Karl's Blog. Stardate Blah Blah Blah,
It has been a while indeed. Many weeks have passed and within that time span many adventures have unfolded:
- The demise of the infamous and legendary Radical Beer Faction
- ACF Booth Days
- ACF Promo Team
- Production Week
- The muthah f'n ACF itself
- Post-ACF Mayhem
- And everything in between
What can I say? After 4 years my tenure at UBC nears its end. 4 whole years. 4 years of contempt for the school. 4 years of self-induced, as well as, school-induced stress. 4 years of endlessly plotting my escape from the confines of UBC. And now it comes to a close. All these years of wanting out and I don't know how my life will be without school.
The only things I can compare this feeling with are the end of my academic tenures at the elementary school level (John T. Errington. Richmond represent!!! Good lord, did I just do that?), the high school level (Vancouver College), and the community college level (Langara College).
Starting with Langara, my 3 years (1 year WAY too many) consisted of me being depressed about not having the grades for UBC or SFU, and by not having the funds to go to Carleton. Despite that, Langara served as the public co-ed high school experience I never had. I mean good lord, there were girls! A lot of GIRLS!!! So I was able to become reacquainted with the opposite sex (5 years of an all boy Catholic environment does things to a guy). Plus, I was able find my love for history and creative writing there. I loved those 2 subjects before, but, I never thought I'd be considered good in them by my peers, let alone professors. Yet, I still hated it there. As much as I liked the people there, I had to get out. You know you have to get out when your favourite prof, your academic hero, tells you personally that you have to get out while you still can. So when I figured out the proper paper work for myself, I got the hell out of there and didn't bother to go to the convocation. Every time I visit the campus, I'm reminded why I hate it.
On to Vancouver College, I liked my time there. No girls aside, it was ok. I know many people that wouldn't mind burning the place down to the ground though. As for me, it would have been a joyous occasion to graduate from there. Too bad my senior year proved to be the most depressing year in my life. Both academically and personally. Everyone that knows, knows why and all the circumstances behind it. If you don't (like say the AUSers) then if you really want to know, just ask me and I'll tell you why.
Now for John T. Errington. This is probably the only closure that I can relate the demise of my UBC career with. For both examples, my final year was probably the happiest times in either institution. In grade school my academic tenure culminated with a camping trip away from home for a week. After 8 years (if you include kindergarten), childhood and the life ahead of me was in a state of flux. Teenhood approached and the future was unknown. But, for that week, it was all about the here and now of that moment.
12 years later and that feeling approaches yet again. A year where I've met people that I want to keep in touch with. A year where I have become exposed to so many aspects of this school that I never knew existed. The AUS, the RBF, SUS, the Spencer Keys Campaign, campus politics, ACF . . . Bar none, my happiest year.
Where did I spend my previous 3 years? My first year was spent working and hanging out with my high school crew in the "Original" Gallery. They soon faded away and graduated. I then got involved with the HSA for better or worse. As much as I am proud of reviving the club, it has left me bitter over the experience. I regret not being involved with the AUS sooner. But, then again I tend to be a bit wary about joining organizations.
Before my evil twin with the hairy dirt on his face hands me a tissue, let's recap shall we?
Radical Beer Faction RIP - 1988-2004:I arrived a little late because I wanted to catch Payne's comedy stand-up debut at the Gallery. I was glad to catch his performance. Who knew the guy was funny?
Anyway, I stayed for a while after the performance, but, there were kegs awaiting my appearance over at the RBF Grand Finale. Is
Spencer not the host with the most? So I arrive. I am introduced RBF alumni as well as their circle of friends. I am then invited, nay ORDERED to do a keg stand. Being my first attempt to do so, I learned many a lesson:
- while I may suck ass in speed drinking competitions, I am very adept at the endurance and beer consumption qualities reqired in doing keg stands
- I am too tall to do a proper keg stand in the basement of Casa del Keys/Jayme/Camera_Guy_Mike/the_Argyle_Grad
- proper balance is key because falling whilst doing a keg stand sucks
- my many years of watching pro wrestling and putting on fake fights (where get my ass kicked by a 200lbs Hawaiian) has taught me how to fall properly, which, makes the fall look gruesome, but, be as pain free as possible
Other random bits from that night:
- dancing and rocking out in the kitchen with
Kat,
Jo, and the Dancing Guy from Discotronique
- talking to Spencer's friend from the Debate Club who also happened to be in the "Afternoon Tea Society"
* he was one of the guys who confronted
Jill, Kent, & I at club days last year and inquired about our views on
revisionist history
* he also informed me that they declared war upon the HSA as well as other clubs and individuals
-
Happy Gerald + keg stands = fun
- that TV room floor is pretty comfy when I'm drunk
* I woke up the next morning to see
Quinn sleeping on the couch, Ryan passed-out on the floor next door, and
Jayme on his way to the final ACF Poster Party
- Loewen is Da Man when he wants to be
Post RBF Kegger Notes:
- missed last ACF Poster Party
- still drove Jayme to said poster Party and Mike the Camera Guy to work
- playing soccer + intestinal problems due to many days of drinking straight = worst game of soccer ever by me
* C-Nut called me a name in reference to another person in our circle
* if it weren't for my alcohol-induced "health problems" I probably would have decked him
* and then probably apply a myriad of submission holds afterwards
ACF Promo Team:I've kept my forays into promo work at a minimal. This is due to my oh so extroverted personality. I may have received props for my many booth hours at the Mardi Gras, but, it was also very low attended. With this in mind, I've relegated my hours to Monday set-up and to jump in whenever possible. During my limited exposure to the ACF Promo Team, I got to know Ryan "Hey Fuck Face" Corbett. Known as "Grumpy Bear" to some, an asshole to others, he made me laugh my ass off. I mean he has a "list" compiled. If you don't know about this list, trust me, you don't want to be on this list.
As for the Promo Team involvement, my involvement in a BZZR garden or Pit environment = success for me in promoting ACF. However, at Sky Bar, not so much. That place was crowded. After visiting the place (I got in for free suckers), I really don't see the big whoop about the place. Of course I tend to stay away from trendy places like that. Saw a few people there I have not seen in a while though. I also saw geeky guy from "The Waltons" and "It" there. He apparently concentrates on directing and producing now. I'm guessing the female patron inundating him with questions could only recognize him from his many appearances on "The Outer Limits". Although, she could not remember what she's seen him in. Heh.
Claassen Day:Originally, this celebration was planned to commemorate the numerous birthdays that coincided that extended weekend. Among them being Payne, Dingwall , Loewen, and of course Claassen (if I forgotten anyone else, smack me, and I will re-edit this entry later on). The festivities started in the Gallery at noon. It was at that precise moment that everything went down hill.
Some notes if you will:
- Dave got faced, sick, passed-out, and hung-over within a matter of hours
- Dave puked 3 times and had his shoes taped to a tree and underneath some stairs
- Dave could not drink at the Mech BZZR Garden and vowed to not drink again
- Dave started the cycle anew in The Pit with the arrival of Loewen, and later retreated to Vanier with a girl to as Quinn
put oh so eloquently, "to do God knows what"
- Loewen is awesome
- Jen thought it hilarious that she has spent so much time in The Pit over the past few days
- me + beer + no sleep = me passing in and out of consciousness often after dusk in The Pit
- saw Lana, Kat, Rob, Jo, and Liz at the Mech Garden
- while engineers can design and build bridges, they cannot serve beer without a shitload of head nor can they
barbeque a burger properly and efficiently. Although, this could just be attributed to the mech engineers working the
bzzr garden
- Spencer totally kicked Dave's ass in a head butting fight
- Quinn showed Dave and I the duckbilled dinosaur fossil display
* dinosaurs are still cool
Due to the exploits of Dave on that day, Quinn was able to pass a motion to make April 2nd "Dave Claassen Day" at AUS Council with quorum by the necessary 2/3 vote.
Yay democracy!!!
Defacing The Cairn:Being the last chance to do so before Production Week, a select few embarked on a path of vigilante ACF Promo spree by defacing the UBC Engineer's beloved Cairn. For those who do not know what this Cairn is, it is the large "E" construct in the Engineering district of campus. It gets defaced every week by the various rival faculties, so they're used to it.
We painted the Cairn purple (the official colour for the UBC Arts faculty) and spray painted various slogans promoting Arts County Fair. The Campus Cowboys kept driving by and staring at us, but, did nothing. Various students walked by us and were amused.
Production Week:The final push towards the fair where we get Thunderbird Stadium ready for the 14,000-15,000 patrons that attend. I along with many AUSers and ACF volunteers camp out on or near campus in order to dedicate our lives to this event. I stayed over at
Vanessa's place along
Krista, Meg, and Ian "Funshine" Kennedy. Vanessa was a gracious host, as were her roommates. My apologies to everyone there for my trombone-esque snoring. Funny since I actually played the trombone in high school band, or, at least tried to.
I can apparently sleep through anything. This was the case my first night there. Everyone was in search for Ian. There were phone calls and MSN messaging used to try and track down the whereabouts of the elusive Ian. Amidst this chaos at "Search & Rescue HQ", I was out cold. The search for Ian was the talk the next day and I had no clue as to what happened.
Team Midnight Express:
For Production Week, we had to form teams of 2 for plywood. When you did, you had to maintain this partner throughout the week. I partnered up with the GSA Rep & newly elected AUS VPX Matt Holme. We wanted to name our team and opted for a pro wrestling tag team theme. We ran the gamut from The Hart Foundation to Edge & Christian. We then settled on The Midnight Express (the latter NWA & WCW incarnation from the late 1980s with Sweet Stan Lane & Beautiful Bobby Eaton; not the WWF watered down version with Bombastic Bob Holly & Bodacious Bart Gunn, I mean c'mon they sucked ass). So we'd cheer "Go Team Midnight Express!" a lot and give each other high fives. It looked cheesy, but, I had a lot of fun. Plus, we were an effective and efficient plywood team.
"Go Team Midnight Express!!!"
The Fourth Line:
Payne assembled a group of us together to be his "Fourth Line" aka the checking line in hockey consisting of hard hitting grinders. In regards to ACF, we were the goon squad Payne would send to do the heavy lifting and what not. The core of this line were Dave, Jackson, Ryan and I. But, in every line you needed a scoring threat willing to muck it up. This happened to be Jon "PMO" Loewen. Whether it was barriers, fences, lighting, or the moving of a tent anchored to the ground with spikes, we were sent in. If Tony needed a hard task to be done, we were sent in. This was pretty fun. I got to do some exercise through strenuous lifting. If we weren't working, then we were busy carbing up in preparation for the next task. If ya messed with one of us, ya messed with all of us. It was actually kinda scary at times. I mean we cursed and swore at that insolent spike for a good 10 minutes until we (Ryan did most of the work, but, we helped) got it out of the ground. Plus, not a lot of other people were transporting shitters by hand. Uphill no less.
RV Pick-Up Convoy:
Every year we have to pick-up RVs from Delta for the bands to use as trailers prior to their performance. Since, I was over 25, I got recruited to be one of the drivers for this important mission. The reason for this was because the RV company required the drivers to be over 25 and that it decreased the cost of rental. Being that there were 3 RVs, Naf was able to recruit AUS alums Kent and Mike Inwood. Along for the trip and to over see the success of the mission was
Jen. She also served as the final driver of our convoy back to UBC, behind the wheel of Kent’s SUV. Having not driven since leaving Ontario, she did a tremendous job. Bonus points for following my bumbling ass.
We underwent a looooong walk through of how to operate the RV’s many functions. Also, the lady doing the paper work was a bitch. I didn’t notice, I was too tired, wanted to leave as soon as possible, and got distracted by the free hat.
On another note, what the hell was with the banana-shaped cases? Can someone explain that to me? Bizarre.
ACF Muthah F***ah!!!:If you missed out on ACF this year, you missed out on a great show. So "sucks to your assmar" for that. Andrew W.K. would have rocked your face off, De La Soul brought the hizzouse down, and the Canadian content was decent.
Being only my second time at the fair (last year I was a patron; first time I actually had all my papers completed prior to) and my first time as a volunteer, I had very little experience at this sort of thing and was quite nervous. Especially, in regards to my role at the fair. If you saw me and wondered why I didn't stop to hang out I apologize. This year I was recruited as the "Special" Runner and given the code name of The Easter Bunny. You may be wondering (non-ACF staffers that is) why I did not adorn the yellow staff shirt. That is because I was supposed to be incognito the type of cargo I was transporting. Plus I did not want to be jumped. That last sentence should give you an idea of the type of parcels I was holding on my person. So I had to keep on top of the requests of my assigned stations, whether it was a pick-up or a delivery of either beer tix, or smaller denominations, or both.
This task was very exhausting due to my constant running between locations and the shear weight of my cargo load. It got so bad that I eventually had to climb up the stands on all fours. Also, my quads began to cramp. So whenever I found an opportunity to rest, I crashed for few seconds or minutes. During this ordeal I would like to thank Scary Mike & Jules for giving me a burger on their burger run, and Jen & Gerald for being concerned and looking out for my welfare. While I'm at it, Marianne and her daughter were excellent in their counting capabilities and good humour. My exposure to the ICMs was ok, but, that could be due to the fact that I ran by them so many times that they just waved me through. Even when there was a crowd for them to deal with, they'd pull me through the gate. Although, they were kinda idiotic regarding the final run to the vault. Walking the cargo all the way to the SUB vault? Morons.
Another thing regarding my role at ACF, I was under the understanding I'd have a RCMP escort shadow me. Furthermore, I was also under the impression that I was to meet the RCMP prior to the event. I wasn't too sure about the former, but, the latter sure did not happen. Regarding the former, 2 theories are plausible:
1) either I was under such stealth observation that neither I nor anyone else in the ACF staff noticed
or
2) they forgot to give me a shadow
Go with whatever makes you sleep at night. I went about my business watching over my shoulder every so often. Plus I did not know what to say whenever a concerned staffer inquired if there was in fact a shadow present. I guess it helped that I looked like a cross between a hoodlum and a NARC that day.
Watching the situation at Beer 1 was aggravating. I wanted to help, but, couldn't. The best I could do was secretly hand a pack of zap straps to Jackson.
Post ACF Madness:Clean, clean, and more cleaning. We had to strip the stadium of every last remnants of ACF. Away went the geo tek, barriers, fences, tents, ply, poly, what have you.
Calhoun's:
After the ACF finished and after that night's initial stage of clean up, we went for dinner at Calhoun's. The dinner was for free, so we were encouraged to order whatever we wanted. Being Good Friday on a technicality and not abiding by what my friends like to term as the "carry over rule", I opted for the cannelloni and a fudge brownie. Hell, if I can't have meat, and its free, I might as well enjoy my meal. Plus, my body could use all the carbs it could get that week.
ACF Clean Up:
It was nice to the clubs come out and help. I had to do this very task last year myself being an exec member for the HSA. The sole HSA exec member to attend (Kent and Jill didn't count because they were there in AUS capacity). I was glad to see an improvement this time around. A whopping 100% improvement in HSA attendance. That's right, 2 HSAers came out for the cause. Both the outgoing and incoming HSA Prez's came out. Woo hoo and huzzah!!! Get it? Never mind.
Drunkenness:
Some of us began drinking when the clubs left. We sure got drunk pretty easily due to our physical conditions. Beer. Tasty? Yes. A benefit to work output? No.
Double Dinner Night:
Afterwards, some of us decided to meet up for dinner at the Swiss Chalet near campus. But we had under 2 hours to kill. So we went to Trevor's to watch "Shrek".
Some random notes:
- Naf knew and recited the entire dialogue of the film, that is until she passed out
- almost everyone watching passed out at one point in the film
- my realizing the interaction between Donkey and Shrek as being reminiscent of that of "Funshine" and "Grumpy Bear"
made the film even more hilarious
So off we went to the Chalet (pronounced: shall-lett). The guilty parties were Naf (of course), Jen, Vanessa, Tiff, me, and eventually Steve Price & Tinson. We were all tired and hungry. Jen made us all crack up as she haggled her way to increasing the chicken content in her meal by disregarding with pesky veggies and condiments. Again, being Good Friday, I opted for the veggie stir fry while everyone got chicken (only their signature dish). But, I enjoyed their Chalet sauce with my fries. Next time around, I need to pair it up with the chicken and behold the glorious flavour and texture of the two. At least, that is the impression I get.
Vanessa, Jen, And I went back to campus to try and catch the end of the Canucks' game at The Pit with Claassen and whomever went. Unfortunately, being Good Friday, The Pit was closed. So we missed the game. In lieu of that, we went to dinner #2 at The Eatery. Much like my experience with The Chalet, it was my first time there. However, there specialty was veggie cuisine. So I was safe. We met with Gavin there. He and I shared a dish called the "Fat Elvis" and some green tea. It was very tasty and I probably would have enjoyed it even more if it weren't for the fact I was still full from dinner #1. We talked about ACF and I think I startled Vanessa with my sharing of my experience at the fair. Especially, when Jen gave her impression regarding my situation.
McDick's:
Prior to returning the Budget vehicles, we ate a quick lunch at McDonald's. The culprits were Payne, Loewen, Ryan, Dave, Gavin, and myself. It was a perfect environment to talk guy talk. Those types of conversations are hilarious.
Home:
Finally saw home for the first time in a week. I was only away for a week, and it looked so foreign to me.
Macaroni Grill:
We had the ACF staff dinner at the Macaroni Grill. We had a free meal that consisted of various starters, pastas, beef, chicken parmesan, and desert. In addition to that we all received 2 complimentary drinks. However, some of us were already arrived drunk and/or were not content with the 2 free drinks and began ordering more and more.
Pictures were taken. Drunken banter was made. Dingwall danced on top of a chair. And Kaitlin won the hand-drawn facsimile of an award, which Dingwall (who won the previous year) forgot to bring, for the best come back during the fair.
Post Dinner After Party:
Some of us decided to continue the craziness to Spencer's. Jen and Sarah were brought to their rez to pick up liquid nutrients for the night. The rest of us rode the myriad of Translink connections to Spencer's. On this journey we managed to see Tony, scare a preteen/teenaged girl from Fox Fest, and see Noodles (guitarist for Offspring) outside the Morrissey. Kaitlin, Josh, and Vanessa were unable to convince him to attend the house party. He apparently wanted to check out a strip joint. If I knew I could have hooked him up with a pass to Brandi's. By the way, I was the one who spotted him first.
Finally at Spencer's, we did the following:
- see Aaron's light show involving sambucca, brown sugar, and fire
- watch and make a drinking game out of the film "ID4" aka "Independence Day"
- some of us passed out throughout the evening
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I yet again see the light outside my window. I must end it here for now since I have to meet with a friend on campus in a few hours and really need the rest.
Sorry for the long ass post, but, that's how they go. I f you have anything to add (I know I left out a lot) I have a comment section. Go ahead, it won't hurt.
Until next time, I gotta go pass out.
Later Days.
End Transmission.
