Mason Baveux Goes Oly

We turn the blog over to our pinch hitter Mason Baveux for his, um, unique take, on the Olympics in Sochi.  Mason?

Thanks for bloggery Davey as you know I watch er close enough for four people, let alone just meself.

The Openin Ceremonials were what I’d expect from a country what was Commie for so long.  It looks like they sold off the producin rights to the drug-addled dope heads what did the French Winter Olys in 1992 in Albertville.  There was dancers flyin all over the place while they shot pictures down on the arena floor and then reenacted the Battle of Kursk with flyin rigs and no tanks.  Plus they left out the bit about Stalin killin about a third of the population when he woke up from a four-day vodka toot.  Not all of us are as forgetful as that, doncha know. Citius, Altius, What the Fookius?

As for Sochi, there were enough stories about rooms without doors, or taps that dispensed hot and cold sewage that I don’t need to bring that back up.  Oh and the shots of the main drag in Sochi havin friggin palm trees for chrissakes.  Jesus Mary and Gord, do those dough-heads at the IOC not check an atlas before they give up the rights?  It seems they got snow alright, if you consider ground up ice that’s sloppier than the ex-wife’s twat to be real snow-snow.  Crap lads, hold the Winter Olys somewheres they have Winter.  Should maybe write that down as Rule #1. 

I was all wound up to report on the Snowstyle Skiing what it is a new Oly sport, when I come down with a case of of the flu what caused me to be on my arse for near close a week.  They fed me full of over the counter cold medicine that when mixed up with the rum I was takin for medicinal purposes caused a couple of issues.  I think Canada won some Gold Medals there, but all I could see was some girls and a couple of guys fallin down a hill arse over teakettle on skis, what then get a score.  Seems you get the high score if you don’t actually die.  I think I missed some in there from the medicine, so’s it not the whole story. 

I want to take a moment here and talk about the Gay Right thing what was all in the papers before the Sochi Games.  It’s like CCM or Bauer for skates.  Some like the Taks, other like the Bauers.  I’m a CCM guy, so don’t be wavin your Bauer’s at me.  And don’t come round with some raggedly ass Nike skates.  There just wrong and then there’s Wrong with a capital letter.  I’m from the old school of what you do in private is up to you.  If you like this or that equipment, that’s your choice and as long as you’re not offerin something I don’t want and are willin to accept a polite “Eff Off” then I got no issue. 

When the Russian government and Vladimir Putin gets up on the back legs about the gays not bein gayish in Sochi, then maybe they should look at some of the sports, like two-man luge, ice dancin or Bobsleddin then think for another eleven seconds afore openin your borscht hole.  Don’t be a bad host or a bad guest, but if your host is offerin you a roasted goat ballsack covered in chocolate sprinkles, you can just say no, politely and wait for the Chex Party Mix to come by again.  A good guest don’t do nothin to offend and the host don’t offer somethin that’s goin to make people angry.  A bit of give and take, is all I’m sayin.    

Fancy Skatin:  Patty Chan did a fine job today, nailin a Silver in the Fancy Skatin and that Japanese 19 year old kid is goin to be a killer come 2018 wherever the hell they’re hostin next.  I was confused, or mebbe I didn’t hear right, but one of the Oly commentators said Patrick Chan had a chink in his armour.  I didn’t near but laugh my rum across the room in a spit take that Sid Caesar woul’d laughed at and now he’s dead, don’t you know.

Girl’s Ski Jumpin:  Holy Fook me!  I’m for it.

Cross-Country:  Mother of Pearl those folks are fit.  I’d like to see them change up the biathalon though.  Two loops, one clockwise, one counter, but they meet in the middle where the gun range is.  No targets, except your competitors across the way.  I think that’d change it up a bit and harken back to the early days of WWII when Finland took on the Russkies and damn near beat their asses.

Tag Team Luge:  This’ere a new one, but I think they missed the boat.  They should start side by side and be allowed to duke it out on the way down.  Sort of like the bike pursuit in the Summer Olys.  One chasin, and one runnin away from the other, but we’d have to say no to the spikes in the gloves.

Canada’s gettin’er done over there.  And I’s back to the Benlyn with the Codeine and the Captain Morgan chaser.  Later.

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Mason Baveux On The Hockey Strike

He’s a fan, we’re not, so my commentary will be significantly different from his.  Which would explain why we’re letting Mason Baveux comment on the hockey lockout.  Mason?

Thanks for the bloggery keys again lad, as there be something important in the air.  The National Hockey League has locked out the players, what means there ain’t no hockey, at least for the Big Show right now.  For folks like Davey, it might as well mean there’s no mints in Madagascar, so move on, but for the rest of us Canadians, it might as well mean the end of life itself. 

Now this isn’t to say there’s a fungus that makes all the pucks disintegrate, or you could get cancer from hockey tape, so’s it’s banned, nope.  It is what you call a labour issue.  Like any labour issue there be two, maybe seventeen sides to the story. 

The players make a jeezly great amount of money playin the game.  You’ve all heard of some Sweedish guy signin up for 122 zillion dollars over 10 years to play the game, what’s got too many vowels in his name to be able to pronounce it, let alone spell it out without the spellcheck havin a stroke. 

You also know that the teams make enough money to buy small countries outright.  I think Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment own about half of Ecuador and most of Trinidad right now, what they bought during the economic downturn of 2008.  So’s its not like nobody has any cash to spread around.  There’s money in the kitty.

Considering that the guy whose handlin the puck has about a 1 in 10 chance of havin his career shitcanned every time he steps on the ice, I can see why they want them big payday contracts..  They say a career in the Big Show is about six years.  

Don McKenny, what was part of the Uke line in Boston, then in Toronto had his knees turned into some kind of puzzle for the doctors back then, when he caught something on the ice.  Most likely some twat tossed coins on the rink, nice hot coins he’d been holding in his pocket, what melted in a bit and then Dom come a hareing around the blue line, building up some speed with the puck and over he goes, one knee pointing at Detroit, the other at Montreal and one ankle lookin to New York.  Rob Gilbert was another one, what broke his back in the OHA and had spinal fusion surgery in 1960.  Back then the docs knowledge of the back was “Jeeze there’s a lot of bones in there”, so’s it was amazing he could walk, let alone skate. 

Now that explains why the players want the good paydays.  If you’re good enough for the Bigs you have a pretty good chance you won’t make it past 35 as a player, you get the money up front.  

As for the owners, well, they want to maximize their return on their investment to use their terminamology.  In English, that means make even more money, so’s they can buy the rest of Ecuador and put a bid in on Holland.  You can see where my sympathies are.  They sure as shiite aren’t with the owners. 

The owners gotta know that there’s not but a dozen folks batshit crazy enough to sit around and watch them work on the consolidated balance sheet at $100 a seat for the nosebleeds.  The owners don’t do shiite that people will pay to watch and they know it, but they still think they’re all-friggin-mighty important.  That’s like sayin the cashier what puts the float in the till every day at IGA is the single most critical part of the whole process of buyin celery.

But tell 20 or 40 thousand folks that you’re puttin on a hockey game and what they want to do is to go watch hockey.  As well buy a $3 beer for $10 and a $2 hot dog for $12, plus pay a flat hunnert for a seat so high up you need oxygen to stay alive the whole four hours.  And watch the boards change advertising every six seconds and have that goddam “Na Na Hey Hey” song played at them forty two times an hour, loud enough to rip the hairs off the beer guy’s ear lobes.

The owners got sweet FA without the players and they know it.  Without a bunch of butts in seats to watch hockey, the owners are going to have to make obscene amounts of money another way, like maybe gettin a friggin job? 

So what happens if we lose the whole season?  The players will always find a place to play the game and at least make a little money to keep body and soul together, as well as make payments on the Escalade.  The owners will write it all off as a tax loss, so they’s not out much.

Us fans?  We can get us some too.  Junior A, or CHL, or AHL.  Damn fine hockey, perhaps better than some of the NHL teams out there.  More gratitude from the owners for forkin out the greenbacks for their team.  More gratitude from the players for comin out to watch and cheer and buy a beer and a program and a hot dog.

Plus we’d get to watch some good hockey.  And that’s what we really want to do.    Go Marlies!

When The Going Gets Weird

Our esteemed pinch-hitter Mason Baveux has asked for the keys again to comment on the general weirdness that seems to have permeated Canada in the last few months.  Mason?

It’s like you said Davy, she’s gone right screwy.  My Canada, what we stand on guard for thee seems to have dropped off the conveyor belt of normal, into the rock tumbler of What the eff? 

Luka Magnotta:  If you’re south of the border, you’ve might of heard about our very own Canadian Monster.  He’s the sick little jagoff what killed and then field dressed that student Jun Lin.  Then this Magnotta mails body parts to a couple of schools in BC and the HQ of two of our major political parties up Davey’s way in Ottawa.  Eventually the cops found the head and torso, so’s at least the family got a full set to bury.   

Jesus lad, this is Canada.  Drop the gloves or take a stick to his head, but killin the lad then runnin off to Canada Post is a bit much.  Magnotta’s in the pokey right now awaitin trial as the newsies say.  The trick cyclists are studyin Magnotta’s mind right now and I can save them a lot of time:  He’s a crazy fuck.  I don’t like my tax dollars goin to house that kind of crazy bastard in segregation.  Put him in General Pop and the lads will take care of things for us in a week to ten days.  Same with that Russell Williams and Paulie Bernardo.

Shoot’em up in Toronto. Them gangbangers are at it again in Hogtown.  Last night off in Scarberia there was a big old picknic goin on when an animated discussion ensued.  Two dead, 23 wounded in what they’re callin’ a hail of gunfire. 

First off, no points for marksmanship ya arseholes.  There was 200 or so folks at the BB and Q and ya managed to hit ten percent including an infant.  If you gotta settle your beef with a weapon, learn how to use it first.  Shootin up the whole neighbourhood proves you got no balls, no skills and no class.  

I don’t give a gold plated tit tassel about what your beef is as it’s probly something retarded about one lad wearin an Oakland A’s cap instead of a Yankees cap on backwards or other such gang rubbish.  Oh and “disrespectin” each other.  Well here’s some more disrespectin’:  You can’t shoot worth shit.  None of you have the stones or the smarts to go toe to toe like a real Canadian Man would.  Oh, that’s right, you’re still livin at home, bein suckled on Mommy’s teat, bein all butch, wavin’ a gun around.  Friggin’ whinin’ little wipes. 

I know a lad from the PPCLI who was so tough he was stabbed three times in Korea by a Chinee fightin in a trench, who didn’t even use his sidearm, except to pistol whip him with the butt end.  Didn’t kill him, but it took the medicos a week to figure out where to put the feeding tube on the prisoner.

Tornado Warnings today:  Well that’s your climate warmin for ya.  We get no rain for a month, so’s everything’s drier than Sister Agnes’s twat then she starts blowin around in a twister.  This ain’t Texas or Oklahoma and if Dorthy clicks her ruby heels together she sure ain’t goin to wind up in Winchester or Morrisburg.  No word on the damage yet.

Brit Olys –  I told you I was goin to roast their weenies when it came time for London to host the Olympics.  Seems G4S was hired to provide the rent-a-cops for the London Olys in a couple of weeks.  Turns out they couldn’t find more than a half-dozen, when they promised 10,400.  Now the London Oly Committee has asked some 3,500 of the lads comin back from Afghanistan to delay their leave for a month so’s they can walk around and keep the peace. 

Seems that G4S is goin to lose between $54 and $78 million dollars on the contract.  Who they hell were they gettin to be security guards?  Friggin Saudi Princes?  Nick Buckles, what was the lad from G4S what said “Sorry about that” still has his job, but says he might be forced to quit.  No shit Sherlock!  Quit?  If I were in charge of G4S I’d be walkin with a limp because one of my shoes were missing as it was up Nick Buckles arsehole after I fired him and threw him out the front door face first.

OK, that last one weren’t Canadian, but she’s still a symptom of Big Stupid goin on.

And Davey told me about one he’s goin through. Seems his nephew is gettin hitched, so’s he and the missus are flyin to Winnipeg for the do in Portage.  Closest airport is Winnipeg, so’s they book them Reward Miles on the Aeroplan.  Where’s their flight go?  Ottawa to Montreal to Winnipeg.  Jesus Katy that’s like flyin from New York to Los Angeles but goin through Greenland first.  Seems that the Aeroplan doesn’t want you to actually use your Aeroplan miles up for things like, oh, I don’t know, airplane trips maybe? 

Davey’s scared to book any more flights anywhere as they might have him routed via Frankfurt if he wants to fly to Seattle from home.

I got no answer for you, except she’s all gone stupid right now. The only solution I can come up with is to pop the top off another and try to beat the heat with the brew.  Go Leafs!

Mason Baveux Explains–The Economy

Forgive me, but he’s been pestering me to write some more since I’m up to my eyelids at work.  Then I asked him what he wanted to write about.

Thanks lad for the bloggery keys again.  Ise seen you’re up to yer arse in that computer stuff at work, so’s I figgered I’d step up like a friend and do one of the bloggerys for you. 

Everybody what’s got an opinion and an arsehole says the same thing: It’s the Economy Stupid.  Now I’ll tell you straight, she matters where you put the comma.  If’n someone says “It’s the Economy (comma here) Stupid”, they be callin you out and your right snappy riposte would be to say “Learn how to punctuate, arsehole!”  I’s expressing a preference for “It’s the Economy and she’s Pooched!” as theres less chance someone could mistake what you be sayin. 

What I mean by Pooched is:  In the Ditch.  Upside Down, Gone Cattywampus.  Taken a vacation to the Idiot Mansion.  Dumber Than A Box of Hammers.  Or to be impolite:  Fooked.

Here’s what I got to say:  There was a time when countries made stuff and sold it to other countries at a profit.  That’s what you call bein in business.  That lad Gupta what runs the Quicke down the ways sells milk and bread and smokes and about nine hundred other things.  He puts a price tag on’em.  Since Gupta’s a smart lad, the price tag he puts on the stuff is less than he pays to buy them from Quickie, or National Grocers, or where ever the hell he buys his stuff from.  When he sells somethin, let’s say she’s a magazine, he makes 30 cents or a half-dollar.  That’s whats called profit and that’s what Gupta’s in business for.  Sell enough soda, magazines or bread and soon enough you’ve made a couple of bucks.  From that couple of bucks, you can buy your own groceries for home, pay the rent, keep the lights on plus keep body and soul together.  Gupta’s just an example here, a small one what I know about.  Countries do the same thing. 

Canada, for the longest time was known as “Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water”  What they mean was our country was where the Brits got the wood for the fleet, our wheat, and even back in the Voyeurs Day, beaver pelts, what got made into hats for all the swells in London.  They’d send over a big sailin ship to Montreal or Quebec City and all the Voyeurs would sell their beaver pelts to the Hudson’s Bay Company, who would sell’em to the Brits, who would sail’em back to Britain, then sell’em again to a hatter who would make hats.  Every step along the way, somebody make a couple of pences on each beaver.  That, again is what you call business, or to go all political, capitalism. 

Canada was where folks came to get our resources.  We’d get a bit from diggin the stuff out of the ground, like coal, or cuttin up the trees, but eventually whatever we dug up or grew, would come back at us as something more expensive that somebody else, someplace else made into something. 

We got a little smarter around the 50’s, when we started makin stuff, like the Avro Arrow, the St, Lawrence Seaway, or great whacks of electricity.  We made it into somethin more useful and made more profit.  Like televisions, there used to be a company called Electrohome down towards London, what made tv’s and stereos and radios.  They build the cabinets, made the tubes, did the wiring and all the other things what go into a tv, then they sold them to people so’s they could watch the Leafs actually win a friggin game. 

Electrohome has been gone for years, as well as Admiral and RCA.  TV was invented on both side of the border, what with Reginald Fessenden here and Philo Farnsworth down the US, more or less inventin the whole thing.  But we don’t make tv’s here any more.  Nor does the US.  People are watchin more tv than ever, but not on something made here by us.

Used to be Grand Rapids Michigan was the Office Equipment Capital of the World.  My great uncle Duke used to drive truck, takin furniture grade veneer to Grand Rapids every day, for them to make into desks and bookcases.  Later he took steel coil there to be stamped into filing cabinets, chairs and whatnot that was sold around the whole world.  Today?  About all you can get in Grand Rapids is cold.  They don’t make things there anymore.  Sure they’res jobs, if all you want to do is work at a department store, sellin stuff from somewhers else, to someone what also has a job at a restaurant that you go to once a week and leave a tip so’s in a couple of months time they’ve saved up enough to buy a clock radio from your store, what was made somewhere else. 

All you see is a service sector economy, serving a service sector economy and nobody makes things or does things except what they’re told to do.  It’s like a snake eatin its tail.  Eventually the light comes on and we’ll figure out we’re chewin on our own arse.

Which comes back to why the economy is pooched.  Like Gupta, we’ve got to make a profit on things, or we might as well close it up and stay home.  The best way to make a profit on things is to make things better, or faster or with more nifty features on’em than anyone else and then sell’em for more than what it costs to make’em.

So’s this Alberta Oilsands thing got me thinkin.  We got about the other half of the world’s oil there, but she’s gummed up in sand.  We figured out how to get the sand out of the oil and now we’re talkin about sendin the oil down south on some pipeline they want to build to Texas, but Obama don’t want to let the pipeline go, as nobody has figured out if it’s a good thing for the environment.  That’s fine, as we only got one environment and we should take care of it, but what we’re talkin about shipping out is the crude.  Not the gasoline, Jet A, Sunoco 260 or stove oil.  Just the friggin crude, like when we sent wheat and beavers to England and got back hats and bread at fifty seven times the price of what we got paid in the first place. 

Screw that I say.  We got the knowhow and the people to make that Oilsands crude oil into stuff.  We can sell the finished product to whoever shows up at the door with the cash.  If the Yanks want to pay top dollar, then we sell it to the Yanks.  If the Chinese want to pay top dollar, then we’ll sell it to them too.  If none of them want to pay top dollar, then screw them both and we’ll build our own pipeline to tube it to Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City or Halifax.  There’s folks in all the cities what would want a good payin job workin on the pipeline, workin in a refinery or workin movin it around.  It’s our friggin oil and we should be makin a big buck on it what helps a lot of Canadians, not just some empty suit of clothes sittin in a boardroom in Houston.  Eff that noise.

Besides, there’s lots of other stuff you make from oil.  Like plastic pellets what they make into bags, or kids toys.  Use our own friggin oil to make that stuff and sell it to everyone else.  They need plastic bags in Ohio, and Ontario ain’t that far, so the bags would be cheaper than what someone could buy em for from China and everyone still makes a buck or two of profit.  And there’s nothin wrong with profit.  Ask Gupta.  He’s makin a go of it.

There’s a whole other side to this makin a profit and that the politics of her.  For instance, garlic.  We grow garlic here in Ontario and it’s good stuff.  I goes to the Loblaws and there’s Ontario Garlic, grown about fifty miles from the store.  She’s $4 for six heads.  Right next to it is some more garlic, $2 for six heads.  Where’s she grown?  It ain’t Ontario.  Which tells me someone’s playin fast and loose with what they got on offer.  Was that garlic grown on a field near Lambton Country, harvested by a family in the 519 and trucked for an hour or two to a terminal in Toronto?  If it’s the Ontario stuff, it sure was.

If the garlic is from somewhere else here’s where the math falls over.  They grew it on some field that used to be used for nuclear waste that the government gave them for free, along with the busload of political prisoners to plant and harvest the garlic, payin’em a dollar a month.  Then the government pays the shipping from the other side of the world, on their own ships, then sells it to a broker for half of what they charge in the Loblaws.  If you’re tellin me it costs a buck to grow and ship six heads of garlic from halfway around the world, then you’re either usin human slaves or you’ve found a way to break the rules of physics that none of us have ever found out about.

Or, your government is subsidizing you so much that you can afford to lose big money every time you plant some garlic.  Where’d they get all that money from?  The same holds true with shirts, or shrimp or electronics or furniture.  Someone is playin fast and loose to put us out of business, so’s they can jack the prices up later.  That’s one of the oldest tricks in the business book.  Once you’re the only place to get something, you can charge the moon. 

So’s maybe it’s time to stop bein cheap bastards.  Buy the local stuff, what was made by local folks, without having guards keeping the pickers working at the end of a gun.  Yes, she might cost a couple of bucks more, but instead of payin money to keep some government halfway around the world from takin over our economy, why not spend the extra deuce and keep a family in the 519 in business.  At least I know the garlic from there isn’t going to be glowing at night.

That’s all I’se got to say.  Make a buck, make it fair and make sure when you buy stuff, you buy from folks near you if you can.

 

Mason Baveux Explains–The Caucus System

Lord save us, Mason wants to explain why all you hear about is the Iowa Caucuses on the tube.

Thanks lad.  I wanted to be writin about these here Iowa caucuseses what are all over Ted’s Network these days, as a lot of us north of the border look at that whole thing and say “What the eff are they all about?”  Plus two lads from the residence were wonderin, so I’s looked her up.

Iowa, which is the potato state, decided back in the 70’s that California, New York and Texas get all the press when the Yanks go about electin a new President.  Nobody gave a crap about what the Iowanners thought.  So’s they come up with a truly messed up way to figure out who didn’t suck as much as the other guys wantin to be the Prez.

They figured, go first, afore anyone else.  But, bein Yanks they had to make sure everyone got a voice and a vote otherwise they weren’t bein democratic.  There’s 99 counties in Iowa and every one has a convention for the Democrats or the Republicans.  Right now, the Repubs are in town.  Each precinct in Iowa, and there’s 1, 774 of them, elect delegates to one of the 99 county conventions, who then vote for delegates for district and then state conventions.  Then, when the big national convention rolls around, they vote for the state delegates, for either the Demos or the Repubs. 

What she boils down to is nine-tenths of the population of Iowa is on the graft as a delegate to somebody’s convention.  As there be only 3,062,309 people in all of Iowa, most everybody but the shut-ins gets a spin at the wheel. 

Here’s what’s really happenin:  The media, like CNN, Fox and all the big networks need somethin to fill in the January news.  There’s only so many times you can report about the Israelis and Palys takin’ a piece out of each other’s arse, so they’ve made the Iowa Caucuses a Big News Event.  What the networks are sayin is that this if the first steps in the Race for the White House, as if Iowa proves something to the 93 lads what studies the Political Sciences. 

The list of candidates is your usual carpetbaggers, lyin’ scum, gravy suckers, short-bus window tasters, glad handers and mixed nuts.  Most of them couldn’t spell Des Moines unless it was printed on a card in big letters for the them.  Come the day after, they’ll never set foot in Iowa again and will get a case of the political amnesia about what they said.  But, for the next few hours, Iowa is the center of the whole Universe.  If it wasn’t important, then all those satellite trucks are on the road to nowhere and the per diems for the pundits are just bein pissed in the snow. 

What ya got is a self-fulfillin prophesy.  Everyone says Iowa’s important, therefore it is important, but if you measure it out, Iowa only has one percent of the people in the whole USA. 

If they’re so important and so friggin smart, then why don’t the US just shitcan the rest of the votin and let Iowa pick the winner?  Because that would leave the US television networks and newspapers with bugger all to say for February to November. 

If they’ve got nothin to say, then they might start investigatin all the Banks what made record profits last year, right after the biggest recession on record.  Or they might look too closely at all the big businesses what are sending their jobs to Mexico or China, instead of employin folks local.  Or they might start investigatin the collection of loons they got in Washington who get a reach-around every hour from some lobbyist.  This afternoon it’s the Banks, then the Yellow Rose Growers, followed by Paint-Drinkers, Bee Keepers for Christ and the American Enterprise Institute for Takin a Dump In Your Hat.

The more I think on it, the better off the Yanks are with their caucusees.  It keeps’em distracted and busy.

Mason Baveux–Concussions

Like many businesses, we get stupid busy around Christmas, so I tapped our pinch-hitter Mason Baveux to consider Concussions in Hockey while I dig out from under a pile of work, at work.

I thinks why Davey wants me to write on the whole head shot thing in hockey is Davey don’t give a five pound corn on the cob crap about Canada’s Game.  This makes me suspect his citizenship, but since his family’s all Canadian, I think I’ll let’er slide.

So’s Sid the Kid spent most of last season ridin’ the sofa as he took one too many to the skull and was feelin’ cattywampus all over.  He comes back for two games then reaches for the yellow handle again and is back on the sofa for “an indeterminate amount of time” while he tries to find out where the horizon is again.  Or at least narrow it down to only two or three horizons at any given time.

I did some that research on that concussion thing and here’s what she said up the wikitickitavi.org.  You got your mild brain injury, mild traumatic brain injury, mild head injury and minor head trauma, which you can use for any of the others as the term for what ails ya.  We’ll just call’er concussion.  Or Hockey Head.

Down in the fine print she says what happens is yer brain bounces off the inside of yer skull and doesn’t know boo from woo for a while.  It could be a minute or two, or a week or two, depending on how hard a wallop you took.  Do that enough times and yer brain starts a forgettin stuff, like what’s a yellow light mean at the corner?  Drive’er like you stole’er! is the right answer.  Pass the effin’ ketchup Maureen! is the wrong answer.  Which is what be affecting Sid the Kid. 

Some medical folks have been studyin on this for a while, using sporty types in sports what have serious contact.  Football is one, Boxing another and Hockey.  Seems the medicos have been cuttin’ open the brains of dead players to look for problems.  They do have to wait till they pass, as the cuttin is a bit drastic for the walk-in clinic and tends to leave some marks.  Fortunately, the sport types have been quite obligin’ as the older ones are dyin off naturally, and the younger ones get all messed up on the pills and booze, then do themselves in.  So’s the medicos got lots of brains to work with and what they’re findin is lots of permanent injuries to the brain what are causin all sorts of wrongs.

Like Muhammad Ali (dammit, I still remember when he was Cassius Clay from Louisville, Kentucky) whose got the shakey jakes from what’s called Pugilistic Parkinson Syndrome.  What the science boys and girls figure is that he got the Parkinsons from too many shots to the head in his career.  Well, that took about five seconds to get ahold of those facts from the Department of Too Effin Obvious. 

Anyone crazy enough to stand within arm’s reach of Joe Frazier or Leon Spinks, two lads who could knock a CP westbound freight train off a track by looking at it hard, is gonna get some kind of side effects from bein on the receiving end of a solid punch.  You’d have to have headgear the size of Manitoba to get away with that kind of beatin.  Which Cassius Clay never had.  Which is why he’s retired and can’t speak, nor move too well no more and is a damn shame.

Now think about the hockey.  There’s plenty of roughouse, as that’s part of the game and if you’ve played even a little bit on some rink somewhere, you know there’s a lot of stuff around that can rattle your head.  The puck for one.  The other guy’s elbow for another.  Or you could try just fallin off your skates and doin a quad spin face plant on the ice herself.  The ice don’t move much.  Nor do the boards, or the posts, or the glass. 

We’re not even talkin about some dirty defenceman who thinks he should coldcock you one when you’re settin the box on the power play and are lookin away for the forward at the point.  Then all you see is the rafters, some shiny lights and finally remember what the coach said about “Keep yer head up!”

We’re talkin before helmets here.  Back when Punch Imlach coached.  When Don McKenny was part of the Uke Line on the Bruins with Bronco Horvath, Johnny Bucyk and Vic Stasiuk.  Those days when you’d see Gordie and Jean go into the corner and watch your rum and Coke shake along with the whole friggin Forum.  Not many of the lads got their frontal lobes all scrambled, as nobody wore a helmet and you were entitled to give as good as you got, but it was clean hits.  No attempt to maim the other guy, even if he was from Montreal, or Detroit.

Today, decapitation gets you five.  Maybe a game misconduct and that’s about it, assumin’ you didn’t go over to the house and piss on his sofa, or cross-check his missus into the washing machine after buggerin the family dog. 

The helmets and visors the players are wearin are important, but the side effect of all that armour (and this is true of the football too) is that the grinders and journeymen players feel they can dish out the hardest possible hits they can to make a name for themselves, even if it means puttin someone in the hospital for a long time.  But what goes around comes around and we’re findin out that givni the big hits like you’d see on Rock Em Sock Em Hockey 37, will also cost you. 

Speakin of costin you, we do know of a lad whose hockey career was what you call a small fish in a pond.  He never made the Big Show, as he took too many shots to the brain in Junior and couldn’t focus enough.  His job now?  He drives the Zamboni up to the arena for the Central Junior.  We call him Slappy, as he’s not quite sure what day it is and has to slap himself upside the head to remember it.  Sometimes he gets ‘er near right enough.  If you bet him five dollars, he’ll eat a stick of butter on a dare.  He lives in a part of a sheltered workshop for those what you would call ‘uncomplicated’, or we call Retard Park and Ride, as you can see most of them waitin for the taxi or the ParaTransport to get to where they’re goin.

He still wears his helmet most days as the doctors have said one more pop to the head and he’s likely not even going to remember how to drive the Zamboni.  He’s pushin fifty now and never had a home, or a wife, or kids.  All he knows is the hockey and how to drive the Zamboni. 

Now, just so’s you don’t think I haven’t thought this around the rink between periods, look at two other sports what don’t have body armour:  Rugby and Soccer.  About all you get is a cup and some cleats for protection.  You don’t see a lot of those careers comin’ to an end because the players can’t tell what month it is?  Blown out knees?  Sure, that’ll get you. 

But because your opponents don’t have all the gear on either, they’ll hit you hard enough to get you off the ball, but not hard enough to end your career.  And if you tell me that Rugby and Soccer players aren’t as tough and hard as Hockey and Football players, then I’d suggest you’re speakin out your arse and should go squat on the shitter to think that one through a bit more with some Metamucil to clear your talk hole. 

What she comes down to is the armour the young ones wear, be it football or hockey.  Makes them feel invincible and think they can dish it out without no consequences.  Sid the Kid is their poster child.  A great career lost because refs don’t call penalties and the gear they all wear makes’em feel like Superman.  They’ll all wind up like Slappy and that’s not what the consultants would call a Career Arc.

Breaks my friggin heart.

Followin Up the Hockey

Dave says I can follow’er up, as he’s paintin the trim right now.  Which I don’t quite understand so it ain’t the kind of trim I know.  He’s just MiSterMessagered Me and said, Baseboards you stupid fook, so’s I guess it’s all OK.  Dave says Hi and he’s workin hard.

Them clowns what were rioting in Vancouver were sure in for a big surprise weren’t they when they busted out the windows of London Drugs.  During the hockey riots some snotwipes figgered it’d be fine to put the mitts on some DVD players and TV’s whilst their buddies were burnin the cop cars.  ‘Cept nobody told’em there was something like forty close-circuit cameras watchin their every move, from tossin the bricks to running out the door with an armload of consumer electronics. 

The Premier of BC was on The National pointing at some faces of them arseholes on video saying “Who’s dat guys boss?  What’s that guys Mom gonna say?  Where’s that shitheel work?  We’re sendin the cops after their arses and we’re gonna give them three hots and a cot in the Crowbar Hotel for a goodly long time”  I’m whatcha call paraphrasing her words.

Seems the Socializer Media joints like Sit On My Facebook and Twatter have all these sites up, some from private citizens, some from the cops and some from the media, playing back the video and asking the musical question:  Who The Fook Is This Moron?  Let Us Know.  Click Here To Fry His Arse.

To that I’m sayin Giv’er Lads and Ladies of the Law!  There’s gettin into some roughouse and then there be whats called Crossing The Line. 

At the same time, at The Bay Le Baie in downtown Van, where they busted out a block of windows, the plywoods up to cover the holes.  Seems that on Friday a lot of normal folks, as in more than a couple hundred, came down and wrote on the ply that they was sorry that some of their fellow citizens were arseholes.  Over at a cop car, they just covered her with PostyNotes sayin the same thing:  Sorry Lads, we do like you, some of us got Alpo when they was in the brains lineup in Heaven afore they was born.

To which I’m also sayin Good On Yer Vancouver.  I’s been there a couple of three times and she’s a fine city with decent folks.  Sometimes it’s hard to find a place where the coffee’s less than 14 dollars a cup, but the folks whats there are fine folks, even them what hasn’t been there that long.  They’ll help you out anytime youd like. 

Likes the time I was in Van lookin for a good curry but I didn’t want to spend half the cheque on it, so’s I asked around and they sent me to a joint that looked like some family’s kitchen with a cash register and a Coke cooler.  Ten bucks later, I’m into a Lamb Madras, salads and pappadums and shit, with a big ass Mango drink named after the dog called a Lassie.  Thought I’d died and gone to New Delhi, it was so good.  Nobody spoke a word of English and I don’t speak Indian, but we had a time of it with a big bunch of smiles all around. 

That’s what you call proper Vancouver hospitality.  We don’t give a shit where you’re from, or where you’re goin, but you’re welcome here, right now. 

Which if you think about it for another moment is sort of what Canada is like.  Did I just get all philosophical there?  <From Dave:  Yes Mason, you did.>

I se suppose that’s what I really mean.  If all you saw of Canada was those jagoffs riotin in Vancouver, you’d have a pisspoor impression of Vancouver and of Canada.  We’re not like that. 

I’d challenge anybody, black, white, green, red, brown, blue or purple to go to any city, town, village or unincorporated rural municipality five miles back of nowhere in Canada and walk up to a complete stranger.  Ask’em for directions to a Timmy’s or the nearest gas station and odds are they’d walk with you to show you the way.  Down East they’d probably have you to the house for dinner later while up the line, they’d see if you’d want a pint too.  Even in hotshot Toronto, they’d at least give you the time of day.

It’s Canada lad, we’ve got time and we’ll give you a hand.