Last night Lydia and I were having an argument about the importance of voting in Saturday's Vancouver Civic Election. My view was that after going through a Federal Election, a provincial bi-election and the Obama Election Miracle of '08 I'm pretty damn electioned out and frankly I don't really give a shit about civic politics anyway.
Lydia pressed me saying, probably correctly, that it's important and that I should care to which point I made the point that my general feeling is that most people who run for Mayor are idiots. Now granted my view is probably skewed after growing up in Kelowna where mayoral candidates tended to either be failed business people, punk anarchists looking to make a political point but not win, or complete freaks. By freaks I don't mean the sort of politically motivated hippie/freaks like Hunter S. Thompson when he ran for Sherrif of Aspen Colorado, I mean just complete nutbars.
But maybe I'm not giving Vancouver a chance. I respect Don Iveson who was elected to Edmonton's city council [di], so I guess I can't really argue that the only people who run for civic office are complete douche monsters. Maybe I should give the Vancouver mayoral candidates a chance.
Then they went and had a talent show, and basically proved my point.
From The Georgia Straight [tgs]:
Scott Yee, for example, was basically booed off stage for his collection of increasingly sexist and homophobic “jokes”; Menard Caissy, dressed in an oversized ski jacket, listened to an MP3 player through headphones and began yowling, sometimes crouched in a semi-fetal position, to what he said was a track by The Stains, all the while punctuating the racket with disconcerting hacking coughs; and the decidedly odd Gölök Buday joined Yee in the naughty corner for a racist and misogynist one-liner that offended everyone in the room.
Leon Kaplan's stand-up bit was fairly amusing, as he explained that he would split the right-wing vote with his plan to take tasers away from the cops—and give them to the Downtown Ambassadors. And Bill Ritchie performed a rather effective three-minute play that encapsulated the lives of five Vancouverites, from the wealthy businessman to the Hastings Street addict.
The Nude Garden Party’s Patrick Britten did not, thankfully, appear sans clothing; in pyjamas and a bathrobe he sang "Don’t Fence Me In", then delivered Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy. Independent Marc Emery opted not to perform anything, instead delivering a rant about the economic crisis facing the city; and independent park board candidate Jamie Lee Hamilton delivered a bawdy set of one-liners: “I’ve counted 15 lesbians and 15 politicians here tonight—that makes 30 people here who don’t do dick.”
Vision Vancouver’s Gregor Robertson appeared alongside councillor Heather Deal and council candidate Geoff Meggs for some Tom Lehrer fun, and responded to a question about his top three skills by listing watering plants, flipping pancakes, and playing tuba.
Well there's one argument I win.
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