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This Bud’s for us

I’ve been thinking about the Olympics ™ a lot lately. Now, to be both fair and honest, I’ve been — or, more accurately, hope to be — paid for thinking about them. But that’s not the point.
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I’ve been thinking about the Olympics ™ a lot lately. Now, to be both fair and honest, I’ve been — or, more accurately, hope to be — paid for thinking about them. But that’s not the point. It’s not the point because paid or not, once I started thinking about the Olympics™, it became impossible to limit myself to thinking about them within the terms of my engagement. An imagination is a terrible thing to waste.

It’s kind of like Prince Charles. I don’t think about Prince Charles too often… and there’s probably zero chance anyone’s ever going to pay me to think about him. In fact, I’m generally uncomfortable when thoughts of him pop into my head. I wonder about early-onset Alzheimer’s when things like Prince Charles appear magically in my thoughts. “Oh dear, more malfunctioning synapses. So this is what it’s like to… to… what was I thinking about?”

But the Olympics™ and Prince Charles have at least one characteristic in common — they take themselves too seriously. Prince Charles can’t help it. He’s been raised to take himself too seriously. Let’s face it, anyone named Prince anything is pretty much doomed to take himself too seriously. Call your kid Prince and you have no one but yourself to blame when he grows up without a sense of humour.

Prince Charles is a special case though and I feel his pain. I often wonder what I’d be like if the only job in the entire world I was, by birth, allowed to have was unavailable to me. Because my mother had it. And wouldn’t give it up. And I’d gotten into my 60s and never really done an honest day’s work in my life. And conned a beautiful woman into marrying me. Who left me for a department store heir.

No wonder kings and queens got murdered back in the good old days.

But despite the deck being stacked against him, Prince Charles has never really done anything to rehabilitate his image as king-in-waiting with all the warmth of day-old porridge. He’s tilted at modern architecture and organic farming but even when he’s going on about things about which he feels passionately, he comes off as a prig whose milk of human kindness has turned to cottage cheese.

I’ve often found myself thinking, “Ya know, if I was advising Charlie on how to warm up his image and standing with the British people I’d tell him to learn how to wiggle those ears.” Can you imagine? Chuck droning on about something, looking straight into the camera, winking ever so slightly and giving those big boys a wiggle. His popularity would skyrocket.

And that’s where Prince Charles and the Olympics™ join rings. Both take themselves too seriously. Both need help channeling their inner absurdity. Citius, Altius, Fortius… Futurus ! Swifter, Higher, Stronger, Absurd!

Take, for example, the official Vancouver 2010 Olympic mascot: Inukshuk. (Blanket trademark on the previous sentence.) Nuki, as his friends call him, represents a good start. His ponderous, stiff-limbed, lovable-lunk of a character verily dances with, well, if not absurdity, certainly humour. Imagine, if you will, a chorus line of Inukshuks at the opening ceremonies. Inukshuks on Ice. Inukshuks in speed suits.

So popularly absurd is Nuki that unsubstantiated rumour has it Whistler-Blackcomb is on the verge of announcing an annual Nukis Ski Free Day on Feb. 12 th , countdown anniversary of the start of the 2010 Games™. Anyone showing up at the base of Whistler Mountain dressed as an Inukshuk gets to ski for free. Of course, anyone dressed as an Inukshuk will have difficulty skiing, free or not. Stiff-armed and stiff-legged, Nukis are pretty much limited to riding the Village Gondola but at least on the downhill part of the trip they’ll be waving — constantly — to the terrified crowd of skiers stuck in their path.

And while we’re on the subject, wouldn’t the middle of February be a wonderful time for Rear-Entry Campbell to declare a Provincial Holiday? B.C. Olympics™ Day. Très futurus.

But as downright cuddly as Nuki is, pressed to be honest, he doesn’t capture the je ne sais quoi of Whistler. One could argue he doesn’t capture that perhaps uncapturable essence of either B.C. or Canada either but one would be flogging a dead horse at this point in the offshore production of Nuki paraphernalia, gewgaws and plush stuffed toys.

That isn’t to say it’s too late for Whistler to adopt its own unofficial 2010 Olympic™ mascot. It’s not. Not at all. As co-host resort municipality of the Games™, we ought to have our own mascot. We deserve our own mascot. And even being overly-sensitive to our own First-Nations peoples, the Inukshuk simply has no historical locus ’round these parts. Nuki has about as much authentic resonance in Whistler as an Easter Island stone carving, which, come to think of it, bears a suspicious resemblance to a certain former mayor of Whistler. You can speculate on which former mayor over a refreshing, Appleton Rum (gratuitous reference) drink while you train for the Peak to Valley race next weekend.

Now we could hold a contest to come up with a Whistler Unofficial Olympic™ Mascot. Get the school kids involved, engage the many, talented local artists and their soaring imaginations. Empower the overworked Arts & Culture people. But given our local history on popular votes and the Olympics™, we probably won’t.

But I think it’s clear, given Whistler’s rich, if brief, history, we really only have one choice if we want to stay true to the spirit of the Founding Fathers and Founding Mothers of Whistler, mascotwise.

B.C. Bud.

A tall, lanky fellow, Bud’s well known around these parts. One might almost say Bud’s an integral part of the community, the mythology even, of Whistler. And who among us can deny the historical links between Bud, Whistler and the Olympics™? Our own most recent Olympian™ was, if not a close, personal friend, at least a passing met-him-at-a-party kind of acquaintance of Bud. Bud figured prominently in, if not his Olympic™ victory, then in his subsequent notoriety.

Bud would be a much more approachable figure than Nuki. Bud’s the kind of guy you can warm up to on a cold night, share a beer with, talk about, well, about anything that pops into your mind… incessantly. With his devil-may-care dreads and bedroom eyes, engaging if goofy smile and laconic gait, Bud would be an instant hit in the take-me-home-and-love-me-to-death souvenir market.

Whistler’s already broken new ground being named an official co-host of the Games™. Now is the time to be bold. The future is what we make of it and the Olympics™ can be a springboard to a brave new world of specialty-themed tourism.

Enjoy the Games™ in Whistler; get down with B.C. Bud.