Category Archives: Vancouver

Eavesdropping at the Ovaltine

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The Ovaltine, yoSee, this is why I need a laptop. So I don’t have to snarf the last half of my meal and RUN home, desperately trying not to jostle my brain and let all the golden eavesdrops fall out.

More or less verbatim, heard from my perch on the highly prestigious “booth side” of the Ovaltine, coming from the less-prestigious but more collegial Stud Row otherwise known as the “counter side” where all the old men sit.

In an unmistakably Black American voice:

Seventy-three years old. SEVENTY-THREE YEARS OLD! Know what they told me? They told me I have Diabetes. DIABETES! I need diabetes at seventy-three. I need it like I need a hole in the head. I’m gonna die anyway, hell, I’ve been dead for years. Been through four wars, got two bullets in my back. I died twice! Saw the lights and everything. A white South African brought me back last time, which just goes to show.

What? It shows you!

I was in four wars. I was in Vietnam. I was in Vietnam twice. It started back in the 1800’s. The south part of Vietnam is 98% Buddhist. 2% Catholic. The Catholics tried to take over the country.

God? God didn’t have nuthing to do with it. God? What’s God? I’ll tell you. I’ll TELL you what God is.

God is a crazy old white woman!

What wars was I in? I was in Vietnam. I was a Canadian sergeant in Vietnam, I knew who my friends were. I’ll tell you that. I knew. I was in the dirty war in the Congo in… what? … 66. In 66 I was in the dirty war in the Congo. Died there. And I was in the dirty war in Brazil.

I’m a career soldier. Seventy-three years old. I got one foot in the grave and diabetes.
The highly prestigious booth side
Halifax? Hey, no – why would I want to go to Halifax? My people were black Loyalists, we came to this country in 1776. We’ve never been slaves. My mother was a Jew. If your mother’s a Jew, you’re a Jew. It don’t matter who your daddy is. Everyone knows who mama is. Nobody knows for sure who Papa is. It’s smart. I was born in Labrador City. Moved to Montreal when I was eight. I was a bad boy, so my mother sent me off to Chicago to live with my uncle. I was so bad, they gave me a choice of join the army or go to prison, so I joined the army.

I’m the worst kind. A career soldier. Seventy-three years old.

Montreal? MontREAL? No Halifax, I’ve never been to Halifax. Why would I go there? Why would anyone want to go to Halifax. No jobs, no people, no nothing. No, I’m from Montreal.

Ever seen the Fleur de Lis? You know what that is? It’s got six points. It’s the Star of David! I’m telling you, it’s the Star of David. Six points. Count ’em. Three up and thrThe O, yo!ee down. Star of David.

Cuz the first kings of France, they were Mary Magdalene’s people. A Tribe of Israel. They were Jews. So that’s the Fleur de Lis. The Star of David.

Wouldn’t it be something if the coalition government was headed up by the head of the Bloc? That would be something!

Seventy-three years old! I’ve been dead for years.

Fearless City Mobile at the Heart of the City and mobile online!

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cross-posted from FearlessCity, just so you know what I’ve been doing with all my copious spare time recently. And a damn good thing, too, because with all the extra exposure that site is up and down like a toilet seat.

As most of our readers know, Fearless City Mobile was all over the Heart of the City Festival this past weekend, streaming live video interviews and interacting with people all over the Downtown Eastside, incorporating their texted questions into the interviews as they came in.

As some of you also know, interest in our coverage of the closing gala was so intense that it temporarily overwhelmed our servers and our site had to go for a little “time out.” While that’s flattering, it’s also a bit of a problem.

Fortunately, because the internet IS, in fact, a web and not just a series of straight lines, we were able to work around it.

I was at home on Twitter, bouncing between the FearlessCity account and my own (because I have no life) and Irwin was in Ottawa and on Facebook when the site went down.

Irwin had used his phone to take a video of OUR streaming videos on his laptop, and he posted it to Facebook and put that news out on his Twitter stream.

I saw that and immediately emailed him, telling him to put it on YouTube (yes, I know the quality sucks, but at least YouTube is wide open to the public, whereas Facebook is restricted). He did, and once it was posted I put the news out on the Fearless City Twitter stream. Then I signed out, signed into my raincoaster Twitter stream, and re-tweeted it (don’t laugh, that’s what it’s called!) and Irwin put the news out on his stream as well. That makes a total of about 400 people who got the news within a half-hour of the whole thing happening.

The video became, if memory serves, the 68th most viewed Canadian video in the Arts & Activism category, but it only has two comments, so what are you waiting for?

And here it is:

Three scenes captured with Nokia N77 mobile devices streaming to the Mobile Muse 3 platform and projected on a live screen at the Closing Gala of the Heart of the City Festival in the Downtown Eastside. Also streamed to http://live.fearlessmedia.ca/ and archived on fearlesscity.ca.
At the live screen people were able to send txt msgs to the 3 interviewed subjects.
(The audio on this video switches between all three channels.)
Nov 9, 2008

The Fallen

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No post today, just this link to those who’ve given their lives in the Canadian mission in Afghanistan so far. And here are a couple of different links to one who didn’t.

And a re-post from July 2nd of last year:

Canadian Troops

Instead of racking my brains to come up with a (likely inferior) way of expressing my gratitude to the troops overseas, I think I’ll just suggest you read this eloquent letter from Lorrie Goldstein in the Winnipeg Sun. While reading it, I was thinking of a girl I used to babysit, now a mother of three and on her third tour of duty in Afghanistan. And I was thinking of Trevor Greene, still in St Paul’s Hospital, still working on rebuilding his life after an ambush and an axe to the head.

While you are reading this letter, never for one moment forget that the decision to go overseas, to become involved in wars, peacekeeping actions, and all such deployments, is a decision that is made not by military personnel, but by politicians. Direct your own letters and thoughts accordingly.

Given the recent lacklustre support by Toronto City Council for the men and women now serving our nation in Afghanistan, we dedicate today’s editorial celebrating Canada’s 140th birthday to all members of our military.

Thank you for choosing to serve Canada, whether you were born here or came here from another country.

Thank you for deciding that Canada is worth defending, both at home and abroad.

Thank you for being ready to sacrifice everything, not just a safe, comfortable life here at home with your loved ones, but your very lives, if necessary, to protect us and those who are in need of our protection abroad.

To the families of all who serve in our military, thank you for sharing your precious sons, daughters, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandchildren, relatives and friends with us.

Like you, we pray they will complete their missions and return home safely to you as soon as possible. Like you, we pray for a just and lasting peace.

To those who face the unimaginable grief on this Canada Day, and every Canada Day to come, of missing the presence of a loved one because they died in the service of their country, know that we are thinking of you today.

That we grieve with you. That we pray for you. And that we will remember those you loved, and what they did for us and to help people they didn’t even know, forever.

To their parents, thank you for raising sons and daughters who willingly answered the call of their country.

We will always think of them as the fine young men and women of military bearing, frozen forever in the flower of youth, that we see in the pictures released upon their deaths.

But we know you remember them in a thousand different ways built up over a lifetime of memories — of lazy summer days, at family celebrations and of how they looked on their first day of school, or on the day they graduated.

To the wives, husbands and children of all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of their country, we cannot imagine the depth of your loss.

But we share your pride in who they were and like you, we celebrate what they did with their lives, because their lives mattered.

And so on this Canada Day, on our nation’s 140th birthday, we remember them, because they represent what Canada is all about at its very best.

Strong, free, honourable, compassionate — and dedicated to the service of others

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Hacked? Back!

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Not exactly sure what’s been going on, but all of a sudden WordPress didn’t like my password. In fact, they refused to accept it and let me into my own blog, no matter how many times I batted the monitor and screamed.

Imagine!

In any case, whether it was a password hack or technical difficulty, either on their end or on mine, all is now back to normal except that I’m too tired to post anything meaningful today, so here are two gay Christmas trees; you tell me which is gayer:

From our Utah correspondent:

rainbow Christmas

The Rainbow Christmas Tree. All it needs is one of those spinning tree bases and the Barry Manilow Christmas Album (you may substitute Ricky Martin or anything from High School Musical if you’re of a youthfuller generation)

And this tree, spotted today up on Main Street in Vancouver:

Oops, removed! It didn’t work so good, sorry

The Pink Pine of Main Street. This was so awe-inspiring that the bus driver stopped right beside it and opened the doors so I could take a clear shot. Since I was doing bus rider surveys all up and down Main Street and the buses here don’t normally stop in the middle of a block for photo-ops, I had the attention of the entire bus. And I must say, the photo has much more detail than I thought and a lovely Seventies hypercolour flat feel to it, just freaky enough. Believe me, it was plenty freaky in real (plastic) life, especially in the early part of November.

So, after I did the picture-snapping thing I continued with the bus rider surveys and one woman was clearly bursting to talk with me. Turns out she knows the guy in the house. She told me he starts this early every year, and we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet, because by early December the entire yard is a Nativity scene and the entire house is covered with lights. Now, given the neighborhood and all the fellow is probably straight, but in the way one looks at the prodigal son and thinks “some day his parents are going to realize…” I think it fair to conclude that this Christmas tree is, if not actually gay, at least significantly bi-curious. We all want to know what you bought us for Christmas, don’t we?

Octopus Studios in the hood

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Octopus Studios: I’m not exactly sure who they are. I’m not exactly sure what they do. I am, however, 100% certain that they have the coolest logo on the Downtown EastSide, and thoughtful of them it was to put it only a couple of blocks from my house. They must know I’ve been busy lately.

Octopus Studios
Whoa! You don’t suppose this logo is literal? You don’t suppose they’re building levitating robotic giant octopi behind that bland cinder-block facade? This bears investigating. If you don’t hear from me in a week, send in the Calamari Wrestler!