You know I end up at some of the strangest-amazing-bizarro events and parties here, especially when I happen to be on my bike (for some strange reason).
After the gig I just wrote about, I met another couple of cyclists, Darren and Wendy, who happened to have been at the Low gig, and were cycling home in the same general direction as I. "Hey man, do you wanna come to a party tonight?". 'Sure". I was only planning on heading home anyways, and it was only 9.30pm.
Now what happened over the next 6 hours or so is kinda hard to explain in an email, but i'll do my best. First of all we had to make a pit-stop for a beer, and so we stopped at, of all the places in the world, the local Army and Navy Legion Club on Main Street, East Vancouver!!??!! (same as the ol' Returned Soldiers League - RSL pubs back home in Oz). Darren and Wendy were both students, and therefore had sussed out all the places in town for cheap beer, and here it was about $3 for a bottle. Better than the $5.50 I was paying at the gig! Now, I'm all about experiencing the cultural side of society, and here was an insight into the Saturday nights of Vancouver's senior Ladies and Gents - shuffleboard games and Old Timers doing waaaaaayy-out-of-tune karaoke renditions of old Tom Petty tunes and 40's country ditties. It was great!!
Then to the party itself, which turned out to be a theme party of, get this, "Communist Party Easter Egg Hunt Preparation Party"!! And apparently this was the 5th such party, and annual event every Easter! (PB, you would have loved this - right after a Low gig too!!)
So, it was all get dressed up as a Commie, with people wearing red arm bands with the Hammer and Syckle and painted on Lenin beards, all painting hard boiled eggs with the same motifs, and even photocopied flyers advertising the event that was to follow the following Sunday morning! Not to mention Vodka shots being generously shouted at every opportune moment.
Ironically, this was attended by a rabble of anarchist-lefty bikey-arty types, some of whom I had previously met at the Critical Mass rally and Butchershop event back in Feb. As one of the guys mentioned "The alternative community in Vancouver is pretty small".
Okay, so come Midnight, we all leave the house, Smirnoff bottles in hand, singing a hideously out-of-tune version of The Internationale (Communism's unofficial anthem) at the top of our lungs, and venture to a nearby park with a kiddies playground and proceed to hide all the eggs, and with staple guns and tape (they were well prepared!) stuck up all the flyers on poles and lamp-posts within a 3-block radius. Things got out of hand when we started sticky-taping empty vodka bottles with boiled eggs in the opening to Canada Post mailboxes, but goddamn it was funny!....and fun!!
Back at the house, more vodka shots (they had a LOT of vodka), and even red-dyed cookies in the shape of the Hammer and Sickle (!!) were dished out to all and sundry. By about 2am, I'd pretty much had my fill of free vodka (i don't handle that spirit very well), and was shaping up to go home, when the heavens opened and it started lashing down with rain - kinda nipping my idea of cycling home right there in the bud.
Incredibly tho, there was one guy at the party who was sober (!), and had a pick-up truck, AND lived about 5 blocks from me....hows that for getting the trifecta! So i got a ride home with him, my bike in the back. Needless to say my Easter Sunday was a write off.
Talk soon,
tony
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