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TEA & TWO SLICES: On Vacant Robson Street And Airing Dirty Laundry On May Day

by Sean Orr | M’aidez: Occupy Vancouver alive and well, say protesters. If by alive and well they mean the singling out and possible slander of one individual in front of the whole crowd while a dozen or so are trying to shout them down, then yeah, it is very alive, only in a dead, alienating, and sad sort of way.

Perhaps they were just cold from the divisive and chilly demo at the art gallery: Vancouver’s May Day rally came to a heated conclusion as protesters set a large fire in the middle of Commercial Drive. Because when I think of capitalism run amok, I think of Commercial Drive. Dummies.

News For Youse is equally unimpressed:

All we have to say is, c’mon, that’s the best you could do? In Vancouver, a city known for being unreasonably riotous at the drop of a puck, you couldn’t muster up a knocked-over newspaper box or even one broken window?

You do it to yourself: More than 20 vacancy signs as Vancouver’s Robson Street undergoes ‘transition’. Maybe we can invite the Germans back. A new chapter in Vanishing Vancouver!

Pocket change: Retailers cry ‘enough’ as B.C.’s minimum hourly wage hits $10.25. Because giving people more money to buy stuff won’t help the retail sector whatsoever.

Gossip as news: Rumours of disturbing contest among North Van grad students. You want to see disturbing? You should try looking at my Tumblr dashboard. Yikes.

Some weird old person ranting about city spending or something: Baby Vancouver and King Solomon’s Dilemma. This is the journalistic equivalent of sitting next to your drunk uncle, the one with the bad gas and little white foamy bits in the corners of his mouth. He’s unbuckled his pants and now he’s talking about how you can’t find anywhere to “park your damn car nowadays”.

Of personal interest: Clampdown on boozing in British parliament. Captain Orr would have a fit! I’m not sure, but I think his portfolio was the Ministry of Wine.

There are 7 comments

  1. Uncle with unbuckled pants with foamy bits in the corner of his mouth…made my day.

  2. The Baby Vancouver piece is satire. Note the obviously phoney pseudonym of the author, Glissando Remmy, which means one who rims (Remmy) slowly (glissando).

  3. ‘This is the journalistic equivalent of sitting next to your drunk uncle, the one with the bad gas and little white foamy bits in the corners of his mouth. He’s unbuckled his pants and now he’s talking about how you can’t find anywhere to “park your damn car nowadays”.’ Ha, this is how i would describe the tea and two slices feature! Scout mag, can you not find someone else to volunteer to report on news highlights? How about a scout mag contest to find a new author?

  4. We prefer to have our local news highlights curated by a dishwasher with good gas and no foam, thank you very much.

  5. FYI, Sean Orr,
    When you’ll be able to craft two sentences together, on your own, only then, you could start being critical of someone else’s writing!
    Copy/Pasting links and adding zero content is easy.

  6. Well that’s the format. I actually was working on a piece for Ion Magazine Mr. Smartypants. So. Stay tuned for that. Or not. I don’t really care.

  7. Sometime Sean gets my goat, and sometimes he tickles my fancy, but I consistently come back to see what’s what whether I agree or not. The format has been the same since the Beyond Robson days, what are you guys? New?

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