Supremacists

A few months ago, I went to a smallish concert with a couple friends. The headliners were metalcore superstars August Burns Red, supported by modestly popular pop-punk/melodic hardcore band Set Your Goals, and two other metalcore bands I'd never heard of.

I'd been introduced to Set Your Goals by a coworker the previous summer, and had been hooked ever since. I had just spent two weeks repeatedly listening to their albums in anticipation of the concert. This was as excited as I'd been for any concert since Relient K back in Grade 9. Believe me, I was pumped.

I finished up my biology lab, and hauled ass down to the Starlite room. I walked in, and made a beeline for the merch tables to me a sweet Set Your Goals t-shirt. But something was wrong. I looked around the tables once, twice, three times. There was no Set Your Goals merch on display. It turned out that Set Your Goals, for whatever reason, was unable to make it to this particular stop on the tour. It was to be all metalcore, all night. I soon caught sight of the two friends I was meeting. They had been watching my consternation from the balcony, and were having a laughing fit at my expense.

These two friends are not normally so mean spirited. But in the weeks leading up to the show, there had developed some minor bad blood between us over the content of the upcoming show. As previously mentioned, I was jacked beyond belief for my beloved pop-punk Set Your Goals. These two fellows, however, belong to a breed of music lovers that I like to unofficially call Metal Supremacists.

Metal Supremacists are fans of blisteringly fast drums, abrasive guitars, complex rhythms, and unintelligibly screamed vocals. They emphasize the extremely high level of skill required to perform this style of music. For them, it's all about the pure technical mastery of the instruments, and the sheer physical feat of playing so fast for so long. But perhaps most importantly, Metal Supremacists consider most other styles of music to be inherently inferior.

In the weeks leading up the to concert, I'd posted facebook statuses about how excited I was for Set Your Goals. Metal Supremacists from all over my friends list, not just the two i was attending the show with, were quick to jump all over them. They would exalt August Burns Red and the other two mediocre nobody metalcore bands on the tour, and openly bash Set Your Goals. There were several extended flamewars, some of which spilled over into real life verbal debates. My position was that I preferred the catchy beats, hooky melodies, and relatable lyrics of pop-punk to the technical spectacle of metalcore, however obviously impressive it may be. Their position was that pop-punk is crap, Set Your Goals are talentless hacks, August Burns Red should be crowned kings of the musical universe, and I'm an idiot for not thinking so.

My friends at the show were downright giddy that Set Your Goals wasn't there, or perhaps more specifically, they were downright giddy that I didn't get to see them. But I still had a good time at the show, and ABR was very impressive, as I knew they would be. Which begs the question, why can't we all just get along? Why can't we all have our favorites while graciously accepting the tastes of others as different? This experience brought such questions into fine focus for me, at least as far as music is concerned. In the months since the show, I've found myself listening to a much wider variety of music. But more importantly, I've started respecting them more as well. If your favorite is Garth Brooks, Metallica, Lady Gaga, or Jay-Z, that's none of my damn business. I don't agree with you, but I respect your choice to like what you like for whatever reason you want.

P.S. Offer not valid for fans of Justin Bieber. THERE. IS. NO. EXCUSE.

Oilers Hockey

Some of my earliest memories are of listening to Oilers games broadcast on 630 CHED, and watching Oilers games with dad in our old house. I couldn't have been older than four, and I didn't really follow what was going on, but I very clearly remember cheering for the Oilers. I remember dad telling me that the Oilers weren't a very good team, but that they used to be the best team in the world. I remember him telling me about Wayne Gretzky, the greatest hockey player ever, and how he used to play for the Oilers. The Oilers won their last Stanley Cup a month before I was born.

I remember him teaching me about the current Oilers. Doug Weight, the best player on the team. Todd Marchant, the fastest skater. Curtis Joseph, the best goalie. Mike Grier, hardest hitter. Ryan Smyth, the hardest worker.

Dad's favorite players were always the hardest workers. He used to take me to a couple games a year, back when tickets were cheaper. He would take me down to ice level during the warmups and point out which players were hard workers. I specifically remember him beaking Rem Murray for being lazy. These days, he's a fan of Shawn Horcoff, not of Dustin Penner.

I grew up through the 90's and early 2000's, watching the Oilers try to compete with large-market teams. In those days, there was no salary cap, and the Oilers couldn't afford to resign their best players. Teams like Colorado, Detroit, and Dallas could always spend more money on good players, so they were always better than the Oilers. It wasn't fair, and I felt a monstrous sense of injustice. Dad said that meant the only thing the Oilers could do was make sure they were the hardest working team. If they worked ten times as hard as the rich teams, they could beat all of them.

I remember the Oilers usually barely making the playoffs, battling hard, and usually losing the series to Dallas or Colorado. One time they actually beat Dallas, and I was so proud of them! They promptly lost to Colorado in the second round, but Dad had been proven right: if the Oilers work ten times as hard as the rich team, they can win.

It was hard cheering for the underdog team. Other kids cheered for Colorado, because they had Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg. This was blasphemous to me. I almost punched a kid on my hockey team for saying Peter Forsberg was the best player ever, not Wayne Gretzky. I knew that just because the Oilers weren't very good was no reason to cheer for one of those evil rich teams.

The games were always exciting to watch. Since the Oilers' only chance to win was to outwork the other team, that's what they had to do. They had no choice but to skate harder, bodycheck harder, and fight harder than the other team. That was my team. That is the team I cheered for.

In 2005, the new NHL collective bargaining agreement put a salary cap in place for the NHL. That meant the Oilers could afford good players. It didn't really hit home for me until I heard the Oilers had traded for Chris Pronger and Mike Peca. This was absolutely earth shattering. I remember where I was when I heard it; sitting in the car in a Future Shop parking lot waiting for Dad to get something. Chis Pronger represented everything the Oilers couldn't have before. I thought wow, if the Oilers have players like Mike Peca and Chris Pronger AND work harder than every other team, they could win the Stanley Cup!

We all know how that turned out. The playoff run was amazing while it lasted. It brought people together. I was never prouder of my team. Chris Pronger the superstar. Dwayne Roloson the goalie. Ales Hemsky the kid phenom. Ryan Smyth the heart and soul. Georges Laraque the unbeatable fighter. Fernando Pisani the unlikely hero. That was Oilers hockey. That was a sublime display of what it is I love about hockey.

Ever since, it hasn't been the same. The Oilers aren't the same as the Oilers I grew up cheering for. Of course the players are different, but the team's identity is gone too. The playing field is now level, but they lose even more than before. They don't work hard like they used to. I follow the team more closely than ever, but I can't cheer for them like before, because they don't work like they used to. They have a better chance to win any given game, but they lose more of them, and don't even go down swinging. Before, they had a good reason to lose, but they won anyway. Now, they have every reason to win, but they lose anyway. The hockey they play is not the Oilers hockey I remember, not the Oilers hockey I was raised on. There have been some fun moments, but I haven't seen that hockey since 2006.

The other night though, I got a glimpse. The Oilers, with half their lineup injured for the rest of the season, came up against their provincial rivals the Calgary Flames, with a chance to officially eliminate them from playoff contention. A last-place team with nothing to lose, up against impossible odds. Their only chance: to work 10 times harder than the other team. The Oilers were up 4-1, and lost 5-4 in a shootout, but I haven't been so proud of my team in literally five years. I really did feel like I was watching playoff hockey, Oilers hockey.

It's almost like I'm afraid to stop "following" the Oilers and start "cheering" for them again. If the game against the Flames is any indication, I might be able to do that before too long. The Oilers can lose 90% of their games for the rest of my life, as long as they play like that. Then I can cheer for my team again.

Yes, I'm an Oilers fan. Are you?

Restless Heart Syndrome

"Electric Campfires"

It so happens I’m tired of lingering darkness,

Of the brazen anthems that drag me into consciousness,

Of the half-hearted sprinkle that precariously secures me there.

I’m tired of lukewarm milk and dusty toast,

Of the yellowed spatula and crusty dishcloth.

I’m tired of the obstinate climate and its insistence on cold.

I want an intimate relationship with the sun.

I want electric campfires, and gently pulled hair.

I want sparkling spray, leaping from green lake water.

I want summer back.

I wrote that poem for a creative writing class in the darkest depths of January 2010. I was absolutely sick and tired of waking up at 6am into pitch blackness, getting some food into me, and going off to try and survive the day at Grant MacEwan. I was tired of my room, my commute, my classes, my cooking, and my neighborhood.

It wasn't that I hated school, and the life structure it demanded. I actually liked it, and enjoyed it a lot, for a time. But I got tired of it. Maybe it was the winter blues, maybe it was boredom, probably a combination of both plus other things too. I think the perfect word to describe what happened was that I got restless. I desperately needed to shake things up, make some changes to break up the monotony. The upcoming summer at home seemed the perfect respite, and it was once it finally arrived.

But after a time of summer, I got restless again. I was sick and tired of my job that I'd at least modestly enjoyed for the previous few months. I was tired of my family, my house, my coworkers, and my town. Just like school, I like all of these things a lot. But I'd settled into a routine and I couldn't wait to get away to King's in the fall.

Predictably, it's happened again. I'm tired of winter at King's. I'm tired of my residence, my roommate, my classes, my cafeteria diet, even the campus itself. Again, I like these things a lot, probably more than their home or MacEwan counterparts. But I'm restless, and I need to shake things up again. I need to break up my routine, so badly. The slowly lengthening days tease me with their promise of electric campfires and gently pulled hair, of sparkling spray leaping from green lake water.

These are my dreams, feeble as they are.

My buddy J-Dubs has given up Facebook until the end of the month, and is having trouble finding constructive ways to utilize her free time. As a result of her craving for online interaction, she seems to have turned to her blogger account. She's cranked out two posts in two days, and somehow finds this to be enough moral high ground to chastise me for not posting since January. Well J-Dubs, maybe you're right. Here's a post just for you, written in your trademark rambling style, interspersed with pictures :)

(Good thing I'm a hockey player)

Last night was an interesting night. I spent the evening studying for a biology midterm that I will write in about 3 hours' time. Despite my classmates freaking out over it, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had relatively little difficultywith the material on the study guide. If the last bio midterm was an 8 for difficulty, this one seems to be a 6. I had trouble motivating myself to read through all theslides.

Since biology seemed so easy, and here's crossing my fingers it actually is, I wrapped up studying by 11:30 and went on the internets. I facebook chatted, read Mendel's Soup (my nightly tradition), caught up on all the Oilers blogs, and so on. At around 12:30, I was wound down enough to sleep, and so returned my macbook to my desk.

There, on the edge of my desk, sat my DS with Pokemon Black version. "No", I thought. "No way. If you pick that up now, you won't put it down until sunrise..."

What was probably two to three hours later, I put it down. I didn't dare look at the clock, because I thought maybe I could trick myself into thinking I went to bed at a reasonable time. One little problem: I wasn't tired anymore. It was too hot in the room. Too much light. I was thirsty. My pillow didn't feel right. Etc. etc.

I thought back to the nap I'd taken that afternoon. Why is it that at night, I can only fall asleep on my side, but usually wake up in the morning on my back? In the daytime, it feels much better to fall asleep on my back, but I can't say I've ever slept from morning til night. I tried laying on my back, and it worked! Probably because it was so close to morning by that time.

I dreamt I was back in highschool, playing basketball. For those of you who don't know, I was never very good at basketball, and spent a lot of time on the bench. In this game, we were playing a team full of super tall black guys, and we only had 6 players, one of which was a fat kid who was even worse than me. So there I was, playing defense against these massive black guys who were all at least a head taller than me. But I remember somehow, in dreamland, I was all of a sudden really good at defense. The score was tied with a minute to go, and a timeout was called.

I said something about how we're only at this point because of improbably good defense, so lets hang on and keep it respectable, and hope for a lucky break. The fat kid, however, called me out. He went into some kind of inspiring Braveheart speech about how if I wasn't willing to always give it everything I had, play to win, and go for what I wanted, I didn't deserve to be on the court. It really was inspiring, I wish I could remember it better. I agreed, and asked to coach to take me off and put the fat kid on. He got dunked on, and we lost the game.

I feel like the dream was trying to teach me a lesson. After being at an all-time high in confidence in first semester, it's been going downhill this term. The last few weeks have brought on a sort of mini confidence crisis, and I've noticed myself unwilling to take chances that only months ago I was making a point never to pass up. I think the dream was telling me I'm capable of more than I give myself credit for, and if I don't go for it, someone else will. That unfortunately doesn't explain the fat kid's epic fail, but you've got to accentuate the positive ;) Any theories, english majors?

I slept through my first class, but its ok because it was a review period for biology, which I am totally going to own this afternoon. I had better.

How's that J-Dubs? Awesome? I thought so.

Totally Worth It

My dad is into snowmobiling. He is into snowmobiling in the way I am into Pokemon. He subscribes to about 4583720 different snowmobiling magazines, has two nice mountain sleds which he likes to customize and modify, and just upgraded his enclosed 5-sled trailer to a massive all-aluminum monstrosity. The man loves his snowmobiling.

Now don't get me wrong, I like snowmobiling too. It's fun. However, in my opinion, it is more trouble than it's worth. Take the amount of work it takes to buy and maintain nice equipment, multiply by the amount of work it takes to pack and load it all up, integrate by the 13 hour drive to and from the mountains. While I'll admit throwing a snowmobile around powder bowls and powering up 45-degree, 100-foot hills is great fun, it's not worth it to me. It gets boring too quickly. It's just too much work, and it's not even close actually. Dad, on the other hand, would probably make the trip every weekend, or every day if he could.

This echoes my opinion of several of dad's hobbies. Flying a plane is kind of cool, but not even close to worth the hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars' worth of training required. Motorcycle trips are fun, but the exhilarating curves are too few and far between to be worth the hours of cold, straight, boring highway it takes to get to them. Fancy food is nice, but it's not worth the entire afternoon shot by shopping, cooking, and cleaning. As with snowmobiling, Dad probably thinks I'm crazy, and would pour countless more hours into these pastimes if given the chance.

What causes this disparity of values of work vs. fun? Is it just because Dad has a better work ethic than me, and doesn't attach as much inherent negative value to his hobbies' prep work? I used to think so, because he definitely has a better work ethic than me. But I changed my mind when I extended my thinking to one of my brother's favorite hobbies: paintball. My brother thinks nothing of the huge amounts of prep work and clean up associated with paintball, and he's definitely lazier than me.

There are all kinds of inspirational quotes saying something along the lines of "anything worth doing is hard work", and I don't disagree with that. But many things NOT worth doing are hard work too, and everyone seems to have a different set of values to determine what is too much work, and what is totally worth it. From now on, those will be my official designations. I will label activities or pursuits either "too much work" or "totally worth it".

Here are a few examples:

TOO MUCH WORK:

-Snowmobiling

-Flying

-Motorcycling

-Cooking fancy dinners

-Paintballing

-IV Breeding Pokemon

-Jazz

TOTALLY WORTH IT:

-A decent sandwich

-Playing hockey

-EV training Pokemon

-Digging snow caves

-Playing an instrument well

-Waterskiing or wakeboarding

-Blogging

All We've Ever Had is Time

There's this mentally handicapped guy that goes to my school. We are friends, though I'm not 100% sure he knows my name. Let's call him Doug (not his real name). He's not severely handicapped; he's independent enough that at first I thought he was just kind of weird.

Doug has the absolute definition of a one-track mind. The only thing, and I mean literally the only thing he ever talks about, is how time flies. Every single conversation we've had, every single conversation I've overheard between him and someone else, and every conversation with him that anyone's ever mentioned revolves around the notion that "time flies". Doug's gotten real good at this conversation, goodness knows he's held it enough times. He's got four dozen euphemisms for "time flies", like "yep, it just keeps chuggin' along, just like a freight train!", or "man, ______ sure is comin' up quick, it'll be here in no time flat!". Even his little blurb below his facebook profile picture is about how time flies.

Time does fly. Doug is right, perhaps more right than I'd like to admit. I need look no further than the little paintings that past residence students have left on the stairwell walls. Each flight commemorates a floor from a given year, a bunch of identical shapes personalized with roommates' first names and last initials, and a little quote or picture.

"WWF Forever" one reads. Another has the MXPX head. Girlier ones have things like "Laurie H. and Jennifer R. BFF 2001" or "Small town girl and city slicker meet, unfortunately, in 407". These little tokens of memories mean nothing to us that call this place home right now, but they are dearly beloved to people long since grown up and moved away, not really so very long ago.

Like Doug is always quick to point out, before I know it I'll be grown up and moved away too. I'll never get these days back. Doug helps remind me that it's a crime to waste the time I've been given at King's. He helps me remember that, every time I feel like just trying to get through the week so I can sleep away the weekend. I'm older now than I've ever been, and it only gets worse.

So truly, as cliched as these words are, make the most of every day. Doug does.

This is the Sound, of the Desperation Bound

I spent last weekend in Vegreville, picking up a few lifeguarding shifts, shoring up the bank account for Christmas shopping season. The other guard, instead of turning on our mainstay radio station (91.7 The Bounce), opted in favor of a new radio station: 95.7 The Sound.

The slogan for The Sound is "Because good music is good music. Period." Every time announcer lady smugly uttered it, I felt like I was taking crazy pills. In my opinion, no one, perhaps least of all this particular radio station, has a right to say such a thing.

Firstly, what makes music "good"? In order to proclaim that "good music is good music, period", there must be a clearly defined set of empirical guidelines for judging a song's "goodness", something that clearly does not, and cannot exist. If I were to ask the jazz saxophonists in my MacEwan graduating class, the girls on 4th Floor, and my mom what makes music good, I would get distinctly different answers from each group. For example, the jazz guy would look for technical proficiency and swing feel, the girls would be looking for catchiness and danceability, my mom would be looking for family values or something.

But, you might be thinking, isn't this flawed reasoning? Don't each individual's judging criteria all boil down to simply deciding how enjoyable the music is? This is true, but it doesn't give 95.7 The Sound any more right to say that "good music is good music, period". Every kind of music, regardless of how much one person hates it, is another person's favorite, or else it wouldn't get played. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Speaking as a person with very narrow and fickle musical taste, I can at least usually understand why people love the kinds of music they love. If 95.7 The Sound played an incredibly diverse cross section of music across genre, decade, and culture, they might deserve the benefit of the doubt. But 95.7 The Sound, from what I heard of them over 2 shifts of lifeguarding, plays mostly bland, monotone, mid-tempo, un-catchy rock songs from North America over the past three decades. For 95.7 The Sound to say, repeatedly and determinedly, that "good music is good music, period", they are saying that anyone who doesn't love bland, mid-tempo rock, and absolutely nothing else, is either misguided or stupid.

It may sound like I'm hating on 95.7 The Sound's choice of songs, and I am, but that's exactly the point. They are hating on my choice of music by saying that only the music they play is any good at all, and then not playing a single song I enjoyed. Other radio stations also play very specific kinds of music, but they manage to do so without dismissing every other type of music as no good. Each to his own, so to speak. Not 95.7 The Sound.

The statement "good music is good music, period" is nonsensical. 95.7 The Sound, if for some reason you're reading this, let me suggest some new, more accurate tag lines for your illustrious radio station:

"The music our very specific audience enjoys is, in fact, the music our very specific audience enjoys. Period."

"Good music doesn't exist outside an individual's perception of it, but hey, here's some bland, mid-tempo rock! Period."

"You should feel bad about the music you listen to, because it's not what we play, and we are better judges than you because we are a radio station. You should stop listening to what you listen to and, in an attempt to feel like a part of an exclusive group that is so much cooler than all those people who listen to something other than bland, mid-tempo rock, listen to only 95.7 The Sound from now on so we can maximize our advertising revenue. Period."