(more photos here ....)Well, they almost won me over, those Olympians. Almost.
I got a reasonably early start today and, after several hours walking along Hastings, visiting the Megaphone’s office, chatting with the good people at the Carnegie Centre, witnessing the guerrilla garden near the Balmoral Hotel that Dominique has created to commemorate the 500+ missing women from the DTES … long after the very delicious $4 bowl of vegan soup from the W2 Media Centre hours earlier and on my way back downtown for the big parade, I stopped to photograph two women affixing a sign to a glass window on the outside of an elegant Chinese Art space.
I had hoped to cross paths with a rally I’d heard had commenced on Commercial Drive, the day’s destination for all good activists being the Vancouver Art Gallery which will no doubt soon be feeling the impacts of the 90% province wide arts cuts. The women affixing the sign to the window invited me to go inside and have a cup of tea. For free, they said.
A nice cuppa tea …. for free? Who could turn that down. It was organic and green, and recently steeped. There weren’t many people in the place, it had only just opened, but I could see that there would be many cups of tea (in real Chinese teacups) served here in many tea ceremonies.
Thanks to the Cultural Olympiad, I guess. But free’s a relative term, isn’t it. I guess it’s more like an eight billion dollar cup of tea. It’s the only thing I’ll be getting out of the Olympics, but I must say I did enjoy my eight billion dollar cup of tea. Just how, I’d like to know, did the six billion cost I’ve been quoting for the past month suddenly become eight billion? Is moving snow really that expensive? I prefer Stephen Colbert’s method – encourage get all the people on the eastern seaboard to fill up envelopes with the white stuff and mail it to the Vancouver Olympics.
In any event, I had my eight billion dollar cup of tea and thought …. this isn’t so bad after all. It’s completely worth it! Until I stepped back outside and realized I was still in the DTES and there really are a lot of things that eight billion dollars could buy.
I walked the distance back to Vancouver’s downtown, found my way through the populated streets to the Art Gallery. As I was crossing the final intersection, looking forward to joining the gathering of colourful and creative protestors, I heard a man say to his female friend – “they’ve got health care, what are they complaining about.” Actually, I said to him, our health care funding is being cut. Really, he replied. Yes, I said, also funding for schools and most recently a 90% funding cut to the arts. The solution, this man suggested as we crossed the street, is to increase taxes. I agreed – increase taxes on corporations. And make Coca-Cola and MacDonald’s pay for their own games. And we parted our ways.
The rally was brilliant. Peaceful, colourful, joyous, with music and singing and dancing. One person estimated us at 4000. Those who had gathered to denounce us, call us traitors and bad citizens, were awestruck, silenced. We filled the streets, blocks long, making our way to BC Place where we were greeted by a police line of horses. More animal cruelty. Those horses stood there for the two hours I was there, and most likely long after I left.
As far as I know, there were no incidents.
I had dinner in a friendly little falafel place on Granville St. with a friend, and caught a bus back to where I’m staying – with very long time friends of 25 years. She is not really into the Olympics at all, thinks it’s a waste of money. He has tickets to the games. Still, they manage to love each other. They were watching the opening ceremonies when I arrived. I had seen part of it in the falafel joint, and in various TV screens in bars and restaurants all along the bus route home. I cracked a beer, we chatted a bit, and I began the download while KD Lang lost my respect. And Bryan Adams. And Donald Sutherland. Wayne Gretzky’s obviously had facial surgery. For heaven’s sake. Why.
A nice cuppa tea …. for free? Who could turn that down. It was organic and green, and recently steeped. There weren’t many people in the place, it had only just opened, but I could see that there would be many cups of tea (in real Chinese teacups) served here in many tea ceremonies.
Thanks to the Cultural Olympiad, I guess. But free’s a relative term, isn’t it. I guess it’s more like an eight billion dollar cup of tea. It’s the only thing I’ll be getting out of the Olympics, but I must say I did enjoy my eight billion dollar cup of tea. Just how, I’d like to know, did the six billion cost I’ve been quoting for the past month suddenly become eight billion? Is moving snow really that expensive? I prefer Stephen Colbert’s method – encourage get all the people on the eastern seaboard to fill up envelopes with the white stuff and mail it to the Vancouver Olympics.
In any event, I had my eight billion dollar cup of tea and thought …. this isn’t so bad after all. It’s completely worth it! Until I stepped back outside and realized I was still in the DTES and there really are a lot of things that eight billion dollars could buy.
I walked the distance back to Vancouver’s downtown, found my way through the populated streets to the Art Gallery. As I was crossing the final intersection, looking forward to joining the gathering of colourful and creative protestors, I heard a man say to his female friend – “they’ve got health care, what are they complaining about.” Actually, I said to him, our health care funding is being cut. Really, he replied. Yes, I said, also funding for schools and most recently a 90% funding cut to the arts. The solution, this man suggested as we crossed the street, is to increase taxes. I agreed – increase taxes on corporations. And make Coca-Cola and MacDonald’s pay for their own games. And we parted our ways.
The rally was brilliant. Peaceful, colourful, joyous, with music and singing and dancing. One person estimated us at 4000. Those who had gathered to denounce us, call us traitors and bad citizens, were awestruck, silenced. We filled the streets, blocks long, making our way to BC Place where we were greeted by a police line of horses. More animal cruelty. Those horses stood there for the two hours I was there, and most likely long after I left.
As far as I know, there were no incidents.
I had dinner in a friendly little falafel place on Granville St. with a friend, and caught a bus back to where I’m staying – with very long time friends of 25 years. She is not really into the Olympics at all, thinks it’s a waste of money. He has tickets to the games. Still, they manage to love each other. They were watching the opening ceremonies when I arrived. I had seen part of it in the falafel joint, and in various TV screens in bars and restaurants all along the bus route home. I cracked a beer, we chatted a bit, and I began the download while KD Lang lost my respect. And Bryan Adams. And Donald Sutherland. Wayne Gretzky’s obviously had facial surgery. For heaven’s sake. Why.
