WILL.I.AIN'T – Today's Random Feeling is….

Classic Vancouver…finger pointing and lack of discipline

The Cop Cars

‎The almost full moon hung high and ominous on the eve of the finals in Vancouver. Looking east or west from False Creek South, it all looked dormant and serene. There was the usual low cloud cover stretching above Burrard Inlet and over to the North Shore. As on any other night like this, because of the lights at the port, the clouds in the east were a smokey amber reminiscent to that of a wildfire along the Montenegrin coast I once witnessed. To the west another blanket is patched with different hues, but most of it is just an amalgamated fake white comprised by the increasing number of illuminated towers, high rises, stadiums, and their massive narcissistic neon signs. The water was calm and you could see your breath. This is June 14. There are three possible scenarios happening in the Vancouver’s Downtown area within the next 24 hours. One is the highly expected and demanded win which will trigger a night of savage drinking and much animalism in the downtown core, but all in good spirit. If they lose, most people here will turn into those animals and it will be nasty. June 15 will be a full heavy moon and its force will probably have the same gravitational effect on blood as it does on water; all to the head. Cops will need to keep that mind if they want to maintain scenario three: civility in the streets after an apparently very possible loss.

The last two years have been Vancouver’s promotional golden age where the city was first re-introduced to the world by the Olympics, and now, through hockey, has been thrust onto public display in the North Americas. Never in the + 10 years I have resided here have I seen so much publicity for the town than in the last two years. The City must be doing something right. There must be something about it, no? Well, maybe not. Maybe Vancouver has just caught a lucky break. Probably not with the Olympics since, I heard rumors, a city pays big bucks in bribes to Rogge and the IOC in order to win the games. However, with the team it is different. They have been working hard to gel like a good team does and now they are reaping the benefits. Vancouver fans have had their hearts broken many times over in the last decade and it finally feels really good to say that the Canucks are worthy; so expectations were irrationally high.

Crowd on Robson Street

Cops and Gas on Granville and Helmcken

As I am typing this a night later, early on June 16, I am slowly accepting what just happened in the city. The short version, as many have already stated, is that the city quite successfully buried itself into the same socio-cultural hole it has been rotting in for most of its existence. Vancouver almost achieved some sort of unique identity that is not a movie backdrop for New York or a “Hollywood North” – how pathetic it sounds, The Hollywood North. The recent popularity can be accredited largely to the Olympics. The city exhibited some flair for once and it got noticed. It also helped that the nation fared extremely well in the games. We even broke party records with most alcohol consumed and without any major incidences other than the normal drunk tanking of people which really happens every weekend. But does a well-staged party make up for a Vancouverite identity? What is a Vancouverite anyways? What is he/she defined as?

Most people here would claim that Vancouverites are nice and outgoing people, first and foremost. People who enjoy and know good marijuana and oftentimes people who were not even born in the city or the country. And that is the general make-up of the city. There are lots of immigrants, Canadian migrants, and some actual Vancouverites which makes the city of the same fabric as Canada; what Michael Ignatieff describes as a patchwork quilt. Many different backgrounds come together to build a functioning multicultural society with equal rights for everyone regardless of race, gender, or economic background. Everyone who lives here in Canada and just read that, I’m sure, had a nice belly chuckle. What he fails to include that in such perceived societies, a general “Canadian” or in this case “Vancouverite” identity is not possible. People of the same background either build ghettos as it happens in France, or they define a suburb such as that of Greater Vancouver’s Surrey with its Indian population, Richmond with its largely Chinese residents, or the outer Chilliwack, Abbotsford, and Whiterock with the Whites. This naturally creates physical and cultural borders where residents cannot gel together like the team they love and define themselves as a city. The only common facet the residents of Greater Vancouver have is that team and when that sinks to its lowest, so does the populace.

Cops on Granville sweeping

Cop suiting up

Daily, Vancouverites are told by the media that it is the best city on Earth, that we are nice people, that we live in a beautiful place. After five hours of anarchy it is tough to claim those premises and many people Downtown are quick to point the finger south and blame a suburbia-alcohol mix for last night’s disgrace. It is true that a lot of the suburban population does journey to downtown for events like these and a good part of them create problems, but the seed is deeper than that. Immaturity is definite factor. Vancouver is a physically and mentally young city and gets excited very quickly about insignificant upsets. The first riot in 1994 may have been fully attributable to the Stanley Cup loss, but this time around it was, if anything, historical homage to an event most rioters did not even exist to experience. One could argue that the eventual rioters in a cretinous stupor were hoping to lose just to get to wreck shit. What I argue is that these surely are all fodder and do help very efficiently to ignite a very unstable and vicious crowd, but that we need to examine Vancouver’s social fabric before blaming certain parts of the city.

After living here for quite some time now and seeing who and what Vancouver is, I can only say that the real reason for this display of sheer idiocy lies in Vancouver’s terrible lack of interconnectedness, mutual respect, and civic identity amongst its people. You may call it culture; it is what I would call it, too. Those factors establish solidarity that if anything bad happens, regardless of the level of significance, the city will stand as one. If there is no real city-specific identity and interconnectedness, how do you expect there to be respect for it by the residents. Vancouver needs to sit down for the next little while, shut the fuck up about its non-existent grandeur, and think about how it wants to be perceived outside of the Fraser Valley. As I said before, the faux openness to all kinds of cultures, which has turned into neglect, has made this city specifically an undefined primordial soup. And we are all in it, so stop the finger pointing because we can turn that undefined blob into something. Fake Surrey Craigslist ads are not a good source for the culprits of last night. The arrogance I see from Downtown people is sad and just because you are prejudiced and go for lunch at Goldfish does not mean you are right. Nor does it mean you are any more educated or cultured than the hooligans last night. Don’t forget, the city is a mirror of its people and vice versa, so you, too, Downtowners need to think about how you can improve Vancouver’s image, but more importantly, its innards.

Good Night

Written by The Duke

June 16, 2011 at 7:44 pm

Posted in Everyday it Happens

Tagged with culture, discipline, idiocy, riot, Vancouver

VICE came through…and Yours Truly was in the wrong

I was wrong; ANTHONY SEDLAK turned out to be VERY entertaining!

I know it was you, VICE. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!

with 2 comments

This has since been resolved….no issues anymore. I’m still leavin it up though

Starting in August of 2011, VBS.tv, the documentary arm of New York’s Vice magazine, will have a special edition of the Balkans. VBS.tv in the past has covered “exotic” countries and had turned the docus into legendary accounts of places some people may never see. One such an account is the famed Vice Guide to North Korea which gave the West some perspectve on what the country was really like, all fit including Shane Smith’s uncanny comedic analyses throughout the filming. Another prime example of Vice’s stellar journalistic coverage is the Vice Guide to Liberia. This one was less “weird” than the docu on North Korea, but rather a sobering illustration what decades of failed UN intervention generates in its wake.
Now as an aspiring journalist I have to keep up with what is considered good and responsible journalistic work and what is rendered CNN-style hackjobs. Journalists in the mainstream are perceived as objective event accountants, but the truth is that there is no way to achieve objectivity, especially in a place and time where standards have once again stooped to the comical industry standards of the aforementioned CNN, but also The NY Times, Reuters, and every other “mainstream” news outlet. This is the reason why I enjoy reading Vice’s articles and watching their VBS docus. They go out and cover what that they think matters more than Congressional dick pictures on Twitter and menu items at royal weddings and even if it is very subjective at times, there is definite education behind that subjectivity.
I share that vigilant journalistic spirit and thought it a great idea of the Vice crew going into the Balkans and covering the political dynamics of the former Yugoslav countries since the events there two decades ago highly resemble the events in North Africa right now. Originally, then, I wrote up a story pitch for the good folks at the Vice headquarters in addition to, of course, solicit a writing position. This is it (apologies for the small format, but i think that screenshots are more believable than copy/pasted text):

And the accompanying file details (note the creation date of April 16, 2011):

After I finished writing up the pitch, I noticed that VBS are not legally allowed to accept solicitations regarding story ideas, but that people can still hit them up to inquire about jobs. Well that is perfect, I thought to myself. I can just whip up another letter stating to the VBS folks my invaluable assets for the upteenth time; not an issue. So I says:

Funny thing about this is that in the latest edition of Vice there are two Balkans-related articles. One is Baby Balls’ hackjob about Serbia’s drinking issues and the other is about some graffiti of the Srebrenica debacle. I failed to read to the latter because of growing rage within me that may have resulted in a new $400 Lenovo laptop screen replacement. Instead I sent the VBS team an email and kindly thanked them for what I claim to be a now huge idea which being put into a major documentary by a major production company. My argument is that 4 months (April-August) is the perfect amount of time to organize and execute a trip to the Balkans and (coincidentally?) their docu will start in August. I say this because I have plenty of experience travelling to the old country numerous times over the last decade and know how long the logistics take. Travelling and vise/permit arrangements are even easier if the heads of the crew have Canadian passports. In said email I also attached the original pitch so that they have “something intelligent to cover.” After all it is not a grand secret that Serbians love their moonshine, but there is more to the country and its neighbours than distilling high-grade liquid Cocaine.

Am I overreacting? Do you agree with me? Please, add your comments

POST-SCRIPTUM: READ PLEASE

Written by The Duke

June 13, 2011 at 8:14 am

Posted in Everyday it Happens

Tagged with hackjob, pitch, serbia, stealing, story, story pitch, vbs, vice, vice magazine

As Long As You Shut The Fuck Up…

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Immediately available: Chief executive position with “al Qaeda” organization. Includes 401k, personal bodyguards, chauffeur, lots of travelling possibilities, and life insurance that, in case of death, guarantees fringe group hero status for the entire family, and anywhere from 40 to 72 virgins for you. Position requires almost fanatic knowledge of the Quran and the ability to freely interpret and apply its teachings according to organization’s needs. Previous experience with promotions for large faith based groups is preferred. Perfect for out-going pastors or Catholic priests. Must be comfortable with living in cave-like environments for prolonged periods of time with little to no outward communication. However, we are known for cutting edge gadgetry and rarely is it ever boring in our “Bat-caves” since we have direct access to high grade opium and ‘willing’ women.
Preferably, you have worked with Western companies a la Halliburton in the past and are proficient in English, German, or French. We are a self-funded organization, so a clientele base of investors, even if small, is a required asset or alternately, your share of family holdings must be presented with application. Must be of good health and trained in arms. Dissent for social progress is encouraged, and despotic predispositions are welcome. Please apply with Resume and CV after November 4, 2012.

Funny, right? Of course, it is funny; because it is not you and you probably feel that bin Laden’s death is just and that he had it coming anyways. I can tell you right here and now that in thinking like that the Western governments’ rhetoric and agendas are doing well and are accomplishing their goals. The lack of major dissent in the Western mainstream media and their consumers in the aftermath of this event is alarming to say the least. Dissent, in this sense, means that the populace, for one, asks detailed questions about the events that transpired in Pakistan over the last week, and also keep the on-going domestic, North African, and Middle Eastern events in the foreground. This entails general issues such as the West being essentially in the same political and economic positions as it was four or five years ago in addition to reiterating myths about economic recovery and democracy-oriented interventions in despotic regimes that were, not even a year ago, fully supported by Western leaders. Then the most imperative issue of why every time the people down here in the streets get a whiff of that acrid smell of the reigning parties’ altruism and start calling ‘bullshit’ they get fed political valium which renders all dissent unpatriotic, fascist, and at times, evil?

For the last year or so, leading parties in the Western hemisphere have experienced less than stellar success in alleviating economic woes and everyday people are feeling it on their skin. America’s innards are rotting at an increasing rate and there is not a concrete end in sight. GM’s year-to-date sales numbers are up for April, but that does not mean anything when gas prices have hit abhorrent heights because of absurd reasons related to Lybia’s social struggle. Not to mention the costs of both the US and Canada intervening in said struggle while both nations are already tangled up in never ending conflicts. And now there are serious debates about raising debt ceilings to prevent failure of the whole Western market system? Whether the US has that much clout in the European markets is arguable, but it is nevertheless worth mentioning that its global clout has been greatly diminished over the last decade and that maybe a failure is needed for the people here to finally wake up. After all, you would never expect someone to be granted third, fourth and fifth chances in the education system. It is widely known that China holds about $1.6 trillion in US Treasury Bonds, which means that it holds close to 10% of the accumulated US debt. It does not take a genius to figure that this situation will leave the country more or less at the mercy of its debtors and realistically speaking the, for now, most powerful nation in the world will never be able to pay any of the current $14.1 trillion debt. The US is royally fucked, as the saying goes.

Europe is not better off. Surely, you have economic powerhouses like Germany who more or less are minimizing their losses in the recession with spending cuts, but being literally the only nation that is pulling the weight of the whole continent does not effectively offset debts and lack of production by Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, or any of the newer joiners like Bulgaria, Romania, or Poland. The senseless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Libya are taking political and economic difficulties to a whole new destructive level where people in the affected countries have to seriously start thinking about reverting to old methods of satisfying their day-to-day needs of feeding their children, paying mortgages, and fuelling their vehicles. For everyone who has no job and good credit, I’d suggest to grab some land for cheap and read up on agriculture because soon enough farmers will be in high demand. An even more drastic approach – which I am starting to foresee if things keep going this way – would be to just load up on guns and ammunition and wait till it all eventually goes tits up and it becomes social Darwinism as seen in the Kalahari. It will likely be too late trying to find civil solutions after they raise the last debt-ceiling, democratize the last regime, pull out the last combatant, bail out the last bank, default on the last credit, and when crime is rampant because there are few jobs and plenty of mouths to feed. One thing is for sure, in such a scenario, army veterans turned “criminals” will know how to survive better than bankers and servers. The 47-year old dads with college-ready kids and outstanding mortgages of 18 years should have probably asked some questions while they had some wiggle room and not allowed themselves to be duped into the romanticism of a black American president or fairy-tales of special ops forces hunting down “ultimate evils.” And most definitely not buying into celebrating deaths of other human beings, regardless of their wickedness.

But clearly these sort of things are forgotten when your 17-year old baby girl chants USA and high-fives her kin over the death of a perceived “symbolic figure.” It was apparent what was happening to people a year into Obama’s presidency. Savvy political marketing does not only buy more time for very, very long wars, but more importantly it creates not so tacit consent for fake goals. Elated sheep are what Jon Favreau and Obama’s public relations team are after and they get favorable results every time without fail as seen two nights ago at 1600 Pennsylvania. As Freud taught us, the early traumatic experiences of our lives have considerable influence over our angsts and desires, and therefore can be used to, later on, manipulate our behavior. If I remember it right the news were awash with the attacks and for the transitional TV/Internet generation of the early 2000s the mainstream messages of the CNNs and BBCs are what was imprinted in their young minds overtly and insidiously at the same time. No wonder that in the period when Western leaders were enjoying a shit sandwich from the general population regarding economic recovery, numerous wars, and, Obama-specifically, heat to set off the presidential campaign on a good foot, the message “Osama bin Laden is dead” is supposed to trigger the suppressed neurons made up of ten years of pain, hate, loss, patriotism, humiliation, national discord, illegal occupations, a ruined global image, and uncertainty. It was also aimed to opiate some of that self-consciousness with which Western countries have had to learn to deal.

Just as was the case when Obama became president, people in the West regaled his messages, celebrated the occasion everywhere, and most crucially, shut the fuck up about more important matters that actually touched them every day, and which started to attract some static. If you have ever thought about, or are thinking about engaging in any kind of political paradigm, be it related to your local affairs or in an inter/national sense, there is one thing you absolutely have to learn. You have to master the art of pacifying the populace. I have a theory about social interaction that the loudest baby will get the most attention. Innumerous times in the last four years, the population in the US, Canada, and most developed European countries have expressed harsh dissent toward their elected leaders. This took form of mass protests and violence in Athens, Paris, London, and Toronto. Alternately, we have grassroots movements in North America due to the regressive policies of seemingly progressive pols which have indebted every country, including themselves, and which strictly hold the tenet that Reagan’s trickle-down effect is truly the way to everyone’s economic well-being. Well, Reagan has also started the war on drugs, tactics of which make their way from Mexico into our news on a weekly basis. Late in the first decade of the 2000’s it was obvious that the way people let diplomats go about their business is not sustainable so people took to the streets, blogs, and other ways of communicating change. So the baby in the streets started screaming for the return of the troops, started screaming for a stop of nonsensical bloodshed, started screaming for repercussions in shortselling and day trading of people’s life savings, and started screaming for some humane treatment by their elected leaders.

This immensely productive way of generating dissent and calls for people-oriented change does not sit well with profiteers on Wall Street, in Frankfurt, the London Stock Exchange, or the Buffet household. People in the streets needed to calm down, so the powers deliver to them something unprecedented that will all but make the untapped sub-consciousness orgasm like a 17-year old private school student at the touch of his first shaven vagina. You know it must be working when yesteryears’ social rights leeches like Jesse Jackson teared up after the 2008 election results were known. So what do we have now with bin Laden’s death?

I woke up yesterday and as far I could tell the average unemployment rate was still around 10%. ICBC is setting up a 1000 people strong cut-back, Warren Buffet’s people are still being investigated for fraud, and the Conservatives in Canada will highly likely go ahead with them fighter jets now that the nation and its representatives have no other way than put their head down and wait for the next opportunity to “elect” some other evil. Western politics, in general, are increasingly turning into a zoo of fame whores, sex fiends, and self-righteous buffoons afflicted with a rabid idiocy that democracy can truly be established with less than three representing points of view. How anything can be resolved in terms of the wars, joblessness, or any sort of fairness toward the populations of these here lands is an enigma to me, when we get to choose from mental capacities that of a tsetse fly. Speaking of mental shortcomings, it is certainly no surprise that Obama’s latest gig is directly tied to maximizing his chances next year, but what the operations in Afghanistan (and Pakistan), separately, are banking on with the fantastical events over the last 3 days is a mental breakdown by al Qaeda. This “blow” to the morale would come in perfect time for Spring and the traditional beginning of any fighting season. The official reports of roadside bombings in Kabul and A-stan/Pakistan border will most definitely be blamed on retaliation for Osama’s death. Keep in mind that like anything else, in Spring, all comes alive; even the “terrorists” and the “heathens.” This is, however, just a side note that should not be left unmentioned. Still the bigger backdrop is as always to divert attention from people’s daily shortcomings that can be solely accredited to the leaders who work in perversely altruistic paradigms where every opportunity will be exhausted to manipulate the street folk to fit their plan. There is always a plan, and if you work hard to cancel out the white noise you will see that just like your older brother, they will use your own hand to hit you, but hold you responsible for your own demise. It is up to you to either feed yourself shots or knee them in the nuts.

Written by The Duke

May 6, 2011 at 5:16 am

Posted in Everyday it Happens

WILL.I.AIN'T – Today's Random Feeling is….

Classic Vancouver…finger pointing and lack of discipline

VICE came through…and Yours Truly was in the wrong

I was wrong; ANTHONY SEDLAK turned out to be VERY entertaining!

I know it was you, VICE. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!

As Long As You Shut The Fuck Up…

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