It may surprise you, Bad Gardeners, but I, too, sometimes feel like an alien from outer space. But having an immense amount of wealth will do that to a person. (Thank you, Papa Schmolaris! RIP 1884-1979.) For instance, I have servants for nearly every task imaginable (save writing these illuminating pontifications): chefs and cleaners, chauffeurs and carpenters, and, yes, gardeners, too (and very fine gardeners at that); and they fly around me like a cloud of birds, with their lint brushes and perfumed water, fussing over my form and catering to my every need.
If that sounds like “too much,” I admit it indeed can sometimes feel like that. There are days when all I wish is to exchange my pampered Princedom with that of a Pauperdom. However, knowing no paupers, this exchange is wholly within myself. When I feel this way, I call upon my tailor to dress me in the commonest garments imaginable — a combination of a white Gatorade T-shirt, frayed sweat pants, and black and neon yellow water shoes — and I call upon my driver, who brings me the ’98 beige Ford Taurus that I keep for just such occasions, and I spend a day poor-coreing.
It was on just such a day that I pulled into a parking lot near Main and Inkster, and I went shopping at the No Frills.
You may be surprised to hear how many of my friends — capital city mayors and politicians, university deans and other eminent philanthropists and famous people — also enjoy playing the pauper, and so when I entered No Frills I saw that the man laying on the soggy black floor mat was none other than… well… perhaps I should not say. Suffice it to know that his princely outfit is a sports jersey (and I shall not say what sport).
After stepping over him, I surreptitiously tucked a twenty into this man’s pocket, knowing that he will repay me with front rows seats when I congratulate him on his exceptional method acting.
I pushed a shopping cart around with what I hoped looked like lugubrious zeal, throwing in discount chocolate bars and pepperoni sticks, cinnamon buns and sanitizer wipes, horse radish and frozen peas. Such a bounty — a wealth — of food did I amass when I saw something peculiar, something odd, something truly alien.
It was Paige Drobot, Winnipeg’s most dynamic guitarist, dressed — and finely dressed, I should add — head-to-toe as a Martian or Venusian, her face painted an extraterrestrial tea tree green. And — I would expect no less from such an alien girl — she had her guitar.
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To read the rest of this review — and more by Steve Schmolaris — visit his website Bad Gardening Advice.
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Steve Schmolaris is the founder of the Schmolaris Prize, “the most prestigious prize in all of Manitoba,” which he first awarded in 1977. Each year, he awards the prize to the best album of the year. He does not have a profession but, having come from money (his father, “the Millionaire of East Schmelkirk,” left him his fortune when he died in 1977), Steve is a patron of the arts. Inspired by the exquisite detail of a holotype, the collective intelligence of slime mold, the natural world and the suffering inherent within it — and also music (fuck, he loves music!) — Steve has long been writing reviews of Winnipeg artists’ songs and albums at his website Bad Gardening Advice, leading to the publication of a book of the same name.
