Four Man Heat 2

Tonight I saw a large group of rowdy young men—some white, some yellow, some brown—marching down Granville Street, and chanting:

“U-S-A! The U.S. is fuckin’ gay!”

Ah, doesn’t it warm your heart to see Canadians of all ethnicities brought together by their shared homophobic anti-Americanism?

* * *

Did I just see event results for “Four Man Heat 2” scroll by on the CTV Olympics ticker?

Wow, I had no idea there are gay porn events at the Winter Olympics. And how did I miss “Four Man Heat 1”?

* * *

Good to see some queer representation at these Olympics. Don’t you think it’s strange that gay and lesbian Olympians so rarely come out of the closet, even though the biathletes are treated with nothing but respect?

Bada-boom!

*** I DID IT! ***

Cue balloon drop!

"The Colbert Report" concluded its four-episode "Vancouverage 2010" series today, and I am pleased to announce that I succeeded in my mission to get (a) myself and (b) my Canadian flag on "The Colbert Report"! Woohoo!





Hey... where's that balloon drop?

O Canada....

Today I had a friend over to watch Canada prevail over Russia in men’s hockey. Neither of us is a hockey fan, but we’re following Olympic hockey because we’re following the Olympics in general. And because we don’t see any sense in Scrooge-tastically walling ourselves off from the national hockey drama, which is, after all, much bigger than the game itself.

And it is precisely that drama that brings us to today’s topic: the use and misuse of O Canada in public spaces during the Vancouver Olympics.

Like me, my friend is uncomfortable with the aggressive tone of certain O Canadas we’ve heard in the Downtown Vancouver Olympic Debauchery Zone (DVODZ). At one point he was disturbed to see a group of rowdy red-and-whites bully a European couple into singing O Canada with them. And not in a nice way.

Note to my fellow Canadians: it’s inappropriate and just plain rude to browbeat foreigners into singing O Canada. I’ve certainly never been obliged to sing another country’s anthem. We sing ours, they sing theirs, and we respect each other. Full stop.

I haven’t personally seen foreigners being bullied into singing O Canada, but I have seen young men maliciously belt out O Canada to taunt groups of foreigners, usually Americans, they encounter in the street. And there have certainly been cases where I felt I was being coerced into singing along with the umpteenth O Canada of the day.

Here’s the deal, guys. When I like the vibe of a particular O Canada, I sing along. When I don’t, I don’t. It’s not a question of patriotism, it’s a question of personal style.

Every time I get a dirty or questioning look for not singing along, I am unpleasantly reminded of the Parliamentary flag flap of 1998, when the Reform Party put forward a motion to allow members of Parliament to place small Canadian flags on their desks in the House of Commons. This motion was overwhelmingly defeated, and for good reason—the flag is already displayed in the House, and in a divisive political climate such token displays of “patriotism” soon become compulsory, leading to a slippery slope of patriotic one-upmanship.

As I recall, this motion was a childish Reform response to a Bloc Quebecois MP’s childish criticism of what she deemed “excessive” display of the Canadian flag at the Nagano Olympics—a criticism that was childishly shouted down in the House by... you guessed it, a spontaneous singing of O Canada. Business ground to a halt for the duration of this out-of-order anthem, and because TV cameras were watching, many MPs felt obliged to sing along for fear of appearing unpatriotic.

That’s when I learned that even the nicest flag and anthem fit oh so comfortably in the palm of a bully.

So behave yourselves out there, boys. “True patriot love” is lovely. Bullying isn’t.

Whistler weekend roundup

Ah, what a lovely, fairly intoxicated two nights I just spent in Whistler BC, home of the Vancouver 2010 downhill and sliding events.

On Saturday I attended the two-man bobsleigh event, checked out a late-night ski and snowboard stunt show, and was memorably hit on by an Austrian luge trainer (I guess two-man luge is really as gay as everyone says).

On Sunday I attended the men’s super-combined downhill/slalom event, watched the Canada-U.S. men’s hockey game with my brother (who scored us primo patio seats facing the big screen in the village square), and checked out the late-night stunt show again.

And on Monday I saw some free outdoor concerts, including a one-hour set by New Wave pioneers Devo, who headlined the night’s victory ceremony. I’ve been a Devo fan for 20 years, so I thrilled to such classics as “Whip It”, “Gates of Steel”, “Beautiful World”, and “Mongoloid”. But sadly, I did not score one of the several hundred energy dome hats the crew tossed into the crowd.

None of this would have happened (not to me, anyway) if not for the short-notice arrival of J, an American guy I met in Manila, who flew in from New York for the weekend. Having an out-of-towner under my wing motivated me to get my ass up to Whistler to sample its Olympic offerings—and I’m glad I did, because Whistler is truly the place to be for these Olympics.

Whistler is smaller, prettier, better-behaved, and it’s actually winter there. It isn’t plagued by the hordes of dodgy drunks that are becoming a problem in Vancouver. Its nightly victory ceremony and concert is free—as opposed to $26 in Vancouver—and they let everyone in.

And best of all, accommodations are free. If you sleep at my brother’s place.

Vancouver prohibition update

Apparently the booze-fuelled crowds in YaleGranRobsonvilletown got a bit edgy over the weekend, so the police closed liquor stores early to keep Olympic revellers under control.

Elsewhere in the news, patrons of the B.C. Marijuana Party Vapour Lounge celebrated without incident for the 1863rd consecutive night.

Don’t forget the CODE

IMHO, CODE (The Cultural Olympiad Digital Edition) is the most interesting and worthwhile morsel in the 2010 Olympic cornucopia.

Captained by my pal Riel Hahn, the large CODE 1 Live space at the Centre for Digital Media features electronic art installations during the day and live electronica performances at night. Last Thursday and Friday I saw two impressive evening shows at CODE Live 1—The Hard Rubber Orchestra and Kid Koala—but I didn’t get out to see the daytime art show until today.

Kick-ass stuff, folks. Highlights include a garden of hanging plants that “sing” when you touch them, an innovative synthesizer that enables you manipulate beats and sound waves by moving plastic cubes about on an interactive computer-screen tabletop, and a suicide bombing simulation room where you put on an exploding vest and blow up one of a wide selection of world-famous buildings. And a pair of paparazzi robots that follow you around and take your picture. And a roomful of eerie, pulsating light bulbs. And Mondo Spider, a 1600lb, 8-legged, rideable robot commissioned by Burning Man.

So don’t miss it! (Unless, of course, you don’t like Really Good Things.) There are additional CODE Live exhibits at the Emily Carr Institute on Granville Island and at the Central Library downtown—see ’em all!

It’s day 7 of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, and I can’t deny that I’m embracing these Games more than I originally intended to. I knew something was up when I spontaneously attended the victory ceremony—headlined by The Barenaked Ladies—at B.C. Place last night.

As the book of Ecclesiastes says, there is a time to carp, and a time to carpe diem. For all its flaws, these Olympics truly are a great party, full of great art and great entertainment and great weather and great, constantly celebrating crowds. And it’s hard to believe that I’m about to say this, but.... I’m even starting to take an interest in the athletic events.

So illogical. Is this the feeling you humans call... Olympic fever?

Colbert comes to Vancouver

Any quadrennial sporting event that brings the Simpsons and Stephen Colbert to town can’t be all bad.

The Simpsons visited these Vancouver Olympics in last Sunday’s episode, “Boy Meets Curl”. I haven’t watched that show for years—the last time I tuned in, the Simpsons still had a 4:3 aspect ratio TV in their living room—and I found the episode only mildly amusing. Still, thanks for dropping by.

Meanwhile, Stephen Colbert is in town shooting Olympic shtick for his show The Colbert Report. I joined his live outdoor audience in Creekside Park this morning, where I learned that I just can’t stand motionless in one spot on frigid mud for several hours like I used to. So although I thoroughly enjoyed my Colbert experience, I don’t think these old bones will make it to his second and final taping tomorrow morning.

Colbert’s Olympic “Vancouverage” airs next week, and will answer today’s burning question: Did I, Glen Callender, succeed in my mission to get (a) myself and (b) my Canadian flag on The Colbert Report?

My predictions are (a) probably yes and (b) probably not. Stay tuned!

Why I have a lot of respect for John Douglas.

So I’m researching foreskins on the Internet—as I frequently do in my spare time, for reasons that may become clearer if you visit my I ♥ MY FORESKIN web site—and I run across this photo demonstrating a classic foreskin trick, piss ballooning.
I’m impressed with this photo for three reasons. First, I’m impressed that the photographer was able to simultaneously pinch his rampantly piss-ballooned foreskin completely shut with one hand and take a photo with the other. Believe me, I’ve attempted this myself on numerous occasions, and suffice to say the results were unworthy of you, my esteemed audience.

Second, I’m impressed with the tasteful tile shower floor background. Well done.

And third, and most importantly, I’m impressed that John Douglas is so prominently credited under the caption. Most people would not want their name so closely associated with the concept of trapping urine inside one’s pinched-shut foreskin until it inevitably bursts forth in an explosive gush of hot yellow, but John Douglas is not afraid to forever link himself—and every other John Douglas—with this enjoyable boyhood pastime of the uncircumcised.

Piss Ballooning. Picture by John Douglas.

Verily, to my jaded thirty-something ears that is almost poetry. And I instinctively know this John Douglas is the sort of man I would call... friend.

Thank you for your courage, John Douglas. Soon I will follow in your footsteps.

The Multiple Foregasm. Video by Glen Callender.

Coming soon.

The above photo appears on this page at Acroposthion.com, an epic foreskin education web site. For more John Douglas-related information, click here.

La Place de la Francophonie est la place to be.

I’m not planning to see any athletic events at these Vancouver Olympics—there’s no way I’ll spend that kind of money on sport when I could be spending it on arts and culture, not to mention food and rent. Besides, you don’t need to spend a cent to have a good time in the city right now, as there are many free national pavilions and entertainment zones dotted around the city.

However, most of these places have at least two major drawbacks: the lineups, and the lineups.

I wandered past LiveCity Yaletown on Friday evening before the opening ceremony, only to find a lineup outside that stretched for about eight blocks. And even though the place was full and the line wasn’t moving, people were still joining the line. Wow. We really ARE sheep.

Due to these offensively long lineups I haven’t even tried to get into a LiveCity site. But word comes back from those who have. First you must line up for waaaay too long. Then you must go through airport-level security screening, and when you finally get inside, you are obliged to line up all over again, multiple times in fact, for the privilege of being viciously advertised to in the brainwashing tents of several major Olympic sponsors.

In sum, the LiveCity sites are a corporate clusterfuck in a cultural abattoir and I’ll have nothing to do with them.

Meanwhile, on nearby Granville Island, the Place de la Francophonie features big stages, big crowds and big entertainment with no lineup, no security, and no merde. (Well, aside from the $7 bieres. C’est la lie, eh?) Who cares if you can’t understand French. Je ne comprends pas 90 per cent of it and je still has a great time.

The three stages feature top French talent, most of whom have never played Vancouver before and will never play Vancouver again. Yesterday I enjoyed the prime electro-funk of Misteur Valaire, plus the florid stylings of esoteric popster Pierre Lapointe—who I am listening to as I type this post—and what’s more, I was there when Quebecois downhiller Alexandre Bilodeau won the much-hyped first Canadian gold medal on Canadian soil. You couldn’t have found a more joyeuse crowd anywhere in this town when les français learned that one of their own had broken The Curse—talk about the gravy on my Olympic poutine!

So screw you, English devils. You can have your LiveCity lineups and LiveCity security. You can eat your McDonald’s and drink your Cokes on the flatbed of a Chevrolet while using an Acer computer hooked up to a Panasonic screen to surf the CTV web site via a Bell Internet connection. I’m sticking with mes homies français at La Place de la Francophonie.

Olympic hockey one-liner #1

Yesterday the Canadian women’s hockey team defeated the Slovaks 18-0. Wow, I haven’t seen a Slovak woman get scored on so many times in 60 minutes since the last time I dated a Slovak woman!

Badaboom!

Confidential to the last Slovak woman I dated: Je mi lito, dobra Slovenska milenka.

9 out of 10 masked anarchists agree: riot cops are too anonymous.

So the rioting started in earnest today. I wonder how bad it’s going to get. The protestors have had years to prepare for this, so it’s entirely likely that we have 17 days of interesting shenanigans to look forward to.

Today they vandalized the Hudson’s Bay Company. I won’t be surprised if other major corporate sponsors, such as McDonald’s, are systematically targeted in the coming days.

Well, it’s safe to say that the Vancouver Olympics are off to a somewhat inauspicious start. Yesterday’s impressive opening ceremony—Hallelujah for k.d. lang!—was dampened by the shocking death of a Georgian luger on a hugely controversial sliding track, a large anti-Olympic protest outside B.C. Place, a major technical glitch that almost kiboshed the climactic cauldron, and pissing rain that almost but not quite penetrated Wayne Gretzky’s granite coiffure. And now the start of what could be two weeks of anarchist riots.

Have fun, everybody!

If I’d live-tweeted the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremonies

I signed up for a Twitter account ages ago and have yet to send my first tweet. I don’t know why. But I am intrigued by the phenomenon of “live-tweeting”—tweeting frequently throughout a major event—and so I thought it might be fun to sift through the many pages of stream-of-consciousness drivel I scribbled during the kick-off of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics (which I watched on TV in a pub a block from my house), and create a theoretical construct titled “If I’d live-tweeted the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremonies.” Enjoy.

* * *

“Barkeep, give me a pint of your worst beer.”

“No, that’s your cheapest beer. Your worst beer should be ridiculously expensive and taste horrible.”

That’s quite a stern copyright notice to start the show. Do they really think it’ll deter anyone?

Let the propaganda begin!

As expected, lots of fawning attention is being paid to Canada’s soldiers in Afghanistan. Is it a coincidence that the Olympics coincides with one of our biggest-ever military offensives over there? Go Canada!

I miss the old peacekeeping focus. We used to peace-keep, now we war-make.

Funny that Canada boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics because of Russia’s occupation of Afghanistan. Now we occupy Afghanistan, and even boast about it in our Olympic pre-show.

Love those beauty shots of Vancouver. I can feel my rent going up just watching them.

Didn’t get a good look at the snowboarder who jumped through the Olympic rings. Was he Ross Rebagliati? I am pleasantly reminded of the time I slept with him. [Turned out he wasn’t Ross.]

And there’s Governor General Michaëlle Jean, representing the Queen. Or perhaps the Borg Queen, considering Jean’s metallic garb.

Right now millions of Canadians are wondering, “Why the hell are we hearing God Save the Queen before our national anthem?” If we’re so proud of ourselves, isn’t it time to make the Queen an ex we maintain perfectly pleasant relations with?

The RCMP are carrying the Canadian flag into the stadium. Resist temptation to go to a cheap taser joke.

Canadian Forces Honour Guard raises the flag. Resist temptation to go to a cheap serial killer joke.

Nikki Yanovsky just threw down one of the schmaltziest renditions of O Canada I’ve heard.

“I feel like I’m in church.”

“Then why don’t you sit at another table?”

Head of State status for the First Nations leaders? Oh, come on. This has got to be one of the grandest token gestures of all time.

So many First Nations performers! Can’t shake the feeling I’m watching brightly-coloured puppets dancing on strings. I hope at least one First Nations leader will go off-script and denounce the Olympics.

If I were First Nations, I’d see the Hudson’s Bay Company on the list of Olympic sponsors and think, “Something tells me this Olympics thing can’t be all good.”

And now, the gladiators! Drawn like moths to an Olympic flame. Get a good look at them now; they won’t all be here at the end.

This is nothing less than a feting of the finest DNA in the world. Vancouver sluts, start your genitals!

Sluts please note: it is possible to sleep with an entire Olympic team, especially the teams with only one athlete.

Ghana’s one athlete is smug, casually chewing gum, looks like the cat that ate the canary. I get the feeling he’s just here to get laid. And he will. Good on him.

Wow, only three athletes from India, a country with over a billion people. And ready access to the Himalayas. Maybe they’re pulling an unCanada and putting what resources they have into solving their social problems?

And here’s the Israeli Winter Olympic team! Shlalom!

Frontiers of advertising! Can we get our logo on the Olympic torch? On the flags of the participating nations? Tattooed on the athletes’ faces? Yes, temporary ink is fine. For now.

TRIBALISM.

Clearly, some Olympians are real characters. Lots of attitude queens out there.

How lovely it must be to be watching the ceremony from, say, Slovakia House, and watch the Slovak team’s entrance get pre-empted by an ad break. What respect!

I must watch at least one Super Bowl in its entirely before I can claim to understand Americans.

Humans are hardly an honourable bunch. But we try. Some of us.

Team Canada. Every stitch they’re wearing available at The Bay!

“They’re cheering in Whistler, they’re cheering in Kanadahar....” I mean, Kandahar.

Bryan Adams and Nellie Furtado: PAINFULLY banal pop song. What would the Canadian mosaic be without such mediocrity?

Picked up by the remote mind scanner: “Wow, those Canadians must *really* need our sperm if they’re willing to degrade themselves like that.”

I wish I could sing in heels.

Ah, the comforting paternal voice of Donald Sutherland, Canada’s white Morgan Freeman.

LED Coca-Cola spirit bear! Coca Cola is SO lucky that its corporate colours match the colours of Canada’s flag.

Cracking ice separates the First Nations peoples! How archetypical! Tower of Babel, biotches!

Do you ever leave yourself phone messages?

Whales, seals, salmon, Cathedral Grove! Vancouver Island in da house!

That’s supposed to be Cathedral Grove? Where are the Winnebagos?

The phrase “Ontarians are just the white people between Quebec and the prairies” is wrong in so many ways.

Ashley MacIsaac, representin’ for the queers!

Ashley MacIsaac is madly air-fiddling. I am pleasantly reminded of the time I interviewed him 14 years ago. Surprised they used him, seeing that he has run amok during past performances.

Witness the colonization of humanity’s greatest aspirations by the most black-hearted manipulators imaginable.

Are those aerial dancers Cirque du Soleil performers? If so, they aren’t showing enough skin.

Come on, Glen. You really shouldn’t worry about snot so far up.

I am swept away in an adolescent snowboarder’s zero-G rock-n-roll fantasy.

Slam poet Shane Koyczan! Holy shit! I guess the Molson “I am Canadian” rant guy was booked.

Flipped to the CBC. Commercial for The Lang and O’Leary Exchange. Flipped back. God bless the channels no one is watching.

Billions watching around the world? Whatever.

I am keenly aware of my body’s deterioration.

You can get away with broadcasting almost anything so long as you preface it with “We debated whether we should broadcast this....”

As expected, here’s Michael Bublé.... wait, it’s the dyke-tastic k.d. lang, representin’ for the queers!

I’d never join an elite that would have me as an elite member.

The Olympic Hymn. What ugliness. Only the most venal aristocrat would enjoy it, and that’s only for reasons of sadism.

Athlete’s oath girl, don’t you get caught doping! The cheaters must love those speeches about how pure-hearted and virtuous they are. Sadly, 30 athletes were not available to take the athletes’ oath due to being caught doping. Already.

The judge who took the judges’ oath should have been a figure skating judge, not short-track. They need the cred.

And then a sad song after the oaths, as if anticipating the doping and judging scandals to come.

Rick Hansen is obviously high on E, but I feel totally okay about that. Because I am too.

1948 Olympic champion Barbara Ann Scott: G-MILF of the year! Rawr.

Major technical glitch! Arrgh!

Hey, it's Superman’s Fortress of Solitude!

What an interminable Chevrolet commercial the Great One’s trek through downtown Vancouver is. This being “The Greenest Olympics,” you’d expect Gretzky’s conveyance to be a cutting-edge zero-emission vehicle. But no. Another potentially lovely moment tainted by the stench of corporate evil.

Colour commentator Brian “not the American Brian Williams” Williams just made a colourful comment about the Olympic torch relay being used to promote Nazi Germany’s “twisted and bigoted, racist beliefs.” Hey, that’s why we pay him the big bucks.

And so ends the longest domestic torture relay in Olympic history....

Ooo, there’s that stern copyright notice again. Only a fool messes with The Consortium.

Oh, now they’re playing a nostalgic clip montage... of the show we just finished watching a minute ago. Keep in mind that there are people with Alzheimer’s in the audience. But they're probably asleep by now.

I have a strange compulsion to change the note above my mail slot from “NO JUNK MAIL PLEASE” to “EXTRA JUNK MAIL PLEASE”.

Do I believe? Considering all the funding and research and development and extra practice time on the Olympic courses, at least one Canadian gold on Canadian soil isn’t much of a maple leap....