Category Archives: Vancouver

“Pull Up A Mink”

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We’ve used the phrase “pull up a mink” several times recently. Why? Because the COVID-19 zombie mink culls brought it to our mind(s) and put it into our sentences. And also because we have a history of pulling up a mink, which, let us explain:

Longtime friend of the blog Calimaria had a townhouse near Casa Raincoaster. While she was able to enjoy a lovely garden apartment, she was not always able to keep the heat on in said apartment, an all-too-common occurence in Vancouver, with its overpriced housing market. I myself couldn’t keep the electricity on for four years.

Calimaria enjoyed a good cocktail as much as the next blogger (ie this one) and we used to get together on Fridays. I would bring over a pitcher of Manhattans (2:1 with lots of bitters) and as I entered she would say, “Pull up a mink!” and we would sit and chat for hours.

She had inherited a brown mink coat from her mother, and I had sold her (during a brief period of prosperity) my own mother’s blonde herringbone mink. So we would use the coats as lap rugs and enjoy a lovely visit. Yes, we talked about you.

Not-So-Great Cthulhu!

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Untitled

 

Found on Robson Street. That’s either a Cthulhu whose wings have been plucked (Nodens, that fucker, without a doubt) or a portrait in site-appropriate rainforest marble of some random douchebro on Granville street at about 3am, puking his virgin guts out.

Daniel Ghoukassian: a social media portrait

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Daniel Ghoukassian: Facebook photo

Daniel Ghoukassian: would YOU pick this for your Facebook photo? He did. I thought it was a mug shot.

Do you know this man? Lucky you, the answer is probably “no.” Because, as it turns out, not a lot of people seem to know this man. The ones who do are presumably not too thrilled about it.

Daniel Ghoukassian has thoughts about People and God

Daniel Ghoukassian has thoughts about People and God

This man, Daniel (Dan) Simmon Ghoukassian, was just arrested and charged in relation to a series of broad-daylight sexual assaults that took place recently in the Oakridge area of Vancouver. Bail was set at $20,000, and as of Thursday, May 22 the suspect will be free to go about his business until his trial date of June 20, subject to as-yet undecided restrictions and of course the payment of bail.

https://twitter.com/DanielGhoukassi/status/466220427589595136

The attacks took place on Cambie Street, a normally quiet, parkway-like corridor featuring small upscale shops, cafes and restaurants galore, and stunning downtown and mountain views. It’s a comfortably middle-class neighbourhood, conspicuous for an unusual number of small, pedigreed dogs being walked by women pushing expensive strollers, and for intense competition in organic grocery offerings. At the intersection of 41st avenue the posh Oakridge Shopping Centre offers preppies upscale casuals and anticipates the new Target. Cambie butts up against the grittier Main Street, home to hipsters, actual working class workers, and mile after mile of soul-deadening “Vancouver Special” houses.

One of them belongs to an “H. Ghoukassian.”

It is walking distance to the area where all three of the sexual assaults took place. The first attack happened March 12, to a 22-year-old woman. The second, May 14 to a 19-year-old. The third happened the next day to a 38-year-old victim. All three took place within a seven block strip of Cambie Street directly west of the Ghoukassian house.

A police officer apprehended Ghoukassian literally lurking in some bushes in the same area on Friday, the 16th.

So who is Daniel Ghoukassian? For one thing, he’s not a man who leaves a big footprint in the world. Although he reportedly used to have a LinkedIn page, searches no longer turn up any record of him there. His Twitter account, last name chopped short to fit the character allowance, features the placeholder “egg” avatar, a scattering of lyrics (some Eminem, some less identifiable), occasional motivational slogans, a lot of fan tweeting to professional wrestlers, and an awful lot of tweeting to famous women who never reply to him. And 40 followers.

https://twitter.com/DanielGhoukassi/status/459106044442984449

https://twitter.com/DanielGhoukassi/status/462010019672637440

https://twitter.com/DanielGhoukassi/status/462010449114836992

https://twitter.com/DanielGhoukassi/status/462011242639396864

https://twitter.com/DanielGhoukassi/status/462690299081273344

Yeah, so that.

There’s a lot of that. Scroll down his Favorites and it’s like strolling through the Miss America pageant, with occasional diversions for pro wrestling and ghost shark photos. And it’s not confined to Twitter, either; it also characterizes his Facebook posts.

There are tens, no, hundreds of millions of men who like beautiful women from television and who use social media to try to get their attention. Nothing ventured, eh? Most, however, can take a hint.

” In 2012, Larry Rosen, professor of psychology atCalifornia State University and author of “iDisorder: Understanding Our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming Its Hold on Us,” analyzed 800 Facebook members and tested them for a range of psychological disorders, and found those who most often “like” other people’s activities on Facebook are more likely to show symptoms of “mania” and “compulsivity.””

Ghoukassian uses social media not only to follow but to flatter and court attractive women in news and entertainment, and according to one source has made himself a nuisance over time. It’s the classic “If I hit Like and comment enough, she’s sure to notice me” syndrome with which celebrities are all too familiar. He’s a regular follower of QVC personality Lori Greiner (with whom I did not speak), for example, commenting on her Facebook page and retweeting her. Nothing dirty. Nothing freaky. But just always there, commenting on some woman’s posts, retweeting, favouriting, hoping to get noticed.

His Friends/Following list reads like his Twitter Following list. Yeah, there’s Mike Tyson, and there’s Miranda Cosgrove, Erin Andrews, and Kelly Ripa, along with a host of “hot women in lingerie” types. And the Iron Sheik. So, not so much friends as a collection of celebrities.

Daniel Ghoukassian Me at Mike P's watching UFC 159 I won the prize for guessing who would win. Free shot tequila. yay 5 July 2013 at 19:39

Daniel Ghoukassian Me at Mike P’s watching UFC 159 I won the prize for guessing who would win. Free shot tequila. yay
5 July 2013 at 19:39

His public profile pictures on Facebook feature only two photos of himself: one at the top of the page, the other here. There are, by way of contrast, sixteen celebrity UFC posters in his profile pictures. Is it too much of a stretch to call that an identity issue? There are over 800 profile photos that are Private, plus all his mobile and timeline photos. His header photos, which bracket this article, are motivational memes.

A prolific Liker, the majority of his Likes are, you guessed it, celebrity women, particularly women in television. And Vij’s Railway Express; hey, who doesn’t love Vij?

According to his Facebook info, he’s a former student at BCIT, having graduated from John Oliver High School, just a few blocks farther east. According to his former LinkedIn page, he’s a dishwasher at Boston Pizza. According to his Twitter feed, he’s working two or three jobs.

And according to the Crown Prosecutor, he’s absolutely no danger to the public for the next 28 days.

Daniel Ghoukassian's Future is uncertain

Daniel Ghoukassian’s Future is uncertain

OpHippie: the shopping situation

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Well, I went and did it. I didn’t mean to, but I did it.

I spent the bus fare home.

How? One “buying pizza for a friend” and one trip to Army Navy for supplies. That’s all it takes to zero out the bank account lately: a pizza with wine and a months worth of batteries.

Well, actually:

4 D batteries for LED lamp
The cheapest LED lamp they had
4AA batteries for the headlamp, making midnight firewood runs with the wheelbarrow much, much easier
A paperback on living off the sea by a local fisherman
Three space blankets to use as wallpaper to keep the heat in
One fluorescent poncho
One fish grilling basket
Three candles
A lighter
Garden trowel for clam digging

And that’s it. That’s all it takes. $85.81. So I emailed my ex-boss to see if he could pay the remainder he owes me tonight or tomorrow instead of month’s end. Wish me luck!

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Operation Hippie Update

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Soon to be me. Titania, queen of hippie fisherpersons

Soon to be me. Titania, queen of hippie fisherpersons

So, preparing to move from a nomadic, cat-sitting existence to a geostationary one, and one in a vegan ecovillage at that, is proving to be somewhat of a bigger shift than even I realized.

For starters, there’s the busfare to get there, which I do not have. Nor will I have it until one of my clients pays me, and I just split from the biggest-paying one by mutual consent. Yeah, I sent in The Last Invoice, but it’ll be Monday before it’ll be paid, and then it’ll be paid in Paypal, so to get it to the bank will be no sooner than Wednesday, probably Friday of next week and that’s IF it gets paid Monday. And once the money is there, if I’m there also, there’s nothing to buy up there but nights in a B&B and whale watching tours.

So I made Mine Hosts Metro and Mrs Metro an offer they could refuse, but fortunately they didn’t. I will give them the money that would go for bus fare if they will drive me. They can then use this to get a night in a swanky B&B or hotel. This guarantees that I get the back seat of the car, but oh well, it also guarantees I don’t have to sit beside a random homicidal maniac who will hog the armrest. It also means they can drive me to the actual site instead of dropping me off where the highway meets the road and I get a nice long walk down a gravel shoulder before turning up a dirt road in the middle of the rainforest, all while toting three heavy suitcases filled with everything I’ve been wearing for the past nine or ten months.

My footwear collection, also being ported around all over BC in said suitcases, consists of one pair of metallic wedge sandals, one pair Doc Marten Mary Janes, and two pairs of Brooks running shoes made of mesh. Absolutely nothing of the rain boot gum boot variety. And that is the single most necessary type of footwear when approaching an ecovillage on the west side of Vancouver Island in the dead of winter.

When I show up to the ecovillage, I am expected to be self-sufficient and bring food. They have kale; anything else, I’ll have to lug in. Since I am not and do not wish to become a Kaletarian, this means I have to buy food (too busy to catch my own, and the hunting is atrocious in downtown Victoria, although I hear at certain bars it’s easy to catch crabs).

And I have $1.90.

So, being me, I bitched about this on social media.

And, my friends being my friends, one of them sent me $100 so I could buy some goddam boots, two offered to mail me their boots (postage is $40 or so from Vancouver, though), and one offered me a job doing copywriting for his companies. He asked if I needed an advance, and told me to name my own rate. He trusted me to do that honestly in part because when my friend, who is between jobs, offered me the $100 I posted about it and asked my friends if I should take it or turn it down.

As it turned out, I turned down the mailed boots as the postage was truly extravagant and I could buy boots at the end of the month anyway, and accepted the money on the advice to pay it forward.

Then I went to LL Bean and found out the boots I wanted were 37% off, but they were also sold out until April 22, and a fat lot of good that does me. MOST of their boots are sold out, which means everyone is having a pretty shitty, slushy winter. So tomorrow I’m off to do some shopping in downtown Victoria.

My shopping list is a bit different now. When I lived in Vancouver’s Chinatown my shopping lists looked like:

  • sambal oeleck
  • udon noodles
  • bean thread noodles
  • peanut butter (the universe’s most perfect food)
  • prawns
  • salmon
  • chicken
  • soy sauce (you could always tell when I was “rich” because then I’d have three kinds: Indonesian, Japanese for sushi, and Chinese for rice)
  • bok choy
  • onions
  • makeup
  • nail polish in outrageous colours
  • antique or collectable cocktail accoutrements
  • gin

My shopping list for tomorrow reads:

  • gumboots
  • keeper cord for my $150 Akubra hat so the wind doesn’t blow it away
  • crab trap so I can catch my own food
  • fishing rod
  • bean thread noodles
  • peanut butter
  • sambal oeleck (some things never change)
  • bag of oranges in case of scurvy or some goddam thing
  • coffee and GOD I HOPE THEY HAVE A COFFEE POT IN THE COMMUNAL KITCHEN

It would be nice to get some glasses before I leave (the kind for your face, not the kind for your cocktails) so I could actually SEE the view, but maybe I’ll squeeze in an eye exam at least. Metro and Madame Metro have promised me glasses for Christmas. If not, once I’m paid I can just wander into town and I’m sure there’s a doctor there who can write a prescription that Clearly Contacts will mail.

So, basically, gasp in wonder at my steez. My swag. My YOLO. My command of buzzwords.

And my D*CK!