genny cream ale and candy corn

From nekocase.com:

"Here are some things I really, really love. I am currently obsessing about them.

Some are new, some have floated in and out of my orbit since time began……. They are in no particular order……. Well, actually hot chocolate is in first place.

• Hot chocolate

• Nina Hagen “Smack Jack” from "Nunsexmonkrock” she crazy. The video is great too, there’s terrible early 80s “effects,” she dresses like Hitler, the Madonna, a nurse and some smudgy baby doll. She looks like Courtney Love swiped her look. She probably did. Nina has some serious balls. I’ll never stop loving her.
  

• Rice cooked in coconut milk. Mmmmmmm.

• Leaving the classical radio station on all the time. My dog turned me onto it. He used to be a racing dog, and they leave the radio on all day for the dogs at the track kennels. The people I adopted him from suggested I do the same if I leave him alone. I just started leaving it on when I got home. It was so soothing! The only problem is it makes me seriously consider going into felonious credit card debt to purchase a real 70s style stereo with really good speakers. My dog is talking me into it. He’s not a fan of the crappy, on-sale-at-Target Sony boom box anymore. I guess he doesn’t have much better hearing than it do.

• Side one of Bootsy Collins’ “Ultrawave”. I had a copy when I was 18 and I wore it out. I just got a new one the other day. Welcome Home Bootsy! I love it when he scolds me, “You shoulda been funky by now! You shoulda been dancin’ by now!” Hot.

• Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit - "Rose of England" from the LP of the same name. Such perfect phrasing. Sigh. The way he says “hot potato, da-rop it and run…” En-Ga-Lund, just like that other genius-fox Roger Miller…. Oh I could die.

• Horchata! And just so you know, the best horchata in the world is made at the Little Poca Cosa Café in Tucson, AZ. Never powdered, always fresh! And the sexy ladies hug and kiss you try to leave.

• Visqueen. They have a new record out called “Sunset On Dateland.” Ohhhh, it’s dandy! I love this record! They should force teenage girls (not that this is a teenage record, it rocks universally to all) to listen to this instead of Avril Lavigne (I don’t know how to spell her name!) They would have no problem growing up to be tough. They would form an army (cool boys could be in it too); they would all play in bands. They wouldn’t miss-spell words on purpose, they would know dawn well that only his purple highness is allowed to do that. Those pink millionaire Hilton sisters and their ilk would incinerate to dust in their presence. Our army, in turn would roll up their voter registration cards and snort them. They would be singing “A Viewing” by Visqueen.

• Not-so-guilty pleasure…... Frankie Goes To Hollywood! Welcome to the Pleasuredome! Speaking of Pleasure… I’m not talking about the hits man, this double album is crazy! They are fearless! It’s an 80s Roman Hedonist Synthesizer Jizz-Fest (but with actual drums and bass!!!). Balls of steel! I still love it!

• The Del-Monas, man do I love the Del-Monas! Run out and buy anything of theirs right now! They sound so tough and bored at the same time! It’s like they were actually lying on ratty couches and smoking while they sang. They music is mean, the production is meaner. I can listen to it over and over and over……..

• Carly Simon's “That’s The Way I Always Heard It Should Be.” I know it was still the 70s and it was still ok to put good music on the radio, but jeez! How did this song become a hit? It’s so dark. It’s soooo good. Just when we think our young heroine figures it out, se agrees to get married and have kids with the guy. I guess it’s more truthful that way. It still makes me cringe though. Thank you Carly Simon. Carly also dispelled my own prejudice that rich people can’t rock. We’ve all got to be unreasonable about something! (And I was right about it 99.9% of the time anyway). The entire first and second records are really good. Lots of interesting, beautiful singing. I’m gonna steal the “drums are over in the next county” sound of the production for my evil plans.

• Satellite Radio! Damn, I forgot about the radio. I had forsaken it so long ago……. Handsome Dick Manitoba has a show! Yay! Ohhhh, he’s playing Stiv Bators right now. I feel thirteen. I’m thinking about him wearing that skeleton outfit in “Polyester.” Hot. “Nice beating you Mrs. Fishpaw!” Genesee Cream Ale and candy corn. Mmmmm.

• Shopping in the boys department at Target. I’m the size of a large boy, so the pajama possibilities are endless. Yesterday I got a pair with battleships on them for seven bucks! 100% cotton! I’m embracing the spirit of our warlike nation. With fashion. Now that’s cunty! Besides, the girls’ pajamas are fucking lame. Always have been. Fuck your pink-ass strawberries and Hello Kitty. Don’t try this at Wal-Mart. There is no natural fiber available there. Only petroleum-based cloth that grafts to your skin forever if shown a flame. You’ll end up with a yeast infection. Not convenient."

-30-

My father sits at night with no lights on
His cigarette glows in the dark.
The living room is still;
I walk by, no remark.
I tiptoe past the master bedroom where
My mother reads her magazines.
I hear her call sweet dreams,
But I forgot how to dream.

But you say it's time we moved in together
And raised a family of our own, you and me -
Well, that's the way I've always heard it should be:
You want to marry me, we'll marry.

housing still hot while prices drop

B.C. housing market still hot although Vancouver price hikes have tapered off

Supply unable to keep up with demand

The Vancouver Sun

Friday, September 29, 2006

By Michael Kane, with file from Eric Beauchesne

British Columbia's housing market remains hot despite slowing sales, separate housing reports Thursday suggest.

But a closer look at one report's statistics reveals that price increases in Vancouver tapered off dramatically over the summer and declined marginally in two categories.

"While the year-over-year price increases look really good, the most recent data suggests that the market here is cooling down, albeit from a really excited place," said Tsur Somerville, director of the Centre for Urban Economics and Real Estate at the University of B.C.'s Sauder School of Business.

In contrast, Gregory Klump, chief economist with the Canadian Real Estate Association, said sales activity in B.C. and Alberta is easing to more normal levels but it will likely take until late spring before year-over-year price increases drop below double-digits.

And Royal LePage Real Estate Services reported continuing "frenzied levels of activity and double-digit price gains" across the West, saying robust market conditions can be expected to continue for some time.

In Vancouver, LePage cited year-over-year price gains of 17.2 per cent for the average bungalow to $704,250, while the average price of standard two-storey property rose by 13.8 per cent to $794,000 and the average condominium rose 13.3 per cent to $366,250.

However, LePage's numbers also show that price increases in Vancouver stalled in the third quarter after rising rapidly in the first two quarters and dropped marginally for detached bungalows (minus 0.5 per cent) and condominiums (minus 0.7 per cent). The standard two-storey house was up 0.2 per cent.

By neighbourhood, LePage says prices in all three categories are up or steady in Vancouver East and Vancouver West, but down in North Vancouver and West Vancouver.

While Vancouver has seen a slight reprieve from a severe shortage of inventory, Bill Binnie, president of Royal LePage Northshore, said supply is still unable to meet demand, and that will force higher prices.

In an interview, Binnie said people continue to move to British Columbia for jobs, for the weather, and because it is a nice place to live.

"We've got an economy that is really good and the job market out there today is as tight as I have seen it in 30 years. Those two factors -- population growth and the economy -- impact the real estate market more than anything else."

Binnie discounted concerns about affordability, noting that four out of five new arrivals to B.C. are from outside the country, and many have money, while first-time buyers are opting for apartments or moving further east to find a property they can afford.

But he said B.C. will be affected by a slowdown in the U.S. economy, particularly in the vital sectors of lumber and tourism, and that will influence the housing market.

"All the signs indicate that we are going to be easing off from the kind of growth that we've experienced over the last one or two years, but what is hard to figure out is actually how much we are easing off."

Inventory levels in greater Vancouver are still not high enough to achieve balanced conditions, said Cameron Muir, senior market analyst with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. Muir expects balance "sometime in 2007 as home prices rise to the point at which many households simply can't afford to buy a home."

Nationally, sales increased last month and remain on track to set a new annual record, the Canadian Real Estate Association said, reporting that seasonally adjusted sales rose 0.7 per cent to 39,725, with increases in Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador more than offsetting lower sales in B.C. and Alberta.

LePage said the Canadian housing market is not expected to suffer the downturn being witnessed south of the border, noting the economic and financial fundamentals driving the residential real estate sector in Canada are markedly different than those found in the United States.

- - -

TAPERING OFF

Gains in the prices of homes in the city are being offset by declines on the North Shore:

Detached bungalow:

Vancouver West $925,000
three months ago: $900,000

Vancouver East $512,000
three months ago: $483,000

North Vancouver $580,000
three months ago: $609,000

West Vancouver $800,000
three months ago: $840,000

Standard two-storey:

Vancouver West $1,150,000
three months ago: $1,100,000

Vancouver East $536,000
three months ago: $505,000

North Vancouver $610,000
three months ago: $640,500

West Vancouver $880,000
three months ago: $924,000

Standard condo:

Vancouver West $550,000
three months ago: $550,000

Vancouver East $275,000
three months ago: $254,000

North Vancouver $270,000
three months ago: $283,500

West Vancouver $370,000
three months ago: $388,500

IOC torpedoes floating media hotel

Vanoc hits yet another snag

IOC sinks plan to house about 1,600 journalists on a luxury cruise ship at Squamish during Games

The Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
By Jeff Lee

The International Olympic Committee handed Vanoc another organizational headache Tuesday when it rejected a proposal from local organizers of the 2010 Olympic Games to use a luxury cruise ship to house 1,600 journalists expected to cover events at Whistler.

Vanoc wanted to moor the ship at Squamish and bus members of the media to the mountain sites each day.

"Let's say the idea was firmly and politely rejected," IOC press commission chairman Kevan Gosper said from Beijing Tuesday.

"We were simply presented with one option, and whilst a cruise ship may be suitable for tourists and corporates, we don't think it was an appropriate option for as important a working group as the press," Gosper said in a telephone interview.

The decision by the IOC advisory group is another blow to plans for the 2010 Olympics, and creates another set of headaches for the Vancouver Organizing Committee, which is facing lack of affordable accommodation at the mountain venues.

Nejat Sarp, Vanoc's vice-president of accommodation and villages, said he is waiting for Vanoc officials who were at the press commission meeting to return with a full report before deciding what to do.

"Once they get back we're going to sit down and look at what their [IOC's] concerns are," Sarp said. "We will be looking at further options and will have further dialogue to try and address their concerns."

But he said a cruise ship may still be used at Squamish for other groups that need accommodation.

Vanoc first proposed the idea of a cruise ship village to the IOC this summer after it became clear it is having trouble finding enough rooms in Whistler. Sarp said Vanoc needs about 3,000 rooms for judges, media, officials and IOC staff and members, and the cruise ship would be of the luxury variety that plies the Alaska and Caribbean tourist routes.

Overall, Vanoc is expecting between 7,000 and 10,000 media and broadcasters -- by far the largest group attending the Olympics -- to require accommodation. Vancouver's hotel stock is adequate for the city-based media, but the real crunch is in the Whistler area.

Originally Vanoc planned to build an athletes' village near the Nordic venues in the Callaghan Valley, and a temporary media village at Whistler's new Cheakamus subdivision. But finances and logistical issues forced Vanoc to move the athletes' village to Cheakamus. It decided to put the idea of a media cruise ship hotel to the IOC.

"Where we really have a tight fit is in Whistler, versus Vancouver. Whistler is going to be an ongoing challenge, not because of the media but because of all user groups requesting additional accommodation," Sarp said.

He said the cruise ship had merit because it would give Squamish some economic benefit.

But Gosper made it clear the IOC press commission didn't think much of the idea.

"The real issue is we were presented with one option, and it is not an option that was acceptable," Gosper said. "Cruise ships aren't normally the vehicle for the sort of hours and nature of work that the press is involved in. They are one of the hardest-working and important groups of the Games."

Sarp said Vanoc is now hoping Whistler will temporarily relax a bylaw that protects its residential zone from short-term rentals. The bylaw currently prohibits housing from being rented for less than 30-day periods, as a way of providing stable housing for the local work force.

"We are having a dialogue with the municipality about that, and they have been very cooperative. If we go down that road we could find ourselves with a fairly large increase in accommodations," Sarp said.

But he said Vanoc may have to assign rooms on a priority basis.

"I think what we have to do is look at each user groups' requirements, and if push comes to shove, look at who would have the first priority of having access to the accommodation," he said.

-30-

Olympic costs story ongoing

North Shore News
Friday, September 22, 2006
By Keith Baldrey

Does it really matter to many people whether the costs for improving the Sea to Sky Highway are part of the true cost of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games?

Does anyone really care whether one of the stations on the new rapid transit line to the Vancouver airport is added to the cost of the Olympics?

I suspect the answers to both questions would be "no," and indeed a recent Mustel poll done for Global TV and News 1130 show a slight majority of British Columbians think such costs should be excluded from the budget for the Olympics.

But whether the "true" budget is $600 million (which the B.C. government insists is the actual cost) or $2.5 billion (the auditor general's figure) obscures a more important point. The bigger issue is whether the anticipated costs actually start to grow beyond what's on the table right now.

The auditor general's figure of $2.5 billion includes spending that we already know about. The Sea-to-Sky Highway Improvement project, for example, isn't exactly a secret venture and neither is the construction of the Canada Line to the airport.

Including that kind of spending as part of the Olympic costs is simply moving money from one envelope to another.

But the ominous part of the auditor general's report on the Olympic costs concerns the warning flags about how the current level of costs could easily spin out of control. The report by Arn van Iersel is a sobering document, and one that should give taxpayers pause.

The auditor general has concluded the current management structure of the Games is seriously flawed, and he is calling on the provincial government to become more active in ensuring things don't become unravelled.

According to van Iersel, there is insufficient co-ordination between the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee and the provincial government. The result is that provincial money goes out the door, without the government having a proper oversight role in ensuring that money is being spent wisely.

An unsettling example of that is van Iersel uncovering the news that negotiations over several of the key venue sights aren't even completed yet. That means the budget for any of those venues -- which include the Whistler Athlete's Village -- could easily begin to exceed the original cost estimates, as the price of labour and construction materials continues to climb.

Because the venue designs aren't completed yet, the RCMP has been unable or unwilling to provide specific security cost estimates to the auditor general. Without knowledge of exits, entrances, streets, etc., the RCMP can't state exactly its security plans for that particular venue.

Costs for security are currently estimated to be $175 million, but how that figure was ever arrived at has never been explained (security costs for the Athens Summer Olympics were well over $1 billion).

The auditor general also uncovered a stunning error that shows how easily money can be lost or wasted on a venture such as the Olympic Games. Because much of the broadcast rights payments to VANOC are in U.S. funds, the decline of the American dollar will end up costing it about $150 million in lost revenue.

The provincial government or VANOC could have safeguarded against the fluctuations in currency values by purchasing "hedging" contracts, but they failed to do so. If an error like that can be made once, it is conceivable another one could be made again.

So arguing about whether $2.5 billion is the true cost of the 2010 Olympics is rather pointless since that involves money we already know about. Worrying about the spending going well beyond that figure is more relevant.

And as the auditor general points out in his report, when all is said and done, there is only one entity responsible for budget overruns -- the provincial government, not the International Olympic Committee and not the federal government -- only the B.C. government.

That same Mustel poll found a slight majority of British Columbians (55 per cent) favour spending more money on the Olympics if that's what it takes to make them a success. But at what level of overruns does that support start to slip badly?

A $500-million overrun? A $1-billion overrun? If we ever get to that point, arguing over whether the Sea to Sky Highway is part of the Olympic costs will seem small potatoes indeed.

-30-

Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global TV.

how do we love thee, miss carolyn

That California Trip
Or, A Lady's Got to Finish the Song

October 2005

by Carolyn Mark, troubadour extraordinaire

I think there's something about the Fall that makes everyone start heaving deep existential sighs. I guess it makes sense. Colder nights, dying leaves, back to school: all fodder for anxiety. I spent the day in a bookstore in Portland reading Arthur Schopenhauer -- 1930's philosopher credited for being the first one to admit that the world was bad! I only knew about him from Woody Allen jokes but check it out: "Hope is the confusion of the desire for a thing with its probability."
Brother I know that tune.

Okay so it turns out the dude hates women but I just pretend I am a dude when I read stuff like that -- like when you read Bukowski or something. "Yeah, chicks ARE stoopid!" Dude, I read so much when I was younger I thought I WAS a dude until I was 23 so it's not hard for me.

And, well, Lemmy from Motorhead's biography was also quite inspirational:

"Looking back...it was good that we fell when we did. We wouldn't have been going now if we had carried on getting more and more famous. We would have wound up a bunch of twats with houses in the country divorced from each other."

Heady stuff, eh?

This trip was like a vision quest or something. I was accompanied by My Chauffette -- lady genius, artist, scientist, adventuress recovering from ribs broken by a tumble within The Art World.

The Chauffette and I are each other's parallel universe. Since we are involved in similar fields we know the shorthand of certain words (festival, curator, lab partner, record label etc) yet since we're not in EXACTLY the same field, we're not secretly measuring our own success each time the other speaks and can actually HEAR each other when we talk.

Most intoxicating. Pure love. No poison.

So we did a lot of driving and a lot of talking.

We have both noticed in our respective fields that weak people seem to get more help. Well, more help than us. Like people think we're tough and can take care of everything. Or maybe everyone thinks that about themselves and you just can't see your own help. We thought about cultivating an Outer Diva so people would help us. But since nothing is free I think the cost of allowing people to help you would be having to be crazy. And even if you just started out APPEARING to need help, you'd probably get so used to it that if it was removed then you'd really be fucked. It's like a little love letter of protection to yourself in the future.

Insert more Schopenhauer here:

"If the frustration of effort were removed from the lives of men, their arrogance would rise...to manifestations of the most unbridled folly and even madness."

Or in modern parlance, that's why you cry when the festival's over and you gotta find your own way home.

Of course, we talked about love a whole lot too. We decided that we are lady pirates contributing to the Grey Economy of Love.

The first show was in Sacramento which is a weird place. It's like there's no people there. I've been three times and it's always the same. Actually I think what's really afoot is that it's a capital city and the club we always play at is is in the business area. I'm sure there's a whole other part where hipsters are drinking coffee and buying records and all that but I've never found it. We just don't know anyone there. That's all.

The Chauffette and I found a Travel Lodge mere blocks away from the club and checked in. Some sketchy dudes were sitting in the lobby barefoot and we heard one of them say, "Jewish people are nice," as we walked past.

We met up with the other bands. Bermuda Triangle Service, Victoria Williams, and local sensations Two Sheds. All the bands were lady fronted and the night ended up being a buffet of mental illness. The girl in the opening band sat in a chair, slid off her eighties pumps and strummed a beat on an old electric. They sounded fine but she did this weird thing with her lips and teeth that I guess was her version of smiling. Bermuda Triangle Service was next and Cynthia (aka "Wig") who had done all the work getting these shows together seemed a touch tense while she sang -- perhaps on account of the low turnout thinking that we'd think it was her fault or something. She is a sweetheart and so is her husband/drummer Adam ("Ad") and their bass man Bob's a dude and a half too.

Next up I think it was me. Holy moly. Somehow I ripped open my dress, broke a string, cut open my finger and started bleeding before I even sang a note!

"Sell-out!" some genius yelled from the darkness. It was like Tourrette's of the hands! I started over and all went well I guess. The place was highly air-conditioned which never fails to put me and my guitar in a mood.

Then Victoria Williams and her band sauntered in from dinner. The lady herself clad in many layers and a white crocheted tam and a black JAZZ drummer carrying sticks, head bandana, t-shirt with drum logo etc you know, That Guy. The guy who's always wearing things that scream "Drummer" so people won't notice that he's not. Then there was Janis from the Muppet Show on bass and a tall JAZZ Guitarist who came complete with Implied Sweater.

By the time they hit the stage it was midnight and the show was a little chaotic. I chalked it up to first-night-of-the-tour-working-out-the-act-here-in-the-Catskills and factored in the late hour and the bone chilling air conditioning and thought I'd wait until the next night before forming an opinion but fuck man, a lady's got to finish a song.

Finish the Song. That's the only rule.

The Chauffette and I tried to encourage our Host Family to join us at the Travel Lodge instead of driving the hour and a half back to S.F. and we almost had 'em but they had promised the JAZZ Guitarist a ride and felt obligated.

The next morning we tried to find breakfast and ended up eating at this weird sandwich place for working people. We were surrounded by a whole lot of ladies in sneakers and cinnamon hose on the Atkins diet. All these cute Filipino ladies were working away behind the counter. We wanted to load them all up in the back seat of the car and take them with us to San Francisco where they could be free.

Hot sun and traffic all the way to S.F. in our Golden Volvo Wagon. We were looking forward to staying with Wig and Ad because they are lovely hosts and their place has this beautiful patio with orange and lemon trees that grow right through it. That night's show was at a place called The 12 Galaxies which was mere blocks away from The Crash Pad.

Total San Francisco moment: Two hobos in the doorway. One says to the other "You oughtta take some POTASSIUM!" Even the hobos are all about health here.

The club is really big and has two levels and the owner is really nice -- got me wine, let me smoke, funny, knew about music. It doesn't take much to win me over. Why is it so rare?

Bermuda Triangle Service took the stage and opened with this crazy sound scape instrumental number. Wig's parents were in the front row and they were digging it. The Chauffette met up with her old friend The Archivist and they were head to head at the bar. So there I was in my vintage black cocktail dress and ribboned shoes and fake beauty mark looking down over the balcony at the stage when this guy came up and said, "Excuse me, my friend and I were wondering if you're a suicide girl?" As a phrase, how delicious is that? I really wish I could have said yes and jumped off the balcony. It would have been worth it to me to die for the sake of the joke. Instead I figured they were referring to those burlesque ladies who tour around or have a website or something so I said, 'No but I know some of those ladies," or something boring like that. I went running downstairs to find Tommy Monday and told him I'd just been asked if I was a Suicide Girl! He's like 'What does that mean?" Forgetting he's a fag, I'm like, "You know, those burlesque girls..." 'Oh, you mean those fat chicks with dyed black hair who go around trying to convince men that they're sexy?"

Yowch. Tender. Tender.

Victoria Williams had decided that she wanted the middle spot so she hit the stage in a pair of giant overalls and again with the white woollen tam. She seemed more together than the night before but still didn't make it all the way to the end of some songs. There is some genius in her but without editing it's really hard to watch. Touring with Victoria Williams sounds enviable on paper but she was flighty and mental and left the stage feeling like a very dark place indeed. She separated recently from her boyfriend/handler and perhaps it's that. Perhaps it's that she once was SIGNED TO ATLANTIC RECORDS and all and has just had her expectations distorted ("unbridled folly and madness").

Since I have enjoyed limited "success," I have been spared from the burden of expectation. Oh sure I've experienced the come-down after a festival where they've taken really good care of you and then suddenly stop but it's more like snake venom when it's intermittent like that. But maybe if you've been fortunate enough to enjoy years of constant special attention a guy could get so used to it that he'd forget how to live in the wild.

My friend got a job catering on a film set and told me the story about how one of the actors, a fading soap star, announced one day that he was gonna get Wardrobe to fashion him some sort of "Eating Smock" because he was always spilling his food on his costume. "Hey, bud, have you heard? They're now making these things called napkins!"

You can turn into veal when everything's taken care of.

Or maybe it's just pure mental illness. I I know "Vic" had M.S. too but does that affect your brain? I don't know where the distortion ends and the decay begins. It's sort of negatively fascinating but draining. I had to go on after her and I wanted one of our west coast witchy friends to come and smudge the stage with some sage or sweetgrass or something in case that shit's catching.

The next night in Berkeley, she didn't even make it through one song. Halfway through she sighed, "What a day. What a show. What a life.." as she slumped in front of the uncooperative keyboard after a series of guitar malfunctions which was kind of chilling. When she was done she said 'Well I guess that's that. You can all go home to bed now," which was really neighbourly of her considering I was up next. Catty Tommy trying to atone for the previous night whispered, "You think M.S. is bad, wait'll you feel what C.M feels like!" in an attempt to cheer me up. While The Chauffette's friend was showing us her new Mercedes ("Well it's not NEW, it's twenty years old!"), an old black man wheeling a shopping cart of books stopped and said:

"A Lover is one who can remain chill in the fires of hell while a Knower is one who can remain dry in the sea."

Everyone's well read in Berkeley!

After the show, we drove home listening to the classic rock station and once there, we sat on the lemon deck and discussed the show and performance in general. There are so many ways to do it. Wig offered up her theory that there are Performers and Personalities while she made us Lemon Drops with freshly squeezed lemons from the patio and chilled glasses with sugared rims which took the edge off. I'm sure the vitamin C saved our lives. The theory's pretty good too.

The payoff was that the weekend culminated with getting to see Dolly Parton play for free in Golden Gate Park and wow, talk about your polar opposite experience. The woman is a machine. When she sang Jolene, the main speakers cut out so we were treated to the image of her still singing away and moving her arms up and down and dancing Without Sound which I'll never forget.

While caring fags held back the branches so I could better look at Dolly's spangles, she said, "Look how well every one's getting along. I guess the world can get along. Well, if everyone smokes enough dope that is! Blow some of that up here, would ya?"

Does she know her audience or what?

After Dolly, as the sun went down and the fog rolled in over the bay, our ever extending family ended up in a Safeway arguing about Value Pack Salmon. I hid in the bathroom until it was over because without the scaffolding of a mission, group outings are semi-uncomfortable.

Feeling like we may have completely flattened our Host Family's cushion of hospitality, we drove all night down the I-5 back to The Chauffette's warehouse in Portland. We rehashed the weekend and decided that somewhere between the flighty self-obsessed basketcasery of Victoria Williams and the robotic professionalism of Dolly Parton is where the most compelling performance lives. I think it has something to do with perspective. If you are on stage and can't see past the walls of your own head and remember that other people are there, it can be negatively fascinating like reality television or something but the audience will eventually feel abandoned once they realize that the person they have paid to see is not in charge. And unless you are playing to thousands of people, arena sized gestures and stadium shout-outs will seem completely unnatural. Actually that shit's always funny. "Hello San Francisco!!"

I try to play to the people who are actually there which seems to work most of the time. My closer friends might argue this point but they're not here right now.

Yours in show business,
xo cm

the duck is dead, long live the duck

A woman goes into the vets with a duck under her arm. The vet lifts the ducks head and it flops back down. "This duck is dead," says the vet. "I do not believe it", says the woman. "I want another opinion."

The vet opens the door and in comes a black Labrador. The dog sniffs the duck and shakes its head.

"There I told you," says the vet. "The duck is dead."

"I want another opinion," says the woman.

The vet calls and in comes a Siamese cat. The cat sniffs the duck and shakes its head.

"There I told you," says the vet. "The duck is dead."

"OK," says the woman. "I accept your diagnosis. Please give me your bill." (not part of the joke)

The vet gives her a bill for $2500 and the woman exclaims, "But you only said the duck was dead!"

"Yes," said the vet. "But I had to base my expert opinion on a lab report and a cat scan and they are expensive."

--

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is giving President George W. Bush his daily briefing. He concludes by saying:

"Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed in the conflict in Iraq"

"Oh no!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"

His staff sits stunned at his display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands. Finally the President looks up and asks,

"How many is a Brazillion?"

--

Osama Bin Laden himself decided to send George Bush a letter in his own handwriting to let him know he was still in the game. Bush opened the letter and it appeared to contain a single line of coded message:

370HSSV-0773H

Bush was baffled, so he e-mailed it to Condi Rice. Condi and her aides had no clue either, so they sent it to the FBI. No one could solve it at the FBI, so it went to the CIA, then to the NSA. Nothing.

With no clue as to its meaning they eventually asked Britain's MI-6 for help. Within a minute, MI-6 cabled the White House with this reply:

"Tell the President he's holding the message upside down."

--

A bear, a lion, and a chicken are sitting around talking about who's the hardest.

The bear says, "When I roar, the whole forest trembles." The lion says, "When I roar, the whole jungle shakes with fear" and the chicken says, "All I have to do is cough and the whole world craps itself."

--

What did the orange say to apple when they met up for a Saturday night drink?

"Your round!"

--

Two cannibals were eating a clown. One cannibal says to the other:

"Does this taste funny to you?"

--

A guy walking along Second Beach in downtown Vancouver, finds a bottle and picks it up. A genie pops out and says, "Thanks for letting me out! For your kindness I will grant you one wish."

The guys says, "I've always wanted to go to Victoria but I can't because I'm afraid to fly and ships make me deathly sick. My wish is for you to build a road from here to Vancouver Island."

The genie thinks for a while, shakes his head, and says, "I'm sorry, but I don't think I can do that, there's just too much work involved. Think of the huge pilings we'd need to hold up that highway and how deep they would have to be to reach the bottom of the ocean. And think of all the cement that would be needed - and as it's such a huge span, there would have to be filling stations and rest stops along the way. No, sorry, that's just too much to ask. It's too difficult - impossible; think of something else."

The guy says, "OK then , there is one thing I've always wanted to know. I'd like to be able to understand women. What makes them laugh and cry, why they're so temperamental, why they are so difficult to get along with ...you know, what makes them tick."

The genie thinks a second, then says, "You want two lanes - or four?"

--

An old couple go to the doctor's office for a check-up.

After their examination, the doctor informs the couple that they are both fit and healthy but he recommended that they both start to write things down as the memory starts to fade at their age.

Back home, the wife asks the husband to fetch her a plate of ice cream from the kitchen:

"Don't you think you should write that down?" asks the wife.

"No I think I can remember a plate of ice cream" says hubby.

"But I want strawberries too, you may need to write that down," says wife.

"No, I can remember strawberries and ice cream, I don't need to write it down" says hubby.

"But I would also like whipped cream. You may want to write this down," says wife.

"Look, I can remember ice cream with strawberries and cream. I DON'T need to write it down," says Hubby.

So off goes the Husband to the kitchen and he comes back twenty minutes later with a plate of bacon and eggs.

And the wife says, "What did i tell you? You forgot the toast!"

--

Two pensioners went into church on Sunday. It was nearly full and the service was going well. Halfway through the old lady turned to her husband and whispered, "OMG, I've just done a silent but deadly f*rt!"

The husband looked at her and said, "You had best change the battery in your hearing aid, dear."

--

Tom had been in business for 25 years and was finally sick of the stress. He quit his job and bought 50 acres of land in Alaska as far from humanity as possible. Saw the postman once a week and got groceries once a month; otherwise it was total peace and quiet.

After six months or so of almost total isolation, someone knocked on his door. He opened it and there stood a huge, bearded man.

"Name's Lars, your neighbour from forty miles up the road... Having a Christmas party Friday night... Thought you might like to come... About 5:00..."

"Great," said Tom, "after six months out here I'm ready to meet some local folks. Thank you."

As Lars was leaving, he stopped and said, "Gotta warn you...There's gonna be some drinkin'."

"Not a problem," said Tom. "after 25 years in business, I can drink with the best of em."

Again, as he started to leave, Lars stopped and said, "More 'n' likely gonna be some fightin' too."

Tom said, "Well, I get along with people, I'll be alright. I'll be there. Thanks again."

Once again Lars turned from the door saying, "More'n likely be some wild sex, too."

"Now that's really not a problem," said Tom, warming to the idea. "I've been all alone for six months! I'll definitely be there. By the way, what should I wear?"

Lars stopped in the door again and said, "Whatever you want. Just gonna be the two of us."

-30-

playing cat and mouse for billions

Vancouver billionaire plays cat and mouse with authorities

Internet gaming king Calvin Ayre has made a fortune taking bets from U.S. citizens.

Last year, his Bodog.com took in $7.3 billion US in wagers, about 95 per cent from Americans. Enough has flowed to the bottom line to put him on Forbes's annual list of billionaires.

Bodog's betting business is located in Costa Rica, where Ayre lives in a mansion, complete with armed guards. But the company also has operations in the Vancouver area, where Ayre keeps a $6.2-million penthouse. Those operations include Riptown Media in downtown Vancouver, which employs close to 250 people in advertising and marketing support, and Triple Crown Customer Service in Burnaby, where another 200 people work.

By surrounding himself with "Bodog girls" and sports and entertainment celebrities, Ayre has built Bodog into a brand that is hugely profitable and highly respected in the online gaming industry.

But U.S. authorities are not impressed. Taking wagers over the Internet is illegal in the U.S. but prosecuting offenders, because they are located in foreign jurisdictions, has proved problematic.

Until recently, Ayre taunted U.S. authorities, playing a game of catch-me-if-you-can. They weren't able to, but in July they nabbed a British gaming executive in Texas while he was on a stopover to Costa Rica and threw him in jail on fraud and racketeering charges. The arrest sent shivers through the Internet gaming industry, and forced Ayre to cancel his Bodog online gaming marketing conference Las Vegas.

Since then, Ayre has not dared to set foot on U.S. soil, but his money-making machine continues to spin cash, and controversy.

Full story, Business BC, Section: H1

-30-

Vancouver's other billionaire: Calvin Ayre

King of Internet gambling won't set foot in U.S.

The Vancouver Sun
Fri Sep 22 2006
Page: H1 / Front
By David Baines

Vancouver Internet gambling czar Calvin Ayre likes to brag that he is the first person to make the cover of Forbes magazine and be named one of People magazine's 40 hottest bachelors in the same year, a summit he reached this year.

At first glance, it seems a curious boast, for it assumes that others were aspiring to this rather unlikely combination of media accolades. But for Ayre and his Bodog.com gambling empire, it is the logical culmination of a decade-long effort to achieve both mainstream business recognition and celebrity status.

In Ayre's world -- as in Hugh Hefner's or Richard Branson's -- work and play are complementary, even symbiotic. With his photogenic good looks, fetching Bodog girls and celebrity friends, Ayre has been able to build a marketing juggernaut that has propelled Bodog's online betting business into a multibillion-dollar operation and -- according to Forbes's calculation -- elevated him to one of the world's 794 billionaires.

The irony is that while Vancouver's other billionaire, Jim Pattison, has become a local icon, Ayre -- despite some very significant business and real estate interests in the Vancouver area -- is a relative unknown, and certainly an outsider in Vancouver mainstream social and business circles.

Worse, he and other Internet gambling operators are considered outlaws by the U.S. Department of Justice, who has turned up the heat so high that Ayre was forced to cancel his heavily promoted Bodog online gambling marketing conference in Las Vegas in July. And since the arrest of a high-ranking British gambling executive in Texas, he has not dared set foot on U.S. soil, even though he generates 95 per cent of his betting revenues from American citizens.

But this sort of cat-and-mouse game is not new to Ayre. When it comes to the law, he has always walked a fine line.

While he likes to describe his life story as "the personification of a new American dream," the early plot line, at least, had some rather unseemly twists and turns that raise questions about who Calvin Ayre is and whether he would qualify to run even a bingo parlour in B.C.

- - -

Gambling is a regulated activity under the Criminal Code, for good reason. Authorities want to make sure the operators are of good character, the games are fair, taxes are paid, and the gambling operation is not being used for illicit purposes such as money-laundering.

Online gambling has not been universally embraced by regulators. Britain and dozens of other countries have set up a system to license operators and regulate Internet betting. In Canada and the United States, running an online gambling business is illegal.

But online gambling operators have found a way around the rules. They beam in their service over the Internet from offshore countries, where they are beyond the purview of North American gambling authorities.

The host countries, such as Antigua and Costa Rica, licence these operators, but it is doubtful that they provide any sort of real screening process. Asked whether Costa Rica, where Bodog's gambling business is licensed, did a background check on him, Ayre told The Vancouver Sun: "I assume they did, but this is not like getting a gambling licence in Nevada."

At last count, Bodog employed about 150 bookers and customer service representatives in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica.

Another jurisdiction that acts like an offshore entity, with its own rules and regulations, is the Kahnawake native reserve in Quebec.

There, the Mohawk tribe has set up the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, which -- with no legislative authority and no government oversight -- licenses online gambling businesses and hosts banks of servers for numerous online operators, including Bodog.

So far, the Canadian government has not intervened, not because it believes that the Mohawks have legal authority to conduct this sort of business, but because it wants to avoid a confrontation with the Mohawks, who are notoriously territorial and militant.

Bodog's gambling-related operations are not confined to these "foreign" jurisdictions. In Vancouver, a sister company called Riptown Media provides advertising and marketing support. It occupies two floors at 333 Seymour St. and employs close to 250 people.

In Burnaby, another company, doing business as Triple Crown Customer Service, runs a customer call centre for Bodog customers who want to set up betting accounts or ask questions about their accounts.

The office, at 4190 Still Creek Drive, occupies 35,000 square feet and employs about 200 people. To get employees in the mood, the lobby has a giant mural of life-size football players and other athletes in action.

Despite its presence in Canada, or perhaps because of it, Bodog takes no bets from Canadians. Virtually all its betting revenues come from people in the United States, where it has no physical presence.

This fracturing of the business into different entities and jurisdictions appears to be part of Ayre's strategy: "We run a business that can't actually be described as gambling in each country we operate in," he told Forbes in its March issue. "But when you add it all together, it's Internet gambling."

Whatever the strategy, it is working. Last year, Bodog took in $7.3 billion US in wagers, triple the previous year's amount and enough to make it the seventh-largest online gambling operation in the world last year, according to London-based eGaming Review.

Enough flowed to the bottom line to make Ayre a billionaire, at least on paper. In March, Forbes ranked him the 746th richest person in the world, tied with 48 others who just made the $1-billion cut-off.

Ayre is not shy about spending the proceeds. In Costa Rica, he lives in a $3.5-million US, 10,000-square-foot custom-built mansion, complete with armed guards. In Vancouver, he bought two penthouses at 1199 Marinaside Crescent in Yaletown for a total of $6.2 million, and combined them into a single 5,000-square-foot unit. He also owns a smaller condo in the Yaletown area, and a 150-acre property in Langley where his father, Ken Ayre, resides.

(All these assets are owned by B.C. registered companies which, in turn, are owned by James Philip, a Vancouver chartered accountant who serves as Riptown's chief financial officer, and El Moro Finance Ltd., a mysterious British Virgin Island company that figured prominently in Bodog's early development.)

None of this amuses the U.S. Justice Department. Although most of its revenues come from the United States, Bodog -- because of the way it is structured -- doesn't pay a cent of U.S. tax, and so far American authorities say they haven't been able to do much about it.

"Bodog has no physical presence in the U.S., Ayre is not an American citizen, and the extraterritorial reach of U.S. law is not clear. Ayre, at any rate, has no assets in the U.S. for the G-men to seize," Forbes reported.

But in recent months, U.S. legislators have been tightening the screws on online gambling operators. They are implementing legislation to curb the e-commerce functions that underpin the industry.

Also, in a stunning development in July, FBI agents arrested David Carruthers, chief executive officer of BetonSports Plc, a publicly traded British company that owns several Internet sportsbooks and casinos.

He was apprehended at the Ft. Worth, Tex., airport when he was changing planes en route to Costa Rica, where BetonSports also has operations. He was unceremoniously handcuffed and jailed.

He was among 11 individuals and four companies that were indicted by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Missouri on 22 counts of racketeering, conspiracy and fraud.

The arrests threw a chill over the online gambling industry. Share prices of publicly traded gambling companies plunged. This did not affect Bodog, because its shares are not publicly listed. But because gambling executives -- including Ayre -- were fearful that they, too, would be arrested if they entered the United States, Bodog was forced to cancel its much-publicized Bodog online marketing conference in Las Vegas.

Ever since, Ayre has been effectively exiled from his principal market.

- - -

Bodog's business and Ayre's profile have grown so rapidly that people often wonder where they came from.

The answer is that Ayre, now 45, was born in Lloydminster, Sask., the son of a pig farmer. In Grade 6, he moved with his parents to Salmon Arm. Later, he enrolled at the University of Waterloo.

His official biography, published on the Bodog.com website, states that while on summer break after his first year of university, he bought an old five-ton truck, loaded it with fruit, and headed west from Ontario.

"Along the way, Mr. Ayre made numerous stops to sell his stock of apples, cherries and peaches by the roadside and in the neighbouring towns. By the time he reached Saskatchewan, Mr. Ayre had built his first business," the biography states.

"Ambitious and motivated by his achievements in the fruit business, Mr. Ayre learned early that hard work and humility are essential for personal and business success. In embracing those basic principles, Mr. Ayre discovered the foundation that would lead to greater successes down the road."

From there, the official biography leapfrogs to the early development of Bodog, skipping some interesting, but rather troubling interim events.

- - -

In September 1987, when Ayre was only 22, his father Ken Ayre and three other B.C. men were caught in a U.S. drug sting.

The other three were Bill Roberts, who had a common-law relationship with Calvin's sister, Anita; Bill's brother Patrick Roberts; and a friend, Frank Maddock.

According to Judge D.M. Dickson of the Court of Queen's Bench in New Brunswick, the four men "entered into an arrangement between themselves and with others" to import nearly 800 pounds of marijuana from the Caribbean to New Brunswick.

The judge recounted how Patrick Roberts, a licensed pilot, acquired a plane in the United States and arranged for a New Jersey company to install long-range fuel tanks, which would enable him to fly non-stop from Nassau to New Brunswick.

Unfortunately for the conspirators, the fuel-tank company was being run by U.S. undercover officers who were trying to catch cross-border drug smugglers.

Ken Ayre, Bill Roberts and Frank Maddock were to meet the plane when it landed in New Brunswick, but soon realized they were under surveillance and scampered back to B.C.

When Patrick Roberts landed with 771 pounds of marijuana on board, the only people to greet him were a heavily armed contingent of RCMP officers. The other three conspirators were later apprehended in B.C.

In February 1988, Patrick Roberts was sentenced to five years in prison. In June that year, Judge Dickson sentenced Bill Roberts and Ken Ayre to four years in prison, and Maddock to three and half years.

Although Calvin Ayre was never charged, the judge made several references to him as an unindicted co-conspirator:

"Patrick Roberts, I may say, was it seems through this period in Nassau, to have been in the company, if not all the time, certainly a lot of the time, with another gentleman [Calvin Ayre] who is the son of one of the present accused [Ken Ayre] and undoubtedly played a part in this whole scheme or was part of the whole arrangement, because that third party there had contact with the three accused and was making phone calls back and forth."

In a later reference, the judge stated: "As to the role of the present accused vis-a-vis Mr. Patrick Roberts and other people who were engaged, I can only take the view that they were as deeply involved as Mr. Patrick Roberts was. Perhaps there was somebody financing the operation over them. Certainly the operation of the other chap with Roberts [Calvin Ayre] in the Bahamas appears to have been an important one."

Calvin Ayre, because he was not charged in this matter, was not party to the trial and did not have a chance to refute the judge's remarks. The Vancouver Sun asked him about this matter earlier this week, but he declined to discuss it.

- - -

Although Ayre was not charged in the drug scheme, it precipitated a chain of events that left Ayre with a permanent securities record.

In 1989, while Patrick Roberts (the drug pilot) was serving time at the minimum security prison in Ferndale, he met another prisoner named named Erich Brunnhuber.

Five years earlier, Brunnhuber and his partner, Bert Roosen, had used manipulative trades and false news releases to pyramid the share prices of six Vancouver Stock Exchange companies to artificially high levels.

On Oct. 19, 1984 -- a day that would be forever known in VSE history as Black Friday -- the stocks crashed in tandem, exposing not only the fraud, but also the VSE's supervisory neglect.

Brunnhuber and Roosen were charged and, after a well publicized trial, convicted of fraud. In January 1987, they were each sentenced to seven years in jail, one of the harshest sentences in Canadian stock market history.

In 1989, Brunnhuber and Roberts met each other at the Ferndale facility and continued their relationship after they were were both paroled in 1990.

Shortly after his release, Roberts introduced Ayre to a VSE company called Bicer Medical Systems. Ayre, who had just obtained his MBA from City University in Seattle, was appointed Bicer's president.

Roberts also introduced Ayre to Brunnhuber. Notwithstanding Brunnhuber's serious criminal record, Ayre hired him as Bicer's marketing director.

In August 1990, VSE officials learned that Brunnhuber, a convicted stock felon, was involved in Bicer's affairs. Under pressure, Ayre signed an undertaking to sever all dealings with him.

However, a year later -- with Ayre still running the company -- VSE officials discovered that Brunnhuber was still involved. Trading was halted and the company disappeared.

The B.C. Securities Commission launched an investigation and found a web of stock violations. In September 1996, Ayre settled the matter by admitting he had:

- Breached his undertaking not to deal with Brunnhuber.
- Misrepresented various aspects of the company's affairs.
- Caused Bicer to issue hundreds of thousands of shares to him, or a nominee, without paying for them first.
- Traded millions of shares without disclosing those trades on insider reports.
- Ignored a summons issued by commission investigators, and then lied to investigators.

For these offences, he agreed not to trade stock, or serve as an officer or director, or act in an investor relations capacity for any B.C. public company for 20 years. He also agreed to pay a $10,000 penalty.

In recent interviews, Ayre has provided an array of responses to reporters who have asked about this matter.

He told the Globe and Mail that he was young and naive: "It's the first thing I did out of university. I had no idea what was going on."

He told Forbes he knew what he was doing, but he did it to save the company: "I knew that I wasn't following all the rules. But I also knew I had to do it to keep the budget alive."

He told The Vancouver Sun there were no victims: "I clearly made some mistakes, but it was not a criminal issue and nobody got hurt from anything I did."

(This is not true. When regulators intervened and halted trading, the shares were rendered worthless and investors lost everything.)

In an interview with London-based eGaming Review, Ayre portrayed himself as a victim. He said he settled the matter on the advice of a lawyer "only because he didn't have the resources to fight it," a decision which he now regrets.

The article also said, "Ayre is currently appealing the settlement, and as such is unable to comment directly on the allegations."

(This is also not true. Ayre voluntarily settled the matter, which means there is no avenue of appeal, at least none that Ayre is pursuing.)

In nearly all cases, Ayre refers to his regulatory problems as old news. But the fact is, he is only half way through his 20-year suspension. Until it expires, he cannot legally trade a single share, or act as an officer or director, of any B.C. public company.

- - -

Ayre's official biography omits all these details. Instead it jumps from him selling fruit, to him selling all his earthly possessions and using the proceeds ($10,000) to start a software company.

Two years later (apparently in 1996), he got the bright idea of using the Internet for sports wagering.

"Mr. Ayre believed the Internet and an independently verifiable event, such as a sports bet, would be a natural fit," his biography states, effectively crediting him with inventing online gambling.

Ayre's efforts to develop an Internet gambling business were confined to private enterprises until 1999, when he popped up in Cyberoad.com Corp., which traded on the OTC Bulletin Board in the United States (where his stock market suspension does not apply).

According to disclosure documents, Cyberoad was based in Costa Rica, but had a confusing array of offshore subsidiaries and service agreements with offshore entities. It also had a large number of shares parked in offshore accounts, whose beneficial owners were not identified.

Ayre was described in disclosure documents as the company's "founder and visionary," and former employees say he was clearly the boss, but he wasn't listed as either an officer or a director. Rather he was listed as a "significant consultant."

Ayre split his time between Costa Rica, where the company operated its gambling software, and Vancouver, where the company maintained an e-commerce call centre.

Although the company was losing money, the stock rose sharply to nearly $7 US by May 1999. But by year end, it had dropped sharply and the treasury had run dry.

In December 1999, Cyberoad and several related companies negotiated a line of credit with El Moro Finance, the British Virgin Islands company that owns Ayre's Vancouver real estate assets.

What happened next is not clear, but it appears that Cyberoad defaulted on the loan and the gambling assets accrued to El Moro. The business, now private, morphed into Bodog, which Ayre named after a former pet dog.

In 2002, Ayre assumed the persona of a fictitious Indiana-Jones type character named Cole Turner, whose exploits were popularized by Gambling911, an online gambling publication run by Chris Costigan of Miami.

Costigan said in an interview this week that Ayre used the alias for about two years, apparently as a marketing gimmick. But he said there was also "some concern about him using his own name" because he was chasing the U.S. market and American authorities were hostile to online gambling.

In 2004, Ayre had Turner "killed" in a duel and he reverted to his real identity. Costigan speculates he had "gotten so big he had to use his real name to be perceived as 100-per-cent legitimate."

Ayre has since developed a marketing campaign with himself at the centre, always surrounded by a bevy of Bodog girls (who have no apparent role other than to look sexy) and a seemingly endless supply of sports and entertainment stars. The strategy has been instrumental in Ayre's business success and celebrity stature.

But if his life is like a Hollywood movie, it seems to be closely following the script of the Thomas Crown Affair, where a stylish art thief plays an extended game of cat and mouse with his pursuer.

The only question is how it will end.

-30-

2010 watchdogs sound alarm

2010 games in crisis: Watchdogs sound alarm

B.C. taxpayers on hook for about $1.5 billion and construction is moving too slowly

The Vancouver Sun

Friday, September 15, 2006

By Miro Cernetig With a File From Chad Skelton

The true cost of the 2010 Olympic Games is at least $2.5 billion, which could still soar higher and may even result in the delay or elimination of promised sporting facilities, perhaps damaging athletes' chances to win gold medals.

Those are the hard-hitting conclusions of reports released Thursday that outline a series of Olympic planning, marketing and construction snags -- not to mention a $150-million US currency blunder -- that have increased the risks to taxpayers.

The opening salvo of the critiques came from B.C.'s Auditor-General Arn van Iersel, who effectively shot down the provincial government's long-standing claim that the cost of the Olympics wouldn't exceed $600 million. Van Iersel says $1.9 billion in Olympic-related projects -- from the Sea to Sky Highway to sections of the new Canada rapid rail line that will service the Olympic Village -- should be included in the Games' real price tag of $2.5 billion.

Meanwhile, a team of consultants hired by the federal government warns the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee may not be able to build Olympic venues on its $580-million construction budget -- even after receiving a $110-million boost to the original $470 million three weeks ago.

"Whether the revised enhanced [$580 million] budget will be sufficient to deliver a venue package that meets [International Olympic Committee] satisfaction is questionable," warns the federal report by Pacific Liaicon, a subsidiary of construction powerhouse SNC-Lavalin Inc.

Olympic organizers managed to get the IOC to agree to downsize the Games' arenas to NHLsized rinks instead of the larger European surfaces that are the Olympic standard, as the report suggested. But a curling arena is still up for grabs -- if it can't be built on the original $28-million budget it should simply be scuttled. The speed skating in oval in Richmond is also facing a scheduling crunch.

It all promises a showdown over the leadership of the Olympics, with the provincial New Democratic Party saying the reports suggest mismanagement, planning errors and cost overruns that are reminders of the indebted 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.

The federal consultants suggest a December deadline should be put in place for Vanoc -- and its head John Furlong -- to determine if the new budget can be met. That timeline loosely jibes with an expected move by the federal government to announce new appointments to the Vanoc board.

"This is a very, very complex project," said Furlong, who said Thursday the Olympics will come in under its $580 million construction budget. "I believe that we have the confidence of the people of the province.

Still, the federal consultants warn national pride is at stake.

If construction isn't sped up Vancouver might be headed to the sort of embarrassing delays and cost overruns that plagued last year's Torino Winter Olympics in Italy, the report says.

Such a scenario could also tarnish Canadian organizers' promises of early completion of Olympic sites so Canadian athletes can practice on them, improving the odds of winning medals.

"It should ... be noted that in the worst cast scenario, similar to Torino 2006, the venues could be delayed to just prior to the Olympic events," the report says.

"This would ... result in Canadian athletes not being able to do practice runs on the actual Olympic venues as presently planned. In addition, another downside effect is that additional escalation that is presently not provided for in the $580-million [construction] budget would be incurred."

The auditor-general presented a broader critique of the provincial government's management and accounting of the Games, suggesting the province has not been properly adding up the true price or being clear about the organizational risks ahead.

Three and half years before the Olympic flame will be lit, the auditor-general now pegs the Games' total budget at $4.3 million. About $1.8 billion of that will be recouped from Olympic revenues.

Ottawa will contribute $607 million and local government $389 million, leaving B.C. taxpayers on the hook for about $1.5 billion, the report estimates.

But like the federal report, the auditor-general also warns of the possibility of more budget problems looming. Some construction schedules for Olympic venues are sliding, adding a threat of even more cost overruns. In addition, $175 million in security costs may be underestimated and even the anticipated $13 million in medical costs anticipated for looking after athletes could rise.

The auditor-general, who is responsible for ensuring government bookkeeping is clear, warns the provincial government's $76-million contingency fund for cost overruns may prove inadequate for the costs ahead.

"There are still many pressures facing the capital budget for the Games and the risks inherent in the operating budget as well," said van Iersel. "We question whether the remaining $76 million is adequate."

Unlike the government, the auditor-general chooses to add in all costs associated with the 2010 Winter Games, including the $775 million Sea to Sky Highway to the ski village of Whistler, part of the new rapid-transit Canada Line that will service the Olympic Village in False Creek and other costs the province prefers to keep in its general budget.

That accounting decision has effectively kept the price tag of the Games pared to about a third of the $1.9 billion the auditor-general estimated B.C. taxpayers will pay.

The 2010 Games may also not offer the economic spinoffs that have long been promised, van Iersel warns.

While the government has estimated the Games will generate at least $4 billion to $10 billion in economic spinoffs, van Iersel notes those estimates did not take into account a serious marketing hurdle: the International Olympic Committee, which controls the Olympic brand, won't allow the full, global marketing of Vancouver's Games until after the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing are completed.

The auditor-general criticizes the province's marketing campaign as "delayed and uncoordinated, with no central agency taking the lead."

"Not having a centralized agency take the lead, together with not being able to start marketing effort early, means the maximum economic benefits forecast by the province back in 2002 may not be achieved."

Most embarrassing, however, is that organizers actually lost $150 million US because they delayed entering into currency hedging contracts, a simple financial tool commonly used by experienced investors and businesses to insulate themselves from the rise and fall of the American dollar, the currency in which the revenues for the 2010 Games are paid out.

"When the Games were awarded to Vancouver, the exchange rate could have been locked in at US $1 = $1.457, but steps to do that were not taken," noted the auditor-general. "As of the date of this report, the rate has fallen to US $1 = $1.125. That represents a loss for Vanoc of approximately US $150 million for the broadcasting and international sponsorship revenues."

Since then, the auditor-general notes that Olympic organizers have taken measures to buffer themselves, entering into hedging contracts for $240 million US and $50 million EU.

In response to the criticism, the province said "the IOC did not confirm the actual currency, amount or timing of the revenues until 2005," even though the IOC usually works in U.S. dollars. The government also explained "to everyone's surprise, the current rate we are now experiencing are significantly higher than anyone thought at that time."

Ultimately, however, the province lays the blame on Vanoc: "The decision on whether or not to hedge was a decision of Vanoc's board of directors and not the province."

Furlong said Vanoc received "a lot of expert advice" on whether it should have hedged its broadcasting revenues and "we followed the advice that we got."

He said Vanoc could have just as easily locked-in the value of the broadcast rights, seen the Canadian dollar plummet, and ended up missing out on a potential windfall.

Faced with the auditor-general's critique, the provincial government continued to argue its bookkeeping was sound and more realistic than the auditor-general's methodology.

"The auditor-general flags some risks and we take that very seriously," said Economic Development Minister Colin Hansen, who is overseeing the Games' provincial budget. "Those are risks that we have already identified and are managing."

Hansen also acknowledged that the province will have to absorb any overruns if other Olympic partners don't agree to help out. The Olympic organizers face little risk beyond the money they have already put on the table.

"We have guaranteed the IOC and the Canadian Olympic Committee that they will not face costs over and above what they committed to," Hansen told reporters.

But Hansen added he "took offence" at any suggestion the government has already gone over its original $600-million budget. Major projects such as the Sea to Sky Highway and the Canada Line are public infrastructure projects, he explained, not unlike the building of the Coquihalla Highway during the run up to Expo 86.

"Those are all infrastructure developments that we can be pretty proud of in 2010," said Hansen. "But had we not won the Games, guess what, that project still would have been built."

The government has already accounted for most of the extra $1.3 billion that the auditor-general has added to the original Olympic price tag. The $1.3 billion in infrastructure and other costs, including some serious cost overruns reported in the past, are mostly accounted for in its general budget.

But the report was still a political defeat for the government, which has in effect been trying to minimize the cost of the Olympics through its accounting approach. The auditor-general has essentially endorsed the New Democratic Party's view that all projects connected to the Olympics should be added into one budgetary envelope for the public to see, as Australia did when accounting for the true costs of its 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

Harry Bains, the NDP's spokesman on the Olympics, called Thursday's report proof the auditor-general should be appointed the "auditor of record" of all Olympic spending, to keep the public abreast of all spending.

Bains warned that the report shows serious mismanagement and a lack of transparency, raising the spectre of the 2010 Games going the way of the debt-plagued 1976 Summer Olympics held in Montreal.

"We're talking about billions in taxpayers dollars," said Bains. "If we don't do it right, if we don't manage it right, the risk are real. All you have to do is go back to what happened in Montreal."

OTTAWA

- A 2010 construction czar is needed to bring the projects in on time, on budget, and properly built.

- "Escalation" runs rampant because of higher material and labour costs, and the lack of competitive bids and skilled tradespeople, especially in the Lower Mainland.

- Olympic venues are particularly vulnerable to higher costs because of high profile, tight deadlines, government involvement.

- Planning delays must end; it is time to get on with construction.

- Contingency fund was built into the project but it is now mostly gone, leaving just $13 million to deal with the unexpected.

- Vanoc got its wish of $110 million in extra money, but even with $580 million will have difficulty bringing in a minimally acceptable package of Olympic venues.
VICTORIA

- Security and medical costs have not been counted into either operating or capital budget, and could stretch contingency fund.

- Contingency fund needs to be bigger to reflect actual risks.

- Lack of pre-construction agreements on some venues means costs are likely to rise.

- Nobody is responsible for reporting to the public on the overall cost of the Games.

- Vaunted $4-billion spin-off benefits for B.C. in question because International Olympic Committee authority prohibits international marketing of 2010 Games until after Beijing's 2008 Games.

- Vanoc will get $150 million less from broadcasting, international sponsors because it failed to hedge against U.S. dollar fluctuations.

- The true cost to taxpayers of the Games -- for now -- is $2.51 billion.

OLYMPIC COST CRUNCH

B.C.'s auditor-general's office says the true cost of the 2010 Olympic Games to taxpayers is $2.506 billion.

Games costs $4.338 billion

Less: Games Revenues ($1.832 billion-)

Net Games cost: $2.506 billion

Costs to be funded by:

Province of B.C. $1.5 billion
Local government cost $389 million
UBC property tax cost $10 million
Federal taxpayer cost $607 million
Total taxpayer cost $2.506 billion

- Excludes revenues from government grants for Paralympic operating costs.

Source: Office of the Auditor-General of British Columbia

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B.C. auditor general unveils true cost of Vancouver Olympics

CanWest News Service

Friday, September 15, 2006

by Lindsay Kines

VICTORIA - The 2010 Olympic Games will cost B.C. taxpayers nearly $1 billion more than the provincial government previously indicated, according to the province's acting auditor general.

In a hard-hitting report released Thursday, Arn van Iersel pegs the true cost of the Olympics at a minimum $2.5 billion, of which $1.5 billion will come from the province.

The B.C. government insists its total commitment to the Games is $600 million. But van Iersel says that figure ignores key Olympics-related costs such as $775 million in upgrades to the Sea-to-Sky Highway, $41 million in expenses for the B.C. Olympic Secretariat, and $8 million for a rapid-transit line stop at the athletes' village.

The government, he says, needs to come clean with the public.

"Given the province has the ultimate responsibility for the financial outcome of the Games, we feel there should be regular and complete reporting of the total Games costs to the taxpayers," the report states. "To date, the province has only reported to taxpayers on the $600 million envelope it has established; however, there are many other Games related cost that are not being reported as such by the province."

B.C. Economic Development Minister Colin Hansen took issue with van Iersel's findings, arguing that the Sea-to-Sky Highway would have been improved anyway, and should not be considered an Olympics-related cost.

"Sure there's lots of things that the government is doing that we are wrapping an Olympic flag on," he said. "But those are programs that are not part and parcel of us living up to our obligations for the staging of the Olympics."

The 65-page report also highlights significant problems with the management and marketing of the Olympics, and warns that costs could go even higher. Van Iersel found, for instance, that the province lost $150 million in projected revenue from broadcasting and international sponsorships by failing to adopt a routine ''hedging strategy'' that would have protected them against fluctuations in the dollar.

He found, too, that the government will have to wait six years longer than expected to launch a marketing campaign, because it didn't realize the International Olympic Committee restricts such campaigns until the previous Olympics are over. B.C. had planned to start its campaign in 2003, but now will have to postpone it until after the 2008 Olympic Summer Games in Beijing. Van Iersel said the delay could hurt the provinces plan to reap $4 billion in economic spin-offs.

The auditor's report also notes that the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) has transferred construction risks for many of the venues to other partners. But if rising costs make it impossible for those partners to finish the job, ''there is a risk the province will have to contribute more funding to VANOC to get the projects completed,'' the report says.

The province has set aside $76 million for such unexpected costs, but the auditor general also questions whether that emergency fund will be enough.

NDP critic Harry Bains said the report shows B.C. risking a financial disaster on par with the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

"All you have to do is go back to what happened in Montreal, and then go back to what happened in Athens," he said. "We don't want to see that kind of stuff happening here, but the way this government is going, the direction this management is going, I think theres a real risk of going in that direction if we don't stop it now."

A federal report, also released Thursday, confirms the auditor general's warnings about rising construction costs. The report, dated May 19, 2006, was prepared in response to VANOC's request for an extra $110 million, already approved, and says governments will likely face further requests in the future.

"Escalation continues to run rampant in British Columbia as a result of higher material and labour costs, and the lack of competitive bids and skilled trades people, especially in the Lower Mainland," the report says.

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