10-2-15

As I was taking this photograph this morning a woman walked up to me and said, "I hope you don't think that's cool." It progressed to a heated discussion about there being an elementary school up the street and how the word "fuck " wasn't appropriate for the context. The whole thing is within a few blocks of Main and Hastings where drug dealing runs rampant, people shoot heroin in plain sight on the street, prostitutes exist in droves, and yet the word "fuck" was somehow the most offensive element of the context for this person who approached me. Well, second most offensive, she seemed more concerned about my taking a picture of the billboard, enough so to change her trajectory and interrupt mine.

I like the Olympics. Sort of. I think the whole thing needs a reality check. Too much money goes into a world wide "Play Day" for my liking but at the same time the spirit of human accomplishment is enlightening and motivational. When lives are risked and lost the merits of the events come into question but still, it's the best hockey the world gets to see (with less fights too) and it's pretty impressive to see someone navigate sheets of ice at 140kph.

My disdain for my critic was quickly attributed to the Vancouver context. I've never been so challenged in my day to day existence as I have been here. It makes me want to get a t-shirt that says in bold capitals "MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS." First there was the person that slowed her car to remind me that I should be wearing a helmet on my bike. Then there was the person who felt it very important to let me know that my daughter was walking too close to the road where there were dangerous cars waiting to run her down. And then there was the person who pulled up to me as I was riding my bike to tell me I should have a light on my kid bike trailer (I had two lights on my bike, reflective piping on my jacket and the bag on my back had reflective fabric on it too, and the trailer is covered in reflective paint, and there was a light on the trailer that happened to be low on batteries, said light being replaced within a couple of days with a working, functional model) Fair enough, I didn't have a glowing light on the trailer but I did stand 20 feet behind the trailer to see if my bike's lights were visible before setting out on my trip (they were) but still I was left defending my position in this society.

I questioned someone who was born in this city, I asked, "do you get challenged for 'being' in this city? Do you get people intervening and criticizing who you are and what you do? Randomly like?" Or something like that, those probably weren't the exact words despite my use of quotation marks. She swore I was being selective, that she had similar interventions in Calgary and Toronto, and that my disdain for Vancouver was clouding my judgement. Maybe she's right. But I genuinely don't ever remember anyone coming up to me in Calgary or Toronto and questioning any basic tenet of my being in those cities (and I hate Calgary much more than Vancouver so bias should be prevalent there as well) but I would never doubt her experiences in those cities.

I don't particularly like today's photograph. It's mostly my interaction with a Vancouver resident that has lent it some importance in my life. There may only be five or six people who look at these photos on this blog on any given day but still, it was important to me to put this photo up today. Not because I thought it was cool, but because I thought the reaction of some random Vancouverite was so lame.

Addendum: In the back of my mind I wondered how efficiently the Olympic machine would clean the statement off the billboard. Well, below is the same billboard the very next day. It would seem they are very protective of their image.