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Party on, Frankendude

By G.D.

By G.D. Maxwell

In a town riddled with irony – 5,000 square foot monuments to wretched excess and self indulgence sitting dark and empty while four workerbees share a bedroom the size of a walk-in closet and get dinged $600 each for the privilege – the World Ski and Snowboard Festival, rolling through the valley for the next Whistler-dozen days, verily drips the stuff. It is the dessert table at a diabetic convention. The two foot powder dump on freshly mown golf course greens. The drowning man’s glass of water.

WSSF – approximating the sound a formerly extreme huckmeister makes trying to say "what’s up" after a drop gone bad has driven his front teeth into his nasal cavities – is Whistler’s collective orgasm after a season of endless foreplay and wet spots as large as, well, as large as Whistler and Blackcomb. We’ve managed to keep it up without any signs of softening since the first rousing teases of December, through the crush of Christmas, the rain of January, April in February and a March best forgotten, lost in its own fog. If we survive the next 10 days, the town can collectively lean back on one elbow, smoke a cigarette, and hope this partner finally has the good sense to get dressed and leave so we can peacefully move on to spring skiing or roll back over and sleep ‘til noon.

But first, we survive The Party.

For years now the epicentre of springtime mountain kulture, WSSF should, by all rights, be long in the tooth and stale as yesterday’s baguette. That it is still vibrant and fresh enough to be slapped in the face for breaking the rules can be laid at the feet of Doug Perry, Frankendude. Doug was absent the day his teachers taught about success breeding complacency.

Working with a fanatically talented harem, surviving on Red Bull and Powerbars, Frankendude has laboured feverishly now for the better part of a decade shaping his Jihad on the doldrums of spring. Stitched together from disparate bits of snowsports and hype, shaped by filmmakers and photographers, infused with the pulsing nervous system of nonstop rock ’n’ roll, and wired with the brain of a hungover Aussie closing in on the end of a five-month bender but still ready to go out and party as soon as he finds a "clean" shirt in the waning season’s pile of laundry, WSSF is the mother of all mountain festivals.

When Frankendude unleashed this monster on the resort in 1994, the local villagers didn’t know whether to laugh at it or burn him out with torches. What kind of demented fool thinks he can pull off a grand finale at a mountain resort in April... before or after the floating holyday of Easter? What kind of demented fool even wants to? Let’s face it, according to collective wisdom, skiers have pretty much hung up the boards by the time fashionably white shoes make their annual appearance. Golf, gardening, sailing, nude sunbathing and recovering from ACL surgery replace sliding as their favourite pastimes.

And even if the skiers and boarders haven’t had enough, surely the people who live and work here have. Except of course for the bar owners, hoteliers, restaurateurs, mountain managers and collected bidnizfolks who genuflect to the incremental tour group and find their own outlet in playing Layoff Roulette with their dwindling but ever-hopeful employees.

This is, after all, the time of year when sales of the bumper sticker saying "Happiness is 10,000 Brits leaving town… with an American under each arm" reach their peak.

But despite all odds, WSSF survived. At first, off-season econotourists filtered into the village from their illegal chalets, lured by the promise of free entertainment. They were joined by the curious diehards from the Lower Mainland and laidoff locals looking for a crowd on whom to practice their pickpocket skills. Naturally the ski media were invited and, with the incentive of an easy story and free liquor, came in droves.

The rest is history. The centre of gravity of the universe has been shifted to Whistler in April and ski towns up and down the Rockies are falling all over themselves trying to ape the energy and entertainment that is WSSF. It would help if they had snow in April instead of the icy frost of celebrity, but hey, we all have our burdens to bear. Still, somehow, the Aspen Rock Ski & Sand Surfing Festival just doesn’t have the same cachet, does it?

Being a festival that celebrates both skiing and snowboarding, WSSF is not your typical World Crass ski resort kind of event. The snowboarders and new schoolers see to that. They inject notes not generally heard in a symphony of high-priced snobfests. Their attire sets the stage for the Fashion Show – From Descente to Déclassé – and you’ll find more pierced bits and tattoos milling around the village this week than you would at a good sized Midwestern feedlot. You’ll also find a lot of energy and enthusiasm, especially at the BoarderCross and BIG AIR events, with nary a whiff of Eurotrash or fabulous fur.

But WSSF has morphed into more than just a celebration of slippin’ and slidin’. It’s also become a celebration of Whistler, Life in Tiny Town. If you don’t believe it, be sure to catch the Dog Parade. Many would say Whistler is a dog parade every day, but while dogs seem to celebrate their dogginess all the time, the Dog Parade provides a chance for dog owners – oxymoron – to put on the dog. It’s as close to a dog show as this town ever comes.

Dog shows, after all, are strange gatherings where tragically cloned, primped, pampered, animals display the effects of overly severe toilet training. And their dogs are something to see as well. By contrast, the Whistler Dog Parade will feature a bum-sniffing conga line of real animals competing in real dog events: catch the Frisbee, slobber and drool, run away, the ever-popular Rollerblader Rundown and of course, hump the leg.

And we haven’t even touched on the photo, film, digital imagery aspects of the party. Or the non-stop music. Or the secret industry parties – Valuable Local Hint: this year’s password to get into the parties is Swordfish.

So it all starts today. When it ends is irrelevant. We’ll all be in such a stupor we won’t notice it’s over. As one notable local politician is fond of saying, "If you can make it through WSSF without drugs and with your clothes still on, you shouldn’t be here in the first place."

Party on.