fireworks and cops

last night i was invited to go the fireworks on the boat of a friend of mine. this particular friend has been going through some hard times lately and although he owns almost nothing, he does have a 15 foot boat which he has done quite a lot of work on over the last year.

as any vancouverite knows, seeing the fireworks from the shore is a major hassle as tens of thousands of people throng the streets during the symphony of fire. i have never once attended these fireworks because of the headaches associated with having that many people mass in one place, but the idea of going out on a boat was really very appealing. although there are a number of boats that do go out, it is still a relatively small number – and from the water the exploding light is almost directly overhead.

so my friend and i – with two other friends of his – set off in the evening from science world and with the little boat, made our way through the scores of large boats belonging to much wealthier people than us. all was fine as we anchored near the front and settled in to watch the fireworks. after we had been there about 15 minutes, the coast guard came by and asked us to move as a number of boats, including ours, was blocking the emergency lane for coast guard vessels.

no problem, of course – we set out again and piloted around some other boats, looking for a place to anchor – until we were stopped by a police boat. argh – the vpd – on the water!

in reflection, i can honestly say i have never had a good encounter with law enforcement, and last night was no exception.

the officers claimed we did not have the proper lights to be operating after dark, which my friend (rightly – i checked this morning) refuted. the discrepancy being what type of running lights you need for a boat under 6 metres versus one larger than 6 metres. this, of course, turned into a verbal sparring match with the officers ordering the boat off the water, and my friend asking to be arrested or at the very least ticketed rather than just being bullied by cops unclear on marine regulations.

we managed to get out of it after going back to the dock with the police, some more verbal sparring, and a bunch of threats on the part of the officers (they wouldn’t ticket him, but said they would charge him later which is a bogus way of getting out of the situation for them). we said we would go in to the other dock, but since the police didn’t follow us out we ended up parking the boat near the granville street bridge – and watching the fireworks from there. despite the actions of the police, i still had a good time – the fireworks were pretty spectacular and it was loads of fun to go out on the water to watch them.

the whole thing was a reminder of how watched and poked at we are in the city, how narrowly defined our enjoyment of things must be lest we fall afoul of some rule or other. we are so choked here, by each other and the people we hire to protect us from each other – it is distressing to think of this as our future – cages within cages within walls and the masses teeming to get ahead of each other.

it’s odd, i’ve lost my ability to get angry – now i just get tired. maybe that’s the point – to wear us down with constant petty regulations……