californiaflagnowriting

We's in California

Monday, March 20, 2006

If you don't love this post then you don't like blogs.

California is a source of many forms of culture that get disseminated throughout the world. Music, film, technology, surf culture, skateboarding, and leasing cars you can't afford. But what you'll find is that these things last in the culture long after they fade away in the rest of the world where these things have been adopted rather than developed.

It sounds cliche but those who live in Winnipeg know by now that trends:
A) Are never invented in Winnipeg.
B) Come and go quicker and quicker every year.

This is true from the UG boot, to Limp Bizkit, to the jacket with fur on the collar, to the mega-big sunglasses, to the wearing really short and tight shorts every Halloween fad that I started a few years ago.

The main thing all these trends have in common is that, after being disseminated by Much Music, Teen People, The Aboriginal Peoples Television Network ( in the case of the feathered headdresses you will all be seeing on the hip freshmen at the couches in University Center at the U of M next September), they disappear as quickly as they came. One good example is that unless you live in some California surf town, owning a big sunbleached mop of surf hair and talking like a Ninja Turtle means you're stuck in the early 90's. But those people still exist where it was
started. I'm also confused with a lot of the music radio stations. I was surprised at how much Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Offspring that's played. Grunge and popular early 90's punk was mostly a west coast thing (yes, mostly Seattle of course) and really seems to have stuck around in these parts in at least some forms of the media. But in this case it may due to the fact that there is just a larger audience here, who knows.

Let's see, what else was created here, was really popular even in small town Manitoba, then went away, but is still big here? How about Apple computers. They were big in the early 80's even in Neepawa, Mb. but I don't think you can really get them now other than places in California.

I got hit on my bike last week by a car while I was biking on the bike path beside the Orange Line. I immediately called the law offices of Slippe, Falle & Sioux. Acutally people were voicing their safety concerns last year when they first built the busline because car drivers were crashing into the busses because they weren't used to the new sets of traffic lights on their street that crosses over the busway.

Remember those animals you put in water and they get 100 times bigger? They don't work anymore.

15 Comments:

  • Hey Gareth, apparently James Bond was invented in Winnipeg... well at least was based on an ex-winnipeger: Sir William Stephenson who was an WWI fighter pilot and WWII master spy, he directed British intelligence operations in the wester hemisphere in WWII, notably breaking Nazi codes and disrupting German atomic experiments.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at March 21, 2006  

  • Jer, that's a famous guy, not a cultural trend. Although breaking Nazi codes was pretty big with the highschool kids in the 40's. Everyone's grampa got at least one Nazi decoder set under the Christmas tree. I broke a Nazi code once. It gave me 30 free lives in Contra for the NES.

    By Blogger Gareth, at March 21, 2006  

  • Whaddya mean James Bond wasn't a cultural trend...why do you think the girls started wearing bikinis!!! And no one owned x-ray sunglasses or imitation fingerprints prior to the brilliant Sir William Stephenson either! Excuse me while I fly home from school with my jetpack.

    By Blogger Steve & Gillian, at March 21, 2006  

  • up down up down left right left right b a b select start. yes.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at March 21, 2006  

  • Just wondering, did you survive the accident?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at March 21, 2006  

  • Contra, you can't get the 30 free lives with out it. nintendo.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at March 22, 2006  

  • Hey Al, I landed on my feet. All I needed was a straightened tire, for which I should have asked the driver for the 15 dollars it cost me.

    By Blogger Gareth, at March 22, 2006  

  • You got the rim straightened (or "trued"), not the tire. Which is rubber. And easy to straighten.

    Listen, if you're going to commute, you have to learn what the parts are called so you can tell the insurance adjuster next time you get hit.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at March 22, 2006  

  • Actually I was happy because the shop also fixed my slow-downers, which were a little loose. I still need to make my handholders a little higher because they are a bit too low for the height of my bumpad.

    By Blogger Gareth, at March 23, 2006  

  • fossil fuel vehicles 1, gareth 0.

    Hope you didn't scratch up those running leotards you were styling in the last post.

    Time to throw in the towel and buy a Hummer...then, as an added bonus, you can lay claim to a retro-trend as the rest of the west hops into a Prius.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at March 23, 2006  

  • This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at March 23, 2006  

  • Very nice what? toothbrush? sweatpants? or blogger advertising also known as subversive guerilla marketing. thank you for annoying the hell out of me.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at March 24, 2006  

  • Umm, dunno if that last anon post was actually by a preson just a "bot" that does it automagically. We'll see if more show up.

    By Blogger Gareth, at March 24, 2006  

  • they gots robots now?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at March 24, 2006  

  • Put that anon post back up. I could use an easy $900.00 a month right now but ya pulled it before I got the url. Be a pal, huh?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at March 24, 2006  

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