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.

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.

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?

Holy shit man, what a ride.

I’m glad you figured some of your shit out and are making progress. I’ve seen more than one person just crumple under less than half of what you’ve been through. Big ups, dude.

100% agree. It’s a big world out there with people of all kinds, living lifestyles you couldn’t possibly imagine (in both a positive and a negative sense). Those rare moments you get to connect with those people, human to human, are always interesting as fuck.

Every time I took acid in public, I was a magnet for massive weirdos, but every time it’s ended fantastically well.

(Can’t responsibly recommend though, there were very real risks of getting stabbed or robbed a couple times)

Having an in-depth conversation with a crossdressing or trans street sex worker at 0100, claiming they were thirty but who looked eighteen at most, looking to do tricks for meth money, while I was outside of a bar on karaoke night on acid.

She showed me her DeviantArt page, which included a drawing of her as a queen on a playing card fellating a shampoo bottle. It was the most fucked up, but interesting drug-addled conversation I’ve ever had. Very friendly, eventually went down a block to another group of people because quote ‘They look pretty drunk’.

Every part of this sounds made up, but I swear it’s true.

Edit: For some reason, I think it’s important to point out this was a Thursday night.

Here is a random list of songs I like, in my opinion under the umbrella of country in one way or another (though some stretch that a little. Or a lot. Don’t @ me, die-hard country fans).

Some may, indeed, involve beer, trucks, and American Christian propaganda - but pleasant sounding at least. I’m also confirmed to be pretty lame, and that may be reflected in my choices here.

I also never said you needed to dig deep - some/most of this is like, a fingernail scratch. But if you find something here you dig, strongly recommend diving deeper into the artist.

Merle Haggard - Mama Tried
George Jones - White Lightning
The Highwaymen - Highwayman
Dick Curless - The Heartline Special
Eddy Arnold - Cowpoke
Conway Twitty - Hello Darlin’
Townes Van Zandt - Waiting Around to Die
Sons of the Pioneers - Empty Saddles
Marty Robbins - Running Gun
Willie Nelson - Bubbles in my Beer
Hank Thompson - A Six Pack to Go
Johnny Cash - Sunday Morning Coming Down
Sonny James - Baltimore
Del Reeves - A Dime at A Time
Dale Hawkins - Everglades
Jimmy Bryant and Speedy West - Blue Bonnet Rag
Tim Carroll - I Think Hank Woulda Done It This Way
Buddy Emmons - Orange Blossom Special
Tommy Collins - You Better Not Do That
The Louvin Brothers - Satan is Real [here’s that propaganda I told you about - still love this song]
Eddie Noack - Psycho
Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed - Jerry’s Breakdown
Tom T. Hall - That’s How I Got to Memphis
Roger Miller - Dang Me

There is, in fact, good country music that isn’t just about trucks, beer, flags, and right-wing U.S. propaganda.

People have a lot of hate for the genre due to the mass appeal, common denominator examples. But like with all music, dig a little deeper beyond what gets radio play and you can find some good shit.

For me, it’s sheer laziness. Can’t be arsed to shave more than once every 6 to 10 months.

Do always find it funny when folks react strongly when I do shave. It’s hair growth, not a personality.

So from ages 16 to about 22, I was the guy who would get blackout drunk and into wacky situations. This is one of them.

I had just moved to a little town in Ontario with some buddies from BC. We moved into our apartment on Halloween, and one of said buddy’s cousins was having a party. I tossed on my army jacket, put some blue hair gel on my head, deemed myself a punk and headed out with my 26 of Jamieson in tow.

The last thing I remember was telling the host “Nah, I don’t need a cup or chase, I’ll just keep drinking from the bottle.” Things got hazy, then suddenly I was in a holding cell.

Let’s take a step back for a moment. This wasn’t my first time inside a holding cell - but this was literally my first night as a resident of this place. I had only a vague sense of where my place was relative to the rest of the town. I did not memorize the address. I had no family or support network there, other than my two friends. And I had exactly zero knowledge of the journey from the party to the cell.

So naturally, I start screaming, asking why I was there and what I did, trying to squeeze through the bars, etc. etc. Cop comes by, says “If you don’t know why you’re here, that’s why you’re here. Just get some sleep and we’ll talk in the morning”. Still freaking out but recognizing there wasn’t much I could do, I passed out on the slab.

In the morning, the cops got me out of the cell, and explained that I had passed out on someone’s lawn on what I learned was the other side of town from the party. When they picked me up, I apparently told them I had no fixed address, and they took me in. As I was apparently very cooperative they handed me a ticket and sent me on my way.

So there I was - it’s about 7:00 AM on November 1st. I had blue-smeared, slept-on-a-concrete slab matted hair, I was in that nasty ‘still drunk but also hungover’ pocket, outside of a cop station with still no idea where I was relative to my place. So I just start walking.

Eventually, I make it to the centre of town. I notice a big gathering of people and stumble over to see what it was. Some guy sees me, and hands me a protest sign. After a few minutes, I realize it’s an anti-New World Order protest of some kind. I look around for some place to drop the sign, and see a sudden flash. Someone took my picture - and the dude was wearing one of those press passes around his neck.

My second day in town, and there was me - haggered, literal gutterpunk looking ass holding a protest sign at an unhinged protest, with a picture taken for the local newspaper. Neat.

Eventually I find my house. I walk in, and my buddies are like “Holy shit, what the fuck happened?”. Apparently, I got so drunk I fell off the porch and was just generally being a fool, and got kicked out of the party. These guys then took me to try and get some pizza in me at some place. At a certain point, I just dropped my piece on the floor, left the building, and the rest is history.

I don’t talk to those guys anymore. I don’t drink whiskey from the bottle anymore either.

What’s funny to me is that this isn’t even my first unhinged drinking story from that place - I found myself on the wrong end of a 12 v. 3 brawl at a chain pizza restaurant over someone calling my buddy a chicken nugget, the day we went to sign our lease - but that’s a tale for another day.

Weed’s soooo much better, kids.