Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Fear and Self-Loathing in Vancouver.

Jay Mariotti is apparently an American journalist who lives in Chicago. Like any good American journalist, especially one in Mordor-on-Lake-Michigan, he is vaguely embarrassed to be an American. Imagine his horror when he went to Canada for the current festivities and found them acting all... all... well, I'll let him tell you:
You've sacrificed your sound sensibilities, your lighthearted ways and your minimum-stress comfort zone to become, well, a pocket version of the United States of America...
Horrors! That's almost like being a pocket version of, well, Hitler! Or worse, George Bush!

Damn those people for not acting quaintly foreign enough to suit the reporter!

21 comments:

Wabprepper said...

He can kiss my hairy white Canadian ass. Go home and don't come back!

Jay said...

*is* hated there.

Tam said...

Jason,

It does take a special kind of arse to go someplace and insult, not only your homeland, but your hosts as well.

In a just world, we'd revoke the jerk's passport and let him Philip Nolan his way around the globe until he found a place that would put up with his whining.

Anonymous said...

Right.

1. The lugers got on that track voluntarily. If 12 crashes wasn't enough to get through to they that the track was unsafe, then I doubt anything else would have been. I'm not unsympathetic to the man's family, but going anywhere near that fast on a big skate is patently obviously dangerous.

2. As for this "reporter", if he doesn't want to play with the big kids he can go home and clutch his mother's skirt.

Jim

Ed Foster said...

To back up reflectoscope, when the kid's father told him to take a slower start, he said he would win or die. I applaud his guts, but his skill level just wasn't up to the size of his cohones. Everybody else made it down the track, and it hasn't been changed.

And why single out Apollo Ohno for compliments? A truly great athlete, but one of many. Gee, could there be a bit of reverse racism in that statement? Shouldn't those mostly blond Winter Olympians feel guilty about their obviously racist complexions?

That's like saying Larry Bird was a great athlete because he was ummm, ahhh...

Asshole, snow was INVENTED in northern Europe. The freckled people just moved to places that looked like home.

John Peddie (Toronto) said...

I'm confused.

First, Roberta quoted a guy this week who wants to marry us, (aleit only shotgun-style, for our energy).

Now, it's "Blame Canada" time because-well, I don't know. Can't follow this guy's gibberish, but he's clearly another believer in national stereotypes.

Sorry we couldn't come up with some snow for this whole Olympics thing.

Can we now please disappear below the radar again, and get back to what we do best-exporting that high octane Marry Wanna from BC to the PRK?

Do ya' suppose they'd also be interested in some late-model methadone clinics and "safe" injection sites?

We could spare a few of those too.

Thanks-knew you'd all see it that way too.

Thanks also for the Starbucks.

Mickey D's? Not so much.

Tam said...

"Sorry we couldn't come up with some snow for this whole Olympics thing."

The whole thing is funny. I mean, nobody in their right mind would dream of holding a Winter Olympics in Seattle, but, hey! Vancouver's in Canada, right?

Bram said...

I'm with Mariotti 100 percent. Canadians should all wear those funny hats with the flaps, drink lots of Labatt’s, and not make any effort to win. I bet they are all watching old episodes of Mantracker instead of the games anyhow. Now that should be an Olympic Sport!

Please remain quaint and weird so we can laugh and feel superior when we visit.

Joanna said...

"In any world menu, Canada must be considered the vichyssoise of nations — it’s cold, half-French, and difficult to stir. — Stuart Keate

Anonymous said...

Jay was a whiny prick in Chicago; Jay will be a whiny prick no matter where he is.

It must be his first time in Vancouver. After your first few times in the city, you don't even remember stepping over the junkie to get to the sushi joint.

They have some amazing sushi places in Vancouver. We used to eat our weight in sushi after our training sessions.

If only every self-righteous/guilt-ridden trust fun kid and their American tourist friends would take a junkie or bum home with them (and get a bucket and brush and scrub the funk off the streets) Vancouver would be a much better city.

As far as his whining, it may be accurate but for the wrong reasons. It is being reported that the Canadians knew how dangerous the luge run would be but wanted it that way to drive tourism.

Shootin' Buddy

Tam said...

"It is being reported that the Canadians knew how dangerous the luge run would be but wanted it that way to drive tourism."

Well, it works for auto racing.

If you can't get killed, it's just a game.

Anonymous said...

The problem with the assumption of the risk defense is that all the known risks have to be disclosed.

Before the games the Canadians ran around telling everyone how "safe" the games would be, all fluffy and marshmellowy like all good Canadian anything. However, now the polar bear is out of the bag and the Canadians knew the luge was extremely dangerous in luge terms but told everyone to the contrary. Cue trombone *wah, wah, wah*

Shootin' Buddy

Pathfinder said...

Mariotti is and always has been a prick. Location does not matter. That's why the Some-time originally hired him, and probably why he got axed (I moved away before he became a voice on the wind).

Unfortunately, it sounds like Vancouver has not changed all that much. Last time I was there, mid-90s, it reminded me of Chicago in the 70s - dirty, unkempt, unsure of itself - and absolutely littered with unwashed hippies asking for "spare change". Yuck.

When Vancouver was awarded the Olympics, I made of mental note of "WTF??" and then thought fondly of my stay in - Victoria. Much nicer place. But again, no snow.

Anonymous said...

The Luge federation (not the Canukistanis) designed and approved the track. Want to blame someone for a pitiful design? Blame them. After all, they signed off on the track with the closely spaced steel roof support columns right next to the high side of the track - like the quintessentially safety-conscious Canukers couldn't look at that and see that it was a bad idea

Ed Foster said...

Bottom line, we all tease the Canucks, and, at least in Ontario, they do the same to us (the O.P.P. are unadulterated assholes), but it's usually a humerous, friendly bickering.

The place is no more (and sadly, no less) Socialist than Massachusetts, and I know some great people from Mass. Although mostly from west of the Connecticut river;-) Civilization begins at Westfield and Agawam, anybody decent from east of the river is a lost American behind enemy lines.

May I lead the choir in making a public apology to Jason Welin and all our other Canadian readers for the actions of one of our intellectually vapid, died-in-the-wool asshats?

I've been the recipient of many a fine meal, good conversation, and unstinting generousity in Canada, from St. Prospere Quebec to Thunder Bay and Suomi Ontario.

Like the Irish and Scots, we tease each other constantly, but we're family. Guys,we're sorry we let the vulgar little booger slip over the border. Still friends, eh?

John Peddie (Toronto) said...

Ed

...and neighbours, allies, trading partners, visitors and relatives.

Cook us some mean poutine hereabouts, too-maybe you had that in St. Prospere-it's a (French) Canadian thing.

If you missed it, try some next time you're there. Your cardiologists' heirs will thank you.

The smoked fish in Suomi are good too, especially the whitefish.

TJP said...

Gee, being that Canada sprang from the British Empire, just like the U.S., it should come as no surprise to anyone that the flavor of Western culture would be somewhat similar.

I've visited a couple of cities on the eastern end of Canada, and neither really struck me as USA Lite. In fact, I sort of missed the familiar comfort of the stale-urine-and-tobacco wind blowing garbage in my face, like in NYC.


Also:

LUGE CONTROL NOW

Anonymous said...

@Ed Foster: The OPP isn't a rash on the rear of the Toronto cops....I've never seen any group of people more deserving of genocide.

And while Massachusetts is a socialist state, the Arctic People's Democratic Republic of Canukistan is a socialist nation. Even Harper would be a centrist democrat in the states.

Ben said...

" Maybe Canadians need to cheat more. That's what American athletes do best, right?"
What did he mean by this quote?Real classy huh!

Ed Foster said...

Nony, I got through Toronto without meeting up with the local Surete. Guess I was lucky, Eh?

John Peddle, that was a funny right? Suomi being on Whitefish Lake and all? A quick story before I wander off on a new tangent.

A friend inherited 180 acres in Suomi, and, being a USian, had to survey it and mark it with a certain number of cairns, then return the map to the Crown Surveyor in Thunder Bay (the first time I ever saw a Hudson's Bay Post, disapointed that it was just a department store instead of a log cabin thingy).

It seems there's an Ontario law that says a non-Canadian has to re-survey his property within three months or lose it to the Provincial government. Dirtbags.

We got to Suomi and went to the General Store with the neat dry fly on the wall. If you don't know about what I'm mentioning, you'll have to go there and check it out.

A few minutes after we got there (it was the beginning of moose season) a truckload of Cree or some similar kind of Indians walked in with loaded guns, waving the brightly colored funny money and pointing muzzles at the bottles of booze they wanted on the back wall.

Me, I was standing in front of said bottles, and this Marlin 336 kept waving across my face (I was thinking "Oh, a .35 Remington, what a big hole") as it pointed out which bottle of whiskey was desired. Intriguing area out there.

There wasn't any place for us to stay, so the store guy let us sleep in his boathouse on piles of flour sacks. It was colder than witch's spit, but I had to sit outside for a while, and listen to three seperate wolves seranade each other.

As the sun went down, I saw flocks of geese that took 5 or 6 minutes to pass, stretching from horizon to horizon. Stunning.

In the morning, the oil in the engine was too cold for it to turn over, so I put a big rock under the oil pan, put some heater tabs in my canteen cup, and wedged it up under the engine. The engine which was covered with enough oil and road tar to catch fire.

I pissed on it to keep it from spredding, while my buddy Bill went for a bucket of water. After burning off the crap, the heat tab trick worked pretty well the second time, and we made it back to the States.

That was about 3% of one of the more interesting weeks I've spent in my life, after being stopped 3 times at the border for various percieved infractions.

My other visits have been much more fun, and, dast I say it, I really like poutine. Like kielbasa, I'm suprised it's not something the Irish invented, it fits so well with their taste in food.

Although looking at the kids bicycling home from school in St. Prospere it's pretty obvious the Micks were through there building the Trans-Canadian.

Tweed coats and snap brim caps, black Ralieghs with 3-speed Sturmy-Archers, pink freckled faces, and not a frigging tree within 200 yards of a house. Did you know the original name for the place was Irishtown?

Tam said...

Ben,

"What did he mean by this quote?"

Well, he lived in Chicago, so my first guess is he's still all butthurt about Sosa.