"You got the beer, we got the time. You got the coke, gimme a line."
"Muk Muk Runs Amuck!"
Mere days after Quatchi's arrest, VANOC faces another PR disaster. Olympic mascot Muk Muk renounced his ties with the IOC and allied with black bloc protesters as they knocked over newspaper boxes and smashed department store windows. His only statement to the media was a loud refrain of
"No justice, no peace, Muk the police!"
"Hockey! Finland! Yay!"I got the opportunity to attend my first Olympic event today, taking some stoked downtown eastside residents to the women's bronze medal hockey between Finland and Sweden.
We adopted Finland as our team and the folks from our women's housing project, seated right behind us adopted Sweden. It was nice to see people who normally wouldn't be able to attend an Olympic event standing on their feet screamed "C'mon Sweden! For fucks sake! Shoot the puck you stupid idiots!"
Observations;
- Finland killed them on defense and had a scrappier team. At one point a Finn forward broke through four defenders and shot the puck across her body, past the goalie. Amazing. It ended in overtime 3-2 for the good guys. Finland uber alles!
- A special medal should be given to whoever was operating the PA at GM Place (or Canada Hockey Place as they're calling it. Playing everything from Joan Jett to the Pretenders to The Go-Gos, the Donnas, The Breeders, Heart (Barracuda) and any other "chick rock" anthem they could muster as well as the obligatory ABBA tune for any Swedish meatballs in the audience.
-There was an incredible amount of skill in the game and it was chippier than I expected, with the Finn goalie, delivering several punches and a nice face-wash to opposing players who crashed the crease.
-I found out why none fo the checks were finished when one of the players got a penalty for "body-checking". In the game of hockey, that's the equivalent of getting 2 minutes for "skating".
- In women's hockey you get a penalty for "too many players" on the ice, not "too many
men," but they still say "defense
men,"not "defense-
people". They also, for some reason call "sudden death" overtime "sudden victory" overtime, so no one has to worry that someone will actually be killed, I suppose.
Anyway a good time was had by all.
"Sloppy Olympic Sex = Front Page News"
After a steady storm of bad publicity, shitty weather, public outcry, deaths etc and claims from around the globe early on that the Vancouver Olympics was the worst of all time, all our local media has chosen to focus on, besides the sports themselves is the amount of "spirit" and "patriotism" shown at stupid Canada Pavillion and street parties on Granville. An insightful article in local birdcage liner "24hr," entitled "damn, lookin' good," (cause hey, fuck sentences) seemed to boil the games down to it's essence - drunk people drunkenly fucking other drunk people.
Gross. Of course, like a car accident I had to look at their full gallery online.
"Hi. Mind if I rape you?"
"Hey guys! I'm between periods!"
Insert your own livestock reference here "__________________________"
Wow, you ladies look just like Hugh Hefner's creepy "Stepford-triplets" pulled through a knothole!
"New Olympic medals are uuuuug-ly."
In honor of the noble Orca, the artist who designed the Olympic medals decided to cast them in the shape of whale shit. Not a good idea.
I felt bad when listening to the artist spiel about how they painstakingly designed the medal. They look like they were made by Salvidor Dali or like someone left them sitting on the radiator and they warped.
"Carrot-Top Wins Gold"
Wisely abandoning prop comedy for the world snowboarding circuit, the freckle-faced weirdo made good for team USA. You can see him appearing nightly at the Luxor following the Blueman Group.
"Intensities In Tent-Cities"
Vancouver's poor and marginalized showed the world that they have a voice (and a lot of balls), successfully diverting the Olympic torch relay from Commercial Drive, staging an enormous protest at the opening ceremonies. Protesters then launched an assault on downtown, smashing out The Bay's windows and daring Vancouver's finest in full combat gear to do what they do best - whale on their own citizens - with the world watching.The day after the violence, the people assembled peacefully and marched 4,000 strong in a very moving tribute to the downtown eastside's missing women.
I have never been more proud of where I live . Magically, things seemed to calm down. There were fewer helicopters and fewer cops patrolling our streets. Olympic revelry stayed mainly contained in the downtown area, not the downtown eastside. As I rode the bus from Hastings and Princess to my home a dozen or so blocks away I heard the driver said "wow, after being downtown, this looks like a ghost town." That's how we like it. Stay the fuck out and if you come into our community, show some goddamned respect.
The Olympics seems to have disappeared from the downtown eastside. It is business as usual on street corners and my favorite drunks are back one their park benches. Flags and banners are everywhere, celebrating our community.
After a tent city was erected at Hastings and Abbott there wasn't as much of a need for marches. The issues were there for all to see. People around the world came to tent city and actually had conversations with poor people about our city's lack of compassion for the homeless. This is the real "Downtown Eastside Connect." Not that bullshit, white-wash kiosk BC Housing set up at the new Woodward's abomination to celebrate the good deeds of social service agencies and how great in is that they decided to build a few more shelters. Before you stop and congratulate yourself for all the wonderful things you're doing to help the poor, maybe you should get involved in the community and encourage your clients to do the same, rather than giving them a cot to sleep on and a bar of soap and then patting yourself on the back for your generosity
Just a thought.
