Tom Lucier’s Weblog

In an effort to spend more time with each other, my wife Jhoan and I made arrangements to eat in a locale on the way to her photo class at the college. The place in the path of her drive happened to be Devonshire Mall, which is the main thoroughfare for people who don’t know what a locally-owned business is, or who could care less about the community aesthetic. What i mean to say is, this is the place everyone shops in Windsor. The little guy has been destroyed by the advent of malls, and this one in particular has been a behemoth earner, and a major draw AWAY from city centres, and downtown, and enclaves of community-owned businesses.

There’s a Zellers, and a food court, and an Old Navy, and a Globo (shoes), a huge movie theatre, Sears, The Bay, Chapters (books), Starbucks, Tim Horton’s, several banks, and countless stores with names like, “Forever 21″, “Not Yet 21″, “Still Young”, “Tweeners”, and “Spray Tan-O-Rama”. If you need to do Christmas shopping, you go here. If you need a haircut or extensions with highlights, you go here. If you need an engraved cigar tube, you go here. It’s the one-stop shopping choice.

I hate it.

I loathe the place. Not particularly because of my politics, but because if its draw AWAY from local (small) business owners. The pretend-antiseptic feel of the mall is painful. The flash. The sensational visual assault. It’s everything I don’t like about celebrity magazine covers etc. The space tells lies with pictures and design that is unauthentic, and therefore banal and overtly self-serving. Yeah, I get that they are TRYING TO MAKE MONEY, and to do so, they splash walls and windows with pictures of people who are SO much better because they have the exact same American Eagle shirt as everyone else at their school/job/club. I get that this works. I get that this is a warm fuzzy feeling-maker for people who buy into this junk.

I simply do not buy into it, and thus, I spend almost every minute trying to turn off my senses whenever I find myself in a mall, picking something up that is unavailable at a locally-owned shop. I don’t want to judge. I don’t want to thumb my nose. But I do. And I don’t like that version of myself when I’m in the mall. Maybe that’s why I avoid it so religiously!

I started this blog post as an excuse to show some new video that I took with my new Flip Video camera. It’s mall footage. I did not expect to roll into a social commentary, with my high-falootin’ opinions on herd mentality. There’s just this overwhelming disdain for all things mall.

The vids I shot were strange or disturbing realities I observed during my four minutes outside of Devonshire Mall.

So I put this post up about trying to find Khari, and how I looked for him endlessly online.

Todd Tyrtle, podcaster, bike rider, and all around great guy responds to me with a line similar to, “I like a good internet search challenge,” and he gives me a link. How he did this, it makes me nuts. His description was so simple, but it did not work for me when I tried a few months ago. I am so thankful…

To hear the voice of my good friend Khari, who I was unable to track down for almost two years, click HERE!

I wind up at a myspace page, and I see immediately in the little picture, Khari, on the far left side, singing!

Behold, the face of inspiration.

Apparently, he has a band called Cornerstone, which is based in Vancouver, with A’cappella / Blues / Gospel, listed as their musical style. This means that Khari is furthering his impact. He is spreading the Motown goodness the way he did when he was in Windsor.

I AM SO EXCITED! I hope we connect sooner than later. I gave him my number, to call, and I simply cannot wait!

Now I just have to hope they answer their myspace mail, as I have yet to hear from whoever administrates the website. Stay tuned for updates.

Another reaching out.

A story about how I met Khari (pronounced car-ee).

He rolls in the front door during our first month of business, when I was still apprehensive to pour a beer from the taps. You see, I had never even wiped a table in a restaurant or bar before opening Phog, and now that I have five years under my belt, I am still a shitty bartender. Ask Jessica.

Khari is wearing checkered pants, something Sammy Davis Jr. would’ve worn on All in the Family, and he had a leather jacket that runs down past his knees, with a huge fur collar. The jacket was tan. The tabby cat around his neck was a shade darker. He smiled warmly when he greeted me, and he seemed as if I was the most important person he’d come across all day.

“Can I get a B-52?”

Oh shit. What the hell is that? Will I have to get the “drink book” out in front of this cool guy? He sees me hesitate and tells me step-by-step how to make one. I would list the details here if I knew, today, how to make a B-52 properly. There’s Kahlua and Bailey’s, and other stuff.

After making him one, he decides that he wants a beer. Within our inaugural chat, I find out he’s from Detroit. We talked about his time in Windsor, and about how he loved places like Phog, with it’s atmosphere becoming for a guy in a fur-collared coat, black-rimmed glasses, in checkered pants. When he was through with the beer, after we’d been laughing a little bit, he wanted me to pour two shots of Jameson Irish Whiskey.

“I can’t do that,” I told him. Bartenders are working. They aren’t supposed to have a drink, I told him. He looked at me with the look I can only describe as the Khari look of surprise and disapproval. He giggled, letting a “pfft” out of his mouth. “You ain’t been here long have you?”

I pleaded with him to have mercy on me, as I had truthfully been nursing a brutal sore throat for almost a month at that point. I didn’t know what Jameson tasted like, and I did not want to aggrevate my viral throat-keeper.

“This’ll fix that shit! C’mon!” he said, holding his shot in the air.

Okay, but I have to come around to the other side of the bar.

I threw it back, and while it was still circumnavigating my Adam’s apple, I could hear Khari howling with delight. Smacking the shot glass down on the bar with a resounding clank, I knew I did the right thing.

I had forged a friendship over a shot of mighty Jameson, which today has become lovingly touted as “J Juice”. His influence on me, Frank, and the rest of the patrons within the lucky windfall of making his acquaintance, led to the popularity of this lovely liquor.

I wish I could emphasize how true this next part is, but many still think I’m full of it, but before Khari was finished his next drink, my throat was clear. No pain, no searing, no swelling. I told him so, and he shrugged with pleasure, knowing the result was as sure to come as tomorrow’s sunrise.

In the time Khari was a fixture in Windsor, he was gathering patrons, dragging them OUT of Phog, and into venues where salsa dancing was happening or where an art opening was occurring. He was a harbinger of levity. He knew what true fun was to be had, and he actively sought it out from Ouellette Avenue in Windsor to Woodward Avenue in Detroit. I loved that about him. When I saw him coming down the street, I was affected with a contact high. I knew he had a hug waiting, and a bizarre gadget or photo to share. One day he had a bag of hotel soaps that had been collected for YEARS that he bought at a second-hand store in Detroit. We inspected them for 20 minutes one afternoon laughing at how phone numbers used to only have five digits.

Khari was the guy who could make your head spin with jealousy if you knew enough about him. He was not only the life of the party, but he was one of the most well-read individuals I had ever met. He would wax philosophical about life, love, liberty, justice, music, friendship, and anything else you could muster. I looked to him for laughter and for the repose of intellect.

He was always telling people to go to John King Books in Detroit, and the Detroit Institute of Arts, or to the Nancy Whiskey in Corktown (which Neil also championed), or to any number of restaurants and cafes and art shows happening in Motown.

His infectious attitude was dearly missed the day he decided to leave for Vancouver, British Columbia. Frank, my business partner was especially crushed, as he had grown closer to Khari in the waning months of his time in Windsor/Detroit.

When he was gone, we stayed in touch with phone calls coming in late at night in the bar, or through the odd e-mail.

Finally, in November of 2005, my wife and I took our honeymoon and headed west through the States. We knew our destination was Vancouver, and I wanted desperately to surprise him. After talking to his then-girlfriend, Kathy, we knew he would be working at the flower shop on Granville Island. There may be several, but we had directions on where to find him.

When we came within visual range of him, unloading a truck outside, I was worried he would see me and spoil the surprise. But, I thought, he’s not looking for familiar faces, and he’d likely lose me in the sea of faces that is the shopping public of Granville Island.

I walked briskly up behind him as he unloaded a shoulder-high tree, and I said quietly, “Do you have anything native to Detroit for sale?”

The look on his face was not confusion, as he explained later that he thought his boss or coworkers were screwing with him. He turned unceremoniously and without warning screamed skyward while jumping and grasping my shoulders. He did the laughing-holler while running away from me and circling the cube van twice, finally coming to an abrupt, solid, welcome hug. He was flabbergasted, beyond my expectation, and my new bride and I were able to spend some time with him in the coming day before we sadly went back home to Ontario. I have not seen him since.

To say I miss this guy is an understatement, and anyone who remembers the glowing, beaming essence that Khari brought everywhere likely misses him too. I met a guy in Kingston this past week while attending a podcaster convention called Podcasters Across Borders (PAB) who had the same level of energy as Khari. His name is Tim Coyne. He’s from Los Angeles. He had the same ability to make you feel like, while you had audience with him, that you were the only thing that mattered at that moment, while he was the most interesting go-getter in the area.

Today, Frank and I do not know how to get a hold of him. We have lost touch entirely. He began moving around a lot after I returned home. There was no steady number or job where he could be reached. Today, I want to find my friend. I have been looking for him online with little luck, and it would bring me great elation to reconnect.

Khari! Where are you, my man?!

Having returned from Kingston, the podcaster conference called PAB (Podcasters Across Borders), I have only great things to say, which I will do in future posts.

I want to share the relative success with a t-shirt idea Shane and I came up with.

I wanted to make a huge sentence with mentions of all the social media applications in it, (I Digg when Twits Pownce on del.icio.us ideas…), and then print it on the front of a t-shirt. I figured it would draw praise and giddiness from podcasters and social/new media nuts.

But Shane honed the idea into a giant “Hello My Name Is…” name tag with all of the fields being the social media applications, and then blank spaces left to be filled in with a fabric marker or a Sharpie. I loved the idea, and in a day Shane had a finished design. I burned the image of the design on the screen at Phog, and brought it to Kingston. Shane brought shirts, and we slowly took orders, and then made them to order in our hotel room during the dinner break on Saturday night.

And now I think we’ll have our hands full printing more, as were are more than willing and able to do so.

The best part of the “fill in the blank” t-shirt with social media info is that if you go to conferences (and you need to wear those lanyards with your name and information on it, which never sit right) you can simply tell someone to take a photo of your shirt and they instantly have LOADS of contact info that people today are coming to collect. This shirt should be a staple for conferences. Heh-heh…

Rough night.

How to put this clearly…?

I had a band from Calgary, The Summerlad, play tonight, with Shawn Ladd and The Wall of Bees (Windsor) and they were wicked. They played their hearts out for a VERY limited crowd. You see, I made the mistake of booking them in advance and planning for a crowd. A nice, big, gargantuan event took place down the alley at another great bar, which is where EVERYONE, or nearly everyone (including the NCRC conference in town for community radio stations) went. It was a strong show, I’m sure, but nothing compared to the monstrous beast that was The Summerlad.

That said, I loved having them, and the dissenting NCRC folks who trickled over from the other big show.

Toward the end of the night, I had a skinny, drunk, prick of a guy sit at the bar and promptly fall asleep. I was schmoozing with out-of-towners when I was summoned by my bartender to do something about him. When I approached him softly, kindly, he was belligerent, because I woke him from his nap.

He was shouting and spitting and telling me to get away from him. I tried to escort him out, and he was not going quietly. Once outside, he decided to give the front door (glass) a nice kick while I was standing behind it. A shower of plate glass came down, cutting my elbow, and raining on the floor.

Flash back to 40 minutes previous. Two dudes are out front, wondering what is happening inside, but they are obviously reluctant to come in. They are black. They are the only black people NEAR the bar, while there are several others shades of white inside. I walk to the sidewalk and invite them in. They are wondering if I’m legit, and we start to talk. One guy tries to sell me his watch. He needs money, as he and his friend have gambled their money at the local casino and lost it all. They need coin to make it back to Detroit. They are sincere. They are Detroiters. I know a faker when I see one, because I see them again the same day asking for money to catch the “tunnel bus”.

Thomas and Mike, reluctantly come in at my urging, as they WANTED to come in, but were tentative because of the mix. Thomas asked me, “They’re gonna look at us funny, huh?” I said, “Who gives a shit? You’re coming in with me, I own the place, and no one’s going to care anyway.”

They come in, order beers, and watch the music. We talk intermittently, as I want to know where they’re from, and why they were in Windsor. We mix it up a bit, and realize that neither of us know who won the Laker-Celtic game.

ENTER SHITBAG.

When this event starts going down, Thomas and Mike stand up and walk behind me. I am unaware of this. When I turn around, they are standing firm, looking at the guy who is making noise and a scene. They are looking at me for verification that they can take him down. I calmly try to diffuse the anger of the drunk guy, and walk him out, with a polite shove for good measure. Next, the glass breaks, and next-next, Thomas and Mike come out to the street. I look around the corner of the building and the guy is running scared, and is long gone, almost 300m away, Thomas and Mike look at each other and nod, turning tail and running at top speed.

I turn away, shaking my head, wondering what the mess is going to cost.

Within 15 minutes, I am trying to make sense of the event, and Thomas and Mike return…with THE VANDAL. He is like a chained puppy, begging for mercy, offering up cash to pay for the door. They have not harmed him but simply apprehended him and returned him to justice. This bravery was beyond anything I have experienced in 5 years of running this bar, where bad things can happen now and again.

After all is said and done, the perp is on the run again, and Thomas and Mike are drinking a shot of Crown Royal on me. And can you think of what else they wanted? What in the world do you think they wanted for their selfless, brave act? Thomas looked at me and asked me if I would give him a job. Not money…not another drink…a job.

This reminded me of Tavis Smiley talking with Dr. Majora Carter. During their conversation, they discussed that the folks in the hardest hit section of the US, people know one thing, they want a job. Never would I have known this to be authentic until Thomas looked me in the eye and asked me for work.

I was dumbfounded. I was dejected, because I can hardly pay the bills and workers at the bar. I wanted so badly to have an option for Thomas. Mike expressed that he had a job in Detroit. Thomas told me that he has to hustle, and he would rather not. In a short exchange, I told him about labour laws and cross-border work illegalities, and then I took his number.

In a short discussion, I gushed about their heroism, and selflessness. They weren’t fazed. It was no big deal to them. “They could come back,” I said. “So what, then what?” Mike said. “Well, they could come back and rob me or cause more damage, or shoot me!” I said, worried about all of those possibilities. Mike looked at me plainly saying, “So you die. So what. Then you’re happy. Then you’re safe. Don’t worry about him, the worst that can happen ain’t that bad.”

I didn’t have an answer. I was nonplussed. I was in a conversation that I had no idea about. I was talking to someone who was not from this cushy lifestyle. I was listening to someone without fear.

Thomas gave me two numbers to reach him. How can I help him? How can I offer something small in return? He helped me, and now I want to help him, but I am unaware of how to do so.

Something that happened tonight, besides the terror of being a victim of vandalism and violence, touched me. Something extraordinary and humane hit me. I witnessed the beauty and ugliness of people in one swoop. The lasting impression is of Thomas and Mike, who gave their energy, their time, and their bravery for me, a stranger who welcomed them into a unwelcome-looking place. I think I will take more out of this experience than I have absorbed in years passed.

Thank you Mike. Thank you Thomas.

Okay, to begin, I need to express my lack of expertise. This is key. I know basic information about the world and the environment, etc., but as I am learning, I like to keep my thoughts and opinions here. If you would like to add anything or suggest some places I can learn more about a post I make, please do so.

Moving on, what is the deal with Brazil?!

Every time I find something interesting happening online, in podcasts, or in the paper, I find that it is often in Brazil.

The tribe that has been photographed from a helicopter in the Amazon was in Brazil. This native tribe was spotted in a fly-over, and when the chopper returned to take more photos (and to scare the living shit out of these people who have NEVER BEEN TOUCHED BY CIVILIZATION) they had hurriedly painted their bodies bright orange or entirely black. It looks like the men (with bows and arrows pointed at the growling demon
in the sky) were orange and the women were painted black.

In other recent news, there are big things going on with the Amazon (in Brazil) as a BBC reporter from The World has just returned from a long trip to the fabled area. He was discussing the science being done above the canopy in the Amazon, collecting air samples since 1998, and measuring how rain actually occurs in the rainforest. They found some cool stuff, and they explain it in detail on The World Podcast with Clark Boyd.

Discussion in the podcast includes the air flow around South America, due in part to the Amazon, and how the moisture finds particles in the air to stick to for the return of water through rain. Since there’s not a TON of pollution above the canopy, scientists didn’t know how the water clung onto stuff that didn’t exist. It’s a scienc-y good story. Check it.

Another story about Brazil, this one in the New York Times, shone some light on the possibility of corruption in the Amazon. This is the main reason I was driven to start blogging at 3am after attending a wonderful wedding party for Dan and Jenna by the lake in Kingsville. I am beat, but I was burning about the way we allow pricks with HUGE companies and capitalist ideals get into office!!

To preface, this dude, the Soybean King, is being seen by scientists as the worst clear-cutting and environment-infringing dudes in the country. He governs the most agriculturized province in Brazil (the Amazon). Yes, I said that the governor of this space of Amazon is the man in charge of the land and agriculturization, and VOILA! he owns the most successful, money-grubbing food company in the whole damn country. Am I shocked by this anymore? No. It seems that somehow, in the grand discussion of democracy, we somehow let these slimy pricks into the highest offices imaginable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the president of Brazil is supposed to be some environmental Batman or something, but really, if he’s allowing the “selective” clear cutting of one of the WORLD’S most important ecosystems by a COLLEAGUE and government-mate, how hero-like is he? He’s worse than Robin. He’s not even as valuable as one of the smoke bombs on Batman’s belt. He’s like, maybe the “Batman’s sock” of the environment. Nothing to write to Sao Paolo about.

Back to the story. Dr. Câmara, who heads the National Institute for Space Research in Brazil has been measuring the amount of forest being cut down…but they are cleverer than the Soybean King, Blairo Maggi, gave them credit for, because it can measure the loss even when they perform selective cutting…not quite clear-cutting. This information exchange was immediately attacked by the Soybean King, putting some environmental groups on their heels. The deforestation had been in decline for two years, but then it spiked.

It’s being cut down for crops and livestock! Hello!? We are still cutting down rain forest to grow food when there are grossly obese fools running around North America and Mexico, and diabetics are erupting like mad in India! We’re growing food to put in our gas tanks! Jesus Christ people! Can we leave the goddamn car at home for once!? Frig! The Amazon is going away so we can grow corn for our car (while millions starve worldwide, never mind that estimates say 35 million Americans don’t know where their next meal is coming from) and to fatten cows so we can eat meat. Yeah, we are pounding these chic slider-burgers like an eight-year-old binges on Oreos and we wonder why the world’s weather is getting screwed up. Some day soon, I’m sure, the corporate-interest-owned media will share the big picture with everyone so they can start consuming less (sarcasm).

“Worldwide agriculture, especially livestock production, accounts for about a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions,” says Treehugger.com. Thanks Treehugger. For a clue what I mean about meat and climate change linkage, click the previous link.

So, back to the story. “Marina Silva, Brazil’s environmental minister and a respected rain forest defender, resigned this month. While leaving, she spoke of heavy pressures being exerted by industry-minded governors, including Governor Maggi, to reverse the federal crackdown on destruction of the forest,” reported ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO of the New York Times. Greenpeace gave the Soybean King the Golden Chainsaw Award in 2005 for his role as the worst Brazilian “deforester”.

This guy is IN CHARGE! I find that the answer is in the people’s power over the corporate interest’s power. It starts by NOT ELECTING a machete-wielding agri-giant who would down his mother’s legs if he could make money by planting corn under her. In essence, he IS cutting of all of our mother’s legs: Mama Nature that is…

Someone make me feel better about this. Tell me that people with the opportunity to evade electing a bio-terrorist to power in ANY country where they allow voting will do the right thing when they hit the ballot box. Geez! What are we to do about these mistakes? Oops, we elected a nature-hating, enviro-suck-beast (a terrestrial lamprey) and now we see him for what he is, a low-life opportunist, and we want him gone…what can you do?

I have to go to bed and dream about trees.

photo from www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/

Majora Carter. What a woman.

Sustainable South Bronx. What an organization!

I heard her speak on Tavis Smiley’s podcast, and the concept struck me especially hard. Living in Windsor, home of Canada’s Big Three auto giants, and being Canada’ Motor City, it seemed almost natural to make the transition to environmental implementation that Dr. Carter teaches and preaches in the South Bronx.

You see, her organization has taken steps to improve the poorest congressional district in the U.S. by offering job training and development skills in the environmental sector. I want to give you an overview of our e-mail transaction…between myself and one of the many assistants at Sustainable South Bronx:

“Having heard Majora Carter on Tavis Smiley, I knew that she would be tough to get a hold of…but here goes…
I write columns for a daily newspaper in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, across the river from Detroit.
With the Big 3 car companies jumping ship, slow but sure, we are looking at ways to diversify the area, but this blue-collar town doesn’t really have a green-leader, someone waiting to usher a burgeoning job sector into fruition.
I wanted to simply ask for a quote that I can include in my weekly, tiny, 400-word column.
I would ask, “Why should a town who has depended heavily upon industry to keep the city going, should a city like Windsor consider taking the initiative to teach, cultivate, and grow the community into a green-minded municipality?”

If this question gets answered it would be greatly appreciated, as it will add some strength to my argument FOR greener thought in our city.
The work that all of you are doing is inspiring and reaching beyond the bounds that you may be aware of…
Thanks
Best
Tom Lucier”

And James Chase, of the Sustainable South Bronx, responded by including her thoughts for use in the story!

“Hi Tom -
Thanks for including Dr. Majora Carter in your important work. In fact we grow more and more aware of the reach of our example each day; and Majora is now leaving the day to day management of Sustainable South Bronx to her great staff, and concentrating on mass media outreach, and a consulting firm that will advise cities like Windsor on how they can smoothly manage a transition to a green collar economic base. I would be grateful if you could mention that new venture in your article!

Long quote is below. Hope you can use it all, but understand if you need to edit.

Please let me know if you ever need any photography or other biographical info. Majora will be speaking in Detroit on June 24 at 9am for the Kellogg Foundation Conference, and if you want to observe/talk to Majora some, I can happily arrange to have your name on the list.
thanks agian,
james chase
ssbx.org

“Cities that are watching their income base shift overseas are still responsible for all of the services that communities depend on. Horticultural infrastructure solutions to things like storm water management, public health, education, and law enforcement have all been proven to be much more cost effective than the typical “end-of-pipe” solutions that we are saddled with today. By training people to design, build, and maintain these living machines, a city can realize a net savings on sewerage, respiratory disease treatment, educational outcomes, and reduced incarceration. That’s because green solutions improve environmental, social, and economic concerns with the same dollar - but only if that dollar is coordinated with policy, incentives, and training programs that respect existing market forces as we guide them towards a healthier more productive future for everybody.

“Cities that were built on industries whose environmental costs the world is paying for through the climate crisis we are now entering, are in a unique position to turn their industrial base towards clean-tech manufacturing like wind and river turbines, photo-voltaic and solar water heating systems, and electric car components and assembly.

“In the 1940’s, North American auto industry switched from producing cars to tanks and other military vehicles in a matter of months because we had visionary leadership that recognized the looming crisis of international fascism. Stopping Hitler seemed like an insurmountable task at the time, and climate change seems that way now. Stopping the climate crisis will also require an extraordinary level of leadership, commitment and a massive mobilization of resources.

“Cities that take the initiative and start the transition now will be rewarded. Those that don’t adapt, will be left behind. It’s important to learn from all the wonderful examples I see in my travels around the world, talk them through, and implement. In this rapidly changing economic landscape, if you are not at the table, you’re on the menu.”
- Dr. Majora Carter
MacArthur “Genius” Fellow”

I don’t think I can add any more.

Pretty awesome to have them respond overnight with this kind of info eh?!

This is simply a tragedy. Well, maybe more of an inconvenience.

My bike’s derailleur apparently fell off while I was riding home the other night, about 2 kilometers from home, so I simply sat on the bike, and kicked off of the curb with one leg the rest of the way (like skateboarding). It is being fixed by Canadian Tire, but to be honest, I am getting sick and Canadian Tired of my bikes needing fixing shortly after I get them.

Two things. First, I wanted to share this link I found of bike usage in Copenhagen. Crazy!

I wanted to take this opportunity to post some images of my ride home, at 3am or thereabouts. They are mostly shots of trash that I am overrun by on the streets. For some reason, I have to dodge endless trails of plastic water bottles, Tim Horton’s cups, and aluminum cans. What this tells me is that the main thing people like to throw out of their cars is drinking containers. Any thoughts on this? The only good use for plastic bottles is this idea I stumbled upon during my daily blog-reading routine.

Here are the photos: enjoy!

I think it’s funny that I was able to make the changes from strapping my huge doctor’s satchel to my bike rack with a 1/4″ cable used for electric instruments. How indie/rock can bike riding get?  Also, the image of me above, riding with headphones, was discouraged recently by someone looking out for my safety, but you must understand that I LIVE  music. I do nothing BUT listen to music at work, so when I ride, I listen to talk-radio podcasts, so the five cars that pass me on my 10km-ride are heard from a mile away.

I have not been sick for almost 18 months. All winter, I watched the hacking coughs and congested faces of people cycle through the bar, while I washed my hands the usual 50 times per night.

This week, I played basketball with a clan of little children at the school my brother teaches at, and they got me. Their grubby little playground hands, the melange of germs, mingled together on the basketball, making it a flying orb of death.

Needless to say, I have been unable to post anything here, because my joints were puffed up like Joseph Merrick.

On top of that, while riding my bike last night, 2 kilometers from home, my derailer jumped off of my bike, unprovoked, and had me skateboard-style cruising home. Yes, I sat on the seat and pumped my leg on the cub to go mildly faster than a slow jog.

Enough excuses.

I wanted to share this item the day I got it, but I was not yet blogging when this came to me in the mail.

My mom likes to send me things the old fashioned way, by Canada Post. Mailman, or mailwoman, or mail carrier please. Almost always, it is something reflective, of contemplative, or complimentary. It is always a treat to get a Windsor Salt-blue envelope in the mailbox, as I know it is from her.

This was sent to me weeks ago. A note which had the following, titled “17th Verse of the Tao”:

With the greatest leader above them,

people barely know one exists.

Next comes one whom they love and praise.

Next comes one whom they fear.

Next comes one whom they despite and defy.

When a leader trusts no one, no one trusts him.

The great leader speaks little. He never speaks carelessly.

He works without self-interest,

And leaves no trace.

When all is finished, the people say, “We did it ourselves.”

Well I’ll be!

Where to begin…

This piece of wisdom struck a chord with me. Firstly, it reminded me that I talk too much. If I want to be a leader, which is a nice concept, I feel that I need to shut my yap more often. It’s hard to do when I think I have something to add to a conversation…although when I actually give it some thought, I realize that it would better serve the conversation to simply push the talk along with some prodding, rather than always producing an anecdote that I care more about than anyone else in the world.

But the first two lines of the verse are perfect. People barely know that a great leader exists if he/she is doing their job correctly. I was particularly interested in the line, “He works without self-interest and leaves no trace,” because I think about MOST of the perceived great leaders of our time, and how all of them have huge monuments and statues dedicated to them. Even some of the best leaders, arguably, ever, are on Mount Rushmore, or are having monuments attributed to them (Martin Luther King Jr., Dalai Lama, Jesus Christ, and the list goes on). And I feel that these are things done posthumously by people who feel that the leader deserves the praise. Whereas the leaders themselves would likely protest the idea of an idol made in their image.

Leadership, as I’ve been discovering, is something many step into for reasons unbecoming of a leader, in the truest sense. The power, the prestige, the money, and the self aggrandizement are hard to resist, as we are told day in and day out that this is the best we can be. The spotlight is not only the most effervescent light, but it is the ONLY light to be considered lucky to be under. “Power corrupts” is a concept that never made sense to me until I started having closer contact with leaders. Community leaders, business leaders, band leaders, and those of the like, are the kind of leaders I know personally. Even on this microcosm scale, it is evident that there is an insatiable, prehistoric need to be on top, and to cast your net of dominion among those who originally drew a sense of respect from and whom were inspired by a different version of the now-ego-drunk leader.

These are the examples that I wish resonated more within me, as I find that my ego needs to be deflated more often to allow me to see how to properly lead.

My mother has always been a sage-advice giver. She is always living the path that she covets and professes. I have the best example I need in my brilliant maternal link. Need I look further? I think not.

I am dumbfounded. I’ll tell you why in a paragraph or two.

Listen, I will not pretend to know what is going on in Canadian politics. It is one of the priorities on my list.

Why? You may ask that for good reason. Well, I just like to know when someone is lying to me. I like being able to call “bullshit” when someone in the political spectrum , or someone speaking for one of those boobs, says something completely outrageous. I don’t like hearing things, and gobbling them up like a nice little consumer. I like to know the details.

For starters, our robotic, yet intelligent, Prime Minister of horse-puckey has made a move that I am FINALLY impressed with. He stated today that under the current definitions and rules around saying food in Canada is “Made in Canada” there are problems… As of right now, if 51% of the work being done to prepare food, and make it consumer-ready is done in Canada, companies are legally allowed to say Made in Canada. Which is a stretch, to say the least…I think we’ll all agree.

“Hey gringo, these bananas were grown in Canada…well, that’s not entirely true. You see, we grew them in South America and then they were juggled and handled and banged around vociferously in some shit-hole cannery plant in Ontario, so technically, they’re Canadian…right?”

No. I want to know where my food is grown, prepared, and “managed”.

Stephen Harper has made a promise, of sorts, to adjust this rule, so the definition is less clandestine and malleable to make sense to only those who work in the industry. Food must be grown and prepared fully in Canada to have the label Made in Canada. If it isn’t, it must say where the other “components” (a fruit salad mix, I guess?) are from.

I just love how Harper said something along the lines of, “It’s what Canadians want, so we have to provide it,” as if this dude gives one ounce of care what “Canadians want”. I digress. I must tip my cap to the man who I know to be intelligent and otherwise incompetent. He made good with me on this story.

And in other “news” The Globe and Mail has FINALLY decided to write about The North Pacific Garbage Patch! Holy geez! Someone at Phog told me that I would be happy that it was finally being covered. While reading the piece, I was floored, yet not surprised (we have a Conservative government) to read this admission from Diane Lake, a spokeswoman with the Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans. She “said that while the ministry is aware of the North Pacific Gyre, it is conducting no real research on the extent or effects of the plastic pollution.” Perfect. Nice work Diane. Nice to see you give a shit. You know, Canada has a border that kinda touches the Pacific Ocean. Hey wait! That’s one of the words in the North Pacific Garbage Patch! Come to think of it, we’re North too…but, we don’t really need to be studying this. You know, it’ll all go away, like climate change, and racism, and mental illness, and corporatocracy raping us from dusk till dawn…yeah, someone else is taking care of it, I’m sure.

Here’s a shortlist, from The Globe and Mail, of what Captain Moore has been finding: A trail of Taco Bell wrappers, Dolls and action figures, Umbrellas, Tarps, Bottles, Tofu containers(for those of you who think you’re saving the earth with tofu. Maybe we need to be writing letters to tofu companies asking them to consider new packaging?), Lego, Grocery bags, Foam coffee cups, Checkers, Furniture, Toothbrushes, Cigarette lighters, Syringes, Rubber ducks, Basketball shoes

See, this is exactly the kind of thing that should make backbones stiffen. It should make you, reading this, totally annoyed with the laissez faire attitude of people who are paid by us to work for us. These are the issues that will be affecting your family’s family’s family. But what can we do besides thinking globally and acting locally? I’m actually shocked that the fishing industry in the west hasn’t pulled a page from the Argentinian farmers’ handbook.

Get angry at this lack of interest in your job, your industry, and your culturally significant knowledge. Stop fishing until the Department of Fisheries and Oceans decides to look into stemming this abuse in the oceans, and possibly even going so far as to suggesting that maybe we are drowning in our own plastic…and that we should step back from it…sloooowly…with biiiiig steps.

I must also place this in here…as I was listening to Q on CBC with Jian Ghomeshi, I heard the guest talking about food, and mentioning our good friend Michael Pollan. It was “Montreal writer Taras Grescoe on the search for ethical seafood” talking about his new book, Bottomfeeder. I kind of want to read this now. The “Q on CBC” in the first sentence of this paragraph is a direct link to the podcast of this show. It was a GREAT interview, worth listening to…

I bit off more than I could chew. Now I want to get into the whole argument we had at Phog last night…about bananas, how we won’t be eating yellow ones in 5 years, and about the plague/waste of sandwich (Ziploc) bags.

Another time.