October 27, 2004 . Not Quite an Inter view with Billy Talent >> photo contributed Our interview with Billy Talent would have been much better had their van not hit a car. by Dana Schwehr >> Graphics editor The first phone interview this reporter ever conducted was with the rising young rock band Billy” Talent. I was blissfully unaware of the troubles the event had in store for me, and waited patiently for the call to come through. The call did not come at the appointed time, so after waiting for about half an hour to forty-five minutes, I used my discretion, made the best of a bad situation, and went home. Of course, I returned to get some items left behind in the office, and to obtain some nourishing foodstuffs from the cafeteria. It was fortunate that I chose to do this, because Benjamin Kowalewicz, the lyricist for Billy Talent, called after my return to campus. It turns out that the band’s tour bus had hit a car, and there was no way that anyone from the band would have been able to call on time. Unfortunately, it turns out that a band member who has just gone through a trau- matizing car accident is not the best person to interview. It was rel- atively easy to obtain basic infor- mation about the band. For example, it came out that the band has been together for eleven years, and recently participated in the Vans Warped Tour, giving them the opportunity to travel with bands like -NOFX, Bad Religion, and other famous punk acts. The band lists groups such as Jane’s Addiction, the Pixies, and the Clash among its musical influ- ences. Deeper information, such as Kowalewicz’s lyric writing meth- ods, was harder to obtain. It turns out that Ian D’sa writes the guitar music first, and Kowalewicz writes lyrics that suit the music. What was potentially the most interesting information to be obtained in an interview, the effect that the band’s recent rise to fame has had on the band, was incredi- bly difficult to obtain. There are good things to be said about being a small band and about being more famous, accord- ing to Kowalewicz, but there has not been any real changes in any- thing the band does. Small rock shows are fun to play, but so are large ones. The only real difference in the band’s situation is the amount of distribution their albums receive. The fact that this interview was incredibly stilted makes me won- der how it would have gone had it been conducted in person. It is far easier to make a person warm up to you when they can see your face. He can tell if you are joking or serious, and he can tell if you are genuinely interested in what he has to say. He will then be more willing to tell you his stories, - because he believes you will treat his stories with the respect they deserve. Of course, we could be over- analyzing the situation. It could be that all we need to learn here is that the moral of the story could be to watch out for those buses. They will get you every time. Prince George Poet wins a National Award by Earson Gibson >> Copy Editor Barry McKinnon, a long time teacher at CNC and 30 year resi- dent of Prince George won the annual BP Nichol prize this year for his chap book ‘Bolivia/Peru’. This prestigious English lan- guage award celebrates creative ingenuity in the most traditional form of poetry sharing; the self- bound, self-published chap-book. ‘Chap’ is short for ‘chapter’ and heralds back to the days when authors would release one chapter at a time of the book they were working on, an‘old tradition that is still alive today, particularly in poetry. _ These books are usually pocket sized and have only a couple of dozen pages, but Barry challenged this standard by making his book the size of an 8/11” mail parcel. The poems in ‘Bolivia/Peru’ are based on a journey McKinnon took to South America last year, and chronologically recount the experi- ences he had in such refined poet- ic language that the reader travels with him through fast paced flash- es of imagery - “Bolivia is ground, brown to green, each inch an agri- cultural possibility; then to brown again, dots of rocks - the impossi- ble land scape of mountain/moraine that yields at the lip of the descent into the Andes valleys huge/open descending bowls of an ascending geometry.” McKinnon had no easy time in his travels being repeatedly harassed by crooked cops for being a gringo, and on one instance was mugged on a busy street. Luckily his wife Joy was there, and with the help of his heavy travel guide they managed to bat- tle the assailants off - “Joy scream- ing my name - clutches purse to chest, then flipped /back to the ground dragged in/along street, I yell you cocksucker! raise travel book ‘Peru’ above my head & bring it down full force on the guy’s head. Joy released. I fall full force, dead weight to ground”. In good humour, McKinnon says “getting mugged in lima was- n’t good for us, but it was good for the poem:”He has this to say on the purpose of his book: “In the Bolivian and Peruvian countryside houses are built with bricks of mud that slowly dissolve in the weather. In this way I want the poem to stand, be habitable, yet show dissolving forces. My attempt to impose an architecture, however crude, is part of the strug-. gle and pleasure of writing”. If you’d like to read ‘Peru/ Bolivia’, please come by the newspaper office where a copy will be available (albeit irremov- able) for the next week or so. We're located beside CFUR in the Wintergarden, so I implore anyone who is interested to stop by because the book is dissolving at this moment, and you can’t get it in stores. Arts” « Page 11 Culture Shock: Contemplating Sub-Culture since 8:00 am by Travis Nielsen >> Office Manager ¢ As I lay in bed this morning I could not help but think, why are we here? What is the purpose of existence? Can I think of a good enough reason to stay in bed all day? These questions are the true questions that philosophers have been trying to answer from the time man first developed .cogni- tive abilities. This got me to think about those people that spend their days musing about these questions between their classes, the philosophers. These great men and women of thought spend much of their waking hours reading books and learning theories that most of us would rather burn ourselves alive than read, because of the very boring content of some aca- demic philosophers. It is these people that ask the really tough questions and better yet, contem- plate better ways of fixing the problems and answering the questions. Delving into matters far too obscure and distant from the average person’s day-to-day lives, but affect everyone nonetheless. These Philosophers get together and discuss and debate the big problems and questions that they face in a fair forum of discussion and try to develop their minds with every passing moment they think, try- ing not to waste their time pon- dering trivial matters like fash- ion, or in more extreme cases, bathing. The philosopher acts in several different ways, but they are usu- ally meek or arrogant individuals by nature, and always seem dis- tant from society. This does not’ make them weird, or strange, just different from the mainstream. Which I will add, can be a good thing. People need to spend more time around these individuals, they may not be hip and with it, but they give you a chance outside of a Classroom to expand your mind and see the world through a dif- ferent light, without the con- sumption of huge quantities of illegal narcotics. So go out, learn, and ponder, this question, am Ia philosopher? And if I am not, then why have I not tried? your way British Columbia Open University i i Can’t get the courses you need? Earning the post-secondary credentials you need is not always easy—from getting into the classes you want to balancing school work with other commitments. The BC Open University offers over 500 distance university and college courses, many of them open for registration throughout the year. Transfer the BCOU credits you earn to the program of your choice or apply them to a BCOU Credential. www.bcou.ca 1.866.282.BCOU \e BCOU British Columbia Open University BCOU fs becoming part of BC's newest university in 2005.