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So much bubbling up

March 30, 2009 at 12:47 am | In just_so | 7 Comments

As we work on MetroCascade, I continue to be amazed by all the bloggers, events, and sources that we uncover (ok, that I uncover!).

One twenty-something dude told me that he didn’t think there was any value in uncovering the cool stuff in Victoria. He didn’t think there was cool stuff in Victoria.

Whatever. I’m nearly 3 decades older than he is, and I remember all the cool stuff that I enjoyed in Victoria BC when I was 14, 15, 16, 17 years old: the Churchill pub (ok, I was underage/ drinking illegally: bite me), now reincarnated as the Jellyfish Lounge (and still troublesome!); Sappho’s (an early 1970s private gay bar in Victoria, unlicensed, where you could dance till 4 a.m. and then go to a 24-hour cafe – Scott’s! – for a butter tart and cup of tea, before heading home at dawn); the Quee Queg Cafe in Bastion Square (oh, scan thru this comments thread for more info on Valdy – Valdy? Jesus, I completely forgot about that darned old hippie!); amazing events at local music venues; the list goes on…

And the point is that it’s still going on. What I saw in my underage degeneracy wasn’t a fluke. It was normal for here.

You know, it’s like that Magritte painting:

Ceci n’est pas une pipe.

This is not Victoria.

(….Oh yes it is.)

(PS: I was never a Valdy fan, by the way. I wasn’t a folkie. Still don’t like the style. Just saying. I do remember that one time, when I was 14 or 15, I was hitchhiking on Hillside Avenue with my friend, and we got picked up by Mose Allison and his band. They were in town to play a concert at UVic. We told Mose in the most sage tones we could muster that UVic was out in the sticks, and that he and the band really should go downtown instead. True.)