Fucking hell. It's like the mind-bending last-war apocalypse in "The Prophecy" movies or something. I dunno what I'm gonna do here. I'm trapped in the street between Goths and Dieters and fucken Christopher Walken is going to bite off my head like a radish. I should just give up and get washed away in the tide of blood.

So, here's the deal: next weekend, May 31st-Jun 2, is the big MUTEK festival in Montréal, My Home Town. OK, so, it's not really My Home Town, but it's where I live for the moment, and, hell, I haven't had a home town for a while, so this is gonna have to do. And, yeah, I am constantly afraid and fearful that some mob of potbellied Sale and Pelletier fans are going to find my address and come kidnap me and burn me on one of those big X cross things. I think about this shit.

Anyways, MUTEK is this gigantic dieterfest of epic proportions. Men with Dutch accents and tiny octagonal wire-frame glasses will be descending from all corners of the globe onto this Kerbecky village to make disturbingly atonal 100-megawatt musical arrangements with a pair of tweezers and a faulty capacitor for the express purpose of removing all the fun from electronic culture. There will be tweaky burble-and-squeak music booming from every open window and sewer grate, and bizarre non-dancing by those unable to make digital Photoshop laser-show filters on their own.

But meanwhile, ACROSS TOWN, is Convergence VIII, the biggest Goth Festival in the world, which has cruelly chosen the SAME WEEKEND in the SAME TOWN for their Mystick Aggregationne. You can tell it's a goth festival, of course, because of the Roman numerals. So there's ALSO going to be a lot of unpleasant stoop-shouldered tousle-haired boys in trenchcoats and ruffled shirts, and maudlin speed-freak girls in velvet gowns and leather collars, all clumping into little bitch circles to shoot evil-eye glances at each other and worship Satan to the soundtrack of "Valley Girl."

I am DEEPLY TROUBLED by this course of events. Montréal is a strong town, and could probably weather an invasion of either one of these groups on its own, and given a few years to recuperate, might even be able to survive the next wave. But having both on the same weekend, in a not-really-that-big area -- could any city stand it? Is there a town so strong? I think not.

What's going to happen when the DARKE POWYRS of the goth infestation starts conflicting with the TECHNICAL MAYHEM of the Dieter critical mass? When the first pomo TECHHEAD accidentally bumps into a bondage-geared CRYPTIE and refuses to give a flowery apology in Medieval Provencal, instead delivering a footnoted lecture deconstructing the semiotics of remorse? With this kind of CONFLICT of PARADIGMS, how can a BEIRUT-STYLE COMBAT ZONE of quadrophrenic Rocker-Mod street combat fail to erupt?

Of course, both camps will be HEAVILY ARMED, which is the greatest danger. The dieters are bound to unleash their arsenal of X-ray LASER-CANNONS and ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE cluster bombs, while the SPOOKY PEOPLE will of course make PENTAGRAMS out of INFANT BRAIN MATTER and invoke DAEMONS and CREATYRES of the NYGHT to strike down their ennymies. The skies over Mont Royal will be LIT by EPIC PROXY BATTLES of battle drones and WYNGED DRAGUNS while on the ground skinny people in strange garb throw LONG-ISLAND ICED TEAS in each other's pasty mugs.

And me! I'll be stuck in the middle, just trying to make it past the SMOKING BARRICADES and CRATERS filled with of OPALESCENT BLOOD to get to the corner depanneur and buy a 40 of Labatt's Extra-Fort 10% before 11PM. Dodging enraged MINIMALISTS in cargo pants and bile-flinging WYTCHES to try to get to the so-called safety of the little hole I call home. When an ACID-SPITTING ROBOT meets a BALROG, who will win? Who can say that anyone will be the victor -- that we will not all, somehow, lose?

I have given up hope and started stockpiling water and poutine against the coming destruction. I know it will do no good, but what does it matter? We all must find a way to fiddle while the city descends into madness. Good luck to you and may the gods preserve you all.

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jared@pigdog.org