Chapter 86

I woke up at 7:30, and I was quite excited. My friends from the Metal Minded YouTube channel/Facebook group put together an online music fest, and it started at 8. I prayed that the internet gods would be on my side and there hasn’t been a single interruption the whole time it lasted, so I’ll have to go burn an incense stick to thank them.

All bands were great, even Your Last Wish on the deathcore side of things (a subgenre I really don’t care for) was fun to watch. Last Dance Among Wolves played some energetic thrash metal, Tunguska Mammoth were the stoner metal representatives with a sound reminiscent of Mastodon or Forming The Void, Leprosys paid homage to old-school Floridian death metal, Spirit Of Rebellion had a more modern death metal approach, Chadhel bulldozed its way with a furious no-frills grindcore set, and then the main course was France’s Pilori, who released my favorite album of 2020, a seriously sick mix of extreme genres. Some of then played in a “quarantine” format, with each band member in separate rooms, but SoR had footage from an earlier show with an audience, Chadhel and Leprosys played in a cramped rehearsal space, and Pilori rented a venue, playing an intense set amid smoke and under an ominous red lighting. There was also a guy named Guillaume St-Georges who played one-man covers of Iron Maiden and another band I didn’t catch, he did all instruments and his vocals were on point. A great success overall, and a lot of fun was had interacting with other viewers in the live chat.

Afterwards there was an after-party on Zoom, I joined. Most of the guys had been drinking beer throughout their evening, but here I was, eating cereal. I eventually did open one of the beers I bought at the brewpub yesterday, a raisin oatmeal cookie dark ale, to fit with the AM hours. A bunch of us swapped stupid crude jokes, talked underground music, and some of the guys in bands had hilarious touring stories. Good times. There’s only a few of them I ever met in person but ever since they started that pandemic online hangout last year, I feel like I know them as if we are old friends.

My afternoon wasn’t super jolly, I spent it at the dinner table with an enormous pile of exams to grade. I rarely bring work home past my Mon-Fri 9-to-5, but I’d rather get a good headstart now so I have less of it to do through the week. I had to semi-focus, especially with the first few papers when I was still getting familiar with the marking scheme, but eventually it was autopilot and I could put something in the background, like the Hardcore History podcast (the one about the Gallic Wars), music, or Clown World news segments. The Lotus Eaters broke down an article written by some racist cunt about “not wanting to go back to white society, now that the pandemic is slowly winding down”. He crapped on and on about how he could limit or even eliminate his interactions with them whypipo during confinement but now he’ll have to endure their presence in his life again. Charming. This type of drivel not only doesn’t raise eyebrows, but it’s published in mainstream newspapers. They also analyzed a BBC-sponsored documentary pushing the idea that systemic racism leads to more people of colour dying from Covid, an amusing part was when the narrator (a wealthy black actor) interviewed a minister (a powerful black woman) and was “very disappointed” when she said that the main factors are socioeconomics and previous health conditions and that race has very little or no role to play in it. He really wanted her to push this idea that she’s oppressed and held back because of the color of her skin, y’know, being a member of parliament and what not.

I listened to an album by Funkadelic that was pretty cool, followed by the unrelenting Quebec black metal attack of Forteresse. Soon after I finished the pile of papers I assigned myself for the day, the girlfriend came back from work, and we went to walk the dog. He has a little friend at the gate of the apartment complex, he spends most of his day tied on a long leash in front of the corner shop his owners operate, and is always supremely excited when our dog comes to say hi. I asked them if we can bring the little furball to the grass field so they can run around a bit, and he was very happy.

I went to the gym to do jiu-jitsu with my friends. We had some pretty good rolls, the Italian blue belt let me practice my offense and defense, giving me good pointers, and the British white belt and I had some nice spazzy wars. We’re quite evenly matched him and I, I’d say though that he’s fundamentally a bit better than I am, and the times I shine it’s either because of my weight advantage or because I capitalized on one of his mistakes.

There were two Chinese teenagers hitting the heavy bags, we invited them to join. I took on one of them, and though he was muscular and strong, my basic-ass white belt moves and knowledge of positioning were no match. BJJ is like a magic skill. He then asked me if I want to box a bit, and we sparred for a few minutes, something I haven’t done for a long time.

My veins coursing with endorphins and adrenaline, I rode to the bar and had a Goose Island IPA, my go-to beer now. The boys were playing poker, but I didn’t join, I was waiting for the girlfriend to come meet me so we’d go to a new Japanese restaurant that opened right across the street. Our city has a lot of Japanese expatriates, so it has a lot of really cool Japanese restaurants, and this one is in the izakaya style, with wooden furniture, a lot of posters on the walls and colorful banners hanging from the ceiling, and a menu focused on nibbles to accompany drinks.

The waitress yelled OMISHITAKASEEEEHHHH or whatever the hell that is, and I asked if she speaks Chinese. “I’m Chinese”, she replied. The only other customers were a trio of Japanese men sitting around a pile of finished plates and nursing a bottle of Suntory whiskey, they stared curiously at me, I bowed and said “Koneecheewa. Nihonjin dewa arimasen”, the only Japanese phrase I learned, which means “Hello. I am not Japanese” and they laughed hard.

We ordered tons of dishes: octopus, tempura, fried chicken topped with potato salad, sushi rolls, salmon fried rice, little chicken skewers, and I washed it down with a crisp Kirin beer. Great stuff.

We got home, I made a double negroni and watched a documentary about the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. Watching military history and rooting for the French is a very frustrating experience.