skonen_blades

Rough draft of what I might be saying on Friday night at the Rio fundraiser.

Me and Sonja Karlson
Were both here for a flick
Blade Runner at midnight. Yes.
Such an awesome pic

I saw Sonja near the aisle
Sitting with a girl
I said hi and sat right down
And history unfurled

She exclaimed that Blade Runner
Was her most favourite feature
Mine as well, I answered back
To this fine music teacher

Two years later we’re engaged
We have a little daughter
That all started right down there
I’m lucky that I got her

I’ve come here for many shows
Concerts, films, and laughter
If the Rio closes down
Then tell me what comes after?

Silence in the neighborhood
Culture’s candle snuffed
The big bad wolf the liquor board
Has huffed and fucking puffed

But it won’t blow the rio down
It’s just another battle
A battle that Corinne will win
Because YOU all aren’t cattle

To be told by ancient laws
That liquor in BC
Can’t be sold in venues where
A movie wants to be

Even if you don’t serve booze
On nights that movies play
The liquor board is saying that
The films must go away

A hybrid venue can’t exist
Is what the law is saying
All I hear when they say this
Is ancient donkeys braying

They don’t get what happens here
But all of you sure do
The management is working hard
The rest is up to you

You’ll give cash and if you can’t
You sign every petition
And you won’t quit your rabble-rousing
Til the province listens

Don’t they know the east-end folk
Have nowhere left to gather?
Don’t they see that tragedy?
Don’t they think it matters?

Music venues, cinemas
All of them shut down
Where are we supposed to GO now?
Granville street downtown?

Every single neighborhood
In every single city
Needs an entertainment hub
And isn’t it a pity

They want to shut the Rio down
The message is quite clear
They don’t get just how important
The Rio IS to here

More than first-run movie shows
More than midnight screenings
More than indie film premieres
Culture here has meaning.

Movies are the half of what
Will keep this place afloat
To take it one step further on,
The rio is a boat

A sea of booze will let it sail
And keep it from the dark
In fact I’d say that culturally
The rio is our ark

A place where friends can meet
And laugh and watch a rockin’ band
Or like tonight just come and help
So give yourselves a hand

And afterwards put pressure on
The province of BC
Let’s not let the Rio down
Let’s help Corinne Lea

Movies booze and live events.
That’s an awesome trio.
Let’s not let LCLB
Take away The Rio



tags

I went to see Franz Ferdinand on Friday night. Death Cab for Cutie opened for them. I had never really heard DCFC before and I was pleasantly surprised.
Timing is everything.
It’s like a blue shift.
The couple behind me were hilarious. After one of the songs, the guy said “Whoo! You rock my world!” and the girl said in a really harsh tone “Jesus, quit saying stupid shit!”
I mean, the guy was just joking around but she had had enough. She just snapped. I don’t know if it was a daily occurrence or if it was a new thing.
I went to see the concert with a lovely woman who does sound on movie sets. She listens for a living and that bleeds over into her real life. She has such an interesting filter on her world. She brought ear plugs to the concert for me and that was the first time I saw a concert with ear plugs in. It was soothing.
I can sit for ten minutes with this woman without saying a word and it doesn’t feel awkward because she is always listening. The hum of the computer, the passing traffic, the music, whatever. Dialogue is just more sound for her. It’s interesting talking to her because I get this sense sometimes of what it’s like to live in her world. It’s wonderful.
Our seats were waaay up in the nosebleeds so we got a bird’s eye view of the crowd on the floor. I noticed something interesting.
Scientists refer to something called a Blue Shift sometimes. As I understand it, it goes like this. As the universe expands, the light that hits us from the stars is tinged with red or leans towards the red side of the spectrum. The left side of the rainbow, as it were, or the top of the arch. This is because of relativity. Now, a ‘blue’ shift will occur when the universe hits its maximum size and the heat starts to run out. Then the universe will start to collapse. At that point, the light that hits us from other stars will be tinged with blue. The right side of the rainbow. The bottom of the curve. This is again because of the relative difference in speeds as defined by relativity. You can see it happen right now as a matter of fact in the light from the galaxy or two that are coming towards us.
It’s nothing we can see with the naked eye. Something to do with the length of the wavelengths in the infra red and ultra violet spectrums.
Looking down at the concert, I flashed back to a concert I saw in the UK. In the UK, everyone smokes. I mean, they just passed a smoking ban in pubs last month but it’s a stronghold of smokers. It’s changing, though.
I remember I went to a goth concert in a black basement club over there. It was an all ages gig so I was the oldest by a long shot. I think there may have been some people there in their twenties but it was mostly teens. But here’s the thing.
In this packed venue, about five people were smoking. Misunderstood youth listening to goth/industrial/loud music and almost none of them were smoking. I was amazed. I get the feeling that in as little as ten years, cigarette smoking will be looked at as quaintly confusing like snuff or chewing tobacco.
At the concert last night a few people raised their lighters during a ballad. About maybe sixteen people in a sold out concert at the PNE coliseum. So we’re talking about maybe three or four thousand people and sixteen lighters.
Everyone had a digital camera or a cel phone that took pictures, though. The entire arena was populated by little blue stars. Little aqua Christmas lights. People recording what they were already watching so that they could remember it. The concentration of them got higher and higher near the stage and every time a member of the band did something showy or came close to the edge of the stage, white triangles of light would start to strobe and flash and stab out from the blue dots. Like if you’ve ever seen earth at night from space, you notice the greatest concentration of lights on the coasts. It was like that.
I got to thinking. No more lighters. No more cigarettes. No more oranges and reds. Now it’s the calming ocean turquoise and bright blue of technology.
Our blue shift.