RANT/RAVE (Week of April 15)

Extreme makeover
You ever walk into one of those private golf-course country clubs, and you see all the drunk yuppies there, acting their greedy, obnoxious selves, slobbering all over the place? Well, that’s basically what Gordon Campbell wants B.C. to look like after he’s finished with it. So, I’d say, as soon as we can, let’s kick that jackass out any way we can.
Anonymous Rantline caller

Everything must go!
Now that we’re “on the map,” thanks to the glorious Olympics, why don’t we have a Vancouver garage sale and raise some money for our hospitals and schools? We could sell Stanley Park to developers, because God knows we need more condos. We could sell the Vancouver Aquarium to Japan and they could open an exotic sushi restaurant, because God knows we need more sushi places. We could sell Granville Island back to the natives and they could open a casino, because we need more casinos. We could sell Whistler to Walt Disney, because places without a soul should stick together, and we need more plastic places to hang out in around these parts. Let’s just sell, sell, sell, sell out.
Scott

Bus driver’s revenge
This is for all you lame-ass brainiacs out there who [give the finger to] the bus as it’s going by when it has the ‘SORRY — BUS FULL’ sign on. The sign is on for a reason: It’s full! There’s no more room for you! It’s not up to the driver to make room. What, we’re supposed to throw people off so you can get on? No. If you want on my bus, I’ll strap you to the goddamn tire and I’ll give you a ride. Now put that in your pipe and smoke it. But, you know, why should I even waste this time? You can’t even put together two brain cells to read Rant/Rave. You guys don’t even know what a newspaper is.
Anonymous Rantline caller

Drive-by ignorance
So, I’m sitting at my computer desk with a copy of Rolling Stone in my hands while, outside my window in the alley, some kids are honing their skating skills. I’ve seen these kids a few times; they seem pretty chill. Then this SUV rolls by and some square, whitey, douchebag, prick motherfucker sticks his head out and says, “This isn’t a playground, guys. Not a good place to be.” I wish I would have reacted faster. I wish I would have been down there throwing some garbage in the dumpster. I would have told him to fuck off, that no one cares what a dumb, low-life, piece-of-shit scumbucket like him thinks... I guess this is a city now where kids shouldn’t be allowed outside, where being active and productive is no longer acceptable. Instead, they should be buying disposable objects to populate our landfills or eating fast food or masturbating to the destruction of our culture.
Willis

Piping-hot ignorance
I just finished my work week at a coffee shop and I’ve gotta say, it’s been a fucking terrible one. I don’t know what the problem is with people who purchase coffee in Vancouver, but some of you are really rude. Get your shit in gear. This is really unacceptable, the way you treat people who make eight, nine dollars an hour. There’s just no excuse for grown-ups to treat other human beings like that. I don’t know where this culture of entitlement comes from, but it’s pathetic, and you rich, affluent white people who constantly harass these minimum-wage workers over shit they can do nothing about... Closing time? Like, seriously, we can’t change that shit. Get over yourselves. Go die.
Anonymous Rantline caller

But first, these words
There’s something that disturbs me about the local radio dial here in Vancouver. Why is it that when the government issues a license to a company to broadcast — a license to print money — all they can think of is to play a lot of music but interrupt it after every two or three songs with two or three minutes of talk which really doesn’t matter to anyone. Why do they have to interrupt? There’s an old saying: When you’re interrupting, you’re not entertaining; and if you’re not entertaining, you’re interrupting. Tell some of the local broadcasters in your area that it might be a good idea to change that. And not only that: Make sure they get some live people, because if Marconi was alive today, he’d probably roll over and die again.
Anonymous Rantline caller

Commuter hell
TransLink or Coast Mountain Bus Company or the City — whoever handles these things — really needs to put in a bus shelter by the number 33 stop going west at 16th and Granville. It’s bad enough that this bus only runs every half hour and is almost always running behind schedule, but there’s no shelter there, not even an awning or something to stand underneath. Today I waited, I think, 45 minutes in a downpour, and now I’m soaked. Thanks, TransLink, for making going to a three-to-11 shift on a rainy, shitty Wednesday just a little bit shittier.
Josh, Rantline caller