Naturopaths.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there’s folks doing sane, evidence-based care in this area. But I’ve seen so much bullshit from practitioners, ranging from the grossly unethical to the blatantly dangerous, that I find them hard to trust about anything as a group.

Besides, we already have health professionals that can provide good, evidence-based care (issues like ego v. evidence/new findings to improve care notwithstanding - but there’s crappy people in all fields) - we call them doctors and nurse practitioners. And we need more of those.

Man, ever since the early 2010s I’ve thought about Ender’s Game a LOT - and it’s always this part of the book, never the zero-g laser tag or genocide-by-arcade-machine parts.

Fucking competence. I wish I was bumbling fool with severe Dunning-Kruger more often than I care to admit.

Naw, screw that - we need more people trying to make this place fun. If by some chance it is Ottawa, I’m sure they’d find receptive folks at The Dom/House of Targ/Arts Court/The Mayfair/Rainbow/AskAPunk/Tuesday Club/PROBE/One of the festival committees (except poutine and rib)/Spectrasonic/Awesome Ottawa/Canada Council for the Arts/White Rabbit/SPAO/One of the Zine collectives/Gladstone Theatre/Ottawa Little Theatre/Brass Monkey, for some reason/T’s Pub/Swizzles/Enriched Bread/Absolute Comedy/Cafe Dekcuf/that one house in Barrhaven (iykyk)/CKCU/CHUM/probably quite a few others I’m not aware of. Heck, you could bug the Night Mayor, what exactly is he up to these days?

It all really comes down to what you consider fun. Are you going to have the same degree of options as you would in Montreal and Toronto? No. But if you want fun, there’s things to do, places to check out, people to meet and a not-insignificant number of folks who want more of these.

Off the top of my head:

1. Start researching your local ordinances and bylaws. Like someone mentioned here, there might be a reason your town dies after 2200.
2. Think about the kind of things you want to see in terms of nightlife. Does that mean live music? Block parties? Techno night at the clurb? Kink stuff (seriously)? Theatrical performances? Hash and coffee socials (sort of a joke, but thinking through the logistics of such a thing has been my daydream du jour recently)? Etc.
3. Find others who would be interested in the kind of stuff you’d like for nightlife activities. Start talking $ and logistics - are there any grants you could try and apply for? Fundraising activities? Where are you going to do this stuff? What do you need in terms of insurance? Do you need to address any pesky bylaws, and can start working with your local government to try and tackle that? And so on.
4. Make a plan and act.

The big starting point is really just defining one or two things you want to see, and working to get to the point where you see them. In the course of this you might be surprised by what you find (someone mentioned good ol’ Ottawa, ON as an image of the place you’re describing - but there’s actually a decent amount of stuff, both above- and underground, you can find when you start poking around).

What up, fellow Ottawan?

Trying to dive into the local music scene was my approach - mostly because I suck at trivia.

Shhh, the Ontario PC doesn’t want you to outright come out and say it.

As an aside, still think it’s kinda fucked that the two largest lab services companies here are now both owned by American interests (Lifelabs = Quest, Dynacare = LabCorp).

MSN was for your friends and friends of friends, ICQ was gamers and pre-MSN friends, IRC was for pretending you were a 17 year old girl from California.

The only thing that’s weird to me about this is, why divorce in that case? There’s no law that says you need to live in the same domicile as your spouse. Could’ve lived separately and kept stuff like shared insurance benefits and whatnot.

It’s rare, granted, but it is a thing. Unless they wanted to separate their financial lives entirely and keep getting down, I guess.

Used to love it, had too many weird promptless experiences, unplugged it and now it’s gathering dust on a shelf.

Though it was nice to say “Hey google, tell me today’s news” and get a few different news updates while making coffee.

Edit: Out of sheer curiosity, have you tried factory resetting it?

No need to apologize, was just curious - figured folks is gender-neutral as is, never saw an alternate form of it before.

Sincerely, thanks! Didn’t know this was a thing for anyone.

Off-topic, but if you don’t mind me asking, why folx over folks?

I. Fucking. Love this.

Thank you so much for sharing!!

The Toke-Athalon - a three stage sport involving [some thing], a 1 gram rolling and smoking race, and a round of trivia.

Back in the day we had a regular civil disobedience event that had a game like this, but it was cannabis activism trivia, roll and smoke race, and more cannabis activism trivia. Surely there’s a better third event somewhere.

There are people trying pretty hard to make that happen, though mostly in the context of supervised medical interventions.

Which I’m here for - while a lot of people do OK (fantastically even) with less structured psychedelic experiences, many do not. A really bad trip can do a number on you, sometimes for a long while.

You may not be into the music and culture - and that’s cool - but you definitely get it.

Thank you for sharing this - sounds like it was a hard, but necessary, thing for you to write. Send your cousin that text man, I’m sure he’d appreciate it.

A lot of Juggalos take the Juggalo Family thing very seriously.

Doesn’t describe all of the fans, but think about it for a sec - think like the biggest stereotype of a Juggalo. Fucked up home life, outcast at school, not well educated, hopeless feeling, more than average chance they’ve been homeless or dangerously close to it, etc. Then offer them some semblance of feeling like they belong to something, as they are, and are part of something like a family.

For a lot of people, that’s powerful fucking stuff, and most of the Juggalos I know are there for it (whether these were their circumstances, or not) and act accordingly.

Fuckin’ love Juggalos. There’s a demo cd or something for The Wraith album that has a track that pretty much sums this stuff up, imo, if I find it I’ll leave the link. Edit: Found it. Strongly recommend anyone who doesn’t quite get this stuff listen: https://youtu.be/N-i8YX0W_88?

…are you talking about Stan by Eminem? https://youtu.be/sixjHud8lYw

I’ve been staring at this comment for like 5 minutes, trying to figure out what this could possibly be. I might be a little stoned.

(On the off chance I got it, the lady is Dido, song is Thank You.)

Man - I know most folks feel the best thing to do is get rid of religion all together - but at this stage I’d settle for and support a new, loud, and active Christian sect denouncing xtian radicals and the churches that support them as Satanic corruptions.

Believe Old Testament and its edicts mean a damn practical thing in today’s world? Satan.

Insisting on not rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s? Satan.

Treating your fellow humans as lesser for anything whatsoever? Satan.

Corrupting Bible verses to justify creating suffering and not rendering aid to anyone who needs it? 100% Satan.

Forcing means to reduce anyone’s capacity to exercise free will, the one key thing their creator deity granted all humans? Sounds like Satan to me.

And so on. I realize this is deeply naive. But part of the reason I like The Louvin Brother’s song Satan is Real is whenever I hear the guy’s testimony on Satan, I think about about people in the offending churches:

I grew selfish, and un-neighbourly
My friends turned against me
And finally, my home was broken apart

The Louvin Brothers themselves would likely vehemently disagree, but - does this sound like anyone you know?

/end of vaguely spiritualist rant.

Love the worst band in the world, fam.

If nothing else, they’re an inspiration for just doing your own thing artistically. Fuck the critics, just make some shit you’re passionate about, make it available to find its audience, and connect/bring in other folks who want to do the same.

IMO, they created/‘popularized’ an entire genre of music, and some of it’s better than what they put out (for example, I like Twiztid more - but they wouldn’t be what they are if it wasn’t for ICP and Psychopathic Records)

Edit: For those who need a pick me up going into work tomorrow, a little MMFCL for ya.