Late Harvest

Wallace

2006-05-17T00:25:00.000-05:00

“Agh! There’s a cat outside staring at me,” Alison yelled from the kitchen. I went out to check, and sure enough, there was a massive, tan tabby staring coolly in the back door. We had just moved into our new place. We assumed it was one of the neighbours' cats, and by the look of his expansive and rather regal belly, he probably popped by a few houses for food every day.

It became a routine for the cat to show up every day at around 8:30 in the morning and many evenings. Every day, he would stare in the window, watching us make coffee and toast, and if he felt we didn’t see him, he would jump on the railing and continue to fix his gaze on us until we acknowledged him with a nod. After an hour or so of watching us, he would leave.

Eventually we made the connection between the enormous bag of Whiskas left by the previous tenants and this mysterious, utterly reliable cat, who had lost about ten pounds before we figured out what was going on. He was a stray, who had been regularly overfed by the previous tenants – and nobody else - or perhaps by the general contractor who renovated the place before we moved in. He was getting thin.

“I’m not feeding him that stuff, it’s bad for him” Alison said, referring to the Whiskas. I had already thrown it away, so that night I took a trip down to the corner store and bought $2 worth of speaker cable (nothing to do with the cat) and $0.79 of Fancy Feast. But the cat didn’t come back.

A few days after Wallace’s last appearance, I spotted a sign hastily scotch-taped to a lamppost up the street.

MISSING - TONY

TONY IS A TAN TABBY
WITH WHITE SOCKS

HE HAS BEEN MISSING SINCE MARCH 3

HE IS DEARLY MISSED BY HIS FAMILY

IF YOU SEE HIM, PLEASE CONTACT US

I was tempted to call. I was sure Tony wasn’t our stray but they looked very similar.

Days later I saw another sign posted to another lamppost.

I THINK I HAVE FOUND
“TONY”
PLEASE CONTACT ME AND I WILL RETURN HIM.
HE IS BEING HELD AT 382 PALMERSTON.

I knew it was our stray and not Tony this person had found. Sure enough, two days later, our cat reappeared and while the MISSING signs stayed up, the lone, mistaken FOUND sign came down. Alison fed him a third of a can of Wellness. His breath left a terrible smell on the plate. He had taken on some scratches on his nose and was looking very upset.

Since then, Wallace has shown up every morning at 7:30am for his third of a can of Wellness cat food, except on days when it rains. He hisses when we put out his plate, but then he slurps up that food in no time. Once it’s gone, he licks it clean, turns his tail to us and vanishes back into the alley.

Make My Day. No, Really.

2006-04-25T11:18:00.000-05:00

I've now established a reliable route from home here that usually takes less than 40 relaxing minutes on the streetcar.

Today, I caught all my transfers. When I transferred onto the King car, the streetcar was pretty full at the front, of couse, with empty seats at the back. I 'scused my way to the back of the streetcar and sat down. I got to enjoy the empty seat beside me for five or six stops and then, in front of Roy Thomson Hall, the streetcar stopped and commotion erupted. A transit guy stood at the stop, surrounded by a teeming mass of eight year olds.

He looked like a purple mountain rising out of a roiling sea of children. His face looked like it was buried in a cloud The kids started to get on the streetcar. Everyone
who had planned to get off at the next stop to board the subway quickly made the decision to flee before the children got on. The car emptied. I would have done the same but the walk was too far. All I thought of was the smell, filth and noise that come with hordes of kids. And me with an empty seat next to me.

The car filled up with miniature people, their heads bobbing as they spilled down the aisle, the familiar noxzema-like smell of elementary schools everywhere wafting onto the streetcar.

I dutifully put my laptop in my lap and gazed forlornly out the window. It would only be 5 stops or so to my destination, so I steeled myself to ignore the inevitable rush of noise and set my attention to the outside world.

But a little girl, thankfully clean, sat down next to me.

"What's your name?" she said.

"Jared," I said.

A small hockey brat sat in front of me. He was the kind of kid who probably beat up other kids and he reminded me of the kids who picked on me in grade two. When the kids sat down he wouldn't let another girl sit down next to him so the teacher sat with him. He was scowling.

But it didn't matter. The little girl who said hello had somewhat charmed me out of my crusty shell. "Are you on a field trip?" I asked.

"Yeah. We went in there and saw LOTS of MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS."

"What grade are you in?" I asked.

"Two."

"So how old are you?"

The brat in front turned around. "I'm EIGHT!"

The girl said "I'm seven, turning eight this year."

Another little girl from behind us stuck her head between me and my seatmate. "I'm seven but I turn eight this year too."

"Where are you going?" the little girl asked me. I gave up. I laughed. I just couldn't fight it any more.

"To my office," I said.

"You have an OFFICE?" she asked. She leaned forward to look me in the eye and see if I was lieing.

"Yes!" I responded, which is not entirely true. It's Shelley's condo.

One of the teachers interjected, speaking to the kids. "The office! That's not as much fun as a field trip, is it!"

They all ignored the teacher and continued to stare at me. "Do you have kids of your own?" my seatmate asked.

"No," I said.

"Why NOT?"

"I'm not old enough!"

"How old ARE you?"

"I'm twenty-nine."

"That's old enough to have kids."

"Well I guess I'm not ready."

She nodded sagely then stared into space. The hockey brat, who had behaved very well since the teacher sat down, called the girl's name. He made a series of gestures with his arms, ending with that face where you put your thumbs and forefingers in a ring around your eyes.

"Huh?" she said, looking at him.

He did it again. He knew what he was up to. He was doing it because she didn't know what it meant. Neither did I. But he knew. It was obviously something that would get him in trouble, because he was keeping a close eye on the teacher, who had since fixed her attention elsewhere.

"I don't get it," said the girl next to me, looking resigned and vaguely annoyed with his tactic.

"Me either," I said, commiserating. "This is my stop!"

Those kids made my day.

Teal Capris

2006-04-10T23:30:00.000-05:00

One day, shortly after moving to Toronto, I was riding the streetcar from furniture window shopping at Queen and Roncesvalles to my house. It was a beautiful late summer day, not crazy hot as Toronto had been just days before. I had just walked through Parkdale and hopped on the Queen car near Ossington. When I got on, I pushed past the clusters of people at the front of the car and moved toward the back. I sat in the living-room like area at the back of the car.

The entire rear section of the car was empty, and it was one of the rare cars with a single row of seats on the drivers side, and a double row on the passenger side. Just at the front of that single row, next to the doors, sat one other lone passenger, who had a shopping cart and was gazing out the window. I was still soaking in the Toronto experience and felt, for some reason, that this man was worth observing.

He seemed very fit, with a lean face and a long pointy nose, quite alert, and although initially I thought he was reasonably dressed, I realized after a few moments that the teal capri pants he was wearing looked an awful lot like my grandmothers teal capris: polyester, finely tapered at the bottom, pleated at the top. Likewise, that loudly printed shirt of his seemed, in fact, to be a lady's blouse. He had long, stringy but groomed grey hair that began at the rear of a fully bald crown. The straw hat, which he held in his hand, and his flat-footed canvas shoes, could have been mens or womens clothes. Other than some unusual fashion choices, he seemed quite well composed. I watched for any sign that he might be somehow unwell, or perhaps simply aware that he was dressed in culturally inappropriate clothing and might attract attention as a result. He gave no signs.

Gradually I lost interest in him. Something was not quite right with him, but that was all. He sat, looking out the window and back into the car, a little bit impatient at the speed of the streetcar - but who isn't? His angular face betrayed a vague, simmering anger, some frustration. His eyes darted back and forth like a bird's eyes searching for breadcrumbs in the grass.

We stopped at Bathurst and a string of people got off the car. The driver inched forward. The light went red again and we screeched over the iron rails to stop at the light.

Before the car came to a halt, the man leapt out of his seat, jumped into the air and grabbed the safety railing by the door. He perched on the banister leading down to the door, and with his hands, gripped the vertical rail. Then he cawed like a tropical bird, CAW, CAW, and pivotted on his feet. He swivelled and hit the door with his shoulder, triggering the safety alarm on the streetcar. Ring! CAW! Ring! CAW! Ring!

"Sir," said the streetcar driver, giving the man a look of authority in the mirror. The light turned green. "SIR!" The streetcar advanced through the light. As we began to roll, the bird-man jumped back off the railing and sat down, resumed looking out the window.
I got off at the next stop and never saw the man again.

Ignatius J. Reilly

2006-04-01T21:51:00.000-06:00

One cool morning in mid October, I stood, waiting for my streetcar to arrive at the disreputable Toronto corner of Jameson and King.

It was early morning, often the time when the most seemingly respectable characters in the neighbourhood are out doing their thing, generally on their way to or from somewhere. On this morning a large crowd had gathered in wait for the always infrequent King streetcar, and when it pulled up to Jameson and stopped with a clang, the crowd, chilly on a cool winter morning, melded itself into a bunch around the door and slowly squeezed in. As I stood in the middle of that bunch, waiting for my turn, I heard him.

"Parkdale used to be the Rooosedale of Toronto, you know. Then the rich people took it all away. They put up the highway and the rich people went away, you know."

This was a bit of Toronto lore I had just been reading about, having recently moved from picturesque Cowan Avenue to the lively, but disreputable Jameson. I was interested to hear what this orator had to say, so I turned as I got on the streetcar and saw a very large man, yes, in a hunting cap, a billowing cream-coloured down coat, with a perfectly trimmed beard, recently scrubbed rosy cheeks, and a pair of resin-rimmed far-sighted glasses. His little lips pinched together as he related the sad story of the downfall of one of Toronto's most liveable neighbourhoods, lost when the Gardiner turned Parkdale from a picturesque lakeside community to a place sandwiched between the freeway and the northbound train tracks. He said all this as he was getting on the streetcar.

Annoyance was clear on the face of many who received this man's message, so I was naturally interested to hear what else he might say. I settled into a seat just far enough back from him to hear what he was saying without putting myself at risk of being talked to directly.

However, rather than explain anything new, my new friend simply reiterated, in a less and less sensible fashion, the story of Parkdale's downfall.

Finally, after twenty minutes of his nonsensical diatribe (which I was nevertheless enjoying), one of the young women standing closeby told him what she thought of his opinions.

"Shut up. Shut UP! You don't know what you're talking about!" She railed on at him for a good minute, and while she spoke, his cheeks got redder, his lips pressed ever tighter together. A storm was brewing within. Then she finished. Her friend looked on.

"Noooo, YOU shut up," he said, firmly but calmly. "You don't know what YOU'RE talking about." Then he shut up.

The girl who had given him a piece of her mind stood on the steps of the streetcar, about to get off. Her friend, the witness, was standing with her back to the man, who was seated in the frontmost seats of the rear section. The friend's backpack dangled, swinging dangerously close to the man's face. I could see his cheeks reddening again, and he pursed his lips. Just as the girl was about to get off the streetcar, he spoke, again with perfect enunciation, just loud enough for her to hear.

"Yooooour backpack." He paused, then spat every word with the venom of true "Look at it. It's filthy. I hate it."

Then, not a word until I reached the bank.

Something about this strange, bloated man appealed to me. Perhaps it was his love of cleanliness, long words and perfect enunciation. Whatever it was, I relayed the story to friends and family over and over and it almost always ended in laughter. "Your backpack" became a popular refrain in conversation. As with all such stories, after a while I began to feel guilty about using his misfortune for humour. All the same, I desperately wanted to see him again, but hadn't. Usually you see eccentric characters in the same place, at the same time, but on no other morning on my way to work did I see this man again.

Three months later, I was shopping with my business partner in the natty No-Frills at the end of Jameson. I was rolling my two-wheeled cart along the produce as we discussed the disappearance this mystery man. She, along with several others, had the idea that this man was Ignatius J. Reilly from Confederacy of Dunces. I was almost ready to accept that he had been a morning hallucination caused by lack of sleep, when I turned the corner from avocados to the pickle shelves and lo, I wheeled my cart in front of a bilious, ambling man. I looked up from the heavy boots to the down coat and hunting cap, and there he was. I had nearly run over his feet and had stopped him mid-stride, and worse, I had done so while we were laughing about him. I was sorely concerned that the lips would purse, and the cheeks would redden, and I would be the victim of a sour diatribe.

Instead, he cocked his head to the side and said, "Hulloo," in a singsong voice, with that perfect enunciation, then pranced lightly around my cart.

I never saw him again.

Street Life in Toronto

2006-03-31T12:05:00.000-06:00

One of the unexpected things I loved once moving to Toronto is the street life here.

I think when I say "street life" you probably have the picture of happy, prosperous middle class young people, clad in respectable coats, doing things like kissing romantically under street lamps, drinking cappucinos or pints on sidewalk padios, and shopping. This is part of street life, but not all of it.

Street life in Toronto is made extra-spicy through the ample population of mental outpatients, recovering and relapsing drug addicts, and other various generally thought of as unsavoury characters who give new meaning to the tourist slogan Toronto Unlimited. These folks are part of the fabric of daily life here. Let me be clear that their lack of a place to live is a problem, and our society's seeming total lack of attention to finding places for these people to live, that's a problem too. That some of these people have no family, no stable group of friends: probably the biggest problem of all.

The fact that they're wandering the streets, sharing streetcars with the scarf-wearing romantic under-street-lamp kissers, latte-drinkers and shoppers, that is not a problem. Nothing could be more right. Toronto's utter randomness is what makes this city so vibrant. The fact that pedestrian life is so dominant here, helps many people who may have nowhere else to go feel a sense of belonging. It certainly gives them lots of people to talk to.

You have to keep your eyes open. There is always the potential for being spat upon, verbally abused, and though I haven't experienced it, physical violence. But if you stay emotionally open while you keep your eyes open, interactions with Toronto's street dwellers can be one of the most rewarding things about living here.

In honour of that, I'm going to write a series about some of my interactions with my favourite street people. Right after I finish my work.

Purging it a little further down the pipe

2006-03-29T22:30:00.000-06:00

Writing self-confessional crap in a public place like this is the best incentive to get me to write more often. The logic goes like this: if I write enough, the other stuff I wrote will become comparatively less noticable.

I've been on a site called myspace.com. It has blogs and pictures and music and filmmakers and lots of youngish trendoids who make me feel old and out of it and like I don't have as many friends as them. I am not old but I break 30 this year. Yeah me! At 24 I was on track to be dead by now. Instead I've turned into a stuffy, self-important entrepreneur.

After joining myspace, I randomly clicked around on there and subscribed to a few peoples blogs, which people there take much less seriously than the blogger crowd, and thankfully so. I had no idea it told you who had subscribed to your blog, so I had been checking in on Jaymie's blog regularly without ever saying hello, even though it's highly personal and I don't have any idea who she is. I mean, her profile photo caption is "You're hot but how do I know you're not a tranny?"

Today, on the prompting of Crazy Mel, who advised me of some myspace news, I logged in and in big red flashing letters the notification was flashing that I had new messages, and new blog subscription posts, so I read and responded to my messages then clicked through to the new blogs. "Who the hell reads this?" was her last one.

"Big ups to so and so and so and so and some guy named JARED," it said.

Well, big ups to YOU, JAYMIE for calling me out.

Purging the Negative

2006-03-28T00:28:00.000-06:00

I don't know why I committed to write in this thing once a week, but it's turned into more of a diary than anything, except that other people can read it, though fortunately for my tender ego, not many do... I read other peoples blogs and many people write about external stuff. Perhaps someday I will do that too, but right now that's not my habit. When I start editing the film again, I will write about the film, which is what this blog was supposed to be about.

For tonight, I have a need to purge some negative thoughts through a possibly misguided psychoanalysis of myself, and you, my dear reader, may absorb these negative thoughts and the therapy as well. I don't promise it will be organized or make any kind of rational sense, but I do promise it will be long winded and straight off the top of my tubular head.

I've noticed that in the company of specific people, I am sensitive to specific kinds of criticism. Despite the previous sentence having the word 'specific' in it twice, this is a general statement brought on by a specific situation which I am specifically avoiding discussing directly.

I also notice that what gets through to me varies based on who is critiquing. Person A could say "your pants look stupid" and it wouldn't bother me, but if Person B said the same thing, I might collapse in a paroxysm of shame and embarrassment. It wouldn't even have anything to do with how well Persons A and B dress or even how much I actually value their opinion. Instead, it would likely be to do with the fact that I had worn those pants specifically to impress Person B. At my worst, I might not even have liked the pants in the first place, and in this case my reaction would be anger and indignance layered over that shame and embarrassment.

I have a lot of armour. That armour is carefully disguised as other things. I use charm and a grandly projected, but moderate sense of humour, along with a very astute, and mostly subconscious grasp of what drives other people to like me. It's not so cool, but I am motivated greatly by being liked.

I love to be loved.

I have lots of other motivations that are more important, ultimately, but in my personal life, this is probably one of the biggest gears in the old clock. It's my Achilles heel. Pardon the comparison with Achilles, who I have little in common with besides the heel.

This incredible need for approval expresses itself as a strength because I am very good at winning people over, particularly if I am not trying too hard. It expresses itself as a weakness when I do try too hard, because I can and will make myself look like an ass, but more importantly, because somebody equally crafty can manipulate me via that desire for approval. Even if I'm aware of the manipulation, I will allow it to continue in exchange for continued approval. This is patently a character flaw because it means I disempower myself. If you think about that it will bend your mind a bit. I mean, you can't disempower yourself unless you were empowered to begin with.

There was an article in Adbusters at some point about "the awful distortions necessary to achieve fame" and how people who seek celebrity are expressing a kind of psychological disorder. That disorder has something in common with what I'm talking about. I don't know if I buy it, that fame-seekers are psychologically ill, but I can see how disorders, or disturbances in the life force of the individual, can make people act in ways that aren't right. And when you mix two or more people who have compatible disturbances in their life forces, you get crap like codependency, situations where victims return to abusers, or in large groups, things could happen where larger scale antisocial or criminal behaviour expresses itself in a cultural way.

I'm getting all ethereal because it's 1:40am, I haven't had a full nights sleep in days, and I've been thinking about the crazy happy culture at the candy factory.

Back to me. I am realizing gradually that this completely self-induced lack of sleep, and the perpetual state of being behind on this, that and the other; and that item as well; plus the thing I forgot about more than a year ago; also that list of things I promised to persons x, y and z, which I'm currently making excuses about: all this lateness and total irresponsibility, which is everywhere, and accompanied by a slavish work ethic, is at least in part, an expression of this insane desire for approval. By allowing this need to take over my persona, I keep myself from doing the things I say I want to do, I reduce my impact in the world, and I spend time writing self-referential crap like this instead of doing something to improve the world, which, in my heart, I really want to do. In the end, all this pandering always collapses on itself and I am forced to fall on my sword to save my honour. Well, fuck that!

Therefore, I hereby add to my series of commitments, the mother of all those other commitments I made way back when, that my number one priority is not being liked, or being approved of, but taking care of myself mentally and physically. I will do that by projecting myself honestly into the world, by cultivating and holding onto friendships with people who hold me to my commitments, by clearing issues with others, by telling the truth, and by giving of myself without expectation.

I'm not there today, but tomorrow is a new day.

Candy Factory

2006-03-26T13:32:00.000-06:00

This week, I shot a video in a candy factory.

Everyone in the factory seemed very happy. I had forgotten what it was like to work in a place like that.

Before the layoffs started, working at the bank was like that. My office was at the far end of the floor. I remember walking to the bathroom or to lunch, a smile on my face, past rows of happy cubicle-dwellers. Everyone seemed artificially chipper, except it wasn't artificial. It was cultural. Corporations must hire people that fit a certain psychological profile. Although it's not that systematic, I think, it means that when you enter a workplace, it has a vibe, like a club or a restaurant has a vibe. The vibe in the bank was industrious, busy, and happy-happy. The vibe in the candy factory was 'efficient, safe, funny, happy.'

One day, I came into work, and we had a staff meeting. The boss gave us the tip-off that very soon, a group of people would be let go, but that our positions were safe. I believe that lots of other people on the floor got the same tip-off, because that day, the vibe changed. It was never the same. People became cynical, self-serving, and backstabbing. Basically it turned into an ad agency. 28 people on our floor were let go that afternoon, and two weeks later, another 13 vanished. I left not long after.

But in the candy factory, layoffs have happened already, and there are more in the pipeline, everyone knows about it, and the morale there is still great. Everyone seems thankful to have a job. The people we interviewed were 10, 20, or 30 year veterans at the plant. Is the difference just that they make candy? Could it be the menthol fumes?

Observations, continued

2006-03-15T22:33:00.000-06:00

Also on the trip to Lloydminster, I observed the following:
Although the town is largely employed by a large oil upgrading facility, there is a latent concern voiced by many residents that the everpresent foul smell may be slowly killing them, and moreover that an explosion at the upgrader would level the town and kill everyone more or less instantly. Gallows humour like "at least we won't suffer," abounds. I draw no conclusion.

These observations are slowly slipping away. I hope I can recover more of them before they all vanish and I am again swallowed whole into Toronto life.

Self-Doubt Poem

2006-03-14T02:56:00.000-06:00

I've become a bore -

a self important whore
to what's important
in reality impotent

with a sterile glance
of needle off bone
a missed chance

vision makes trouble
it dulls other senses
hearing, touch, smell
and good taste.

A Day for Observations

2006-03-13T00:58:00.000-06:00

Today has been a day full of observations, mostly because unlike most days, I was forced to do nothing for 6 hours in the middle of the day. Normally I just kind of run myself into the ground and don't think much until I'm asleep, then I re-awaken, toss and turn and think about all the things I was too busy to properly consider during the day. It's not a healthy habit.

Anyway, today I have a video to edit and had set up this crazy deal where I can edit off an external hard drive while a passenger in a minivan. It's kind of a clever thing but kind of stupid too, and I did it half for the challenge and half because my mom moving across Alberta is coming at a really inconvenient time. The Terminal, my company, has to deliver 6 edits to our client on the 15th of this month. That's 3 days from now.

This trip, which is solely to help my mom move, has been a welcome break from all the business going on on Toronto right now. All the business is generally good business, but I feel exhausted by it all. This break is a working break: I have already edited a pair of interstitials which look way cool, wrote a script, grabbed music, all while helping my mother move and wishing my poor brother well as he heads to the farm, where they still connect via dial-up.

Fortunately my mother is very organized, and fortunately Shelley is editing the two most difficult videos right now, even as I type. However, I have a long one - 3 minutes - to get done for Wednesday, and I am not in very good shape to get it done.

I planned to edit during today's 7 hour drive using this makeshift contraption involving power inverters and homemade shock absorbing hard-drive mounts (leather gloves and thermal mittens). The contraption worked like a dream, but the Alberta sun is bright. Normally, the screen on the Powerbook seems bright. When the sun is shining on it from all angles, and that same sun is radiating through a beautiful blue sky, and that sun and the blue sky are both reflecting again in turn off the fresh, cold snow, that screen seems dim indeed through the untinted windows of my mom's Caravan.

So I squinted, threw on the sunglasses and scrubbed through four tapes - very quickly - and dug out 3 soundbites. Then a pain hit me. I can only compare it to what a ripe tomato would feel as it was being sliced with a dull knife, assuming that tomatos had feelings. You know that feeling of total muscle fatigue you get when you go skating (or do some other sport or physical activity) after a break of several years, enjoy it so much that you completely overdo it, then can't move? That feeling was inside my eyeballs. I couldn't focus on anything and the light was the dull knife scraping against my soft-tomato eyeballs. I grabbed a toque and pulled it over my eyes and kept it there for an hour.

So no editing while driving. That's a forced break. Time to observe.

For today's blog, just observation number 1.
At lunch today, we went to K's Donairs in Lloydminster. In the dining room of K's Donairs there is a fish tank. In that tank are 3 piranhas and about 9 tiny tropical fish. The tiny tropical fish hang out at the top of the tank and look scared. The owner of the restaurant tells us that the piranhas really will eat the little fish. Not long after this statement, we see the three piranhas turn in unison. Until now, they have been staring out the window on the left, watching people walk in and out of Tim Horton's. But now, their attention is fixed on the little fish. It's feeding time.

The piranhas don't even look like they are moving. They just kind of drift around, but it's clear they are in charge of where they go, because they just swivelled from facing Tim Hortons to facing the little fish in perfect synch. Now each piranha is clocking a different little fish. Their eyes are swivelling to track the little fish, but their bodies are perfectly still. Their mouths have drifted open and you can see their menacing little teeth above their cruel, fat lower lips.

The little fish know what's up. They get closer to the top of the tank and swim over behind the plants to the right. One that looks like an angel fish has obviously forgotten himself and he drifts more or less right over top of one piranha.

We are so enthralled that we've forgotten our egg salad sandwiches. Although it goes unspoken, we all want the same thing, for the piranhas to strike and eat one of those poor, hapless little fish. Will there be blood in the water and Jaws-style thrashing, or will that fat piranha suck back that little angelfish in one bite?

Neither.

The piranhas turn back around in unison, close their mouths, and go back to watching people walk in and out of Tim Horton's. No blood today. We go back to our sandwiches.

I can't see myself sitting in a popular pizza or donair shop in Little Italy, watching the restaurant owner's pets devour one another. That's one difference between Lloydminster and Toronto.

Am I wrong?

Dry Air

2006-03-09T01:18:00.000-06:00

I was in Toronto yesterday morning, Calgary this morning, and Lloydminster tonight. I'm feeling a bit stunned.

I was sitting in the sitting room yesterday fixing my grandparents' computer. This is nothing new - after all I've been fixing everyone in my family's computers since I was fourteen - when I had a thought, "I'm in Calgary." I was so shocked by it, I had to say it out loud.

"Yes," said Grandpa. "I drink my coffee and read the paper, then I turn around and realize I'm not in Lloydminster. Everything here's the same, but not." He seemed so sad.

See, my grandparents have lived in the small city of Lloydminster since my grandpa became Postmaster here well over forty years ago. Then last year my mom was laid off in her job as a band teacher and I laid on the pressure for her to get out of dodge. I don't think much of Lloydminster. It's full of semi-transient oil workers, a rough frontier town, a good place to turn over a quick buck in the oil business. People inclined to listen to music here have more appreciation for alcohol, cocaine, and one-night stands than jazz bands.

In spite of this being a crappy town, my family has made a good life here. When I said I wanted her to move, I didn't expect her to do anything about it, since she'd been talking about moving for years and had never done anything.

So her first reaction when I told her to move was to yell at me, which she never does. I had definitely hit a nerve. She even called back to yell again.
Six months later, her house flooded. She called me and announced that grandma and grandpa were selling their condo and she was going to sell the house, and then they were going to move in together in Calgary.

Now they have a beautiful new house with a view of the mountains, sixteen foot ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows. This is one posh little bungalow.

Grandma's overjoyed. Mom seems happy. But Grandpa is not impressed. He has always been the rock in this family, the steady earner, the man who can fix anything, a guy who at the age of 78 still could slip on the stairs, do a commando roll and land feet-first on the ground. I knew though, as soon as I saw him at the airport, that something was wrong.

I think it's about Jack. Grandpa's best friend Jack lives here in Lloydminster. They were neighbours for 30 years, and when I was a kid, staying at my grandparents place while Mom taught music lessons, I could see Jack stick his nose over the fence to chat with Grandpa, then return to gardening. They chatted on both sides of the fence. They mowed their lawns together, clipped the hedges together, they golfed together every weekend, and they wintered in Arizona - in adjoining trailers.

Three years ago, Jack and his wife promptly sold their house and bought a condo downtown. Grandpa and Grandma promptly sold their house and bought a condo a block away. Then Jack's wife died suddenly.

Jack's health got worse after she died. But Grandpa and his friendship survived. They went for coffee every day, walked together, played cards. Grandpa and Jack's friendship, I think, became something even more important to Jack after his wife died.

Now Grandpa's left him for Calgary.

The first thing Grandpa said to me when he picked me up from the airport was, "I never should have let these darn girls talk me into this."

"Why, what's wrong?" I asked.

All he could do was grumble, "ah, nothing, really."

Today, after fixing their computer, I looked up the instructions for wiring a thermostat on the internet for Grandpa, and as they printed he smiled, his old self, happy to have something around the house to fix.

He'll be OK, but what about Jack?

Commitment and the Senator

2006-03-03T10:48:00.000-06:00

I, so far,
am blogging today
am very well fed
haven't touched my taxes
made 50 calls this week
ate less cheese
told my family I loved them
drank plenty of water
exercised regularly, but not frequently
am forgiving, but have not forgiven
laugh every hour
and i don't know how to measure the progress of the world

I should add,
to pay off my debts
to foster abundance
to always put my own misfortunes in perspective
to spread joy
and to honour my commitments.

--------

Thursday I met with a Canadian Senator. When I found out this was going to happen, I was shaking in my boots. A business associate had set up the meeting, and when he said Senator I had really just assumed that he would take care of meeting with her and getting her on board for this documentary project. We are really asking a lot of her - we want her and her family to be in a documentary about their experience as refugees. It's a big commitment to open up your family to being on television.

So he's in Vancouver this week and on Tuesday he said "Can you meet with the Senator?"

By yesterday morning, I felt strangely calm about the whole thing. I went up to North York to meet her at a high school, walked into the cafeteria by accident (it smelled good), then made my way to the library. The school's students had organized an International Conference on Human rights. The gymnasium was packed with close to a thousand students from four surrounding high schools. The students were all there voluntarily. Although I'm sure some of them just went for the prospect of skipping two days of class and getting free muffins and coffee (I never got coffee in high school!), the crowd seemed very engaged. They were there to talk about how to make the world a better place.

Organized by the kids? I was astounded. Where does all this enthusiasm and energy go when you become an adult? Into your career, into your family? Do you just forget about what's on the news? Does it just become entertainment, a bother?

At 10:30, a small, unassuming 60ish woman, who I took to be the Senator's assistant, walked up to me and said, "Hi, I'm M---. Thanks for coming down."

I was taken aback. Wasn't she doing me a favour by sitting with me in her only break, after getting up at 5AM to drive 4 hours to Toronto from Ottawa, then speaking for 90 minutes straight?

We met for a full half-hour and she agreed right off the bat to be in the film. In fact, she made it clear that the meeting was just a formality. She was in as soon as she received the e-mail from my partner. I guess she just wanted to meet and make sure I'm not a scammer.

She's doing it because she wants to make the world a better place. That's why I'm doing it too. And that I want to make a film.

It's good to know that you can still want to make the world a better place when you're George Bush's age.

This is exciting news!

Back to logging and capturing, logging and capturing.

The Commitment Poem

2006-02-25T12:16:00.000-06:00

I hereby commit
to blog once a week
to shower daily
to eat 3 meals a day
to do my taxes
to make 50 calls a week
to eat less cheese
to tell my family i love them
to drink 8 glasses of water a day
to exercise regularly
to forgive
to laugh every hour
to make the world a better place

Passion vs. Discipline

2005-12-09T10:59:00.000-06:00

My business partner asked me, about a week ago, "how come you never update your blog?"

I didn't have an answer at the time, but I have realized since that it's that I completely lack discipline. This may not be a permanent or persistent problem, but I can definitely see that certain areas of my life reflect a weak and spotty record of attention:

my bedroom
taxes and other matters of filing
paying down financial debts
fitness
blogging

As a result, all of the above are blights on my life.

However, other things I practice with great passion, demonstrating fastidiousness and addiction:

2 coffees every day
spelling and speaking properly
watching documentaries, talking about documentaries, making documentaries
work

All these involve a spotty kind of discipline, where I pay lots of attention to them but lack balance because I am busy avoiding responsibility for related items in the first category.

Part of the deal with this is a belief that passion and discipline are polar opposites. As a result, I not only lack discipline, I actually despise the very idea of it.

Thinking passion and discipline are opposites is a faulty belief; I know this, because the things I care about, I have discipline in. That means passion and discipline can coexist. In fact, regularly not taking responsibility for things is a kind of discipline in itself.

JCI World Congress - Midweek Update

2005-10-26T23:34:00.000-05:00

An amazing event, again. This event is so valuable... 5,000 young entrepreneurs from around the world coming together to meet, learn and grow... yeah.

It's now 11pm local time and I have mostly recovered from jetlag through sheer force of getting up early every day because we have work to do. Jetlag has been replaced by a wash of utter physical fatigue and near total annoyance with my business partner, a pure soul who is equally annoyed with me.

We've managed to make it through the first three days without wanting to kill each other but things are now beginning to get tense. She is currently doing breathing exercises to get over her annoyance with me in preparation for sleep. I'm writing this to get over my annoyance with her. If and when she reads this she will no doubt comment that the breathing exercises have nothing, in fact, to do with me at all and that I am self-centred, which is likely correct. She is usually correct and always right, which is why I am always annoyed with her.

So far the shoot is going fairly well, with the exception of the rookie JCIte that we're supposed to be following. We recruited a Finnish 22-year old through a Greek staffer on Tuesday (yesterday) morning, but upon a closer questioning discovered that she was highly unwilling to be followed by us, and moreover that she would be skipping most of the important events of the congress. Strike one.

Later that day, on our own, we found Cashya, a charming lady from Abu Dhabi, who proved to be eloquent and willing to be featured, and whose friends find it endlessly amusing that we want to feature her in these promotions. I caught up with her and her friends last night at German Night, where they apparently had 4,000 guests (I have been to parties with 4000 guests and don't believe it; I think it was closer to 1,500, still a respectable number). Anyway, Cashya is leaving tomorrow. Strike 2.

Tomorrow, the debate competition, the best business plan competition, a keynote speaker, a zillion seminars, and the hunt for a valid first-timer continues...

En Route to Vienna

2005-10-23T11:33:00.000-05:00

October 23, 2005

It's 6:46AM in Vienna, and 11:45pm in Toronto, but I still feel like it's 9:45pm.

I am not sure what time it is, but one thing I'm sure of is that the bathroom, at least 15 seats ahead of me, smells bad enough that a recent trip in that direction was ill-advised. If I had been paying close enough attention, I would have known that from here. What nasty wurst must have caused such an atrocity?

The good news is that Shelley and I have managed to score an entire row to ourselves, thanks to an unusually gracious ticket agent. As soon as that seat-belt sign comes down Shelley will spread herself over three of these four seats and I will continue to occupy this seat and much of the available floor space.

Last night, we hosted a large party, the second such celebration this year. Norm's house was packed, people were well behaved. We have lots of leftover beer and sausage. This time we anticipated vast numbers of attendees and we got them, but not everyone I expected to come did. Joel Goldstein at Sing Your Heart Out provided a fantastic party tent

Their loss. We rocked Norm's house until 3:30am. As a host I felt for a while that I should stay till the end, but as the dancefloor was still literally bouncing and the bar remained in moderate use, I knew it was a matter of hours and not minutes before the last stragglers stumbled out. When I went back today to pick up the projector and our beer-splattered VCR, he graciously lied to me and said it was shut down by 4. I am still blown away that neither neighbours nor police came to express their displeasure at the revelry.

What madness awaits us in Vienna? We still have no idea what hotel we'll be staying in, nor do we know how we'll be making our way from the airport to the mystery hotel. For now, I'll just repeat the mantra... it's 7am, it's 7am... it's 7am...

Finished, more or less

2005-10-19T14:55:00.000-05:00

On the plane from Vancouver to Toronto, watching the fantastic four. they are not so fantastic but as airplane entertainment goes they are more or less par for the course. To make the situation even better, it sounds like victor von doom is messing with the audio feed on this plane.

Somebody just let rip with a truly rank fart as I was drinking my water. Travelling is great but flying is starting to suck. On the way here I had 2 executive class upgrade certificates, which don't say anything about having to upgrade from full fare only... but the lady behind the desk looked at me like I was a turd when I slapped them down on the table.

"Sorry sir," she said, not looking like she believed I was much of a sir at all, "you would have to pay full fare to upgrade."

"How much would that be?" I asked.

"Oh..." she tapped on the keyboard. "Full fare would be $1260 one way."

Right. So this guy next to me, he maybe paid four times what I did to sit there?

...there's that fart again...

Anyway, I feel good after only two hours of sleep this afternoon. The capture problem was as follows:
- journalling was turned on in the two new LaCie drives
- at two points, we had to do a hard restart on the edit suite because of some kind of hardware or software crash. Another time Jason was walking behind the suite and unplugged everything.

On one of these occasions, the journal on that drive was corrupted and it restored itself to the same state it was in Friday before I got here.

As soon as I get home, journalling will be turned OFF on all our drives. And Apple said that journalling just caused "performance issues." Total unrecoverable data corruption is a pretty big performance issue.

Anyway, I finished almost all the captures this morning at 10am, thanks to the good graces and the utter busy-ness of the folks at Image Pacific.

What the hell is up with the electronics infomercials on the plane? Come on, Dave Chalk. Stop pretending to be a journalist and just admit you're a cheerleader for those advertisers paying you to review their products. "Dance monkey, dance!"

$2600 or $600, you still have to breath fart. Where's my Gulfstream?

"Catastrophic Data Loss"

2005-10-18T07:47:00.000-05:00

That's what's described in the article where I figured out what happened.

And that's what happened. I was able to recover an interview and two abandoned captures along with a whole lot of garbage.

17 complete of 24. 2 hours of time in here to go.

25 minutes

2005-10-18T05:44:00.000-05:00

25 minutes remaining in the scan of the drive "Harvest." Will two days of work return to us? Or will I have to change my flight?

I guess that completely destroying my sleep schedule isn't the worst thing in the world, considering I'll be in Europe, 8 hours ahead, in just 4 days.

Just watching tape 14, the interview and tour with Vern, the land manager from Kawacatoose. All of this stuff looks great... the man is driving with one hand... then no hands... meanwhile we are blasting down a tiny little gravel road.

"This is going to blow your mind," he says. "A sasquatch living in an abandoned UFO."

On the big TV above the edit suite, a doc on P-Funk. I don't think I have the funk. There's a bit of the funk in me, but I don't have the funk. Maybe I'm Mr. Nose.

15 minutes left in the scan... 30 minutes left on Tape 14. 400 gigabytes of drive space left. 10 more tapes to capture. 4 hours 'till the workers arrive here at Image Pacific. Hopefully the folks editing H&V will decide to sleep in tomorrow.

Fall

2005-10-18T02:53:00.000-05:00

I am apple cider. Tonight, I am cold. 8 tapes and counting.

You Are Apple Cider

Smooth and comforting. But downright nasty when cold.

What Part of Fall Are You?

General Error

2005-10-18T02:30:00.000-05:00

General Error

It's just before midnight and I'm draining a big ol' coffee. It's now the fourth night in a row that I'm guzzling caffeine to stay awake, but this time it's different. I'm redoing work that I've done already.

I have a knack with technology. Everywhere I've worked I become the go-to-guy when it comes to troubleshooting computers, fixing broken locks, and making things work.

Is that why technology fails me so often? Because I make it work too hard?

Today, we reconnected the drives which we've spent the last 3 days painstakingly capturing our film onto, sixteen hours or more a day.

When I reconnected the drives and fired up the project file for "Late Harvest," the last drive we had been capturing to checked out OK. All the media was there. Then, I looked at the first drive's directory listing. Something seemed not-quite-right.

Last night, the last thing we did before leaving was connect both drives and painstakingly check every single file to make sure the tapes were all there, properly captured, that the audio was OK. It all checked out. We knocked down - carefully - and headed home, jubilant, excited about how beautiful everything looked, about how well the story was coming together.

So I just didn't believe it when I opened that drive and nothing showed. Actually, what showed was even worse than nothing. What showed was the backup of our iTunes music library, and that's IT. What good does THAT do me???

I've never seen anything like this before. We looked at it with Norton, with Diskwarrior, and now with Data Rescue II. None of them show anything useful. It's as if those 24 files were never even there. Norton was the only one that found anything - about 1400 numbered text files that it said were 1.5Gb each... meaning the drive would be 1.5Gb x 1400. Ridiculous. I continue trying to recover the data.

Tape 7 and counting. It's 12:30am. Another 13 to go.

Oh well. At least I get to watch CSI and drink coffee all night.

A challenge: 100 things about me

2005-10-06T14:51:00.000-05:00

1. This list came about because my roommate and business partner challenged me. She said, "When are you going to write something personal in your blog? When are you going to write one-hundred things about me?" "Is that a challenge?" I asked. "Yes," she replied.
2. I wouldn't have done this otherwise, but I was hoping someone would challenge me.
3. I am intensely competitive and tend not to back down from a challenge.
4. I am outwardly patient, but inwardly easily annoyed, which can lead to passive aggression.
5. I was born out of wedlock.
6. That means I'm a bastard.
6b. Actually, that's not because I was born out of wedlock (thanks, Shelley).
7. I often feel like I have to get away from people on the street when they're discussing trivial things.
8. Today as I was walking home from the streetcar, I overheard a man say to his female companion, "I can totally see Joanna falling madly in love with that lamp." I sped up so I didn't have to hear the rest of their conversation.
9. Sometimes I think about how batteries say on them "Dispose of properly," but there are no instructions about how to do so. I try not to throw batteries in the garbage.
10. Yesterday on the bus I told three year old to listen to his dad. The child was spitting orange spittle on the window of the bus, screaming and laughing. The kid didn't listen to me. He kept spitting and screaming.
11. I know more people than almost anyone else I know, which is strange, because I went to school in a town of 390 and grew up on a remote, secluded farm. Maybe I'm compensating for something.
12. My feet are between size 9 and a half and eleven.
13. When I started university, I wore "Large" t-shirts. Now I wear Small or Medium, even though I'm no smaller.
14. I'm losing my hair so I have to keep it short to avoid looking like a criminal element.
15. In some circles, I would be considered a criminal element.
16. I have been arrested, then spent 12 hours in jail, attended four preliminary hearings and had the case thrown out. My freedom cost $18,000; I am still paying this off. It was worth it.
17. I am lucky to have a few people in my life who care about me, whether I deserve it or not.
18. As I child, I often thought of how lucky I was to be born in Canada, to parents who were not wealthy, but who always loved me and were able to feed me.
19. I think we can rid the world of starvation, but I don't know how.
20. I used to have a radio show on cjsw fm called "the bachelor suite." It was between 2 and 5am on Fridays and Saturdays; I sometimes fell asleep on air. It was all about getting access to their massive music library.
21. My school never had more than 400 students, including kindergarten through high school.
22. On my last trip home, Dad and I counted how many families lived on the land he and his brothers now farm. There were between 15 and 20 homesteads on their farm.
23. I wish my brother and mother would move away from Lloydminster, even though it would break my dad's heart.
24. I am selfish.
25. I think of myself as an artist, but I am probably too obsessed with avoiding poverty to ever be a true creative genius.
26. When I got arrested, I thought it was about putting an end to substance abuse. Actually, I think it was about putting an end to treating women like candy.
27. I am absent-minded. I leave things everywhere. I leave keys in the door, cabinet doors open, apple cores in the shower, and my fly open. I used to sometimes forget to hit record when I was operating the video camera. In university I sometimes left the house after only shaving one side of my face.
28. I don't believe in God.
29. I do believe that there are forces at play in the universe beyond what science can explain.

30. In grade 11, all I wanted was to get a fat belly like the other guys in my class.
31. By university, I was over that idea.
32. I had a crush on the same girl for four years in high school. I never told her. I don't regret it.
33. In my first year of university, another girl I went to high school with tried to seduce me for several months. I was too dense and inexperienced to believe what was happening could be true. She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever known.
34. I am terrible at remembering names but I always remember faces.
35. I left home to go to University at 17.
36. I just learned that you can pay for a lot of favours with cigarettes, meals and beer.
37. I don't know anything about real poverty.
38. On my mother's side, my grandfather's family used to squat in houses in Moose Jaw in the great depression. He and his siblings would sit watch on the front step and when the authorities came, they'd whistle and the whole family would flee out the back porch.
39. On my father's side, my grandfather's family traded their first house for a homestead 25 miles from town. When they got there, they had no running water, no electricity, and lived in a house made of two old granaries pushed together.
40. At the age of four, I was electrocuted after sticking several twist-ties into the holes of an electrical plug.
41. As a toddler, I used to say that the bathtub was 'insurating.'
42. The day I learned to crawl, I crawled all the way up 10 stairs then cried when I got to the top, because I didn't know how to get down.
43. I met my girlfriend on the streetcar. We spoke for over a year before I asked her out.
44. She is a very kind soul but she likes to argue even more than I do. I love this about her.
45. I absorb the accents of people around me, including Alison's faint British accent. I know this is annoying.
46. My grandmother has researched the geneology of our family back to the 1400s.
47. I never used to care much about chocolate, but then I moved in with Shelley. For almost a year, we had chocolate every night.
48. My father told me recently that he "was once a socialist, but now he's become quite a capitalist. I enjoy the spoils."
49. I took piano lessons for two and a half years, then quit because I hated the fact that my mom, who taught me, knew exactly how much I hadn't practiced. This - a lack of practicing, homework, studying - became the template for much of my artistic life.
50. I learned to be OK with old people when my parents joined the Rock & Gem club. The Rock & Gem club's membership consisted of 30 old people, my parents and I. They used to go on 'caravans' where a big group of cars travelled together from gravel pit to gravel pit looking for gemstones and fossils.
51. I rarely vomit.
52. The first time I remember throwing up, I mistook the sensation for hunger. I reacted by eating several mandarin oranges. When we arrived at my grandparents house, I knew I had miscalculated. The results were dire, particularly for my mother, who had to clean up.
53. When my parents built their first house, a black bear and three cubs were sighted in the trees behind the house. Excited, my parents called my uncles and several friends over to see. Despite my parents' objections, the neighbours shot all four bears.
54. I have relatives who have tried to murder other relatives.
55. Cheese is one of my favourite things.
56. The last business card I received is from a guy named Sal Pacifico in London, Ontario.
57. I haven't received a paycheque since August, 2003.
58. I have dressed as a woman five times that I can remember. My thick five-o'clock shadow and heavy eyebrows make it a tough sell, but I am otherwise not a bad looking lady.
59. Last year I took a course called "Wisdom."
60. Before I took that course I thought I was a good person. During it I realized I didn't even do something giving every day.
61. I know my biological father's name and address. I have even been in his office, seen advertising for him on television and heard him on the radio, but have never spoken with him.
62. I think the planet is a kind of macro-organism.
63. I am a Scorpio.
64. I prefer black sport socks.
65. I go to movies by myself more often than with my girlfriend.
66. I am not a very good driver but have never been driving in an accident that would be legally considered to be my fault.
67. I grew an inch at the age of 22.
68. I love potatoes.
69. I have never eaten a steak as good as the ones I eat on the farm, but I've had better roast beef.
70. I have never eaten vegetables as good as the ones grown in my parents' garden.
71. My favourite colour is blue.
72. I generally follow UK spelling and grammar.
73. I grew up in a house heated by a wood stove.
74. I was born with six fingers on each hand.
75. I have exceptional friends.
76. I had a story published at the age of 15, and another two published at 18 and 21. I had two poems published, too. Since then I only write technical stuff, grants, this blog, and articles for the condo newsletter and a community newspaper called "The Bulletin"
77. I like to live amongst trees, but the closest visible tree to where I live now is a city bl0ck away.
78. I chastise people on the subway for not standing to the side.
79. When I was in elementary school, I used to explode into fits of uncontrollable anger, usually because people were calling me Jarhead or pushing me around. That stopped in Grade 7 after I beat up a kid named Tim Noble. He had tried to beat me up but I whalloped him instead. It surprised me. Then he got in trouble with the teacher.
80. I was and always will be a teachers pet.
81. I am a terrible employee.
82. I try to watch a documentary almost every day.
83. I try to write almost every day.
84. I never have time to do all the things I try to do.
85. I am a compulsive liar.
86. My favourite nightspot to hang at in Calgary is Ming.
87. I have never had a cavity.
88. I have tried and failed to be a vegetarian.
89. I went to Seattle on the bus when I was three.
90. My youngest memory is leaving the hospital after getting my sixth fingers cut off; I was six months old.
91. My grandfather was a postmaster.
92. I receive 30-100 legitimate e-mails a day and twice that in spam.
93. I want to live in a home with lots of glass at the edge of a lake, with lots of trees around me. I think it will be hard to find that
94. My IQ has gone down 31 points since I was 22. I can only assume this is due to drug use in my early 20s. Don't worry, I'm still smart.
95. What did I just say?
96. I like the hot, muggy weather of Toronto in the summer.
97. I have been to most of the Canadian provinces, except PEI and Newfoundland.
98. I haven't been to any of the territories.
99. I am working hard to get to Europe for the first time this October.
100. It took me almost a week to think of a hundred things about me, but I'm done.

A Letter from Grandma

2005-09-29T15:46:00.000-05:00

I was really pleased to receive your e-mail. It sounds as if you had a good time, when visiting Sask. You would get to know our family too, which is good. Now I exoect that you have to edit the film. I'm sure that it will turn out well. I was sorry that we missed you. We were out gadding around., and just missed your call. Grandpa has gone out golfing this afternoon. he
bought ten tickets to golf, but the weather has been so miserable that he has had trouble getting a good day to go. We went over to your Mom's to see the basement. the workers have put on the insulation and the vapor barrier on the basement.Next tuesday they are going to put up the wallboard, so things are moving along. It has been a lot of work for your Mom, so she will be glad when it is all done. We are going toCalgary for thanksgiving. It will be a short trip, but we will see the other family members. I talked toElaine last night, and she said that her Dad wasn't felling too good. he is getting old,but he was going down to play for a dance anyway. Camp keep a good man down !!. Elaine took him to the Dr. and they did some blood
tests.So we will see what the trouble is. Old Age I expect.. Elaine sent me the pictures of the farm, and the sunset. it is hard to beleive that there was a house and barn there, when I grew up. Rather sad . also trees, gardens, chicken coops, pond, machine shed and lovely flower gardens. It will be great to have you home for christmas . Dawn and Greg are going on a
cruise in Jamuary. they are going with a group of ballroom dancers down to the Mexican riveira. so that will be fun for them. did you know that tyler is takinf a computer technitions course at Sait. One of his friends Dad said that he would hire him if he took the course. so he goes at night, three times a week until Christmas. He has to write an exam, and then he can work.
This father has a computer business. Matt is in Grade Eleven. Dave and Leann are going to Italy for a trip, so we are going to Calgary to stay with Matt. Leann is having a birthday in Oct., so this is a holiday for them. We haven't decided if we are going to Arizona in Feb. We still haven't got a place to live. We have a person to phone this week.. Your Mom is working
hard at the college to see if she can make enough money to live on. They have asked her to direct the community Band, so if she can gather up enough players that would be nice. Let us know if and when you are going to Veinna. that would be a great trip.I guess it is a beautiful city. Lots of history there, must close, Love yuh, Grandmom.

Bush Parties and My Stupid Cousin R--s

2005-08-19T12:50:00.000-05:00

In Grade 6, via an uncle's second marriage, I received two new cousins on the farm. It was a blessing, as I had previously been the only person my age for many miles, and certainly the only one without religion for many more.

Parents would think that the brothers were bad influences, but at the time, that was just what I needed. R----l and C----s, only a year apart from each other, one younger than me and one older, constantly abused each other and were fairly inseparable. They counted moving to the farm as a big blessing, which was a surprise to me. At the age of 11 I already felt that living so far from a town was a massive injustice no child should have to bear.

The farm was a big playground to them. They brought two ATVs (more on those in a later post) and contrary to previous assertions that I didn't know any first nations people, they were 1/8 Metis (which they only shared with me) and thus able to sport an enviable tan.

R--- and I became friends and enemies; we competed in school for popularity and grades. The brothers taught me how to take a ribbing.

C & R were born to party. In Grade 11 we laid enough pressure on the four brothers who ran the farm that they let us throw a party in the gravel pit on our land. By that age we had figured out that while parents always wanted to chaperone a party, chaperoning most often involved checking in once in a while to make sure things weren't totally out of hand. Meanwhile, the parents had their own little party in the house. The gravel pit was a mile from the nearest house, so we could count on the parents not checking in too often, which made for the best parties.

A massive bonfire was supplied; we took the fencing machine and drove two large posts into the ground and suspended a canopy made of silage bags between a stack of gravel and the posts. Enough room for thirty people sitting.

In small towns when you have a party, everyone knows about it and a big deal is made out of who is invited and who isn't. R---l was socially conscious and thus very choosy about his invitations, C---s was not and invited everyone. So, of course, we ended up with more of C---s friends than R---l's at the party. That night, forty or more came to the party and much was drank. A girl from Grade 10 had a panic attack, started screaming and yelling... she nearly kicked out the windows of S---t's car.

Near the end of the party, M--- V---, a tiny guy and a well-established asshole, began dragging flaming logs to the top of a gravel pile and throwing them down toward the crowd. Sparks sailed through the air and R---l, as the host, took offense.

R--- was much too drunk to responsibly act on the problem. He started yelling at M--- and ran, swooning, up the gravel pile. It is much faster to slide down a pile of rocks than run up it, so M--- just dropped to his behind and, amidst a landslide of small stones, slipped down the pile. So when R--- got to the top, the crowd of flaming log throwers were already at the base of the pile. A few of us were atop the mountain of stones with R---.

It was a great vantage point. We could see rows of tractors and other implements lined up a mile away, the lights of the main farmyard shining, the creek reflecting the moon on its meandering path to the North Saskatchewan river, the distant highway with its idle flow of cars between Lloydminster and Onion Lake. It was far enough from the fire that the air was clear, cool, and already heavy with dew.

Distracted, we hadn't yet noticed R--s, arms and neck tense, with a large round sandstone in his hand. He and M--- screamed. R--- threatened to throw a rock at M---. M--- dared him to do it. So R--- heaved that big sandstone with everything he had.

M--- held his ground. He stood directly North of the pile of stones. The stone arced up into the air, lost in the moonlight. The party fell silent. The crackle of the fire was the only sound. Then CRACK. It landed, like a laser-guided bomb, directly on the peak of the hood of R---'s own car, at least 20 metres from the actual target. Lobbed from forty feet in the air, the stone had enough force to invert the curve of the hood and pop the latch open. Another moment passed in silence. Then laughter. M--- laughed. He cackled. He rolled in the gravel. Then he gathered up his entourage and left.

R--- had to buy a new hood for his car. That night seemed to be the start of a long downhill slide for him that lasted years. He drank more and more. Accidents and bad luck clung to him like flies cover a cow-pie. When I went away to University, I started to tell stories about him. Stupid Cousin R--- became a genre of story.

Later, we reconciled and today, he's responsible, doing well for himself, a single dad.

White Guy

2005-08-18T17:23:00.000-05:00

I grew up on a farm 50 north of Lloydminster, nestled in a fertile crook in the North Saskatchewan River. My family's farm is big now, one of the few left in the area, and those farms left are either defunct or still growing. Less than 10km north across that same river sits the Onion Lake First Nation, a place I only visited twice in the 17 farm-bound years of my youth. I never had a single friend from Onion Lake, except for the blessed feeds of HBO and ESPN they rebroadcast from the Reserve.

First was Muffy, a girl in my kindergarten class. She was different from the rest of us. Like most prairie towns, my class of 25 was full of white people, mostly anglo-saxons and one Iranian refugee, and Muffy. In grade six we were joined by a girl from Hong Kong. Anyway, with Muffy, I knew she was different but didn't understand why her skin was a different colour. I didn't connect her features with the Reserve, and the Reserve's existence was all I knew about the First Nations. I was not a very sociable kid and never got to know her, but I recognized her as a fellow outcast. I avoided her for fear that I would be further alienated from the class by her friendship. By Grade 2 she was gone. She had moved away and I remember regretting not getting to know that girl who looked different from us.

Next was the C---l family, A-----a and D-----e and their youngest brother, Darren. In that way that rural places work, through overheard adult conversations and school-bus rumours, I had gleaned a vague understanding of their family tree. Their family was a mix of Cree and Metis and white people. Remarriage meant that the first generation of kids from their mom was Metis, and the second group of kids was full-blood Cree. Despite the fact that the whole family spoke three languages, Cree, English and French, they had a bad reputation in the school and D----e dropped out. My mom was good friends with one of the oldest kids, K--y, whose second marriage was to one of the C--lls. She was probably the most intelligent person I knew as a kid. Later I babysat for them and borrowed books from her massive attic library.

In school there was this weird relationship with the people who everyone called Indians. At the time the First Nations kids even called themselves Indian. We had to differentiate them from people from India by saying "you mean from India?" I would guess that one guy in my class was either partially black or Metis, but neither he nor his family ever owned up to it; instead he was one of most vicious racists in the class. First Nations were made fun of in the same way that the kids made fun of Tracy, the girl from Hong Kong. Racial names were attached, they were accused of being stupid. Adults branded them as being bad kids, to be avoided, though Darren was better behaved and smarter than most people in my class, and by my graduation he was one of the more popular kids in school. He dropped out that year, in Grade 11. I was school bus friends with Darren but it didn't run very deep. It's not like we talked about our feelings or how he really felt when someone called him an Indian or a Nigger. I always felt a weird sense of guilt about what he had to experience but, then, I never did anything about it, either.

He was the end of it until I left and went to University. I had a good Cree friend there - just one - who sat on the Students' Union. He was Cree, too, and he had great stories about transforming his life by getting in touch with the elders at the Native Centre. It ran a little deeper, because we drank together and worked together. Then I left University and met a Metis guy in Toronto.

I don't know how important the final count is. The point is that as a white guy, I feel a profound sense of alienation from First Nations people. So today, when I had a long call with Calvin from the Youth Centre at Onion Lake, I kept blustering on the phone about why I wanted the First Nations and Onion Lake to be a part of this film. I know this is part of the story: I need to reconcile the prejudice that informed so much of life on the farm. If I am to integrate this experience into myself, I have to face up to it. There was an unexplainable gap between the Aboriginal history we learned about in school (all two weeks of it) and the Indians we knew (all three of them).

Can I do that by spending a few days interviewing people on the reserve?

2005-08-18T09:56:00.000-05:00

It's official.

Thanks to the faith of some good people at SCN and Image Pacific, we are headed to Saskatchewan in less than two weeks to finally start shooting. This will be a reunion of sorts with my Director of Photography, Jason Wessel, also a displaced prairie boy. We're heading into the good ol' heart of darkness, that place in Saskatchewan where almost everybody leaves... the farm.

Something like three quarters of all young people leave rural areas and only a few of them go back. It's been happening since the Great Depression. "There's nothing to do," we say. But something in me started twitching four years ago when I moved to Toronto.

A recurring dream: standing, alone, in a field full of barley, the green heads swaying in the wind. The smell of fresh air, of vast fields of green releasing oxygen into the air...

Toronto is such an indulgent place. Great food, the perpetual rush of pedestrians and streetcars, incredible wealth all around, the convenience of knowing I can order a sandwich or 1000 full colour business cards at 4am. No matter how much you have or don't have, there is always room above you. It's easy to take for granted.

When that dream started calling me, I started to believe I was missing out on something really important. I felt that old people had the answers. The things old people remember first-hand are being forgotten. I felt especially guilty of disregarding them.

Only 75 years ago, people were on the brink of famine in this country, and yet we seem to have so little regard for others in the same predicament today. It would be so easy to slip into another Great Depression. The scale of that trajedy, looming majestic in the minds of these ninety year olds, is nothing compared to what's being experienced in Africa. Should that happen here, would we have the wisdom, skills, and resources to stand on our own? Only the old people could tell me.

So I quit my job and flew west, talked to my grandparents and my 90 year old Uncle Vernon, to my 89-year-old neighbour Tom Campbell, and to talk to other elders in the First Nations. We're also talking to young people like me, except that these people have stayed and built something at home. The people of the Canadian Prairies hold a secret, and I want it.

Over the last two years I've realized that as much as anything, this is an internal journey for me. I want to know why I had to leave the farm, why the place that calls to me so strongly just isn't my home.

Jason said to me once that the story of Saskatchewan is the story of all Canada. This year, we're going back in search of that story.

2005-08-04T14:01:00.000-05:00

LATE HARVEST enters preproduction on August 15, 2005.