Pride Festival Chases Off Auckland Rain

Of all the cities I've been to I'd have to say Calgary was the one that appalled me the most. Pretty much flat, it is a real pointer to where our corporate contolled future is taking us.

People live, work and shop in totally different areas of the city and because there is so much space in Canada the city is even more spread out that Auckland. The result of this is that everything has to be connected up by these monstrous motorways and highways.

The city reminded me of a machine. People work in one part of the city, they are 'stored' overnight in mass produced identical housing projects where they plug into their entertainment systems when awake and then they complete their other worker-bee role as consumers at the most awful shopping centres on the other side of town. These centres are designed purely for car access, as is the whole city; big barns sit in amongst acres of carparking with tiny little concrete strips in front of them being the only facility for pedestrian access.

I think the shopping centres on the edge of the city with big highways feeding into them were the worst part, totally inhuman, they are all about consumption - the capatalist machine laid bare for all to see.

Yes this sounds like Auckland (and it is certainly where Auckland is going), but trust me Calgary was the purest form of the city as capatalist machine that I have seen, pretty much the Matrix but with out the cool fight scenes.

Ironically, Calgary was the place where I got my first introduction to alternative media and dissidents like Noam Chomsky

not really important, but...

1. im not sure that it was a pride festival - i thought it was the k'rd diversity parade? it's not really inaugural if it was it's first year is it? (i think they are thinking every two years?)

2. samba and capoeira are different.

1) I went to the parade and reported on it as a punter not a journalist. I didn't interview any of the organisers and the little time I had for research turned up nothing about the parade on the web (homepage etc) from which I could have got it's official name etc

Inaugural means it's the first one. Look it up at dictionary.com (I did) ;)

2) Samba is a musical form. Capoiera is a dance/ martial art/ music form. The band were definitely from Batakuda which I'm pretty sure is a Capoiera organisation. I know they were definitely playing samba beats (when they passed me) because I am a drummer and play them myself. Also because I recognise them from listening to the samba bands playing on anti-capitalist carnival videos ;p

how freaky it was to go to the edge of Calgary. I got lost in a strange, almost gated community. I got out of my car to see where I was and peering over a low wall I realised that I was at the very edge of the prarie; there was nothing but farmer's fields beyond. Behind me, a pink stucco glot of condominiums bisected by cul-de-sacs.

In a way, the fact that there is so little space in Auckland makes its sprawl more inexcusable than that of Calgary's. And at least in Calgary you have excellent rapid transit AND buses. I think I'd rather live in Calgary, although it makes me shudder to say that. Humanitarian is right.

Aaron, did we have this conversation before, where you thought we had met? I think that you must be thinking of my good buddy Andy Connors. In the picture on my page I am the funny looking guy standing next to Connors.