Went to the Canucks game last night. It was bad ass. Had the most miserable week at work last week and it felt so fantastic just to let out guttural moans and buoyant cheers for the home team. Just what the doctor ordered. What strikes me about organized sports is how it is just a stones throw away from war. I mean, what do I really have against the City of Calgary? I have been there once in my life. I have nothing against the Calgary. But that does not stop me from hating them. And how is Vancouver so much better. This I cannot say. Truthfully I hate this city most of the time. It offers me nothing, I offer it nothing. It is a symbiotic relationship based on petulance. A coalition of the less-then-willing. But our alliance is merely contingent on our proximity to each other. But the enemy of my enemy is my friend no?
So we take this substitution for war, gilded on an arbitrary rivalry based on a geography and slap a price tag on it. Fuck you Vancouver. Go Canucks go.
The lyrics for the Propagandhi song ‘Dear Coaches Corner’ seem especially pertinent as I float through the miasma of this life. Searching for meaning in the vein pursuit of breath and life and divisional dominance.
Dear Ron McLane. Dear Coach’s Corner.
I’m writing in order for someone to explain
to my niece the distinction between
these mandatory pre-game group rites of submission
and the rallies at Nuremberg.
Specifically the function the ritual serves
in conjunction with what everybody knows is,
in the end, a kid’s game.
I’m just appealing to your sense of fair play
when I say she’s puzzled by this incessant pressure
for her to not defy collective will and yellow ribboned lapels,
as the soldiers inexplicably repel down from the arena rafters.
Which, if it not so insane,
they’ll be grounds for screaming laughter.
Dear Ron McLane, I wouldn’t bother with these questions
if I didn’t sense some spiritual connection.
We may not be the same, but it’s not like we’re from different planets.
We both love this game so much we can hardly fucking stand it.
Alberta-born, and Prairie-raised.
It seems like there ain’t a sheet of ice north of Fargo I ain’t played.
From Penhold to the Gatinaeu, every fond memory of childhood
that I know is somehow connected to the culture of this game.
I just can’t let it go.
I guess it comes down to what kind of world you want to live in.
And if diversity is disagreement, disagreement is treason.
Well, you’ll be surprised if we find ourselves
reaping a strange and bitter fruit that that sad old man beside you
keeps feeding to young minds as virtue.
It takes a village to raise a child, but just a flag to raze the children
till they’re nothing more than ballasts for fulfilling
a madman’s dream of a paradise. Complexity reduced to black and white.
How do I protect her from this cult of death?
have a listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAIUf_SYpwE