Post
by abstract » 29 Sep 2010 14:32
kickass was killer. it was a phenomenal experience for me, as i hope it was for others in attendance.
throwing this event in the first place required personal growth on my part. i am an excessively shy person, & that might also be an understatement. social awkwardness has always come naturally to me. i could get into the how & why but it doesn't really matter. what matters, is that this has been a good year for growth.
california happened at a critical time & i am very grateful for the opportunity to have experienced what worlds had to offer. something just 'clicked' about the whole footbag scene there, & that convention hall felt more like home than the room i am typing from now.
i left california with a wish to start giving something back to the community that has given me so much. footbag is a central pillar of my life from which exudes confidence, health, strength, willpower & spirit. it gives me a sense of responsibility to help support & nurture the growth of this culture, because there is real value & unique creative expression throughout & it brings all practitioners of the game together.
it's amazing how a footbag jam almost becomes a lifeform straight from its inception. when i made the forum post for K3, the jam was given life. the energy that created it though, was not mine. i only created a vessel for the energy of everybody else who chose to give.
as the weeks passed by, the details seemed almost inconsequential, not in that it was not important to have the event laid out in detail, but rather that the details took care of themselves so fluidly just through the positive energy at work.
one of my roommates, the now illustriously monikered DJ Kla$$, was interested in DJing right when i first told him about it. we also live in a 4 bedroom house & one of my other mates was on tour promoting his new album ( PS I Love You ), so the house was perfect for hosting visitors & partying.
the new Queen's Art & Recreation Centre was a natural choice for venue due to being a brand new facility & also being about 4 blocks from my house. it was pricey, but i'm still confident we can get Queens on the hook for the bill.
Queens Homecoming was a wild card. when preparing for the event, we just knew that was happening saturday night but didn't really know what it meant, as the police had been increasingly diligent in shutting it down year by year. could be cool, could be a bust. shrug, we'll see.
the entire weekend was just a blast. everyone that came was so cool, i really felt comfortable talking with people, drinking & following hostly pursuits. thanks to mtl crew, fat crew, tom & marnie & k-town crew for making K3 what it was.
friday night was hilarious. Kla$$ was spinning records all night, we had BBQ going & blew through nearly three 24s like it was nothing. shenanigans probably went until almost 5am! drunken philosophical debates, slacklining, dancing & general frivolity at its finest.
saturday morning was the first little stumbling block, in that i couldn't get everybody into the same place for breakfast. next time i will make a large reservation. in the case of the wolfe island bakery, i would have booked the entire place. dante ended up taking a crew to the Queens Cafeteria while i had a group at WIB.
we didn't get to the event centre until about 1.30pm. that's when he hit the 2nd little speed bump--the ventilation in the upper gym we had rented was broken. as a result, it was quite warm. once players were all warmed up though, it didn't impact us too much--it just accelerated the natural process of turning shred central into a sweat lodge.
once we had turntables / sound system hooked up, we organized 3 pools for circle competition while casual shred was going on. judging was kind of difficult to organize but we ended up with a consistent panel for all 3 pools.
erik chan dominated! he was hitting huge stuff in casual shred all day as well. reverse montages all over the place, & i think i recall a gyro diving whirl or rev whirl midstring that was super dope.
post-shred, we all went out to a new poutinery that had just opened up in kingston. it was super crazy. their menu was huge! i was shocked. i had the 'bacon cheeseburger', which was bacon, ground beef, onions, philly cheese sauce, curds, gravy & fries. marnie had a chicken curry poutine, which i tried & it was amazing. they had a full vegetarian menu as well. so good.
saturday night was very similar to friday night, except there were more people & it ended earlier, making the experience overall quite intense. BANANAGRAMS! haha, that game is crazy.
a few of us went out for a few minutes to check out the Queens Homecoming. there were so many people outside on saturday night! the air was charged with human energy.
however, the closer we got to the supposed location of the party, the more & more police we encountered. rows of mounted police with police buses they brought in from toronto to block the streets. they pretty much crushed the party this year. i heard today that the police spent $400,000 to put the nail in the coffin.
we all lost track of each other while out in the throngs of people & we ended up trickling back to my house in 1s & 2s to finish off the evening there.
next post--sunday.
greg raymond, kingston
FB: Rocker Holliday
"What is it that makes a complete stranger dive into an icy river to save a solid gold baby? Maybe we'll never know." - Jack Handey
get closer, busting a more complicated string really pays off because they are close enough to have a better idea of what the heck is going on down there.
.
