previously existing Juan de Fuca Marine Trail which stretched 47 kilometres along the coast between Port Renfrew and Jordan River.” The areas between the park and the highway were private forest land under tree-farming licenses, which made them unavailable to developers, so there was a buffer of green space between the natural world and the fire-breathing steel golem that is progress.

I am told, by wise-looking bearded people educated in such things, that the biological diversity of the park is world-famous. I am also told, by similarly wise yet clean-shaven people, that the park and neighbouring green space is taking up some serious coastal real estate just begging for a Jamba Juice and Curves Fitness Centre. In the eyes of those who run the world the only thing more beautiful than a dewy meadow is the shopping mall waiting to be discovered beneath it. And so, a few years ago, the provincial government removed the Juan De Fuca private lands from the tree farming license, which opened them up to sale and development.

Now a development has been proposed along 12km of the Juan De Fuca Marine Trail – 200+ residences and a lodge are to be built right in the heart of the west country. This has not gone down well with local wilderness enthusiasts and advocacy groups and so a number of talks and rallies have been held to try and halt the development. The latest effort was Sprawlapalooza, a six hour concert and protest rally held on Saturday, April 30 and aimed at raising awareness for what’s happening along the Juan De Fuca. Wilderness Committee, Forest Action Network & the Dogwood Initiative

The event began at 3pm in Centennial Square, or Spirit Square as no-one calls it, with traditional Native song and dance by Esquimalt Nation members Auggie Thomas and Sean Brown Bryce. Then a handful of speakers, including Lynn Hunter from the Capital Region District, weighed in with words of encouragement and progress reports on the status of the opposition movement. What I gathered from the speeches was that things look rather bleak, as in “odds are we’re going to lose this but by God we’re going to make them work for it.” In the fight between money and what’s right, what’s right has the moral high ground but money has a length of lead pipe hidden in its trouser leg and friends on the jury.

I hope I’m wrong about all this but as long as there are nursing school grads who want to own a condo until they can marry someone from CFB Esquimalt and buy a house in Langford, and downtown property costs more than Hell’s last sno-cone, the bulldozers won’t stop until they hit the sea.

There is no love lost between me and the green movement - so many of the people who espouse its philosophy are pompous hypocrites who talk about “the noble poor” then ride off on $5,000 bicycles. The kind of people who eat the 100 Mile Diet so they can lord it over everyone else like a Boy Scout badge awarded for learning to hold your breath with your head up your own ass.

There is no love lost between me and the green movement but this time I’m on their side– Victoria’s proximity to the kind of beauty that’s found on the Juan De Fuca Trail makes the city special in a way that places like Uptown can’t. The beauty of the region, the thing that attracted me and so many other people here in the first place, is what makes bearable having to swallow your pride and your education before serving chicken wings to poorly-mannered urbanites with more business cards than original thoughts.

Developing the Juan De Fuca Trail would be an a devastating loss for the environment and for us – just because you’re not inclined to the outdoors doesn’t mean that your kids won’t be.

What follows is a photo recap of the first three hours of the rally, including opening song and dance by Auggie Thomas & Sean Brown Bryce, of the Esquimalt Nation, as well as music and dancing from the performance by Kuba Oms. Pictures were taken by me and my good friend Dan Eastabrook of Real Life, Real Light Photography.

Esquimalt Nation members Auggie Thomas (left) and Shawn Brown Bryce

How much is that Kuba Oms in the window?

Kuba Oms gets things started

No one expected Mr. Fish Man to hit the dating circuit so soon after the divorce

Not one to be outdone, the former Mrs. Maples-Fish Man
soon hit the dance floor as well

"My eyes are up here, buddy."

Too much, too young, too fast

The party continued despite the Fish Man's tragic death.
Or perhaps because of it.

It's not the unicycle that makes him cool
it's that he rides it with a tree growing
out of his head

All my captions for this were unusually awful.
Help me out by submitting a funny caption for this
picture to bren@largelythetruth.com.

If I choose your caption you get a $20 gift certificate
for La Fiesta Cafe and credit on the site.

Website for the Wilderness Committee

Fernwood Inn | 1302 Gladstone Avenue | Victoria

2011-04-13T17:29:00.000-07:00

The small neighborhoods, or villages, that dot Victoria are one of the city's hidden charms. Some are more interesting than others, James Bay Village in particular feels like an open air home for the elderly and the boring, but with a range of independent businesses and often unique architecture they all have their own appeal. Fernwood Village always seems peaceful, rather than boring and at midday that's a welcome change from downtown and the rush of Blackberry-wielding power suits who pull down six figures but have all the social graces of water buffalo.

The Fernwood Inn sits right at the corner of Fernwood and Gladstone, one-time terminus for the BCER streetcar line. That was, of course, in the days before municipal planners everywhere got a hard-on for buses and started tearing up streetcar tracks like they were parking tickets. The Fernwood Inn is a big place and with its pleasant yellow paint job and half-timbered exterior it’s hard to miss. From the look of it I gather that the architect wanted “mock Tudor” but decided mocking was altogether too much effort and settled for “bathroom-wall sketch of Tudor making it with a horse.” While that statement implies I don’t like the building nothing could be further from the truth – I think it’s one of the nicer-looking places around town. It is a difficult thing, to be loved by me.

The restaurant was quiet when Nicky & I arrived, the lunch rush had passed and only a few tables were full. The sign told us to seat ourselves and so we found a booth on the right side of the restaurant. The interior of the Fernwood Inn is cheerful and bright, owed in equal measures to a colour palette chosen by someone on Prozac’s good side and an abundance of large windows. Shortly after we were seated a waiter, Callum, stopped by to bring us menus and take our drink order. A glance at said menu showed the prices to be about standard for Victoria pubs, with burgers in the $11-15 range. For an appetizer we chose the “Proper Poutine” ($10), described as “local fresh cheese curds, melted with our rich, roasted duck and chicken gravy all on a pile of crisp fries.”

Poutine is a larded-up wallop to your stomach whose salty allure overruns your taste buds like the Catholics at Montsegur; the best poutine will render you bloated and immobile, your blood-pressure so high that tinnitus makes your eardrums sing with the mosquito whine of Hell’s choir. Fernwood Inn’s “Proper Poutine” was entirely too proper - rather than overrunning Montsegur it was content to leave a flaming bag at the doorstep. The chicken & duck gravy was thin and though Nicky said she liked the “subtle flavour” I found it so subtle as to be nonexistent. In its defense the cheese curds were quite good and the dish was hot enough that they began to melt around the fries, making the thing a big cheesy mess, which worked in its favour. Not a poor first course but not something I care to order again.

The “Polenta & Prawn Skillet with chorizo sausage & fresh goat cheese with watercress & tomato” ($13) was another story - it made an impression from the moment it landed at the table, so hot I think it burned the fingerprints off Callum’s hand. I don’t often eat polenta, mostly because it actually takes effort to prepare, and this skillet, with a firm, but still fluffy square of polenta in the center surrounded by creamy goat cheese, made me realize I have been missing out. There was more prawn & chorizo than expected and the tomatoes were grilled, which was a nice touch.

My one quibble is that the chef chose not to remove the tails of the prawns before cooking and serving them. This may pitifully minor but try removing the tail from shrimp so hot it could have been fished from the seas of the sun and you will understand. I know absolutely nothing about watercress other than it looks like the lean, hard George to broccoli’s hulking simpleton Lenny and its presence at the table failed to enlighten me. It sat on top of the skillet looking, for all the world, like an upended bag of lawn clippings, and though I ate every stalk, or frond, or whatever, I am hard pressed to tell you anything significant about the experience. Of the skillet itself I can say that it was a rich, filling dish I would gladly order again.

I can’t quite pin down why I want to go back to the Fernwood Inn. Don’t get me wrong, our table service, courtesy of Callum, was first-rate and the food was well-made but those are not the things that seem to draw me back. Maybe it’s the cheeriness of the decor or the vast windows that allow me to keep an eye out for both parking wardens and that most irrefutable proof of God’s love – women in yoga pants, I don’t know. Whatever it is, it makes the Fernwood Inn seem like a comfortable place to enjoy a beer and a bite as the world strolls past.

There are a lot of things that make Victoria special – the beauty of the Inner Harbour on a summer’s night, the way Mayor Fortin & his staff are patiently waiting for the Rapture to thin out the Colwood Crawl so they don’t have to admit to being wrong about the railroad. You can add afternoons at the Fernwood Inn to that list.

In Pictures: The 2011 Capital City Tattoo Convention

2011-04-04T16:20:00.000-07:00

The 2011 Capital City Tattoo Convention was held at Victoria's Pearkes Arena on March 18-20. I do not have any tattoos - I have a hard enough time committing to a pair of shoes - but I find body art fascinating and the convention didn't disappoint, with people sporting body mods, gaping holes where holes are not typically expected and subcutaneous ink galore. There was also that most impressive of alternative culture traits - the triangular goatee. It's special not only because it can't be grown by just anyone but because to sport one instantly makes you look like you should be playing guitar for Metallica or chasing Denzel Washington across the bayou in a fanboat.

The three-day event also featured tattoo artists from across Canada & the United States, along with vendors like Steve Drane Harley Davidson & a man selling organic coffee who could also wield nunchuks in an impressive fashion. To his credit the nunchuks were not part of his sales pitch.

There was a constant line up of bands that played the festival beer garden over the weekend. Some talented local groups, like Fast Machine (whose lead singer is known to cause an uncomfortable tightness in the trousers), Turnpike Bandits (whose lead singer wears uncomfortably tight trousers) & convention closer Black Hat Villain (who wore no trousers) blew the eardrums off an appreciative crowd. There were also a handful of performers like Bloody Betty & Russ Fox: The Human Tacklebox

What follows is a photo recap from the final day of the convention, including a performance by the charming & erudite Russ Fox, a performance by Black Hat Villain and a handful of contestants in the Capital City Best of Show awards.

This is Russ Fox, the Human Tacklebox.
He is a very personable man.

She bet $5 he couldn't take the pain. He...wins?

Now he is hanging a cinderblock from a hook
in his throat.

Keep in mind that he does this for fun.
Suddenly remember why you collect stamps.

Yes, he's really going to do it.

He's also into suspension. I asked him if it hurt and he said, "Mind over matter."
That means "yes, very much."

The Aristocrats

Fast Machine

Scotty Tuesday & Ian Chisholm from Black Hat Villain

Voted "Most Likely to Look Like Jason Newsted" by
his high school grad class.

This guy really likes the Trailer Park Boys

This man enjoys his job.

He's a Christmas pirate, in case you were unsure

Meet Earl.

I think it's safe to say that Earl
likes horror movies

"Uh-huh. Uh-huh. That's whatever you're talking about for you."

This guy & Earl should hang out

If I had to take the picture then you have to look at it.

And we end as we began.

A Bullet for Dumbo

2011-04-01T13:50:00.000-07:00

Recently, Bob Parsons, founder & CEO of GoDaddy.com shot an elephant in the village of Labola, Zimbabwe and then posted a video of the kill online. Now the interwebs are afire with cries of "1-2-3-4! When our domain comes up for renewal we won't renew with you...anymore!" Animal rights group PETA have branded Parsons "Scummiest CEO of the Year", canceled their GoDaddy account and said they won't be his friend anymore. All over the world groups of white-collar workers have emerged from their fallout shelter to find themselves shocked at the possible existence of a morally bankrupt CEO.

The idea that Bob Parsons is the sleaziest CEO of the year seems a bit of a stretch, too. Far be it for me to accuse PETA (motto “It’s not fair, man”) of naiveté but I thought that the 2008 economic crash put to bed any lingering notions we had that corporate executives are anything but avatars of Satan who devour innocent children while watching Mad Men.

Parsons has tried to explain the context of the video, which shows his hunting party laying in wait for, firing on and eventually killing one of the elephants which had been ravaging a farmer's sorghum field. The next day villagers butcher the animal and dispense the meat. Says Parsons, "The people there have very little, many die each year from starvation and one of the problems they have is the elephants...that trash many of their fields destroying the crops." He forgets to add that he was also doing the elephants a favor by saving them from a life lived in constant fear of mice and being cast in Robert Pattinson films.

PETA countered by saying, "Instead of coming up with flimsy excuses for killing these highly intelligent and social animals, Parsons should use his wealth to fund humane solutions to human/elephant conflicts,". They conveniently sidestep the question of who tells a starving farmer that the issue of his ruined livelihood is being looked into by an advisory committee. They also miss the real point of this or any hunt, which is to allow soft western men like Bob Parsons to act out scenes from "White Hunter, Black Heart".

Said one outraged Twitter user: "People in power need to remember they don't have carte blanche to behave...in this way. Not in this day & age." People in power? He is the CEO of a popular web hosting service, not the chairman of the Bilderberg Group. In fact, if he were a regular at Davos this story would never have broken in the first place. Old money knows that the only way they can continue to spend their vacations hunting the homeless on tropical islands is if the hoi polloi remain ignorant.

My real problem with this issue is that big-game hunting and poaching are every day occurrences in Africa and other parts of the world where prosperity is in short supply yet cries of outrage are few and far between. Why? Because poachers are frightening men, usually armed and unreceptive to criticism. Bob Parsons on the other hand is a computer geek who looks a bit like Chunk from The Goonies launched into middle age, making him a soft target for the furious mouse clicks and Facebook groups of armchair activists. With their stores of self-satisfaction running low and Movember still eight months away these people will huff and puff about animal rights until they get bored and retreat back into their cubicles.

What do you think? Tell me off in the comments section.

That Don't Make It Junk - Freecycling & You

2011-03-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

The world has finite resources. I know this because for the last decade Al Gore & Michael Moore have been living in my television making frantic, bearded love while David Suzuki teaches them about “the nature of things”.

I know because of the lingering sense of guilt I feel every time I drive the car to work or throw away an empty jar of peanut butter rather than take the time to wash and toss it in the blue bin. I know that every time I throw away a Cola can a village in the Congo is burned to the ground while white hunters chase aluminum wildebeests through the embers, taking their hide for foil wrap and their organs for pie plates.

I know all this so I separate my plastic and my glass; I compost my kitchen waste & only watch television programs with recycled jokes. And when I have a household item that is of no particular use to me I have learned to “freecycle” rather than throw it away.

What is freecycling? It is the practice of taking things you no longer need and leaving them at the curb because they will take up too much room in your trash. There is also a website, www.freecycling.org, where you can advertise your surplus of hemp sweaters to penniless Australian snowboarders. After first contact you agree on a time for either pickup or delivery then hand your unneeded endtable/sofa/bongs over to Bogan & Bru and hope they don’t pick up any silverware on their way out.

Back home when we no longer had any use for a household item it was donated to Uncle Troy’s raccoon habitat. Of course it was more a sprawling kingdom of rusted-out appliances kept on his property ’for parts' than it was actual animal refuge. Still, we all humoured Troy, mostly because being able to send our half-working toasters and microwave ovens his way meant no one in our family had to buy extra garbage tags.

And this was after he cleaned it up.

The city bylaw inspector finally put an end to the practice when his son Jude was attacked by a raccoon in Troy’s yard. No charges were filed, mostly because Jude had been sent by the inspector himself to drop off an unused bread maker.

Freecycling is a far more elegant solution, I’ll grant you, but it too is not without problems. For example, every box of free cookware I see out on the street corner has a mouldering sofa somewhere in the vicinity to keep it company. This says to me that some people do not understand the distinction between “freecycling” and “littering”.

Yes.

If you have purchased a new set of crockery and your old set is still useable, leaving it in a box marked “free” is “freecycling.” If your sofa is so decrepit that it has taken on the odour of dead men then chances are no one else wants it either and leaving it at the curb because “it’s better than throwing it away” is “littering”.

Sharing the things we no longer need without compensation is a wonderful thing. If more people did it the world would be a better place. However we must do it the right way.

No.

First you must realize that it is sometimes okay to throw things away. Recycling is great and we should try to do so whenever possible but certain things are single use only and others are meant to be junked once bits have begun falling off. Next you must actually dispose of the item in a way that ensures no one else is forced to clean up after you.

Small items can be thrown by hand into the dumpster. Larger items need to be brought to the town dump. If you don’t own a truck, that’s fine, make friends with someone who does and have them help you.

Still no.

If they own an enormous Ford Compensator that they drive only to and from hair appointments then lose their phone number shortly after the deed is done. Don’t worry about hurting their feelings – they don’t have any.

If you are unable to find someone with a truck then there are a number of services in every major city that employ thick-necked men named Otis who specialize in moving heavy things from one place to another. They will charge for the privilege, of course, but it’s a small price to pay for the peace of mind which comes from knowing you helped save your neighbourhood from looking like Uncle Troy’s yard.

If you’ve ever been bitten by a raccoon you’ll know how valuable that really is.

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Chery DeWolfe, author of Frugal Victoria among other things, has a great Flickr account cataloging botched freecycling efforts: Click here to check it out (will open a new window)

Why You're Still Single (For the Guys)

2011-03-05T17:00:00.000-08:00

It’s been two weeks since I posted “Largely the Truth…about Why You’re Still Single (For the Ladies)". While a few readers have weighed in via e-mail with comments that range from “That was sexist” to “You’re a big jerk” to “Sleep with one eye open” (thanks, mom), I’ve paid them little heed. I have been too busy having rose petals thrown at my feet and throngs of adoring women shyly asking if they can touch my biceps (you may). Having brought harmony to the fairer sex it is time that I spread the fairy dust of my wisdom to Mars and usher in a new age of understanding between the sexes – the Age of Brenquarius.

What follows is Largely the Truth…about Why You’re Still Single (For the Guys):

Your idea of physical fitness stops at “lifting my legs so mom can vacuum under the sofa”:

No one asks that you be able to zest lemons on your abdominals but if you bought an XBOX Kinect “because it’s just as good as a gym membership” then you’re doing it wrong.

You think your hobbies are interesting to everyone:

While many women enjoy painting, they have little to no interest in swabbing "bloodthirsty red" model paint on the many robotic protuberances of a Warhammer miniature. In fact, most potential mates are going to be put off by any conversation which references the thousands of dollars you have spent on what amount to militarized Precious Moments figurines or distant lands which exist only in your computer.

You are looking for a woman to "take care of you":

You already had one of these - she was called your mother and she kicked you out too. Unless, of course, you are Italian, in which case your mother is reading this to you right now. If you cannot take care of yourself then you have more immediate concerns than finding a mate.

You try to get out of household chores by pretending you are helpless:

No one actually enjoys washing dishes or taking out the trash but if you've managed to put a plate back in the cupboard with half a chicken still on it or cut off your own hand trying to tie up a Hefty bag then you should take a long hard look in the mirror. Helplessness is only sexy if you are Faye Wray. You are not Faye Wray.

Your romantic aspirations revolve around your buddies' girlfriends:

Stepping outside your comfort zone to establish new connections is scary but even scarier is becoming known in your circle of friends as "The Creeper". It is no crime to befriend a buddy's significant other, after all if they are part of his life then they are, by association, part of yours, but using that friendship to subtly try and convince them you are the better option makes you a bastard of the highest order. Persisting in this behavior will ensure you remain not only single but eventually friendless as well.

You refuse to dress like a grown up:

There is a world outside full of women eager to meet men who already know that board shorts are not formal wear. Buy some shirts that button up in the front, retire the baseball cap and seek out a pair of shoes that don't look like they were stolen from a recently deceased vagrant. You could even try shining them.

You think that pornography is an accurate depiction of human sexual relations:

Female adult performers are paid to pretend that they are furniture with conveniently placed holes; in real life women get upset if you treat them like talking masturbatory aids. You may have noticed that, in pornography, the fun is over after Johnny Hung makes a mess of someone's makeup. In a shocking revelation, real life women have needs and desires that extend beyond your own gratification.

You say that all you need to be happy is a cabin in the woods far away from the world:

There are very few women who relish the idea of pursuing the rustic life once enjoyed by Henry David Thoreau and the Unabomber. Having generally more common sense than men, they are fond of such luxuries as indoor plumbing and not having to worry about being eaten by bears. Finally, you are just as much a child of the modern world as anyone - after one week of Walden you will miss SpikeTV and after three you will be attempting to fashion twigs, pitch and apricot stones into a pistol so that you may shoot yourself.

You believe women are only interested in tycoons and underwear models:

This is an excuse. Most good, honest gals respond to simple things: confidence, kindness and enough ambition to see you periodically part ways with the sofa. There is nothing sexy about you putting on the long face in the hopes that someone will choose you like a puppy at the pound. Likewise, no modern gal worth her salt has any use for a man whose only visible means of support is the chair in which he is currently napping.

You are indecisive:

You are a man – act like one. It is not necessary that you run around town lifting weights and punching waiters but, for God’s sake, assert yourself. It is one thing to “float like a leaf on the river of life” and quite another to be “bent over staring at the floor tiles of life’s shower room.”

And so ends the Largely the Truth…about Why You`re Still Single. What do you think dear reader? Have I missed anything? Would YOU like to touch my biceps? The comments section beckons.

A Little Oral Magic - Victoria's First Spoken Word Festival

2011-02-24T13:03:00.000-08:00

The very first Victoria Spoken Word Festival is happening this weekend, from Thursday to Saturday. I'll be in attendance covering the event for the University of Victoria's radio station, CFUV. Click the links below for my take on the proceedings as well as event information. Tickets are cheap, so come out and hear some spoken word and performance poetry.

Make sure you click the various links when reading the posts. There's gold in them there hills.

Post 1: The Festival is Almost Upon Us - Getting to Know Your Spoken Word Festival

Post 2: Mood Lighting & Revelations - The opening night party at The Mint

Post 3: The Big Night / In Fact It's Cold as Hell - Away we go...

Post 4: Tongues of Fire, Part I - Coffee shops, Ryefield Ford & a motel made out of backpacks

Post 5: More Tongue - Tongues of Fire, Part II - Smashing watermelons, Prufrock & the Sasquatch

Post 6: Awesome Shit Showcase, Part I - Ryefield Ford, Jai'aquarian & Definitely Not Jamiroquai

Post 7: More Awesome Shit - Nat Spadez, Jeremy Loveday & Bear ALWAYS Wins

Post 8: All Good Things, Part I - R.C Weslowski takes us to Skullfucker Canyon

Post 9: All Good Things, Part II - On the Edge Showcase, looking to the future

Why You're Still Single (For the Ladies)

2011-02-21T18:09:00.000-08:00

Love can be as austere and permanent as the spaces between stars or as beautiful and short-lived as the promises made between children. From within, love can seem as easy as breathing and from without, as impenetrable as Dutch math - entire industries have sprung up around helping the lovelorn unravel the mysteries of the tender trap. I have decided to use my unique position as restaurant reviewer, humorist, philosopher and the final word in masculinity to help bridge the gulf between lovers and the loveless.

What follows is the Largely the Truth Guide to Why You’re Still Single (For the Ladies)

You refer to your cats (because they will be cats) as your children/dress them up in baby’s clothes:

You think this is cute and that someday a man will come along who too appreciates fluffy-wuffy and his bonnet. If this man does manifest he is probably a serial murderer and you will pass your next birthday in his crawlspace.

You describe your dream man to a date even though they look nothing alike:

Shape-shifters are far less common than fantasy novels and comics books would have us believe. In fact, there have been no documented case of human beings instantaneously changing shape. There are, however, a number of documented cases where eligible bachelors climbed out the bathroom window of a a restaurant before dessert because their date spent 15 minutes telling them about the man, taller and more handsome than they, who will one day sweep her off her feet. This also applies to anything more than passing references to ex-boyfriends.

You think having a menstrual cycle means never having to say you're sorry:

If you find yourself thinking that, for seven to ten days, you are excused from the rules of behaviour which govern the rest of humanity and are free to spread fear and cruelty like a hemorrhagic Rasputin then you are wrong. And though you may firmly believe that "if you can't handle me at my worst then you don't deserve me at my best", if your worst necessitates locking you in a root cellar like the Wolfman then you have work to do.

You have unusual religious beliefs that you insist on sharing with every new person you meet:

Your faith is part of who you are but you need to recognize that if you drop the phrase “past-life regression” on the first date you could be spending a lot of Friday nights at home watching “The ‘L’ Word”. Ease potential partners into your belief system – make a passing mention of “chakras” on the second date and gauge reaction. Do not mention the word “kundalini” until at least date number three.

“He has to be over six feet, muscular and have a great head of hair”:

If you have taken to assessing men's dating potential the way you would shop for produce then you will end up dating vegetables. If you think he is the pinnacle of human evolution then chances are he does too.

You tell anyone who will listen that you want "a real man, not a boy":

This is commonly heard from unpleasant women as a way to rationalize why the opposite sex treats them like lepers. If you can ask yourself, "exactly what do I mean by a 'real man' and, if he exists, what interest would he have in a woman with the personality of a garbage disposal" then you are on the right track.

You tell prospective partners things like, “In five years I see myself living in an ashram/cabin in the mountains/abandoned oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico”:

You’ll notice that these statements don’t lend much wiggle room to your future. Men appreciate challenges – being told “you’ll never climb to the top of that mountain” makes us harden our resolve to prove that nothing is impossible. These statements, however, are the equivalent of saying, “You’ll never climb to the top of that mountain, and if you do a gorilla will be waiting for you at the top to box your ears and poop in your hat.” This is all quite apart from the fact that in five years you’ll still be reading self-help books in an overstuffed coffee shop easy chair.

You often find yourself thinking, "All the good ones are married, taken or gay!":

There is a third option - they are hiding from you.

Check this space in two weeks time for “Largely the Truth: Why You’re Still Single (For the Guys)”. An abbreviated version of this article appears in the Wednesday, February 23rd edition of the newspaper Diversity Reporter.

Spirit in the Sky - Earthquakes, God & the One Who Got Away

2011-02-14T14:28:00.000-08:00

I miss God. Not in that aching, “We used to ride bikes every day until her parents moved back to Waukegan and the next time I saw her she was grinding onstage at a bar in The Dalles with singles tucked into her underpants” kind of way, no. I miss the sense of scale that the idea of God brought to the world, and the Old Testament sabre-rattling that used to keep in line a people which comedian Lewis Black once described as “ten hairs away from being baboons.”

When I was younger and rounder my very Catholic grandmother decided that I needed to be placed in Catechism so as to begin honing my sense of guilt. For the uninitiated, Catechism is Catholic religious school, usually held on sunny weekends so as to prepare you for a lifetime of the church ruining things you enjoy.

There, Sister Cecelia would instruct us on prayers, scripture and how to wield a disapproving frown like a loaded gun. The boredom was almost painful – kids, imagine having to ride the bus without your iPod – and the only saving grace, at least for me, was the Old Testament.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a particularly religious person, but I appreciate a good story as much as anyone and there was something to be said for an antihero running around the desert kicking ass and burning down bushes. I didn’t particularly believe in God but I liked the sense of balance He lent to the world: Pharaoh wanted to be a hard-on? He got ten plagues and busloads of fat American tourists tramping all over his grave for eternity. God may have gone off the rails a few times, in my opinion the people of Sodom & Gomorrah just liked to rock n’ roll, but I felt that He and the people had an understanding: piss me off and you’ll know it.

Then, of course, science came along and we figured out that thunderstorm, or a disaster like an earthquake was just the planetary equivalent of Parkinson’s. Once, disasters made us problem solvers – the ground moved, so the old bearded man in the clouds must be unhappy about something and we should probably work up a flow-chart and figure out what we’ve done wrong.

The brilliant part about this idea was that, being human, everyone was up to something underhanded and this kind of thing provided a swift, corrective, kick in the ethics. Most folks quietly removed their hands from their pants and/or their neighbour’s pocket and got on with their lives in a slightly more righteous fashion all the while casting nervous glances upward. Sure, they relapsed again from time to time but there was always another famine or drought for them to interpret as a rap on the nose with a newspaper.

Now that we know all about weather patterns, fault lines and tectonic plates, so long as the shaking doesn’t rattle our soda can off the coffee table we change channels and get on with it. Just last week in the Victoria area we registered a morning temblor at 2.9 on the Richter Scale and you know what? I slept through the damn thing.

The earth shifted beneath our feet and I continued snoring for another hour. Many people in the city didn’t even notice and the few who did couldn’t wangle a day off work out of the whole thing and so it was, at most, water cooler conversation. Imagine, for a second, that God is real –how pissed must He be:

“Tectonic nothing – it was Me, you assholes! I’m angry! Pay attention to me! Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

To be clear, I’m not talking about the God that half of America was convinced wanted them to elect an illiterate warmonger as their president 8 years running. Nor am I thinking of the neurotic micromanager who cares whether or not you find your keys or who wins the Superbowl. I’m thinking more of that angry, defiant God who issues cosmic bitch slaps when we get too big for our britches - that grand authoritarian who is gruff but loving in his way and ever so slightly clueless. The God who one day stepped away from his desk to make a sandwich and discovered upon his return that we had figured out oral sex: “What are they doing now? I leave for five minutes...that’s the wrong end, stupid!”

He may or may not be there but I can pretend all the same - it amounts to the same thing. And besides, there’s something appealing about the idea of disaster making us better people.

Glo Euro Pub & Grill | 104 - 2940 Jutland Road | Victoria

2011-02-08T12:37:00.000-08:00

For years I had thought that the area between Rock Bay & Gorge Road was of interest only to cement companies and anyone wanting to pick up a transvestite prostitute. My old gym, Club Phoenix, is on Government close to Bay and working out in the evening meant being propositioned by at least one worn-out queen on the walk home. Imagine, then, my surprise when I learned that the neighbourhood was home to Glo Euro Pub & Grill, a well-recommended lunch and dinner spot with an amazing view of the Gorge Waterway.

Victoria is a beautiful city – that’s the reason I moved here and one of the reasons I stay. Strangely enough, given all that beauty, there are few enough places where you can enjoy both the view and a worthwhile meal: the Wharfside has a stupendous view of the harbour with food that borders on the inedible.

The Canoe Club has what is probably the best patio in the city, but getting there requires braving a neighbourhood strewn with human wreckage. Over the years I have spent hundreds of dollars on food at the Canoe Club and come away disappointed every time. It’s always busy though, a testament to its popularity with men and women in oversized sunglasses whose caloric intake is limited to what can be mixed with orange juice or tonic water.

We pulled up to Glo around 1 o’clock with the sun shining on the water. The free parking along the road was a nice touch and the condition of the area caught me by surprise. The design of the buildings, the steel and glass, and the configuration of the street gave me a brief sense of unreality, as though I was no longer in Victoria. I don’t mean that as a slight but it stood out in stark contrast to the surrounding neighbourhood’s motif of faded signage and napping transients. We entered the pub and were seated right away in a booth by the window.

The lunch rush was dressed in Hugo Boss and I felt a bit shamefaced about my weather-beaten gym shoes and t-shirt until I noticed that one of the televisions above the bar was tuned to professional wrestling. When your definition of acceptable entertainment has grown to encompass sweaty men in tights busily groping one another, shame has long ago bought a ticket for the westbound train.

Our waitress was as efficient and friendly as she needed to be. My coffee and Dan's soda turned up quickly and she remained attentive to refills so I have no complaints.

Our starter was the "calamari frito", "crispy fried squid, artichoke + jalapeño, lemon + artichoke tapenade + roasted jalapeño ranch" ($11). The portion was generous, the calamari was tender rather than chewy and the jalapeños were a nice touch but the plate was far too oily, even for a deep fried dish and the artichokes were more out of place than Keanu Reeves in "Bram Stoker's Dracula".

Ever the adventurer, I chose a grilled cheese sandwich for my main. In my defense it wasn’t just any grilled cheese sandwich but one with "shaved rosemary ham, caramelized pear and blue cheese" on sourdough bread ($14) with a side Caesar. I am the Mundane Gourmet.

The sandwich was good - "sex with your high school gym teacher" good. The blue cheese was thick and rich, the pears added a hint of sweetness and they were both backed up by a rhythm section of thinly sliced ham. The Caesar salad was like an expectant father in the delivery room: it was present but no one particularly cared. Whether or not all that was worth $14 depends, I suppose, on how good looking your high school gym teacher was. Since mine looked like a gorilla trained to walk upright I felt I had overpaid.

I have often heard Glo compared to the Canoe Club which, I suppose, isn't much of a stretch - both are trendy, upmarket pubs with stupendous views and lovely patios, and both are in neighbourhoods where no one would be particularly surprised to find that a curbside garbage bag contains human remains. For me, however, the comparison falls apart in customer satisfaction: while overpriced, my meal was very good.

Living, as I do, a fair distance from Glo I’m unlikely to make it a regular, or even semi-regular stop, but I would happily return. In comparison, the only way you'll get me back into Canoe Club is if they hire Uma Thurman and Charlotte Church to perform selections from "The Story of O" as dinner theatre. It’s not perfect but, for now, Glo is my choice for best downtown combination of view and value.

Ringing in the New Year, Victoria-style

2010-12-30T17:56:00.000-08:00

We are in the twilight of another year, that brief break in the ryhthmic breath of the universe when we pause to consider the mistakes we made in the last 12 months and prepare to repeat them. As always, everyone will ring in the new year in their own way. Some will already be in bed when the big moment comes, some will be off their face on Jack Daniels and glue, some will be hurriedly packing their mountain caves with ammunition and tinned ham in preparation for the big showdown in 2012, when everyone's favorite feathery serpent will rain down the kind of destruction we haven't seen since Y2K.

If you hadn't planned on sleeping, playing the Kiefer Sutherland home game or preparing to shamefacedly greet the dawn on December 22, 2012, chances are you're looking for something to do. Maybe you're looking for a party, or looking to plan one of your own. Since my invitations to social functions keep getting lost in the mail I won't be much help with the former, but if you want to plan a successful New Year's Eve extravaganza then you're in the right place.

Here is the Largely the Truth guide to planning a successful Victoria-style New Years Eve party, sure to attract many important people wearing scarves:

1 - Theme: You may be surprised that a New Year's Eve Party requires a theme, but everyone in the know understands that it is surpassingly gauche to celebrate something as banal as the successful revolution of one celestial body around another. First and foremost, you must identify a theme that easily lends itself to costumes. The city's cultural elite love nothing more than crawling over top one another in Value Village to find the accessory that best compliments their Post-Existentialist, Pre-Raphaelite Chimney Sweep outfit.

2 - What to Serve: No doubt you foolishly thought you could feed your guests microwaved morsels from M&M Meats, or a tray of deli meats from Thrifty's. This would be an insult to the delicate palate of those who live in a Capital City. Do you think the refined citizenry of other Capital Cities like Carson City, Nevada, or Springfield, Illinois would lower themselves to the level of jalapeno peppers filled with cream cheese? I think not. Instead consider something like fondue, with fair-trade cheese made from the milk of cows who have a keen sense of irony.

3 - Cultural Sensitivity: Remember that not everyone celebrates the New Year in the same way. For the Chinese, new year begins in February. For Boston Red Sox fans New Year ceased to be important after winning the 2007 World Series. Including aspects of these disparate celebrations into your own, for example by handing out small red envelopes filled with money or burning pictures of Bill Buckner, will impress your guests.

4 - Guest List: First you must remember that the number of people who show up will be inversely proportional to the number of people you invite. Just as Groucho Marx refused to join any club that would have him as a member, so too will Victoria's glitterati spurn events so accessible as to issue invitations. Exclusivity is the key to popularity, and so for maximum turnout follow this one simple step: do not invite anyone. This may seem counter-productive to a properly functioning social event but I assure you that the air of mystery will draw more guests than a seminar on social media.

If you truly want to go the extra mile, send out "unvitations" - small note cards expressing regret that the recipient is not welcome at your planned soirée. Employ this tactic sparingly, however, as it will likely cause such things as a lineup at the door, television coverage and an appearance by Gwyneth Paltrow.

So there you have it, four tips on hosting the ultimate Victoria New Year's Eve party. I look forward to my having my unvitation lost in the mail.

I Gave Up My Bus Pass For This? - Driving in Victoria

2010-12-14T15:18:00.000-08:00

Until this August it had been seven years since I’d driven an automobile. In some circles this declaration would be cause for games of celebratory hacky-sack and lengthy speeches about how everything cruel and savage in this world is powered by the internal combustion engine.

I’d like to say that my reasons were ideological. That I abstained because of some objection to the way Mother Earth has been viciously subjugated by the demoniac heralds of that brutal warlord Henry Ford. This would be a craven lie. In actual fact, for years I have simply been too lazy to take a driver’s test.

When I was younger, the process of getting into BC’s graduated licensing system seemed far too complex, like university or sexual politics. Also, I was living in Revelstoke, a town smaller than some American tourists. If it wasn’t walking distance, it wasn’t worth the time.

My outlook didn’t change after moving to the coast. Between B.C. Transit and the power of my own two feet, I was always able to arrive at places with more than enough time for everyone else to shuffle in 30 minutes late, adjusting their scarves and talking about “island time.”

Recently, however, the realization crept upon me that over the years I had traveled, offended honest, god-fearing people on several continents and yet could not drive to the Bird of Paradise for a plate of wings.

After plunging headlong into the graduated licensing system I am at the “N” stage. This means that I am allowed to drive alone so long as I do not wear a racing scarf or drive under the influence of The Fast & the Furious. While I am enjoying my newfound freedom to be caught in the Colwood Crawl some frustrations have made themselves known.

I was required to pass both a written and practical test in order to get this far. I was not the only person at the test centre, in actual fact there were a great number of people there. So, imagine my surprise when I learned that while I’m busy shoulder-checking, everyone else is apparently re-living the more exciting parts of Bullitt.

Last week, after following a truck for several blocks and watching it change lanes numerous times without any indication, I went home and googled “turn signals” to see if perhaps they were some kind of secret. On too many occasions I’ve nearly collided with pedestrians who confuse “crossing a busy street” with “stepping across their lounge to pick up the remote control.”

And as for the cyclists – I worry about them. I worry that all the fresh air and self-satisfaction is impairing their survival instinct. I say this because not a day goes by when, from nowhere, a bicycle shoots past me at a red light and blows the intersection as though a reduced carbon footprint was a free pass from God himself. I admire their commitment to their health and Mountain Equipment Co-Op, but the cold reality is that an inflamed sense of moral superiority will not save you from a speeding bumper.

It's only been six months since I've received my license, so really I've only seen a fraction of the road's horrors. What next? Sudden breakers? Texters? Giant seagulls with an overabundance of bran in their diets? Maybe I should just ask Santa for a bus pass.

West Coast Tap House | 829 McCallum Road | Langford

2010-12-06T00:39:00.000-08:00

Note: This article was meant to be accompanied by photographs but the shots I took were so awful that you, dear reader, do not deserve to have them inflicted upon you. Trust me.

It’s a sad fact that at this point in my life I prefer coffee shops to bars. Not because I suddenly crave the company of self-important anorectics hardwired into their MacBook pros, but because in a coffee shop one may enjoy a drink in relative peace. The loudest thing you’re likely to hear is light jazz and the soft tap of a keyboard as someone in a turtleneck writes bad poetry about the pale, distant girl who left them when their sweater went out of style

In contrast, for relaxation, most pubs are on par with the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The walls are lined with televisions, each displaying a different channel and they compete for your attention with the Keno machine and Sirius satellite radio. In the evening, a band comprised of the bartender's cousins sets up in the corner with their amplifiers set to "Crush, Kill, Destroy" and commence to playing "Sweet Home Alabama" with all the melody of two planets crashing into one another.

The West Coast Tap House, in Langford’s Sheraton Four Points Hotel, certainly didn’t change my mind on the subject. Oh, it’s clean, and the food is very good, but it suffers from the same level of television fetishism found only in modern bars and David Cronenberg’s Videodrome.

My wife Nicky & I arrived shortly after two o’clock and the place was nearly empty. We took a bench seat near the wall and when a server found us ordered a soda for her and a coffee for me. Being that this was a bar, a “tap house” no less, a beer would have been preferable but I was driving and recent changes to B.C.’s drunk driving laws make it possible to have your vehicle seized if you get into your car after so much as reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

When it came time to order we decided to jump in at the deep end with the "Barn Door Wings" ($12), peanut butter and honey style. Yes, I know how it sounds and believe me, it looks worse, but by God they were good. They were more bone-in chunks of chicken than wings but the skin was crispy and somehow the thick, creamy peanut butter coating complemented it rather than making me ill.

Afterward our waitress came to collect the plate and a funny thing happened – when she asked how our meal was, she actually seemed interested in what we had to say. Certainly the place wasn't busy, but in most restaurants that kind of question is asked on autopilot regardless of how many customers are waiting. You could answer "It tasted like the night we drove old Dixie down" and the only response you'd get would be a vacant smile as Robyn or Jeff mentally composed their next tweet. Our waitress at the Tap House was a pleasant exception and worth mentioning.

While the service was friendly, each meal seemed to take far longer than necessary to come out of the kitchen and since there were only two other tables occupied, the delay was hard to justify. At the very least our waitress kept us in coffee and soda.

Eventually my burger arrived. I had chosen “JJ’s Hot Jalapeno Bacon Burger” ($15), an eight-ounce patty “infused with hickory bacon, loose chorizo, pancetta and fresh jalapenos”. The price included “The Red”, one of the Tap House’s signature “Scoop” toppings, normally a $3 extra. “The Red” has Monterey Jack, Mozzarella, Jalapeno and house made red chili sauce. For a side the Tap House offers not only the usual suspects like fries and salad, but edamame as well. Granted, it’s a $2.50 addition, bringing the whole package to $17.50, but given the size of the burger it was nice to have a lighter option as a side.

The bun was piled high with lettuce, tomato and onion. It all looked like a mess waiting to happen and sure enough, once I put the package together enough vegetation tumbled out to keep a family of vegans supplied with self-satisfaction for an entire week. Suddenly I knew why the meal had taken so long to reach the table – the chef had been busily denuding every farmer’s field within 60 miles. After being pruned, it was still an impressive work, filling and spicy, but not worth $15.

Infusing the patty with goodies like pancetta and chorizo seems like a grand idea but I’d rather have them placed on top. It could help to avoid unpleasant things such as biting into a hard chunk of ground fat roughly the size of a pea. My only complaint against the edamame was that the spent husks started to get in the way after a while, and a bowl to place them in would have been convenient.

The West Coast Tap House is a decent pub that happens to have the misfortune of being in Langford, a suburb so devoid of soul that James Brown records refuse to play. It’s worth stopping by if you happen to be in the neighbourhood but I don’t know that there’s enough to draw residents of downtown on a regular basis. Except the peanut butter wings. Stop looking at me like that and try them.

Website for "West Coast Tap House"

Remember, Remember, the Reason For Movember

2010-11-12T14:36:00.000-08:00

"I'm like, a hero, man."

Let's get this out of the way now: I cannot grow a proper mustache to save my life. So does that mean craven envy is what drives me to say Movember is a monthlong reminder that we have lost the ability to be honest with ourselves? Not at all. What drives me is the notion that some people have decided that neglecting to shave for 30 days somehow makes them noble.

Like most things that confound me, Movember began in Australia. From the Movember website: "The plan was simple – to bring the moustache back as a bit of a joke and do something for men’s health." Since then it's spread worldwide, again much like Australians. Last year over 35,000 people in Canada participated to raise over $7-million for prostate cancer research, so the event has a purpose and does accomplish something worthwhile. And that's why my problem isn't with "Movember" itself. My problem is with the armchair activists who have adopted Movember as comfortably as they have every other way of expressing social concern without having to do anything.

G20 aside, we've come a long way from the fist-pumping, sign-waving activism of times past. Now, tender hearted college students who want to prove how concerned they are with civil rights or the plight of women in the Congo can do so from the comfort of home by joining Facebook groups, signing online petitions and yes, growing a mustache.

Allowing hair to sprout on your upper lip does not make you Jonas Salk. Unless you are actively canvassing for donations or starting conversations with strangers about the benefits of a regular prostate exam you are accomplishing exactly nothing. There's nothing wrong with that - I accomplish exactly nothing on a daily basis and sleep quite well for it. But pretending that you are "going full Burt Reynolds" for any reason other breaking the ice when meeting pretty young women is doing a disservice to the people out there actually working for the cause of prostate cancer.

It also makes about as much sense as me fondling myself in a roadside lawn chair and telling the arresting officer to back off because I'm supporting the troops.

Last Call: Render Unto Caesar

2010-09-20T16:23:00.001-07:00

Last Call is a new feature. Every two weeks a new story, 300-500 words, usually taking place in a bar, pub, or nightclub. They're true enough but names have been changed to protect the innocent. And the not-so-innocent.

Kamloops, B.C. Cactus Jack’s.

The place is choked with six-foot cowboys wearing hats the size of Dobermans and belt buckles like satellite dishes. Pop-country blaring from the speakers. Wilson dragged me here. I don’t know why. A waitress in jean-shorts and a crop top walks past. I look at Wilson. The Beard nods. I get it.

We down drinks. 1am. The real night-owls are out now. The music is almost deafening. Cowboys stick to the two-foot shuffle; Cowgirls shake it like they just got out of bed. Wilson and I start to roll it up. One of the cowgirls beelines for us. A peroxide blonde with a banana boat tan. She passes Wilson like he isn’t there. The Beard is six-foot-three. In a place like this that’s almost as good as having an F150 and a Stetson. I’m wearing a newsboy cap. I look like Danny DeVito in Hoffa. I’m lucky they let me in the room.

Women who look like this don’t talk to me unless they’re peddling Jesus or trying to steam up their boyfriend. She’s not packing the Holy Spirit, there’s barely room for her in those jeans. That means somewhere there’s an eagle-eyed Bubba slowly turning red. I don’t feel like having my teeth kicked in. Without them I’d have nothing to lie through. My beer is warm now, I take a sip anyways. She runs through the five W’s and tries like Hell to look like she cares. Alarm bells. Past her I see Wilson. The Beard gives me a look. We’re on the same page. He scans the crowd for Bubba. Shakes his head.

So there’s a grassy knoll motive. But what? She’s close now. She smells like peppermint gum. I’ve been hitting it hard all night, my wheels are turning too slowly and she knows it. Wilson’s light bulb flickers on. He gestures towards his head. My hat! Too late, she snatches it from my head. I should have known. They always go for the hat. I don’t know why. It’s old, needs a wash. Dark blue. Wool. Any time I sit in a bar it gets passed around like a joint. Some joker always tries to go home with it. My hat has better luck with women than I do.

She’s playing coy now, talking about how much she likes the hat. I tell her I do too. She says it looks better on her. I tell her that’s not the point. She nimbly steps back and does a little twirl. She makes nice, says something about playing my cards right. Bull. The only thing she’s interested in taking home is my cap. Wilson and I are old hands at this game. The Beard runs interference, I angle in and take the cap off her. She pouts. I could care less. Last call. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. Render unto me that which is my hat.

I Get Around

2010-09-19T11:04:00.000-07:00

In the last few weeks Largely the Truth has turned up in a few new places around the web and in print. I was profiled by Colin Newell on his CoffeeCrew Blog and submitted the guest blog post "Telus, Like Rock N Roll Dreams, Comes Through" to Russ Lolacher's customer service blog "The Upsell".

CBC Victoria did an audio feature on food blogs and alongside it listed a few from Vancouver Island. It's only a list (and we actually had to submit our own names) but it bears mentioning. You can find the list here.

On the print side of things I've been working as part of the start-up newspaper "Diversity Reporter". Most of my contributions to DR are and will continue to be behind-the-scenes, doing things like editing articles for length and clarity, but my name will pop up on a byline from time-to-time. The first issue, released this past week, includes a condensed version of this site's Cabin 12 review.

Diversity Reporter is a free, bi-weekly newspaper aimed at connecting with Victoria's ever-growing immigrant community. It's available at grocery stores, coffee shops, mosques, temples and other locations all over the city.

Diversity Reporter is also on Twitter at @divreport

Bobtoberfest! | Heater Allen Brewing | 907 NE 10th Avenue | McMinnville, OR

2010-09-16T14:50:00.000-07:00

Heater Allen brewmaster
Rick Allen

The original Oktoberfest was planned by the German government as a celebration of their decisive victory in the Second World War. By the time they saw which way the wind was blowing it was too late to get their deposit back from the caterer so they went ahead and the celebration, unlike a lot of Germanic practices at the time, caught on around the world. The old-timers at your local Edelweiss club would probably give a different answer. Maybe something more to do with the horse-race organized to celebrate the 1810 marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig to Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. The Germans prefer that story and since they throw a good party in the latter half of September I see no reason not to humour them.

Heater Allen Brewing, at 907 NE 10^th Ave in McMinnville, Oregon, celebrate every Oktoberfest with their signature Bobtoberfest brew: a smooth, malty, beer named in honour of brewmaster Rick Allen’s late brother Bob. This year I happened to be in Portland visiting friends on the weekend of September 10^th and 11^th, the same weekend Heater-Allen hosted Bobtoberfest at their McMinnville brewery.

The state of Oregon is home to a number of microbreweries, wineries and cider houses, so it was no surprise to find Heater-Allen’s modest workshop flanked by two other such businesses, Carlton Cyderworks and Remy Wines. Two musicians were set up out front under a white tent, while next door in front of Heater Allen another tent was set up for anyone wanting to kick back out of the hot afternoon sun. The cost of entry into Bobtoberfest was $5, which included a taste of four beers and a light bite from the barbecue outside, either a half-brat or slider.

Heater Allen’s brewmaster Rick is a solidly-built man in his 50s, with close-cropped gray hair and an authoritarian voice that carries, particularly when he’s chastising his son Jeff for pouring the samples too generously. A former investment banker, he opened Heater Allen in 2007 and though the brewery’s distribution range remains within Oregon’s borders they’ve made a far-reaching name for themselves as makers of quality lager: “In Portland we’re on tap in a number of fine dining restaurants like Gruner and Genoa...partly because I think our beer compliments food much better than ales do.”

I don't know how, but beer
comes from here. Take it on
faith.

It’s hard to argue with Rick, not only because he could beat holy hell out of me, but because his beers are damn good, too. When I think pilsner I think “Pacific Pilsner”, which conjures images of furtive sips from a paper bag enjoyed underneath a freeway overpass as you contemplate where your life went wrong. HA’s Pils is the polar opposite of that, a refreshingly rich and malty brew that has no place under freeways or in broken dreams. Coastal Common, their interpretation of an amber lager, is also hard to knock. The literature supplied suggests it has “caramel and toffee flavours” but after a thorough researching, all my unlettered taste buds were able to report back was “me like”.

The feature beer was, of course, Bobtoberfest, Heater Allen’s version of an Oktoberfest beer. Rick explains, “It’s in honour of my brother, who died of cancer seven years ago...he was probably the best brewer in the family. Bob & I shared a passion for this style and I think this does him justice.” Bobtoberfest was prepared in the traditional style, meaning that it was brewed in the spring and then cold-stored, or lagered for over two months before kegging and bottling. It’s a smooth, balanced beer that’s great on its own or, as I discovered, paired with a grilled bratwurst.

Not for you

The final beer to be sampled turned out to be my favourite: Smoky Bob. Yes, the name makes it sound like an old, long-haired man who lives in a broken-down school bus by the industrial park, but it’s actually a striking interpretation of Rauch, or smoked beer, a local specialty in northeast Bavaria. The idea that beer can be smoked was completely new to me and so for all I know it could have been very bad Rauch, but given the quality of everything else Heater Allen had on offer that seemed unlikely. HA’s literature said that “the malt and smoke interplay with each other, with the dextrins combining with the smoke to bring out an almost bacon-y flavour.” I don’t know about bacon, but I do know that it was compulsively drinkable, and that the bottle I’ve brought home with me is lucky to have survived this long. It’s a limited-edition brew so, unless you hop in your car and go now, you’re probably too late to get your hands on one of the most unusual beers I’ve ever tasted. And before you ask, no, you can’t have the bottle in my fridge.

So, none of these beers are available in Victoria, and for that we’re all a little bit worse off, but the next time you pass through northern Oregon they shouldn’t be hard to find. Rick Allen has been home-brewing beer for over twenty years and when I asked him what made him “go pro” he said “I decided, as a second career, that I needed something to do and this seemed like it would be a lot of fun.” Three years later he’s still smiling, and after finishing that bottle of Smoky Bob, so am I.

Website for Heater Allen Brewing

Johnny's at Fife | 5211 20th Street East | Fife, WA

2010-09-09T15:52:00.000-07:00

You mean I have to walk there?

When I arrived in Fife, Washington after a ten-hour, 600-mile drive from Butte, Montana, the first thing I wanted was a nap. After checking into a Motel 6 by the highway I accomplished just that and upon waking the next thing I wanted wasn’t going to happen until the next time I saw my wife, so I settled for something to eat. The immediate area had no shortage of fast-food mainstays but I try to avoid places like that whenever possible. Instead, as my regular readers know, I prefer to seek out locally-owned restaurants, some of them thriving, some of them barely hanging on against a rising tide of bland chain restaurants.

Johnny’s at Fife didn’t take much seeking, situated as it is directly across the parking lot from my room, and as far as independent diners go it seems to be holding its own. It’s the kind of place that has survived by building up a clientele over the years, the sort of dedicated regulars who don’t bother waiting for a cheque after they’re finished because they know exactly how much money to leave.

Most of the people in the restaurant were elderly couples, and there were two such groups at my 12 and 2 o’clock. The opening conversational gambit of the woman at 2 o’clock was “What’s your problem” and her husband looked like he’d spent fifty years trying not to say, “You”. My dinner was small but satisfactory and when I decided to return the next morning at breakfast it was more for the atmosphere than it was the food.

Once you walk into the lobby of Johnny’s you’re presented with a choice of two sides: to the left is a restaurant for family dining, to the right a bar for staring dejectedly into a glass of Budweiser. Veering left, I had a look at a whiteboard on the floor which listed specials and was then taken to a booth seat in the middle of the restaurant. The interior isn’t much different from other restaurants of its type, spacious and well lit, and along one wall a long lunch counter for solo diners or couples long tired of looking at one another. The Neapolitan ice-cream motif of the booth seats was eye-catching but other than that everything was much as you’d find it in Denny’s or Humpty’s. Actually, that’s not fair- it was much cleaner than Humpty’s.

For the times you're alone,
or the times you wish you were

I had already decided on the special, cheddarwurst with toast, eggs and hashbrowns for $7.95, so as I waited for the waitress I skipped the menu and read the Weekly Volcano, a free newspaper out of Tacoma.

I had just started reading the advice column when I heard the waitress say that she must have forgotten something because she “had a fart in her head”. I’m almost certain she meant a “brainfart” but at the time all the gears in my head were grinding together as I tried to comprehend whether she was referring to a medical condition or making a joke. When she arrived at the table bearing a cup of coffee I did my level best to look her in the eye.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of
the coming of chest pains

When it was ready, breakfast wasn’t carried out of the kitchen so much as it slid on a trail of grease. Such a glistening harbinger of arteriosclerosis I hadn’t seen since having the breakfast sandwich up at the White Spot in YYJ airport. The eggs weren’t quite “over-hard” as much as they were “beat to hell” and as for “cheddarwurst” sausages, well, I know a smokie when I see one. Not that I don’t enjoy smokies, I’ll pass over a hot dog in favour of its tough, chain-smoking cousin any day, but it’s not quite what I had in mind when I saw “wurst” on the menu. The hash browns were standard, shredded potatoes fried in a significant amount of oil and the “dark Russian rye” toast was dark indeed but refused to speak, thus making it difficult to ascertain whether or not it was of Slavic origin.

The “cheddarwurst” was prepared as well as a piece of formed meat, machine-injected with cheese can be and none of the other items were burnt, which is close enough when you’re dealing at this level. Towards the end of the meal my tongue became aware of the damage being done to my stomach and so ever greater amounts of Tabasco, that morphine of the taste buds, were necessary to finish.

Farty brain? Kick back
with a coffee

Was it good? Yes, with a qualification: if you want a big, greasy breakfast that will do the trick at a price that’s almost criminally low, then this is perfect. After the meal, my stomach only beginning to comprehend the scope of what I’d just done, I was able to relax and enjoy a few cups of coffee in the early morning quiet. The rush of traffic on I-5 was just beginning its manic rush-hour and I was in no hurry to get back on the road.