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While trodding to work one morning last Monday, I noticed a woman getting out of a pimped-out Dodge pickup truck. She had long hair, and an attractive physique made visible by her tight nylon tearaways and cropped t-shirt. I immediately wondered why she was getting out of a parked truck at 6:30am on a Monday morning in the West End. It wasn't until I saw her boyfriend or companion get out of the truck that I realized she was either a stripper or a working girl.

He had the signature Vancouver pimp/bouncer/drug dealer look: shaved head, goatee, steroid-induced massive upper body constrained in a black tank top. His gigantic arms were covered in tattoos.

Since it was Monday, they must have been partying all night, and were now heading back to their friend's apartment for a little come down. Or perhaps they were going to shoot a porn video in the apartment. Their friend was holding open the lobby door, a big smile on her slack, boozy face.

It occurred to me how far removed I am from these people, and also how close I was to them at one brief point my life. Not that I was hanging out with strippers and their bouncer/dealer boyfriends, but I was definitely a few degrees less removed than I am now.

Of course they didn't notice white-collar guy walking up the street. I still can't believe how big his arms were.

During a day of time-wasting surfing, this made me laugh.

Only 240 years late! Bush is really on top of current issues. Next he will be condemning robber barons getting rich in tulip futures.

When someone gets fired or laid off at our company, my coworkers and I refer to it as "getting the bullet", as in "did you hear that so and so got the bullet?". It originated with a district manager, who was asked by one of his direct reports to describe exactly what he was good at it. The manager hitched up his elastic-waist jeans and replied, "I am good at closin' business and giving people the bullet."

Over time this expression evolved from "getting the bullet" to "getting the mullet", in the way that words and phrases are morphed by young men with nothing better to do than flip around letters and sounds in between bong hits.

Rob suggested that when someone "gets the mullet", they should be forced to come back to the head office and wear a fake mullet wig. While he takes a more hard-lined approach than I, it would be funny to watch these fallen sales gods return to the head office for the walk of shame in a bad haircut.

I had a mullet once, for about 2 hours. This was before I had ever heard of the term mullet, when I simply called that style "hockey hair". I was attending the wedding of my girlfriend's brother in their home town of Orillia, Ontario, where they told me I spoke pretty good english for someone from Quebec.

My girlfriend was afraid I would get myself a bad haircut from the stoners that cut my hair in Whistler, so she had an appointment booked for me in Orillia. I told her before the appointment that they would probably be naturally inclined to give me hockey hair. My instructions to the stylist were clear: the back must be short, indeed it must be as short or shorter than the sides. She nodded and began cutting.

When she was done, it appeared that she had just avoided giving me a mullet. I ran my fingers through the wet hair to test the length in the back. While it was not a great haircut, it would have to do. I was, after all, in Orillia. I paid for the haircut and left. It was hot outside, and by the time we had returned to her house, the hair had dried, and my thick mane had sprouted into a mullet.

Scott sent me this article about how Bush & Co. are using sophistry and rhetoric to instill Americans with a sense of fear, uncertainty and doubt. Even today, on Independence Day (Happy Independence Day to all my American friends) he speaks not of the founding fathers' struggle and triumph against an imperial power, but of impending doom. To listen to him you would think the barbarians were marching up Pennsylvania Avenue. All he ever talks about is an impending terrorist attack, preventable only by his ability and willingness to strike out at any regime he wants. Just trust me.

"The enemies of America plot against us... We will act, whenever it is necessary, to protect the lives and the liberty of the American people."

Just what does this mean? Of course your enemies plot against you, but it doesn't mean they are sitting in bunkers planning to attack the Super Bowl. This kind of vague statement is Bush's trademark, and allows him the luxury of telling the truth while not committing to do anything but wage war. The US is so superior militarily, no other country or group can threaten the "liberty of the American people".

While I imagine this photo will be censored in the US, the BBC chose not to edit Bush's pit stains.


I was in the fitness room at work today when some developer almost set me off. CNN was on the TV we have in the room, muted so that the CC streamer runs along the bottom. There was some military official going on about the potential for an attack on Independence Day celebrations in Washington DC.

This needed to go. The fewer people that watch CNN the better. I changed the channel just as the developer was getting on the elliptical trainer.
"Oh, can you turn it this way a bit so I can see?” Sure, I switched the angle for him.
"What channel are you changing it to?”

"Anything but CNN" I said.

"Could you be more vague?" he answers without looking up.

Excuse me, who the fuck does this guy think he is? Some developer punk straight out of university is giving me attitude about changing the channel from CNN. I think about what I am going to say next, because not everyone has views as radical as mine (they are not even that radical, but times are tough).
"How does CBC Newsworld sound?” I ask him.

Again, he answers without looking up. “You think CBC will be less depressing than CNN?"

"At least it's true." I walk away.

He proceeds to sweat all over the elliptical machine, eliminating any desire I had to ever use it.

One of my most avid readers, if not the only avid reader, mentioned to me yesterday that he reads this blog about twice a week, "which is more often that it is updated". Suddenly I felt bad about letting down my audience and about not giving them enough.

I immediately came up with the excuse that "nothing is really happening", and I was reminded of the scene in Adaptation, where the character Robert McKee lambasts Nicolas Cage for thinking that nothing really happens in the world. "What planet are you living on!!" he screams. Every day people are raped and murdered, they fall in love and are betrayed. There is so much going on that the problem is choosing what to use.

So, with that as my inspiration, I give you my weekly update:

Report Magazine has finally died, striking a blow to right-wing fanatics all over western Canada. The magazine had hoped to spread into Canada the shift to the right of mainstream politics that occurred in the US during the 1990s. It succeeded only in preaching to the converted about the evils of liberalism, the need to integrate into the United States, and the usual right wing hack agenda.

David Frum eulogizes it on the blow to the conservative mvement in Canada. Gee David, I wonder why this never caught on in Canada. Could it be that we are different from right wing Americans and like it that way?

Is it possible to revoke his citizenship?

Jeffrey Simpson must have read his eulogy and felt compelled to kick them while they were down.
The last time I saw it was in a Save On Foods in Penticton. Eminem was on the cover with the headline "All You Need Is Hate".


My brother Michael was picked to play the part of a giant tongue in a Hi-C commercial. I had no idea they still made Hi-C, but apparently, they do.

Women Who Do Yoga

I see them every day on my coffee break, which is now just a walk break since I quit drinking coffee 2 weeks ago. They walk into Yaletown around 9am, with their coffees in one hand and their yoga mat bags in the other, dressed in the latest Lululemon fashions. Often they are yammering away on their mobile phones, probably to other idle women, about what to do after yoga. Shopping? Lunch? They need something to fill the time between yoga, working out, and pilates.

Yaletown is full of these people; all image, no substance. Who is footing the bill for their lifestyle I wonder? I can only assume it is some guy working in one of the office towers downtown, or prowling Yaletown in his Escalade, searching for a parking space close to Cioppino's. What amazes me is how hard they work at creating the image despite the transparency of it all. Vancouver ain't New York, but a lot of people think that if they act rich, they will be rich.

Then there is the coke dealer with the 64 impala. He works so hard to advertise that he is man of leisure, except when he is doing drug deals. Isn't the point to hide what you are doing when you're in that business?

Hey Fuckhead!

Are you the man that honked at me on Davie St last Friday? Yes, you remember. It was around 630am on a splendid summer morning. Hardly any traffic at that hour, but you must have been so hurried and so important, perhaps you even had to get to a conference call with an important client, maybe even an important American client.

So you had to honk at me. At first I didn't think you were honking at me. What could I have done? Riding my bike happily in the left hand lane was no reason for honking. I have to ride in the middle of the lane, as that is the only way to get respect from cars, and not get pushed into the gutter.

This, apparently, is new to you, and you brand new Toyota Echo. So you pulled up close to me and said "You're not a bike, eh bud?" I don't know if it was a question or a statement. I think the "eh" means "what i have just said is true, is it not?", so i'll treat it as a question.

Normally my first response would be "Fuck you motherfucker", a reaction that has been drilled into my synapse from years of defensive cycling in this city. However, as i was still blissed out and zen-like from my yoga the night before, I calmly said, "you need to respect me like a car. You need to treat me like a car."

To which you replied "Fuck you".

Ouch. I was so hurt that my calm approach failed, and I almost went to work in a bad mood.

Okay, i was in a bad mood at work, but that was only because i was suffering from caffeine withdrawal.

Be Careful What You Wish For


The importance of setting goals was a concept I never seemed to grasp until my mid-twenties. Perhaps at some point in my youth I had set goals unknowingly, but these were usually forgotten quickly in the lazy haze that covered my mind at the time. I think I set some fairly unrealistic goals (win the gold medal in the men's downhill at the 1988 Olympics), but I never had any realistic goals, written or otherwise.

One ambition that I did voice repeatedly was the dream of being a foreman on some type of work crew so that I could drive a pickup truck. While waiting for the school bus I would often see the city workers in their pickups and I wanted to be the one in charge. My oldest friend Chris never fails to remind me that as a child this was my ambition.

Perhaps it is coincidence that in the summer 1996 I achieved this goal, a mere 16 years after setting it. I had become a foreman on a forestry services crew comprised of drifters, scammers, ex-cons and morons. But I was in charge.

The dream had lost in lustre in the light of reality. Skidding to a stop in the truck and jumping out to berate unproductive workers seemed like fun when I was 10 years old. But at 26, it was pathetic and depressing. As the job wore on and the productivity and work quality went through the floor, I asked myself "How did I get here? What am I doing here?"

It didn't occur to me at the time, but the seed had been sown as a 10 year old child, wishing to drive a big truck and yell at people.

Why am I spending so much goddamn time in front of a workstation? I think it is starting to have adverse physical effects on me. My jaw locks and my eyes glaze over moments after I sit down and rest my arms on the desk. My body does not like it when i do this.

I turned 32 the other day, and for the first time really feel like I am in my 30s. I have recently noticed how creeping changes have now become distinct shifts...

Hip hop (am i supposed to capitalize both H's?) no longer holds any interest for me.
I don't care what people think I look like, or how i dress, or whether women think I am hot.
I spend a lot of time looking at young couples with children.
I am much more left than I was at 19. Isn't it supposed to work the other way around?

Yesterday, for the first time in months, I rented a DVD. It was raining torrentially, and I had nothing to do while waiting to meet with someone later in the day, so I headed to Independent Video and picked up the documentary film Biggie and Tupac. I have enjoyed Nick Broomfield's other documentaries, but was excited for this one, having missed it at the Vancouver Film Festival last fall.

It is typical Broomfield guerilla-style film making, where he puts so many of his interviewees in an uncomfortable position with his direct questions. His soft English accent makes him seem less aggressive while dogging his interviewees for their stories.

Before seeing the film, I had bought the idea of a East Coast vs West Coast rivalry as the reason for the killings. However, Broomfield shows that if you want to solve a crime, follow the money. In this case the money leads back to Suge Knight, and two of the dirtiest cops to ever wear a uniform.

In the end, it was all about money and power, and two talented young men paid the price with their lives. This got me thinking about how many people have been murdered in the US with the full knowledge of the police of FBI, simply because they had grown too popular, and thus too dangerous.

Ever recognize yourself in a book?

On a cold night in February 1995, I sat curled on my plaid couch reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. My friend John had loaned it to me in the attempt to help me change my life. I recognized myself in what the author called Quadrant IV: activities that are neither importnant nor urgent. He did not waste much time on people who lived in this quadrant, stating only "these people basically live irresponsible lives". That was me. But what really hit me that night was his description of relationships gone wrong. There it was on page 182, my relationship described to me as if he was living in the next room. Two people leading separate lives in a fairly respectable and tolerant manner. I put the book down, looked at my girlfriend of 4 years and said, "We need to end this. Now".

I saw myself again in The War of Art.

Guilty as charged, on every page.

Leaving time! I get to go home. I didn't get much done here besides see customers, drive from one customer to the other and eat a lot of take out food.

Some things I learned: there are liberal Americans in the least likely places, Cleveland should be wiped clean off the face of the earth (although I have been told constantly that it is much nicer than it used to be) and that I I am sick of seeing American flags on every car.

Do you ever feel like you don't belong? I feel that right now, mired as I am in the midwest, surrounded by suburban sprawl, traffic, landfills, malls, and an alarming number of obese people. I have a skill at fitting in and looking like I am part of everything, but inside it is painful. Perhaps that is why I have been asked to join fraternities I despised, political parties I opposed, or churches whose gods I don't believe exist.

Whenever I come here I blend in with the rest of the people, but I simply cannot wait to get back to Vancouver.

I am staying with a friend, who, despite his intelligece and success in life, likes to watch Fox News. He has a home office in his basement, and there is a wall mounted TV above his desk, about 25 feet away from me. I have never watched it before, so it shocked me exactly how skilled they are at taking real events ( and fictional events) and dumbing them down to their most simple forms. It is the like turning healthy food into junk (there must be a word for that process). I had to turn it on mute because I found it so offensive.

And to think that I contemplated a move to Columbus, Ohio.

While flipping channels late last night, I came across ESPN, which was showing a clip of some WWF wrestlers making an appearance on US Navy aircraft carrier, ostensibly to bolster morale. One of the officers was being interviewed, and he mentioned how much this means to the sailors, because being on an aircraft carrier is extremely boring. The only thing we have to offer the crew, he said, "was the odd war and the occassional celebrity visit like this." What kind of people see the odd war as a mere escape from boredom?
I could not believe that I had actually heard him say that.

But when I looked at the wrestlers, who were addressing the crowd wearing makeup, masks and headgear, I realized that most of the people on the ship were still adolescents.

I am scheduled to meet a client at Case Western Reserve University next week. However, due to the recent events there, I wonder if it is still appropriate. This is the building where the gunman shot 2 people. The SWAT team had a tough time subduing him because there were no straight hallways in the entire building.

I was getting bored yesterday, just sitting around listening to the rain, so I got in my car and followed the neverlost map system to the nearest large mall. Since I was stuck in the suburbs of Cincinnati, I thought I would get out and see the country.

What amazed me is how frontal and complete the assault is upon the average American here. They are told at every turn through radio ads, visual ads and television that they need to get out and spend money at this mall or that mall. Everything is in malls, and everything is designed to be done with a car.

While wading through the massive parking lot at Kenwood mall, I came across a family waiting to use a crosswalk. The crossing was duly marked with paint on the asphalt and a sign indicating that it was a crosswalk. But no car would stop, and the family made no move to signal their intention or need to cross.

I just walked right out into the traffic and made the cars stop. Everyone looked at me in disbelief. What is the point of having a crosswalk if you don't use it?

This just found in my other blog archives...from July 2001:

It's been a while since I discovered this forum for solipsistic expression and theater of the self absorbed. Well, now I am charging into its swollen ranks. Initially my intentions were to fashion this blog from the very beginning with witty and informative quips on the human condition that were oh-so-spot on. However, I've realized the point here is merely to express yourself. If I go for being the Moredcai Richler of blogland, I will only ever look like a cheap imitator.

Someone was fired at work today, which I think is a good thing. Good because they are finally realizing that there are many people who do nothing at our company, and have been doing so for many years now...

Being from a middle class Protestant family in Edinburgh, it was natural that my grandmother was warned and persuaded not to take up with my hardscrabble grandfather. He was Catholic, he was from Glasgow and he came from a “questionable” family. That I know almost nothing about my grandfather’s background suggests to me that he came from a long line of criminals.

However, when you’re a 22-year-old girl growing up in a repressed Protestant family, you are a sucker for a bad boy from the wrong part of town, especially if he is riding a motorcycle. Sure, he might be a little rough around the edges, she explained to her parents, but he has an engineering degree from the University of Edinburgh. How respectable is that? Unfortunately, the degree was not worth much in Edinburgh, at least not in the hands of a Catholic, and he was shut out of the shipyards, the natural place for a recent grad to seek employment.

One day while they were riding on his motorcycle (made entirely from “found” parts), the brakes failed, and they both crashed into a brick wall. My grandfather was not hurt, but my grandmother had knocked out all her front teeth on the wall.

Time to make a run for it, thought young Jimmy Smith. He booked passage on a ship headed for Canada, with a job arranged for him in Vancouver, some small town way out on the west coast. My grandmother did not want to leave her sister behind, but staying in Scotland was no longer an option. So the three of them came over, but on the way my great aunt nearly died of pneumonia. When the ship docked in Montreal, Auntie Alice was too ill to get on the train for another 6 days to Vancouver. They settled in Montreal.

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The last time I saw my grandmother was in August 2001. I pulled up to her house and parked, and was immediately asked by a neighbor what I was doing. I walked over to the man and told him that I was Mrs. Smith’s grandson. He shook my hand and introduced himself as “Gary”, and said that he lived across the street. He told me to have a nice day, and put his hand on my bicep and gave me a little squeeze.

I thought nothing of it at the time. When I went in to see nana, she asked me if I had talked to Gary. I said yes, and that he seemed like a nice man, looking out for his neighbor like he did.

“I think he’s gay son” she replied.

Clementine Lavin Smith died on May 8, 2003. She was 98 years old.