Demolition Of Blazer Stadium

Today's posting is a little out of the norm - and a four hankie tear jerker to boot. No frolicking footage of the 1970s this time. Instead we focus our attention on the Blazerville childhood stomping grounds, and the familiar buildings contained within, which have taken a number of serious body blows over the past few months.

Long time regulars Brown's and Cowan's grocery stores have both come crashing down in place of modern homes. Hillcrest Park has been transformed from a big, wide, playing field into a crowded and complex theme park full of fancy new olympic buildings. And the nearby 'Projects' housing complex, a place of mystery, fear, and roving enemy gangs for most of my life (since the mid 1950s) has been flattened into a giant dusty pancake.

Oh sure, there'll be plenty more retrospective videos produced on the demise of these long standing, low income occupied, bland but functional monoliths much better than mine, but I made 2 or 3 trips back into the old neighborhood to capture these scenes on the video camera so the least you can do now is watch 'em without complaining about it.

And yeah, the original Blazer Stadium was located just inside the eastern boundaries of Projectonia, hence the title of this post. This was the field in which us Blazer type kids first learned how to punt, toss and catch a football. If I'm not mistaken (and maybe another Blazer can confirm it) the Block Blazers never lost a football game to the Project Rejects in all the years of interlocking play. True, we always seemed to lose when hockey season rolled around (up at Brock school) but we never lost to those nasty Rejectonians at touch football.

Cutting Room Floor Discards

Another reel of super 8 film has now bit the dust. Plenty of dust to go around. But as is usual with these old 20 minute reels of footage, there's always a few dreg bits remaining. The short snippets that fail to meet even the most minimum of quality standards; fail to meet the rock bottom basics required for inclusion onto the exclusive NRP blog for public viewing.

However, we'll relax those rules for this episode by actually including some of the pitiful dregs and horribly disfigured scenes that would normally be left on the cutting room floor - to be stepped on and trampled like newspaper pages on a city bus. (I'm just glad my condo came with a cutting room.) Plus we'll toss in a couple of repeat scenes and extra-bonus bloopers that might confuse our dear viewer into thinking that this film isn't such a total waste of their precious internet surfing time after all.

Blast From The Past

We were just discussing our ex-Blazer brother Evert only a couple of postings ago. As I recall, we were wondering if; and to what degree; the old gang dynamics might have been altered had Evert bothered to hang around the block a little longer than he did. Or even if he'd merely bothered to keep in touch with us by sending a Christmas card now and then during the past four decades.

But he didn't - and none of us knew where the hell he'd gone. And it certainly wasn't our job to try and hunt him down. He knew where he'd gone and he wasn't about to inform any of us. The next time we saw his smiling mug around the block was when he won some big chunk of change playing the 6/49 lottery in the mid 80s and he was forced to pose for a picture in the local paper. Or at least a picture in the local flyer that the lottery corporation published called 'Luck Magazine'.

No wonder we never heard from the guy anymore. He'd struck gold and didn't want anybody to know. He'd won a piece of the million dollar prize jackpot and quickly moved on up to the east side. To the hills of Victoria. Swimmin' pools; movie stars. What everybody does after winning the pools.

The 'Go To' Source For Regret

The staff and management here at 'No Relevant Point' certainly hope that most (if not all) of our viewers received exactly what they wanted for Christmas 2009 - and we trust that you will continue to find our blogateria the 'go-to' source for both idle reflection and painful regret when it comes to the watching of reconstituted films of the good ole days of the 1970s.

Pointing out the fact that youth in general has a short shelf life and that, in most cases, the best days of our lives are already far behind us, is clearly the blunt directive here at NRP and we're just trying to do the best job we can with the tools at hand.

Bonus comment: You'll be pleased to learn that the postie cartoon presented above is most likely the last in the long line of homemade 'postie xmas cards' dating back to the early 1980s.

Recent updates on previous videos:
Return Visit Value
Roadside Bomb
Another Slide Show People

Another Slide Show (Now With More Pizazz)

Must put up more photos soon. Must clear out more of the old pix that have been hanging around here for ages eagerly awaiting their own special blog moment on the NRP website.

These 'pix-only' postings (as this one be) are always an easy upload/assignment for me. Just pick out and drop in. In fact there's no need for anyone to add text at this point really; it's just another slide show people. No in-depth explanation is required.

The vast majority of these non-moving scenes were captured (when else?) during the 70s and 80s. Perhaps a label is needed for the later years of the 70s. Something to signify the "post Evert" years. Because sometime after 1974, Evert just didn't wanna know, he didn't. Stayed far away, he did. Turned his back on Blazerville and never returned. So you certainly won't find his mug popping up anywhere in this collection of mugs if you were thinking of looking for it.

Taking that thought a step further, I'm not sure if Blazerville would have evolved any differently had Evert's participation in it not come to an undefined end back in the mid-70s. If he'd stuck around longer; maybe got a job at Safeway; would he still be a part of our lives today? Rather than the missing link in the Blazer reunions that he is? I think a full discussion on that topic would lead us down a long, multi branched path and should be saved for a future posting. We don't have time for that now.

Bird Feeding With Billy

With this latest video offering below, we find that the slightly less ancient world of the 1990s has begun to creep ever so obviously into our humble little salute to the super 8 films of the 1970s.

While this revelation might be considered an unfortunate progression in the life of the 'No Relevant Point' blogeteria, it was certainly not an unexpected one. There were only so many daylight hours and rolls of film in the 1970s in which to capture Blazer related images from the old neighbourhood.

With that exact topic in mind, we hope to one day strike a deal with the owner of the once powerful Zambezi-Bioscope company (currently located in Australia) in which the super 8 films from their vaults could also be shown on this internet stage - greatly expanding the scope of our project overall. In the meantime, we will continue unloading our barrel full of old and newish film/video/photos from the past; today focusing our attention on an unusual 1992 visit to a bird sanctuary in Ladner with good old Billy. It goes without saying that any scenes of bird feeding will certainly be surrounded by the odd moment of '70s footage.

Another Clump From The Past

You must have known that it was only a matter of time before some of those nasty softball videos from the 80s and 90s would eventually show up again and park themselves smack-dab in the middle of our heartwarming salute to the 1970s. Totally ruining what could have been another pleasant visit to the past.

It's not ALL softball stuff on this most recent NRP episode below, but by golly, there's certainly more than anyone in their right mind needs to see. Also in the running today (on screen) are two forms of hockey. Ice and table. So it seems like we've picked a mostly sports-related show this time out. Watch for the ultra rare appearance of Jason and then Harry - both playing goaltenders. Jason is better known to us all by now as the accordion player on the Robson Arms TV show.

But just when you feel like turning the channel on this crummy collection to search for old Bewitched episodes, up pops fun stuff like Don and Tracy on vacation, or the next door cat sniffing the lens, or poor Billy getting his big red car stuck in the snow. There were a few other bits from the same era/reel as this one that could have been added into the whole clump, but the whole clump was already nudging 4 minutes long. So I left some clumps off for a future upload. This clump will do for now.

And oh yeah. Big Al makes his first appearance on here in ages.