When I heard about Occupy coming to Vancouver I was sure to get the day off to be a part of it.  I took my time getting out of the house in the morning and cycled down on a sunny fall afternoon.  When I got to Georgia and Howe the light shone down through the skyscrapers on a mass of people beginning to march down Hornby street.  The air had this electical feeling to it and you could hear the rush of people  amidst the city drone.
I locked my bike and looked around.  Smiling people holding placards, some stunned onlookers.  I proceeded up Hornby around the side of the Art Gallery.  I just walked peacefully with the people.  I think this was the biggest march I’ve ever been in.  We had many of the token elements of a march like banners, slogans and drumming.  Lots of peaceful smiling people of all ages holding clever signs.  I’d say the most common theme I heard and saw was We Are the 99%.
The march turned up Howe street, Vancouver’s financial headquarters, and I looked around for bankers.  A few suits stood above the crowd recording them with their mobile phone cameras and others just looked on the march with awe and curiosity.  Then we arrived back where we started, the Art Gallery, and I felt a genuine sense of hopeful euphoria in the air.  The great weather sure helped.
After that I milled about in the crowd.  I saw people setting up tents.  I saw some familiar faces.  On the steps of the art gallery organizers had set up a stage with sound system and people from the crowd put their names on a speakers list to get up and talk.  Every person seemed to have something valid to say, all of it revolving around the injustice perpetuated by the global banking elite in some way.  We were hearing many voices of the same cry.  Some speakers were disabled, others came from a First Nations point of view, and others warned of the dangers of the intercontinental pipeline.  Non of them were stars; they were just people with something to say.
I just wanted to stand and be counted and observe rather than taking an active role.  As I wandered around the side again I saw some people setting up multiple drum kits.  I ran into some old friends around back where the sun warmed the cascading steps.  People basked there, as did we.  People carefully drank concealed beers and passed around funky smelling smoke to the tune of acoustic guitars.
I lounged for a while and headed back to what was now a full fledged drum jam featuring three drum kits.  First time I ever saw a multi drum kit percussion jam.  I joined the dancers.  Many of the beats floated somewhere around heady hip hop.  Sometimes things would go askew for while and then lock right down again.  As the jam went on they achieved some interesting polyrythms.  The strength of this jam is that the core of it was three professional musicians — the three drummers — and everyone else just filled in the gaps in interesting ways.
One conundrum was where to piss.  There were big lineups at the porta-potties.  On a tip I crossed over Howe and down the stairs into Pacific Centre Mall, where conspicuous consumption went on as usual, to the food court washrooms.  People eyed me like an outsider in that mall.  How blissfully insulated this consumer paradise was from the protest.  All was well in Babylon.
I emerged and caught a slice of someone’s cell phone conversation: “I’m just going down to check out this crazy protest” she said as she headed that way.  “These people are against the banks” an older man informed his companions.
On the way back to the jam I found a sign making station with markers and cardboard.  I made my sign: Replace the Stock Market with Mariokart! and flew if from then forward.  A few times people came up to photograph me and my sign.
As the evening drew on I took to my bike again and headed to the Media Club to see Kill Matilda.  This was the first time I’d seen the Exners for quite a while, as they’d been living out east and criss-crossing the country playing rock n roll.  I rocked out hard up front and pounded too many cheap beers and wound up silly drunken G again of course.

It’s in every building on campus.  As a matter of fact it has reached every corner of the globe.  It’s in virtually every corner store and supermarket, people ingest it on purpose and it’s a deadly poison.  Yes, I’m speaking of aspartame–also known as NutraSweet, an artificial sweetener used in diet sodas, as a sugar substitute and in food products.  It is clear to anybody who bothers to look into it that aspartame is a very harmful and even deadly poison, yet almost every day I see people drinking diet sodas on campus.

The Effects

92% of the independently funded studies on aspartame have found serious health effects.  These studies have found several long term effects attributed to aspartame consumption.  Aspartame Disease has 96 possible symptoms.  These include anxiety attacks, brain cancer, can’t think straight, death, impotency, migraine headaches, seizures, tremors and weight gain to name a few.

Aspartame disease also mimics or worsens the symptoms of many serious diseases, thereby leaving the true cause of the ailments undiagnosed.  Some of these diseases are Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease, Lupus, Alzheimer’s Disease and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Aspartame accounted for more than 75% of all adverse reactions to food products reported to the FDA.  This likely only accounts for 1% of the total cases of actual adverse reactions, since most reactions are either unreported or misdiagnosed.

It’s worth noting that the original manufacturer of aspartame, GD Searle, is a pharmaceutical company, and it’s widely known that the pharmaceutical industry has a very heavy (and not exactly benign) influence on the medical community.  Could this be why Aspartame Disease is so often misdiagnosed by doctors and it’s disastrous effects ignored by the medical establishment?

What It Does To Your Body

Aspartame is 50% Phenylanine, 40% Aspartic Acid and 10% Methanol.  Methanol is a deadly poison when not accompanied by ethanol.  In the body it breaks down into Formaldehyde and Formic Acid.  Formaldehyde, of course, is the foul smelling liquid used to preserve those lovely cow’s eyes that we were forced to dissect in junior high school.  It’s also a deadly neuro-toxin known to cause cancer, retinal damage, and birth defects; it also interferes with DNA replication.  Formic acid is commonly used as an activator to strip epoxy and in urethane coatings (not something you want in your body!).

The maximum recommended amount of methanol consumption is 7.8 mg per day, while one litre of diet soda has 56 mg.  Heavy users end up consuming over 30 times the recommended limit.

The two other ingredients, phenylanine and aspartic acid, are both amino acids that are neurotoxic when not accompanied by the other 20 amino acids.

The Aspartame Story

The characters in this tragedy are actually quite familiar to those interested in current events.  The controversy goes straight to the top of the pyramid–to those who are manipulating the people of this planet, and is indicative of even bigger issues than aspartame itself.

The major player in the aspartame atrocity is the Bush administration’s own Donald Rumsfeld, current Defense Secretary in the “War on Terror”.

His career in politics goes back to the Nixon administration, when he was a member of Slick Dick’s cabinet.  After Nixon was ousted he went on to serve under the unelected Gerald Ford as White House Chief of Staff and later became Secretary of Defense in 1975.

After this, Rumsfeld went on to become chairman and CEO of GD Searle, the company that would later manufacture aspartame.  While with Searle, Rumsfeld was quite obviously still connected in high places, as he was appointed to a litany of influential and unelected positions by the Reagan and Bush sr administrations.  These included President Reagan’s Special Envoy to the Middle East (1983-84) and The Commission on the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States (as chairman)(1998-99) to name a couple.

When the Reagan / Bush administration came to power they fired the FDA commissioner who wouldn’t approve aspartame (because it was known to cause seizures and brain tumors in laboratory animals) and hired Arthur Hull Hayes Jr.  In 1981 Hayes went against the unanimous decision of his own board of inquiry and approved the artificial sweetener for use in dry foods.  It was his first major decision as FDA commissioner; his last was the approval of aspartame for use in soft drinks.

When he left the FDA, where he approved the use of poisonous aspartame, he took a senior position at GD Searle–the very company that manufactures aspartame (and served to make millions from its approval).

As If this weren’t bad enough, an acting commissioner, six operatives and two attorneys who were supposed to be prosecuting NutraSweet for submitting fraudulent tests all left the FDA to work for NutraSweet.  The aspartame industry has also bought out the American Diabetes Association and other seemingly helpful organizations so they recommend the sweetener to their patrons as a safe alternative to sugar.

The conductor of this whole mess was Donald Rumsfeld, who received a $12 million bonus when GD Searle was bought by Monsanto-the evil promoter of Genetically Modified Foods.

This is the same man who is defense secretary of the USA, and thereby responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians from American military campaigns.

What To Do About It

Studies after studies and the experience of a growing number of people have shown that aspartame consumption causes very serious health problems, yet diet beverages are available everywhere and aspartame is present in a wide variety of popular products.  Why is this?  I, for one, will never understand how people could blindly consume things that are killing them without a second thought.  It is indicative of the reasons why this world is in the situation it is in–people give their freedom away by letting oppressive powers control them.  Whether it’s sucking back a diet soda or silently consenting to a bloody war, the process is the same–people abandon their intellect and simply do as is dictated to them.

It is recommended that those who think they could be suffering from Aspartame Disease stop ingesting any product containing aspartame for 60 days see if their symptoms diminish or stop completely.  Look at labels very carefully.  It’s in more things than you may realize.

The facts speak for themselves.  Don’t ingest aspartame.

But yes there were a lot of North Americans too.  I met some nice genuine Americans.  Sometimes I’d busk on Hamilton Street by the Salvation Army folks giving away hot chocolate.  They stood there with dispensers on their backs filling up cups of sweet hot chocolate and giving them away to passersby.  They were warm Southerners.  I played this one gentleman from Georgia a selection of songs about the South and he gave me $10.

Early on I realized that I don’t know that many songs about Canada.  I’d never really thought about it before, but I actually know a lot of songs that directly reference places in the United States.  I know at least three songs that refer to New Orleans.  The only real Canadiana I could muster up was a few songs written by Canadians.  Somehow it felt a bit strange playing “Big Yellow Taxi” at Granville Island, but it made me some money.

Granville Island has sort of a dreamy feel to it sometimes.  It’s under the bridge.  A dead body of water surrounds it called False Creek.  You see stickers at the food vendors booths that say Protect Your Food and show a picture of a menacing seagull.  The sea gulls there are trained in on human activity.  They thrive on fries and pizza lifted by storming tourists lazily munching on the benches as busker Les Finnigan plays his dreamy guitar music in market square.

I had a great day there as we got into the second week.  Canada had just beaten the Russians, the sun shined and people were in high spirits.  I got into the feel of things playing songs like “Me & Bobby McGee”, “Folsom Prison Blues”, and still “The Hockey Song” and “Tubthumping”, but throwing in tunes just for fun, like a couple songs written by Ryan Latchman–”Losin’ It” and “Fallin’ For You”–and still making money with them.

I made some quick cash and then had a half hour break.  You see, when you’re an acoustic busker at Granville Island you a) have a licence that cost $30, and b) have to sign up first come first served for half hour slots at the five indoor acoustic busking spots.  Maximum half hour at each spot, times five is a possible maximum of three hours busking in a day.  Because there are a lot of buskers signing up it can be hard to play three hours, so I’d usually play two and take at least one break in the middle.  Two and a half hours is the most that I’ve been able to pull off in a day, and that’s actually quite the musical workout if you think about it.

Right.  I got a buskers special at the Indian food place and found a seat outside as Les Finnigan set up his gear in Market Square.  I saw a little kid eyeing me as I walked, as though I might take the seat beside him.  A minute after I sat down I saw a man come over and sit in the seat.  He had short dark hair with little grey flecks, late ’30s, pretty nondescript.  He had four boys with him; they all had Canada shirts on.  I ate my Indian food.

A man came up to the  man with the four boys and seemed to know him so the man stood up.  I overheard a bit of their conversation.  The white haired man said “and well we’re just really really happy about the win over the Russians and we’re hoping we make it to the final.  And then of course, we’d be just delighted if it could be against the Americans”.

This piqued my curiosity.  I really wolfed down the food.  I was hungry.  I tried to figure out who the guy was but I didn’t recognize him.  I had a sneaking suspicion it was Scott Neidermayer.  I just had to find out.  So after trashing my styrofoam container and plastic fork I calmly approached him and said “Hi.  I’m really sorry to bother you.. but, what hockey player are you?”

“Scott” he said.   “Scott Neidermayer.”

“Right, of course” I said.  “I just wanted to say: Great job against the Russians.”

“Thanks” he said and nodded humbly.

“Keep up the good work” I said, and gave him a thumbs up.

I had my guitar in my hand and was just headed in the door to play my set at Pizza Pizzaz.  There you stand with your back to a pole playing while streams of people buzz past you in all directions going to and fro between the many food outlets on your left and right and the doors behind you.  Granville Island is used to a lot of people.  On Canada Day 60 000 people go to Granville Island, and during the Olympics every day was like Canada Day, especially this one.

I had a real smile on my face after meeting the captain of Team Canada, and I played some inspired music.  I dug out “With A Little Help From My Friends” by the Beatles and really felt it.  I saw a lady pause in mid stream and stare over.  She stood and looked until the end of the song, then came over and dropped $10 into my case.  “Thank you” she said (and I thanked her back).

One night I played in Yaletown and decided to go play on Granville Street after it slowed down on Hamilton Street.  I’d heard that there was some mad money to be made there; I’d seen rapper Little T and his crew freestyling over looping machine beats, and the Street Band (featuring the horn section of the Carnival Band) playing to large crowds.  I felt pretty desperate to make some money.

When I emerged up Davie street into the storm that was Granville the volume and energy peaked.  My whole body winced as the cloud of energy enveloped me.  Men draped head to toe in Canadian flags ran in abstract patterns with their arms out screeching.  People stood in circles hollering “Go Canada!” and even “Free Health Care!”  Free health care? I thought.  Who’s it free for?

I wound up standing in front of Dare to Wear–a store for the hoochiest, sleaziest or most outrageous ladies wear you can think of–playing in front of the mannequins.    It was like pissing on a forest fire.  I was just an iota of sound compared to the total roar of the place.  Sure, people wandered briskly around, mostly grinning ear to ear, drunk and happy.  But nobody gave a damn about the guy with the guitar and his folk music.  I tried to radiate like a beacon of light and draw up as much energy as I could but it just fell flat and I didn’t make a cent.

I’ve heard since, that the Street Band and those Hip Hop guys–loud and amplified energetic buskers–made a killing during the Olympics and I can see why.  I learned the limits of the ‘guy with a guitar’ approach, and that the lions share of my repertoire is not complicit with celebration or patriotism.  As a matter of fact a guy ran up to me and stood directly in front of me in Yaletown once and said “I’ll give you $20 if you play Oh Canada“.  I shuffled for a moment and declined, saying that I don’t know it on guitar, which is true, but I could easily have just sung it for him to earn the money.  I just can’t muster up a good ol’ feeling of Canadian Patriotism on demand.  The whole thing reminded me of how I really do feel rooted in the West, and I think that the Pacific Northwest is its own distinct entity.

Another thing it caused me to realize is that I honestly don’t know any folk songs about the Pacific Northwest other than ones written by songwriters I know personally (and me).  Is our history here so young?  This is the edge of Western Civilization — the last colonized place in the world.  That’s what infuses Cascadia with a sense of hope.  Anything can happen here.  It’s a place where one could truly start anew.  A fresh place.

As I walked around the new ultra-modern Vancouver I took in all the sounds and smells.  I recalled the old Vancouver I remember from 1986, the year I moved here.  Then as now the eyes of the world focused on Vancouver during the Year of the Tiger.  Expo ’86 really put Vancouver on the map; from a quiet little harbour city into an international jewel.  That’s the year the Skytrain came out too.  I remember the frenzied, celebratory air of the city even though I was only six then.  I think tips were good for my parents, who both worked at downtown hotel restaurants, so we went out to a family dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Gastown, then took the brand new Skytrain to Expo.

I was particularly excited because my grandma had given me a Transformer toy that transforms from a robot into a rocket ship and into a rocket train!  I think it was the coolest toy I ever had.  I fully expected the Skytrain to be a flying rocket train.  I remember when we finally got on it and it didn’t take off.  I was dismayed.  It even traveled underground at times, which was not only really scary, but was also the complete opposite of the Sky.

The Expo grounds seemed huge, and I’m sure it really was huge.  I remember lofty towers and massive pavilions.  I remember a robot who could talk.  Children circled around him pelting him with questions.  He’d answer a selection of them in a robotic voice.  I realized years later that there must have been a microphone in the robot with a person listening and responding remotely.

Of course, the Canada pavilion was the biggest, and I remember two young women in red and white giving people little scratch and win cards.  If you scratch the line with the three maple leafs you can redeem it for a prize (some disposable Canadiana).   One of them said to me “You have to answer a Canadian trivia question to get a card.”

“Who is the Prime Minister of Canada?” one of them asked me.  I could tell they were trying to give me an easy question because I was a little kid.  I thought it over and two names came to mind.

“Ronald Reagan” I said.  Their faces changed, and one showed a genuine look of dismay for a moment.

“Uh, nope.  It’s Brian Mulroney” she said.  (That was the other name I had in my head, but something told me that Reagan was more powerful than Mulroney).

A moment of pause as they looked at each other.  “Should we give it to him?” one asked to the other.  She nodded and the other one gave me the card with an awkward smile.

In the months leading up to, and during the Olympics I noticed a postering campaign featuring retro images relating to Expo ’86.  My favourite was the cover of a Betty and Veronica comic showing Betty, Veronica, Jughead and Archie hanging out in Vancouver for Expo.  It honestly moved some Vancouver based pride inside me.  Several different full size, full colour Expo ’86 posters were posted all over the city in prime locations — ie: by people who are paid to do it.  I wondered what the meaning of it was and could only deduce that it was a deliberate propaganda campaign to boost locals’ pride in advance of the games.

I appreciate all the feedback I get. By no means do I think what I do or say is perfect, nor do I have all my ideas completely solid in my mind–that’s why I like to be challenged and develop my knowledge. I guess I’m saying that I’m not even really sure I know what the fuck I’m doing.
But now, I’m going to go off on a little tangent.

At what point did being “Left Wing” start being about making sure nobody gets offended and stop being about overthrowing the government and creating a system based on the interests of working people?!

Rather than assessing how and why humanity and the environment are exploited and work to overthrow and change things from the bottom up, the so-called Left seems to be busy trying to make this oppression appear nice, friendly and equal. I heard a good example in a radio interview with author Walter Benn Michaels about his book The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality.

I’m going to have to paraphrase; he cites two cases where women had sued their employers for gender discrimination. One was against Wal-Mart, in which women were suing the corporation because women were paid on average, say, $8 000 a year and men were paid $10 000. In the other a woman attorney sued her company because male lawyers were paid $180 ooo a year and female lawyers $165 000 a year. Isn’t the bigger issue, Micheals asks, the massive income gap between the poor Wal-Mart employees and the rich business attorneys? As in: the root of the injustice?

We’re missing the forest for the trees here sometimes. The most fundamental problem in the world is economic inequality. Economic inequality fuels all the other inequalities. I believe that when the big problem of economic inequality is solved that all the other types of equality will naturally follow suit. It seems to me that the pseudo-left is more interested in making structures of oppression appear to be equal. Ensuring that visible minorities constitute half the board of Translink won’t mean it doesn’t fleece the poor; having more women CEOs won’t make corporations less psychopathic.

The so-called Left seems to be the main proponent of political correctness as well. I believe political correctness is Newspeak. Newspeak is the Orwellian concept that in continually revising the English language and removing any words that could potentially be dangerous, humanity could eventually reach the point where it would be impossible to even think anything contrary to the dictates of the state. In George Orwell’s 1984 the main character, Winston, has a friend called Syme who is one of the team of experts constructing the new edition of the Newspeak dictionary, he tells Winston:

“The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition…We’re getting the language into its final shape – the shape it’s going to have when nobody speaks anything else. You think our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We’re destroying words – scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone. In the final version of Newspeak there’ll be nothing else. It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. The great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well.”

Political Correctness is the process of progressively removing words from the English language that some people may find offensive. But if you think about it, people could feasibly find just about anything offensive. When you keep taking out words from the language it takes out the colour, the interest and the meaning.

In the PC world you have to call a snowman a ‘snowperson’, a senior citizen is now an ‘older person’. Some modern examples of Newspeak: civilian casualties becomes ‘collateral damage’, occupation becomes ‘peacekeeping’, an unprovoked attack becomes ‘preemptive self defence’.

Some things are offensive, like the Gulf Oil Spill. It’s real offensive. It’s 800 000 litres of offensiveness a day ruining our sacred beautiful ocean. If the so-called Left takes away all the potentially offensive words how could I tell you about how absolutely fucking atrocious the Gulf Oil Spill is? As a matter of fact, I think that if you don’t think the Gulf Oil Spill is a complete fucking abomination I think there’s something the fucking matter with you. I think it’s safe to say that the executives at BP are Complete Fucking Cunts, and I’d like to personally punch each one of them in the balls. If you don’t think that the desecration of our mother ocean and the resultant unimaginable suffering of animals it is causing, by an evil profit-hungry corporation, is Complete Fucking Shit, then I think you’re a Stupid Fucking Idiot. That’s how strongly I feel about it. The Gulf Oil Spill is not an unfortunate incident. It’s not just an accident or a mistake, it’s a Fucking Abomination and no soft PC approved words will suffice to describe it. It’s a complete mutherfucking clusterfuck, and those responsible are complete douche-holes and they can go to hell.

What about the word ‘Moron’? Moron used to be a scientific term to describe people of substandard intelligence. Same with the word ‘Idiot’. Now, perhaps people with below average intelligence could be offended by people using the words Moron or Idiot, even in jest. And in any given situation there’s really no way to know for sure if somebody within earshot is of understated intellectual ability. But if we rid our language of those two words how could we describe the fucking idiot who blew through the crosswalk and almost killed me? What about the legions of morons willing to fight in oil wars?

I believe there are some important and terrible things going on in the world right now and I think strong language is due to describe it. I think some strong actions are due as well but that’s another column.

I guess what I’m saying is: Beware of deliberate tampering with our language. I do agree with Feminists though, in that the English language can be coded in a sexist way. It is often pointed out that there are far more derogatory terms for women than there are for men. This seems to be true, that’s why I did my part by creating the new derogatory term for a guy who’s being a dumbass alpha-male:  Phallic Mallet. Feel free to use it. That’s one of the great things about English–it’s a living language.

People who live here in BC actually speak a dialect called Cascadian English. So, language wise we are Cascadians, and in that respect we have far more in common with our neighbours in Washington state and Oregon than with folks in, say, Nova Scotia. I’m all about having a colourful language, coloured by the genuine idiosyncrasies of real people–and not a flat and bland, top-down selection of suitable words nobody could possibly be offended by.

I think it’s great that the meanings of words can change and evolve, and that poisonous language can become co-opted and made innocuous. It’s a powerful process. For example, there was a time when somebody could probably get away with calling somebody with a disability a retard in a pejorative sense. Now when you use the word ‘retard’ in jest when your friend is doing something stupid you are satirizing an old worldview — where somebody could legitimately hate disabled people — and thereby making that worldview weaker and more absurd by the day. At least that’s how I see it. To try and forget that these old worldviews ever existed would be foolish, in that people could too easily fall into those traps again.

I think the best way to move away from negative worldviews is to satirize them until they become ridiculous. Humour is a powerful thing. Sacha Baron Cohen, for example, uses some strong words in his satirical series Da Ali G Show and his movies, but in doing so he is effectively satirizing the kind of people who would actually use those words in seriousness.

I’m not saying people out there shouldn’t get offended by stuff.  There’s a lot of offensive stuff out there.  If we can vocalize our troubles we can begin to gain power over them.  There’s a time for profanity; and that time is now.  Anybody who can’t see that must be a fuckin’ retard.

G

One night I came down after Granville Island but I’d busted a G string I couldn’t replace and I’d gotten to Tom Lee a moment too late to get a new one.  I wandered toward Yaletown anyway for some reason.  It was drizzling a bit too.  Walking down Nelson street clueless, I heard my name.  It was Adrienne and Alexis.  They were going to the Matisyahu free concert.  I now had a mission.
Thing is, in addition to the winter games, the Vancouver Olympic Committee presented free concerts by all sorts of artists, many of whom are actually awesome.  The catch is, you’re actually more likely to wait in line for a long time and then be told there’s not enough room in the venue for you than to actually get into a show.  Or so we discovered.
For  a while we still lingered in line, even moved ahead, in some vain hope that we may still gain entry.  As one dude ditched, his miniature Canadian flag flipped out of his pocket onto the sidewalk and nobody cared to alert him.  Just then as we were looking at it a gentleman in line happened to step on it.

“Hey!” I said and snatched the flag off the ground, “you just tread on the Canadian flag!”  And from then on I had the flag.  I still refused to wear red, but I could be seen waving my flag and hooting now and then just for the ridiculousness of it, much to Adrienne’s amusement.
We decided to head up to Granville Street instead and then did the ol’ ‘stand at a corner waiting and corresponding on cell phones until everyone’s found each other’ gag for a while until there was five of us.  That was the first time I’d really taken in Granville Street.  I’d rushed through it going here or there, but there it was in it’s insane flagwaving nutball glory.

We passed through mixing currents of people at the intersection.  There stood a man anchored in it with his flyers.  I passed by him.  “Going to heaven or hell?–When you die…” and tried to give me a pamphlet.  “Will you be included?” he said to somebody else.  Mostly a bunch of flag waving fools.

We wound up at some restaurant where the walls look like furniture.  I knew I couldn’t really afford the stout, but I felt if you want to attract prosperity into your life you should treat it like a flow, in and out.  And I really wanted a stout.  After all, stout has B vitamins.  I mostly stared blankly at the people across from me.  It was fun anyhow.  Had a nice talk with Adrienne.

The waitress told me at the end of the night that they have an 18% automatic gratuity for the Olympics.  “Why, have you been getting a lot of Germans?” I asked.
“No, not just Germans,” she said, “just people.  People don’t usually tip.”  I paid handsomely for my two stout + tip.  In the street again–a zoo in the orange streetlight haze.  All flagged and drunken humanity.  People standing in circles singing Oh Canada.  People yelling “Canada!!” at the top of their lungs.  The street band played in the distance unseen behind a massive crowd.

Now the urge came upon us to eat, and we walked along weaving through the crowds.  The garbage cans overflowed, trash everywhere.  Overweight Team Canada Jersey wearing dudes stuffing back cheeseburgers as they walk.  The trash literally flowed out of McDonalds.  Green Olympics indeed.
I got mine though; we waited in line at the Pita Pit and I got myself a grilled falafel pita.  I really liked the company of my new and old friends that night.  It felt like a breath of fresh air to just hang out and be human rather than pounding the pavement playing for change.  I spent all that I’d earned at Granville Island that morning on stout and falafel.

By the end of the first week things got dire and I started to feel strain in my voice and wrist.  I gave ‘er too hard trying to sing over the crowds.  I’d gone to the library and gotten the words and chords to some Canadian classic songs.  In my down time at the Exners’ apartment I worked up “The Hockey Song” by Stompin’ Tom Connors and “Tubthumping” by Chumbawumba.  I tried to pick up a few others, notably by the Tragically Hip and Neil Young, but I’ve never really been that quick at learning other people’s songs.
Those two songs in particular seemed to work for me.  There were times that I’d play “The Hockey Song” like 8 times a day.  In the version I learned it off a youtube video he says “the puck is in, the Canadians win, at the good ‘ol hockey game”, and that’s how I sang it on the streets, even though after Canada had lost to the USA it seemed hopeless that we’d win the hockey gold.  And the chorus to “Tubthumping” goes “I get knocked out, but I get up again, and you’re never gonna keep me down.”

As I’ve mentioned, there were cops everywhere, especially down by Science World.  That’s where the real world would meet the Olympic world.  One day I walked as I usually would down Main street toward the skytrain station on my way to Yaletown.  I was in my head, you know, just contemplating as I walked, and right when I was half way crossed Terminal Avenue a cop yelled at me and waved her arms from the other side of the intersection.  I froze in the spot then looked behind me.  She yelled again and I eventually hustled across, confused.
“Don’t cross against the signal” she said.
“Sorry what?” I said.
“Where are you from?” she said hastily.
“I’m from Vancouver”
“Well you should know better…”
I’d crossed at the green light at an intersection I go through just about every day.  There were people lingering at the corner so there was no way to know if they’d pressed the crossing button or not, but I know how an intersection works thank you.  That’s what I wish I’d said.  But I just went on my way having been pestered by a cop and felt annoyed about it for a few hours.
Another night I leaned against the wall on the corner of Davie and Pacific in Yaletown as usual, playing my music, and some cute girls from Richmond hung around to listen and drink their booze from coffee cups.  They were nice friendly girls and I played them some original songs.  After playing so often to indifferent crowds it felt inspiring to play for interested and interactive people and the music came out crisp and strong.  Seeing a bit of a crowd, other people stopped to listen in too and my hat started to fill with cash.
Then I saw them.  Two too nondescript looking gentlemen up at the corner occasionally talking into their sleeves.  They came down to one guy who stupidly had a beer can out in the open, then they were sniffing his friend’s slushy cup too.  And my fans were gone across the street and into the night like that.
I stood annoyed as they went back up the corner and waited for more people to ticket.  I was like the bait.  Annoyed, I pulled out “Ain’t Got No Home In This World” by Woodie Guthrie right as they were ticketing another guy for public drinking.  I emphasized the line “the Police make it hard wherever I may go” right as they were ticketing someone, and I saw him mention it to them.  I played “Midnight Special” too, and changed the words to one of the verses for the occasion: “Boy if you ever go to Vancouver, man you better walk right / You bet’ not drink ‘n public, and you better not fight / Or the Sheriff will arrest you, and he’ll write you down / You’re penitentiary bound…” as a warning to people who hadn’t noticed the cops there.  Also just because I felt angsty.
I’d been told by somebody working in VANOC that the thousands of cops here from out of town were all staying on two ships in the harbour and they’d been having a bit of a party themselves.  Apparently they named the boats “Infidelity I” and “Infidelity II”.

A week had gone by and I wound up with a sore voice and hurting wrist from playing so much and so loud and had earned a fraction of what I’d expected.  Now I had to cut out the loud ones and take it easy in Yaletown.  I turned my focus to Granville Island, where I could play a bit quieter, and where the returns were at least more consistent.  And I had to take it easy in general, as my body and mind were starting to feel the toll of being a vagabond busker at the Vancouver Olympics.

G

“We are the Clan of the Raven.” I announced to Adam, Ben, paint, ladder, deck, wind and rolling Grecian hills. “Thriving off society’s garbage, on the fringe–but they are the smartest bird alive.”
“They also have a complex language,” Adam piped in.
“And they’re black like ninjas,” said Ben.
“Indeed they are like ninjas, cunning and deceptive,” I added. “…hey, you just spilled paint on the deck!” Adam deliberately painted a yellow streak on the floor in defiance. It reminded me. “Let’s make this house into an art project. We can’t just paint stuff and make music though, we have to become the art, live it. There is no observer; we are the art.”

We live in Kamloops, a crossroads town. Our house has four floors, a large garden and is the home to an anarchist rock band, fire spinners, artists and crazy people. There are seven semi-permanent residents, but in the Summer the population swells with various prophets and crazies playing guitars, pulling weeds, reading, getting high on conversation and other things. We don’t have cable TV, mainstream news, or much of any relics of mainstream society though; you won’t find Maxim or Cosmo in this house. Anybody can come in; many don’t leave the way they came.

We discussed our mission over King Crimson and marijuana. Robert Baird, the dark eyed former addict; Adam Sanders, the chef in training and aspiring ninja; and myself, the big haired radical journalist and musician; were to load up Adam’s father’s truck with dried up vines and branches from the yard, take it someplace and burn it. Then we would go to the dump and pick up anything useful we could find.

Caution Frequent Fog. “Frequent fog? More like frequent smog!” We passed the ugly fascist architecture of the pulp mill. Sawdust dunes, settling ponds, sickly sulfurous fountains and a tower of smog emerging from a horrible red and white penis on the hill. “It’d be so cool to ride down that pipeline on a bike or something,” Robert said.
“The smell! Ugg! Shut the window!” There was no escape. They say it’s not the sulfur, but the particulate that kills you. My lungs hurt and my head clogged up after that first whiff. “This is worse than your farts this morning!” A hazy rendition of Nirvana’s album “Bleach” wafted from the speakers.
Just past the mill we found a little turnoff by the Thompson River to dump the vines. I pushed the whole bundle out with both legs and my back to the cab. Robert had the light. To our delight the whole thing went up with ease, unleashing a torrent of opaque white smoke and then a fury of orange flames. Fire makes me giddy.

I say to hell with being progressive. Being a radical these days is a study in fun non-compliance. The Clan of the Raven understands that if progress worked then things would be getting better. We must inject our principles into every decision we make, the radical gets to the roots of injustice–and the roots of injustice are the decisions we make in every day life. We refuse to play anything but a bit part in mainstream society–the trickster. We will put a wrench in the gears of this machine at any possible turn, all the while building community and raising awareness and having a great time doing it. The Raven is regressive, seeking to dismantle centralized power structures in favour of localized, sufficient yet interlocked communities. Fire both destroys and gives life.

“Man, that chick turns me on,” Robert said looking to the dump attendant, who stood flagging a truck over while a gust of dust swirled over us. “In a Gummo kind of way…I mean she works at the dump.” She came over as me and Adam rifled through a bin of paint cans. (“grab anything with paint in it other than white…”)
“Hey, where’s the really good scavenging around here?” I could see the attraction; grubby orange hi-viz vest, cool shades and filthy tight jeans, Rob loves anything sleazy and tragic. She pointed us to a shed lit by a cool yellow haze. There we found shelves full of society’s unwanted consumer goods–TVs, microwaves, an organ, books, lawnmowers and record sleeves.
“This will be perfect for our technology smash!” Adam said, eyeing up some TVs.
So I made a deal with the dump girl.
“Take this one, and this one, and this…the microwave? Umm, okay, just don’t have it plugged in when you smash it!” A middle aged couple who had been pretending not to see us shot us some baffled glances from the furniture section.
“What are you doing with all that stuff?” some normals with a Sunfire asked as we loaded up the truck with paint and outdated technology.
“We’re having a technology smash,” I said.
“Get rid of some extra aggression,” Adam added.
“Yeah, it’s either that or home invasions,” Robert deadpanned. Adam and I broke out in hysterical laughter as the Sunfire promptly sped away.

Later that evening the Clan gathered over vegetarian food and organic wine discussing conspiracies and listening to college radio.
The next morning, while walking across campus under a blustery grey sky, I overheard rumours about the cross on the hill over the university being dismantled in the night. Just then a sleek black shape flickered through the Ponderosa.

But I love other sports stories too, like that of Jack Johnson–no not the corporate folk singer–but Jack Johnson the first black heavyweight boxing champion of the world, who rose from nothing to win the title in 1908, a time when black people were getting lynched on a regular basis.
And of course there’s Muhammad Ali, the great heavyweight who, like Johnson, goaded mainstream America to such a degree that they came down on him with the law.  Ali reportedly threw his Olympic gold medal into the Ohio River.  He was drafted to fight in Vietnam but refused to go on religious grounds, stating “Vietcong never called me nigger”.
And then there’s the world’s game–what we call Soccer.  Soccer (or Football as it’s known in most of the world), is such an essential and simple game.  Simply use your feet and not your hands to hit the ball in the net.  It’s so basic and beautiful that it must be man’s most beautiful sport.  And this Summer of 2010 South Africa hosts the worlds greatest sporting event–the World Cup of Soccer.  The great spectacle.

Of course Canada is too pathetic to even field a team in the World Cup of Soccer.  We haven’t since 1986.

Anyways.  When Canada lost against America I thought all hope was lost.  The people would be mean and the energy would be off and the busking would be terrible and I’d wind up broke and homeless for the rest of my existence.  All was lost.  You must yell at the screen.

I felt a bit frazzled as I arrived.  I’d spent the morning busking down at Granville Island and found scores of humans roaming around eying things yet all but ignoring the buskers playing their hearts out.  And right after my gig there at the Q I had to rip across town on transit to teach my one guitar / music theory student.

I sat on the edge of the circular fountain to chill out for a bit before the gig and lo and behold before my eyes I spied the Heavy Metal Grandmas.  “Hey!  What the hell are you guys doing here?”

“We live here.”

“Of course.”

The last time I saw the Heavy Metal Grandmas they were moseying down Main Street after hitting up the heavy metal music shop on Broadway and I showed them the glory of the Nice Cafe.

Anne and Sue are sisters and the spitting image of each other.  It’s the kind of combination that equals more than just the sum of the parts.  Don’t get them started about Heavy Metal.  Anne’s favourite band is literally Cradle of Filth– a band that most teenagers can’t even stomach because of their over the top screaming, dark imagery and savage guitar playing.

I know them because they happen to be one of my best friend’s mom and aunt, respectively.  He’s all “I swear to God my mom listens to all kinds of music, but especially Death Metal.  I’m serious!”  His little stepson thinks Grandma Anne is the coolest, which of course she is.

“What are you doing here?”  they asked me.

“I’m playing in there” indicating the Quay (pronounced “Key”)-;  “I’m part of the Winter Festival” I said with an air of sarcasm.  “Do you guys have any weed?”

They didn’t, but it felt pretty good to be able to entertain the Heavy Metal Grandmas at least.  We went in, and when I was fiddling around with my gear I did a double-take because I could have swore I saw my dad.  It was true; my dad and his girlfriend were there.  I was astounded.  “What are you guys doing here?”

“We came to see you.”

“How did you know I’m playing?”

“It was in the newspaper.  Oh Graham you should have seen all the nice things they wrote about you!” said Karen, my dad’s long time girlfriend.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, oh I wish I had a copy to show you.  They said, oh, like that you always play to your audience and that no two sets are the same.”

“Oh that, yeah I wrote that.  They must have taken that out of my bio.”

“Oh it sounded so nice.”

My dad had a long sleeved black shirt for me, identical to his but his was red.  It had a hockey player on the front  and said Canada and Hockey on it.  “I hope it’s not too political…” Karen said.

“Oh no no,” I said.  “I’ll wear it tonight in Yaletown.”  And it wasn’t too political.  As I mentioned before, probably the only way I identify with Canadianness is through the curious sport of hockey.  And there it was: Canada and Hockey but no God Damned Maple Leaf.  Perfect.

This time I set up the microphone to amplify my voice.  I didn’t want to go so far as to plug my guitar into the board because there was nobody there to do sound and I didn’t want to play with fire by any means.  So I was loudly strummed acoustic guitar and slightly amplified voice in this terraced, high ceilinged building.  Luckily, the Canadian Cancer Society woman wasn’t giving out those Godforsaken sleigh bells that day.  One odd thing though, is that there were all these Russian sailors walking around.  They all looked to be 18 years old or so, walking around in uniform.

I guess all I can say is that I rocked out hard.  People told me after they really liked “Folsom Prison Blues”, “Me & Bobby McGee” and “Mr. Bojangles”.  There was a bit of a crowd this time, and I mentioned on the mic that I’m playing for donations.  On cue the Heavy Metal Grandmas came over and put in five dollar bills, then Karen too, and a few people followed.  I was pleasantly surprised to walk away smiling with some cash and some good memories.

My dad suggested that we go have a vodka or two on the Russian ship, which sounded like a damn fine gonzo idea to me, but I had to jump back on the Burrard Beaver and into the maze of transit over to the west side to teach a rich kid how to play guitar and write intervals.

Then it was straight back to Yaletown for another round of busking.  Walking over to my zone I noticed a busker who I’d seen at the Cafe Deux Soleils five year anniversary open mic–that night he invited himself to play a third song and go over time because he is clearly the coolest, hippest cat in town.  I believe he’s called DB Buxton; some cute girls were putting change in his case as I walked by.

I’ve got to say though, that he has a distinct shtick.  On top of his dreadful hipster uniform, he plays a shortscale rectangular guitar (which, ahem, he borrowed from one of my heroes–Bo Diddley), and he rips out some rawkus original Rock & Roll tunes.  His fingers fly along the fretboard (which isn’t too hard when your guitar is the size of a toy) and he wiggles incessantly like old school Thom Yorke.  He played into the street.  He had a harmonica holder with no harmonica but a little microphone hooked up to it, and the whole thing was amplified from a battery operated amp.

It reminded me of busking with my old friend Allen from Alabama.  He said the number one factor in making money busking is: Volume.

By the Sunday I felt comfortable only in my corner by the Yaletown Roundhouse Station, or out on the street in front of said station, under a very curious bronze statue of a bull, which of course inevitably drunken idiots would try to climb on and the cops would tell them to come down, or people would mug for the digital cameras pretending they’re going to blow the lucky bull.

I’d finally seen the email where the I Heart Van Art people said that they are a “volunteer run” organization and that unforeseen circumstances had caused them to ditch the online booking system and that it’s pretty much a freeforall down there, though people from I Heart Van Art and the Yaletown Business Association would be walking around checking for licenses.

“Volunteer Run”?  I thought–then where did the over $5000 they collected from poor saps like me and DB Buxton in exchange for busking licenses go to?  Perhaps the money went to the mainstages and the Eye Heart Van Art booth so they could crank out live and canned music and drown out the buskers.  Better that than lining the pockets of some unscrupulous person I suppose.

Even though I had a good time at the Quay, it was around this time that I realized my shtick was all wrong.  Wearing my Canada Hockey shirt I played on the corner, and a group of Germans stopped to listen at the intersection.  After a medley of “Ring of Fire” and “Bo Diddley” a German woman came up, gave me money and told me that my shtick is all wrong.  “You should be playing songs about Canada!”  she said, and Louder!  I was playing as loud as I could, and could only really play a particular group of songs that I can really belt out.

The following songs were on heavy rotation: Folsom Prison Blues, Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show, Me & Bobby McGee, You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere by Bob Dylan, Ring of Fire / Bo Diddley, Big Yellow Taxi, and a selection of original songs: Look With Love, Bedframe and Redneck Town.

In preparation for the Olympics I actually learned more folk songs.  I realized quickly that I was being an idiot, and I should have been learning some Canadiana classics.  For two years I’d been busking at Vancouver Farmers Markets and Granville Island, and folk music works great in those situations.  I mean, buskers have been playing folk music at farmers markets for millenia, and though Granville Island is a tourist trap, it at least appears to be an old style marketplace.

I’d put a lot of expectation into this Olympics busking and I now started to feel pretty desperate.

-Only accredited performing artists are permitted to busk at the festival.
-No presentation may contravene the law of Vancouver, BC or Canada.
-No profanities.
-Buskers must have their festival pass visible at ALL times.
-Buskers must have their IDs at all times.
-Buskers may only conduct activity in specific locations.
-Buskers are expected to respect and abide by online pre-booked scheduling.
-Buskers may only spend 1 hour at a pitch/station.
-No anti-Olympic Messaging.
-No flyers or paper handouts.
-Dangerous props/fire/weapons fake or real/use of stilts/etc. are not permitted on busking circles.
-The Festival Events Committee retains the right to revoke the artist’s busking pass at any time.

When I signed up for my special busking license and paid the $120 I figured this exorbitant fee would exclude certain buskers who are such alcoholics that they’d never be able to put together $120 at one time.  It was mere chance that I managed to be able to afford this expensive license myself.  I thought it was providence, and that the universe had some good things in store for me.  Also, to get the gig I had to submit a video audition on Youtube, which most borderline homeless people wouldn’t be able to do, and I only managed to pull it off at the last minute with some help from some good friends.

But then I saw the very busker who in my mind represents the kind of person they’d exclude by requiring a fee and a video–his name is Petricio and he can be seen sitting on a milk crate outside the liquor store on Commercial Drive playing brilliant Spanish music on guitar and vocals.  Don’t get me wrong here; I love Petricio’s music, but I also know that he’s what they call an “alcoholic” and I presume that he spends the lion’s share of his busking proceeds on booze.

Anyway, Petricio was livid because he couldn’t find the tent where you are supposed to pick up your license, the maps were unclear and the spots weren’t clearly marked.  I echoed his sentiment and tried to point him in the direction of the tent where I’d earlier picked up my license from a woman who seemed borderline retarded.

Being unable to find the spot I was supposed to be playing at – “Site 3″ – represented by a black triangle on my map, I just wondered around.  Yaletown is a trendy, deliberately layed out area with elevated boardwalk-like sidewalks.  The streets were closed off to cars so people just wondered freely.  There were people around going from one spot to the next but they seemed to be in their own world.  I remember this night to be dark and cool; night reflections on wet pavement.

I found two ladies busking under the cover of an apartment building entrance.  One played cello and the other guitar, and they both sang.  I thought they sounded good, but that they should project themselves more.  They had a fellow with them off to the side, and I talked to him.  I sparked up a joint.  He didn’t want any.

He told me that they’d been wandering around trying to find their spot and using the map but then said fuck it and just decided to set up wherever.  They’d been playing for a while but that the money wasn’t that great at this point.  He recommended that I do the same – just find a place and start playing; nobody’d mind really.  He gave me a flyer.  I saw some people turn back and donate to them.

So that’s what I did.  I found a spot on the elevated sidewalk under cover near where people would come out of the pub and have a smoke.  It was also in the vicinity of Starbucks.

I played and played.  Occasionally people would come through on the street yelling “Go Canada!” and such.  I remember doing “Mr. Bojangles” and “House of the Rising Sun”, both songs that refer to New Orleans.  People would come out for a smoke and stand alone or in groups.  And ignore me.  They just wanted to be inside I guess.  At one point a woman came over and chatted and listened.  She said she’s from North Carolina so I offered to play her something from down south.  She said she hears that all the time and for me to play something different, so I played “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” by Bob Dylan.

In the end I just packed up and left after a while, hoping that it would get better.  It certainly wasn’t the 10 000 people per hour that the ad claimed would be down there, and people interested in folk music seemed few and far between.  I think I made about $10.

The next night wasn’t much different.  I signed up online and came down and still the spots weren’t clearly marked and there was no sign of the “I Heart Van Art” people to clarify what was going on or  check people for licenses.  I ran into a couple friends of mine who also got the license and they said they’d received an email stating that they’d run into all sorts of unforseen problems, that the online signup program was no longer in place and you could just pretty much play wherever you wanted down there.

I’d been playing at the spot where I’d seen the duo with the cello the day before; it was still a bit rainy.  I bet some of the “unforseen problems” included the fact that some of the spots were drowned out by the generic electronica blasting from the “I Heart Van Art”, and “Clubzone” tents, that many of the other spots were drowned out by music from the two mainstages and by the many gas powered generators set up by the street vendors.

I left that spot for my friends and headed to a different place I’d spied on the map -  right around the corner from the Yaletown Roundhouse skytrain station, undercover, right on the fringe of Davie and Pacific.  I set up quickly and started playing.  People were streaming in from the intersection on their way to the skytrain.  I quickly tried to muster up some songs they’d recognize and like.  A lot of people were shouting about Canada so I could only play loud songs.  I played “Me & Bobby McGee” and “Folsom Prison Blues”.  I started to make a bit of money.  So often it comes all at once or not at all.

Even though there was a high volume of people, this was no perfect busking spot by any means.  People were moving fast and heading somewhere.  The best busking audience is a slow moving or captive one – people who have a chance to take in what you’re doing and who have some change in their pockets.  Often I’d see people grooving to my rhythms as they’d go by and skip along to the beat – giving me assured smiles, which is nice, but they hardly ever stopped to donate.

I liked this spot though; it was more my style – snug in a nook rather than out in the open.  Sometimes people would pause on the corner to listen for a while, then come back and give me money.  I manifested a few fives before the night was through.

Thus began my rigorous busking marathon.  I’d wake up when I’d wake up, seek coffee and breakfast and then head down to Granville Island (where an acoustic license for a WHOLE YEAR is only $30), play for a couple hours, eat a busker special at Comfort Indian Food, transit myself to a homie’s place and likely get stoned off strong BC weed, then rouse myself and head to Yaletown to play for another couple hours.  In the end I’d usually wind up at the payphone across from the Roundhouse trying to find a place to sleep for the night.  Then do it all over again.

I still don’t have a cellphone, and I had no set schedule or a watch, so I’d just show up when I’d show up.  But one time I was cruising toward my spot on foot and overheard somebody talking about the hockey game that was on at that moment.  It was Canada VS Switzerland, and the lady mentioned that the score was 2-1.  I said to myself: “What!?  The Goddamn Swiss scored on us!?”

I had to find a place to watch to game, and settled with a tent-pub in Yaletown.  I weaved my way in and was clearly the only person not wearing red.  I ordered a beer, and it turned out that a beer cost $8.  I had to count up all my little change in order to pay for that one beer, and I milked it right to the end.  By the time I showed up the Swiss had scored AGAIN and it was a tie game.  I was freaked right out.  The Canadians looked more like a bunch of all stars than a team.  It was a disgrace.  Players were trying spin moves rather than shooting the puck.

The place filled up near the end of the game and people were lined on the sidewalk watching the screens.  One person came in not wearing red and stood by me.  I noticed he sneakily cheered to himself when Canada got a penalty.  He was Swiss, and I figured people might think I’m Swiss by being near him.  I wouldn’t want that.

In the end Canada won by a hair in the shootout.  It was truly nerve-wracking.  As soon as it was over I downed my last sip, donned my guitar and hit the streets.

You see, even though I’m known for being somewhat of an Anarchist, and I’m not real huge on nationalism, I am still a Canadian, and the one way in which I identify as being Canadian is through this curious sport in which men armed with L shaped sticks skate around trying to knock a frozen disk into their opponent’s goal and prevent the disk from being knocked into their own.

I even remember my dad teaching me how to skate and stickhandle on the frozen pond at the family farm at the age of 3.  I mean: how Canadian is that!  As a matter of fact, hockey was the primary fixation of my existence from then until I discovered girls, drugs and Rock n Roll around the age of 13.   I played goalie for my school’s floorhockey team in elementary school and we went to the city finals one year.  I was even lucky enough to play ice hockey, and I went to “Howie Meeker Hockey School” in Parksville a couple times.

I heard that on the Saturday there was a big protest and that a few people smashed out the windows at the Hudsons Bay Company under the watchful eye of the police, then they got arrested.  At first I totally thought that the people smashing stuff were agents provocateurs from CSIS or the RCMP, planted there to discredit the anti-Olympics movement.  But then I learned that one of the rioters who got arrested is a friend of mine.  The police had been beating on her and were then shocked when they took off her mask and realized it was a woman.  There was a very striking image of this in the media that was seen the world over.

As for anti-Olympics sentiment though, I must say that I didn’t see much of it from then on.  It felt like the movement said it’s piece leading up to the Olympics and everyone was pretty much in agreement with the general themes, and they had their protests on the Friday and Saturday (the only one I caught was just the very tail end of the Friday one – see my previous entry) and from there people just decided to get in on the good vibes and overall energy in the city.

Later.

G