Hustling to a bus, Uncle Weed ends the festive period with vaporization session and recounts highlights, hi-jinks and life remixes from 2010 including gut surgery, True North Media House social reporting at the Olympics including Olympic Outsider podcasts, Subpop Records, Hockey Hall of Fame, SXSW, Komasket Music Festival, UW40 party, Halloween at the Waldorf hotel, visits from friends, and then a decompression road trip to Nelson with forays to ferries, hot springs and local organic beers. Ends with clumsy thanks to the Chooglers who had my back during the past year.
Musical interludes including an skat/vocal rendition of a Charlie Parker tune by Nico from Savage Blade.
Poet Randall Maggs discusses his book “Night Work” about the troubled soul of legendary hockey goalie Terry Sawchuk plus the nuances of story-telling, conversations with goaltenders, Sawchuk’s Ukrainian heritage and convergence of history and hockey with host Dave Thorvald Olson at the Robson Square covered outdoor rink in Vancouver following a poetry reading promoted by publisher Brick Books.
“On the Vancouver question, that is my birthplace and, though I haven’t lived there in a long while, I still think of it as home. The Canucks are my team. Over the years I have travelled back to the city often to visit my relatives and family. My grandparents lived in South Burnaby off Kingsway pretty much all their adult lives, my grandfather being a millwright and playing an important role in building many of the lumber mills in and around the city. A couple of summers ago my mother and I were having lunch on a terrace on Granville Island and my mother pointed out the remnants of one of my grandfather’s mills. Even after his retirement he’d be called back in to solve a problem that university-trained engineers couldn’t handle. He’d give mill officials fits, scrambling up long ladders long past the age of 80. I attended grade school in South Burnaby, I think Strathmillan School. After her years of following my Air Force father back and forth across the country, my mother went home to live in Surrey and White Rock where she lives at present. My son has been living out there as much as in Newfoundland for most of the past dozen years, having done an MA in Piano Performance with Jane Coop at UBC and working on his PhD in the Arts and Sustainability with John Robinson at UBC.”
In between Winter Olympics and SXSW, Uncle Weed soothes a sore throat on a couch and talks about global parties of note (including Oktoberfest, Mardi Gras, Carnival, etc.), plus extols about the Olympic Outsider podcast, True North Media House, importance and nobility of documentation, SXSW preview and recap of recent trip to Pe Ell to visit Hemp Ed and the Numbskulz.
On Lynn Valley’s Varley trail, Uncle Weed discourses on fascist sponsors and greedy PR hacks reacting to young Mr. Phelps’ situation, plus talk of value of art vs. artist and listener email about parenting advice, blind shopping cart incidents, and a situation with a Briton arrested and incarcerated in Japan plus a spiel on Group of Seven artist Frederick Varley.
Pro-pot group smokes Kellogg for axing Phelps – Olympic Sports
Bursting with indignation, legions of legalize-marijuana advocates are urging a boycott of Kellogg Co., including all of its popular munchies, for deciding to cut ties with Olympic hero Michael Phelps after he was photographed with a pot pipe.
Flashback: Phelps’ 2004 DUI didn’t cost him Kellogg’s endorsement | NORML’s Daily Audio Stash
Michael Phelps was convicted of illegally using a hard drug (alcohol is a hard, though legal, drug and Phelps was 19, not legal age to use it) when caught driving a car, running a stop sign, and pushing the legal limit for intoxication. Michael Phelps could’ve caused a serious accident and injured or killed himself and others. Kellogg’s didn’t seem to have a problem with that being “not consistent with the image of Kellogg”.
Michael Phelps Should Not Be Sorry | The Cosmic Tap
Michael Phelps has nothing to apologize for. I understand the reality he faces, however, and why he has to say what he said. But let’s go beyond the breathless theatrics and think about the core issue. “He broke the law,” the pundits are saying, as if that is necessarily the end of the conversation. Sorry, but Phelps was not wrong; our marijuana laws are wrong. Really wrong.
Phelps is now the top Olympian of all time. Here’s what it takes …
US swimmer Michael Phelps made history yesterday when he scooped a record-breaking 11th Olympic gold medal. He has now topped the podium five times in Beijing. After his latest victory, he revealed the secret behind his six-days-a-week, five-hours-a-day training regime: an extraordinary 12,000-calorie daily diet, six times the intake of a normal adult male.
America’s narcotic of choice – Salon.com
The Michael Phelps saga is yet another example of our addiction to feigned outrage.
Michael Phelps: Puppy torturer! – Salon.com
Come on, people, all he did was smoke some weed, like Bill Gates, Barack Obama and countless other overachievers.
Phelps Marijuana Arrests By Sheriff Leon Lott Columbia South Carolina -WSI 10 News
The Richland County Sheriff’s Department has been taking a lot of heat from people in this country and all over the world. They want to know why Sheriff Leon Lott is going after Michael Phelps. Many are saying the sheriff should concentrate on more serious crimes, or at the very least, not focus solely on the Olympic champion when there were others at the party who were also breaking the law.
If you’ve been counting down the days to the arrival of Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps in Vancouver, you’re in for a big disappointment.
Phelps was slotted to speak at GM Place on March 6 for a motivational leadership event organized by Toronto-based promoter Power Within Inc., but was pulled from the line-up due to the recent controversy caused by surfaced pictures of him smoking a bong at a college party.
…
According to a statement released by Power Within Inc., the change in programming was “due to widely publicized alleged use of marijuana by Michael Phelps.” Numerous calls made by the Straight to Power Within Inc. were not returned.
Comment to article:
for anyone that thinks this as absurd as I do, please pass your frustration along to Power Within. If they don’t hear people’s displeasure with this behaviour they’re likely to feel it’s condoned.- http://www.powerwithin.com/4105/contact_information.asp – Submitted by unclespeedo on Wed, 2009-02-25 13:57.
An enhanced Olympic Outsider podcast with host Dave Thorvald visiting with 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics Gold Medalist and Snowboard legend Ross Rebagliati.
At a busy Symposium on Web 2.0 and the Future of Sport at Vancouver’s Take 5Cafe, Dave asks Ross about the drug-testing incident in great detail plus they discuss Ross’s aspirations for 2010 and beyond, his recreational hobbies and real-estate dealings. Then, Dave relates anecdotes about his own drug testing experience (see attached .pdf) and gives thanks to Ross for inspiring the people.
At a pagan-ish pageant on Pender Island, Uncle Weed views kayak ballet, dreadlocked Father Time and burning suns while enjoying microbrews, doobs, sparklers, and recalling O Shogotsu in Japan.
Yup, it's a podcast - featuring Uncle Weed on random sound-seeing adventures around Vancouver and international exploits spieling on with anecdotes and observations about communities, public policy, transportation, economics, architecture, entrepreneurship and enjoying herb, ya know ganja.
Get yer mitts on some tasty, hemp-fortified podcast hi-jinks!
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