Thursday, September 16, 2010

Drankin' at the dom

Welcome to My Sketchy Friends' first actual blog post (ie. one that isn’t a link or a picture). I submit this post after having read a particularly enjoyable Slate article sent to me by a friend regarding parliamentary debate in the United States that has inspired me to improve my writing style (http://www.slate.com/id/2264222/entry/2264221). Hopefully I can later figure out how to discreetly insert links. In any case, surprise! This isn't Tumblr. Tumblr, to my experiences, being less about substantive posts than being a general collection of cool things on the internets. So let us begin with the first actual piece of writing on My Sketchy Friends. . .

Greetings my droogs and only friends, I've made a list of observations— these observations having been written down on the back of business cards Alejandro had printed, and I had stolen from him, as he moved to NYC. Emanating from tonight’s adventures at The Dominion (the dom), as my veiled alcoholism might as well be used for something such as quirky observations, I sincerely hope that they are as engaging to you as they were to myself. That said, if all goes well, perhaps I ought to start a blog all of my own if this turns out entertaining enough. Sarah, you may have competition.

Firstly, there was some generic-non descript middle eastern guy who attempted to hit on a lanky and clueless Asian. She apparently hadn't realized what the dom is/the atmosphere it seeks to achieve and hence why she really ought now have been at the dom in the first place. To illustrate, she was wearing shiny black high-heels and your typical jeans and a plain white halter top in the sort of place that plays music such as this:( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=437ych7UtGE ). The funny thing about this being that she is . . .

a) better at pool than him after he tries to “teach her.”
b) playing pool on a table beside 4 punks that are competitively engaged in the game all the while being both drunk and boisterous.

The middle-eastern guy later tries a behind-the-back shot, presumably to woo said asian girl, with his pool cue that unsurprisingly fails.

The whole courting event just seems all too appropriate for a bar such as the dom even if the participants aren’t. The context, for all our readers out there (sarcasm) ought to be explained. Besides the ambiance that playing the UK Subs creates (see previous link), the dom can be described as Ottawa’s only true dive bar. With Zaphods (a hipster/indie delight) next to it, the dom truly has to define itself as dirtier and more true to its values than Zaphods ever could imagine itself to be. It’s the sort of place that my dream girl (ladies![oh my, I'm destructively lonely{how's this for meta-writing!}) would want to hang out at, though hopefully never want to eat at.

/Observation one executed

Secondly, ever since I had shown up at about 8:30 there sat your typical mountain-man hipster with an overgrown beard. At first I had thought he was simply a poverty stricken 40 year-old drinking at a bar. However, with a few concentrated, concealed and contiguous glances I had realized he was merely a 20-30 year old who had taken the mountain-man image too far. His beard from chin to hair tip had to be at the least about 4 inches, though most likely closer to 5’’. It turned out he was waiting for a friend of his; a friend who happened to be eerily similar in appearance to I (as in being brown), wearing a suit and was prepared to sit there drinking Labatt 50 for about 2 hours in his sandy coloured suit. It was an unexpected class mix that I saw and it gave me hope that I would hopefully . . .

a) keep true to my origins (if I turned out to be sandy suit man) by going back to the dom periodically to meet friends
b) keep my old friend (if I turned out to be mountain man as I am particularly adept at growing facial hair)

/Observation two executed

Observation three was merely an exhibit of feminine ingenuity in which a girl, rather than holding onto her wallet or keeping it in a pocket, had decided to ensure that it would not be lost by securing it underneath her left bra-strap. I hope you can picture what I saw because it was truly impressive. This girl had her lipstick red wallet hanging off her frontal shoulder bone (the shoulder being divided in two parts says my quick glance at Wikipedia) so she would not lose it while drinking.

Finally, before having written this I feel almost obligated to make sure that a bit of Stephen Colbert’s genius is capture wherever possible. He had indirectly made the comment that erections=freedom towers. Pretty funny given the link between fundamentalist religion and the stifling of sexual enjoyment.

Meanwhile on campus . . .
in my quick walks across the University of Ottawa after work (cheers to co-op terms!) which are during what are arguably rush hours (8:15am and 5:20pm) on campus, I’ve noticed that people have decided to take one of two approaches to dressing this fall. They have either embraced the hipster fashion/American apparel (argh!) aesthetic or just decided to give up on the fruitless pursuit of who can most successfully raid their parent’s closet and decided to dress “normally.” I invite this as someone who also dresses “normally.” Comments on this? Have people noticed this? Keep in mind that those reading this are in visual arts and thus are disproportionately a peer group of the former?

Well, off to work in 6.5 hours. Toodles.

ps. Sarah as originator of this project it’s your responsibility to edit (ie. delete [I’m using ie in its proper sense!]) this post.

pps. Everyone! Post less! Save your ideas so that you may post things that are interesting on a regular basis, even when you get busy! Need to keep this alive

ppps. A song I’ve been obsessed with during the last day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioRwULu9ppA

3 comments:

  1. why would i delete this post?

    and i agree that we need to keep this alive, but post less?? that's the opposite of what i want! are you saying my posts aren't interesting? i'm hurt jm. wounded even.

    and in regard to your fashion question, i guess it's what you consider "normal" or not. From what I've seen a lot of the AA aesthetic has gone pretty mainstream and has become almost the new "normal" ie. skinny jeans and such. i think all you'r noticing is people who are following fashion trends and people who aren't.

    Of course the full blown hipster still exists. And if spotted in the wild, should be tagged and released back into it's natural habitat so we may track it's movements for further study.

    ReplyDelete
  2. i say post less because in the case that you get busy or nothing really comes up for a while you can just go back into a bank of things you were gonna post earlier but didn’t. Maybe that’s just a problem for me though because I don’t really got much to say/show.

    So post less often, but keep the ideas for later

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think fit matters more than anything. Shirts need to fit properly unless they're deliberately big. My plaid shirts billow. My dress shirts are tight.


    P.P.S. I love your observations. Go to bars more and record what you see. Bug Sarah to set you up with a smokey old film camera.

    ReplyDelete