Axel Matfin's Blog

These days I generally try not to run my mouth about subjects that I don’t know anything about. This wasn’t always the case. On many occasions I was cowed by those with superior intellect or simply greater knowledge about the tasks or materials at hand. Indeed an acknowledgement of my own limited experience, intelligence and knowledge led me to largely abandon writing consistent opinion pieces. It seemed vulgar and crass to assume that I, at the age of 22 had anything to say that had not already been conceived of by someone else. I never stopped writing film and television reviews but those have mostly been relegated to the film group I joined over a decade ago, The Spoiler Room, but it’s been a hot minute since I was writing anything but fictional narratives with any degree of seriousness. I think that I had fundamentally become afraid that no one gave a shit what I thought and that it was generally just a waste of my time. That might be true, but I did not give a fuck fifteen years ago and I’m endeavouring to remember that crucial creative skill again now. Still I wanted to make an acknowledgement that in the subject matter I’ll be writing about, I’m not just pulling this stuff out of thin air. The choice to make a return to writing in this form is to convey the knowledge I’ve gained in my respective interests as well as a place to meditate and contemplate lessons learned over time.

The Restaurant, food and beverage service, industry is something I have a lot of experience in and because I can write, I want to write about it. My first job was at an A&W at the age of 14. I worked in the restaurant industry in Vancouver from 2007-2019, in pretty much every role at one time or another, although I’m best known as a bartender. I want to write about what’s changed in the industry and how I feel about the evolution of dining and service. I want to tell admirational stories of the great folks I worked with over the years, as well as admonish some of the people I encountered, as well as recount scenarios I was placed in by managers or ne’er do wells. I want to conjure the misty memories of integrating into Vancouver by carousing in bars and talking to strangers. I also want to highlight the pitfalls, challenges and methods that go along with such high profile loitering and boozery. I was never truly elite when it came to the always preposterous world of mixology, having laughed at the term for as long as I can remember. Don’t get me wrong, I like nice things, high quality things, hell I can even like flashy things – what I don’t like is self indulgent wanking and grandstanding. There are far more intricate and complex skills to know in order to be a great bartender than how to make drinks, and if I’m being honest I think that’s the least complicated part. I cooked for a short period of time alongside some of my heroes, and in that time I learned some of the most valuable lessons that I use in my day to day life constantly. I’d be a fucking liar of I attempted to claim that Anthony Bourdain had no influence on my life or that now that he’s passed I think he was rote hack – but after a few years of soul searching and reading a few books about him that came out after his death, I want to examine some of the lesser known parts of the man’s life and try to connect that to the near complete ven diagram of the population to whom he appealed. I want to write about how cooking and restaurants are presented on television and where the seemingly lab created cheddar goblin that is Matty Matheson was designed. I spent a considerable amount of my adult life behind bars, so the people I could tell you about? But I’ll get there.

Over the past ten years I’ve written and self published 5 novels, and while none of them are best sellers or even widely acknowledged? I still like to think that I know a thing or two about how to write and tell stories. I’m still doing it today, although until some publishing house backs up a truck of money, I’ve decided to abandon the act of writing novels. I also want to talk about what went wrong, what I could have done better and how I would do it again given the chance. I’ll get into my process and really break down the functional aspects of writing, not just the indulgence in one’s imagination or intentional typographical diarrhea. I’m going to offer my critique of the publishing industry as well as the ideologies and trends that seem to pervade the culture and stunt the growth of literacy. I’m going to talk about my experiences with bookstores, book sellers, and other authors. I want to write about my intentions in writing and analyze what certain pieces were designed to do and whether or not I hit the mark with those. I’d like to get to writing about the absolute soul crushing lows that can come with sinking all your time and energy into something that you eventually realize that few, if any, people are going to read. I want to write about taste, style and class in writing, as well as commanding the grace and intelligence to handle dicey, potentially offensive subject matter, with a deft hand and a skilled tongue. I’d like to get to addressing the classist exclusive nature of academic writing communities. I like poetry well enough, but it’s consistently tiring to watch books of poetry getting published so their writers can masquerade as real authors. I want to lament that it can’t be like it was in the 60’s and 70’s for fiction, where all I’d need to be able to do is write a novel a year to get paid enough to afford a nice house in the suburbs. I want to address some of what I think are myths within the world of writing and writers. I want to write about collaborative writing vs solitary writing. The various methods used to connect with the collective unconscious. I will of course analyze and deconstruct my own novels.

There is so much media not only out there but accessible to us at all times. I like thinking about how the media we process, whether it’s books, or movies, tv, music, visual arts – they all have their own industry and world and story and although I enjoy all those things very much I can often find the story of their creation more fascinating. Learning how a movie was made, who made it, paid for it, and distributed it is fascinating to me. So I’ll probably write about that in addition to my own reviews of the media itself. I love the films of William Friedkin so I’m sure I’ll get into that in a bit. Or maybe I’ll write my shamefully apologetic defense of Nickelback? Get into the painfully underused theme of sky pirates as featured prominently in the 90’s Disney animated series TailSpin? Write about why Rick and Morty went into decline? Shit I could write about Dan Harmon. Perhaps muse on why I think Ryan Reynolds is a successful mogul? Break down why Mad Max: Fury Road is A. The greatest action film of all time and B. a fascinating blueprint for both radicalizing young men, but also de-radicalizing them. Maybe I’ll get into Ayn Rand, spice it up with some actual analysis of Atlas Shrugged or something? There’s still lots of Werner Herzog movies I haven’t watched. I can write on end about my favorite author of crime novels Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake) and his seminal series about no bullshit criminal protagonist: Parker. The Parker books masterfully display thrift in word, economy in ideas and a seasoned professional’s execution of construction. I’ve probably read more comics than most people, maybe I’ll get into doing in depth analysis of series I haven’t tackled in years? 100 Bullets, Y-The Last Man, Transmetropolitan, Preacher, Sandman, Strangers in Paradise. Wax poetic about golden age comics and the near perfect form of a four panel daily comic strip.

All these things, but not limited to them, are what I plan on writing about. I’ve spent enough time thinking about them.

You’re probably wondering how the hell I ended up here.

One doesn’t become a writer unless they think they have something to say. When I was younger it was an untapped firehose of expression. The things I wrote were often questionable in taste, or cringe in their absolute sincerity. Sometimes I wrote things that had a positive effect on the community around me and sometimes I pissed people off. I do always find it interesting that I’ve gotten in far more trouble in my life for the things I’ve said or written than anything I’ve ever actually done. As time went on I began to refine not only the style and functionality of my writing but my tastes and breadths of interest. I realized that I needed to step it up, take things to the next level. Leave the internet behind for a while. I started to publish ‘zines. In 2009 I started writing a novel that would become two, the first drafts of which I wrote back to back. In 2012 I published my first novel. In 2019, after nearly a decade, I finally released the 3rd book in a trilogy, technically my 5th book, I just ceased to give a shit. I didn’t really care what I had to say anymore, a feeling that had been building over the past couple years. I was sick of my stories. Sick of my own ideas. I was disappointed in my lack of success, always a better writer than a marketer. The decade since I’d started writing novels in earnest had been a gauntlet as I struggled to survive in overpriced Vancouver, figure out myself and make the time to create. There were a lot of factors in my lack of success, although none more obvious than my descent into a conspiracy of municipal, academic and non-profit affairs. Over the past decade of writing my life became, for long periods of time, a constantly surreal mirror world of my fictional realities. At a certain point it was hard to tell if my art was influencing my life or vice-versa. There were some good thrilling times, but there were also some really dark times that in the moment were hard to comprehend. It’s all a lot to get into really.

But that’s why I’m back. To tell some of the tales for posterity. Over the coming weeks and months I’m going to be sharing my experiences and adventures as a writer, supernaut, investigator, band manager, bartender and occasional bystander.

Here’s what my books, so far, are about.

My first series The Bartender is about a seemingly cynical, jaded, and tough as nails bartender with smooth moves and a mysterious past that comes backs to haunt him in the form of a handgun anonymously delivered to his place of employment. In pursuit of his tormentors the protagonist Tom Wolfe leads the reader along through a mystery that takes him into the underbelly slums and harsh realities of the downtown east side and up to the ivory towers of high society.

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It’s like the social satire of Bonfire of the Vanities meets the hard boiled crime of the Maltese Falcon, juiced up with the outrageous sensibilities of Grand Theft Auto. Throughout the series I maintain the same continuous mystery story, although each book reveals more about the overall plot while altering the tone and shifting the genre. The first book is a hard boiled detective story. The second book is a psychological horror thriller. The third book is a heist story that gives insight into the character’s past, reveals the villain and his motives before ultimately wrapping the entire thing up.

My second series Lazlo is about a  globetrotting filipino independent super operative who, along with his teammates Alberta Duke and Jacques takes big scores and fight the evils of our terrestrial reality and beyond, into the farthest reaches of space and time, into the collective unconscious.

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Lazlo stories are roughly 10 thousand word white knuckled rides where the plot functions like a Rube Goldberg machine made up of spectacular action set pieces. Lazlo’s adventures take him just about anywhere. For example in the first volume of stories Lazlo infiltrates an African extremist group, releasing captive child soldiers, rescuing the kidnapped Nigerian School girls and preventing and ebola outbreak. In a story from an upcoming volume he’s on a mission to rescue Jacques from a Alien legion that’s secretly in control of earth. Lazlo, written simply, and has the straightforward stylistic action of the graphic novel series Hellboy, the inventive spirit of classic pulps like Doc Savage and the Shadow, all kicked off with an incredibly strong hit of acid.

 Although Lazlo and Tom Wolfe are similar, they both occupy a world of ridiculous action adventure, their attributes, skills and personalities are very different. Tom Wolfe is the micro, the small details, the reading of people, the hustle, the intricacies of corruption and confidence games. Lazlo is the macro, the larger than life, the things beyond comprehension, the unsolvable problems and unbeatable villains of our world. Lazlo has all the coolest gear and goes from country to country at a whim. Tom Wolfe pursues localized mysteries and explores his own thoughts. Together they make up the yin-yang spectrums of an universe of adventure which has begun to grow bigger since I began these projects back in 2011. The world they inhabit is the world of Adventure Factory, the name I gave my then infant publishing line for these works. It is more than just a publishing banner, both of these characters and their supporting cast members, as well as characters I have yet to finish novels about, they all inhabit the same functioning universe. Their connections are not always obvious and the cameos are sparse but make no mistake I have very intricate plans for the destiny’s of both Tom Wolfe and Lazlo moving forward. 

If everything goes my way I’ll have two new Lazlo stories out this summer and a new series entitled Wolfmen Investigations , starring Tom Wolfe.

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Apply on the portal, once approved you can apply for grants!

I had been rejected status to apply  for the chance to apply for founding from the Canada Council for the Arts. I write and publish books. My application was rejected because I write and publish these books myself, not through a normal publisher, whatever that means in 2018. I called them, which proved unsatisfactory, then sent them a lengthy complaint e-mail. The Canada Council For the Arts responded to my complaint. Disappointingly, they couldn’t muster anything original and had the same thing to say as they had said before:

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There was no explanation as to why they do not recognize self published work. What does the curatorial process of other art forms mean? Why does that brief feel like it was written by Sarah Huckabee Sanders? You’re well aware of the evolution of modes of creation and dissemination, really? It doesn’t seem like it. It feels like you’re lying right to my face. When I followed that Research and Creation and Explore and Create links they both lead to their own roundabout way of saying: Wow! there’s all this money to be had! Apply to the portal and have your profile validated in thirty days! I was rejected the of having the status of a profile because my work is considered not real in the eyes of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Lets take a look at how The Canada Council for the Arts defines who exactly is eligible to be considered a literary writer and then how that compares to other areas of the Canada Council for the Arts application process, shall we?

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Seems pretty tight don’t it? Wow that’s a lot of criteria to meet just to even have the opportunity to apply for federal money if you want to be a writer. It’s all nice and vague too. What does same literary artistic tradition mean? Seriously. My literary tradition is writing books not hanging out in some club congratulating myself on my own intelligence. I have better things to do. What qualifies as a real book huh? Why aren’t my books eligible? I created a publishing company. I wrote the books. Because I decided to just create and stick to my artistic principles rather than chase the approval of gatekeepers who’s tastes would certainly not find my content palatable, something I’m constantly reminded of when I run into them. Maybe this level of requirements would hold some water with me if the other sections of the Canada Council of the Arts had the same intense level of consistency. Do they? Lets find out!

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“Be committed to your own artistic vision, retain creative control and are committed to the creation and/or promotion of original work.” Holy hell, isn’t that refreshing? Doesn’t that sound much nicer than an Editorial Selection Process ? Why is making music any different from writing? It’s a lot more expensive that’s for sure. In writing, as in music, revision and practice is required. Unlike in music, in writing there is very little avenue for presentation that isn’t part of some sort of self driven need to share and express. The avenues to present creative writing are not especially plentiful, especially in true print media. It seems that in music as long as you’re being driven, creative, and passionate this system will support you. So why isn’t it even close to the same for writers? Lets move on to one more category, my favourite.

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Clown shoes. What a joke. What a hilarious joke. It’s easier for me to get the federal government to support my pursuit of the clowning arts than it is to get them to recognize the pieces of literature that I created entirely independently. Why is that? That’s at the heart of all of this to me. Why is the world of writing and literacy in Canada so tight ass? Why isn’t it a relentlessly creative environment where there are lots of genres of thriving publications to engage the broad talents of writers and satisfy the equally wide range of readers tastes? Because literary endeavours and writing are now thought of by many people as this pretentious world built exclusively of intellectuals and academics, and these people believe that they’re the only people smart enough to ever be given access to printing and promoting their work. They’re not. Writing, art, it’s whatever someone can make it. It is the power of imagination, alive in everyone. With creativity, hard work and the willingness to always try and do better, anyone can be a writer. Anyone can be an artist. But that’s not what the Canada Council for the Arts thinks. They think that being a writer, is built on being validated by the limited remaining institutions of literacy. They don’t care about artistry and creativity they care about shoring up the foundations on the rapidly crumbling institutions of their buddies in the old guard of the publishing world. They’re willing to ignore everything done by an independent to maintain their way of life, to survive. They’re signing their own document of extinction.

You know how you get a publishing deal? You know someone. Whether you go to school and professor helps you out or the connections of your academic world open doors to publication for you that’s the tried tested and true way. It’s not necessarily wrong but I’ve always believed that there’s more than one way to write and publish a book. I was far more interested in defining the process of my own creativity than being told how to drive my imagination. Believe me if it was as simple as walking into Random House Canada and submitting my manuscript for an actual review I would have done it. But you and I know that’s not how these things work. No one gives access to a kid with a bunch of wild ideas and apparently the government institution that’s supposed to be able to discern the quality in artists like me doesn’t want to, at an institutional level, recognize my efforts. So now it appears all these years of writing, often driving myself to the point of insanity, spending all my money on my process, letting relationships and opportunities pass me by in the pursuit of my art was all a big waste of time. Except I don’t believe that at all. I’m more powerful now than I’ve ever been and they can deny me the satisfaction of their validation all they want but they will never dim my fire.

I was a writer the first day I put pen to paper. I became a novelist when I finished writing my first book at the age of 16. I became a craftsman and stylist when I composed over thirty short stories with evocative and emotional thematic elements. I became a publisher when I designed, collaborated on and published a series of ‘zines containing all my stories. I started calling myself a writer when I wrote and published my first real novel before I turned 24. I became a professional when I did it four more times in the next six years. I did it because I love it and I can’t imagine doing anything else. I never once asked for permission to do all of this because I knew I wasn’t going to get it. No even believed that I could do it anyway. So I didn’t bother waiting to get started. Never ask permission to make great art. Never let bureaucrats, gatekeepers and so-called tastemakers dictate the course of your journey in art.  Never succumb to a bourgeoisie existence where the decadence of creation overcomes the drive for creativity and innovation. Never let the purity of artistic pursuits be defined and valued by a committee of people who know nothing of art, no matter how good their rhetoric is.

If the Canada Council for the Arts is willing to deny me status as literary writer they are simultaneously an elitists organization, that doesn’t represent the artistic citizens of this country, and a wildly unsophisticated pack of stuffy bores who wouldn’t know originality it it punched them in the mouth.

What is real art? What is eligible and what isn’t? Who are we letting define that?

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This morning I woke up to a e-mail from the Canadian Council for the Arts rejecting my application to apply for any form of grant or funding for my art; writing books.

When I was much younger and starting to write my first novel series I briefly considered applying for some sort of government funding but ultimately didn’t. Why? I felt that the arts institutions of our government wouldn’t be willing to give money to a twenty one year old with a bunch of crazy ideas about telling action adventure stories for the masses. So I spent nearly a decade writing and publishing work all out of my own pocket and was mostly happy to do so. I recognized, even then, that simply having ideas doesn’t mean you’re entitled to have some sort of bursary or support, especially if you have no tangible experience.

Now, years later with four novels written and published, literary workshops ran and other people’s work funded and published, I felt like I had at earned the credibility to at least apply for some sort of government related funding. Turns out that’s not the case. The e-mail I was sent by the Canadian Arts Council read as follows with emboldening for emphasis:

“Thank you for submitting your Applicant Profile to the Canada Council for the Arts. We have examined the information you provided in light of the eligibility criteria for:

Literary Writer

Based on the information provided, your Applicant Profile has been declined for the following reason(s):

Your background does not meet the general expectations for applicants in this field of practice.
Your experience does not meet the specific requirements for this profile.
Please note that self-published works are not eligible for this profile; if you re-apply, please note that your CV should be in bibliographic format, listing title, publisher, year, pages.”

1. I have been writing and publishing literal literary novels since 2012. Writing is my life. It’s all I care about. So what if I don’t have an english degree and a boatload of debt? I have been attacking the page every day since I was 15 years old. Writing is the only background I have.

2.  My experience: What experience do they expect me to have? I did it. I did it multiple times. I wrote and published these books. They are legitimate books. They have a story that spans volumes. They have ISBN numbers. They are for sale through legitimate dealers. They had design teams. They cost me a lot of time and money. They aren’t ‘zines or poorly constructed self publications. They are real books. What other experience is there to becoming an author of literary merit?

3. Self Publication: I could understand why certain self published authors would be excluded from the application process. The kind of people who are neither skilled nor inspired, producing sub par material, or those that peddle hateful rhetoric in publication. I don’t believe I’m either of those type of person and an institution like the Canadian Council for the Arts should be able to tell the difference. No one would blink at the idea of a musician releasing their music themselves or a painter organizing their gallery release or a performance artist funding their own show. Why is writing any different? Especially when it comes to applying for the privilege to use taxpayer money to make art.  It is offensive to think that I’m only eligible for the chance to apply for arts development money if I have already succeeded enough as an artist to have some gate keeper publish my writing. Do you have any idea how much work it took to write, edit, design and fund the publication of 4 novels? Art is work. It’s not just a brilliant mind. It’s effort and focus and vision. To be denied status as a literary author because I did all the work myself is infuriating and insulting.

So I phoned the Canadian Council for the Arts and was bounced from phone line to phone line looking for someone to talk to about all this before I ended up on the line with the man who had rejected my claim. He basically told me that the grants are reserved for writer’s already working in a professional capacity. I told him that’s ridiculous and frankly really unacceptable. It’s a thin veil covering the internal machinations of the Canadian publishing industry who’s only looking out for those who’ve already seized the reigns of power and now manipulate the means of production. It has always been my perception that academics get published early, build the connections needed to get a book deal and then once their foot is in the door they sign up for as much free money as possible while delivering as little work as they can manage. The guy on the phone quibbled and repeated his talking points which were just as unsatisfactory the second time around. He said that I would have to be published by a real publisher and I asked him what I was. I created a publishing house. I released my work and the work of others. He told me that I had to be recognized in a professional capacity by the industry itself and I just shook my head. “That’s the best you got huh” I responded. Then I asked him why the Canadian Council for the Arts even exists if not to support artists that actually need it and he trailed off telling me I’d have to email his public relations supervisor. I assured him I would and did less than an hour later.

All I want, all I have ever wanted in fact, is to develop my writing and career as an artist. I spent nearly a decade trying to prove I had the sand to do it without ever once going looking for what I considered a hand out. Five years ago I wouldn’t have been caught dead taking money from any sort of fund let alone a government one. As I grew and matured I came to feel that if the opportunity was there for me to receive funding to further my passion I should take it even if I felt like the art institutions of Canada wouldn’t appreciate or value my raucous pulpy action stories. I’ve been scoffed at by enough academics who consider what I do to be childish or lacking depth, without ever giving my work a chance, for those feelings of apprehension to be validated. Still at this point I didn’t think that The Canadian Council for the Arts would be able to dismiss the existence of four novels much less deny the legitimacy of my status as a literary writer. Looks like I was wrong. This entire experience has been terribly disappointing. I wanted to believe that The Canadian Council for the Arts wasn’t an insular fund group that exists to subsidize the bloated and ineffectual arts industries of this country that have grown fat off’ve the blanket nature all the arts that fall under CanCon. Too bad all my youthful perceptions and suspicions about the systemic exploitation and manipulations of our arts funding turned out to be right all along. Canadian Content, it’s a Con allright.

I just wanted to announce that I’ll be releasing a new novel this fall. I don’t have a definite date set yet but I’ve been finished the book for a while so, this fall I hope you’ll join me for the release of the final novel in my Bartender series.

The Bartender: The Last Waltz

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I have been writing stories for as long as I can remember. I wrote two novels before I turned twenty and you’ll never get to read them. For years I wrote short stories and other creative pieces, releasing them in ‘zines, before I decided to start writing a novel inspired by the pulp fiction, crime and comic books that I loved. That initial novel, which I thought I could write in a summer and turned into 8 years, became The Bartender a 3 part pulp fiction novel series that transcends multiple genres, prose tones and styles while attempting to remain a fast fire, functional piece of fiction designed for the audiences of the twenty first century. These works are the absolute distillation of many of my favourite aspects action adventure style fiction, infused with my own creative influences, and garnished with my perceptions and observations of people, society and reality.

Yes, as I wrote The Bartender I was in fact a bartender, but thats not who I am and hasn’t been for a very long time. That story is long over to me and, my creative process no longer requires the methods of exposure to life that they once did. I’ve been there done that. I can still do it. I will never forget it. I love it. But. The shit I seen. The shit I know. The secrets I keep. I know where the fuckin’ bodies are buried. Eventually you realize that life behind bars is time served, bub. I lived those many years writing those books in a place of lawless seediness, where my creative bloodlust for exposure to something real, however horrible, was sated. In that time I have been a hustler and a sheriff, existing in ethical ambiguity. Walking that line has educated my methods of detection, sharpened my skills of perception, and time and again return me to a place where my willpower and toughness is tested. The whole point of this experiment in identities was to write a set of novels explaining what I had learned, or at least what I thought I’d learned, and present it as a bad ass action adventure crime story.

I was stupid enough to put my own face on the cover of these books and in the process of attempting to market them I have regretted it, but now that it’s all over I have decided I just don’t care anymore. How many album covers you see with the artist’s face on the cover? If you’d begrudge me of that you can get bent. Know that at some point in my youth, while I was still in constant need of attention, I was shamed into understanding that just running your mouth because you have thoughts isn’t good enough. I became a better person and a better writer because of it. So I don’t really have any desire to sing praises for myself. Even writing this was difficult for me. I’ve always just wanted to write stories. Write books. Have some people read them.

That’s it. You want to know the rest of my secrets you’ll have to read the books, which are available on Amazon, Kindle and for order wherever you buy books. Ask for them by my name.

Milton Stille-Cover Photography.

Peter Warkentin-Cover Design.

Wednesday night, New Orleans. Day 26.



In an effort to ease my homesickness I have built a strong beer buzz watching NHL playoffs, and bullshitting with tourists. After getting under the skin of some San Jose Sharks fans I’ve taken my leave to wander down Bourbon towards an inevitable uber ride back to my current home by Tulane University.

Even on a Wednesday night the Quarter is brimming with tourists of all types. Fat white midwesterns bumbling from one oversized cheap beer to another and ashing expensive cigars all over themselves. Pan-asian tourists in reserved dress drag their kids along, their faces awestruck by the architecture and bawdy street hustlers. Tourists throw dollar bills at the bucket drummers and tap dancing local kids that occupy gaps in the crowd. White hot afro americans kitted in fresh kicks, bright athletic clothing and fine kangol hats savour the evening with their peoples. European seniors with tucked in polo shirts and fluffy blouses carry a distinct air of civility in these manic city streets while carrying green bottles of Stella and Heineken wrapped in black bar napkins. Of course no visit to Bourbon is complete without the ever present pack of sweating wet faced frat bros in cargo shorts and boat shoes who bolster their dad bods by sucking down an array of neon coloured liquid garbage while taking the opportunity to hoot and holler at anything with a pair of tits over the age of 15. All of the people above walk directly into bear trap hustles such as strip clubs advertising no cover or the even simpler sell: Big Ass Beers or Fishbowl sized drinks. Drug dealers wander up and down Bourbon street brazenly advertising their wares: weed? coke? Got that good coke, here! 50 milligrams of viagra? This American wonderland is, unlike Las Vegas, is carefully disguised by the history and character of the surviving buildings and organic culture. Weathered mason work and splintering streets sing under the feet of the people and vehicles, it is a duet backed by the ever present southern soundtrack that floods this street in particular.



I was thirsting once more taken a slash before I’d left the last bar I’d been in and as such wasn’t eager to suck down another canister of rental fluids. The Nola culture of public drinking is kept in check by the strict policing of public urination and basic stupidity. If you need to piss you’re going to need to find somewhere appropriate to do it, and in keeping with the City’s tradition of hustle, every joint in the Quarter bears a sign reading No public Washroom. To enforce this, and other laws meant to keep the intoxicated quotient of the City in check, NOPD are spread out on foot, motorcycle, car and horseback throughout this central tourist district. They all pack heat in the form of glocks, batons, tasers and pepper spray while wearing body cameras mounted in the center of their bright blue short sleeved uniforms. NOPD seems like the appropriate acronym, but if what I’ve heard from the locals is true it’s more of a cruel joke. With understaffing and poor pay comes corruption and it had been explained to me by more than one local that most officers of the NOPD, like everyone else in the town, had their own side hustles. This was apparent in the swagger of officers who rolled with a similar confident body language to the strip club pimps I’d seen hollering at the tourists . The nonchalance of these officers is further accented by cigars carried like nightsticks in their leather gloved hands.



I stop up to lean against a light post and light a Marlboro red and once more soak up the sights of this looney place. A hastily assembled brass band jams in front of me, the street talk of tourists echoing in my ears. The strip clubs send their women to wander out into the street tugging at the edges of revealing negligee in an effort to charm the eyes of wasted young men and lure them with their fishing tackle. Bars on Bourbon pay men to carry oversized signs shaped like beer steins, booty and busts which they use to pause tourists eager for a backdrop for a tacky picture. The tourist’s phone in hand they lure them into their drink dispensary of hire for another bucket of soon to be warm draught. Many men of all races and ages wear a variety of clothing emblazoned with some form of American military endorsement, many of them limp their way down the uneven streets. A face tattooed crust punk carrying a paper sheathed tall can of something moves down the sidewalk and yells: USA! USA! USA! We bombed the Ruskies this week motherfuckers! We bombed the Ruskies! USA! USA! USA!, and there is a collective chill that runs through those around me as many people check their phones for news updates and the crust punk cackles and moves on. Despite the lingering bite of that frosty prospect, those that have gathered this evening are soon warmed by the music and the hot New Orleans night.

 

A small crowd has formed in front of the six piece brass band and a hammered young white guy hoots and stomps next to a group of black tourists, nodding his head to them in the familiar way white people do while touring this mecca of black culture. One of the black men in this group eyes the inebriated caucasian up and down as he dances off rhythm, his limbs jangling like a marionette, before heartily laughing at the honky’s expense. Dejected and  embarrassed at the shunning of his intoxicated expression of brotherhood lite the white guy backs up to the streets edge beside me and exacts a petulant modern revenge. He withdraws his cell phone and from the cover of a lamppost and films the dancing and jubilations of the group of afro americans while sniggering to himself.

 

Across the crumbling cobblestones from me is one of the alcoholic slurpee joints, serving up thirty two flavours of booze soaked chemically flavoured ice slush out of your choice of towering tourist cups. At the entrance to this place three blonde girls of ascending heights wearing white jean short stand calling to those that stumble by to join them for a shooter, or two, or three! I laugh to myself and exhale smoke, soaking up the heat of the night and the trill of the crowd.



“Hey!….Hey!” I look up to see that the center of the three blonde girls has cupped her hands ‘round her mouth and is yelling at me. “Yeah you, tall guy, what you doin’ over there all by yourself?! Yeah you!” Her voice has that heavy southern twang and she moves her hips like a western music singer.



I wave and put my smoke in my mouth.



“Well don’t just stand there!” Calls the taller girl next to her.



“Yeah, c’mon we’ll buy you a shot, maybe even two.”  Chirps the shortest of the three.



Had it been just one girl, even two, or had I been a few beers shallower, or less lonely for someone to talk to I probably would have been able to defend myself against such a frontal assault of brazen luring, but such was not the case. I flick my smoke butt into the street and jump off the elevated sidewalk to stroll over to the other side.



As I approach the beer suds wash out of my eyes and I begin to get a better look at the blondes, all three lacquered in thick orange makeup, the roots of their aging bleach jobs showing with prominence. The girl in the middle has a scrunched in face with narrow eyes and little bird lips dressed in clumping neon pink lipstick. The taller girl to her right wears a white halter top with the rims of a neon pink bra bursting at the edges while the shortest of the three wears red cowgirl boots and a pink and blue plaid snapped shirt tied in a knot to reveal her midriff. At a table beside them is a rack of test tube shooters of a variety of colours unnatural to liquids in nature. In the background three far more normal women work the slurpee machines, all of them giving me an eye like I’m just another stupid rube getting suckered in by the jean short cut-offs and bleach blonde hair, and I guess in this state of stupidity I am.



“What’re you doing all on your own ?” twangs the girl in the middle with sour lemon face who had called me over.



“Just havin’ a night, what are you girls doin?” I respond with my own cosmetic southern tone.



“My sisters and I are just sellin’ some shots, but we said we’d buy you one so which one do you want? There’s pina colada, hurricane, blue hawaii, melon, lemon drop.”



“Your sisters? These are your sisters, for real?” I laugh as I eye the vials and then to the girls on either side of the one in the middle.



“Yes, I have four sisters and three brothers.” Says the one in the middle, and I hold back a grimace at the continued reinforcement of her trashy stereotype.



“Dang.” Is all I respond with.



“So which shot do you want?”



“Uh hurricane sounds good to me” I respond with a shrug and she pulls me up the steps and into the slurpee shack before she snags up a pair of red vials and hops up and kneels on a stool in front of me. She places the plastic vials in her mouth and tilts her head back, before resting her arms on my shoulders. I roll my eyes while she’s not looking and open my mouth while she leans forward and pours the shots into my maw. She removes the shot tubes from her mouth, gives me a kiss on the cheek and then asks if I want to repeat the process for her. I say why not and she chooses two blue vials, placing them into my mouth so I can tip them into her slimy pink caked lips. I keep my hands to myself even as she tries to push herself closer to me. I ask her how much they are and she tells me they’re four bucks. I give her a twenty and she doesn’t even pretend to reach for change.



“Wow you sure are nice, real polite even.” Her canned response sounding stale.



What a laugh. None of this is a turn on, it’s obvious gratuity is the kind of tacky grossness I typically avoid like the plague. But fuck me, you only live once. Behind me her sisters continue to hustle the street, drawing in a pair of brothers one of whom is crowned in a Duck Dynasty hat, the other in a Toby Keith Red Solo Cup shirt, they both drink the Bourbon street standard: neon green hand grenade shaped slushies. The pair of ladies reel the fresh fish in. Once landed the slobbering rednecks immediately begin to wrap their arms around the girls as if they’d known them their whole lives and before long they’re taking cell phone pictures with the girls and shelling out bucks for test tube drinks of their own.



Ol’ lemon face beside me looks me up and down and I wonder how many guys grope the shit out of her on a daily basis. “What are you doing here in town?”



“Just vacation.” I saw with a shrug.



“You’re just so nice, I don’t know what it is about you?” She says again and the alcohol in my brain nudges me to wonder how low, not to mention temporary, the bar has been set of her expectations of men.



“I guess I’m just a nice guy.” I shrug, the shots I’d just had were strong as all get out and the booze in my is system picking up speed nudged along by the nicotine laced night air.



“Say, you smoke weed?” She asks.



“Uh yeah!” I respond, far more interested at the prospect of smoking dope than I am at having to continue this bland nice guy conversation.



“Great, hey Amber! Cherry!” She yells at her sisters in a tone that encourages me to believe that they really are all related. “I’m gonna take break.” They look at her, unimpressed as the pair of Ozark’s most eligible continue to grind up on them.

The girl I’ve been talking to approaches the slurpee bar and yells at one of the girls behind the counter, a brunette gal with tattoos wearing all black, who lets out an audible sigh before responding to the shrill calls of the blonde’s demand to get her purse out of a cupboard. The tattoo girl momentarily looks at me with a snort like the schmuck I am before turning back to her slush vending duties. The number one blonde starts fishing in her purse with no luck of finding her weed. She gets her phone out and uses the flashlight to search in her bag some more before exclaiming “Fuck it” and then ripping the bag almost in half before explaining “I’ve gotta a lotta purses, it’s allright.” Then from behind us there is a commotion as a large round afro american police woman pushes up into the store pointing at the shooter vials and speaking with derision at Cherry and Amber.



“This is not happening. What the fuck! Fuck this!” exclaims the tallest of the three girls, leaving the open bay doorway and storming across the room and out of sight, leaving the shortest of the girls to shrink at the aggressive advances of the lady cop.



The number one blonde throws her purse over behind the bar and onto the floor before she gets into the mix. “What? What now? What’s going on huh!?” She yells getting in the face of the lady cop who tells her to back the fuck up.



The tallest girl storms back into room to scream “What the fuck! This is fucking bullshit! I’m not doing this right now! I can’t even! Agghhhh!” before disappearing once more from sight.



Out of nowhere two weathered older women wearing yoga pants, neon coloured tops and sporting ragged dye jobs of their own appear and join the number one blonde in shouting at the lady cop. I’ve been standing in the same spot for all of this with a stupid look of drunken amusement on my face while I hope that when this is all resolved the offer of weed is still going to be on the table. From the looks of things they’re going to want it. The women behind the counter have crossed their arms and roll their eyes watching the three blondes continue their firestorm confrontation with the officer.



“What do you mean we don’t have a liquor license?!” Screams ‘Ol Lemon Face directly into the mug of the officer, who holds up her hand to shield herself from the spit that flies from those pink lips.



“No, no, no these girls do this every night of the week they are-” enters the gravelly voice of one of the older women, who I can only assume are the girls handlers. The presence of these older women start to enhance the idea that these blondes are hustling more than just overpriced shitty shooters.



“Ma’am, you don’t take that tone with me!” commands the lady cop who has since had two male officers, both smoking cigars, join her as backup. They stand at the edge of the shop looking from each other to their female counterpart and then the blondes and their handlers.



The tallest blonde returns to scream more profanity and stamp her feet and I can’t resist laughing. My chuckle draws the ire of one of the handlers who gives me a stank eye so I restrain myself. I step outside the slurpee shack and onto the street where I put a fair distance between myself and the commotion, lighting another cigarette and watching the rest of the conflict transpire at a safe distance.



There are continued wails and visual cues of indignance from all the women involved in the liquor hustle. The female police officer appears to be writing tickets to all three of the girls who continue to verbally protest. As the female cop ignores the girls they turn their attention on the male cops who listen for a moment before stating something to the extent of you’re right we wouldn’t ticket you, but this is her beat tonight. I’m unclear as to the legality of everything involved, but it has all the hallmarks of a shakedown. Maybe, had the girls not exploded at the female officer there could have been something they could have done that would have allowed their hustle to continue. But their shrill denial of legal infraction had not aided them, and the presence of two older women as their representation and council had only made their infraction look worse. Before long all three of the blonde girls are holding tickets, dispensed by the lady cop, and are storming around the establishment like it’s their bedroom. The women behind the counter are not amused, standing by and waiting for the storm to clear so they can return to making their own straightforward money. In the ensuing chaos the number one blonde catches my eye and makes it clear that she’s still going to smoke me up, although the look in her eye gives me an icy chill even in the New Orleans heat. As the blondes file out of the slurpee vendor paradise I follow and catch up as they turn down a side street. Lemon Face fishes in her shredded purse and procures a joint which she lights and passes to me.



“Can you believe that fat fucking nigglet bitch?!” Shouts Lemon Face and I choke on the weed.



“What the fuck was her fucking problem?” Screeches the tall one and I mask my expression of holy shit with another cough.



“That bitch, that fucking nigger bitch!” comes the shrill voice of one of the handlers as we all steam off down the street. “Every fucking time!”



They all, except for the short one who just seems exhausted, continue a steady stream of racially charged cussing. I’m disgusted by their attitudes but I’ve ridden this coaster of weird entitlement this far and besides we just got to the weed. Eventually we come to a stop by a large planter box outside a hotel and the joint continues to go around. Lemon Face is frantically yelling at her phone, on speaker, and what I assume is the girl’s mother’s voice occasionally cuts through only to be interrupted by her daughters.



“She had no right momma. What the fuck, that’s our job. That’s how we make a living and that pig gonna tell us what we can’t do!”



“Is this the first time this has happened?” I ask, to no one in particular but I grab the attention of Lemon Face.



“No it happened last week, and a few weeks ago. But it’s always the bitches that are going after us.” She responds to me before shouting into her phone once more. “Yeah, no it was the woman again, yeah the guys were there but those faggots didn’t do shit!”



“Who the fuck are you?” Says one of the older handler women, putting her hands on her hips and giving me a look of derision.



“He’s fine, she’s probably just gonna try and fuck him.” Sighs the taller of the three blondes who is texting and periodically screaming at nothing.



“I’m a lawyer.” I lie, the weed and the generally shitty personalities of the women emboldening me to just say whatever I feel like.



“What?” Says Lemon Face. “Momma one second. Did you say you were a lawyer?”



“Yeah, that’s what I said.”



“Here.” She shoves the phone into my hand and I hold back a snort before I take a few steps back from the cackle of hens who continue to fudge pack each others shitty opinions and interpretations of the event.



“I don’t know who you are, but are my daughter’s going to be alright?” Comes the voice of an older woman, her southern accent heavy.



“They’re going to be fine.” I start putting a bit more southern in my voice.”Trust me, they were serving liquor inside a licensed establishment. The officer in question appeared to just want to be giving them a hard time. However I would recommend that they make sure to dispute their tickets, which should have the officer’s information and badge number present on them.”



“Oh thank god, I’m…I’m just so worried. My baby girls! Thank you.”



“Ma’am.” I respond and then hand the phone back to the number one blonde who continues talking a blue streak like she’d never let go of the phone before eventually , “Yeah, I love you momma yea, I’ll talk to you later.”



The notion of pretending I’m a lawyer, encouraged by the booze and dope, has put me in character and I’ve pulled out my notebook and am hastily jotting down the basic instructions for disputing a ticket like this, when I’m interrupted by Lemon Face.



“What are you doing?” She asks indignant.



“I’m taking down some notes for you so you can legally dispute that ticket.”



“I don’t even need to dispute it! Fuck that bitch. How dare she, how dare she tell me what I can and can’t do. You know, I know you know what I mean.” She snarls, and sadly I do. You’re a racist piece of shit lady. “The fuck that nigger can tell me how I can make my money. Tell me how to do what I’ve been doing since I was….since I was sixteen.” She says and my weed heightened imagination is triggered to deliver an image of this gal, sixteen years old and learning how to hustle men with her body and attitude. Perhaps spurred on by her mother, perhaps it’s a result of having so many siblings and needing to take care of your own self. I won’t go farther to rationalize her awful nature but there is some pity in me for people that have turned out so malignant.



I put the notepad down, and check myself. I don’t want to help this person in any way. It had all been a fun trainwreck to watch and I am happy that I got smoked up, but the vitriol and ugliness that oozes from the anus like puckering face of this woman have stripped me of any more true amusement I have for the situation.



“Yeah, I don’t even need to dispute it! You know why she was doing that. You know why. The guy cops, they never bother us. They said this was her block, and she gonna do the policing. Well fuck her!” Her voice has become even more shrill.



The rotten root of this anger is that a black woman, cop or not, dared tell these ratchet ass white girls what they could or couldn’t do. That was the most offensive notion to the girls. I’d wager that the girls probably were breaking the law in some way, but their racism overrode their concept of their wrongdoing, or even their ability to preserve their hustle with a payoff for such an obvious shakedown. The status of authority of police meant less than shit to these shooter hustling bimbos. Every time they used the word nigger I felt that hate in them, that toxic separatism that displayed that these girls, despite their rather basic vocation, believed that they were better than any black person. And the Police? Corrupt or not, it didn’t really matter to me. Through the whole process, before anyone had started throwing the N word around, I felt a satisfaction in watching that black lady cop shakedown those girls, even more so once their protests of foul play became less rational and more audible. They displayed and enhanced version of that very special entitlement and preferential treatment that flows through the veins of white america. The same sentiments are telegraphed, though less severe, when I’ve watched white employers speak to their employees or even co-workers of colour, their authority in their minds is without question. The brand of white American social conditioning presented without fanfare.



“Kendall our fucking ride is here, just get his number. Lets go!” Yells the tallest girl to her sister.



I wouldn’t take her number even if she offered it. Instead she fires up another phone call, half turns from me, still furious, angrily waves and then storms away without saying another word.

 

I shake my head. Have a good hard laugh and stroll away in search of a better type of person.

 

 

 

It’s six thirty on a nice Friday evening in New Orleans and I am sitting on on my skateboard across the street from a crowded bar in the Marigny that’s hosting a crawfish boil. I’m drinking stoli and soda and smoking a Newport while I watch the crowd of people milling around the cook trailer enjoying themselves. I begin the process of revving myself up to be more aggressive with my socializing. In New Orleans just under a week and I had yet to make even a temporary new friend.

“Hey any y’all know where can I buy smokes around here?” Comes the voice of someone speaking to no one in particular. I look over to see a scruffy young guy wearing a fraying fatigue green baseball cap and a red nascar t-shirt which covers a generously protruding stomach.

“There’s a few corner stores down on Frenchman.” I reply, assuming he’s a tourist like me.

He sighs like the two hundred metres to Frenchman street are too far away and shrugs it off. My eyes follow him as he goes back to wandering around the street, crowded with overflow from the bar. The crowd is a respectable cross section of young and old adult styles, though most of them are white. With the sun dipping behind the buildings there’s the same feeling of comfort and enjoyment that I’d typically associate with the dog days of summer, except this is the Spring. Beautiful young women roll up on bikes, greet their guys and hug their girlfriends before locking up their rides. On the curb beside me people, who’d arrived early to beat the now massive line, suck down crawfish served in styrofoam take out containers and drink tall boys of PBR or Highlife. I feel rude as all hell smoking next to them while they eat, but I’m not the only one and they don’t seem to give a shit. There isn’t any live music coming from the bar, a rarity here it would seem, but on the steps of a small building behind me a leather faced guy rips on acoustic guitar playing standard hits from Sublime to The Beatles. For the past hour I had been circling the neighbourhood on my skateboard, a big soft wheeled cruiser cobbled together from discount pieces purchased at the local skate shop. I had been sifting through the populist venues and tourist traps waiting for the evening to start.

“Fuck it, hey can I have a cigarette?” says the same guy having circled back around to me.

“They’re menthols but yeah.” I reply fishing in my shirt pocket for the Newports.

“Ah really?” He thinks on it for a second. “Ah whatever.”

I hand him the smoke and he sits down on the curb next to me to light up, a few minutes later a apparent friend of his, comparable in size, toting a po-boy, sits down next to him. They talk back and forth to each other for a few minutes about buying and selling something but I can’t figure out what it is. Sounds like models of cars with names like an X7 and such. A pickup truck with a pack of cute girls in the bed pauses for a moment in front of us.

The guy eating the overflowing po-boy, raises half the sandwich in the air, “Want a bite?”

“Uh, is that bread? No way.” Says one of the girls with a scoff before the truck pulls away.

All three of us on the curb laugh out loud.

“Dang, did she say ‘is that bread’?” asks the guy who I’d given the smoke to.

“Fuck her. I didn’t want to give her a bite of my damn sandwich anyway.” The friend speaks through a mouthful of food, lettuce and sauce falling onto the wrapper that he’s laid at his feet like a drop cloth. “This is a panko crusted po-boy. One of the best po-boys in the whole city and it’s amazing how many people don’t even know about it.” He continues to speak, mouth still full, then opens the sandwich to display the neatly the arranged shrimp coated in the spiky japanese style breadcrumb.

“Oh yeah where’d you get it? I’m not from around here.” I ask.

“Oh where you from?”

“Vancouver, Canada.”

“Damn, I met some guys from Vancouver a couple weeks ago, and they was lookin for weed. I was like yo I got this one nug I could sell you and he was like ‘ten bucks’ “ Continues the sandwich man.

“No shit?” says his friend turning his head and picking a piece of tomato off the sandwich wrapper on the ground.

“Yeah, then he was like ‘in Vancouver weed is so cheap I can get a half ounce for a hundred bucks’, and I was like ‘that’s nice’. “

“That’s just ignorant.” I say to him, “Assuming you can come from somewhere else and get your hometown prices.”

“Yeah, that shit’s non negotiable.”

“Weed is pretty cheap back home. You just walk into a store and buy it. Eighth for thirty bucks, quarter for seventy.” I state and they nod along at the prospect.

“Speaking of which, yo you want to roll a blunt?” Asks the guy eating the sandwich.

“Sure, hook it up man.” Says the scruffier of the two holding out his hand which is filled by his friend with a blunt wrap and a healthy green emerald of weed.

Typically a consistent weed smoker I had yet to have the inclination to go looking around like a dumbass for any in Nola, but the vodka in my bloodstream, the glowing embers of the neighbourhood’s skyline, and the straightforward good nature of the pair of guys had me hankering.

“Hey you mind if I hit that with you?” I ask as the guy next to me starts to break down the sticky dense herb with his fingers. It smells pretty good.

“Yeah sure man, cool Ty?” he says to his friend.

“Yeah that’s cool man.’

“Sick, say what’s your names?” I ask.

“I’m Kyle” responds the scruffy one rolling the blunt.

“Tyler.” the other says, digging into the second half of his lunch.

“Nice to meet you guys, can I buy you a drink or something?”

“Nah, I’m good man.” responds Kyle without looking up.

“We got a case of Bud Lite comin’ later. It’s cool man.”

“A case of Bud Lite?” I laugh.

“Yeah, I know but we’re getting it for free. We were shooting video all day for them. Bud Lite I mean.” says Tyler.

“What kind of video?”

“Skateboarding.”

“Man I swear there was a can of Bud Lite in like every single shot anyone took today. Just before Glenn did that front side three I got him slammin a whole tall-boy.” says Kyle without looking up from his handy-work.

“It’s gonna be on Bud Lite’s snapshat and stuff. It’s tight. Yeah you skate.” Tyler gestures to my board, sandwich bits falling on Kyle’s leg.

“Yeah, got it this week, but it’s a grandpa board. Big soft wheels. I’m just here riding ‘round. Shit I can’t even ollie.” I said pointing to the fat rubbery wheels beneath me.

“You buy that here?” asked Kyle.

“Yeah.”

“At Humidity?” asked Tyler.

“Yeah man, just the other day. Gotta say I’m surprised that there’s really only one skate shop here. In Vancouver we’ve got a bunch of them, but I guess it’s more of a subculture here? I don’t see a lot of people riding, ‘least not in the streets.”

“Yeah and if anyone opened another skate shop here?” Chimes in Kyle while he puts the finishing touches on the blunt.

“Yeah, that’d be like a major front on Philly. He’s the guy that owns the store. We done some filming for him before too.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what people would do if someone opened up another skate shop in Nola.” said Kyle as if the very notion was beyond all possibility.

Tyler finishes his sandwich then Kyle fires up the blunt and it we pass back and forth. It has been a few weeks since I’ve smoked so it hits me like a Mac truck. My desire for conversation and social interaction increases tenfold but my abilities to conjure anything interesting to say is compromised by the overwhelming high. I just sit and grin, taking the street in while Kyle and Tyler continue on talking about some special release of some special model of something. Not long later a tall skinny friend of theirs, Lee, arrives on a pedal bike drinking a paper sleeved tall can. Lee has a long neatly groomed beard and a serious array of leg and arm tattoos. The cotton-mouth starts creeping in on me and after first depleting the rest of my drink I guzzled the remains of the water from the bottle in my backpack. Still not quenched I go back to the bar for a drink, which takes a lot more effort than it did a half hour ago.

In the past hour the sunny watering hole of day drinkers of indeterminate origin had been dominantly overtaken by a pride of locals. Those who had been pursuing an afternoon buzz, tourists and layabouts like me, had passed that hard to maintain measure and were now audible in their inebriation as they attempted to speak over the music. Sidling up to a free square inch of the the full bar I look at myself in the mirrored wall beyond the bottles and laugh at how ripped I am, my face lining up beside a photograph of Mark Twain which I take as a good omen. Schlock piano music punches out from speakers surrounding me and I feel the sweat pushing through my pores before I take a deep breath and tent a twenty in my hand, waiting on the bartender to make it my way. In the cooler behind the bar I examine the glowing bottles of beer, the Corona and Sierra Nevada pale ale are the most depleted. Down in the far right hand corner was a column of Becks, a German style pilsner, so on a stoned whim I order one of those to find that it was so rare a request that the bartender couldn’t find them.

I left the rowdy barroom and returned the chill of the street to Kyle, Tyler, and Lee continuing to discuss, and with much fervour, the topic which had been on their lips since I met them.

“Sorry guys, what are you talking about?” I interrupted.

“Shoes man.” Said Lee.

“The air jordan 1 black and royals.”

“Oh, I hear you now.” I responded, having met a few sneaker fetishists in my years.

“Yeah man, Lee runs a shoe store and last time they released those he sold his for like sixteen hundred bucks.” chimed in Kyle passing me the still smoking blunt.

“No shit?” I say to Lee before taking another huge pull on the blunt and passing it off to Kyle.

“Yeah, but I don’t even know if I’m gonna get any this time. Had to put my name in a lottery.” Sighs Lee.

“Better than me, I’m gonna have to get my ass up at like four am tomorrow if I want to get a pair. I buy and sell shoes online.” Tyler explained to me.

“Hey man, just to give you a little advice” Kyle got my attention, “Right now, with the crawfish cook up it’s like a street party and everyone’s chill, but you don’t want to be carryin’ around a bottle most of the time. Cops give you shit, some people might think you a mark, a tourist, y’now? You get wasted you don’t want that. Throw it in a plastic cup next time.” He gestured to the beer bottle in my hand.

“Thanks for the tip.” I responded.

At that moment a big blue shipping truck with the words Bud Lite rounded the corner and the vehicle parallel parked in a space just across the street from the bar.

“Shit they’re here. Finally” Said Tyler, blunt in his hand, cockiness elevated.

Out of the vehicle comes a thin latin guy in a baggy t-shirt and pants with a red cap on and a pretty mulatto gal in a black dress and jean jacket. The guy approaches us with a six pack of Bud Lite in hand, tossing out beers to people on his way across the street.

“Yo Philly!” Shouts Tyler.

“Hey Philly!” Follows up Kyle.

Phil, the owner of Humidity Skate shop approaches us and goes to toss someone a beer but with the condensation on the can it slips from his grip and hits the street, a single spray of beer shooting into the air. Tyler runs forward and picks it up off the ground, cracking it open and shot-gunning it down. Phil apologies to a lady sitting on the curb next to us and then comes over, slapping and gripping the palms of Lee and Kyle before giving me elevator eyes which settle on my skate. He doesn’t say anything to me instead turning his attention over to Tyler for some skin.

“You drive that truck?” Asks Kyle to the girl that came with Phil.

“All the way from New York.” She says with bravado.

There’s some brief conversation but the pair of them don’t hang out with us for five minutes longer before moving along behind the crawfish cook up trailer to hang with a pack of other skaters. Stoned as I am time begins to blur together until I’m hanging with Tyler back on the periphery of the other skaters.

“Yeah, I can’t skate for real. Few years ago I messed my back up snowboarding, had to take like five years off’v riding anything. So now I can only ride these fat ass wheels and cruise around.”

“Yeah man. I used to skate too.” Says Tyler in a sad tone that has me envisioning him as a rotund teen being ridiculed by a pack of hardcore inner city too cool for school n’er do wells.

“So you like, buy and sell shoes online?” I ask.

“Yeah man.”

“Like, that’s your job, that’s what you do full time?”

“…yeah for the most part man. Gotta have a few hustles in this day and age though. Maybe I’ll hit that big score sometime and flip some stacks. I’d love to get my hands on those Jordans tomorrow.”

“You ever work in the service industry? It sure looks like good money.” I point to the bar.

“Nah man. Too crazy for me, those people make bank but you get a reputation. You just spend all your money back in the bar.”

Lee joins us from the miamasa of people. “Fuck, those fuckin’ dickheads in New York.”

“Another one?” responds Tyler.

“Yeah, every goddamn time.”

“What’s the score?” I ask, nestling another smoke in my mouth while juggling my skate and beer in my hands.

“People from New York always orderin’ stuff. But when it doesn’t show up on the exact day, they’re phonin’ our asses looking for a goddamn refund, which we’re obligated to do, but then we give them their refund and then they get the package and they keep both and you never hear from them again. Pricks. I get them though.”

“How you do that?” Asks Tyler.

“Always keep your receipts man. UPS, Fed-Ex, shit most of the time I just use the Post office. United States Postal Service, now there’s some people that understand the value of keeping the receipt. You keep that they’ll sort it out. It takes time, and I never really get all the money back but-”

“Beats taking a straight up loss.” I say out loud, while in my head thinking about how using the federal postal service may not be the best way to do your shipping and receiving as an online business.

“Damn right.” Finishes Lee.

“I got that jacket this week.” Tyler tells Lee.

“Oh really?”

“Yeah but it was the dark green one, not the black one like I wanted. I was thinkin’ about sending that back-”

“Is that like another limited edition thing?”

“Yeah man, less than thirty of ‘em made. But it’s gonna be fuckin’ summertime, no one gonna want that shit right now.” Tyler purses his lips and shakes his head.

“Why don’t you just hold on to it, keep it mint and then in the fall when everyone else is sold out of that jacket, you just re-release it and jack up the price.” I say.

 

“Shit man, now you’re talkin’ hustle.” Laughs Lee slapping me on the shoulder while Tyler nods his eyes drifting off.

For the past hour we’ve been milling behind the exhibition of crawfish cooking. The guy cooking in the small two man trailer is a bearded fanatic adorned in a big ass apron who, based on his erratic temperament and the volume of his voice, is half lit. He dances back and forth in the aluminum trailer which houses the heavy duty aluminium cook pot heated by a turbo propane torch range. Having brought the crock of water and several packs of Zatarain’s seafood seasoning to a full steaming boil the cook dumps the mud bugs in twenty pounds at a time. While the creatures cook he jumps back and forth, preaching to the crowd and screaming unintelligible, but highly entertaining, phrases like Burn me down! And This is the dawn of time! at the top of his lungs.

“Christ is he on mushrooms?” Says Lee.

“Could be, where can I get some?” Laughs Tyler.

“It’s a damn shame is what it is.” Laments Kyle who has appeared next to me.

“How so?” I turn and ask Kyle.

“He’s been cooking those suckers for like ten minutes.” replies Kyle, shaking his head.

“They’re a bit delicate for that huh?” I respond, offering him another cigarette, which he takes.

“Hell yeah they are. Using a kettle that big and a heat range that powerful? You only wanna have them in there for two or three minutes tops.” Kyle sounds like he’s watching child abuse.

The most recent batch of crawfish appears to be ready and the cook kills the heat on the range.

“Ice, you wanna get that ice in there.” continues the commentary of Kyle.

“Man, that’s some hot stuff. Imagine dumpin’ that on your legs? What a horrible way to die.” Muses a thoroughly stoned Tyler. “That’’s so hot, burn your fuckin’ skin right down to the bone.”

Kyle has his cigarette hand right up across his face while he watches the crawfish Prophet fumble with the giant colander which sits right in the kettle. “Ice, get that damn ice.” he says again and again.

“What just to bring the heat down?” I ask, lighting my own smoke.

“It’s not just that. You want to put the ice right into the pot, a whole lot of it. It brings all the flavour and seasoning to the top of the pot, so when you strain it out them crawfish collect it all. Lord, this is just painful to watch.” At first I thought he was at least half goofin, by Kyle is clearly pained by this procedure.

“You do any restaurant cooking?” I ask him.

“No, not really. I mean my parents live just outside of Nola and they run a crawfish joint. I worked there when I was a teenager.” He speaks of it as if those days gone by were working in a gulag, not a kitchen.

Throughout this I’ve been holding onto my skateboard, never really letting it out of my hands. By light posts and grass patches there are stacks of skateboards, all lined up against each other, their owners out and about in the crowd. Since I’d gotten to New Orleans not a day had gone by where some random stranger or kid hadn’t asked if he could ride my deck for just a second and I’d become paranoid of losing my new wheels. Now, hanging out on the cool kid side of the cook out, despite my slipping sobriety, I’d become very aware that I was on the receiving end of some harsh mean muggin’ from a variety of Nola skaters. In Vancouver neither my style nor my demeanor passes for that anarchic apathy stereotypical of a dyed in the wool skater so it wasn’t surprising to me, what with my geriatric ride, that I was not the most popular new person in the crowd of hard core New Orleans skateboarders. Easily the most square person in a fifty foot radius I didn’t bother trying to socialize with anyone besides Lee, Kyle and Tyler. The local skater’s style was that of oversized tee’s and ultra loose or tapered ninja pants and look of dedicated indifference. Occasionally a moment would present itself to inject my thoughts and opinions into the mix of a group of strangers but sensing I was already an interloper I decided to keep my mouth shut and my positioning at the edge of their scene.

Then a big white Chevy Tahoe with giant chrome rims pulls up beside the crowd I’ve associated myself with, blocking off traffic and banging hot jams. A black guy wearing a dew rag and sporting a variety of metallic teeth and sparkling finger jewelry sticks his head out the window while his driver kept the engine running.

“Yo! Tyler where you at!? You got that weed?! I know you got it!” Yells the guy into the crowd who collectively moves back from the vehicle.

Tyler emerges from the crowd and approached the vehicle speaking to the guy but keeping his volume down. He appears casual, confident even, but from where I stood I could see his brow loading up a clip of sweaty bullets. It didn’t seem to matter what Tyler told the guy, every thirty seconds or so he’d yell, “Where that weed!? I know you got it man!” or something of that nature. This went on for ten minutes or so until someone allowed Tyler some space and approached the SUV to pick up the bullshit where Tyler had left off. Tyler, in the meantime, went around back of the ride looking it up and down. Before too long the SUV’s music jacked up even louder and started to pull away from the cook up. As it passed I could make out some sort of skull and crossbones decal on the vehicle’s back window and something that amounted to the phrase thug crew. The specifics were lost to my booze blurred vision and memory. What wasn’t blurry was a stat I’d read earlier in the week stating that New Orleans had seen fifty one murders in the first three months of 2017.

“A total fucking shame.” returns the voice of Kyle from not far in front of me. He had torn one of the finished crawfish limb from limb, it’s juices coating his hand and face as he was once more shaking his head. “Not good at all. Fuckin’ idiot.” He threw the crawfish carcass into a trash bin next to us and licked off his fingers.

“Shit the bed huh?” I say, to which I received a saddened nod.

Tyler appears next to us, visibly shaken. “Yo man, you got any rolling papers?”

“Nah man, we outta blunt wraps too.” responded Kyle. “You want me to go find some papers?”

“Yeah man, can you do that?” Said Tyler, those sweat bullets now firing down off his forehead.

“No problem, these crawfish suck ass anyway.”

Behind us one of the cool kid skater guys has jumped the lineup of over fifty people and retrieved several trays of crawfish which he now doles out to the rest of his gang. People in line groan but their lamentations fall on deaf ears. The Bud Lite chugging skaters nosh on crawfish. I cling to the edges of the group, receiving dirty looks for my oversized wheels. I start getting the feeling my welcome is all about worn out and that even famous southern hospitality has limits. That’s fine, my blood alcohol levels are nearing an altitude that have me thinking it’s time to pull the ripcord as well.

I’ve seen and interpreted most of the story for myself. The scene of locals in New Orleans is much the same as anywhere else. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know and how much are you holding. I’d gotten lucky by giving a smoke to a nice guy who had a nice friend, who had with generosity shared a fat ass blunt of some real solid weed with me, but these two gems were on the periphery of their own community. Relegated to shooting cell phone videos for skaters to promote Bud Lite on their snapchat, bowing down to local demagogues and tastemakers, and paying lip service to the shady guy in the SUV who I’ll assume is relatively dangerous. I’d asked earlier and discovered that both Kyle and Tyler were 24. 24 and chasing the very ridiculous modern american dream. Get rich, any way you can. Whether it’s selling collectible sneakers on the internet, dealing out dimes of weed or pandering to those who’d already made it in that very special, very lucrative, very american way. I like Tyler and Kyle. I like them a whole heck of a lot more than the entourage of skaters that eyed me like a dead fish in the sun because I was wearing bright colours and packing a cruiser skateboard. Tyler and Kyle truly did not give a fuck who I was or what I was about. They were happy to share their world, however brief, with me, even though they must meet a million dickhead tourists like myself every year. Yet their authenticity and general lack of reservations and pretensions greatly endeared me to them, which is maybe why I was so honest with Tyler when I spoke to him again and for the last time that night.

“So what was the deal with that?”

“What’s that man?” Tyler replied huffing and looking around.

“The deal with those guys in the SUV?”

“Ah man, it happens. It’s Nola. You know people come around askin’ things.”

“Yeah? Seemed kinda intense to me. That happen a lot?”

“Sure, yeah guys pull up like that, load the block with sound. Take off.”

“Do they usually roll up yelling your name out the window of their ride, declaring that you got the weed? Seemed a little intense man.” He doesn’t respond. “And what was the deal with that decal on their back window? Like thug crew or something? What’s up with that.” He still doesn’t respond, and I realize that I’m drunkenly stumbling through my point.

Kyle returns with rolling papers.

“Yo man, let’s get outta here.” Says Tyler to Kyle.

“Yeah?” He says handing his friend the papers.

“Yeah, I gotta get up early, buy some shoes yo.”

I thank them both for their hospitality to which Kyle says, almost absent mindedly, “Ehn, I’m sure we’ll see you again.” before they shuffle over to Philly and the rest of the Skaters to burn one more joint. I finish the remains of my beer, hear a siren in the distance, then the unbridled yell of the crawfish cook before I laugh at the pleasures of the evening and very slowly roll out of the Marigny.

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More like: “Ignore the Call”

A week ago, looking for any sort of municipal support, I sent the following letter to the e-mails accounts of all of the Vancouver City Councillors, as of today two of them have responded. Later this week I used the following letter as the basis for an official complaint against the systems of the Vancouver Police Department and their governing body the Vancouver Police Board.

The letter concerns the Vancouver Police Department’s ineffective, underfunded and non-prioritized sex crimes division. Accompanying this there is also criticism of the lack of budgetary transparency within the VPD as well as the inadequacy of budget and priority given to the VPD sex crimes unit. This letter also serves to detail the ineffective process that is in place to give citizens the ability, or inability as it were, to speak out constructively regarding the systemic law enforcement policies of Vancouver. The names of the officers involved in this matter have been purposely withheld. This letter also details a person’s strength and perseverance in the face of multiple injustices.

The following letter contains content that some may consider graphic as well as information that may trigger people. It is not the intent of this letter to offend or shock but to draw attention to the crucial issues of: the damaging systemic attitudes and policies of the Vancouver Police Department regarding sexual assault, the investigation thereof, as well as their lack of respect for the trauma and safety of victims and the perceived inaccessibility of this branch of law enforcement.

The Police need to say:

We can do better

Dear  Vancouver:

On June 22nd, 2016 a female friend of mine, Catherine, was sexually assaulted close to her home in East Vancouver. After the attack, she called The Vancouver Police Department. They arrived, they took her clothes for processing, and told her that someone would be assigned to her case. A hat had been dropped at the scene of the crime and the VPD would take the DNA tested to see if it hit a match with anyone in their systems. The next day, she went into the Police station at Gravely and Boundary where she sat in a formal interview room and gave a statement to the Detective in charge of her case. She was told that an officer would be by later in the week to get a DNA swab from her. In the days that followed, Catherine attempted to get in touch with the Detective but to no avail. He was either repeatedly “sick” or was scheduled off. Frustrated and angry, Catherine spoke out about her experience on social media and within a week, she was receiving calls from the media. And so was she only then contacted by the VPD. In the period of the past two week, there had been 4 assaults on women in East Vancouver, aside from Catherine, and the media wanted to know more about Catherine’s assault. The VPD had admonished Catherine for speaking out publicly, telling her that if she shared too much about her experience, it could jeopardize her case.

July 2nd, 2016: The Detective in charge of Catherine’s case got in touch with her, almost two weeks later, to ask her to come in and work with someone to create a composite sketch of her attacker. Over the next week, Catherine had intermittent communication with the VPD, all of which happened over the phone instead of e-mail. They informed her that they would not be going public with her case because they didn’t want to create “White Noise” in the media, a comment that deeply offended Catherine for obvious reasons. Catherine explained to the Detective her frustration with the VPD’s lack of apparent interest in her case. She couldn’t understand why in the first week following her assault there were no officers coming to her for a composite sketch, DNA swab, and interview; making use of the details while her memory was still fresh. More so, the Detective assigned to her was neither available nor did he seem to display any urgency regarding her case. The VPD gave no accommodating response, offering only a verbal shrug.

July 4th, 2016: Catherine goes to the VPD to attempt to describe her attacker for a composite sketch but can’t remember or doesn’t want to remember the face of the man who assaulted and traumatized her. The VPD treated her like she wasted their time. They also told her that the Vancouver forensics lab was “backed up” so they would need to send her clothes to a lab in Guelph Ontario for DNA testing. They would be sending the multiple articles of clothing from her case one piece at a time.

August 24th 2016: Catherine received a call – always a phone call, never a record of the interaction – from the Detective assigned to her case stating they had matched the DNA in the baseball hat found at the scene of her attack with someone in their database. The man is considered a “street bully” by the VPD but the officer speaking to Catherine stated that the suspect didn’t have a track record of attacking women, so the police “weren’t worried”. The VPD stated that they couldn’t share the man’s identity with Catherine and that she would have to wait until mid-October, four months after the incident, to hear back from the DNA testing on her clothes to see if it is a match to the DNA found in the hat.

October 15 2016: After repeated attempts to get in touch with anyone related to her case, Catherine is finally told that the lead Detective of her case has been re-assigned and that he had in fact, not been working on her case for the past month. He was replaced by a new officer who Catherine immediately attempted to contact, but unsurprisingly without any success. Catherine left numerous messages, none of which were returned.

December 2016: No one from the VPD has called Catherine in months, so she starts phoning the VPD Sex Crimes unit directly. Her case had been passed from officer to officer until finally, she is given a female officer to talk to. The female office took down her info and passed it up the chain of command to a male superior. A few days later, this female officer phoned Catherine to tell her that her case had essentially been closed since there had not been sufficient evidence to link the DNA on her clothes to that found in the hat. Catherine was angry because the VPD had known this for a while and had failed to share the information with her. Catherine asked why she had never done a lineup with the potential suspects to which the officer had no response. At this point the officer attempted to calm Catherine down by telling her that the suspect related to the hat found at the scene “doesn’t attack women”, to which Catherine angrily responded “he attacked me” and hung up the phone.

December 8 2016: The original lead Detective for Catherine’s case, the one who was removed, calls her and asks her if she still wants to do a photo lineup; she says yes. Almost six months after her initial attack, the Police bring Catherine in to look through a massive stack of suspect photographs. In the months since Catherine had done everything she could to block out the memory of the attack, much less the face of her attacker. Catherine did not feel confident about her choice from the mug shots in the photo book and the Police once more behaved as if she had wasted their time. This is six months after the attack.

May 2017: Catherine has her caseworker from Women Against Violence Against Women contact the Police to see if Catherine can have her clothes back. A day or two later, Catherine was called by that original Detective again and he said her clothes had been returned to the Police Property office. Catherine went down there where she discovered that not all her belongings had been returned. At this point she vented her frustrations with the entire police apparatus, focusing on the lead Detective who had seemingly ignored her case. The Property office clerk then shared with Catherine that the Detective who had been assigned to her case had never been a full-fledged investigator; he had only been training to be a Detective. He currently wasn’t a Detective which the clerk stated was probably reflective of his investigative skills.

 Over the next month, Catherine would go on to try and retrieve the rest of her clothing as well as some sort of resolution of closure from the VPD. She received neither. She went through the list of people she had been assigned to but none of them returned her calls. All of Catherine’s communication with the VPD was done over the telephone, where there would be no record of her conversations or attempts to contact those in charge of her case, much less any concrete statements offering solace.

 Catherine once more shared her frustrations with the VPD on social media. I, Axel, saw it and contacted her to say that I would help her speak out and share her story so that perhaps the VPD could change its systems and policies regarding the procedures and approaches to interacting with victims of sex crimes. Catherine told me about the numerous women who had contacted her after she made her assault public and how all of them had similarly awful experiences interacting with the VPD. Either their cases were similarly ignored or diminished like Catherine’s or the Police had no sensitivity to the trauma of the victim’s experience and often ended up intimidating these women with tones better suited to interrogating suspects than interviewing trauma victims. It became our intention to speak directly to the Vancouver Police board, share Catherine’s experience and the experiences of these other women and ask for structural re-considerations regarding women’s safety and the investigations that follow assaults.

I talked to Catherine and she shared her whole story with me. We prepared to speak at the Vancouver Police Board meeting, a public meeting at which I have seen speakers present issues like: fireworks safety, public concerns about the proliferation of marijuana use, bike lane transit law enforcement, the ranting of angry anarchist, socialist, activists and more. So it was a shock to me when I sent my request to speak at the VPBM and after explaining our cause received this response from the board’s administrator Patti Marfleet:

“The matters you wish to speak about are matters that fall within the jurisdiction of the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (OPCC) and therefore would not be appropriate for the Board’s delegation process.

The Board has no authority over specific operational matters or complaints about the conduct of individual officers.

The concerns you raise would be most effectively addressed by filing a complaint against the VPD through the OPCC, an independent office for complaints against the police. The OPCC will review your information and determine whether there are allegations of misconduct against specific officers that should be investigated as a public trust complaint through the VPD’s Professional Standards Section.”

We appealed the denial and reiterated that in the intention of our request to speak, that our grievances are not with an individual police officer; they are with the systemic approach to women’s safety and the general attitude and approach to the investigation of sex crimes and violence against women. I pleaded that they reconsider. We were once more denied and directed to the Office of the Police Complaint commissioner, which exists as a filtering system for police complaints. When I contacted the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner I was informed that my complaints fell under a “service and policy” complaint and would be directed, through the OPCC, to the Vancouver Police Board, who had already rejected our requests to speak or hear our justifiable grievances. So was to be done? I had already been told by the Vancouver Police Board that his is not their problem and I’d also been told by the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner that should we submit a complaint it will be directed to the Police Board, the very organization who rejected our request to be heard in the first place.

In response to this bureaucratic cycle I wrote my local MLA Melanie Mark to inform her of the situation and request help. Two months later, after my letter had made it through several chains of people, I received a call from the Solicitor General’s office informing me that my best course of action was to take our cause to the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, who would then in-turn pass it on to the Vancouver Police Board. This was very frustrating. Why can’t we speak to the board directly? We live in this City. We pay taxes. Why is the issue of women’s safety and the transparency of the Vancouver Police Department such a taboo topic that we have been repeatedly sent in circles searching for someone official who will actually hear out our cause?

Catherine started doing her own research into the statistics of sexual assaults and how our police department handles them. An article she found was illuminating. In 10 years, there were 5200 reported sexual assaults in metro Vancouver. A quarter of these ended in charges being laid. Of that quarter charged, 2.9% alleged attackers were sentenced for their crime. This statistic is frustrating to read on its own, but Catherine went a step further to find out why so many cases like hers were barely worked on. She spoke to the Sergeant of the VPD Sex Crime unit and found out that not only were there 6 people maximum assigned to the sex crime unit at a time, there were only 2 detailed there at the time she was attacked. She also learned that the officer that had been assigned her case was not even truly training to be a sex crime detective, he had been placed there because he was too injured to be on patrol and other investigators had been taken out of the unit and assigned to “bigger investigations”.

Catherine began looking into the departmental budgets and staffing for the VPD to understand how the sex crime unit is prioritized within the organization. After filing freedom of information requests, Catherine’s research was cut short when much of the information in her request was withheld by the VPD. The VPD would not offer their budgets or how many people manned each police unit for “strategic” security. We understand this policy regarding strategic units like gang and narcotics task forces, however most sexual assault is not a strategic orchestrated crime. It is unpredictable and savage. It damages the victim and our society long after the transgression had been committed. These damages are made more severe when our system of law enforcement minimizes the priority of such cases as well as the trauma of the effected individuals. Budgetary transparency must be assured if our protective institutions are to be trusted. This is not a tactical anti-gang task force whose movements must be kept secret: this is the safety and respect of our mothers, daughters and sisters. We feel sharing the budgets of individual departments does not compromise the integrity of the VPD’s strategic security however, by not doing so, it compromises the institution’s integrity and credibility.

There are 30-40 sexual assaults in Metro Vancouver per month. The VPD claims that they do not have the budget to fulfill their own DNA analysis requirements, this is why Catherine and other’s evidence is sent to labs on the other side of the country. On top of this, much of Vancouver’s DNA and evidence analysis is supported by the Provincial government, and under the BC Liberals, more and more support was withdrawn with every successful election. This lack of funding and priority is why 2.9% of those charged with sexual assault in Vancouver go to jail for it. Catherine and I posit the thought that if the VPD can afford a fleet of brand new Dodge Chargers, ATV’s for beach patrol, state of the art tools and technology alongside several SWAT level armored trucks, that one would think the VPD already had a budget and systemic hierarchy that prioritizes the safety and support of women and abuse survivors. To us public safety includes: timely DNA analysis, a staff of sex crime detectives with comprehensive psychological training, and sex crime unit with a staff size that reflects the actual number of reported sexual assaults per year.

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What’s the budgetary allotment for these? How crucial are they to our safety?

Catherine and I have been considering what we should do next. We want to be heard and have our justifiable criticisms taken seriously. We want the Police to do a better job systemically, not just at the individual level. We want to be able to speak at the Vancouver Police Board meeting and have those who are supposed to serve and protect us, listen to us. Listen to women.

Who am I? I am Axel Matfin, a writer, an East Van community member, and ally for those who need help. I have years of experience working in the bar, nightclub, restaurant, and security industries along the way, I have interacted with the Police concerning manners of violence. I have spent years analyzing the structure and attitudes of VPD officers in the field. I have attended and spoken at the Vancouver Police Board meeting regarding community safety and the lack of social integration in East Van by the VPD. I am not an enemy of law enforcement, but I believe that rigorous and consistent reform and reinvention is required to meet the needs of the people in this 21st century metropolis. I do not care to be a figurehead nor am I a person who seeks self-aggrandizing attention, but I do understand that I have the responsibility to speak out when I feel that something is wrong. I believe that the VPD’s current institutionalized approach to engaging and communicating with victims of sex crimes, predominantly women, is fundamentally broken, and must be repaired. I believe that their investigation methods regarding these crimes are weak and not given the budget or priority that they deserve. I believe that the rhetoric and culture of the VPD in relation to these crimes is antiquated and completely devoid of empathy and sensitivity. I believe that the bureaucracy of the Vancouver Police Department prevents and discourages the public from interacting with their law enforcement officials. I see women, especially women of colour, living at the bottom rung of the economy, in need of Police aid, only to have their situations belittled, ignored, or minimized.

Less than a month ago I was tending a bar on the East Side and a VPD officer armed with baton, pepper spray, gun, and armored in kevlar came in, walked up to the bar and said: “I’m looking for a drunk Indian. I mean Native woman.” He didn’t offer any more details about the woman except that she might be wearing a high visibility construction vest and that she’d been missing for two days. This officer must not be aware that many Indigenous First Nations women of east Vancouver work in construction. He seemed tired. He seemed annoyed. He seemed bored. He seemed like he didn’t care. When I asked if there was anyone I could call if this particular woman was found, he shrugged and told me to call 911.

That lack of fundamental empathy in our peace officers is completely unacceptable. It is disgusting, and must change. 

Catherine and I are asking for your consideration and help. We seek policy changes from our Police. We would like to have our concerns heard and taken seriously by our governing body. We would like to speak directly to those in charge of these policies. We do not appreciate being passed from one institution to another, being sent back to the start of the line each time we do so. We want a straight answer. We do not understand why this very important issue was initially eschewed by the very avenue, the Police Board Meeting, that is supposed to give us the people, the taxpayers, the voters, an opportunity to participate in our democracy. Just after the year of #Metoo it is appalling that our concerns have been treated as a nuisance instead of a crucial part of our social dialogue.

Our fundamental complaints with the VPD:

Lack of priority and budget given to the VPD Sex Crimes unit.
Minimizing the severity of the victim’s trauma and actively telling victims to not speak out about their abuse publicly.
Extreme lack of empathy and sensitivity displayed by officers who are interacting/interviewing those who are victims of sex crimes.
Lack of organizational transparency, especially regarding the nearly $300 million budget of the VPD.
Lack of public accessibility to our institution of law enforcement. If a citizen wants to speak to the police about matters of public safety that citizen should not have to go through the OPCC to do so. The Vancouver Police Board exists, in part, to publicly delegate the operation of the VPD and in doing so they are supposed to give the public an opportunity to engage in this process. They have failed to do so.

We want our concerns taken seriously. We feel that many other Vancouverites will feel the same way. Please share this article, file your own official complaint with the OPCC, look into the VPD stats for yourself or simply stand in solidarity with us in our quest to speak at the Vancouver Police Board Meeting.

Catherine Fancioli

Axel Matfin

I spent a good portion of my day trying to get a clear answer out of the City of Vancouver, BC Liberals, BC NDP and BC Green Party concerning an inquiry into their strategies for solving the Fentanyl Epidemic in BC. Representatives from each group repeated the same formulaic rhetoric about “harm reduction” strategies and improving mental health institutions, failing to hear me when I stated that these slow moving bureaucratic institutions will mean little to those in need if people keep dying at the rate they are. Fentanyl is not heroin, it is not a drug that lends itself to harm reduction, it is flat out killing people. There is no way to manage Fentanyl use by an addict because in the de-regulated world of street drugs if a person unknowingly receives it, they can likely end up dead. Clean needles don’t make a difference. It is a random strike upon the user, with no warning signs.

To put this crisis in perspective: in 2016 in New Orleans, a murder center of the USA where there are plenty of hand guns and assault weapons, there were 175 murders. In BC we had 914 overdose deaths. At a certain point we must call a spade a spade, this is no longer just a mental health and #addiction crisis: it is mass murder. Yet our politicians only plan is to lean on the strategies and techniques used to combat HIV/Aids which were pioneered in the Downtown East Side in the 1990’s. When pressed our leadership quotes the phrase “harm reduction” as if it erases the reality of Vancouver’s open air drug market and puts criminals behind bars. I agree that harm reduction centers are still required and that mental health institutions are of paramount importance for people in need of them but this is 2017, and our society needs new methodologies to combat the source of the problem. The Drug trade has changed. Over the past 25 years The City of Vancouver and the #Province has allowed for a climate of illegal drugs and their street level distribution to become normalized to the point where #VPD perceptibly spend more time having coffee in Yaletown or breaking up independent art shows and underground venues than they do actually arresting those responsible for the deaths of so many of our citizens. The #RCMP flat out refuses to present to the public with any angle of their strategy for dismantling these criminal institutions, only appearing when they have drugs on the table to show us so we can hail the conquering heroes. This egregious failure to act is almost as offensive as the lack of validation for the concerns of the public. Stats show that there are less than a hundred drinking and driving related deaths in BC annually, yet massive amounts of municipal, provincial and federal resources are put into road blocks, breathalyzers, and the prosecution of drunk drivers. When street racing became a problem in the early 00’s the BC Provincial government overhauled the entire licensing system of BC to prevent irresponsible youth from getting into car crashes. It has been a year and we have nothing from our leaders. 914 overdoses. 914 dead. 914 people, family members, nieces, nephews, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters. Canadians.

During the April 26th televised BC Provincial Leaders Debate on #CBC the topic of Fentanyl was given 2 minutes and not a single candidate brought up the role of law enforcement in preventing the current crisis that BC faces. Instead of a comprehensive plan to arrest the importers and distributors of street drugs, the City of Vancouver has recently released plans to increase taxes on citizens to raise an additional $3.5 million per year to build a new Community Police Center in Strathcona, as well as funding noxalone training and other initiatives that have yet to be defined. The Non Partisan Association, the minority opposition to Gregor Robertson’s Vision Vancouver, does not support this tax increase because they are unsure that throwing money and old strategies at the problem will be able to solve it, potentially just becoming another bureaucratic public money pit. What will a new Policing Center matter if Police aren’t arresting anyone or gathering detailed information dossiers on the neighborhood or criminals themselves? And if they are, why can’t they tell us that is what they are doing? What good will Noxolone do in stopping the lethal drug from getting into the hands of addicts who, let us not forget, are the mentally ill? Vancouver paramedics are run off their feet, facing over hundreds of overdose calls a week, feeling futility in their jobs saving lives of addicts who are likely to overdose again. This methodology is a waste of our public servants time and efforts, as well as a waste of taxpayer money. The strategies of harm reduction were not designed to reduce the harm of a drug like this, and our electorate needs to take heed of that and recognize that this is a lethal epidemic deserving of their priority. We need leaders who do not shy away from scary subjects like crime, for ignoring it does not make it go away.

Odds are you know someone who died of a Fentanyl overdose, or at very least you know someone who knew someone and you feel the climate of fear that exists on the streets of Vancouver. Too long have the institutions of illegal drug distribution gone unchecked and now it is costing hundreds of people, many who are not addicts, their lives. It is time for Law enforcement of the City of Vancouver, the Province of BC and the Federal Government to be accountable to it’s citizens and take action in pursuing, arresting and judiciously prosecuting those that continue to exploit the most vulnerable in our society as well as those who sought solace from their troubles in a very depressing place. The victims of these crimes were hurting no one but themselves, their very desire for heavy opiates a result of our societal failure to address the mental health of those most in need of healing. We treat mental health and addiction like the disease, it is not. These sad bedfellows of the human condition are the symptoms of the horrible infection of crime and economic disparity that has infested itself in the lower mainland of BC. Economic disparity cannot be simply attacked, that is where middle class citizens require true “harm reduction”. However the importers and distributors of these drugs are murderers and it’s time they were treated as such. If it’s not possible for our establishments of law enforcement to peruse and prosecute these criminals, then maybe we as a society need to change our drug laws and the environment of prohibition that fosters such criminal institutions and their black market economy.

I believe a clear message needs to be sent to Vancouver City Hall, Victoria and Ottawa to let them know that this streak of deaths needs to be an immediate priority for the secure future of British Columbians and Canadians. I have been trying for weeks to get an adequate response from any of these offices of government or the potential candidates who represent them, and my voice has fallen on deaf ears or been presented with empty platitudes. So maybe if enough people read and share this status our voices will be heard together. I am tired of our elected body playing petty party politics and economic roulette with our future while those charged with protecting us pick and choose the policing of out dated laws and by-laws while ignoring us and the most vulnerable in our society. This not a matter of politics, it’s a matter of life and death.