Vancouver Tourism
The New York Times ran an article in their travel section today about Vancouver, and saints be praised, it’s pretty spot on. Some shout outs go to such noteworthy establishments as Button Button (our world famous button shop) and Ironhead (think yoga-wear trend but with boxing clothes). They even point out that “Vancouver isn’t known for it’s art scene,” and with more and more international papers running articles that focus their attention on button shops and hiking, we never will be.
Oh, and the only mention of Vancouver’s drug-problem was while describing historic Gastown:
Once the seedy home to drug addicts and prostitutes, the old waterfront neighborhood is now a restored district of cobblestone streets and antique gaslights.
Once the seedy home? Really? Didn’t notice a thing, huh? This is the kind of article we’re all too happy to see as the city builds up it’s tourism base for the Olympics. Constantly trumpeting the “laid-back vibe” that Vancouver offers without ever mentioning the fact that you can’t walk more than five feet without tripping over a guy with AIDS. We can’t wait for the thousands of tourists to descend upon us in 2010 wondering what the fuck happened and where all the crack came from. “That’s funny. No one mentioned the permeating urine smell it in that Times article. What gives?”
The thing is, we’re not really sure what gives. The New York Times is one of the most trusted news sources in the world, and while this is a travel piece, like it or not, dealing with the homeless plays a part in any visit to Vancouver. You don’t need to go through Gastown or Chinatown to see it, even though this guy did. Our guess is that while he was down in Gastown, he stumbled into an alley, scored some serious H, got all fucked up, spent the rest of his trip geeking out on how awesome those millions of buttons looked, and then cribbed his entire article from the fluff he read on Beyond Robson.
seanorr
You guys…fuck it. Maybe the Nerve was right. RIP Only. Sure, there is fluff on BR, but we don’t go out of our way to be dicks.
- Jul 13, 05:50 PMpardenarden
Seriously, take a joke…why’s everybody so dam sensitive in this town?
- Jul 13, 06:35 PMseanorr
Must be the heat.
No, I think it hurt because its true. There’s a lot of pap. I put a lot of time into Morning Brew, then someone comes along and writes about dating or ‘interview with the bartender’. So yeah. - Jul 13, 10:24 PMshawnkemp
long live only
- Jul 14, 03:56 PMOnly....if only
(s)word up only staffers..
i apprieciate the truth that you portray here with vancouver’s true dichotomy in which i find no other city shares such a jekyll and hyde complex like this fair town… the rich and the poor, the happiness and the depression, the rain and the sun, etc.
i do respect your piece here as nytimes definetly wrote vancouver off as nothing but peaches……….
i really find it ironic though that Only acts as a voice for the people as emily carr students are as pretentious and phony as any of the rich folk in vancouver. ive been to a couple gigs of theirs and they were most unwelcoming, trite and superficial—and violent social darwinists—as much as any vancouvite has shown which is saying something alright in this over-inflated city…my cousin moved office furniture for a company that had contracts for emily carr and he said he never felt treated so terribly, no one helped him and everyone looked down on him (or down on the ground avoiding eye-contact) as he was an outsider (thank g*d he is tho) he mentioned that most of the rich guys in suites were more humane than the quasi-artists at emily… i guess we are living in an age where lacking natural affection is too fashionable and loving your neighbour as yourself is some dumb philosophy spoken by some dead guy that we can self-importantly shi* on. How much longer will we go on as survivalism as our g*d??
stick around you’ll get
one community! one voice!
- Jul 14, 07:42 PMwe don’t care it’s worth it!