Labour Days

So, we have recently lost a few people at my work. On the way home from one of the going away parties I was listening to the Aesop Rock album Labour Days (he spells it incorrectly because he is american) and it got me to thinking how management in canada treats us lowly workers.

So, before you start crying about the fact that I haven't worked or whatever let me diabuse you of that notion.

I worked retail - for over 2 years I slung shoes for bata. They tried to call it athletes world and sell sport shoes, but at the end of the day it was me doing my best Al Bundy impression of trying to squeeze women into shoes that didn't fit them.

I built hockey arenas all over america. Talk about a pain in the ass...I worked with rednecks and had to share rooms with them.

I drive a truck. Not a moving van, an 18-wheeler, all over north america. Ya, exactly.

I bartended.

I worked in IT.

I work in advertising.

So, ya, I get labour. Listening to the album tonight reminded me how much management takes advantage of labour. Really if you think about it, without labour, management is just nothing. No productivity, no end result. So how is it that management gets away with treating workers poorly?

Oops, call Senator McCarthy, I don' t think I'm allowed to talk about this in public.

Unions, Socialism and the mystifying Stigma

I was at my brother's house this weekend helping him put up a deck. Not the best way to spend a long weekend but I really didn't have anything better to do...I understand that my life is boring so back off. Anyway, we (my father, brother, uncle and a friend of my brother's) worked from about 1pm to about 6pm, mixing concrete, drilling holes, shovelling dirt and generally having a pretty decent time as far as hard labour goes. When we finished the day's work my sister in law had prepared a meal for us as a "thank-you". She made some excellent pulled pork, which I believe was the first time she had ever made it which made it all the more impressive, and some delicious salads. My brother John threw some burgers on the bbq and cracked me a steam whistle - very nice of him to buy my favorite beer since I know he hates it.

We sat eating and drinking and we got around to discussing the garbage strike in Toronto. As an aside you should know that me and my brother constantly argue about the value of unions. So while my brother and the rest start expounding on how the unions are so greedy and how they should be forced back to work or be fired I came to the union's defence, as I often do. As soon as I started my brother says he doesn't want to talk about it because he is bored with the argument that we always have. His friend and girlfriend then pipe up with "unions make people lazy". Now I have heard this before and it shocks me how little people are willing to apply a little bit of logical analysis to the statement. If unions make people lazy then all people in unions must be lazy. Which is false. If they have met lazy union workers and make the leap that all union members are lazy well that is like meeting Hitler and saying all white people are genocidal maniacs.

But, having heard this statement before (always from Laurier grads, one of whom told me that her business prof taught her that - don't even get me started on that) I switch the question to socialism in general. Is socialism bad? I ask. To which they all reply if I like that I may as well be a communist (to which I chuckled) and I asked them what was wrong with that.

The answer rang down like it always does "Communism (and by extention socialism) is a good idea in theory." This is the most inane statement anyone can ever make and yet it continues to be used. Because past communist countries have "failed" then communism doesn't work. Well tell that to the Chinese who own America, or tell it to the Socialist Scandinavians how have the lowest infant mortality rates in the world, or tell it to the Cubans who have more doctors per capita than any "successful" "capitalist" country.

Anyway, just makes me wonder where (besides from imbecillic Laurier profs) people get their irrational fear of socialism. And why is that the people with the most strongly held beliefs against it are so often practicing christians? Could it be that these people are just susceptible to being brainwashed in their early childhood? I remember being told how evil Russia was and how Jesus would protect me; I also remember being told how generous Santa Claus was but I disabused myself of all those notions as I got older.

The Disappearing Male

I just watched a documentary called The Disappearing Male, really a fascinating look at chemicals that we use in everyday life that are harming the male population of the world, and possibly causing the male birthrate to plummet. Now, ladies, before you start celebrating think of the man you are currently with, no think that he would be with a way hotter girl if there were less men...seriously. Anyway, so while watching this doc I got to thinking...why do these chemicals harm us so much?

Well, most of the chemicals they referred to came from petroleum. What is petroleum? Oil. Ok, smartass, what is oil? Oil is basically dead plants and animals that have been rotting in the ground for eons and have turned into a liquid compound.

As we all know humans (and most animals that aren't carnivores) have an aversion to dead bodies. When we think of them we recoil...we don't want to touch a dead body, we don't want to look at dead bodies and we certainly don't want to rub themselves up against a dead body. However, we don't mind using oil every day nonstop.

So, we take these dead animals and plants and burn them to run our car, use them for lube when we fuck or jerk off and we rub it on us to make ourselves more beautiful. And all this affinity for oil is killing off our species. We should have trusted our old instincts and steered clear of all these dead things and focused on live things; fresh vegetables and fruits should have been the source of our technology but our focus on death may indeed end up causing our extinction. Ironic.

Haruki Murakami

When I was living in Japan there was I guy I hung out with.  He was from Melbourne and claimed to not be gay.  I didn't believe him.  But he recommended Haruki Murakami to me, the book was Norweigan Wood.  It changed my life.  You should read his books.

Recent News - ramblings

Ruby Dhalla - some hot MP apparently mistreated her nannies. So, I didn't know who this woman was before this story, even though she was named the 3rd hottest female politician on the planet by Maxim magazine. After following the story for a bit it seems amazing to me that just because someone has been accused of something - and they are a politician - they are automatically assumed to be guilty by the public. That's like someone coming out and saying I kidnapped them for 3 weeks last year and everyone believing it - absurd. I have no loe for politicians, no matter how hot, but I think this story stinks - and I hope they investigate and find out who stands to gain from this woman's crucifixion.

Swine Flu - why do all the most delicious animals have to be so suseptable to the flu? I mean first I couldn't eat chicken and now pork? I will gladly risk swine flu or any other over hyped virus or killer bacteria for a delicious chicken parmsian wrapped in bacon. End of story.

The Recession - did the economy just get better over night? Job rates are up and the TSX is above 10,000 again. Wow, who knew that all that needed to be done was for people to be distracted by a fake pandemic and the recession would go away. Makes me wonder, if we get distracted enough do you think the USA will get out of the middle east? I guess that's asking too much.

New Star Trek Movie - finally a news story I can get behind. Can't wait to see it and it will make my life better.

That's it for news.

Quarter Life Crises and Other Observations

My younger brother is an interesting fellow.  He is the youngest of 5 children brought up by catholic parents.  Born in 1984 (foreboding possibly), he did most of his actual growing up in the nineties, as did I really...but this post isn't about me.  He was very interested in music.  His first love were Foo Fighters, who are I believe a really good rock band, not great, but really good.  From that he started listening to Nirvana (a little old for him but he was a smart kid and I think he got it mostly).  He learned to play guitar, and does so quite well.  He had friends and wasn't really interested in school despite his obvious intelligence.  

Upon finishing high school he was not really sure what he wanted to do.  I'm embarrassed to admit that at this point in his life I was so wrapped up in my own life that I don't really remember what he did.  I know he ended up trying to go to college but couldn't get motivated to excel there.  He took jobs as a mechanic, a job which I'm told he is great at, but never loved it.  He always said that he couldn't stand hanging with the people that that industry attracted - which I think is fair.  He seemed to be a bit adrift for a couple of years; working jobs but only to pay his bills.

Then he decided to move to Afghanistan and work for the military as a mechanic.  This decision was hard for my family to accept.  Both me and one of my sisters moved overseas for a time after university, probably for different reasons, but maybe both partly because we didn't know what we were going to do with our lives.  My family was supportive of our decisions but because my brother was moving into a war zone they felt a little less than thrilled, no doubt worried about him.  I gained no sympathy from my family when I endorsed his move to the middle east.   My family tried to get me to dissuade him from going, which I politely declined to do.  I figured a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.  So leaving his mother father and four siblings in Canada he was off for an adventure.

I have always thought is important for young men to have adventures.  Think of all the most interesting people you know.  The reason these people are interesting is because of the stories they have....exotic locations, strange people they have encountered and harrowing accounts of dangerous situations they have found themselves in.  I have a great uncle who would constantly tell us of his years spent in the north working for the Canadian government - run ins with bears and other dangerous animals.  Having adventures when men are young is what allows them to settle down when they are older.  This may be true for women too, but I know it's true for men.

After completing his contract in Afghanistan my brother returned safe and sound much to our collective relief.  He took a job in Calgary and seemed to be finding his way.  

About a week ago he called me and told me he was going back.  He said he didn't know what he wanted to do, and was just spinning his tires so he might as well go back and make a bunch of money while he was figuring things out.  He leaves in about a week.  Now, I know he will be fine, statistically he is probably safer there than living in some of the sketchier neighborhoods in Toronto.  So I'm not worried.  It did, however, remind me of how restless I was when I was his age, and how much I bummed around bartending and traveling and really just looking for a path.  The irony of my search was that I discovered that I don't think anyone really knows what they want to do and end up just settling for something to pass the time......hope his works out a little better.

Harmonized Tax

Wow, who would have thought that this would be the time that a tax increase would be announced.  I am not an economist, by any means, I think, like most people I get what economics is and have a basic understanding of how economics works.  

It seems to me that if the economy is hurting, the mean thing that would help it is for people to spend money.  How would you go about motivating people to spend money??  Well, you could give them more money or make their money worth more.  Now, everyone knows that you can't just print money (everyone except Ben Bernanke it seems), so in order to stimulate the economy what should be done is making people's money stretch further.

Ontario's solution: Raise taxes!!!! Brilliant, man no wonder our economy is falling apart.

Legal Recap - Beheading, legal.

Last summer the beheading of a young man on a greyhound bus chilled the nation. Something is innately terrifying about decapitation, extremsits in developing nations have capitalized on this grisly method of execution to motivate richer nations to leave their country, and in many cases, despite the rhetoric, it has scared the countries into compliance. Last summer when Vince Li killed a carney travelling home to Winnipeg people gasped, cried and lost sleep.

Today Mr. Li was found not guilty of second degree murder because of a mental illness read this article Judge Finds Li Not Criminally Responsible.

I hate to be insensitive but that is fucking ludicris. This man needs to be looked up. Anyone who murders someone who is asleep in the back of a bus becasue 'God' told him to needs to be locked away - forever. If someone has an illness that can kill others they are quarantined until they die or are cured. Since mental illness is so difficult to diagnose maybe we sould err on the side of public safety.....to me that means anyone who cuts anyone else's head off rots in prison.

Murder Suspects Released - Video Tape Not Withstanding

Ok, if you have no idea what I mean, read here.  Yup, it's another coup for Toronto's finest.  So, to recap, you may now kill someone on video tape and between our inept cops and our horrifyingly lacking justice system two men are free who shot a man on video.

Does somebody need to call the police and shoot someone right in front of them in order for them to get a conviction?  I mean, I used to enjoy watching Law and Order and there were some very clever criminals who would try to avoid getting caught with various nefarious schemes.  The police worked hard to gather evidence and the case was made; sometimes the criminals would go free but not after being video taped.

Just a TV show you say, we that's fine.  But everyday police make arrests and the crown gets convictions without video tape.  Yet when they have it they just can't seem to locked these idiots up.

Oh well, next time I knock over a convenience store I'm going to make sure to flash my pearly white to the security camera. 

I always thought he was a bit of a Ponzi

Recently I was laid off (about 3 months ago), I have since found a new job that is working out quite nicely thank-you very much, and was stiffed for my final pay....as were a few dozen of my coworkers.  This an annoyance, an inconvenience but most of all it was a piss-off.  Here was the guy who owed us money, clearly he had money, a nice house, boat and truck and we had nothing.  I filed with the labour board but to no avail (thank god I pay all those taxes - what great service Service Ontario provides).

Now, three months later a friend of mine sent me an email with a link to this story.  And I literally laughed out loud.  Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.  The jerk (John Marshall) who screwed us all out of a couple of thousand dollars is now up for bilking his investors out of about $4 million - and with any luck will end up in jail for a few years.

As a fan of irony, I approve.

Barack Obama Address to Congress

"No more will our money be used by CEO's for buying fancy cocktails and private jets"

Well Barack, that's just fucking fantastic, I'm glad that after giving out $3 trillion dollars (check this)  to the banks that you are finally putting your foot down, jeeze, somebody had to; and I'm glad you had the backbone to stop the free handouts at $3 trillion.

Judging by the standing ovations he received during his address clearly congress agrees, the same congress that gave away the first $2 trillion under the proviso that the banks and finance houses did not have to account for where the money was going.

He goes on to hail China for their environmental record, I swear to God, China.  This is the country that hosted the last olympics right?  Where the smog was thick enough to cut?  Well, yes America has a lot to learn from China.  Now, I realize that without China the USA would quickly cease to exist, I mean where would they get all their money if it wasn't for Chinese migrant labour being so willing to work for next to nothing and fill the pockets of wealthy Beijingers, so don't bother pointing it out.

Obama states that the auto industry should be saved, and America made cars are what we need.  Seriously?  Has he ever driven an American car?  Other than that Batmobile that the secret service had made for him, and they wouldn't let him drive anyway...I'm sure.

And now he just invoked his dead grandmother.  THAT'S IT!!!

You know what?  This guy is worse than Bush, at least Bush never pretended to be a savior.  This guy walks up with his "socialist" tag and gives away money to big business, enough to wipe out the debt of half the world, enough to keep the American worker securely under the yolk for another 200 years and enough so that it doesn't even matter how much more fake money they print, because no one really understands how big that number is.  He comes to power because America is hungry for "change" and what do they get, more troops commited to a war on terror that is essentially a way to earn unlimited profit for his buddies in the arms business (more here). Change indeed.

He is also worse than Bush because he should know better.  As a guy raised by his mom and grandma, who was mixed race before Lenny Kravitz made it cool and who is young enough that he shouldn't have completely lost touch with his soul, he should know that what the current world model of state sponsored capitalism does is abuse the little guy so the fat cats can afford fancy cocktails and private jets.

To do list

So.....I am going to write a list of things that I think people should do in their life.  Now, this isn't a list of things "everyone" should do in their life....most people are douche bags and are content watching pro sports and drinking beer and not really doing anything with their lives (although you may question this statement after reading this blog, you know what I mean).  This list is for people reading this blog, you are definitely an elite group worthy of an elite list.  These are 10 things that I have done and that I think are 10 cool things that one could do, in no particular order.

1.) Take a soak in the Blue Lagoon in Iceland.

This is a hot springs like no other.  There is a geo thermal power plant 500 metres away that was made to supply Reykjavik with power.  When they built it people started bathing in their holding pool that was created by the water the superheated to turn the turbines.  "This is a safety hazard" the plant operators figured, so they put up a fence.  People started climbing the fence to bathe.  Then some genius thought "Let's charge $30 to enter and bathe" and the Blue Lagoon was born.  A great way to spend a day.

2.) Go to a major league baseball game in the USA.

I'm not a huge sports fan, as I'm sure you can tell, but there is something about spending time at a ballpark in the USA truly an american experience, akin to watching a Sumo match in Japan.  There is a feeling of stepping back in time when watching a ball game at an older stadium in America.

3.) Watching a Sumo match in Japan.

I don't think I need to go into this one, fat guys chucking each other around, nuff said.

4.) Sleep with a stranger

Not sure why, and it's been years since I've done this, but there is nothing more exhilarating in the world than sleeping with a stranger.  Not knowing who they are, what they are about or what they believe.  Not something to do every day (unless you're into that), not even usually the best sex you can have, but something everyone should do at least once.

5.) Eat something you know you shouldn't.

I'm not talking about eating something rotten or something poisonous I am talking about eating something that your better judgement tells you that you shouldn't.  Like crickets or horsemeat; something that you have been offered and think "that's not right"; try it just once.

6.) Drink way too much.

It's a right of passage, most of us have done this, and those who haven't we all look differently at.  This is the sort of young mistake we all need to make in order to understand our peers. Could you imagine trying to read "on the Road" without having ever even drank too much.  It would really ruin the experience.

7.) Get Arrested.

Haven't done this (s maybe I'm cheating) but it seems like this is something that could really give one some perspective.  I think I need to do #6.) and then #7.) some time before I'm to old.

8.) See a real live elephant.

Maybe not an elephant specifically, but, for all of us there is some animal that when we were growing up seemed so impossible that, even though we knew it existed, we didn't really believe it was real.  For me this was an elephant, and the first time I saw one in real life (not at the zoo) was like a religious experience.  So be it a Great White Shark, Gorilla or Elephant, I think it is important to satisfy the child you once were with the real thing.

9.) Spend too much money on a day in the city where you live.

We all travel, and when we do we tend to spend a lot of money per day in foreign cities.  Just once one should take the same amount and spend it in their hometown.  It will help you to realize why people travel to your hometown from other places.

10.) Read a book they made you read in high school as an adult.

Grapes of Wrath, changed my life when I was 22, at 17 I don't think I got it.

Just a bit of advice from me to you.

Good Luck.