This Festival is a Big Jerk

This festival is a big jerk. Ya, that’s right I said it. It’s a big jerk. I thought after last year we were letting bygones be bygones, but this festival holds a vendetta longer than the nastiest, car scratchingest, where’d my cat go?, ex-boyfriend or girlfriend anyone have ever had. Let me explain.

You see, last year I tried to be a good boy. I tried to write nice little posts about how quaint everything was. I tried to make amends for the mass hysteria caused by my first year’s posts. Even though it wasn’t my fault I got some bad information about the festival using psychotropic drugs to enslave and fleece this city’s literarily inclined public, I still tried to make nice.

But they couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie. No, they had to go digging around in my past and find some nefarious way to make me pay. They needed revenge. They needed Ismaila Alfa.

Ya, that’s right, first they trick me into doing this blog thing again, then they go and get Ismaila Alfa for opening night. I know you’re probably wondering what that sweet, foggy voiced, young man responsible for the traffic on CBC has to do with anything, but let me tell you, we all have pasts.

You see, there once was a little boy who really liked sports, especially football and basketball. Now this boy wasn’t the fastest, or the jumpiest, but he had heart. He worked hard, made both teams and things were good. However, there was another boy who also liked sports, like football and basketball. Now this boy was the fastest and the jumpiest boy there was and he even had heart too. So naturally, he also made both teams. But what a sad day it was when the poor boy who only had heart realized that because he only had heart he would forever ride the pine, and watch the fastest and jumpiest kid get all the girls. Though you wouldn’t think it from seeing me now, that poor little boy with heart was me. And that fastest, jumpiest kid...you guessed it, Ismaila Alfa.

Now as time went on, I eventually came to grips with the fact that my sports dreams were over. I decided to take up something I knew no athlete would even want to beat me at. I took up poetry. I thought the failures of my past would be buried in the accolades I would receive as being the best poet ever to come out of Hastings Junior High. Evidently, the festival felt it necessary to rob me of that delusion too. Let’s check the scoreboard:

International Writer’s Festival Reading Gigs

Ismaila Alfa 1

Jason Diaz 0

And the best poet ever to come out of Hastings Junior High is....Ismaila Alfa!!

He’s probably still faster than me too.

Now please, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think Ismaila is in on this. He was a good guy. And the warm hug in his voice as he informs me that Osborne is backed up to Jubilee, tells me he still is. He’s just being used as the festival’s pawn. But not me, not anymore.

If Ismaila goes down with a bad hammy opening night, I will not be stepping in to read. Hear that festival, I’m out. Your scheme won’t work. I’ll write your blog, tweet your twitters and eat your room temperature cheese, but if you think for a second that I’m going to let you make me feel like I should quit poetry like I did sports by making me the back up again, you’ve got another thing coming. Dig up whoever you want. Being a poet is my life. It’s what I do. It’s the only good reason I have for working in a bookstore at the age of thirty five when I have four kids. It’s all I’ve got.

Anyway, psychological warfare, that’s why the festival is a big jerk. See you opening night.

PS I’m sneaking into the comp room this year and I will not be there getting Ismaila water. Take that Festival!

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Jason Diaz is a Winnipeg-based writer, bookstore employee and handyman (the bookstore business isn't as stable as you'd think). His poetry and prose has been published in dark leisure magazine. He has no idea why he keeps working for these meanies and volunteers coaching basketball to all the artsy kids in Wolseley so they never have to sit on the bench. He has a wife and many children.