Royal

For the 3rd time since January this building closed.
A woman I know who lives there came running to my office this morning and told me that some "big Black Hungarians" were in the building, muscling her, her husband and every other tenant onto the street. At her request, I contacted DERA and two of their staff met me at 658 a few minutes later. They hustled up a building meeting and here's what I know:

- On Tuesday, 658 Alexander St, a 19-unit hotel (known by the owners as Star Beach Hotel but the tenants call it the Royal), was sold by Trafalgar Properties to a mystery owner. DERA has been trying to get the owner's name and number but their 'representatives' won't spill the beans

- That same day, the reps showed up at the building and told all tenants that they had 24 hours to vacate the premises because renovations were about to start. This request was combined with threats, about a dozen large men, and nailing the front door shut. People had to come and go from the fire exit afterwards.

- One man had been employed by the former owners - who also owned 566 Powell and the Backpacker's - and was being paid in cash and dope at 566 on a daily basis. The new owners told him on Tuesday that this arrangement would continue (he does basic building maintenance). The nice folks at DERA bribed him with cigarettes to admit to 2 things: (1) the person who paid him was a West Vancouver police officer and (2) new security guards were coming to the premises, as paid for by BC Housing.

- Everyone was pretty freaked out.

Very similar shifty and rapid eviction notices were issued in January and then again in April of this year. Both times I've tried to intervene on this woman's behalf and she has managed to stay, but mostly because of work done by DERA and Pivot.
And again, DERA was able to keep this place open today. The tenants were told that they could stay at least another 2 months, and only then if the owners issues legal eviction notices on paper. When I went home at 5, a DERA staff member was about to go into a hearing about this building.

Earlier this afternoon, a representative from Ipsos-Reid called. She announced herself and said she was conducting a very important survey about British Columbians.
She asked me if I was over 18 and was the member of the household who last had a birthday.
I replied yes.
Then she said, "thank you very much sir, you have answered all my questions for today." And hung up.

Roadrunner

Went to see M.I.A. tonight. Alicia had an extra ticket and nobody was able to go with her. I've never been a big fan but I went with an open mind.
It was at the P.N.E., which made for a loud and echoing concert, maybe intentional. It was indeed LOUD. S'funny, I have always thought of her as an electronic act but really it's hip-hop, i.e. lots of beats, no music and no singing - just shouting.
The show opened with a 2-minute long speech by a Japanese man, seemingly speaking to a crowd of people prior to an election. It was subtitled and he was inciting the crowd to not vote because voting is a sham, democracy is a sham. He explained that to vote is to accept the status quo and only through revolution - armed revolution - would change be possible.
I disagree with the "armed" part, but I was still grateful for such powerful words prior to a concert. It's been a while since I saw live music but politics are generally not a part of the average show.
Sadly, the whole package didn't match the spirit of the opening words. Sure, she can dance and the music makes you want to move until the sun rises. And there were loads of images of guns and tanks and things on the screen behind her. I was nearly inspired to become a terrorist. But she's still a rock star, selling T-shirts for $120 each (no kidding), charging $52 a head to see her live and making videos for MTV. I think a true revolutionary would have to jettison capitalism as well. I don't claim to know how she could do that, but anything else is hypocrisy. I am not a revolutionary but I want at least someone to be.

p.s. the opening act was a team of DJs and MCs called Top Billin'. They were horrendous but it was great to hear a fat guy yell "top billin" over top of mid-90s rave music for an hour and a half.

p.p.s. M.I.A.'s latest hit, "Bamboo Banger", is a cover of The Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner". Highly recommended and they're coming to town soon, too.

let's send it overseas

The BC Grits have just signed a deal with South Korea for them to buy our alternative energy, according to an article in the Vancouver Sun.

the country is focusing on wind, solar, hydrogen fuel cells and coal gasification

Wow. So South Korea is buying our so-called 'green' energy, leaving us to rely on the Tar Sands to get by. As the president of the BC Technology Industry Association says about South Korea in the article, "These guys, when they put their mind to it, they just go. There's a certain boldness that probably would be good for us to focus on."

No shit.

Makes you wonder if it's because BC can't afford its own alternative energy.

Later in the article, we find out that this deal is also

aimed at helping B.C. business enter the Korean market

Aha! So not only will we send our energy there, but shortly those same industries bent on creating the green energy will also relocate to South Korea. Awesome.

Axes

The other night Alicia and I were discussing what we feel to be outdated drug laws. She asked me the age-old question of why certain drugs - namely pot, coke and dope - are illegal while others - tobacco, booze and benzos - are condoned. I don't know any full answer but I sure have my opinion. There are many explanations that delve into the financial benefits from keeping some drugs legal and others prosecutable. But why the vehement War against drugs that really do little harm aside from the social harms that come from trying to hide your addiction from the cops 24/7?

I believe that, deep down, we like a dichotomy of Good vs. Evil in our lives and in our cultures. It doesn't really matter which is which as long as there is something to love and something to fight. We humbly allow our leaders to choose for us the current Evil(s) and then rally behind their wars. I don't blame the leaders - we vote for 'em - nor do I blame human nature. It's just kinda how we are. But that doesn't mean we have to be ignorant about it all.

Similarly, when Bush called Israelis a chosen people the other day, on the same anniversary of Palestinian struggle for independence, I think he was backing the current Good in much of North American culture. Why Israel I am not certain - surely every people is chosen according to their own values and history - but this is the pervailing view, as we must all see daily in news reports. The Evil, naturally, is an array of governments and organisations forming at least one Axis. There is no 'absolute' reason for one of these groups to be Evil while Israel and, say, America, are Good, other than choices we and our leaders have made.

This may seem obvious to the 2 people who actually read this blog but it sure isn't obvious to most people I talk to. Heroin, Hamas and gay marriage are only Evil because we say they are. There is nothing inherently (im)moral about any thing or action in this world. So while I am content to stand by my own personal decisions on what is Good (summer, video games and coffee) and what is Evil (Sam Sullivan, SUVs and mushrooms), I must be honest that nobody ought to share my opinions - they are not worth War but are always worth talking about.

Staying clean at Main and Hastings

I heard about this from Eby's blog but have since read this thorough article from the Globe.
This part sounds good:

Vancouver's Downtown Eastside will soon have 20 new beds to give female prostitutes a safe place to turn as they kick the vicious drug addictions that forced them into the survival sex trade

Not nearly enough beds, of course, but way better than nothing. However the program is "abstinent-based (sic)" and located in the Roosevelt Hotel, right beside the Carnegie Centre at Main and Hastings.
For those unfamiliar with this famous corner, it's pretty much an illegal pharmacy free-for-all. Not that I'm knocking it, but it's pretty easy to get sucked into doing a hoot here, there and everywhere.
So, this will either turn into a failure, or the Portland Hotel Society, who run the Roosevelt, will pressure the feds - who are funding this program - into being less forceful.

Peak Jesus

Although Eby's blog is a tempting inspiration to wax at length about Vancouver and its current political climate, I'm not fully ready to put those ideas down. They're still kinda fuzzy and liable to make me look more like a douchebag than I already am.
Instead, I want to pour some worry on you, baby. For years I've been semi-into Mike Ruppert and his theories (or facts) on 9/11. I even bought his book, which was so chock-full of factoids that I never made it past page 100. One thing that stuck with me, though, was not the notion that 9/11 was an inside job. It was his point that Peak Oil didn't refer strictly to fuel but to everything made from oil and its by-products.
Lately Mike's health has been poor and so his good friend Jenna Orkin has taken over blogging on their site, dedicating it to Peak Oil in the news. I check it once a week or so; it's also very fact-heavy and too much for me when I do most of my blog-reading at 6:30 in the morning. Still, I think this idea of Peak Everything bears some thought. Ruppert tried to drive home that it's not gas for cars but cars themselves that will not withstand the end of oil. Much of their insides (plastic, vinyl, polyester) are oil products. Same with this computer I'm using, my bicycle tires and all of Grandma's clothes. I can't decide if this spells dire consequences or not. Like every other looming disaster, I just can't get motivated enough to panic. Otherwise I probably wouldn't live in an earthquake hotspot like Vancouver.

Gabor, you run the city

Ok, this is a bit after-the-fact, but I am going to try and review Gabor Maté's book, The Realm of Hungry Ghosts.
The book came out a few months back (I got it for Christmas) and has been receiving many rave reviews from the lefty press, including rabble.ca, thetyee.ca and the Walrus, though some may debate whether the Walrus is lefty. The general consensus is that Maté writes with knowledge and compassion about addiction and the War on Drugs. His is the power to sway audiences from judgmental attitudes towards junkies and maneuver them toward pity and love. But not hope. Oh no, Gabor believes in no rosy future for his patients. Rather, they must suffer their lot but at least a gentle and rich doctor can ease their pain in the meantime.
To sum up, Gabor Maté works in the inner city of Vancouver - the Downtown Eastside - with people who cope with all sorts of problems from addictions to mental illness to violence. Instead of condemning them for what they've managed to get themselves into, namely poverty, Maté thinks we should consider their childhood of trauma in our analysis of their current lifestyle. Addiction, he says, is the bodies way of dealing with trauma and abuse. I'm oversimplifying; he goes into a lengthy section on brain chemistry and addiction as well. The reason I skip over this part, though, is because I find it largely irrelevant. If anybody actually needs to be convinced of the reasons for addiction, well, then maybe they'd find this section useful. However, I was looking for solutions, not descriptions.
The book is intended at a lay audience - one that does not console the down-and-out on a daily basis like Gabor and myself. But unlike me, Gabor's answer lies in medication. Yes, we both love our patients, and I do not use that word lightly. And we both see a bit of ourselves in them, share our lives with them, and miss them when we're at home.
But Gabor's love comes in the form of a pill, tested and sold by Big Pharma. Moreover, he sees the pill as an end, not a means. People are destined to die down here, he says in an interview with the Pivot Legal Society. "I see myself as working in palliative care." And he's serious. Just like the Empire of Poverty Pimping he works for, the Portland Hotel Society, Gabor offers brief respite from pain but little else. He cannot fathom that people have the ability - with help and compassion - to get out of the Downtown Eastside. His is a top-down model: doctors, social workers, then clients. Clients couldn't possibly write books about their own lives, so Maté has to, and reap the rewards.
By contrast, I firmly believe that people in the deepest Hell of addiction and poverty can get out of it, with our commitment to social justice, fair economics, entrepreneurship, and less reliance on pills and famous authors to ease their suffering. Take the model of the Hope in Shadows calendar, put out by Pivot Legal Society: instead of just profiting off pictures of poor people, instead of just giving poor people some cash in exchange for their photos, Pivot teaches people about making money, about building community, about being proud of accomplishments and about being role models. Maté is maybe still to fresh on the scene to appreciate people's potential, but I hope he figures it out soon.

Gathering of Single Unemployed in my Child's Bedroom

Yesterday afternoon we ripped up the floor of Hadley's room. The previous tenant, bless her heart, thought that carpets are a worthy substitute for cat litter. Beneath the carpet lay 4 layers of tile. Underneath it all is a very old hardwood floor, half chopped up into little quadrants of plywood.
Before this project we wondered how old this house is, as most people do when they move into a new place that was built between 1900 and 1970. Alicia did a mini-survey of the outside of the house, deducing that both the front and the back are add-ons, thus making the actual house very small. I think that what is now Hadley's room was actually the old bathroom but Alicia thinks it was the kitchen.
Between the 1st and 2nd layer of tile were a number of sheets of the Vancouver Sun, dated July 11, 1938. This places it right before the war, depending on which historian you ask. The articles vary between quaint and fascinating. We're going to try and scan the paper and then I'll put some some examples. I was very excited to read a story about mass evictions and riots by homeless people. The mayor of the time was much less wishy-washy than Sam Sullivan; he decried the riots as insufferable and immoral. We'll see what old Sam says when we tear this town down in 2010.

Dadzone and the Endymion

I don't imagine it's any easier for women than men, but I am finding identity definition as a father is taking way longer than expected. I mean, I haven't really changed at all but I feel like I relate to others differently and I sure spend my time in new ways. I hardly do much at all that I used to do. But what was that, anyway? I guess I used to drink a lot of beer and eat a lot of shawarmas and go to shows and stay up late watching movies. How is that different, then, besides the concert part?
I feel extra-sensitive that friends are judging me for being lame and staying home with my family instead of going to karaoke parties. They're not, but I get worried regardless. It's not easy to explain that I can watch my daughter laugh for hours on end and that I need very little other than a good book to occupy myself these days. Fatherhood has slowed me down, I'm a nester now. I still love Rob Schneider and Kyuss and polyester.

The Corner Grocery Store

Last night's dream:
Raffi was in town for some reason or other and I was assigned the job of being his chaperone and tour guide. So the first thing I did was take him to the Princess Rooms. On our way, we passed 668 Powell and he told me that he used to live there. When I looked surprised, he explained that he wasn't "crazy" and that he lived on the NHS side when it first opened.
I was rehearsing how I would introduce him to my colleagues and I said out loud, "so this is Raffi, and he's Turkish." Raffi got really upset and reminded me that he was Armenian. I felt pretty bad after that.
Then we showed up at a Triage party and I showed Raffi around. Alanna was there and she was really trashed. I thought she and everyone else would already know Raffi but he told me that he was only popular in Ontario, which I found disappointing. Alanna was really rude to him and kept making fun of his beard. I thought Raffi would get offended and want to leave but instead he proceeded to get really drunk with Alanna and do embarrassing things like run around with his shirt off and tied around his head.

Re-inventing the gnome

In honour of the recent death of Gary Gygax, TSR Games has put out the latest - and most thrilling - edition of AD&D.
It features two new alignments: Sane and Insane. Plus, there is a range of enticing new classes such as Douchebag, Dicktard and Fuckface. One is given the option of multiclassing in this edition, allowing for the possibilities of Douchetard, Fuckbag and Dickface.

Don't miss out on this one!

FOR LEASE

* one city, slightly used. Comes with mixed population, missing a few pieces in the east end. Instruction manual not included. This is a real bargain! Excellent reviews in international news, unlimited potential. Could also be a "handyman special" if you wanted to clean up the dirty parts.
Original owners sold it off to us 150 years ago and now we're considering relocation, further expansion. Email for more pix or come take a look, open house in 2010.

Life in East Van

The upstairs apartment has been converted into 2 single rooms, sharing a bathroom and kitchen.
The landlord thought that this would be the best way to make more money: renting to what he thought would be students from VCC. Unfortunately, very few people want to share a bathroom and kitchen with someone who isn't a roommate, unless they are quite poor and desperate. Thus, our new neighbours.
One is a 50-yr old woman who has confessed to having post-traumatic stress disorder. This causes her to pound on the floor and walls at all hours of the day, yelling "Oh no, Oh no, help me help me, not again, not again!" The first time I heard this, I figured she was being raped and/or attacked so I pounded on her door. She informed me that, in fact, she was simply reliving being raped and/or attacked and that this happens to her often. I was urged to simply ignore the outbursts.
The other woman is in her teens, probably a runaway, who has already decided to move out because she can't handle living across the hall from a screaming woman. The landlord has already interviewed a new tenant: a sketchy looking dude in his 40s who didn't look like he bathed much. I called the landlord afterwards and suggested that this man may rape and/or attack the woman and that it maybe best to rent to women only. He agreed.
What to do? Our rent is good and we are so close to everything. But the occasional gunshot in the park, the upstairs neighbours and the bizarre landlord has made us re-consider living here. Oh well.

According to algorithms, today is a leap day. This is the one day women are allowed, by social custom, to propose marriage to men. In other words, today women can 'pitch woo'.

At the clinic, we debated ways of celebrating the 29th of February. It seems that we are always looking for occasions to be festive for and with the clients. This usually translates into pizza or free socks and toques. I don't think they really care.

This is part and parcel of being a worker down here. You feel that it is your duty to make the lives of those you serve somehow more exciting, to offer them a reprieve from the daily grind of cracksmoking and getting punched in the face. But it never really works and the party just kind of fizzles out, leaving a bad taste in your mouth. It's partly because it's the staff doing the organising, partly because we have no money for a real shindig, but mostly because it's pretty depressing seeing homeless people try to have fun. In order to begin to have fun, they have to stop being homeless first.

Then again, the Poverty Olympics earlier this month were apparently a great success. So maybe it is possible. My dream is to hold a yearly parade, with floats and banners for downtown. We could march all the way to City Hall, and make them foot the bill.

My own way of celebrating this day is to go to two parties, one for dinner and one for dancing. I am also wearing a tie but that is less about celebration and more about drawing one's eye away from my otherwise shoddy clothing.

my failed failure

I never used to understand when people were able to read - and enjoy - nonfiction. Honestly, it completely eluded my ken. I couldn't grasp what was so interesting about facts when all I wanted to explore was ideas.
This was maybe what initially drew me to philosophy: the door into a world where people devoured ideas and considered the possibility that these ideas may actually be real. I wanted very much to jump into a room full of idea-swapping but it never ended up that way. Instead, I was forced to memorise the doldrum ideas of others and nitpick the reasons why his or her ideas were untenable. This nearly destroyed me. Now that I have some distance of years, and geography, I can safely say that I hate philosophy. Completely loathe it. I hated it back then but wanted so badly to be an 'academic' like other students in the program. I am not proud to say that I have never, ever read an entire philosophy text. In fact, I managed to cruise through some courses without even opening the assigned ones. I remember a professor pulling me aside during a final exam and informing me that I had only attended her course 4 times during the whole semester.
That should have been a sign for me. It was, I guess. I dropped out of Ottawa University 3 times over 5 years but still went back to finally get a degree that I cannot find in my closet. I even tried my Master's of all things. What a joke! I am so relieved my marks were never good enough to be accepted.
It's incredible, but when I started taking Social Work I was immediately drawn into its world. I read everything cover-to-cover, bought several books on various topics and read them in my spare time. But I am not an academic. I got a degree from a school I have never been to, I wrote half a dozen letters of complaint to the Dean, and mocked my fellow students daily.
Now I fall asleep reading about fucked-up street people and I love it. I could do this forever.

Lion Hotel

When I first moved to Vancouver and got a job in a mental health residence, I held this dream of moving into one of the hotels down here. I saw it as an opportunity to (a) save some money, (b) live a simple, introspective life and (c) get the hell away from that bitch of a girlfriend. Really, it was (c) that kept the idea in my mind for so many months.
Even now I find the hotels romantic, despite the bugs, drugs and thugs. There is an appeal to downsizing to one tiny room. Of course, I've kind of gone in the opposite direction life-wise, but I have no regrets.
Now that the landlord has turned the upstairs into a mini SRO, maybe I can add its photos to this collection.

Dadzone

Before I became a parent, I was sure that I would do things differently - with a sense of style. It was easy to judge other dads and believe them less involved or less creative than they could have been. Than I thought I would be.
I figured I would tell my daughter all sorts of stories, sing songs to her, watch her every move like a professor.
Now I find that 90% of what I say to her is either "hi", "hey", or a combination of the two (e.g. "hiyey", "hiya", "heyho"). Every once in a while I will get fancy and say "onka-bonka" or something.
Well, that's not entirely true. I have been teaching myself Tears for Fears songs in front of her, to her disdain.
I also wonder if sometimes she can tell that I have bad breath.

Biltmore Nites

Maybe it's time to pack in the party in me. I don't like waking up this way or feeling shame at the night before.
Or, maybe when the kid is 15, I'll have a resurgence and get invited out by younger co-workers.
Hard to believe some of the shit I used to do.

stakeout

It turns out our neighbour robbed a bank.

Tonight, my landlord came over and invited me to go upstairs. The place was trashed, presumably by the police who searched it 3 days ago. It's a nice size. Good view of the mountains. Poorly furnished. Lots of DVDs.
There was a search warrant beside the sink. It inferred that he was suspected of robbing a bank.

We're not having very good luck at finding a safe place to live.

Patrick Anthony

I have a dream of documenting all or many of the hotels in downtown Vancouver. They are in danger of getting torn down or renovated and I believe their charm is unmatched elsewhere in Canada.

Every work day I must enter about a half-dozen of them to track people down. I find the signs that people put up pretty awesome. My student has the opposite view and considers them abrasive and annoying. Here is an example from the Patrick Anthony building, at Hastings and Princess.

St. Paul's Hospital

A woman I know died tonight. I just met her in the fall and we never got much of an opportunity to get to know each other.
She was very sick. I'm told her death was not unexpected. I did not expect it, at least not tonight.
I will think of you for years to come. You made me shy because you could see things others couldn't. I believe that many people loved you dearly.

Our upstairs neighbour is a drug dealer. I'll admit, I wouldn't have noticed but Alicia is keenly aware of his comings and goings because she's home all day. He runs up and down the stairs at least once an hour. He's never gone for more than 10 minutes. Ever. And he makes very little sense when he speaks, as if he's just waking up.




This afternoon we walked the baby down the Drive. We passed many other young parents, many with dreadlocks and/or cigarettes. Smoking is not a dying art. Last summer I gave it up, along with cellphones and a 30 inch waist.
We ate with other parents. The food was delicious and smelled of foreign lands.