I am glad I am not you

Finally, a bit of fun
Originally uploaded by Lemon Pie.

What seemed so lucid and true just a few hours ago has now faded into the jumbled chaos of misfiring syanpses.

I empathize with the people in this photo. The comedown comes slowly, and then all of a sudden; 2 hours ago you shared water with everyone, now you care only about your own immediate needs. You were going to conquer the world with love, but now you have to face your job in less than 24 hours, and a whole world of people who have no clue about your weekend enlightenment, and no care to learn about it.

Been there many times, and looking at these people I am reminded of why I retired.

Hunter S. Thompson 1937-2005

The Good Doctor died yesterday of a self-inlficted gunshout wound. My initial reaction was dibelief that he would go out like that. I thought about it for a minute, and realized that he might have discovered he was ill or that his memory was failing him. He's not the type to kick it in some old folks home, hooked up to a life support system. No, he goes down with guns blazing, even if they are turned on himself.

His impact on me was huge. The little I have written in my life has been influenced heavily by his ability to describe the depravity of life so poignantly.

In 1998, I had just left Whistler and my life as a ski bum, and was struggling to make ends meet in Victoria BC, of all places. Reading The Proud Highway helped me through that period of extreme poverty, self-doubt and self-loathing due to the miserable jobs I was doing. He revelled in his struggle as a writer, and this changed my outlook on my situation. If I could learn to find the humour in having to wake up early and return the empty beer bottles before my roomates, just so i could afford to buy a newspaper, then I would make it through this period. His duress was much worse than mine, given that he had a child at the time and that life as a writer is a perilous living at best.

But what I admired most about him is that he really lived. He didn't hold back anything, he just let fly with whatever he had at the time. Sadly, I regret the times I held back more than the times I let it go without thinking.

I only hope he comes back to haunt us some day.

It feels like I have been treading water at work the last few weeks. The beginning of the sales year is always hectic; dealing with account turnover, rolling out compensation plans, and implementing new methodologies. (I can't believe I just wrote that.)

Except for one small period in December just before Max was born, the last 12 months have reminded me of trying to swim past the incoming waves to get past the breaks. Every time I get through one wave, I see another one rising up in front of me.

Metaphor for life I suppose. However, this medium is not intended as a repository for my complaints.

This would be funny if it were not so disturbing.


North Korea announced today that it "may" have nuclear weapons, a near certain guarantee the US will decide to invade another country. Totalitarian regimes, however, do produce such humorous propaganda.

For a few years in the 90s, I was an anglophile. Perhaps it was the overdose of Irvine Welsh, Nick Hornby and Withnail & I, but for some strange reason I had the mad desire to move to London. Because I could not afford to move there, I substituted with contemporay UK fiction, The Face magazine and Blur.

The image I had was sheer fantasy, far from the reality I discovered upon my visits. I imagined stylishly dressed gangsters swaggering about terraced streets smoking Silk Cut cigarettes. What I found on my trips there was thick smoke, bad food, and good friends. Every time I visited, I managed to get sick.

On my last trip, Nic lent me The English, by Jeremy Paxman, eager to dissolve my idealistic vision of England. He had bookmarked a chapter for me, called Meet the Wife.

It is not often you meet someone who has had a bottom transplant. The man in question, jowly, 50ish, balding, in a pinstripe suit and well made shoes, looks the picture of British probity.You know he prides himself that his word is his bond. By day he runs a merchant bank. At night, he likes to be spanked until the blood runs. His obsession has become known as the vice anglais.

This reminded me of one of my favorite passages in one of my favorite books.

You simply can't trust the British. With Americans (or Canadians, for that matter) what you see is what you get. But settle into your seat on a 749 flying out of Heathrow next to an ostensibly boring old Englishman with wobbly chins, the acquired stammer, obviously something in the City, intent on his Times crossword puzzle, and don't you dare patronize him. Mr. Milquetoast, actually a judo black belt, was probably parachuted into the Dordogne in 1943, blew up a train or two, and survived the Gestapo cells by concentrating on what would become the definitive translation of Gilgamesh from the Sin-Leqi-Inninni; and now--his garment bag stuffed with his wife's most alluring cocktail dresses and lingerie--he is no doubt bound for the annual convention of cross-dressers in Saskatoon.

Cleanse Delayed, but Finally Started

After months of procrastination, I have finally started my master cleanse. The need for this came out of my weeks of handling and inhaling insulation. The need was exacerbated by a Christmas diet of rum, scotch, chocolate and shortbread, combined with zero exercise.

This segued into a four-day sales training course at the Hotel Vancouver, where they served ice cream and candy bars every day for snacks. Dinner was pizza or hamburgers.

Follow this up with a trip to Las Vegas for the annual worldwide sales kickoff, featuring more buffet food, trips to Fat Burger, and all the beer you can drink just about every night for 3 nights.

I sat down on the couch with my maple-lemon-cayenne drink and started to watch the Super Bowl. Just then, Anya sat next to me with chips, salsa, and a beer. "Do you want to order a pizza?" she asked.


So I started the cleanse today. I am unsure how long I will last. I may cut out on the third day to eat fruits and vegetables because I have to play hockey on the weekend.

Hockey first, health later.

Being a sales manager, you get to hear every excuse that could possibly exist. However, the best excuse I have ever heard about anything, was from my brother on why he had not cleaned up the mess he made upon returning from treeplanting with all his gear.

It went something like this: "John, you have to understand that you're dealing with someone who has been on acid for three days."

Via Scott, (it's almost always via Scott), an announcement regarding the death of hipsters. Rest assured that hipsterism will live a long and fruitful life in Vancouver, where trucker hats are still in.

Exhaustion

After having spent the last two weeks sitting at home taking care of the new one or sitting in a conference room being fed cinnamon buns 4 times daily, it was little surprise that my performance on the ice last Friday night was confused and desperate. My chaotic attempts at hockey were, however, easily hidden by the laziness and general lethargy of the rest of my teammates, who had also subsisted over the last 2 weeks on chocolate, shortbread and alcohol.

Somehow I was credited with an assist, although I am sure I had little to do with anything good my team accomplished. Four weeks off from hockey is just too long a break for this novice.

2004

This weekend we spent many hours poring over 2004 lists; top movies, top books, worst fashion trends; it seemed almost every publication had some list from which to distill the essence of 2004.

The last year was probably the most tumultuous since I became “gainfully employed” in 1998.

I had 3 managers and 16 different sales reps reporting to me. I was transferred from one region to another. I was mistaken many times for Andrew Webb, Andrew Brown, Andrew Lee, and Andrew DiManno, and thus forced to change my email alias. I survived a technology company merger.I had 3 different addresses. I spent a fortune on renovating a house in East Vancouver. I became a father.

My resolutions for this year:

1. Watch less TV (watch no reality TV)
   
2. Drink more wine
3. Worry less
   
4. Laugh more
5. Take time each day to be grateful for what I have
6. Write in this blog 3 times a week
7. Say hello to strangers
8. Refrain from criticizing people
9. Laugh at myself
   

Maxwell


I have been meaning to write this for a while, but other things have gotten in the way, like not sleeping for days at a time. Every time I have sat down to write there has been something else to do.

Max arrived at 228 am on December 24th. Anya and I stayed in the hospital until noon on Christmas Day, when we drove home with our Christmas present.

I took the week off from work to help Anya recover and to get used to the new one who now rules our schedule. As there is little else to do besides sleep and feed baby, we have watched a tremendous amount of television, mostly CBC Newsworld covering the tsunami disaster. I keep telling Anya that it does no good to watch this disaster non-stop.

Back from the Dark

Early December has always reminded me of the assasination of John Lennon. I will always remember where I was when I learned that Lennon was murdered. I was in Vermont, where our parents had dragged us while my father was working in South Burlington. Our father was living in Burlington at the time and we were in Stowe, in an area called The Hollow

We had just turned on Cronkite at 7pm, when the phone rang. It was Teddy Grennan calling, who told me that Lennon was dead.

Last Wednesday I thought about Teddy, as the anniversary of Lennon's death always reminds me of that phone call. I searched for him in Google, managing to find one picture. But I kept looking. I searched under his cousin's name, and discovered that sadly, he had died in a car wreck in BC this last September. As sad as this made me feel, the comments left by friends and family made me feel that he had lived a great life and made so many happy.


Well, come on, I can't be cyncial ass all the time.

This weather is really getting me down. Every time I get in my car, I realize that I only ever drive during the dark, even if it is 730am or 4pm. Since I started bringing my lunch to work, I hardly ever see the outside world during the dim grey period of 7 hours that we call "daylight".

I need to get out of here, and I know that I won't be able to do it.

I have long felt that the climate of a place breeds a certain temperament, and during CBC's Canadiana lovefest documentary, this idea was shared by Bruce Mau. He used the example of settlers digging in for their first Canadian winter. Imagine what went through their minds as the temperature plummeted to -20 and the snow never stopped for weeks?

Getting ready for winter wasn't simply a matter of stocking up on supplies. If your roof leaked or your house was not ready, you weren't uncomfortable, you were dead. Not enough food? Starve to death. Wrong clothing? Dead. Get drunk and fall asleep outside? Dead. Having your shit together was a matter of survival.

Imagine then, the relief when whitey discovered the west coast. Nothing but temperate rain forest and mild winters. Get drunk, pass out and wake up in the morning, wet but still living. Whereas the harsh winters in the East required the settlers to plan carefully and live in fear of death, the mild weather here in Vancouver resulted in complacency. A little more creativity but a whole lot more sloth.

i wouldn't trade it for anything.

I have almost finished reading Good to Great, which contains some entertaining anecdotes about once-powerful companies which subsequently turned to dust. One such company was Bethlehem Steel, which chose to build its new headquarters in the shape of a cross, so that it could provide a corner office for it numerous VPs.

This reminded me of how when I was a child, I thought I wanted to be a "businessman". I imagined that a businessman had only to get the right education, know the right people and work at the right company and then all you had to do was show up at the office, and everything else took care of itself. As a "businessman" you made decisions that others acted upon. You didn't do any actual work, you just sat at a desk all day and received phone calls.

It turns out that Bethlehem Steel would have been a perfect fit for me at the age of 8. Alas, the business culture of the 1970s is no more, which is probably a good thing. But can you imagine the sheer joy of smoking in your workplace?

Bonjour le Weekend


It was Grey Cup Weekend here in Canada last weekend, with Toronto and Vancouver facing off for the oldest professional sports title in North America. The competition between the two cities sparked off the usual ridiculous comparisons between the two cities; Toronto is ugly, polluted and too focussed on making money, while Vancouver is lazy, shiftless and hopelessly idealistic.

CBC Radio was talking up the games each morning, which I listened to on my drive to work. One morning featured a city councillor from each city boasting about why their city was better. The Vancouver councillor touched on the familiar themes of Vancouver's superiority: its mountains, the ocean, the islands, the wildlife, in short, things that were here millions of years ago and have nothing do with the accomplishments of Vancouver's citizens.

This is what Vancouverites usually boast about during their endless comparisons with larger cities. But we're cleaner! We're more beautiful! Yes, but that has nothing do with you've done with your life. At least in Toronto they never had a chance to be beautiful, and are doing the best with what they have.

The game itself was interesting until late in the match, after Vancouver embarassed itself by letting the play clock run out not once, but twice on a 2 point conversion attempt, only to botch the ensuing 22 yard convert kick.

Michael was cheering for Toronto, as he wanted Pinball Clemons to win the Cup, and he wanted the Vancouver media to have nothing about which to bitch for the next few weeks, given the current stalemate in the NHL.

Speaking of the NHL, Rob predicts the players will eventually capitulate under financial pressure. Going from $5 million a year to nothing is quite a shock for someone with a grade 9 education, and many of the players are just "one bad restaurant chain away from bankruptcy."

The Vancouver media has indeed run out of things to talk about, so they are making small issues into class and race wars. One friend of ours was on the radio defending the condo owners who led the charge to enact the odor law. He deftly avoided the interviewers attempts to portray him as a racist, stating that it's not the kind of food odor, it is the intensity and the duration of the nuisance. The interviewer thanked him at the end of it, and Ken, in his posh English accented muttered only one word, "right".

Ha Ha!

Sorry about the delay. I wrote earlier about July being a busy month, but October was even worse. Anya and I began the renovations on our new East Van slum, in an effort to turn it into a decent family home. I even took a few days off work to do menial labour, as I don't like to pay trades people their hourly rates to take out trash. Leave that to an expert like me, who has acutally worked as a "garbologist".

As expected, the plumbing and electrical ended up costing way more than we forecast, which required us to leave the basement unfinished. That leaves us with the equivalent of a 900 square foot appartment with a 900 square foot storage locker.

The dirtiest and most time-consuming task was removing loose fill insulation from the attic. Imagine crawling into the corners of an attic with a low, sloping roof, wearing a respirator, so that you breathing sounds like Darth Vader's; reaching with a makeshift rake to pull recycled newspaper covered in chemical fire retardant from the corners. You have been laying on the joists for so long you have 2 -inch bruises across your ribs. The goggles do nothing. The roof above your head is so close that you can feel the rusty nails sticking through scrape along your scalp as you move. Pull it all into a pile and shovel it into a garbage bag.

This was how I spent my evening in October. This was how I listened to the greatest comeback in sports history. It was work so horrible that the only people I could ask to help me were relatives, and even then I felt guilty about paying Michael to do it.

Speaking of Michael, he has a new commercial on the air, which I think is his best to date; better than the dancing tongue or the cup-chasing fisherman. He has already become tired of it, and has begun to pick apart his performance as Beauregard.


PEACE

I feel compelled to observe Remembrance Day because of my grandfather, who spent 4 years on Royal Navy destroyer. Brad and I went down to the Cenotaph for the ceremony, which caused me to get teary-eyed, looking at all the old vets. I think what chokes me up is the selfless sacrifice they made for others they would never meet or know. For that, I am truly grateful.

It's All in the Breeding

Business-savvy students at my high school's arch rival were caught selling fake $10 bills for $5. Reportedly, some grade 9 and 10 boys unloaded $12,000 of counterfeit bills, mostly on younger students. What an ingeniuos new business! Taking money off intimidated 12 year-olds and sticking them with worthless paper.

The core group has "permanently withdrawn" from the school. I am sure, however, that mainly alumni are secretly admiring the chutzpah of the enterprise; such business creativity at such a young age. The headmaster stated that at least it was for a reasonable purchase: to pay off one student's gambling debts.

Sometimes there is no substitute for "unhealthy" things. i have never found anything to replace butter. Non-chemical cleaners fail to eliminate the mold and filth that accumulates in a bathroom. The "natural" deoderant i have started using offers no protection to others from my offensive odor. I suppose it is a small price to pay for a fresh scent.

Anya and I have been working non-stop on the house we bought in East Van. I go to work , come home and then pull a short shift at the house removing loose fill cellulose insulation from the attic. Feel free to join me, if you have a preference for dirty work in hot, confined spaces.

This made me howl yesterday, but, as Stewart says, it's for all the wrong reasons.

Man am I tired.

Bright Ideas, Bold Moves #13

Since my father was the more lenient of my parents, I figured it would be safe to try smoking in my bedroom when my mother was out. I just had to tell my dad I was doing my homework and then close the door. Next, I turned off the lights, opened the window stuck, my head out and lit one up.

I was required only to stick my head out the window and exhale upwards, always holding the cigarette far above the window, because the smoke would simply rise from the scene of my crime. The light was out in case he barged in and asked what I was doing, standing in a dark room by myself. The darkness would give me a split second to toss the cigarette butt into the snow.

When the lights came on , he asked what I was doing perched on the window sill and leaning my head out the window, when I was supposed to be doing my homework.

- I was tired and needed rest my eyes from the light. He was disappointed that this was the best story I could concoct. The smell of cigarettes was suddenly intense, but there was no evidence of smoking. He had nothing, and was furious. He leaned out the window, straining his eyes over the snow to spot the glowing heater, but there was nothing to be found. I had butted out the heater the instant I heard the doorknob turn.

He gave me a lecture that I was an athlete, and not just some guy who smoke, yet I maintained my innocence to the end. I felt that since I had devised a scheme to smoke in my room without producing evidence, I should thus be afforded the presumption of innocence.