03/26/2010: "Top Bets"

Hello all,

So, some Top Bets. This week's - really, last week's - were again subject to the editorial axe. So it goes. But thankfully I get to post the unadulterated version here.

Bit of a story behind item #5. So we're an alt-urban. We do band reviews. We have to, y'know, REVIEW things and sometimes, well, we aren't over the moon about what we're seeing.

But of course some artists are pretty thin-skinned. I can say that of myself from time to time. Anyway, there's this message board in Saint John where artists and musicians gather. Which in itself is a great thing. But sometimes these places are pretty insular and nasty and predatory, especially when there is something that has antagonized them. Say, a review they find insulting.

So, anyway, this thread was started:

http://www.giraffecycle.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40137

... which, I mean, I don't suggest you read. It's just pretty mean but not really anything else but representative of the sort of stuff that goes on on message boards. But it did piss us at the magazine off, seeing as the reporter in question is a great young reporter and was just being honest and fair. Not to mention which, quite a few of the commenters are ex-freelancers for our publication; we had to let go of a lot of our freelancers when the idea was to hire permanent reporters. So I was particularly PO'd and any chance I get to kick a hornet's nest, I usually do. So, after the jump, you can read the original Top Bets and the one that we went with seeing as perhaps ... well, it was thought that running #5 would be evidence that the message board mob had 'got to us' ... which, to be brutally honest, it did!

Anyway ... the 'bug-eyed twerp with a wine-stained tongue' is this guy who used to be our booze reviewer.

TOP BETS MAR 19-25

1. MONCTON. Jawbreaker Phelps, Handsome Maggie, and my aromatherapist Kjell 'The Viking' Fjellgaard joined a bowling league. We called ourselves The Pinheads, which everyone thought was a riot except Kjell, who still wakes up screaming from his encounter with the head-shrinkers of Papua, New Guinea. We renamed ourselves The Human Gutterballs. One night Maggie was rolling pure smoke, flirting with a perfect game (also with Jawbreaker Phelps; the two of them made goo-goo eyes at each other between strikes). On the final frame she was left with a 7 - 10 split. Everyone was crestfallen. I tried to lighten the mood by saying: "Hey, Kjell, those pins look like the inside of your mouth." Everyone giggled except Kjell, though he was usually the first to joke about the disreputable state of his teeth. But he just sat there looking glum. What none of us knew was that Kjell's parents had both died a little earlier that afternoon. Bowl for Kids Sake fundraiser at Dieppe Bowlarama. March 19 and 20. Free. Call 857-3047 for details.

2. SAINT JOHN. "Nobody can eat fifty eggs!" So says my chain gang buddy Dragline. I says: "Bet you a cold drink I can." We break out of the hoosegow and head to the New Brunswick Museum. As luck would have it there were a bunch of eggs just lyin' round - painted lovely colors, too. Dragline and Babalaguts crack ‘em, peel ‘em, and I start a-eatin’. I got forty-nine down the hatch, belly swoll tight as a drum, when in come these tots - who, as it turns out, had been napping, and now were back to collect the eggs they'd painted. There I was with a bellyful, them busted shells grittin’ under our boots! Next the tots’re bawlin' their little guts out and their teacher gives us a stony look and says: "What we have here is failure to communicate." Ukrainian Egg Decorating. $45. March 20 at 10:00am. New Brunswick Museum. Pre-registration: 643-2349.

3. FREDERICTON. Hello. My name’s Rusty Culligan. I’m a witch hunter. I captured Stella, the flame-haired witch of Oromocto. Also Bruno LaValle, dread warlock of Pictou county. Some say witch-hunting is a matter of luck or intuition - nope. It’s pure science. Say you catch someone suspected of witchery or general warlock-ism. Someone who makes his neighbors’ milk go sour, their crops wither, or has been known to hoard eye of newt. Well, you toss him in the water. If he sinks, drowns, he was a warlock - his soul was heavy, see, and the devil pulled him down to Hell. If he floats, well, clearly he’s a warlock: his infernal majicks help him bob like a cork. That being the case, you pull him out the water, dry him off, and burn him dead. Yea, ’tis a strange world in which we live, with many wonders to behold - but science always bears out. Visit the Science East Centre, NB’s ‘Hands On’ Science experience. Open Saturdays, 10 - 5. 668 Brunswick Street. 457-2340.

4. MONCTON. Three-Fingered Louie LaRouche, the biggest mafioso in Botsford county, leaned into my ear at the Shemogue Harbour clambake and whispered: “Rat-tail Johnny sleeps with the fishes, capische?” Apparently Rat-tail Johnny had been horning in on LaRouche’s lucrative baitworm business, selling buckets of nightcrawlers at deep discounts. I enlisted my aide-de-camp Tugboat Munroe. We grabbed our fishing poles, hopped in a boat, and caught a mess of fish. That night we snuck into Rat-tail’s apartment and arranged the fish all around and over his sleeping body. Tugboat propped a carp under his head like a big slimy pillow. Message sent. Fish Canada / Workboat Canada 2010. Moncton Coliseum, 377 Killam Drive. Saturday, Mar 20. 10am - 4pm.

5. SAINT JOHN. I’m visiting the lovely Port City and come across this insular gaggle of sorry-looking fellows with sour looks on their kissers and their pockets turned out. “What’s with the long faces?” I ask friendly-like, seeing as I never go out of my way to cause a stir unless someone causes one first - like, say, slagging someone whose talent highlights their own comparative lack of the same, whose youth is a thorn in their aging hides, and whose promising future is a galling reminder that they long ago hit both their creative and professional ceilings. So anyway, these fellows give me a collective sneer and say: “We used to freelance for this paper, and the paper went through some changes and they let us go.” And I said, “Well, that’s a kick in the pants and I’m genuinely sorry to hear it. I’ve been there myself. But who knows? Maybe their budget gets a goose and they hire you back. That may have been their aim all along.” They look at each other awkward-like and this bug-eyed twerp with a wine-stained tongue says: “Little chance of that happening. See, we flapped our gums on this online message board, denigrating people who were just doing their jobs.” So I said: “That sounds like a productive use of your time,” and walked on, seeing as I have precious little use for such people. Life’s too short, not to mention it’s a big ole world - but a small one, too. Go to Giraffecycle.com and cast your vote for the Best of Saint John Music poll. Winners announced at the Blue Olive, May 14.

... replacement for #5:

5. SAINT JOHN. Like most men I’m a sucker for the female form. The graceful turn of an ankle beneath a frilly petticoat … the bewitching crook of an elbow projecting from the sleeve of a grand cotillion gown - positively intoxicating! So when the opportunity arose to join a sculpting class addressing the wonders of the female form, well, I waded right in. I expected the model would be dressed in a girdle and stout leggings, at least. To my great horror she was naked - and happy as a mudlark! Encircling her were gents and even a few ladies, squeezing and manipulating their clay into the shapes of … of … bosoms! The model kept batting her eyes at a man in a coonskin hat, and another Nordic-looking gent with a mane of lion-like curls. Next a wild-eyed man burst through the doors, spies the woman in all her glory, unleashes a most pitiful yowl and says: “Aaah, Maggie dear - lovin’ you is pure hell!” Staring fire at the man in the coonskin hat and the blonde-haired man, he says: “Jean Luc Drapont, you rascal! And Kjell, too! Avert your roving eyes!” Well, the men do nothing of the sort and soon enough it’s a brawl, the three of them rolling round, biting and hissing, clay smeared on their faces while the naked model plays ‘The Bowery Rag’ on a piano in the corner. That’s about your typical Saturday night in this town. Intro to Sculpture. $105. Saturday, March 26. 9:00am - 4:00pm. Saint John Arts Centre, 20 Hazen Avenue.