Jason welcomes under-qualified window-washer Dave Olson & his fantastic beard & beautiful hands for a natter about punching or hugging Dostoevsky, see-through loincloths, meeting REM, borrowing mustard from Allen Ginsberg, dodgy Greyhound stations, working out the writing life math, and how cheerleaders are people too. There's ropey Egyptian history, a savage polemic, the details of hippy teacher Mr Boris's new motorized home, a few bits & Brother Bobs of Dave's early poetry & prose, & Jason getting his King Tut timeline wrong by only 3700 years. An unnerving—if not terrifying—time is guaranteed for all. Music by the outrageous DJ Max in Tokyo. Many thanks, wherever & whoever & however you are, for listening.
PPS more should be said about this wonderful conversation and yes, I have scans of more of the artifacts {and about Jason & my correspondence} so pardon brevity, I’m in a fog
Washing dishes and busted spectacles lead to rowing a lake in Nepal figuring out deity, enlightenment, peace and power with choruses fresh from diaries – plus Royal hospitals, poetic devices and question mark eyebrows. Your turn Buddha, your turn.
Let’s not lose each other amidst the table cloth being pulled out from under glasses and dishes. Meaning: some technical jibber-jabber about claiming feeds sparks a history of these sporadic, occasional (yet somehow charming, right?) literary dispatches from hand-written XML to various blogs and feeds and meanderings. Plus, about me! My name is Dave Olson (hi, more below). So, let’s continue to spend time together shall we?
Thinking about “going home in October” or even more, going far away from home via freeverse poetry, read directly from scribbled travel scrapbooks and backed by trains from Moncton to Sri Lanka and tuk tuks from Kerala and Thailand, by a weary fella in an olden barn in provincial Japan. Fondly home.
Olympics are over if you want it. Pod’d some thoughts with Vancouver journalist Bob Mackin a few days ago about the lay of the land here in Japan and the cognitive dissonance between Tokyo2020 Olympics on TV and for the people hosting / paying for it.
this photo has nothing to do with the post but it is a baseball game at the Olympics on teevee just to decorate the post a wee bit
As such, i call it “The Lonely Olympics”.
But first listen in browser or you know, all those *other podcast places*.
I was sorta the “warm-up act” for Jules Boykoff, authour of NOlympics. who has rocked the media during Tokyo 2020/1 including this riff on my pal Bob Mackin’s heavy news pod.
I had *a lot* fo say and maybe said “too much” but felt a lot of frustration being a “regular resident” on the ground in provincial Japan awaiting vaccinations and paying taxes while the IOC’s debacle continued with excuses, conundrums and constant bubble-breaking. But, nobody asked me… well, except for Bob :) .
Mostly though, I’m curious about your opinion from wherever you are.
From Bob Mackin’s podcast description from week of Aug. 8, 2021:
Click to listen to Bob Mackin’s “The Breaker” podcast with me riffing from Japan
The Tokyo Olympics are over.
Postponed in 2020 due to the pandemic, but they happened in the pandemic anyway.
The International Olympic Committee is claiming success, because the Games eventually opened and closed on time. But the Japanese people are stuck with the bill and more coronavirus infections than there were when the cauldron was lit in an empty stadium surrounded by protesters.
On this edition, hear expert analysis from ex-Vancouverite Dave Olson in Okayama, Japan and Jules Boykoff, political scientist, author and Olympics industry critic from Portland, Ore.
Plus commentary and Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines.
Unrelated photo of Japanese Corespondent and Multi-purpose pontifying pundit
Another talkie talkie scene report about Tokyo2020 Olympics from Japan on CKNW 980 AM radio Vancouver from Monday Aug 2nd, 5PM PDT (or Aug 3rd Tues 9AM JST) with Martin Strong / embedded and downloadable for your convenience.
No shortage of topics & conundrums ?
Discussed: medal and C19 counts, table tennis, Judo, USA v CAN Football, Belorussian refugee, Georgian miscreant bubble breakers, lack of celebration, mixed emotions, going rogue, quasi-states of confusion and emergency, typhoons and surfing, 13 year old and sibling champs, unwanted positivity & hopeful negativity etc.
Questions welcome. Unrelated photo above for amusement.
Notes:
statistics ahoy medal counts case counts high temps typhoons 13 year skateboarders fainting archers boycotting doctors exiled Georgians positive pole vaulters endless table tennis food complainers overwhelmed translators yet more quasi sorta states “Olympics fever” headlines impending elections bed hijinks grandstanding IOC double speak (we were fine to cancel but… ) war chests “athletes should just do their job” protests refugee Belorussians legacy of athlete’s “standing up” for a minute 4% of revenues goes to athletes my idea of Sean Lennon singing Imagine woulda be great(er)
Covered a lot of ground but so much more. Looking forward to keeping you up-to-date from regular folks’ point of view as #Tokyo2020 gets underway.
Tokyo 2020, for many reasons will be a very unique iteration (understatement!) of the Olympics with very few spectators, loads of precautions and a host city in 4th state of emergency.
Importantly: truly hope events occur w/o public health consequences.
Lots of anxiety / frustration about IOC hubris & government waffling.
(I realize) it’s not unusual for Olympics to get off to a rocky start that’s for sure and once they get going, a lot of the negativity fades and good times prevail.
For record, at +/- 16% vaccination rate in Japan.
In “better news“: Since anybody watching (aside from oligarchs & bureaucrats) will be watching on TV (regardless of all the things going outside of the sports venues), fancy new technology will make sports (including a few new ones *skate, surf, rock*) look really great on TV – might as well get to know crazy tech – cameras, clouds, microphones etc.
Hey that was fun! could talk with Jody Vance for an hour (one tech hiccup when my phone *automagically* connected to wife’s car via bluetooth – ooops :))
We didn’t get to riff about the extra challenges for athletes coming from Delta-heavy countries, the onerous participant waivers athletes have to sign, and IOC chief Bach’s visit to Hiroshima and other gaffes…
ergo: “New podcast now UP from my talk last week with Dave Olson about his career as a social media visionary for Hoostsuite in Vancouver, and his current projects with house remodel and designing scrapbook style postcards to create social connections during Covid. Look forward to a future chat (when it’s not rainy) more on his house remodel project + look forward to a future chat with his arborist partner about her interesting passion for trees.”
Pulled out a lot of stories that I’ve kept it hidden for sometime. Thanks for the space to riff out the long jams. Topics around building a holistic life in Japan, i.e. our generational house project, story making as a biz, living cheap and cheerful, possibly fermenting, and yeah my arborist/jazz singer wife Ryoko and my exceptionally adorable almost 1-year-old Ichiro Stanley.
Even a pitch for my DaveOShop at Buy Me a Coffee and mentions of loads of other creative output you’ll find in this very archive.
Dave working on healing at Peacock Ayurveda near Galle, Sri Lanka (with Dr.)
Amidst a thunderstorm at 4AM on a balcony in Chiang Mai, Dave discusses – with excessive frankness and emotion – various medical conundrums (Fibromyalgia and CFS-ME) and details the physical feelings of “crash mode” as well as the mental strain in dealing with self de-identification and inter-personal relationships, confusion in seeking help, and various alternative treatments.
audio story about #MECFS & #Fibro, just click play below
I talked about the Tokyo Olympics with Bob Mackin – who I first connected with leading up to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics when he did an article featuring Kris Krüg and I talking about citizen documentation campaign which eventually became True North Media House. This segment also explores the human rights issues about Beijing 2022 Winter Games. (off record, we talked about IOC scrambling for relevancy).
In brief, pushing ahead with Olympics in Japan call into question: * health & safety of residents * economic “handcuffs” & sovereignty * fairplay for all athletes (esp from countries in crisis) * funded junkets for dodgy operators * rude / vague double-talk & IOC hubris * no fun for residents who made this happen
Curious to hear your views after listening.
My riffs start at 6:00-ish mark (and consider supporting Bob “the hammer” Mackin as he holds governments to account).
Should the Beijing Winter Olympics be moved or boycotted?
The future is now for the five-ring circus. On this edition, host Bob Mackin ponders the pandemic in Japan and China’s human rights abuses. Guests Dave Olson in Okayama, Japan and Ivy Li of the Canadian Friends of Hong Kong.
A lot of the “IOC family” are wealthy, privileged, vaccinated and aren’t necessarily worried about the impact they have on Japan after they leave. They’re staying in hotels, not a bubble, using public transportation and surely will be going out and about.
Easy to tell them but very difficult to enforce in any way. And punishment? These wealthy/privileged folks don’t give a fck about a fine. IOC Officials roll with basically diplomatic immunity during the games
…Especially the athletes coming from countries currently in crisis. What a dilemma for them to leave their families and support networks behind in such bad situations! Then possibly bringing variants back to medical systems which are unable to handle more chaos. :(
I am less concerned about the athletes who will likely be diligent about staying in the bubble and way more concerned about the “IOC family“… 60,000 executives, fat-cats, VIPs and sponsors rolling in with no quarantine requirement or vaccination and no bubble. Stay home IOC!
Related:
*Of course* there are lots of articles discussing the Olympic topic from various “major media expected new sources” like Japan Times, Washington Post, Asahi Shinbun blah blah blah but this one from Teen Vogue with particularly awesome so I’m gonna share this *and definitely not* gonna get carried away with a laundry list of resources. {If curious, you can check my various Twitter channels, I’ll assume you can figure that out (look in right side bar if needed) oh and follow for Olympian and author of NOlympics @JulesBoykoff and former VANOC comms guy @GraemeMenzies who wrote a treatise about modernizing the event.
