Oshawa's Gift of Culture
Holy christ kids. For a while now, I've been telling you all about the cultural hell hole I grew up in- the Shwa. Yep- the Shwa- Canada's retarded version of Detroit. In case you needed further proof of my Kid Rock-like crude beginnnings, read THIS before going any further! ... Ok, now come back.
This is the best part: "It was a really dingy place. I've been trying to spruce it up," he (the pool hall owner) says, pointing to a new bar, fresh drywall and photos of recent wet T-shirt contests."
What did he say? Sprucing the place up by replacing those pictures of old wet T-shirt contests with pictures of recent wet T-shirt contests? Bwahahahaha!!!
But it gets better: (Now) he offers live music and DJs playing rock 'n' roll and he's even introduced oil wrestling to the entertainment lineup. "The place has gotten much, much better," he states proudly.
And the kicker to all this will be when somehow- even without welfare cheques and General Motors- Oshawa, like the cockroach of a city it is, will crawl back out of the sewers after Armagaeddon. Future visitors from other planets will discover the descendants of the regulars from that pool hall and think "Damn- we thought we had finally discovered intelligent life-forms!"
Many thanks to Otto van Karajanstein over at The Transcontinental for rubbing my nose in this pile of cultural offal.
This is the best part: "It was a really dingy place. I've been trying to spruce it up," he (the pool hall owner) says, pointing to a new bar, fresh drywall and photos of recent wet T-shirt contests."
What did he say? Sprucing the place up by replacing those pictures of old wet T-shirt contests with pictures of recent wet T-shirt contests? Bwahahahaha!!!
But it gets better: (Now) he offers live music and DJs playing rock 'n' roll and he's even introduced oil wrestling to the entertainment lineup. "The place has gotten much, much better," he states proudly.
And the kicker to all this will be when somehow- even without welfare cheques and General Motors- Oshawa, like the cockroach of a city it is, will crawl back out of the sewers after Armagaeddon. Future visitors from other planets will discover the descendants of the regulars from that pool hall and think "Damn- we thought we had finally discovered intelligent life-forms!"
Many thanks to Otto van Karajanstein over at The Transcontinental for rubbing my nose in this pile of cultural offal.
posted by K-Dough at 1:47 PM
17 Comments:
as long as they don't get into the old fad of midget tossing.
i think the downtown macdonalds in victoria blasts classical to keep the homeless from hanging out there. yup, quiet little 'dowager city' is way different from when i grew up there!!!
aloha to ya, k-man!
Aloha Scout!
I always thought going to Victoria would be like visiting the movie Cocoon...
Nothing compares to "The Shwa". Overpaid, empty headed factory workers, welfare bums, drug addicts, whores and homeless galore.
Not to mention toothless, 400 pound chicks wearing size small tights with a XXXL Harley Davidson "hoodie", lookin' for luv at the number one country music bar "The Corral" on Saturday nights. Yuck!!!
A huge, steaming piece of crap. That's "The Shwa". Find the biggest bulldozer you can and push the entire place into Lake Ontario. Digusting.......
Excuse my bleeding heart, but articles like these make me feel sorry for the denizens of Oshawa.
What are the odds of the Star doing a story on the Oshawa-Durham symphony Orchestra? Here's their site - they're a pretty ambitious group!
http://www.odso.ca/
They're over 50 years old, and yet I've never heard a peep about them from what is the region's big paper. And the only reason I read the Star "Arts" page is for their occasional scraps on classical music.
Just to play devil's advocate, but maybe part of the reason why Oshawa is full of hillbillies is because no one ever talks about some of the more interesting stuff out there because Star reporters can't get their stereotypes or their asses beyond the Beaches.
I love Oshawa because that's where the first clinkety clink of the bar cart happens on the train ride from Toronto to Ottawa.
Otto- I've actually seen one of their performances. It was great, but they had to rent out a local high school lecture hall for the venue!
All kidding aside, there are plenty of rich people living out there in that small town of 300,000, including many thousands of well-off autoworkers and bedroom-community Toronto executives and professionals. But they neglect their community by not investing anything more than taxes in it. They're too busy driving their SUVs back and forth between work, the malls and the banks.
It could be much more than it is.
It definitely spawned a lot of creative people in my generation. I think that kind of setting forces artists upward and out like a reversed zit.
It's a well-worn joke amongst Canadian music industry people that there is an Oshawa connection in every company, branch or band.
Sheena- well you have it right in at least one way: being drunk and just passing through is a very good idea.
This is off topic but it is related to bars because that's where exotic dancers dance: The Breast Cancer Society of Canada has refused a donation from a group of strippers who raised money in honour of a friend who died of breast cancer.
from the CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/02/08
bc-dancers-cancer.html
Sorry K-Dough for the interruption, but I had to get this news out there. Thank you.
I'm just glad to see Boris Karloff finally getting the respect due to him in classical music circles.
Anon- that is absoutely fucking horrific. It is a disgrace to the people they claim to advocate for. If it was biker money or proceeds from organized crime I could understand.
On another note- their spokesperson is a former stripper named Trina Ricketts. Don't know if I'd want to be lap-danced on by someone named Ricketts.
Eugene- lol!!!!
The last time I went into a 'swah bar, a couple of those "400 pound Harley Davidson hoodie" sweeties were checking me out with absolute hatred on their faces. Then the full horror hit me when all the guys checked me out....I was competition.
Leather- the very fact that you have set foot in a Shwa bar means your soul can never ascend to heaven you know.
On the bright side, you'll be visiting this blog for eternity.
Btw- Anna Nicole Smith is Dead.
A lawyer for Anna Nicole Smith says she has died. Smith was rushed to hospital Thursday while staying at the Seminole Hard Rock Cafe Hotel and Casino, hotel officials said. Hospital staff said she was unresponsive.
Smith, 38, is the former Playboy playmate who married oil tycoon J. Marshall Howard, 89, after meeting him at a strip club.
We use to drive from Scarborough to the shwa to go to Illusions to go dancing in 82-85 maybe.
I also had to work nights in the same neighbourhood and the junkie hookers waiting for the Car plant guys to get out were too frigin scarry. You come out to get your car at 4 a.m. and they'd be leaning against you car with a needle hanging out of their arm.
I then realized that Scarborough was not hell, just purgatory.
I know about this place because I won 50 dollars there one time for letting some guy dump a bucket of water on me and shake.
Imagine? $50 just to get a little wet. What a dumb-ass.
Anyway, I hope they do play classical music cause I like that stuff. I have some Wham cds and Duran Duran, plus I really like that guy Shroeder from Charlie Brown and Peanuts who plays piano, but I can never find any of his cd's.
Anna Nicole Smith, damn, I'm in a serious death pool, she would have been worth primo points.
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