The Olympic Dream?

Red spray paint, broken glass, long lineups and one dead. 

There’s no question, as the city erupted into a magnificent state of chaos and high-fives, the Olympic experience manifested from day one with the ferocity of a thousand hippos. 

The past two weeks in Vancouver have been a wild demonstration of unbridled patriotism and drunken delight—oh yeah, and of superior athletic performance.

For the first time ever, I have witnessed people from across Canada truly unite under the influence of two colours and one flag.

For those two Olympic weeks, nothing else seemed to matter.  As long as you were drinking beer and cheering for Canada, you belonged.  

By day three, I’d lost my credit card, partied with a millionaire, wore a beer tray on my head at the Heineken house courtesy of a Dutch bartender, slept on a bathroom floor, missed a day of work, witnessed an Olympic protest and pondered the merits of fascism. 

Strangely enough, I wasn’t sure how it all fit together. 

What was the Olympic dream?

In the second week, when America defeated Canada in game two of men’s hockey, a fleeting wave of panic rolled over the red and white homeland, like a realization that its national identity could indeed be mortal.

But it was a divine fallacy solved by fate and Sydney Crosby in the gold medal game between the two rivaling teams.

The universe can be enigmatic sometimes, but it never lies. 

The gold medal in men’s 2010 Olympic hockey is, indeed, the answer and solution to any existential question or identity crisis any Canadian with a hangover may have – at least for the next four years.  

Paddywagon Piss Tour

Part 1

“Get on the ground and shut the fuck up.” The cop drives his knee into my back and restrains my hands with a zap-strap.

“Ahhhh. You’re cutting off my circulation,” I say as urgently and politely as I possibly can.

No response.

There are crowds of people around and I can hear the voice of someone asking the cop to let me go. At least I think he’s talking about me. I’m intoxicated.

“Please man, they’re really tight. Can you please loosen them? Please.”

Still no answer. This is hopeless. I’m in undue pain and, of course, the cops don’t give a shit. What if I get gangrene and my hands fall off?

All I can see from this angle are black steal-toe boots and cargo pants. I’m afraid to lift my head and look up—I don’t feel like getting tazered or pissing myself.

I really wish I had a lawyer with me.

Everyone should have a lawyer when they go down town. It’s a civil hazard otherwise. The Police are everywhere and the fact is, they want to arrest or injure you. It doesn’t matter what for: fighting, laughing, eating pizza, giving change to street rappers and cripples—it’s all the same. Cops and bouncers, alike, have a profound ability to perceive anything you do as threatening to their tenuous sense of authority and the status quo.

The Concert

Inside GM Place, Oasis plays to an obedient crowd of 10,000 people or more. I on the other hand, am a dedicated fan laying face down on the concrete with my hands bound behind my back, guilty of nothing else but trying to rock out and crash the stage.

I don’t understand why they have floor seating at a concert like that anyway: essentially the catalyst for my ejection and subsequent arrest. I agree it would be ideal for Celine Dion or U2—but not fuckin’ Oasis!

So when I attempt to stagger onto the floor for the second or third time, five security guards intervene and haul me out of the stadium like a wrangled calf, dropping me directly in front of the Vancouver Police and a white box-shaped vehicle known as the paddywagon.

I know it’s going to be hard to slur my way out of this one.  Evidently, they're not giving me a chance.

Within minutes, I’m sitting in the back of the paddywagon beside two other less than scholarly gentlemen as it peels away from the grounds of GM Place.

Driving, I have no idea where we are or where we’re going. Each time the vehicle stops, we recruit yet another unruly patron of the city. Meanwhile, the ferocious stink of urine and vomit has engrossed the chamber which we occupy. It’s pitch black and my hands are numb.

So here I am, locked-up in the back of this roving piss tank, wondering what’s going to happen and if I’ll make it into work for 6 a.m.

To be continued…