The Culprit

Bet you didn't realize who's responsible for all the bad stuff that's been happening lately.

by Morgan Davis

Evan M. Lopez BLAME GAME: Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in May. The cancer never knew what hit it.

[ accidental activists ]

Drew Olanoff knows who to blame.

He knows who to blame for his grandma's death two years ago. For the recession. For Phillies losses. For misplacing his keys and grabbing a warm soda instead of a cold one. He even knows who to blame for the band Nickelback.

It's his cancer.

"My cancer is an absolute jerk," Olanoff says.

Olanoff has spent the past two months blaming his cancer for everything that goes wrong or drives him crazy. His family and friends have started blaming Drew's cancer, too. Even strangers are blaming his cancer.

And every time someone blames his cancer?"I can picture my cancer going, 'Ooh, that one hurt. That was a low blow.'"

Olanoff, 29, is a pretty regular Philly guy. At 6-foot-3, 236 pounds, he may be a little bigger than average, but his Phillies jersey, more than a dozen tattoos, a couple of facial piercings and baseball cap help him blend into his native city. His jersey, though, doesn't have a player's name on the back; it has the words "Blame Drew's Cancer." He wears a yellow LIVESTRONG bracelet on his left wrist and a black-and-yellow LIVESTRONG baseball cap on his recently shaved head. One of his tattoos is a Twitter handle with a woman's signature underneath. The reason? Olanoff auctioned the space to tattoo the name of the highest Twitter bidder for the benefit of the Make a Wish Foundation.

"When you first look at him, you don't think he's a tenderhearted bear, but he is," says Lynda Harrison, Olanoff's mom.

Olanoff was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes, in May. He had been living in San Francisco and recently accepted a new job in Los Angeles with GOGII, a mobile startup. He decided to go home for a visit between gigs, but in the meantime discovered a lump on his neck.

"My mom is a nurse and she said it could be anything," says Olanoff. "So I figured while I'm in Philly, I'll just visit my family doctor."

CAT scans, blood work, outpatient surgery and a couple of weeks later, he had a diagnosis: Stage III cancer. For Hodgkin's patients, Stage III means the cancer has spread both above and below the diaphragm. Despite its spread, Olanoff was told that after treatment, there was a 90 percent chance of remission.

As he proceeded from concern to diagnosis to treatment, Olanoff began blaming his cancer for things. If cancer was responsible for the lump on his neck, he figured, why shouldn't it be to blame for the Phillies losing a game?

Soon, his cancer was responsible for his computer's slow response time and getting him stuck in traffic. Olanoff let his cancer take the fall for anything that ticked him off. Then, he did what came naturally. On June 3, he launched blamedrewscancer.com.

"Being a geek, what do geeks do? They start a Web site," he says.

The site allows people to post "blames" via their Twitter feeds. Non-Twitter users can also post on the site's Facebook page. The project, for Olanoff, was the perfect distraction, and made him feel like he was taking action against his foe.

Some friends worried that the project would offend people. After all, cancer is not a funny subject. But others saw it as a type of therapy for Olanoff. "If that makes you feel good, go for it," he remembers people saying.

"And then there were a couple people who just really got it, and were like, 'This is going to be something bigger than you, and you have to do it,'" he adds.

Olanoff's mom, who blames her son's cancer for the many gray hairs she has recently developed, supported the idea. She says Olanoff's vision of his cancer as an evil being has caught on.

"It's an entity that can be beaten down," Harrison says.

Almost two months after its launch, more than 9,000 people have tweeted on blamedrewscancer.com. Lance Armstrong blamed Olanoff's cancer for his recent shoulder injury. ("That was weird," laughs Olanoff.)

Some of the comments are funny. "I blame Drew's cancer for my shitty beer pong game." Or, "I blame Drew's cancer for K. Fed's unemployment."

Some of the blame is more serious. "I blame Drew's cancer for losing the love of my life and ending up alone"; "I blame Drew's cancer for giving my friend Stephanie cancer and making such a sweet soul go through so much hell."

For Olanoff, the site serves as a place where people don't have to whisper the word "cancer." They can admit it's out there and deal with it, while venting their daily troubles. It's also helped him remain upbeat and quirky through a tough time: Though he may seem like a pillar of strength, Olanoff admits that he's a "sissy" and that the past months have not been easy.

"I have a lot of tattoos," he says, "but I hate needles and I hate doctors."

Evan M. Lopez

He's just finished four of 12 chemo treatments. Already, he's visibly thinner. Behind his glasses, his eyes are tired. He often can't sleep because of the pain. And his head is shaved — his attempt to beat cancer to the punch by taking his hair before the chemo could.

"I have my own dark days where I'm like, 'Whoa, I really have cancer,'" Olanoff says. "When my hair started falling out, it was very difficult. ... It was like, 'This is real.'"

But with help from family and friends, he's fighting. He's modifying his lifestyle, adopting his fiancée's vegetarian habits. His mom has noticed his new initiative to solidify relationships and try new things.

And somewhere along the way, Olanoff accidentally became an activist. What started as a way for him to distract himself has turned into an online phenomenon: People across the country blame Olanoff's cancer as a way to help themselves and others affected by the disease.

This won't stop with the Web site. Blame Drew's Cancer, which recently officially partnered with LIVESTRONG, will host fundraising events in the area. In September, the group will have a 24-hour blame-a-thon, the first of many, Olanoff hopes. It will stream online and will feature live blaming, as well as activities, bands and someone from Cirque du Soleil.

"It's 24 hours. You can't not pay attention to it," Olanoff says. "If you pay attention, you're going to see something that's going to make you laugh, that's going to touch you, that's going to make you realize that we're serious, and that cancer is serious, and that you can do something to help." Money is not the organization's main goal: They hope to spread awareness and provide a stable support network for people affected by cancer.

If all goes well, Olanoff will finish his chemo treatments by January. But even if he's declared cancer-free, he isn't stopping his campaign. He's going to continue to blame cancer for as long as it's around.

"I think it's the Philly way to be arrogant and kick something's butt," he says. "And cancer deserves to have its butt beat."

(editorial@citypaper.net)