Strombo in Calgary!

So today, as many of y'all know, I was at the Calgary Career Fair explaining to people how to become a roughneck etc...

But that's not it!
There's a twist!
Our friend George Stroumboulopoulos was giving a speech on this very day! At that very career fair. Now, I've seen George a couple times before, it's always a pleasure to hear him speak, and say hi. I was at the Career Fair around 10:30, to help my parents. I hung around, tried to help some people, checked out my camera, realized it had no batteries. No batteries! And there wasn't a AA in the entire place. So we took the c-train downtown, where there's plenty of convenience stores. East downtown Calgary is unfortunatly a place where a lot of poverty occurs, and unfortunatly somewhere far away from a reflection on the rearview mirror of an expensive Corvette belonging to someone very wealthy. This economic inequality disturbs me, especially since a lot of people aren't aware situations like this are going on. Maybe it's hypocritical, but I'm certainly not a bazillionare and I do care and I want people to care. Calgary is a very polarized city right now, what's happening to the happy middle?

So I got my batteries, and we headed back on the c-train (though we caught the wrong train so we had to go back downtown). When we were finally back at the show, I was able to catch the entire career-fashion show thing... not my type of affair, but I got excellent seats for George. So George comes on, being friendly with everyone etc., etc... And he does his talky thing about himself, which is always interesting to me. Then people asked the questions. I've seen him speak 3 times (including the Hour), and this time was the one that I could really relate to (maybe because it was a career show, and people asked questions about kids). He was funny too, and it was interesting to hear his opinions on the media around the world, especially from an insider. Kinda like a show George said he watched... Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Kay, never watched it. Partly cause I had a bad experience with Matthew Perry, hey I'll tell you about that one time. One thing unique to hearing George speak, is that you get his true opinions, which makes listening to him very real, it also seems like he's really comfortable talking to us, but he's not bullshiting anyone or wanting to impress anyone. I asked if George, Jian and Rick hang out, have bridge nights on Wednesdays etc... I always have very random questions for people. Soon the presentations were over, and people were lined up.

I'm a pretty outgoing person, I enjoy talking to people and I like hearing from people. But I really appreciate how George spent all the time after the show, talking to each person who wanted to be talked to, letting him know that he cared. For a kid like me, (and I know there were others out there) it's so cool to get a chance to have a discussion with someone you look up to, and someone so down to earth. I chatted with George for a bit, introduced him to my twin, got a picture, got him to sign my postcard. Like I've said before blahblahblah, he was nice, real, friendly, etc., etc..

I let him know that my parents had a booth at the career show, and after he dropped by to say hi to us, which was really nice. George met my mum, and talked to us a bit, I told him I was really happy that he mentioned Martha Wainwright when he was talking about Canadian music, and we chatted about Wainwrights and the Leonard Cohen movie. I think my mum was trying to recruit him to talk about rig technicians on the Hour, heehee. I told him about my dad (who wasn't there right then), and how he was the one who inspired me to love music. Then my dad comes up and shakes his and and asks him if he wanted to be a roughneck. I'm not sure George was to keen on being a roughneck, but we talked more about music and politics (two things that interest both me and my dad). George looked at my iPod, I was listening to "Eli the Barrow Boy" (yay, Decemberists!) and checked out my bling case. Yah, it's a bling case. I talked a bit about the blogs, and asked if he reads them or not, etc. It was cool to talk to him, especially cause my whole family got a chance to meet him.

The thing about George, is that after a while it just felt like I was talking to a person who interested me, someone who had views on things that engaged me. Which is exactly who George is. I forgot that he really was someone in the public eye, until he said something like "yeah, that Beck interview was the best I've had with him". George is great at interacting with the people. It's probably the most important thing for someone in the media today to do.

ps. Rocky Horror tonight! I'm digging all of my Rocky Horror stuff out of the bag I got at the "Time Warp, Music Store and More" in Moose Jaw. To bad it shut down on my way back from Ontario. And... yet again, I'm Columbia-in-pyjamas.