Wednesday, January 12, 2005

This city ain't so bad...

It's the little things in life that make it good... I just found a jazz-lounge station on the inter-web from Baden, Switzerland. My favourite aunt was the city councilor in charge of youth and culture projects for 10 years in Baden. I bet she knows all about this internet radio station... they probably have some amazing studio in a loft built in an old mill on the edge of the Limat River or something. I suppose one day I will get my act in gear and go over there to experience these things first hand.

http://www.lounge-radio.com/liveradio.htm

But currently I'm on my "discover western Canada" leg of life.

I met a very cool couple of folks last week. They are friends of Allison, a person I worked with at Harbourfront. Jonathan and Julie have also just moved to Calgary. They are part of the Ontario Influx... the same group that myself and Daiva and Lyndee belong to. Is it right that we think we are going to liberalize and bring culture to this conservative western town?

Well, I've also met some pretty cultured Calgarians. At the One Yellow Rabbit party on Saturday I met a bunch of those. There I met a woman named Brenda who single-handedly runs the Fairy Tales gay film fest here. I volunteered to help out. Is it another one of those "big city big shot shows backwards cowtown how it's really done" situations?

http://www.fairytalesfilmfest.com/

No. If there's one thing I learned in Dubai, it's that you can't move into a strange land and expect to take over and show them how it's done. Just like in Dubai, this project should belong primarily to the city it's born in. Halfway through our time in Dubai, we Canadians had to stop and re-evaluate our methods. We couldn't impose our policies and rules on them outright... we learned that we had to respect their way of doing things. On the other hand, they did learn a lot from us too.

Have I mentioned I'm flying to Miami right after Sundance to work at the Miami International Film Festival? That's right boys and girls... directly from snow, to sun.

What else have I done this week... got my Alberta Health Card... shot a demo video to enter the FoodTV chef contest... won $1.60 at poker... went for sushi witih A BOY... did some shopping.

Not a bad week.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

My Blog deflowered

My friend Michael decided that I should create a blog. I guess it's a bit more humble than sending those impersonal mass emails... but I have friends with blogs, and they are all geeks! (Just kidding Hilary, Michael and Mike).

All right, I'll give it a shot.

I live in Calgary. I've just moved here. I haven't worked here yet, which freaks me out a bit. The irony of quitting my job in Toronto and moving to Calgary is now I have the time to go and work these cool gigs in other parts of the world. But as far as actually settling in here in CowTown...? I have a social life, but no work life. And I'm not used to that.

So I've been to Dubai recently. Some other Canadians and I were really lucky and with the fabulous Winston Morgan as our leader, we fearlessly boarded business class and set out for the Dubai International Film Festival. Our trip was a wild experience, filled with hard work, incredibale scenery and service, amazing and different people and yes, the Persian Gulf.

Now I find myself in a 2 week limbo before the next gig: the Sundance film festival in Park City Utah. It is going to be an absolute blast with some of my best friends: Shane, Hilary and Cheryl. We craftily created a team of talented goofballs to run one half of the new Racquet Club venue.

I'm still debated the merits of the next gig after that, which is down south... the hitch is the pay is dreadful. I'll keep you up to date.

This is Oliver signing off... reminding you to help control the pet population, have your pet spayed or nuetered. Goodbye!

Oliver in Calgaria

Hey hey hey....