Winnipeg

It's almost April, goddamnit, and there's still two feet of snow on the ground. The streets are cratered with car devouring potholes, and the buses stop running at one in the morning. In short, this city is third class on a good day. I know that there are a lot of people who really like Winnipeg (for why, I will never know), but let's consider for a moment the respective positives and negatives of life smack dab in the middle of North America.

Positives:

1) It's cheap here. Yeah, it's true that a person can afford to live quite well on $30, 000 (or in my case much less) in this town.

2) We're pretty much safe from tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, and terrorist attacks (what terrorist in his right mind would make a statement by attacking Winnipeg?).

3) Arts. Surprisingly, on a per capita basis we seem to have many writers, film makers, and artists who are quite active in the local scene.

4) For all my bitching about weather, autumn is very beautiful here.

5) Our museum has a giant ground sloth and a friggin' gallion in it.

6) We appreciate Louis Riel, or at least those in the know do.

7) Market Square (and the exchange district in general) is almost as nice a place as you will find anywhere.

8) The Fringe Festival. It gets pretty pricey if you want to see a lot of shows ($8-10 per show), but it's a good way to see what's going on in the world of theatre.

9) I can mooch off my family here.


Negatives:

1) Okay, it's cheap here, but then, so are the residents. People in this town are so unbelievably cheap that corporations use Winnipeg as a test market. They say that if people here will buy something, then people anywhere will buy it. This also explains why we no longer have an NHL team. The immensely miserly character of this town is the root of everything wrong with it.

2) Yeah, we're safe from hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis and terrorists, but when the ice caps melt, we're gonna be at the bottom of a massive inland sea.

3) No one outside of the arts scene gives a fuck about the arts scene. There's a reason that Cinematheque only has 70 seats, and that our art gallery licks my balls. It's because no one goes, and therefore, there's no money to acquire paintings that people actually want to see (for the record, I go to the WAG at least once a year). And yes, we have a lot of writers, but except for a few notable exceptions (Miriam Toews, Carol Shields, David Bergen), no one knows who the hell they are. This has to do with the fact that there are virtually no publishing companies here (Turnstone press being the shining exception). Why is this? Because no one cares about art exccept for those involved in the arts, and that is not nearly enough people. Sidenote: no one really reads books either. They seem to prefer Big Brother and CSI.

4) The weather. Autumn is nice, but that's only a two month window. Otherwise (except maybe for May and June) we either have unbearable heat, or unbearable cold, not to mention the mosquitoes.

5) Our museum has a giant sloth and a gallion. That is all there is to recommend it.

6) Suburban isolationism. Everyone lives in the suburbs and shops at big-box stores. No one goes downtown unless they absolutely have to. Although we have been trying to renew the urban core of Winnipeg, I think it is doomed to failure because the masses of suburbia can't be bothered to go downtown because they can't find parking, and they are too important to take the bus.

7) The buses stop running at 1:30. This is too damn early. How's a guy supposed to get home when he's loaded and too cheap to take a cab?

8) Bums. Nuff said.

9) The Forks. Great idea to have a tourist site at the Forks, but it closes way too early, and there's no night life except for an overpriced faux-pub.

10) No shwarma stands. That's right, I want shaved meat in a pita on every damn street corner. On a related note, it wouldn't hurt to have more street vendors in general.

11) A follow up to #6: downtown is dead and beyond retrieval. I think a red-light district would remedy this. See #13 for why this will never, ever, happen.

12) Tourism. Seriously, people come here on purpose? I doubt it unless they have family here, or are coming up from the states because they can buy beer when they're 18.

13) Puritanism. The average Winnipeger is a puritan at heart. Morally, fiscally, culturally, politically, etc. I point to the popularity of the Winnipeg Scum, er, Sun as proof of this.

14) Folklorama/Jazz festival: One is a celebration of ethnic stereotyping, the other is just false advertising. When I go to jazz festival, I go because I want to see jazz, not unutterably bad whiteman funk. Come to think of it, the jazz musicians I have seen strike me more as elevator music than jazz in the Miles Davis tradition. Both are expensive and both are only worth it as an excuse to get drunk.

15) Getting an Ikea store is hailed as a major cultural event. Fuck me......

Okay, so I could probably go on, but you get the idea. I guess in the final analysis, I blame Winnipeg's suckiness on Winnipegers, especially you oh all powerfull suburban-dewlling-suv-driving middle class. You killed this town, and you seem quite content with that. Now go back to your Winnipeg Sun and complain about your taxes. I need drink......

John E. Ryall

Rating: 4.5/10.

American Apparel

I'm always behind trends by at least a couple years. It's something that I've gotten used to at this point in my life, and something I think I should even take pride in. Being late to a trend gives me a chance to form an opinion on it. To gather facts and make a decision. Yesterday, I found myself on what you might call a fact finding mission.

After they gutted one of my favorite clubs in Osborne Village and turned it into an American Apparel, I was fucking pissed. It meant one less venue for good punk rock, and one more victory for some goddamn corporate enterprise. And man, I am soooooo all about hating on corporations. Fucking profit-driven, earth-destroying, outsourcing, sweatshop-building child molester, cop killer motherfuckers. Shit, I won't wear anything unless it's made by a some upstart solitary indigenous person, preferably based out of a cave in New Mexico. D.I.Y., bitches! So like any good anti-establishment guerilla, I avoided the store. Cursed it when I walked by. Bemoaned it's arrival over half a dozen beers at the Toad.

To cut to the chase, I'm older and lamer now, and I like cheap, plain, nice cloths. This place obviously isn't going anywhere. I've read some good things about it, so fuck it. Loyalties to the old Collective aside, I need some goddamn T-shirts. I wandered in to have a look.

PORNO!! Everywhere is porno. Pictures of oddly seductive women selling spandex. Young men also looking all too seductive selling cardigans and long-sleeve Ts. And I know you know what I'm talking about. Everyone has seen the ads (check out the mustache). But beyond the ads, which were downright embarrassing to be looking at in public rather than on the privacy of my computer screen, the layout of the store itself was quite strange. No, I'm not talking about all the unisex clothes or the fact that there is no distinction between men's and women's sections. That's been a long time coming (though I love the idea that homophobic assholes will continually wince and look quickly away despite their more pressing inclinations to follow the latest trend). I'm talking about the way the store is divided into halves, where one have is full of the plain clothes I can get along with, and the other half was full of hardcore throwback 80s wear. I'm talking zebra print spandex with the baggy sweater to go over top. And through the aisles, the hippest of hip 17-21 year olds were perusing, checking price tags, admiring the fashion that I spent most of the 90s flaming with great distain.

What surprised me about the whole event--what made me downright uncomfortable--was not the fashion itself. I've long since come to accept that there was some great stuff going on in the 80s, and while the fashion isn't my thing, I'm fine with the fact that lots of people are going to dig it. Nor was it necessarily the porno ads. It seems fashion is always pulling stunts like this, and it's nice to see human-looking models, even if they're clearly overheated and desperate to seduce me. What bothered me was how this moment in time, this pushing of boundaries in advertising, this full out retro 80s fashion, and this apparently environmentally conscious, gay positive, gender-blurring message, progressive as it is, seems lost on the fashionistas patrolling the aisles.

A good message is a good message, and I'm glad to see stores doing things the way American Apparel is, but it bothers me that all of the concepts that this store plays with seem to be ignored by the people who shop there and even the people who work there. It's the fashion that's attractive, not necessarily the message. It's clear that even without the message, these clothes would sell.

I sat on my experience there for a while, not sure what to make of it. A little bar room philosophizing has me thinking that I've just gotten older, crankier, and more judgmental of people younger than me. Ignorant young fucks. But I think what bothers me most about it is how it works to counteract some negative effects, yet markets itself with other, potentially negative effects.

Anyway, fuck it. I'll buy my shirts there, and check out some pornographic imagery while I'm there. Could do worse, right?

Fuck. 

EDIT: Bah. I forgot to add a rating. 5.0 of 10 for the couch outside the changing room. Too low to the ground and too lumpy. Otherwise, very satisfying.