Votes for Izaak translate to so much more

Posted November 26th, 2008 by Shawn Petriw

I was fascinated to learn that Deputy Premiere Shirley Bond stood up in the Legislature to encourage all British Columbians to vote for our Izaak Smith:

"As the lone British Columbian left in the competition, let's show Izaak our local and provincial pride and vote today. Let's help him reach the Final Four and beyond. Let's vote and vote often."

That particular piece of news came to me from a blog that has a readership that often discounts the arts and especially disagrees with our city pursuing a new regional performing arts centre in our downtown.

A number of readers post their opposition to a PAC, loud and often, sometimes appearing to be the voice of the majority in Prince George.

But I don't think so. I offered some food for thought:

People are voting for Izaak in a big way, but they are also voting for themselves in a big way.

With a chance, on a national stage, to perhaps make a small change to Canada's perception of Prince George, hundreds and hundreds in our community are sitting for two hours, hitting redial, often on more than one phone.

They know Prince George is so much more than a "gritty mill town," and they are expressing it by rallying around a great local dancer, and around each other.

Many posters on this particular blog feel a performing arts centre is not what Prince George needs, or wants.

I suggest the evidence points to a different conclusion.

What do you think?

Izaak Smith: The Sheep Dance

On March 5th, 2009 Sarcastic Bullet (not verified) said:

So... basically... our idea of top-priority entertainment coverage is a dink dancing on mediocre reality TV show and inspiring Shirley Bond to implore everyone to vote for him...

.................. o.O

Yep, this defiantly sounds like Prince George pop culture to me. -.-

Sorry folks, this topic has just been bugging me. Now, for a more senseful input: The raw fact is, Prince George IS a gritty mill town, and frankily no matter which way you slice it is hardly any fun at all. To briefly bring attention to another important point now; the metal scene.

Basically, our metal kids came out of nowhere with the new-found love for metalcore and deathcore, and after the leaving of the first local metal band, Widowmaker (now more commonly known as Deadriver Wasteland), other low-quality acts started showing themselves, and the majority (not really having anything of considerable mainstream importance to believe in at the time), looked to the smaller acts and ended up ascending them to higher levels. Now, we are better known for our metal scene amongst pop culture. We come off as a strong brotherhood of true metalheads, but are really just mostly a bunch of kids that are trying to find something to believe in until they "grow up". The second a new trend comes in, they will abandon their so-called allegiance and throw our production companies to the wolves.

Basically if we had the same coverage of our metal act as Izaak currently does, that would probably be the greater focus. Not that I can exactly say I care since I think this entire music scene is a dime-a-dozen (my opinion though, no necessarily yours), but it’s still better than the false idol we are currently infatuated with.

The point I'm trying to make is the only real reason that we are trying to find a requiem in this Izaak Smith is because he found a currently more popular output for his abilities and considering the source, was of course shoved down the throats of the masses.

I almost guarantee you if we just spent some time focusing our media attention on something with a little integrity in our city (assuming we could figure out the right thing to target) that we would have a much happier medium for out longed for reorganization of our masses. The only problem is that we have absolutely no clue how to create something distinctly ours and there forth are doomed to continuous failure.

This is the same concept as what we've tried to do with the downtown area over the previous years. Sure, a bunch of fancy lights may make it look a tad more presentable in it's own respective way, but it's not going to stop the old historical buildings from rotting or the businesses from leaving due to solicitation, and people getting mugged, raped and on the occasion murdeded in the area.

In the long run, this local guy dancing on a national stage in front of so many people will achieve next to nothing. Even though the majority of our city has been sort of living in "Silent Hill conditions" and most of our citizens think a good image is closest to the filth which we all see on modern television, our hopes for this guy might as well be the same as for everything else we think might achieve a little more stature in this town; an epic failiure of constantly heard of proportions.

That is my two cents.