Sal Jackson
KD Lang is Fat Elvis, Gretzky Gets Soaked in the back of a Chevy, Then Things You Didn't Already See at The Opening Ceremonies
February 14, 2010
Olympic Rings: Image Courtesy of Wiki Commons
KD Lang was singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" when my good friend Jacob Banco and I found what were probably the last two seats in any bar in downtown Vancouver. It was Friday night during the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and we'd already missed more than half the show, but we picked up the gist from the highlights that CTV kept playing on repeat. I can't share an embedded video of said highlights because of the International Olympic Committee's strict enforcement of copyright laws, but here's a video I found on YouTube that is a reasonable facsimile of the performance in Vancouver; just add a lot of fake snow and picture the spectators wearing white garbage bags (probably to hide a non-Olympic sponsored logo):
Also, KD Lang looked like fat Elvis:
Back at the bar, I'd just finished convincing Banco that the waitress was totally into him when she skipped two other groups and took his order for our second round. And that was exactly when the most embarrassing part of the opening ceremonies happened. And I'm not talking about the mechanical failure of the torch. I'm talking about Gretzky's insanely long ride in the back of a pickup truck in the pouring rain. The minutes kept ticking by and Jacob and I looked at each other in disbelief as Gretzky's fake smile melted to a grimace, then Jacob shouted to the entire bar, "Only in Canada you'd deliver your country's greatest hero on a ride in the back of a pickup truck while the whole world is watching!" and I thought that summed things up nicely.
Once Gretzky lit the torch, Jacob ducked into the men's room and a man with short curly hair sat down beside me and said, "My name's Josh." Then asked me where I worked, what I did, and how long I'd been in Vancouver. I noticed he had a clear plastic earpiece in each ear and for that reason, I kept my cards pretty close, and gave only short one-word answers.
Before Jacob came back to our spot at the bar I stopped him and pointed out "Josh" (who had now moved to another table and was sitting by himself) as a potential IOC spy, but Jacob said he looked harmless.
"Are you kidding? Check out the ear pieces! He came right up to me just as you left and started acting all friendly and asking me questions. Right after we were talking shit about the Olympics!"
"I dunno, " said Jacob.
I was now becoming paranoid of my own paranoia and the possibility that I'd just acted like an asshole to a perfectly nice guy. So then I asked myself:
What would George Orwell do?
And I came up with this answer: George Orwell would look right into the eyes of this potential VANOC/IOC spy and betray himself to big brother rather than be perceived as an asshole by a fellow decent and respectable human being.
"Alright, we can't let him drink alone. But let me know if you note anything fishy."
When Josh came over the first question Jacob asked him was, "So what do you do?"
"I'm a Carpenter," and we all shook hands. Josh's hands were grimy and felt like sandpaper and I knew I'd had this guy all wrong. The earpieces were hearing aids from years in the construction business. Josh was now our drinking buddy for the
night.
From that point on everything became a nice happy blurr: We drank at some downtown art space that sold cans of Pilsner for four bucks; then I waited twenty minutes for my bus home only to have it blow right past me and ended up walking home in the rain, while white IOC buses (used to transport atheletes, volunteers, but are unavailable to the common Vancouverite or tourist) drove past in five minute intervals, all completely empty.
Jacob Banco
A Lost Sock
January 18, 2010
I lost a sock. Together they were my favourite pair.
Phoebe took our dirty clothes to the laundry-mat and thought the missing sock was at home, but it isn’t here anymore. She went back to the mat and rifled through their lost sock box. No luck. I took the route Phoebe walked, but nothing. Nothing! I told her she owed me a sock. She reminded me of her two bras that were in the dryer that caught on fire. I told her I was lucky to be alive and that I’d start doing my own laundry again.
I moved the sock from our love seat to the bedroom and then Phoebe started a donation pile with it, singled out and alone. I took it and hid it in the back of my sock drawer. Phoebe suggested I wear it with other socks, but I’ve worn socks that don’t match and it always seems like an experiment that won’t last beyond the day.
Lost Sock
Socks are remarkably similar to love. Socks that fit don’t slouch or bunch-up, they aren’t too thick or thin, wrongly coloured, too short or long, or cut into your flesh, and when you see them they always bring a smile to your face. Well fitting socks reduce your stress, keep you warm, comfortable and compliment you. A sock alone is an oddball, but put its match beside it and you have synergistic bliss.
It scares me Phoebe doesn’t see the connection.
I’m blessed to have her friend Jordan Woodrow in my life. Jordan and I shared a bottle of wine last night and toasted love, perfect matches and well fitting socks. I believe she might offer to let me do my laundry at her apartment. The sock posters we hung in different laundry-mats around the city have brought us closer together and I know the posters will bring me closer to finding my perfect match, but Phoebe isn’t helping. When I got home late last night I discovered that she had pulled out my remaining sock and cleaned the bathroom with it. I explained to her that a lost sock needs to be hunted for everywhere and not just in one laundry-mat, and it’s wrong to clean any mess with the oddball!
I’m going mad believing the pair isn’t in my apartment anymore, and pray the sock that is now singled out will be perfect again.
~JB
Jacob Banco
Writing and Truth
November 8, 2009
in
The Blog Adaptation of:
Spots
I need more calcium in my diet so I’ve been remembering the past.
Remembering when I wore boxer shorts and went up against god and lost – mercilessly and humiliatingly.
I fell in love with a Jehovah’s Witness and tried to have sex with her.
God protects his own, and I would be considered a heathen in certain, small circles in which he operates. Nevertheless, I need more calcium in my diet and I’m thinking about grinding eggshells and drinking them in my tea.
I saw Marta drink this concoction during my numerous visits before my hellish last night. It was do or die for me and I brought her flowers, but soon enough I had eleven spots in my crotch. They weren’t ejaculate, but they definitely came from my penis. She saw them and her eyes grew wide and that was it. Fucking khaki pants!
I saw her once after that. It was… uneventful.
I’ll never forget the crushed eggshell tea I’d never gotten to drink with her.
She said they came from blessed chickens or some bullshit from her aunt’s farm.
The point is that I need more calcium in my diet and I don’t think it’s crazy, but why in Satan’s anus does everyone I tell this to look at me like I’m contagious?
JB-mmviii
Jacob Banco
The Devil is in Lint
September 22, 2009
Congratulations to Narwhal and its new space. Phoebe and I have moved as well. Evicted in fact – wrongfully, of course.
I was an unlucky hero, until our eviction notice, “damage to the building and not following building rules.”
Our laundry room was lit by one Standard 60 watt bulb on a dimmer switch. I know this because I was the last to change it. Over the bulb a large cloth depicting fantastical events and mythical histories of India was hooked up to cover the ceiling, giving the room a warm inviting feel. There was a washer and the dryer, and bookshelves along the back wall where neighbours shared some of their best finds (and some bullshit people couldn’t fit on their own shelves). There were a couple chairs to relax in and wait for the cycles to finish, some plants, and a window that looked into the garden and the bird fountain at its center. The best part was the machines, old and trustworthy and only fifty cents a load! I would often just sit and read while my clothes washed, until some maudlin ass made the first lint ball animal – a cat, and then horses, whales, flowers and people followed. I found the rapidity of their production unnerving, except for the very impressive dragon, which took the longest, but most looked like blobs of lint. They were on the bookshelves, on the plants, the window ledge, the floor, the arms of the chairs, everywhere you can imagine.
On the last day I entered the laundry room I felt as if I’d entered a different world than what I had known. The explosion of lint creatures had continued. A diorama was made on the low table next to the dryer depicting a concert of sorts with animals and people encircling five ghastly attempts at musicians with instruments. Where all this lint was coming from was beginning to take its toll on my rational mind, until I saw wedged between the washer and dryer a hideous four foot straw man, a devil really, which counterbalanced the sublimity of one of my favourite places, and upon its shoulders lint animals grazed.
The person ahead of me had placed a fabric softener sheet on the dryer and had put money into the slot. Being a good neighbour I transferred their wet clothes and put the dryer on while I began the wash cycle for my own clothes. I then sat down to read, positioning myself so the devil next to the dryer was out of my line of sight. A mistake I shall never make again.
I smelt it first and turned to see flames shooting from underneath the dryer, and the first lint animal, a cow I believe, lying on the floor and too close to the flames spitting out. The cow ignited and floated up to escape but the concert-goers on the small table got too close and the fire spread.
I shot to my feet before the musicians and their instruments burst to life, and I swear that straw devil stuck its foot into the flame from the dryer.
I was in a conflagration, and all the grazing animals upon the devil’s body burst into flame and took flight to ignite their little lint demon brethren. To the book shelves, the plants and the window ledge and I know now that no one could have planned such mayhem yet at the time I felt the devil had set its sights to take me, but I wasn’t going to let it.
I ran to the bird fountain and tried to lift the full basin of water but it was heavier than I thought, and the door to the building locked behind me. I ran to the garden window – smashed it, and then called the fire department, but not before the flaming dragon lifted from its perch and unleashed its breath upon the cloth covering the ceiling. I stood back and stared into the devil’s inferno. I was lucky to be alive and the crackling of the straw man, I swear, turned briefly to a cackle before the sirens drowned it out.
Once the fire department fined the building manager for having faulty smoke detectors and said it was most likely started by a fabric softener sheet finding its way to the heating element of the dryer, Phoebe and I were bounced from the building.
I remind myself whenever Phoebe shows me her dissipating irritation about having to move that I’m lucky to be alive. It’s smaller, granted, but the rent is better and it’s ours. Yes, we’re back at the mats, laundry mats that is, and avoiding the ones that our old neighbours are now forced to frequent, but good things have come, and yet, I wonder who put that straw devil where they did. My intention is to wait for a time and find out. Phoebe says I should let it go, but… maybe she’s right.
~ JB
Jacob Banco
Tutu's and Getting Tight
August 30, 2009
Phoebe asked me last week if I would like to go to the ballet this season.
I said, “Yes.” I have many times admitted my attraction to the ballet.
A few years back, just before Phoebe and I began dating and before I started smoking again, I went out to one of my favourite haunts with a friend. Once there I saw three people come out of the shadows: a young man; a girl, small in frame; and a tall thin woman wearing a tutu.
I had liked ballerinas as a child, music boxes especially; the sweetness coming from a box I had opened, and the anticipation of finding a treasure was exhilarating, but I began to discover adult treasures.
I dismissed my thoughts and the ballerina as the nine year old I thought her to be, with very irresponsible parents.
“Why the hell are they out?” I said to my friend. “It’s like twelve.” “Are they going to try and go in there? The bartender will send them right back out.” And of course, the alcohol volume was on high so they heard every word.
Granted, I was drunk, but the idiocy of the situation came from me more than the booze.
About half an hour later when I got back to my seat I saw the ballerina at the table behind me and she struck me for a few seconds – the child was in fact a woman very close to my own age.
The smiles and possibilities of conversation had been completely loped off like an unnecessary foot because of my dismal comments. I was quick to judge and so the girl in the tutu outside grew into a remarkably attractive woman on the inside without ever growing older than a half an hour!
I did then what any jackass would do when a woman wearing a tutu who is ‘on the radar’ won’t have anything to do with you – I kept drinking, the whole while wishing it was as simple as a music box.
When Phoebe started listing the shows she wanted to see and then turned, “Do you think I’m too old to wear a tutu?”
I was hearing my youth and the music of the box, “No,” I told her, and I imagined the woman, not the one on the outside the one within. “I like tutus.”
~ JB
