I realize that I unintentionally upset a lot of people with my “Real Vancouverites” label, so it’s time to do some ‘splainin’:
The 60,000 of you who have read those words in the last 20 hours or so – hello, by the way – don’t know me, or spend any time inside my head. What seems to you like a cruel dig at the ‘burbs really isn’t, because that’s not how I roll. I could spend paragraphs trying to make you see my brain matter, but it’s not yet 8am, I haven’t had any Diet Coke, I’m naked and wet from the shower, and I’m really regretting last night’s spontaneous home haircut .. so you’re just going to have to take my word for it.
“Real Vancouverites” had nothing at all do to with geography, and everything to do with pride (and taxes). I’m proud to live in Vancouver, and that pride – plus a very strict moral code and tiny little elf hands that couldn’t flip a car if they tried – is what stops me from doing things like rioting, destroying property, lighting cars on fire, and running people over with my scooter (although that last one is harder to avoid with every Mercedes that tries to run me off the road). The rioters? They don’t care about this city. They just wanted to cause some trouble, have some “fun”, and maybe show their friends how cool they are what with all the awesome pictures people took of them. They are not who I think of when I think of the people who make up Vancouver, the Lower Mainland, BC. They don’t embody the spirit of our city – THESE people do. These are the people who are “Real Vancouverites”, regardless of where they actually live. They’re what make our city great, and are the ones who deserve to live in this awesome, amazing part of the world.
So, why make such a big deal about the rioters not being from Vancouver proper? Taxes, man. My knowledge of where my tax money goes pretty much ends at paying my many parking tickets, but these carpetbaggers (I really just wanted to use that term again; it’s great) live – and pay taxes – in Richmond, Maple Ridge, Delta. Okay, maybe some of the property tax their parents pay go towards keeping Vancouver beautiful, but I bet most of it goes to the town they postally live in. Hell, Water Polo Dick Douche lives in Calgary. He doesn’t pay squat in Vancouver. He isn’t FROM here, in every sense of the word.
Next on my Lucy Docket: naming names. See the part of the post below where I fully admit that vengeance is not pretty? Well, there you go. Yeah, I’m rotten enough to want their acts to follow them around. Other people gain notoriety for far worse or ridiculous reasons; why shouldn’t this be the same? People are asking me if I would want my dirty laundry aired for all to see – um, it already is. Again, you’re new here – but I’ve been blogging here for YEARS (ten of them!), and I. Share. EVERYTHING. Also, I’m not an asshole and don’t have any humiliating acts of vandalism following me around. The worst thing the Wayback Machine has on me is the fact that my very first webpage ever was written in Comic Sans – embarrassing, but wouldn’t keep me from getting employed (as anything other than a designer or typesetter). If you don’t do shameful, cowardly things, they won’t follow you around. It’s that simple.
The information I posted last night is widely available for anyone with the gumption to do a little digging. I had nothing to do last night, so I dug and dug and then I wrote in a fit of righteous ire and also a cape. *I* didn’t out these people, their actions did. I consilodated the information, added some snark to it, and made a post on my blog. Did I expect my internets to blow up like this? Of course not. Am I regretting my post? Oh HELL naw. That’s not how I roll. I’m good at rolling, too. Optimus Prime taught me.
I might be Batman in my head, but I am just one small round girl on the internet with fast fingers and the mouth of a sailor. If my information is proven to be wrong, I will gladly remove it and post several flowing odes in honour of those I did done wrong. If I’m right, though .. well, free speech and the power of SEO and all that good stuff. I didn’t post anything that isn’t ALL OVER THE INTERNET. I just made it accessible. I’m like a wheelchair ramp. Why are you yelling at a wheelchair ramp?
Lastly, I’m trying very hard not to think about the cold, hard fact that this is the most exposure my blog will likely ever have, in all 10+ years of existence – and it’s not because of anything awesome I did or wrote, but because some jackhole dick douche idiots had to go and wreck the city I love. That’s sobering and depressing (but I’ll still take it). After all, I’m only human.
this is my vancouver
delicious juice dot com 
Dude, you’re my hero. Also… “Why are you yelling at a wheelchair ramp?” GOLD!
I couldn’t agree with you more. If you do shameful acts, then you deserve the consequence, whether it’s the cops or people talking about it. It’s freedom of speech. Great post :)
My sister posted the previous entry to Facebook, supporting it. I live on wayyy the other side of the continent from you, in new York State, so I liked seeing a local’s perspective on it. I came back to share it again and saw this post.
Screw the internet, it frankly doesn’t care about you and you shouldn’t care about it either. Keep writing and keep being awesome :)
Well said. Just wish the world was seeing all the good the real Vancouverites are doing right now.
My thought on these people not being “real Vancouverites” has to do with the classy expression, “don’t shit where you eat”. Would these punks have destroyed property and lit cars and looted stores in their own neighbourhoods? I’d guess not, since then they’d be the ones inconvenienced with the mess and the closed stores and have a greater chance of being recognized as the culprits. No, the rioters felt no loyalty nor a sense of community about what they were destroying, so they themselves believed they weren’t “real Vancouverites”, regardless of where they or their parents pay taxes and regardless of our opinions.
What Gill said!
I say keep it up. Love you and your salior mouth. And sorry folks if the
Truth about these carpet bagging douche bags hit too close to your trailer homes.
I love you for these last two posts; I’m from Vancouver myself and I felt like this whole fiasco was just heartbreaking.
Don’t feel bad regarding the potentially temporary boost in blog popularity, most people don’t ever get to make that kind of mark on the internet at all. And who knows, maybe it will get you somewhere.
GREAT post. I asked yesterday and I’m asking again – please post more! I want to see faces and names attached to those hooligans who desecrated everybody’s Vancouver. Thanks.
Thank you! This is my first read of your blog and I will read again because you are candid and honest. I, although not a vancouverite cannot stop cursing the ugly douchebags that did this to your city. They should be held accountable, legally and financially. Those without means to pay, should work off their debt or have their parents pay. Just waiting for the sh!tf@cks that come out crying about police brutality. Please continue to post names, pictures and if you so dare. phone numbers and addresses.
I thought G20 protest riots were bad, but this is far more disgraceful.
Funny, thought provoking and VERY well said.
When I watch what my neighbours kids do now I can easily see them behaving like this when they are a little older. It’s all about the quality of parenting, and teaching respect for others.
Good for you for taking the time to post all of this.
High-five, my girl. Preach it!
Word.
Hi Kimli,
There’s a big part of me that loves seeing these pictures. I couldn’t agree more that, based on court procedures, circumstantial evidence and an overload of cases that could tie up millions more of taxpayer dollars, this online ostracism may be the only punishment most of these jerks every receive.
But there is a darker side to my smug viewing of their pictures, their names and their idiotic social media posts. These jackasses embarrassed all of us by putting this black mark on our city. I. Want. Them. To. Pay. And there it is: REVENGE.
So I’m checking myself here, and thinking about All The Reasons why I don’t want to experience glee over the multitude of sites:
1. It’s mob justice, which is certainly swift but not necessarily accurate. I love our country, warts and all, and I’m generally proud of our justice system. I want to uphold it and facilitate it, not let myself revel in its circumvention.
2. It’s perpetuating the infamy that asshats like Brock, Billy and all the others seem to live for. In their reality, this attention may not even be shaming – they are becoming famous! Ours is the world of a myriad of base reality TV where people just like these become famous for doing stupid, stupid things. I don’t want to give them more fuel for their idiot fire.
3. It’s justifying the presence of the thousands of spectators who, while documenting the event, were feeding the rioters’ need for an audience and obstructing the police from taking swifter action. Yes, it’s good that they got a picture of an idiot and have now posted it online (and hopefully sent it to VPD) in hopes that the criminal can be brought to justice. Maybe it would have been better if they had gone-the-fuck-home long before, when the police had first requested that the crowd disperse.
I’m not saying you should take your posts down (except as you’ve already done by editing off numbers and addresses). As you’ve acknowledged, this is your vengeance and it ain’t pretty. I enjoy the honest way you put yourself out there every day on this site. Plus, as @smuttystef tweeted today, it’s your soapbox – not mine. Me, I’m just trying to curb my appetite.
You know, I can’t help but wish Law & Order were still on the air. Maybe seeing this shit re-imagined by their writers would have helped all of us make some sense of it. Those are my thoughts this Friday.
A
whoa – that comment (lecture?) was way longer than I thought!
And I COMPLETELY disagree with your trashing their parents on RateMDs.com. Identifying criminal action is laudable, but be VERY careful of taking it too far, Kimli – casting aspersions / guilt by association onto the parent’s PROFESSIONAL reputation could well get your ass sued. Internet libel law is different in Canada apropos to the site owner in the USA, and you are patently warned that you are liable for comments posted to the MDs name, NOT the site. And if you’re not aware of it, I’d suggest researching it. A newspaper would not be publishing the assertions you are making about the father, and I’d strongly advise you to rethink your tack. RateMDs.com is designed as a rating of a professional by a patient, not your PERCEPTIONS of his parenting skills. I am in no way, shape or form associated with this MD, and it’s well meaning advice : based on what you have written on that site, I would be consulting a lawyer if I were you. If it were me, you’d be served tomorrow…
I don’t know you and I LOVE YOU….for these two last posts alone. I’ll be following from here on in. (and, if I had the energy this week, I would be on the blogging bandwagon with all of this shit too.) My 5 minutes-of-blogging-fame also came during this playoff run, when I immediately blogged and posted the uncensored Canuck boob flashing penalty box Ben Eager incident and became #1 on Google with it. http://aruralrube.blogspot.com/2011/05/canuck-fan-flashes-her-boobs-to-eager.html
So fun to watch the statcounter!!
Keep it rolling!!!!
Jodi :o)…AKA “A Real Vancouverite Living in Aldergrove”
The same social media that documented the chaos of last nights riot were also used to bring Vancouverites together to clean up the damage Thursday morning…..While rioters were still jumping on cars local blogger Noelani Dubeta and some of her friends took to Facebook to organize the event Post Riot Clean-up Lets help Vancouver that went up 8 p.m. Last night was not Vancouver…..Raimondo feeling frustrated and helpless after watching the riots tweeted that her company had a truck and could be anywhere they were needed…..Responding first to Granville Raimondo said the streets were a scary sight…..All you could see looking up Granville was piles of glass … ….Raimondo was amazed but not surprised at the amount of people that were cleaning the streets.
Please get your facts straight before making claims! The 17-year-old water polo star is from Maple Ridge and his dad is a well respected surgeon in the community and I assure you pays taxes in this province. I’m not saying what he has done is right and not defending it in any way but just saying if you are going to write something do your research and get your facts straight.
You should not be apologetic about your blog. Being one these real “Vancouverites”, who pays taxes to the municipality of VANCOUVER, rioting on my own turf has never crossed my mind. But then again, it is far to easy for me to hop on a Skytrain and travel to Surrey or RIchmond or Maple Ridge and start some trouble, which is exactly what these people did. Have you identified any of these culprits who participated in the riots being from Vancouver? No.
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