Hi All,
So the Plains saga continues! We are listed on the CBC Radio 2 website as a "Dark Horse" to win the nomination for Saskatchewan. Thanks to everyone that has voted and keep it up.
Also, I forgot to point out, for those who don't know the Neon tower above the Plains is totally a barometer. It changes colour depending on the air pressure! Awesome!
Here is a link and instructions on how to vote:
http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/programs/r2drive/2009/10/01/sq_stats.html
check it out! The Plains/Good Time Charlie's is listed as a Dark horse for the CBC radio2 music quest page. You guys have to go nominate it! Here's how to nominate:
1.) Goto the above link.
2.) In red text on that page you will see Great Canadian SongQuest at the end of the first paragraph of text. Click the link.
3.) From there click on get started or whatever.
4.) Pick Saskatchewan
5.) It will list a bunch of cities in town in Saskatchewan
6.) In the top right hand corner there is a box that says Nominate your Own Unique Location.
7.) In that Box type The Plains Hotel - Regina
You can vote once per day every day until Oct. 9.
It would be awesome if we could have a Canadian Songwriter write a song about the Plains.
Also, Marc Spooner wrote an inspirational letter to the Leader-Post voicing some of the community's concerns about the Plains. With his permission I am reprinting it here:
RE: New hotel/condo complex may replace Plains in Regina (August 12, 2009).
So almost everyone seems excited about the newly proposed Westgate Plaza project that
will see the Plains replaced with a 19 storey condo and 8 story hotel. Some commentators even suggest such a project will bring culture to the area. I, for one, will mourn the cultural loss that the destruction of Good Time Charlie’s will herald. The Plains hotel is one of the few locations in this city where Settler and First Nations people actually co-exist and manage to acknowledge each other, intermingle, and miraculously breakthrough the Regina de facto apartheid.
When we see the Plains for what it really is, it becomes clear that it is already a unique hotspot of culture, diversity, and shared human experience. Even the friction that is sometimes observed when various cultures come together is measurably better than the prevailing “no see, no speak, no contact'' behaviours that typify the relations between the two communities.
I have nothing against the developers—just the glee with which many Reginians are so
eager to exchange a diamond in the rough for a shiny new glass bauble.
By all means save the old weather tower, as a beacon of colour. The bland corporate
homogeneity that often characterises this type of development will need all the help it can get. It's just too bad that soon that vintage neon pinnacle could be looking over just another city with “other city envy”, when it should be standing proud over an institution that fosters the diversity and equity at the heart of the truly urban experience and a just society.
Is there no other suitable location for condo and hotel development? Am I alone in seeing the important community function the Plains plays by bringing our groups together, rather than farther apart?
By Dr. Marc Spooner.
and no Marc you're not alone!
More pics and good times soon! Hey anyone want to go for beer tonight? Elliot Brood show, then Plains Hotel, see you there!
-Craig
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Damn the man, save the Plains!
ReplyDeleteI know that's an impossibility now, since the enlightened folks at City Council have already sealed the fate of the Plains and Good Time Charlie's, but even if the good times end at least we can maybe immortalize GTC's in song and story.. Please CBC, do me this one favour, just this once.. "Estevan" is not an interesting song subject any more than just "Regina" or "Saskatoon" are. Good Time Charlie's embodies not just Regina, but generations of Regina citizens co-existing and growing beside each other. As you of course know, the Cree name for Regina is Oskana ka-asasteki, and it means more or less "many bones piled together." The city was literally built on the bones of a lost way of life with the continued arrival of European settlers, and the near extinction of the great herds of bison that were the lifeblood of Native and Metis hunters. This past is displayed in the pictures behind and above the bar at Good Time Charlie's, and is part of the shared history of every Regina citizen. Of course we're moving on, of course we all "Heart Regina" and can't wait to see a big glass and steel monstrosity built on the bones of a local institution of cultural diversity and tolerance. (that last bit was ironic, by the way) But just as the ghosts of the great plains bison still roam the fields out past the city line, the ghost of Good Time Charlie might still live in song, and remind us all where we really came from: the great plains.