"You can't park here," I said to the lady. "You're parking in front of a home where handicapped kids stay. They load and unload them right there. You're going to get towed."
"I'm handicapped," the woman said, avoiding eye contact. She had big, curly blonde hair that hid her face well. "I have a sticker on my windshield. I'm handicapped."
"No, there are handicapped kids that go to this building," Michelle explained, pointing at the building. "Para Transpo drops them off and picks them up here."
"There's no OC Transpo sign," she said.
There was, however, an obvious no parking sign. Furthermore, someone had placed several upside down green garbage cans along side where she parked, and each can said, NO PARKING on it.
"You're going to get towed," I said.
She ignored me and started walking off towards the concert. At a guess, I'd say she was in her late forties. It was roughly fifteen minutes before the Kiss concert started, and she was desperate to get there on time. That's why she picked a spot that every other car had obviously ignored, because they read all the signs.
It's Blues Fest in Ottawa again. Kiss, at Blues Fest? Right, because Blues Fest has nothing to do with the blues. Except for those of us in our neighbourhood. We sing the blues every night there's a concert.
It's nice to see the bylaw officers out, ticketing cars. A parking ticket during a special event runs you around $70, one bylaw officer informed me. All the same, people park as close to the show as they can.
And when they're not parking illegally, they're pissing on our property. One guy told his friends he would catch up, he was just going to take a leak. He then walked into our co-op, ready to go behind a tree and piss.
When two female members of the co-op confronted him -- they were standing right there when he announced he had to pee -- the guy called them uptight cunts and said he could piss where he wanted and that's why "god invented trees". While one co-op member was on hold with the cops, the other lost patience and turned a garden hose on the guy. That was the only way to make him go away.
Yes, people are selfish assholes. What's more amazing is that they're unapologetically selfish assholes. Catch them urinating on your home, and they say, "Stop giving me a hard time." Catch them blocking handicapped kid drop off zones, and they're indignant that you would dare to speak to them.
It gets worse every year. I can only hope that the city is going to make a killing with all the parking tickets they're handing out. Maybe that can held fund a concert where we can hear some blues. You know, instead of the garbage they play at Blues Fest.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
Stumbled across your blog via a twitter post. Agree with you completely. People are stupid in large crowds. :( Hope you have your garden hose ready for when the concert finishes.
Nik, you already sound like you're 70. "Get off my lawn" "The concert is too loud!" "You can't park here!" You're a middle-class Clint Eastwood from "Gran Torino"
Welcome to living downtown. You're going to have to deal with drunks, drugs, music and mayhem. If you don't like it, go to Kanata. You can have a double garage, a huge house and there won't be people smoking pot on your balcony. (wait, I think that was me)
Try going to the show and enjoying the music. It's part of the downtown atmosphere. I'd love living somewhere like Booth for this very reason. My neighbourhood is entirely devoid of this kind of action. You're within walking distance of a massive concert. Take advantage of it.
Calling the cops for someone pissing on your yard? It may not have been you, but it's idiotic and a total waste of everyone's time. You know he'll be gone by the time anyone shows up. If it's on the grass who the hell cares? Do you clean up your dogs piss? I know you've urinated in public before. Every guy has. No one wants it on their property.
And yes, there's blues at Bluesfest but you wouldn't know anyway, having never attended Bluesfest or checked the schedule, or have any idea what the blues is. I caught a blues show in the afternoon one day while volunteering.
If they're illegally parked. Well, who cares. They'll get towed at their own expense. Why bother confronting these people? You're just going to make them angry as you usually do when you confront dumb people like this then act totally baffled as to why they're mad.
Does Para Transpo even show up at the handicapped kids centre after 8pm? I've been around there after dark and it looked totally abandoned.
And it's kind of funny you're complaining about selfish assholes. You just want your peace and quiet yet you live next to a gigantic piece of public land which everyone has the right to enjoy. Want quiet? Try Kanata!
Monte,
Thanks for the lesson on what I'm going to have to deal with if I live downtown. It's all so new to me since I've only lived there MOST OF MY ADULT LIFE. If you really want to patronize me further, why not describe to me the joys of painting and creative writing?
"Have you ever considered painting portraits based on mug shots?"
"Why no! Thanks for the tip!"
You'll have to ask the people at that handicapped kid place why they put garbage cans around that one spot, saying DO NOT PARK HERE why they bothered to do it -- you know, if no one drops people off at night. I have a feeling they did it for a reason. I think maybe they're in a better position than you or I to know whether or not they can spare that one space.
I'm not sure the women in our co-op called the cops because the guy was going to take a leak. I think they called the cops because he called them UPTIGHT CUNTS and FUCKING BITCHES and refused to leave when they asked him to. While I didn't witness the event myself, it didn't sound like your classic, "Man, I need to take a piss and I will discretely go behind this bush."
It sounded more like a "FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING CUNTS! I CAN DO WHATEVER THE FUCK I FUCKING WANT, YOU FUCKING BITCHES!" kind of an event.
You know, a crazy asshole who has to piss and refuses to leave and you don't know what kind of shit he's going to pull next? That might merit a visit from Officer Friendly.
One of my neighbours tells me he came out on to his porch and found FIVE GUYS lined up in a row, all of them pissing on the side of his house. But I'm sure that, once I let him know he shouldn't complain about it, because you disapprove of such complaints, he'll be more understanding.
"Suck it up, bitch! You live downtown! Get used to the smell of pee!"
"Yes sir, Monte! I certainly won't complain any more! I don't want you to think of me as a man in his 70s! You opinion matters that much! I guess when I'm trying to sleep and the smell of urine comes wafting through my window, I'll think to myself that's just the price I pay for living in a free society."
And sure, the blues fest has some blues. There's an acoustic tent way in back. But come on -- everyone knows that it's less and less about the blues every year and more and more about big name bands that bring in the cash. It's practically a cliche, at this point, making that complaint.
Living downtown is awesome. I love it. Living downtown when all the assholes from suburbia show up and shriek, "We're downtown and we can do anything we want, my bitches!" is a whole other matter. That's who these people are, ironically enough.
But hey, if you want to spend your time defending assholes who scream obscenities and who block handicapped-kid-drop-off-points, by all means, go for it. Hey, want to say something positive about the people who leave used syringes in our parks? Or how about this, aids infected whores who continue to fuck johns? Or maybe people who vandalize cars? Or...
I'm trying to think of the worst example... Men who rape puppies. Want to defend them?
"Come on, now. You have to admit that petting a puppy is a semi-sexual act. All that caressing. It's a form of physical love. The puppy rapist is just taking it to the next logical step. Society's prudish attitude towards bestiality needs to be confronted."
(I am done ranting now. And yes, I feel better.)
You're truly an idiot Nik. You're as bad as those people living in the market who complain about poor people living there. Instead of focusing on a solution to poverty and drug addiction they rant and rave about the poor people. That's you. Same thing. No rhyme or reason to what you do. You're just MAD AS HELL. You don't even care to offer a solution or even help people. You're happy in your continued rage. It's kind of a Lowell Green thing. This is why I label you as a reactionary. Your arguments don't even make sense. It's just a rant.
Confronting someone who has to take a piss somewhere. Yes, they might get angry that the locals are wielding pitchforks and have told them to leave. Where are they supposed to piss? Oh yeah, the same place as your dogs! If five dogs lined up and pissed on your lawn you'd take a picture and put it on your blog.
They're pissing on your garden. Next they might be raping the local women. Because we all know that people who would become intoxicated with alcohol or marijuana might lose control and start acting CrAzY!
As for the smell of urine. I'd figure you'd be used to it. You have two dogs. This is just an opportunity for you to beat your chest and get upset over something. It's typical NIMBY behaviour. Where is your rage when there are true injustices being committed? No blog entries about Larry O'Brien?
Apparently because I defended people who wanted to take a piss I also will defend serial rapists who abuse young children in the park and devour their internal organs. Yes, that slippery slope of yours makes perfect sense. Your rage needs to be controlled. Poor oppressed white middle-aged man living downtown! :( How dare anyone try to have fun in this city! Almost as bad as the Glebe-ites complaining about the Super-Ex every year.
Why do you suspect all the people going to Bluesfest are from the suburbs? They can't be from downtown? They must be bad people from elsewhere who want to ruin your night of reading and quiet solitude. I mean you work all day so you probably deserve better than those drunken punks, right?
You seem to like quiet, I don't know why you live downtown then because there are going to be concerts and people going to strip clubs and bars. You just seem like you'd be happier in a gated community where you could go home and reflect on your day.
You live downtown. Part of the marketing is that you take advantage of the shows and events that are here.
Monty,
I'm an idiot? We disagree. That doesn't make me stupid. And it doesn't make you stupid. We've both given the matter thought and reached different conclusions.
I really wish you would argue with me, and not who you think I am. NIMBY? Show me where I said I want the Blues Fest to be some place else. Show me. Find the sentence. Find a sentence that even implies I want it some place else.
You won't find one, because I never said it. So who are you arguing with? Not me. You're arguing with something in your own head. An expectation of who you think I am.
Why are you doing this? Here's a hypothesis:
"Oh, I know this argument! He hates the Blues Fest. That means he's a person who lives downtown and complains about the poor. That means he's Lowell Green. That means he's one of those Glebe-ites who hates the EX! He's an old, grumpy man who wants to listen to classical music and read his book and hates crowds and noise!"
Show me where I complained about the noise of the concert. Seriously. Read EVERYTHING that I have written up to this point and show me where I complained about noise.
Hint: I didn't. Not once.
You, sir, are arguing with the ghosts and voices in your own head. Get an exorcism, come back, and talk to me -- not ghosts.
I'm completely serious -- you need to start seeing the people in front of you, without projecting all your expectations on them. Until they say it, you can't accuse them of believing it. Doesn't that seem fair?
What I was complaining about are some of the thoughtless assholes who go to the Blues Fest. Their shitty behaviour ruins it for the rest of us. That's it. Everything else -- you brought that to the table, not me.
Why should I argue with someone who is not actually arguing with me?
By the way, my solution to the assholes? More cops and more bylaw officers patrolling the area. Some garbage cans put out for trash. Maybe more port-a-potties. Simple enough.
Nik
You're a reactionary. As in someone who's argument is completely based on ignorance and doesn't even offer a concrete solution to the problem before him. Again it's all about your rage.
You say there's no blues at Bluesfest but I saw blues on the main stage during the afternoon. I've given the matter thought. You've made up your mind before the problem was even before you. Hence idiocy and you're a reactionary. I know more about Bluesfest than you do. You won't even set foot in the place for fear of actually having fun in public.
More cops is the solution? Yes, you really are a reactionary. And no, that's nothing like what Lowell Green would suggest. Because prohibition of public urination will stop people from having the need to urinate? Just like illegal pot laws have stopped people from smoking pot and anti-panhandling laws stopped panhandling.
How about permanent public porta-potties as there are in many metropolitan cities like London? Public drinking is also legal
in London and it means LESS hooliganism because people don't have to binge drink in a fenced off area. Also Bluesfest should allow people to bring in their own drinks. It's a publicly funded festival so we should get something back. Just as you should have a right to ask for Foetus to perform (or whomever it is you like)
You know when Bluesfest is and you have more vacation time than most of the population of our city. Use it during Bluesfest and escape the mayhem. That is unless you simply enjoy being the oppressed rebel who can't stand the two weeks of craziness and needs to vent about it every year.
I suspect that's the case because I've been hearing about this for a few years.
Monty,
You just called me a reactionary, which made me laugh. Why?
You really want to tell me who I am. You really don't want to ask me who I am. You're so busy making up a persona for me, you can't hear what I am saying. What could be more "reactionary" than that? I'm not sure who you're talking to -- what ghost or psychological remnants you're fighting with. But it's not me.
Your side of the conversation feels like a storm I'm watching from a mountain side. It's raining, and there's lightning, way over there, in a distant town. Nothing to do with me. It's sort of pretty, in a way, but so very abstract and distant.
It took me a while to realize just how very little it all has to do with me. That storm has been raging in you for a long, long time. It's the storm of the anarchists, I suspect.
"Well, if you disagree with me, then you must be X, and Y, and Z!!!"
Which is pretty much what you've been like since this conversation started.
You probably can't feel any of that. There's this kind of eager, desperate, "point scoring" mentality in your words. It's ugly and sad, like some kind of physical deformity that you choose to carry, but could easily put down if you wanted to.
Do you want to have a conversation? Or do you want to rage against Father Green? Call Lowell directly, if your beef is with him. I understand he has some sort of talk radio show.
I just said, "What? NIMBY? No! Not at all! By all means, keep the Blues Fest in my backyard."
And you ignore that and move on to something else -- to score points. No admitting you got it wrong. No backing up and saying, "Oh, okay, this is different than I thought."
You just stubbornly stick to your story, even though it no longer fits. Turns out you're not fighting a tiger, you're fighting a tank. But instead of taking that hand grenade out of your backpack -- I know you've got one -- you're stubbornly sticking to your spear.
Good luck with that.
I knew I could bait you with police officers. I half wonder if I said it, just so I could watch you twist your face up all ugly and wild. I even used the words "Officer Friendly" -- a kind of cheese for the trap.
As a mutual friend of ours likes to say, "THERE IS NO OFFICER FRIENDLY!!!!"
So... What will you say next? Probably a lecture about how I am selfish, how I am isolationist, how I contribute nothing, how I am part of the problem, how you know exactly what I should be doing instead. How very predictable. And how very 14 years old of you.
Please don't bother giving me that lecture again. I heard you the first 300 times. It's still not for me, thanks.
But by all means, post it for the cluster of anarchists watching over your shoulder, who all make sure you say the right thing, deliver the correct party line. Wouldn't want to embarrass yourself by "going off message", would you?
Nik
It's no wonder everyone in Nik's life has basically cut him off including his entire family.
He's a total tool to be around. No one can tell him anything without Nik being smarter and cooler than everyone else.
I noticed a long time ago that you can only relate to other people negatively. Other people are awful human beings in your opinion. There's absolutely no group that you want to be a part of. You're just that edgy and cool.
In this case the people are "invading" "your downtown". I think selfishness and snobby is definitely a label that applies here. You're like an infant who wants everyone to belong to him and doesn't understand the simplest principles of sharing. Sorry, giving up your parking space when you don't even have a car isn't exactly a charitable act.
I suspect you hate what you've become because no one can be happy believing 99.9% of humanity is out to get him. You know it is possible to be something other than a total asshole in life who despises everyone. That doesn't even mean being an anarchist or socialist or a liberal. It has nothing to do with politics. It means treating people with respect and without prejudice. You're extremely prejudiced Nik.
And yet obviously, I can't give advice without demeaning you. Maybe you need a little demeaning to get off your high horse.
So are you House or Wilson in our discussion from a few months ago? I kind of suspect that you're House now. Not that "OUR MUTUAL FRIEND" *wink wink. nudge nudge* is Wilson but he's certainly more charitable and kind than House.
For the record in past years you and your wife have both complained about the noise of BluesFest noise. I remember because I was volunteering.
Whether you want to be a NIMBY or not, you are. You only wish you could choose not to be these things like a yuppie, a selfish prick and a NIMBY but that doesn't mean you aren't like them. If you want to stop being called these things then stop acting like them.
And no one really gives a shit about your blog. There's no anarchist mob out to get you Nik.
Monty:
This is getting sillier and sillier. Have the last word after this one.
No one has cut me off, and you know it. Well, except maybe our "mutual friend". I do consider that a loss. But at the same time, his conditions for maintaining a friendship are way too controlling, for my tastes. But I'm not prepared to discuss that here.
And I'm not smarter or cooler than anyone else. Didn't I just finish saying the following?
"I'm an idiot? We disagree. That doesn't make me stupid. And it doesn't make you stupid. We've both given the matter thought and reached different conclusions."
I didn't insult you or call you stupid. You're the one who keeps calling me names:
You're 70.
No rhyme or reason to what you do.
You're a reactionary.
You're truly an idiot.
It's kind of a Lowell Green thing.
And so on.
Have I insulted you? Have I been negative? I said you defend public urinators and people who block handicapped drop off points. You did. I implied you'd defend puppy rapists too. Not sure that's an insult, so much an exaggeration.
And then I said you don't really know my opinions, you're just assuming you know them. Given your last two comments, is it safe to say that's now a fact and not an opinion?
Which one of us really is negative? Which one of us thinks everyone is stupider than him? Again, who are you talking to? Are you sure you're talking to me?
Just because I don't want another lecture in anarchy doesn't mean I think I'm smarter than you. I disagree with you. And I don't want to hear another sermon, reverend, about how capitalism is evil, and how I'm part of the problem, and how I should be unionizing Starbucks -- and that unionizing Starbucks is saving the world.
Isn't that reasonable? Put yourself in my position.
"Oh no, here comes that missionary again, to lecture me about Jesus."
"Starbucks is the devil."
"Yes, yes, you've told me."
When I said the anarchists are staring over your shoulder, watching what you write, I didn't mean that the anarchists are out to get me. More like they're out to KEEP you. I didn't even mean that they're literally looking over your shoulder, so much that you express yourself like they're there. Do you see what I'm saying?
It's not that you can't give me advice without "demeaning" me -- it's that your politics are all you ever talk about, I disagree with you, and when I disagree you feel threatened and get angry. The political is very personal, with you. And I suspect if these beliefs were running more deep, you wouldn't be so vulnerable whenever anyone questions them.
Can we agree to disagree? You stop trying to convert me to anarchy. In return, I'll not talk about something you have no interest in. Sex offenders, maybe?
You really think you know me. And you really don't. And I get the feeling you'd much rather think you know me than try to find out who I really am. And I suspect that's because -- as I will now say for the final time -- you're not really arguing with me at all, but someone else.
Go in peace, brother.
Nik
PS.
I didn't complain about the Blues Fest noise this year because they turned the volume down. You know, after everyone around here complained last year. ;-)
Nik, you have the patience of an angel.
Your Twitter poems tickle my happy receptors...
Post a Comment