100 Dead Horses

As if a couple dozen Oklahomans getting croaked on account of a particularly Hellish tornado was not bad enough I feel I should pass on some more bad news from down there you may not have heard about. Somewhere around 100 horses died as a result of the weather as the tornado passed over a horse training centre. Would not have heard about that myself without Railbird Corner, the fine thoroughbred blog which you will find on my sidebar.

Hair Cut and An Attitude

Got my hair cut this morning. Barber said, "You look like shit. What the fuck happened to you?"

He was looking at me like he was sure I was getting my hair cut to save a funeral director the trouble of trimming it after I died within the next 48 hours. I reminded him of my involvement in the provincial election.

He shook his head disapprovingly. "You better stay out of that shit. I have plans for the couple grand you are going to spend in this chair if you don't drop dead before you fucking retire."

Good thing provincial campaigns are not that long. Talking to people, then drinking to forget the motherfuckers, for over a month straight, no time off for good behaviour, is not good for your health. No wonder politicians cannot think fucking straight.

I was even trying to keep up with the horses as I was electioneering. That was not such a good idea. Takes time to pick winners - something you do not have enough of when you are up to your ears in the steaming shit pit of the democratic process. I did not pick many.

Now it is over though. I am slowly feeling better as life's speed returns to 33 rpm from 78 and horse after grinning horse makes its way to be photographed in the winner's circle.

Leaveittobeaverville

I have been living here in Steepleton for a long time. Until recently, however, I did not have as firm a grip on what makes my city tick as I once had on my hometown of Sliverville. Maybe you can never know a place as well as you can know the place you grew up in. Maybe you can.

Foot canvassing my city for a couple months taught me more about my city than living here for two decades. My city likes to think of itself as a city in the country. Leaveittobeaverville, if you will.

This might be Leaveittobeaverville except for one small matter. That small matter is Steepleton's inner city. Our inner city, which is comprised of many small, disconnected neighbourhoods, is in desperate shape. There are a lot of people in my city just barely hanging on.

I have had the good fortune to get to know them a little. They are my kind of people. Unlike the people looking down suspiciously on them from their mansions on the hill.

Thumbs Up

After work today I pitched in and helped locate and disassemble the last of one of my many candidate's election signs. No one likes seeing that shit for more than a day after an election has taken place. As I carried one such sign to a fellow election volunteer's pick-up a truck driver, recognizing his party's colours, honked and gave me a thumbs up. That wee bit of thanks might be what has me working another motherfucking provincial election four years hence. That and the promise of more free whisky.

Why the NDP Lost British Columbia's 2013 Election

Why did the NDP lose an election they were favoured to win? Comes down to one factor for me.

The HST referendum provided an opportunity for voters to blow off the rebellious steam necessary to power change.

There were other, smaller, factors at play. Those ancillary factors are powering much of today's post-election chit-chat.

Fuck the ancillary factors. The anti-HST campaign is the motherfucking elephant in the room.

Christy Clark Campaign Stop In Steepleton

Yesterday I had to attend Christy Clark's visit to Steepleton. When asked to attend I asked the campaign's volunteer leader, "Don't the toilets need cleaning out?"

"Don't be funny Beer," I was admonished by my humourless overseer. "She may not be Old Maggie but she's the only leader we've got. If you own anything to wear besides freebie beer t-shirts could you put one on for the event? The press will be here. We don't want to look like we spent all fucking day in Gator's on the six o'clock news."

When I was getting ready for the appearance of Our Great Leader, in the bottom of one of my two t-shirts drawers I found an old Charlie Daniels wife beater. This has to be more suitable for such an occasion, I thought to myself.

When I got to the once empty new car showroom, a pretty good a metaphor for the Liberal's election platform, I found the stage already set up, flanked by a PA system big enough for two KISS concerts. If the Liberals spent half as much of their gunnysacks of money on bullshit like big PA systems for people who do want to hear a fucking word of what their leader says and spent it developing ideas and policies people might actually believe maybe they would not have had her visiting a once solid Liberal seat such as Steepleton South with four days left in the campaign.

When Christy took the stage I felt the sudden urge to take a long Liberal beer shit and have a few shots of absinthe from a flask I have needed often during past couple months. When I returned to the hot parking lot Christy still had not shut the fuck up. There were about a hundred people there, probably less. I wondered if I was the only person there who was not a paid extra in a made for television horror movie.

Canucks To Consider Name Change?

For longer than I remember I have favoured a name change for the Vancouver Canucks. Anything would be better than Canucks. The Villains or the Vibrators would work for me but there is another name that might be even better: the Shit. Shit brown uniforms optional.