O O Ø O O O O
Oohay Baby
Have any other Calgarians noticed this strange behaviour from our formerly eastern-controlled media?
For 355 days of the year, they never miss an opportunity to film a grass-chewing, mesh-backed farmer complaining about the weather, and air it as western sentiment. My personal favourite came after Trudeau died (may he rot in hell), and Chretien was thinking of unilaterally renaming Mount Logan after him. CBC stopped by a truck stop and interviewed a fellow who suggested any steaming pile of prairie fertilizer could aptly be renamed Mount Trudeau. Admittedly, that was actually western sentiment.
For ten days in July however, just when Calgary is doing its best to live up to the sort of dust bowl hayseed aw-shucks yahoo image the Eastie loves to portray, we disappear from the media radar.
Stampede. I honestly think the national media’s embarrassed on our behalf.
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert would be proud.
That’s okay, we all go through it. When I was going through my awkward teenage years, I didn’t want to have much to do with the whole C-lazy-S scene. Picture overweight, middle-aged city boys squeezing into fashions last relevant in the Joe Clark administration, and all those old war horses dressing like young fillies. Priscilla, Queen of the Desert would be proud.
Many locals in Calgary also don’t get it. My coworker’s husband is disbelieving of the whole affair. My own wife would never let me go out in public wearing cowboy boots unless it was Stampede. (There’s little chance of that in any case. They hurt my feet.)
Yes it’s tacky. Yes it’s kitsch. Get over it. You’re not a teenager anymore. Who are you trying to impress? It’s Stampede and no one’s going to remember anyway.
And it’s fun, remember? Free food, free booze. Reckless truancy, irresponsible behaviour. Leave your reservations and your pager at home. Take a look at this visitor’s impressions:
Hit Calgary during the Stampede. A guy in a bar explained the Chuck Wagon races to me so I knew how to look at them when I saw them. A guy serving me pancakes in the street told me his vehicle was a chuck wagon. I danced in the street, too.
—Icono.Clast, San Francisco, June 6, 1994
Eastie media and apologists needn’t fear. On the following Monday morning, we’ll all rub our tired, sun bleached eyes, pull our suits and khakis out of the closet, and go back to doing $28 billion worth of oil patch business.
Yup. Need more rain.
Evan Spence
Tuesday, July
10,
2001
PD DIII