It was as the South by Southwest Interactive conference in 2003, long before he had turned his intelligence away from simple programming to more political pursuits. And, sadly for me, this was the only time I met him, but he made an impression, on me and on my crowd of online friends, many of whom have gone on to shape the Internet in one way or another. Here’s an excerpt from my post-conference diary:

Wednesday March 12, 2003

A highlight of this year’s conference was the presence of the wee Aaron Swartz (www.aaronsw.com). He’s 16, but two years ago formulated what became RSS 1.0 and he’s working with Lawrence Lessig on Creative Commons. Obviously, this kid will buy and sell the rest of us in just a handful of years. But the funny thing is that every time someone discussed him, they gave the universal hand signal: holding the palm down and waving it back and forth about four feet off the ground. I did it myself last night at Castle Hill and Brad and Mike just cracked up. Then we did a whole bunch of jokes about Lessig dressing the kid up like Mickey Mouse and taking him to court where he’d plead “Free the Mouse”! I love geek jokes. I also said I was going to Photoshop a picture of The White Stripes with Ben and Mena Trott’s faces pasted on. The reason was actually due to a post on Aaron Swartz’s weblog. He said that there were cracks that Ben and Mena weren’t married but were actually siblings, because no one had ever seen them kiss. The White Stripes pass themselves off as brother and sister but were once actually married to each other. Not sure how many other people would get it, but I think it’s funny. There could be lots of Photoshop fun. I think a photo of Mickey Mouse could have wee Aaron’s face pasted on. Maybe I’ll post them to SXSWBlog anonymously.

Another funny thing about Aaron was that due to his age, he couldn’t check into the hotel room he’d booked online. Eventually he went to stay with Cory Doctorow at his hotel, but before that Min Jung took him up to her room to leave his bag, and while up there, she mixed some drinks from some booze she’d brought with her. Since she needed help carrying them, wee Aaron was recruited. She took a lot of flak for basically corrupting the lad.

I remember all of this with a rueful smile. A line from Larissa MacFarquhar’s profile resonated with me: “Despite his public presence, he was small and frail and shy and often sick, and people wanted to protect him. He was loved intensely, as a child is loved.” Even in his brief time among us at SxSW 2003, you could sense the tragic truth in those words.

I would post those Mickey Mouse Aaron Swartz Photoshopped pictures here, except of course that I never made them. For all of our joking around, I didn’t want to do anything to hurt his feelings. Or, despite the fact that he might not have even remembered meeting me, to make him think less of me.

from Consolation Champs

Meeting Aaron Swartz

I was also delighted to receive some fan mail the other day. One piece was a card from the 91-year-old patriarch of the Cusimano family, still living in the same house on Cassandra Boulevard, and who sent me two photos of his family: one from the 1960s, roughly around the time they appear in my piece, and another of the extended family in the present day. The other piece of fan mail was from a septuagenarian from BC who encouraged me to remain a free spirit, to live my life to the fullest and to regret nothing. What amazing gifts! Here’s the piece as it appeared:

American abolitionist and escaped slave Frederick Douglass famously said, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

I have not found that to be the case.

As a child, I was a bit of a celebrity.

When I was three, I found my way to the local elementary school and asked to be let in. They told me I was too young, but, after telephoning my mother, allowed me to sit in on their kindergarten class for the day.

I found it a bit slow.

You see, by the age of three, I had already taught myself to read.

I am not sure how I accomplished it.

We had a lot of books lying around, but the only one I can remember now is Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever.

By the time I had started school for real, it was hard to keep my ability a secret.

One time, on the way to school, I was stopped by a couple of the rough-and-tumble Cusimano boys.

One of them had a paper route and rode a special bicycle with a big metal container on the front full of newspapers.

I recall them pulling one out and asking me to read the headline aloud, and then, amazed, the rest of the article.

Early in my school career, I was asked to come to the principal’s office – not because of any misbehaviour, but to demonstrate my gift.

Mr. Malcolm took a book, seemingly at random, from his office bookshelf and asked me to open it to any page and begin reading.

A few days later, I found myself moving from Grade 1 to Grade 2, right in the middle of the school year.

Looking back at my report cards, I find it hard not to laugh.

My Grade 1 teacher called me bright and inquisitive.

But by the end of the year, my Grade 2 teacher had lamented that I was immature and that some of my stories were “silly.” I was seven at the time.

Classroom reading exercises in the 1970s involved ubiquitous boxes of SRA cards.

This ingenious system made learning a game, allowing individual students to progress through each of the dozen or so colour-coded levels independently.

We’d read a story contained on a large card and then answer questions to test our comprehension of what we had just read.

Of course, because I already knew how to read, this stuff was easy and fun for me.

We also had the Scholastic book club, through which we could order books at school and have them delivered to our classrooms each month.

I was very glad to discover that this is still going strong.

I also loved when our teachers would read books aloud to us.

I can sometimes still hear the voice of Mrs. West in my head whenever I read one of my favourites, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.

I continued to excel in school and, unbeknownst to me then, my parents rejected the school’s advice to skip me another year after Grade 6.

They were concerned about my social development, and it turns out they were right.

By Grade 8, I was tired of being called a “brain” and helping everyone else with their homework.

I wanted to be accepted, but I didn’t want to stand out.

My report card that year warned that I appeared to be holding myself back.

I got a further comeuppance in high school, where it quickly became apparent that math and science were not my strong suits.

My childhood ambitions of becoming a surgeon or a biologist started to fade.

But so what? I could do anything, couldn’t I? And there’s the rub.

If anything, I think being able to read from such an early age spoiled me.

Having the world open up through books might seem like a wonderful thing, and when I was a child, it was.

But as I grew up, and continued to feel like the world was forever opening up to me, at least through books, I became more and more restless.

I have been part of the work force now for more than 30 years, starting with my first summer job selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door.

But I’ve never held a job longer than four years, and any grand idea of building a career, never mind a vocation, has long since evaporated.

From time to time I blame the new economy, or the Internet, or the rise of unpaid internships.

But the truth I cannot avoid is that I think I’ve always just been an intellectual nomad.

I have been spoiled by reading.

My head has been filled from toddlerhood onward with the magic of worlds created by words.

To this day, I cling to the illusion that if I am sufficiently interested in a subject, I can make a career there.

But the truth is that I am still the daydreamer I was as a child.

Back then, they thought I was just bored with the standard curriculum.

Perhaps it was simply that the real world could never compete with the world I found in books.

Perhaps a better quotation about reading would be George Bernard Shaw’s, about the slightly ridiculous “hero” of Cervantes’s novel: “Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.”

Oh, and the Cusimano boys? All doctors and lawyers. One is even, if you can believe it, a brain surgeon.

from Consolation Champs

Failed Child Prodigy

Borrowing a very cool idea from the smarties over at Hazlitt, I thought I’d write up a (hopefully not-too-long-or-maudlin) summary of my own 2012. It’s always good to take stock, and looking back is as important to me as looking ahead, so here goes nothin’.

I’ve already written about my suspicion that years that end in 2 or 7 are bound to be momentous for me, and I wasn’t wrong about 2012.

Things started off normally. In October of 2011, I’d gone back to work for the wine importing company I’d been with from 2003-2007. They were having a whole new web site built and needed someone to manage the project and do some content stuff. It was meant to be a six-month contract ending in April. But lots of internal company stuff was happening (or more accurately, not happening), which delayed the site launch until July. Even then, the main reason for the redesign, e-commerce, was not ready. I stayed until the end of the year, in the end handing off my position to someone else. Fingers crossed, e-commerce is set to launch in the next little while…

I left for the same reason that getting back together with an old girlfriend is a bad idea. The comfort is nice for a while, but then you remember why you broke up the first time. Besides, I’d been making noises the whole time about how I wanted to go freelance, set my own hours, work from home, blah blah.

So on the work front, 2012 was a year spent marking time, waiting for the right combination of circumstances to launch myself as a freelance dynamo. January 1st is a good time for launching things, right?

Truthfully, the last third of the year sucked for another reason. In September, my father was hospitalized with difficulty breathing while on holiday in Ireland. Brooke and I were scheduled to travel to Belgium and Luxembourg during the same time, so we were able to re-route and see him in Dublin for a weekend. He seemed to be making a great recovery, so we finished the rest of our European vacation and went home. For the next couple of weeks, I spent lots of time with Dad, making appointments for him to see specialists and making sure he was sticking to his nicotine patch regime. And then suddenly he died.

We were close, but I don’t think we really understood each other. My mother died when I was in my early 20s, and as an only child, I worked hard to build a relationship with my dad where none had really existed. Though I was never completely successful, we loved each other. We even liked each other, though as he got older, his stubbornness and constrained life and world view annoyed me. My sadness seems to have turned pretty quickly to a kind of resentment, not of him exactly, but of all the administrivia and physical labour involved in what feels like nothing more than erasing all traces of his presence in the world.

Things Brooke and I have avoided in our own lives (mortgage, car and pet ownership) are now part of the burden of things I have to sort out. My first month or more of “freelance” life will most likely be spent working as a freelance cleaner, mover, and filler of forms.

Brooke and I celebrated ten years of marriage (and 15 as a couple) in October. It’s hard to believe. We may have one of the most low-maintenance relationships I’ve ever witnessed. We’re not without our issues, but I’d say that our default status is “contentment.” I hope I’m not just speaking for myself.

As usual, I started far more things than I could finish in 2012, but a few of them are worth noting.

Shorts That Are Not Pants is a quarterly screening series for short films that officially kicked off last January. We have hosted four screenings so far, three at the NFB Mediatheque (now closed, sadly) and one at the Carlton Cinemas. PLUG: join us on Thursday January 17th at 7pm at the Carlton as we kick off our second year!

I also began writing for the excellent Short of the Week, which features excellent short films available online. Though my contributions there this year have been sparse, I’m proud of them and honoured to be part of a great team of writers and curators.

I wrote far less than I would have liked here on my “personal” blog and on Toronto Screen Shots, my general film blog, but I’m not going to beat myself up over it. My book/article/web project on Toronto art-rockers Max Webster has also gone dormant, but I’m not giving up on it.

I want 2013 to be full of great moments. I want to capture more of my life in words, and I want to spend more and better time with those I love (and that’s all of you, by the way). As always, I want to express myself more clearly and openly with people. Each day, I want to articulate to myself what I want out of life and pursue it without fear of failure.

P.S. When I started writing this, I wanted it to be more in the style of some of those Hazlitt staffers, recounting kooky anecdotes from my year. That may have to wait for another post, I guess.

from Consolation Champs

Report Card for 2012

1. The Master (Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson)
2. Only The Young (Dirs: Elizabeth Mims and Jason Tippet)
3. The Imposter (Dir: Bart Layton)
4. Moonrise Kingdom (Dir: Wes Anderson)
5. Looper (Dir: Rian Johnson)
6. Bernie (Dir: Richard Linklater)
7. Indie Game: The Movie (Dirs: Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky)
8. Tchoupitoulas (Dirs: Bill Ross and Turner Ross)
9. Sound of My Voice (Dir: Zal Batmanglij)
10. Beasts of the Southern Wild (Dir: Benh Zeitlin)

And because I’m such a huge fan of documentary film, here is the list of top ten docs:

1. Only The Young (Dirs: Elizabeth Mims and Jason Tippet)
2. The Imposter (Dir: Bart Layton)
3. Indie Game: The Movie (Dirs: Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky)
4. Tchoupitoulas (Dirs: Bill Ross and Turner Ross)
5. The House I Live In (Dir: Eugene Jarecki)
6. ¡Vivan las Antipodas! (Dir: Victor Kossakovsky)
7. Room 237 (Dir: Rodney Ascher)
8. Off Label (Dirs: Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher)
9. The Ambassador (Dir: Mads Brügger)
10. The World Before Her (Dir: Nisha Pahuja)

from Consolation Champs

Best Films of 2012

In list form, if you’re not visually inclined:

1. Beach House – Bloom
2. DIIV – Oshin
3. Wild Nothing – Nocturne
4. Jim Guthrie – Indie Game: The Movie (Soundtrack)
5. Grimes – Visions
6. Divine Fits – A Thing Called Divine Fits
7. Now, Now – Threads
8. Eternal Summers – Correct Behavior
9. Lower Dens – Nootropics
10. Japandroids – Celebration Rock

Honourable Mentions:

• Bill Fay – Life is People
• Borko – Born to Be Free
• Bloc Party – Four
• Four Tet – Pink

Just for fun, here are some of my previous lists:

• My Best of 2009
• My Best of 2008
• My Best of 2007

How about you? What were some of your favourites?

from Consolation Champs

Best Music of 2012

My dad turned 70 this past August. 70! That was quite an achievement in my mind. Both of his own parents had died younger than that. His wife, my mother, died at 43. As a teenager, I would half-jokingly tell her that he’d never get to 40. As a young man, I’d think that he’d never reach 50. As a slightly older man, I thought he wouldn’t get to 60. Now as a middle-aged man, I’m surprised that he got to 70. That’s not considered a long life, but I think my dad was very lucky.

He was a man who smoked, drank and ate as much as he liked, and never bothered with doctors, an exercise program or anything else that he felt was too much trouble. A month ago, he was forced to spend a few weeks in hospital, and I honestly can’t remember him being in a hospital before that since the late 1960s, when he broke his ankle playing soccer. I don’t even know if I’d started school yet.

My dad was the eldest of five children, and later in his life his brothers and sisters were very important to him, but as a young man growing up in Dublin, he craved adventure. When he was still in his teens, he went off to sea, working as a radio officer on board a freighter. In this way he got to see a lot of the world, and his trips to Canada convinced him that this would be a good place to raise a family.

My parents were married quite young by today’s standards (Dad was 21 and Mum was 20), and I came along just about ten months later. By the time they’d decided to emigrate in 1967, they were still just 24 and 23 years old. It must have taken a lot of courage to leave your entire family and support system behind. To make things worse, the job Dad was promised by mail evaporated when he showed up in person. He’d worked for the telephone company in Ireland and had arranged a job as a repairman for the phone company here in Canada. But when he arrived and they saw he was only 5’4″ they told him he was too short to climb the telephone poles. I don’t think that kind of discrimination would be legal today, but luckily the job market was pretty forgiving back then. As he described it, he walked across the street and got a job at a little company called IBM.

It was funny to see how both IBM and my dad’s job changed throughout his career there. As a kid I remembered him carrying a heavy briefcase full of wrenches and screwdrivers. Computers were mechanical machines back then and you could actually open them up and fix them. IBM also made a very successful line of electric typewriters. As components got smaller and his training became more and more irrelevant, his job became harder to describe. And his briefcase got lighter. By the time he took early retirement at the age of 49, I really didn’t know what he did there.

During those years, he never lost his love for the sea. He joined the naval reserve in the early 1970s and it was a hugely important part of his life for a long time. He made a lot of good friends at HMCS York and enjoyed his training trips to the coast each summer, although I am pretty sure there was more drinking going on than training.

Dad considered IBM his first career and the Navy his second, but he also spoke fondly of his third career, and that was as a concierge for the Commissionaires of Canada. The Commissionaires are a security organization started by veterans and they are the largest private employer of military veterans in the country. My dad always loved to wear a uniform and he was fortunate to work at the same condominium, Skyview on Yonge, a ten minute walk from home, for most of his nearly 15 years with them. He was proud to know everyone’s name and unit number in a very large building, and nothing made him happier than opening up all the cards he’d get each Christmas. It didn’t hurt that all the tens and twenties tucked into the cards added up to a very substantial (and tax-free!) Christmas bonus each year. The picture we have on display here today is of him standing behind his desk at Skyview.

Sadly, the Commissionaires lost the contract for the building in 2010 and rather than start over again somewhere else, Dad decided to retire. In hindsight, I think retirement took a lot of the purpose out of his life.

It’s not really possible to know what kind of a person someone is just from the things they’ve done, but I think if you’re here today, you probably know a little about what sort of man my Dad was. As I get older, I see the many ways, good and bad, that I’m like him.

The truth is that when I was a young man, we weren’t very close. My mum’s death changed that pretty dramatically. I was extremely close to her and probably took her side a lot. I was just 22 when she died, and so I feel like I spent the first part of my life getting to know her, and the second part getting to know my Dad.

I’ve learned that, like me, he was essentially a shy man who nevertheless loved people. I think he found it easier to talk to them when he had a job to perform.

While as a young man he took risks and wanted adventures, as he got older he realized the value of his family, both near and far, and spent as much time as possible with them.

He loved to read, which is something he instilled in me from a very young age. In fact, he loved to read so much that I have some library books to return for him this week.

He also loved to cook, and for him, cooking you a meal was his way of expressing love. Sadly, I’ve inherited only a bit of his love of cooking and none of his skill. And my wife Brooke doesn’t cook at all. He’ll be doubly missed at Christmas; not only will we miss him, but no one else knows how to cook a turkey!

I feel very fortunate to have had the chance to get to know my father. My mum’s death drove us together in a way that nothing else could have. We had no other family here, and so we had to depend on each other. Some families come to these sad occasions with so many things left unsaid, or with regrets. I can honestly say that there wasn’t much in the way of unfinished business between me and my dad. So while his passing is painful for me, I’m happy for him that it was sudden. He hated doctors and hospitals. And I’m proud that after more than fifty years as a smoker, he spent the last month of his life as an ex-smoker. We all would have liked it to be much longer, of course, but his willpower was impressive to see, even for such a short time.

Of all the things I’ve learned from him over the years, that might be the most important. That it’s always better to make a positive change, no matter how small, than to give up. For that and for everything else you’ve taught me, thank you, Dad.

from Consolation Champs

My Eulogy for Dad

As you know from my last post, my Dad became seriously ill about a month ago while on holiday in Ireland. Luckily, he was visiting his brothers and sisters and they made sure he had the best medical care possible. On the day he was admitted to hospital, my uncle later told me, the doctors didn’t give him much of a chance. But over the next few days, he made a remarkable recovery and was released from hospital in time to make his originally scheduled flight home. When he got home, I met him at the airport and we talked about a plan for continuing his recovery: staying on the nicotine patches and off cigarettes, seeing his family doctor and a respiratory specialist as soon as possible, and seeing about getting oxygen for him at home.

Those first few days back were actually pretty great. His appetite had returned with a vengeance, and being off the smokes, he could actually taste his food again. He was eating three meals a day, which was two more than he had been eating in recent years. He was diligent about his nicotine patches, and handled any psychological cravings by popping a hard candy when he would have been reaching for a cigarette. I was proud of him. His own doctor saw him a few days after his return, and scheduled an appointment with a specialist for today. Toward the end of last week, I was speaking to him on the phone and he mentioned he had no energy to get up and do household tasks. He asked if I could call his doctor to see if we could do anything about the oxygen. She told me there really wasn’t anything other than to reduce his activity level and, if things were really bad, to go to the hospital.

I planned to visit on Sunday so we could order in some lunch. When I arrived, though, I was pretty shocked to see how much he’d declined in just a week. Brooke and I had been there on the previous Sunday and although it took some effort, he cooked us a full dinner. We didn’t end up having lunch; he had no appetite at all. I did take out his recycling and garbage, change the cat’s litter, and go and do some shopping for him, but even when I returned with a cooked chicken, he didn’t want any. He hardly moved from the couch at all. When I asked him if he was okay, he said he felt absolutely fine, except that he had no energy. He wanted me there while he took a shower in case he felt weak and fell, but he didn’t end up showering. He said he’d sit in the tub and run the shower later. I thought about taking him to hospital, but wondered if sitting in the Emergency department for hours would just make things worse. He assured me that he’d be fine for his Tuesday specialist appointment, and that he’d even be driving himself there. I left telling him I’d accompany him on Tuesday and that I’d call him at lunchtime on Monday.

Brooke was coming home from a weekend away at a running event in Pennsylvania, and for whatever reason, I couldn’t fall asleep at all that night. On Monday morning, I decided to ask my boss if I could work the next two days from home, just to be closer in case Dad needed me. I was mentally and physically exhausted after seeing him on Sunday as well, and tried to have a short nap around midday. I called him around 11:45am and got the answering machine. Thinking nothing of it, I left a message. I called back around an hour later and got the machine again. Thinking back to Sunday, Dad had said he might have to visit an OHIP office to see about getting the bill for his hospital stay in Ireland looked at, but I couldn’t imagine him having the energy to go out on his own. I tried not to panic. But after calling back every hour until 4:00pm, I called Brooke to let her know I was going up to see what was going on.

I have another memory of doing the same thing a few years back when I couldn’t reach him, and it turned out he was in his bedroom playing one of his favourite computer games with the sound way up. He just hadn’t heard the phone. But this time I knew it was different, and I was preparing myself for the worst. I was particularly terrified I’d find him in the bathtub with the water running. Since I hadn’t spoken to him since the afternoon before, I had no idea what had happened. When I got to his place, the television was off and the doors to the bathroom and bedroom were closed. That’s normal routine at night so the cat doesn’t bother him.

I decided to open the bathroom door first, just to make sure he wasn’t in there. Not seeing anything amiss, I opened the connecting door to his bedroom and saw him, curled on his side just next to the bed. It looked like he had just gotten up first thing in the morning and then collapsed. I can take comfort, I suppose, from the fact that it was sudden, and it didn’t look like he suffered. But it was still a shock. We all thought he had a few years left.

This post is in no way meant to eulogize my father. That will come later. But for those who know me, it will explain why I’ve been scarce for the past few days, and will be for the days ahead. Arrangements have been made, relatives have been contacted, and the next little while will be a little bit of a blur. That’s good. I suspect that I’ll only really feel the impact of the loss in a few weeks. Then I can write more about what my Dad meant to me.

Here are the details about the memorial service, in case you’re interested.

Memorial Service for John McNally
Monday October 29, 2012 at 11:00am
R.S. Kane Funeral Home
6150 Yonge Street
Toronto, ON

We’re asking that in lieu of flowers, you might make a donation in my father’s name to the Canadian Lung Association. There is also an online guestbook here or you can make a comment or share a story using the comment box below.

from Consolation Champs

John Malachy McNally (1942-2012)

And then I got an odd Facebook message from my aunt in Spain. She said my uncle and aunt in Dublin had reported that my Dad wasn’t doing too well. Over the past few months, his health has been deteriorating. He’s been a lifelong heavy smoker and about a year ago, I began to hear a lot of wheezing in his breathing. Always reluctant to go to the doctor, he finally had to earlier this year because the over the counter asthma “puffers” he was using weren’t working anymore. As we suspected, he has emphysema and received stronger medicine to help him breathe. But he hadn’t given up smoking.

I’d noticed his activity levels really dropping off recently as well. He used to go out for beers a couple of times a week, but was talking about giving that up, at least during the oppressively hot weather we had been having this summer. But the last time I saw him, about a week ago, he told me he’d fallen after getting up too quickly, and was feeling banged up. He had no energy and was a bit worried about having to travel overseas in a few days. When I got my aunt’s message, I thought that the stress of travelling had been more serious than any of us expected, but that he’d recover after a few rest days.

This morning, however, I had another message from her, that he’d been admitted to hospital with breathing problems, and that I should call my uncle in Dublin right away. The rest of the day has been a bit of a blur. I left work early to go to his apartment so that I could take Marmalade to the vet. While there, I missed a message from a doctor in the ICU unit. Things are more serious than they seemed. He’s on a ventilator and has been intubated to help him breathe. My uncle says he wasn’t even conscious. My cousin who’s a nurse says that once someone is put on a ventilator, there is little chance of coming back to any measure of health. The doctor asked me about what decisions we’d discussed in case he went critical.

So, our planned trip to Brussels on Friday now has a detour to Dublin, and I’m packing a suit, just in case. This is surreal, but I’m also comforted by the fact that he is surrounded by his family, who are taking the very best care of him. In many ways, I feel he might have unconsciously been just waiting for a situation where someone else would take care of him. If this is the end, I feel okay with that. But right now I’m anxious. And I feel disappointed that Brooke, who more than anyone needs a vacation, will have to come along on a not very happy journey with me.

I don’t know what the next few days will hold. I’m not sure we’ll see much of Belgium. But I feel like I wanted to write something down about the way things like this happen. It feels very odd throwing my nice shoes into a suitcase and hoping I don’t need to wear them. And I feel a bit angry about having to alter my plans and spend more money just to be with him, and then I feel guilty for being angry. I know that however this turns out, we’re going to need a vacation more than ever.

from Consolation Champs

Packing for a Funeral

Recently, I’ve been thinking about the past. Actually, I’m always thinking about the past; I’m inherently nostalgic. But I was thinking specifically about 1992, since it’s 20 years ago this year that I graduated from York University. In those days, I kept a diary, and so I dug out the battered-looking notebook to see what I was going through at this time exactly 20 years ago. It wasn’t pretty. I’ll share more below, but as I began thinking of my life and trying to recognize any sort of pattern, I realized that most important things seemed to happen in years that ended in 2 or 7. Since I was born in 1965, that meant that my age always ended with one of those numbers too. Here’s just a small sample:

1967

My parents bring two-year-old me to Canada in the spring of 1967. The Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup, again! What does it mean that they haven’t won it since?

1972

Seven-year-old me skips a grade at school. Canada beats the USSR in the Summit Series. Did I mention that I’m not even a hockey fan?

1977

I’m 12. We spend three weeks in Bermuda for my dad’s job and then three weeks in Ireland and the UK, just as punk is breaking. It’s also the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.

1982

Just before my 17th birthday, I’m “born again,” beginning a tumultuous and ultimately disillusioning two-decade association with evangelicalism. I also lose two grandparents and a great-grandmother, and my parents’ marriage dissolves.

1987

I graduate from four years of “Bible College” without a clear career plan. A few weeks later, my mother, a lifelong smoker, dies from lung cancer at the age of 43. I’m suddenly living on my own without financial support (my Dad’s support payments unceremoniously stop coming).

1992

Early in the year, I’m financially destitute. Down to my last $30 and behind on my bills, I beg my father for help. He offers no money but says I can move in with him rent-free for a while. I sleep on a bed tucked behind his living-room couch. I finish my B.A. in English and History at York University, intending to go to either graduate school or Teachers’ College. I’m turned down everywhere except Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which offers me financial aid to cover about half of the $12,000 fees. Needing an escape from my miserable living situation and a long-simmering unrequited love that’s threatening to devour me, I move to Michigan in September. Despite the fact that I incurred even more debt and never ended up teaching, this year away was extremely important.

1997

After working for three years as a welfare caseworker (a job I landed after being on welfare myself for almost a year), I’m laid off. I take a course in “multimedia and web design” and decide to move to Waterloo to live with my best friend. Unfortunately, I’ve just ended an eight-month relationship with a woman who also lives in Waterloo. A lifelong pedestrian, my job search is limited by the lack of a car, and my presence drives my ex to angrily reclaim all her letters during a dramatic confrontation. A few days later, my old job recalls me, and I move back to Toronto. Waterloo sojourn = 19 days. That summer, I begin dating Brooke, who will later become my wife.

2002

After five years together, Brooke and I marry in October.

2007

Brooke’s dad passes away in the spring. After attending for the previous six years, I moderate my own panel at SXSW Interactive, on the subject of expressing spirituality and finding community online. I spin off my film writing to another blog, Toronto Screen Shots.

2012

The year is still young, but so far, I’ve established a quarterly screening series for short films called Shorts That Are Not Pants. And I’m planning to finally shape my working life into a sustainable and satisfying career. Moves are afoot. Let’s hope 2012 is one of the good years!

from Consolation Champs

The Rule of Twos and Sevens

Dumb Mobs, or Keep Your Epinions to Yourself

It was only a matter of time. As more and more of us got online and started to join communities, we began to share our opinions. We became a marketer’s dream, allowing them to gather our most detailed demographic data every time we made a purchase or joined a Yahoo! group. Companies like Amazon began to let us write “reviews” of our purchases and recommend things to others. With a user base of several million individuals, these databases have begun to act as our critical voice whenever we consider an online (or offline) purchase. But how good is the information we receive this way? Will this sort of “mob ranking” replace the advice of trusted sources, and if not, how will these trusted sources establish themselves online? Will it become more difficult to find good information in the flood of online ratings? What kind of forces are at work here? These are the questions I propose to explore.

I was prompted to ask some of these questions during a panel on book publishing during this year’s South by Southwest Interactive conference. The moderator had been talking about how the marketing and promotion of books had moved online, mostly due to the web’s reach and the reduced costs involved. I began to think of the way that the critic’s role had also moved online, though not in the way I’d hoped. Sure, people still brought up the New York Times online and some of them even read book reviews there, but more and more sites were adding their own ratings engine and just letting everybody have at it. Something about this made me uncomfortable and I wanted to find out why.

I have participated in this kind of critical activity myself. At the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), users can rate a film out of 10 and write their own reviews which are then added to the site. A bit of a film geek, I’ve endeavoured to rate every film I see, whether it’s a masterpiece, a flop, or just an entertaining bit of fluff. Upon reflection, I think that might be the only way these sites will work. Just as a professional critic must write reviews that fall across a wide spectrum of opinion, each voter on IMDb or Amazon or Epinions must establish the boundaries of their taste. In the case of product reviews, where taste is not an issue, the critic still must establish their standards. Without informing anyone of what we don’t like, sharing what we do like will be meaningless.

However, my experience with these sites shows a different situation. Some users vote only for things they do like. These people would have an average rating that is quite high. Others only point out things they hate, and so their average ratings are quite low. As individual voices, we might be wise to ignore them, but as part of an anonymous mob, they are invisible. We don’t even know how many of them there are. The larger question is how do we know we can trust the ratings presented by a site that doesn’t limit its membership in any way? Sure, it’s democratic, but when it comes to informed opinions, the mob surely doesn’t rule.

Since the machinery behind these databases is hidden to us, I wanted to ask a few experts how they work. Is one better than another? What kind of research is being carried on into making them more useful? Will it really ever be true for me that I will weigh the opinion of the New York Times’ book critic against the mob of user ratings at Amazon and find them equal?

Let’s take Epinions as an example. When I ask it to list dramatic movies in order of rating, I get a very long list of 5-star choices. But I’m almost certain that the people who gave Schindler’s List the top rating were not the same group that elevated Anne of Green Gables to the same lofty place. I can’t be sure, but I’m trusting my gut on this one. I would hazard a guess that most people who take the time to rate their purchases online are a self-selecting group whose opinions tend toward one end of the spectrum or the other.

The interesting thing is how much more influential these algorithms have become, and how opaque they remain. Google’s search algorithm is the big one, but recent stories about the “black box” that is Yelp are also relevant. I wonder if a discussion of these issues might still be interesting, or has the issue already been settled?

from Consolation Champs

Dumb Mobs, 2003

Yesterday’s post was a necessary look back, but I want to focus now on what’s next. As I mentioned before, I’ve taken myself away on “career retreats” on two previous occasions. In 2003 and again in 2009, I spent a couple of days in Kingston, Ontario, chosen, frankly, for its blandness and lack of distractions (sorry Kingston!). On both occasions, I returned energized and with job descriptions in hand for jobs that did not (yet) exist. On both occasions, I went on to work at those jobs after reaching out to the relevant communitites (wine and film, respectively). And I still have great relationships and potential or ongoing work with both of these communities. So clearly my strategy has been effective. The issue was that in one case (wine), the industry was too small and my prospects limited, and in the other (independent film distribution), the economy made it impossible for me to work full-time for decent wages.

Given that I would like to continue to work with the people I met in those two jobs, I’ve been exploring the idea of launching my own content consultancy. I’ve certainly worked in many different business sectors and have seen the same issues in all of them. A lack of clear communication and a need for guidance when it comes to online tools, for starters. The shape of this new business will need some experimentation and some advice from trusted friends, but it’s a potentially exciting new direction.

And just to reinforce that my basic skill set has been in place all along, here are what I listed as my “transferable skills” back in 2003. Each was based on a job I had performed at some point in my working life:

I’m a person who can:

I took the photo for this post myself. It’s a road sign we saw in rural Iceland on our trip there in 2008. I invite usability experts to weigh in on just how helpful this sign could be to anyone traveling by car.

from Consolation Champs

Where Do I Go Now?

As I write this post, I’m sitting in a San Francisco café in the midst of my third “career retreat” in the past eight years. For someone who thinks about the world of work so much, I don’t seem to be very good at figuring it out for myself.

I left my position at St. Michael’s Hospital just over a month ago, six months into a ten-month contract. Without getting into too much detail, I was unable to work effectively within such a large organization, with all of its existing power structures and areas of dysfunction. Plenty of people do, but I’ve just realized (again) that I’m not cut out for working in bigger companies.

I’ve been working for money for more than 30 years now. I took my first job in the summer of 1980, selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door. Since that time, the longest I’ve ever held a job has been four years, and that’s been on two occasions. From 1994-1998, I was a welfare caseworker for the City of Toronto. And from 2003-2007, I was the web guy for Lifford Wine Agency. I enjoyed both jobs, but left for similar reasons. I was worried about stagnating. I’ve come to realize that when it comes to work, I have a fear of commitment.

It hasn’t helped that for the past decade, I’ve been working in web-related positions. The online landscape shifts so often as to make just about anyone insecure. I’ve always been happiest as a generalist, but each job I’ve taken in the past few years has pushed me to specialize more and more. I’ve learned a lot about what I don’t like to do in the process. What’s been harder to nail down is what I do like to do.

And so I’m here, spending a week away from my regular routine, reading, thinking and writing about what I want to do with that part of my life devoted to earning money. I’ve tried to be unsentimental about work. My generation may have been the first raised to expect more from our careers, not just money but fulfillment. I’ve always thought that was a tall order. And yet.

We spend half of our waking hours working. We often see our workmates more than the members of our own families. We should be looking for an environment in which we can use all of our abilities and develop good working relationships. We should be able to balance our work and home responsibilities with as little stress as possible. Let’s face it. I’m still an idealist.

Everywhere I have worked, I have diagnosed areas of dysfunction and lamented relationships that just didn’t work out. I’ve often thought that I would make a good manager, but without the power to actually make organizational changes, I know I’d grow bitter and frustrated.

I’ve often joked that entrepreneurs are people who just can’t work with anyone else, and now I feel like I understand that mentality.

Over the past eight years, on my career retreats, I’ve compiled lists of my skills. I’ve read about flow. I’ve tried to combine my passions with my abilities. I’ve created non-existent positions and then sold companies the idea of hiring me to fill them. So why am I still back in this position, unemployed and looking for my next gig?

I’m 46 years old. I like to think that I know myself pretty well. I like to think that the income matters less than the opportunity. That I’m ready to take on new challenges, again. But I worry that others will see me as a job-hopper, as someone who’s never stayed in one place long enough to achieve mastery or to assume responsibilities. As someone who is afraid of commitment.

I often compare the world of work to the world of relationships. And I worry that I’m that guy waiting for “the one” to sweep me off my feet. And I’m perpetually disappointed. And worse, it’s not possible to take a break from working the way one might decide to take a break from dating. We need to work all the time, and when we’re working it’s hard to find energy to find better work. So many people muddle on in jobs they hate. Except me. I get out.

And as each position I leave is found wanting, I worry that I’m running out of options. Who wants to hire someone so unsure of what he wants out of his work?

So this week is about me remembering my experiences, recalibrating my expectations, rethinking my ambitions and researching my options. God help me.

Thanks to Daniele Sartori for making his photo available under a Creative Commons licence.

from Consolation Champs

How Did I Get Here?

You can stream the whole thing by hitting the play button, but it works best as a download, so go ahead and click that link (or the image). By the way, the lovely image is of my dear late friend Brad Graham, whom I met at my very first SXSW in 2001. That’s him trying on a jacket at Austin secondhand shop Uncommon Objects that very year. The amused-looking Dinah Sanders is in the background. We lost Brad in January of 2010 but it just wouldn’t be SXSW without him.

Duration: 55:11
Download .m4a file (81.4 MB)

1. Lisztomania – Phoenix (2009, from the album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix): How 2009, the hipsters are sneering. But who am I kidding, the hipsters don’t come here. Sure, I may be late to the party with French veterans Phoenix, but how much more I’m enjoying them after waiting out the hype. This whole album just feels like a refreshing breeze and a taste of summer. Sort of like Austin in March, non?
2. Pure – Lightning Seeds (1989, from the album Cloud Cuckoo Land): Believe it or not, I rediscovered this song in Carlos Assayas’ masterful 5.5 hour film Carlos (review). I really loved the way he used music, from the jagged postpunk of Wire and Another Sunny Day to the, well, pure pop of this song. “Just lying smiling in the dark” – ah yes, I remember.
3. The Last Time – Gnarls Barkley (2006, from the album St. Elsewhere): Here’s a great overlooked track sung by the great Cee-Lo Green from his collaboration with DJ Danger Mouse. I really like the combination of his silky voice and the jittery keyboard riff.
4. Pages – Starlight Mints (2003, from the album Built on Squares): I think Starlight Mints should be more well-known. They have a really unique sound and some lyrical tricks, like on this off-kilter love song.
5. I Want the World to Stop – Belle and Sebastian (2010, from the album Write About Love): From perhaps the finest pop songwriters of the past 15 years. I saw the band this year and was knocked out by their showmanship and musicianship, but most of all by the sheer number of incredible songs they’ve written. Plus, Stuart Murdoch is one of the coolest gents ever.
6. Love Without Lies – Comet Gain (2008, from the album Broken Record Prayers): I discovered this band literally the day before putting this compilation together. I was watching a UK indie film called 1234 (review) about, yes, being in an indie band, and found veterans Comet Gain, together since 1993, for the first time.
7. Whirring – The Joy Formidable (2010, from the EP A Balloon Called Moaning): Welsh three-piece fronted by a kick-ass blonde guitarist named Ritzi. What is not to love? Plus, they are playing SXSW, although I won’t be around for music this year. Make sure to catch them live.
8. Off Your Face – My Bloody Valentine (1989, from the EP Glider): Upside Down is a documentary about Creation Records that is playing SXSW this year. My Bloody Valentine are one of my favourite bands from that label and era. I used to think that Bilinda Butcher was singing “James” in this song, and since my crush on her remains undimmed for the past twenty plus years, I refuse to change my opinion.
9. Hummer – Foals (2008, from the album Antidotes): Late to the party with these guys, too, but really love the dancefloor-friendly precision of the guitars. I found out about them through my support on IndieGogo for Anyone Can Play Guitar, a documentary about bands from Oxford. Go and help Jon finish his film!
10. Royal Gregory – Holy Fuck (2007, from the album LP): I saw this Toronto band at SXSW in 2010 and loved their live knob-twiddling performance. Catch them live this year if you can.
11. Steady Shock – Girl Talk (2010, from the album All Day): I’m not a huge Girl Talk fan but some of the samples in this particular track were inspired. Not a day goes by recently when the line “all the girls standing in a line for the bathroom” doesn’t run through my head about a hundred times.
12. Zebra – Beach House (2010, from the album Teen Dream): Beach House really don’t sound like any other band I’ve ever heard and I’ve enjoyed listening to their moody music this year.
13. Down in the Park – Gary Numan and Tubeway Army (1979, from the album Replicas): When I was 14, I wore out the grooves on this record. This predates Blade Runner but shares the same vision of a grimy and slightly seedy future.
14. Dream Job – The Dears (2008, from the album Missiles): Montreal natives The Dears just released a new album that was critically savaged by hipster favourite Pitchfork. This is from their previous record, which wasn’t reviewed all that strongly either. It just goes to show you that some bands march to their own, er, drummer. I’m glad to say that The Dears’ music is the sort that grows on you, and I hope you’ll come to love this underappreciated band as much as I do. Also, I have a Dears story.

I have no way of determining how many people download the compilation this year, so if you’ve read this far, would you mind just dropping a comment to say Hi after clicking the download link? Of course, it would be great if you came back to tell me what you thought of the music, too.

from Consolation Champs

SXSW 2011: Compilation Champs

The Roman God Janus, namesake of the month of January
(image courtesy of Wiki Commons)

It might be a cliché to take the beginning of a new year as a chance to take stock or to make resolutions, but I’ve always admired people who do it honestly. This past year, this blog marked a decade of existence, but it’s been growing quieter and quieter, and I’d like that to change. When I began my other blog, Toronto Screen Shots in 2007, I fully intended to keep blogging here for more personal stuff, but the rise of Twitter and Facebook seems to have taken over the realm of the personal, at least for the quotidian stuff. And although I’ve been meaning to use this space for lengthier more contemplative writing, I’ve frankly become a bit spooked, mostly due to my work experiences with “social media.” It’s hard to be honest about your life when you can’t talk about the thing you spend most of it doing, which is going to work. As someone who thinks about the world of work constantly, and who seems to change jobs just as constantly, I’ve tried to put a few of my thoughts about that here, but have had to be less than candid at times. I hope that might change a little bit. And as for the personal, I’m hoping to use this blog as a bit more of a place to examine myself and my life. For those few of you who might still read this blog on a semi-regular basis, thank you and I hope you’ll stay with me on this hopefully-not-too-narcissistic journey.

Family

As I look back on 2010 and forward to 2011, the phrase that comes to mind is “contentment in the midst of uncertainty.” I will turn 46 in February and am now closer to 50 than I am to 40. It really is true that time seems to speed up the older you get. It’s very strange to see all the grey in my hair and the lines forming on my face when inside I still feel like the geeky teenager I used to be. And yet even as lots of things change around me, I am pretty happy most of the time. The obvious reason for that is Brooke. We’ve been together for 13 years now, married for 8 and although marriage isn’t easy, and we don’t take anything for granted, we have a pretty stable and low-maintenance relationship. She’s remarkably tolerant of my faults and still laughs at my jokes. She’s easy to be around, and even as I age, she seems as young and beautiful as ever. I don’t want to make it sound like we have a perfect marriage. Both of us have made significant sacrifices to be together, and my life is not at all what I imagined it would be when I was younger.

I miss having children, and letting go of the idea of being a father was very hard for me. It’s only been in the last year or two that we have pretty much released the tension that used to exist between us on this subject. But Brooke was honest with me from the start. Her ambivalence about parenthood never wavered and time finally made the hard decision that we never quite could verbalize. I think I would have been much more comfortable if either of us had siblings. As it stands, we live in an eerily child-free world. A dog is certainly in our future, though.

Each of us has only one surviving parent. Brooke’s dad died in 2007, and my mother way back in 1987. This past year has been exasperating at times as each of us struggled with our emotionally needy parents and realizing we’d become parents to our own parents. My dad is just 68 but as a heavy smoker has started to lose his health. He’s developed a troubling wheeze that probably means emphysema but he’s too stubborn (or afraid) to go to his doctor. Brooke’s mum is in good health but is 75. So, sometime in the next 5-10 years, it’s likely that we’ll lose one or both of them.

Career

My career has always been a source of uncertainty, and for that I must take full responsibility. I’ve just never found that perfect fit, and although I’ve enjoyed the wide range of environments and industries I’ve worked in, it might be nice to finally settle down. My current job is a contract that will run until September 2011, and I have no idea whether I’ll be moving on again or if it will be renewed. Since 2007, I’ve had five different jobs. While that might be fine in one’s 20s, I get a bit nervous now going for interviews.

2010 was certainly a learning experience on the career front. Working on the front lines of film distribution was wonderful, but I realized how hard it is financially for a small independent company to survive in the face of competition from larger corporations. And going to work for one of those larger companies turned out to be very unappealing. My choices were to remain in a job where I worked 3 days a week with no benefits or to look for something more lucrative but potentially less interesting. I’ve now added health care and the film industry to the list of sectors in which I’ve worked (internet services, financial services, computer retail, web design, wine!) in the past decade. And I’m discovering that my core skills are essentially about communicating online. I hope that will continue to lead me in interesting directions in the year and years ahead.

Friends

Moving from the thing that takes up most of my time to the thing that actually means the most to me, 2010 was both good and bad in terms of friendships. The year began with my dear friend Brad Graham suddenly passing away at the age of 41. My tenth annual pilgrimage to SXSW was particularly poignant since that was where I had met Brad in 2001, and it felt like a bit of the personal web died with him. Keeping this blog going is an attempt to fight that creeping feeling that nobody can be themselves anymore online. Nobody was more himself online than Brad, and I plan to honour him by trying to be more of myself here as well.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom. SXSW was still a highlight, where I got to reconnect with old friends and connect with new ones. And locally, I made new friendships and deepened older ones within my circles of friends, both small (I’m lookin’ at you, SuperNerds®) and larger (film bloggers represent!). I’ve always been relationship-focused and if I happen to be more vocal about my friendships this year, I hope you won’t mind. In my own low-key way, I try to bring people together and nothing pleases me more than being a kind of matchmaker and then seeing sparks (creative, romantic, whatever) fly between people I’ve introduced.

Conclusion

Well in typical rambling personal blog fashion, I didn’t really know what I’d end up writing and now here I am trying to sum up. Here are some things I want to do in 2011, in no particular order.

• Be more demonstrative toward my friends, both old and new. They should know how much I love them.
• Write more, and more honestly, here. Self-examination without narcissism, if that’s possible.
• Continue to try to figure out what I want to do when I grow up.
• Admit mistakes, but more importantly, learn from them.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for more from life. And then to pursue it without fear.

And before I end up sounding like a motivational speaker, I’ll stop. If you’ve made it this far, thanks. And I wish you a very good 2011!

from Consolation Champs

Looking Back and Looking Forward: 2010 Edition

I’ve been needlessly secretive about the new job I started this week, and I’m not sure just why. Perhaps it’s because I’m still pinching myself. The past few weeks have seemed pretty dreamlike, with a wonderful ten-day vacation in Spain also contributing to my giddiness. Here’s what has happened.

Despite the best intentions of all parties, it was clear that my 3-days-a-week gig at indie film distributor KinoSmith was not going to turn into a full-time salaried position with benefits and vacation. So a few months ago, I began yet another round of job searching, applying for just about everything with the words web, content, writer, or editor in the job description. I was encouraged that there seemed to be more of these positions showing up in my daily career alert emails, but I wasn’t getting as many interviews as I would have liked.

Then, in early October, many weeks after I’d applied, and during a particularly quiet spell, I received an email from Anthony Lucic at St. Michael’s Hospital inviting me to an interview for the position of Website Managing Editor. It had been so long that the original posting had disappeared from the web and I actually had no idea what the job description was anymore. Nevertheless, I was excited for several reasons. First, this was a position in the nonprofit sector, at one of Canada’s leading hospitals, and I could easily get excited about working in the healthcare field. Second, the position seemed interesting and challenging: writing and editing, but also a strong strategic component, where I’d be involved in planning the direction of both the public-facing site and the hospital’s intranet. Anthony was actually the incumbent in the position and had been on a secondment to another part of the hospital for several months, so he knew exactly what they were looking for. He interviewed me by phone at first, then invited me in for a more formal panel interview the next week. Finally, the week after, I was invited back for a second (third?) interview where I met the person I’d be reporting to, the hospital’s Director of Public Relations.

All this was happening with our long-planned trip to Spain just days away. In fact, the very afternoon we were leaving, I received a phone call from Anthony just half an hour before our taxi arrived, offering me the position. It made our vacation that much more enjoyable knowing I’d be coming back to start an exciting new job. Technically, it’s a contract position, and if Anthony’s secondment isn’t renewed, he’ll likely be returning to the position next fall, but I’m not worrying about that just yet. I’m looking forward to some new challenges related to managing a large corporate website. I’m hoping that the burgeoning field of content strategy will hold many new insights for me, and I’m bemused to be wrestling with both an unwieldy corporate CMS and the tortured prose of professionals and academics again.

P.S. The title of the post and the image both reference the iconic “Urban Angel” statue that has come to represent St. Michael’s Hospital. You can read more about it here. “Thank You For Sending Me An Angel” is a very fine song by Talking Heads from their second album (and my favourite), More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978).

from Consolation Champs

Thank You For Sending Me An Angel

Duration: 42:36
Download MP3 (20MB)

You can click on the above image to get an idea of the whole area of my walk.

I started at my doctor’s office on Ellesmere just east of Pharmacy. It’s marked by a red polygon.

After walking through Parkway Mall, I headed for my old building at 270 Cassandra, marked by the red polygon.

I continued walking on Cassandra, past 250 to Cassandra Park.

I turned left onto Avonwick Gate, to visit Annunciation Catholic School, where I attended grades 1-8 from 1971-1978. The school is marked by the red polygon.

Across from Avonwick Gate is the entrance to what we called “the ravine,” which is really Brookbanks Park. I emerged by Crestwood Preparatory Academy and Brookbanks Public Library, which is marked with a red polygon.

If you find this site because of Google, and you knew me, please get in touch! You can add a comment or if the comment form is closed, you can find me on any of the various social networks out there.

from Consolation Champs

Cassandra Podcast

Back then, there were probably a few hundred blogs in existence, and I could link to all the ones I followed on one page. It was before the days of punditry, so there were no business blogs or political blogs. They grew out of people’s personal “home pages” and so were a form of self-expression. After reading about the first blogger meet-up at South by Southwest 2000, I became determined to meet some of my heroes and heroines, and the next spring, I did. I’ve returned each March to Austin and SXSW because some of the friendships I’ve made online and cemented there are very valuable to me. And I’ve stubbornly kept this blog going as a mostly personal blog, although I don’t post nearly as regularly as I used to. That’s partially due to laziness, but also because we have so many other online tools for keeping people updated about our lives (Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, etc.).

But I’m proud of Consolation Champs for other reasons, too. By working with several different blogging platforms (first Blogger, then Movable Type, now WordPress), I’ve increased my knowledge of how the web works. In the early days, I did much more of the coding and design of my pages, but even now, blogging helps to keep me sharp on the latest web technologies. And all that writing (1,335 posts over ten years!) has sharpened my skills immeasurably. In fact, without rambling on here for so long, I would never have started my other blog, Toronto Screen Shots. Blogging has led to friendships and to work, and has expanded my view of the world over the past decade. I hope it will always be a part of my life.

Now, just for fun, here are some of the things I was talking about way back in the year 2000:

• Is 35 too old to be in the web design business?
• An early meme and one of my favourite spontaneous jokes ever.
• Complaining that Withnail and I wasn’t yet available on DVD
• Perennial whining about the Toronto International Film Festival
• Evidence of real love

And that’s just from July and August of 2000! Feel free to read all 1,335 posts and I’d be delighted if you left a comment, too!

from Consolation Champs

A Decade of Blogging

Here we are in a special place
what are you gonna do here?
now we stand in a special place
what will you do here?
What show of soul
are we gonna get from you?
It could be Deliverance
or History
under these skies so blue,
but if I know you, you’ll
bang the drum
like monkeys do.

Now we stand on a rocky shore
your father stood here before you.
I can see his ghost explore you.
I can feel the sea implore you
not to pass on by,
not to walk on by and not to try
- just to let it come
don’t bang the drum
just let it come
don’t bang the drum
do you know how to let it come now?
don’t bang the drum now
just let it come now
don’t bang the drum now
don’t bang the drum

— “Don’t Bang the Drum” by The Waterboys. Words and lyrics by Mike Scott and Karl Wallinger, 1985

from Consolation Champs

A Prayer for the G20 Summit

Last night, I went to a party. Each year around this time, Lee Dale and Jay Goldman organize a get-together just before South by Southwest, ostensibly for Torontonians heading down. Cheekily-titled Canadian Livers in Training (CanLIT), it’s a boozy, loud, and utterly wonderful time. And that’s coming from someone who’s a bit of a party wallflower. I didn’t have any deep conversations last night. I might have spoken to ten people in a room of about 150. But what it reinforced for me is that life is about connection with other people. I would argue that work should be, too.

This might sound strange coming from someone who has worked and lived online for the past decade or longer, but I think that as wonderful as computers and mobile devices and the web can be, they have contributed to much more isolation in the workplace. I’ve spent the past few years miserable in high-paying and some might consider cushy jobs writing and building “communities” on the web. Miserable because in the workplace, my day and the days of everyone I worked with consisted of long stretches alone staring at a screen and not actually talking to each other.

This might work for some among us. It’s not surprising that tech jobs are often filled by people with some form of social dysfunction, but I think I’m arguing that our workplaces reinforce and in some cases may even help create that dysfunction. I’ve certainly learned that personally, I need a job where I can spend a significant amount of my day interacting in real space with human beings, preferably smart people. It seems a gross injustice that most of the people who are comfortable around others, those with so-called “people skills” are often channeled into sales and marketing positions, forcing them to use their gifts in the service of selling more crap, while so many other people in the organization look at these folks with a mixture of envy and resentment.

I’m not saying that we should spend our work day holding hands and singing folk songs. Nor am I arguing for more useless meetings. But to me, all of the talk about “corporate culture” is meaningless if we all work alone.

To bring it back to South by Southwest, each year for the past ten years, I’ve been spending a pretty large amount of money and often taking vacation time to make the trek to Austin. Though there are literally hundreds of panels and presentations, I learn more in the hallways between sessions, or over lunch or dinner or drinks with all the smart people I meet there. Humans are social creatures, even the introverts. Somehow, our workplaces have crushed that out of us in a misguided quest for efficiency. I would argue that we’re much more efficient when we’re interacting with each other. Now, how can we make that happen? See that comment box below? Come talk to me…

Thanks to Flickr user cliff1066™ for making his images available under a Creative Commons license. The sculpture is called Last Conversation Piece, and it’s by Spanish sculptor Juan Munoz (1953-2001). It’s in the Hirshorn Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC.

from Consolation Champs

Come Talk to Me

So, this year, behold the mighty .m4a compilation! It has album artwork and everything. All that’s missing are the liner notes, which I’m going to provide for you right here. You don’t need to be attending SXSW to download and enjoy this 10th annual SXSW edition of Compilation Champs. But if you are, make sure you say hello if you see me. In any case, please let me know what you think about the songs. I love putting this together each year and writing a little bit about music, which I don’t do often enough.

You can stream the whole thing by hitting the play button, but it works best as a download, so go ahead and click that link (or the image).

Duration: 48:00
Download .m4a file (67.8 MB)

1. Intro – The XX (2009, from the album XX): I named this my Album of the Year for 2009 and this song does indeed make for a perfect “intro” to the rest. The XX sound to me a bit like what would have happened if Young Marble Giants had listened to more James Brown growing up. Minimalistic dance music that’s both cool and hot at the same time.
2. Shadow – Delta 5 (c. 1979-1981, from the album Delta 5: Singles and Sessions 1979-1981): I only recently discovered the amazing Delta 5 after watching a documentary about the history of Rough Trade Records in the UK. This unique band had two bass players and were at the forefront of the feminist and anti-racist movements. Plus they’re from Leeds, home of one of my all-time favourite bands, The Wedding Present.
3. Blessed Brambles – Múm (2007, from the album Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy): My fascination with Icelandic music continues, and with Múm’s in particular. There’s a mechanical sound to their music that reminds me of sewing machines: industrial and yet homey at the same time.
4. My Love Life – Morrissey (1991, from the EP Morrissey at KROQ): An old favourite from the tail end of my college days. A plaintive plea for sympathy, and who couldn’t use “a little something” for our love lives?
5. Overground – Siouxsie and the Banshees (1978, from the album The Scream): Stark and cool, this song is from the band’s very first record. Despite being criticized at the time for their lack of musicianship, I find the stripped down sound energizing and kind of epic, actually.
6. I’m Confused – Handsome Furs (2009, from the album Face Control): In a lucky accident, I stumbled into a show by this husband-and-wife duo at last year’s SXSW. I couldn’t believe how energetic they could be with just a guitar and a keyboard. It pleased me that they’re Canadian, from Montreal, but it’s strange that I haven’t really listened all that much to Dan Boeckner’s other band, Wolf Parade.
7. Time for Heroes – The Libertines (2002, from the album Up the Bracket): Another discovery from the Rough Trade Records documentary. I’d only ever heard of Pete Doherty as the drug-addled boyfriend of Kate Moss. His most recent band, Babyshambles, never crossed my radar at all, but listening to The Libertines makes his subsequent troubles all the more sad.
8. Hell Yeah (Pimp the System) – Dead Prez (2004, from the album RBG: Revolutionary But Gangsta): Dead Prez impressed the hell out of me in the film Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, and so I went looking for more from them. This song is powerful enough to both frighten me and make me see things from the other side. Muggings and fraud are survival tactics, but there’s also a thrill, that of “pimping the system” that tries to keep you down.
9. The Major Lift – Years (2009, from the album Years): Years is a side project from the impossibly-named Ohad Benchetrit, multi-instrumentalist for Do Make Say Think. It was the horn section in this particular song that grabbed me, especially the tuba, which is a bird seldom-heard in most of my music.
10. A Prophecy – Close Lobsters (1987, from the album Foxheads Stalk This Land): Scottish band Close Lobsters were part of the C-86 “movement” spawned by a compilation put out by the NME. Though they weren’t prolific, this entire album is a treasure chest of jangly goodness. I have no idea why the song speeds up at the end, but I sort of like that it does.
11. Footsteps – Bricolage (2009, from the album Bricolage): This Glasgow band seem to be mining the same territory as Postcard Records acts like Orange Juice and Josef K, which is just fine by me. If I had actually heard this album last year, it might have been my album of the year. Also, what is it about Scottish bands that compels them to make electric guitars sound like something else? First it was Big Country making guitars sound like bagpipes, and now on this song, Bricolage give the guitars a steel drum feeling. Or am I crazy?
12. Broken Rifle – Evening Hymns (2009, from the album Spirit Guides): Closer to home this time. Evening Hymns is essentially Jonas Bonetta, from tiny Orono, Ontario. Over the years I’ve introduced a few people to some great Canadian music, and I hope this year it might be this lovely song that reaches you.
13. Peach, Plum, Pear – Joanna Newsom (2004, from the album The Milk-Eyed Mender): I had heard OF Joanna Newsom for quite a while but had never heard her music until the closing credits of a short film called City Paradise, which featured “Peach, Plum, Pear.” It worked so well there that I’m stealing the idea here for my own “closing credits.”

I have no way of determining how many people download the compilation this year, so if you’ve read this far, would you mind just dropping a comment to say Hi after clicking the download link? Of course, it would be great if you came back to tell me what you thought of the music, too.

from Consolation Champs

SXSW 2010: Compilation Champs

You’ve got to hand it to him. My good friend Kevin Smokler is like a one-man cheering section for the publishing industry. Throughout all their travails over the past few years, Kevin has been in the midst of things, shouting encouragement and (often) exhortations. His day job (CEO of Booktour.com) involves helping authors and publishers find ways to connect with readers in real space, and now he’s doing the same thing for magazines. Sort of.

Kevin’s organizing the first annual “National Magazine Day,” to be held Saturday February 27, 2010. There will be an “official” event in San Francisco, held at an independent bookstore. Readers will congregate and read to their hearts’ content all day, followed by a lively panel discussion. But you don’t have to be in San Francisco, or even in the USA, to participate. Kevin’s encouraging all of us to “attack the stack” of unread magazines we have lying around, and I intend to take him up on the offer. I’ve always loved magazines, and subscribe to quite a few:

• Harper’s
• The Walrus
• Iceland Review
• The Big Takeover
• Little White Lies

I also have loads of issues of Film Comment, Cineaste and the latest Oxford American to get through. There’s no way I’ll get through all my unread stuff, but by encouraging us to set aside some time just for magazines, Kevin’s helping us reconnect to what made us fill our houses up with this stuff in the first place. With the advent of the iPad, who knows how many magazines will survive in printed form. Let’s show our magazines some love this weekend.

By the way, all this has me curious what magazines other people read. Jump into the comments and let me know what mags you’re reading these days on paper. And here’s an idea. If you’re coming to South by Southwest in a few weeks, as I am (for the 10th year!), bring along an issue of something unusual that you’re finished with and let’s have a swap. I’ve already promised Kevin a copy of Canadian magazine The Walrus, and am hoping he’ll bring me something unique as well. Let me know in the comments if you want to participate and I’ll try to find a few things you might not have seen before.

from Consolation Champs

(Inter)National Magazine Day

By the time we’d made it to the restaurant, we were drenched but laughing like idiots. I’d made some genuine friends.

Today I found out that Brad Graham (at the far left in the photo) has passed away. He was 41. Brad was one of the funniest, smartest and warmest people I have ever met. It seems unbelievable that he is not in the world anymore, and that I won’t hear his laugh again.

I used to joke with him that he reminded me so much of comedian Paul Lynde, the old center square on the game show Hollywood Squares. I hope that when I die, he will be sitting in the center of the Bloggywood Squares and that he’ll be saving a seat for me.

Godspeed, my friend…

from Consolation Champs

Rain Can Make Brothers Out of Strangers

My album of 2009

This was a tough year for me to compile a list. Although, as always, there was great music released this year, I found myself mostly buying older stuff. In fact, my discovery of the year was probably Delta 5, who made music from 1979-1981. That being said, I’ll rank every complete album and EP I bought this year (a few physically, most through eMusic. Entries marked with asterisks were downloaded either free or at a significant discount (ie. the Fanfarlo album was given away for $1)

1. The xx – xx
2. Handsome Furs – Face Control
3. múm – Sing Along to Songs You Don’t Know
4. Years – Years
5. The Raveonettes – In and Out of Control
6. Fanfarlo – Reservoir*
7. Jarvis Cocker – Further Complications
8. Wilco – Wilco (the album)
9. Metric – Fantasies

Not ranked because I haven’t listened to them enough:

• Timber Timbre – Timber Timbre*
• Do Make Say Think – Other Truths
• The Joy Formidable – A Balloon Called Moaning*

I thought I’d rank EPs separately:

1. Ume – Sunshower
2. Suburban Kids with Biblical Names – #4

Here are some of the “pro’s” lists:

• Chromewaves’ Favourite Albums of 2009
• Pitchfork Top 50 Albums of 2009
• Pitchfork Top 100 Tracks of 2009
• Allmusic’s Favorite Albums of 2009
• Last.fm’s Albums of the Year

• My Best of 2008
• My Best of 2007

How about you? What were some of your favourites?

from Consolation Champs

Best Music of 2009

After a few brief weeks of unemployment, I began working again at the beginning of October. It’s just a few days a week for now, but it’s likely to grow into a full-time position before long. I’m working for a small but mighty distributor called Kinosmith. I’d been aware of them for a while, but didn’t realize that the company was only founded in early 2007. Or that up until now, it’s been essentially a one-man operation. Robin Smith has worked in the Canadian film industry for more than 20 years, for companies such as Capri Releasing, Seville Pictures, Lions Gate, Alliance Atlantis, and the Toronto International Film Festival, and he seems to know everyone. But he made it clear upon meeting me this summer that he needed some help. Although my main areas of responsibility will eventually be the web site and social media initiatives, for the past few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of administrative work. It’s been a great way to begin to understand the business, and I look forward to absorbing some of Robin’s expertise as we continue to work together. I consider myself extremely lucky to have been in the right place at the right time.

I had been emailing back and forth for the past few months with another industry veteran, Oliver Groom, proprietor of Project X Distribution, a specialized DVD label that puts out the work of British filmmaker Peter Watkins as well as a few others. We finally decided to meet in person for a drink and since Oliver and Robin had recently partnered up for their DVD releases, Robin came along too. All three of us got along well from that first meeting and after another get-together and a few emails, Robin asked me to come and help him out. He recently moved his home office to Oliver’s house and so even though I work for Robin, I see Oliver a lot as well.

If I haven’t been writing here as often as usual, it’s not because I’ve been watching fewer films. On the contrary, I’m also helping out by watching screeners submitted to Kinosmith as well as catching up on the films we’re releasing now. Robin has built up a very impressive catalogue of films in just over two years, and lots of filmmakers want to work with him, so things are very busy. It does bring up a bit of an ethical dilemma for me. I don’t intend to refrain from reviewing films that happen to be distributed by Kinosmith, but I want to be completely transparent about my relationship to the distributor. Do you think it will be enough to put a standard disclosure notice at the beginning of any blog entry that deals with a Kinosmith title? I promise not to give any film preferential treatment, but I don’t want to ignore them, either, especially if I’m ever somehow involved in the decision to acquire the film for Kinosmith.

In any case, I’m very excited to be indulging my passion for film and learning more about the business side of things. It’s a great opportunity and I’m very thankful to Robin and Oliver for taking me under their wing.

from Consolation Champs

Working for Kinosmith

It began in August of 2007, when I posted about a career change. After four happy years doing web stuff at a small wine importing agency, I left for what I thought would be greener pastures at a huge professional services company. I craved a bigger fishbowl, I guess, and a bit more coin. As well, I thought that having a job title with “writer” in it meant that I’d be able to write more. But it turned out to be more re-writing than writing, and the office environment left me feeling isolated and bored.

Last August, I moved on to take a “social media” position at Tucows. The field was burgeoning and I felt excited to be stretching myself even further into a marketing role. But when my boss resigned earlier this year, things began to change, for me and for the company. She had created a brand new position for me, and when she left, I wasn’t quite sure where I stood. Worse, I began to realize that not only did I not have a passion for what the company did, I was beginning to lose my passion for the whole “social media” field. I felt a bit dirty, actually. The web culture I’d loved felt like it had been taken over by smooth-talking salespeople, selling their own expertise to a corporate world eager not to be left behind. Even worse, I’d become one of them. My work began to suffer.

I’d never intended to become a marketer, actually. It was different at the wine agency because I actually enjoyed most of the products we sold. But for the past two years, I’ve had a hard time even understanding what my employers did. To me, that meant that even if I was successfully doing my job, that I’d become soulless. Passion is essential to real job success, both for me and for my employers. It was obvious that I was a square peg in a round hole.

Earlier this summer, my new manager called me into a meeting where someone from HR was present. My performance wasn’t up to standard, I was told. I had to agree. Unfortunately, motivation was never discussed. That sort of honesty isn’t really encouraged in most workplaces. Instead, I was advised to pull up my socks or face dismissal. Unfortunately, passion can’t be manufactured out of thin air, and so on Wednesday morning this week, I was called into another meeting. Eerily, I’d been expecting it. On Tuesday night, I began bringing home photos from my desk. It must have seemed strange to my manager and HR how sanguine I was about the whole thing. But in fact, I’d been planning my exit for months.

I’d contemplated trying to “negotiate” my resignation but was afraid that showing my hand would only convince them to fire me. And I didn’t really want to leave with nothing else to go to. So I’ve been having meetings with people over the past few weeks, talking about possible jobs. Some of the work may be contract, but there are a few full-time possibilities on the horizon. Best of all, I’m not afraid.

I also feel confident that my old colleagues at Tucows will carry on just fine without me. I had my doubts that what I was doing warranted a full-time position at all, and they will have no problem picking up the slack. I wish them and the company nothing but success.

Several months ago now, I took some time for myself and went on “career retreat” to Kingston, about three hours east of Toronto. The last time I did that, in 2003, I discovered that my skills and my passions could be combined, even if it meant having to create a job out of thin air and then sell the need for that job to an employer. It led to my most satisfying period of employment yet, and even though I’m not heading back into the world of wine, my retreat reinforced my belief in my core skills and interests.

What all that means is that, somehow, I’m going to be working in the film business. I’m not exactly sure what that will look like, but it’s pretty obvious that film has been one of my dearest passions over the past 20 years, and if anything helps me achieve “flow,” it’s writing about a film I’ve just seen. I’ve got lots to learn, but I’ve gotten to know a lot of smart and generous people over the past few years, and I’m trusting that some of them will come through. A little help and a lot of hustle should get me back on my feet soon.

Onward and upward!

from Consolation Champs

August is Time for New Beginnings

At race time, the temperature was already into the 20s (Celsius) so I knew I’d have to stop at all the water stations since I’d decided not to carry my own water bottle. I started off very conservatively and ran the first kilometre in about 5:15. I actually slowed down for kilometres 2 and 3, and then picked it up toward the end. I’m pretty happy with my time, considering my total lack of training. But it did make me a bit more nervous that the heat next week will be even more debilitating. I’m going to make sure I bring some Gatorade along and I’ll still stop at all the water stations.

P.S. There is one team of guys that always dresses up each year. They’ve come as a team of Richard Simmons one year, and dressed as Dorothys (from the Wizard of Oz) another year. This year they all wore red bathing suits and blonde wigs and came as Gaywatch. Somehow, watching a team of male Pamela Anderson wannabes wasn’t as much fun as watching the real Baywatch girls would have been, but what do I know?

Gun Time: 28:06.0
Chip Time: 27:28.9
Overall Place: 388/812
Gender Place: 280/424

2008 Chip Time: (didn’t run)
2007 Chip Time: 24:28.5
2006 Gun Time: 25:08
2005 Gun Time: 26:06
2004 Gun Time: 24:10
2003 Gun Time: 28:45 (this is still the only race where Brooke has ever beat me, although she was on my heels this year!)

Full results from 2009

from Consolation Champs

Pride and Remembrance 5K 2009

I have a very fancy GPS watch (Garmin 405) and around the time I began to feel tired, it kept notifying me of my split times several metres BEFORE the course markers. As the race went on, this happened earlier and earlier, until by the end, my watch was reporting that the course was almost 400 metres longer than 10K. As a result, according to my highly calibrated (well, accurate to within 5m, according to it) watch, my 10K time was actually 53:32. When I stopped it at the official finish line, it read 55:12. Odd.

Anyway, even though I didn’t quite reach my goal of breaking 55:00 officially, I felt pretty good for the first half of the race. If only this had been a 5K!

I did struggle in the last half, and felt really dehydrated. Stopping to walk and drink water almost every kilometre near the end wasn’t pretty, but I’ve learned a lesson for our upcoming 10K race in Atlanta on July 4. The Peachtree Road Race will have more than 50,000 participants and the weather will likely be MUCH hotter, so I’m going to make sure I drink plenty of water, Gatorade, whatever it takes.

Gun Time: 56:58.8
Chip Time: 55:23.5
Overall Place: 4901/10762
Gender Place: 3159/4857
Age Group (M40-44) Place: 390/597

2008 Chip Time: 54:32.1
2007 Chip Time: 51:22.7
2006 Chip Time: (didn’t run)
2005 Chip Time: (didn’t run)
2004 Chip Time: 52:30.9

Full results from 2009

from Consolation Champs

Sporting Life 10K 2009

I am beginning to write a novel. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. Just to begin something with no end in sight. To follow some path until it comes to an end, and then look back on where I’ve been. It won’t be a screenplay, or a play, although I’ve wanted to try my hand at those, too. The forms would be too constricting, I think, for me right now. I just want to get out there and run.

Of course, I’ve had to transfer this file from computer to computer in the almost-decade since I started writing it. It began as a sort of scratch pad for my thoughts during a period of unemployment (when I actually thought of trying to write a novel) and I’ve added to it on and off ever since. Well, truthfully, the last time I wrote in it was 2005, but I opened it up again today and added a whole bunch of new stuff.

When I first started this blog in 2000, I expected that I’d be able to use it as a sort of semi-public diary. I wanted to explore my thoughts about important issues like faith, politics, work, relationships. But it hasn’t really worked out that way. Sadly, along with many others, I’ve begun to contract my onine self just a bit over the past few years. I’ve talked a little bit about it here, this fragmentation of the blogging self into the personal and the professional, for instance. And now there are microblogging services like Twitter and self-contained social networks like Facebook. Between all of them, some have said, they’ve killed the personal blog.

I wish I could use this space to air out my thoughts a bit more, but I realize that it’s probably not going to happen again. In the meantime, I have a text file on my computer called “I am beginning to write a novel.” It’s becoming a novel, alright (currently at almost 60,000 words!). Except it’s where I tell the truth.

from Consolation Champs

My Diary

So, I was pretty disappointed overall with my run. Brooke also had a sub-par year, finishing about a minute after me. Imagine my surprise when I realized that I actually improved on last year’s time. Not that 2008 was such a great race for me, either, but I suppose I can take some small comfort from the slight improvement.

Next month, we’ll be running the Sporting Life 10K again, and I hope to do much better. My goal is to run sub-54:00. That’s not very fast, but it will be a (hopefully) reasonable challenge for me.

Gun Time: 48:20.3
Chip Time: 47:29.3
Overall Place: 1060/2016
Gender Place: 703/1043
Age Group (M40-44) Place: 100/140

2008 Chip Time: 47:43.6
2007 Chip Time: 45:23.7
2006 Chip Time: 44:16.8
2005 Chip Time: 42:38.3
2004 Chip Time: 43:26.5

Full results from 2009

from Consolation Champs

Harry’s Spring Run-Off 8K 2009

Based on the title, I’m going to interpret this to mean that these albums have had an influence on my overall musical education. These are the albums that I bought with my hard-earned allowance and wore out on the turntable, in the tape deck or in the CD player. I had to keep it pre-2000 just to keep the numbers down, and these are mostly off the top of my head, so I could very well be omitting something huge and obvious. It’s clear that I could easily make a list of 100, but the rules said 50. So here are 50 plus a few more…

I’ve linked to a few full-featured, ahem, biographical reviews in the Great Albums category. Ideally, I’ll write one of those for each album on this list, even if that seems daunting and scary. For you as well as me.

And please not that I wrote this originally between midnight and 2:00am so my “notes” are a little slapdash. I reserve the right to add, delete, and edit at will

The Beatles – The Beatles (The White Album) (1968)

* Incredible in its range and showcasing the full range of the Beatles’ creative genius.

Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin (1969)

* The first album I ever bought, in 1975. I remember thinking the band was really good, but that the singer couldn’t sing.

David Bowie – Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)

* The first concept album I knew, and the beginning of an amazing decade for Bowie.

Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon (1973)

* THE soundtrack to my stoner years.

Alice Cooper – Alice Cooper’s Greatest Hits (1974)

* What a run Alice Cooper had to have a greatest hits album out already in 1974. A really versatile and underrated songwriter.

Queen – A Night at the Opera (1975)

* “Bohemian Rhapsody” was huge, but my friends and I played this right through at most of our high school house parties.

Max Webster – High Class in Borrowed Shoes (1977)

* I loved the combination of “hoser rock” and art rock that Max Webster always embodied. Plus, they’re in drag on the cover!

Sex Pistols – Never Mind the Bollocks (1977)

* Much has been made about the “manufactured” nature of the Pistols, but for me, the songs were and still are very good. And no one had ever sneered the way Johnny Rotten did.

The Clash – The Clash (1977)

* I loved the fact that a punk band could have two different singers.

Ramones – Rocket to Russia (1977)

* Every song is a winner even as every song sounds like the same song.

Kraftwerk – Trans Europe Express (1977)

* Perhaps no other album invokes a time and place so perfectly.

The Cars – The Cars (1978)

* I’ve written about this one elsewhere. “Just What I Needed” – more memories of unrequited love. Not saying that memories of unrequited love were just what I needed.

Talking Heads – More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)

* Angular and yet soulful. Arty and yet kind of primitive.

Devo – Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978)

* Twitchy and danceable, if nerds danced.

The Clash – London Calling (1979)

* Amazed then and now at this band’s range.

The B-52s – The B-52s (1979)

* Loved loved loved this whole album, except “Rock Lobster,” strangely enough.

Gary Numan and Tubeway Army – Replicas (1979)

* Wore the grooves off this one, during my “I’m really a robot trapped in a gawky teenage body” phase. Lost interest when “Cars” came along and he seemed to forget about the guitar.

Gang of Four – Entertainment! (1979)

* Only fully discovered this album recently, but loved the way they took punk in a new direction.

Buzzcocks – Singles Going Steady (1979)

* Didn’t own this at the time, but I remember the songs and the attitude.

Bob Dylan – Slow Train Coming (1979)

* Just like Dylan, I was going through a spiritual transformation around this time, and this remains a powerful document of that time in my life.

The Boomtown Rats – The Fine Art of Surfacing (1979)

* I’ve written about this one elsewhere, but this album’s finest tracks have been overshadowed by “I Don’t Like Mondays,” my least favourite track.

The Specials – The Specials (1980)

* Of all the ska revival bands, I found The Specials the most versatile and politically engaged.

Teenage Head – Frantic City (1980)

* These semi-local heroes seemed to embody working-class teenage rebellion for me and my friends. Sort of punkabilly.

The Pretenders – The Pretenders (1980)

* I’ve written about this one elsewhere, but for my 15-year-old self, Chrissie Hynde was what sex looked and sounded like.

Magazine – The Correct Use of Soap (1980)

* I didn’t discover Magazine until maybe 20 years after this came out, but singer Howard Devoto (the original Buzzcocks frontman) and bassist Barry Adamson define postpunk for me. Cool and yet warm, with angular guitars underscored by funky basslines and overlaid with whipsmart lyrics.

Simple Minds – New Gold Dream (1982)

* “Someone Somewhere in Summertime” still brings back memories of unrequited love, though for whom I can’t remember(!).

U2 – War (1983)

* Spirituality engaged with the real world in the nuclear-frightened 80s. I was finishing high school.

The The – Soul Mining (1983)

* I’d never heard music like this before and still can’t classify it. Confessional and haunting lyrics, catchy tunes.

Lloyd Cole and the Commotions – Rattlesnakes (1984)

* I’ve written about this one elsewhere, but to sum up: world weary and impossibly cool, I wanted to be Lloyd Cole

Billy Bragg – Brewing Up With Billy Bragg (1984)

* Picked out of a delete bin in the mid-80s, unbelievably. Soft-hearted socialism like Billy’s defined me as a young man, and likely still does.

REM – Reckoning (1984)

* Michael Stipe’s mumbled lyrics over Byrds-like jangly guitars was pretty revolutionary in the synth-drenched 80s. It felt authentic.

Kate Bush – Hounds of Love (1985)

* Spooky, smart and sexy.

The Waterboys – This Is The Sea (1985)

* I loved the Waterboys’ (and later World Party’s) “Big Music” which was bombastic and yet felt incredibly personal at the same time. I loved the oblique spirituality and the sense of the divine lurking just around the corner.

The Smiths – The Queen Is Dead (1986)

* Not since Lennon and McCartney had there been such an amazing songwriting partnership as that between Stephen Patrick Morrissey and Johnny Marr. Morrissey’s ambiguous sexuality helped those of us who weren’t quite frat boys.

Violent Femmes – The Blind Leading the Naked (1986)

* Gordon Gano was another geek talisman, singing about Reagan and faith and not getting the girl.

The Wedding Present – George Best (1986)

* David Gedge’s strangled voice and the band’s unbelievably fizzy guitars made miserable relationships seem like fun.

Jane’s Addiction – Nothing’s Shocking (1988)

* I first heard this very very loud at a party and it still speaks to that part of me that likes music very loud. Also has the best song ever about our capacity for evil (“Ted, Just Admit It…”)

Pixies – Surfer Rosa/Come On Pilgrim (1988)

* Completely innovative song structures and tightly-controlled aggression helped me through a very tough year.

The Waterboys – Fisherman’s Blues (1988)

* Mike Scott’s rediscovery of Irish traditional music was warm and open-hearted and got me through a very rough year.

Sugarcubes – Life’s Too Good (1988)

* My first exposure to Björk’s heavenly voice, and Einar Orn’s not so heavenly voice.

Pixies – Doolittle (1989)

* Just a towering album which seemed unlike anything before it. And like lots after it.

My Bloody Valentine – Loveless (1991)

* Sonic ear massage. Sometimes painful and then forms into something incredibly beautiful. Kevin Shields is sculpting with sound.

Matthew Sweet – Girlfriend (1991)

* Matthew Sweet emerged almost fully formed with this amazing album of rock, power pop, and even country songs. An amazingly gifted songwriter.

Pavement – Slanted and Enchanted (1992)

* Pavement’s brand of slacker rock seemed slapdash and spontaneous, but they were really just trying to hide their smarts.

Rheostatics – Whale Music (1992)

* I’ve written about this one elsewhere, but a bit like Max Webster in the 1970s, the Rheos played a winning mix of hoser rock and art rock. Martin Tielli’s voice and guitar took this into sublime orchestral territory for much of its length.

Catherine Wheel – Ferment (1992)

* Catherine Wheel were like the slightly tougher rock cousins of the shoegaze scene.

PJ Harvey – Dry (1992)

* Polly Jean Harvey kicked ass and made you want her and fear her all at once. When she later started wearing dresses and stopped playing guitar, I was sorely disappointed.

Pulp – His ‘n Hers (1994)

* Cynical Jarvis Cocker sang with a world-weary nostalgia about the seamy side and had me singing along with catchy hooks.

Sloan – Twice Removed (1994)

* Perfect pop songs from Halifax.

Spoon – Telephono (1996)

* Pixies comparisons abounded but Britt Daniel’s Texas roots gave Spoon more soul than simple imitators.

Radiohead – OK Computer (1997)

* Radiohead began to take over the world with this ambitious and sprawling masterpiece.

Modest Mouse – The Lonesome Crowded West (1997)

* Filled with startling lyrical imagery, this album matched the words to jagged music that stopped and started and changed directions. Startlingly original and exciting.

Spoon – A Series of Sneaks (1998)

* Spoon showed real development on their second album, pushing into more angular and yet funky territory.

Built to Spill – Keep It Like A Secret (1999)

* Original and every track is a winner. Not an ounce of filler here.

I had to stop this before the year 2000 to keep it near to 50, but maybe I’ll do another version of my top albums from the past decade.

from Consolation Champs

50 Albums That Rocked My World

Thanks to Frank for alerting me to this. Holly Miranda is the gorgeous singer of the Jealous Girlfriends, a band he turned me onto last year and whom I had the distinct pleasure of seeing in Austin at last year’s South by Southwest. Frank reports that she’s working on a solo album and linked to this solo show she performed last spring. I think you’ll agree that not only is she nice to look at, but that she has a uniquely soulful voice.

By the way, FabChannel looks to be a great find too!

from Consolation Champs

Holly Miranda Live in Amsterdam

The Geography of Bliss, by Eric Weiner

A few days ago, I got a call from the public library informing me that a book I’d put on hold had become available. I’d completely forgotten what book it was, but the timing couldn’t have been better. Eric Weiner‘s book The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World reached me at the beginning of a new year, at a time when I’ve been thinking about my own life and happiness quite a bit.

I’d discovered the book after reading about it on my Icelandic friend Alda’s blog. Weiner, a correspondent for National Public Radio, had visited Iceland and met with her in his research. As it turns out, Icelanders regularly score highly on surveys of the happiest people in the world, despite their isolation, unforgiving climate, and the fact that they spend most of the winter in perpetual darkness. Hopefully, the economic meltdown won’t dampen their spirits too much. But it fascinated me, Weiner’s quest to find the world’s happiest people. He traverses the globe, writing chapters about specific countries/cultures, both happy and unhappy, to see how happiness is defined elsewhere and how it is pursued. Though he’s a self-professed “grump,” he’s also a very entertaining writer and someone I wouldn’t mind sharing a beer with. But that’s hardly surprising, since over the years, I’ve always seemed to attract friends who seemed less happy than I did. Which is to say that I’ve always considered myself generally a very happy person (perhaps an 8 out of 10). The thing that has me thinking about happiness so much lately is that over the past year or so, I think I’ve dropped to about a 7 (or even a 6 some weeks). Now this could be the dreaded “mid-life crisis” but I want to understand it a little more.

It turns out Weiner is around my age, so I find his questions similar to my own. I burned through 90% of the book yesterday and hope to finish it today. In addition to being a highly entertaining travelogue (he visits Iceland, Bhutan, and Moldova, among other places), the book is a very honest and personal quest to understand happiness, if not to seek it out directly. Weiner provides a good overview of the relatively new field of “happiness studies” (or positive psychology as it’s more formally known). Instead of simply trying to understand damaged psyches, why not try to find out what makes a healthy one so healthy? A quick peek at Amazon tells me that books about happiness are all the rage right now, but what I liked about this one is the author’s wanderlust and desire to find out what makes particular cultures happier than others. I think he hits it on the head when he says that it’s our relationships with other people that ultimately determine our happiness, and that sometimes you have to remove yourself from your own culture (by comparing it with others) to understand it better. I’ll surely have more thoughts after I’ve finished the book, but I can give The Geography of Bliss my heartiest (happiest?) endorsement.

from Consolation Champs

The Geography of Bliss

My album of 2008

Exactly one year ago, I posted my list of the best of 2007. Strange then that I woke up at 6:00am this morning thinking of putting together my 2008 list. I’m a subscriber to eMusic, so most of my music this year has come through downloads from this excellent service. As well, my experience attending some of the music portion of SXSW has helped me find new music this year. Looking over this list, some are quite recent listens, while others have become old favourites, so it’s a little hard to rank them precisely. That being said, here are my choices (idiosyncratic and personal, definitely) for the best music released in 2008:

1. Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight
2. British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music?
3. Okkervil River – The Stand Ins
4. Sigur Rós – Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust
5. Cut Copy – In Ghost Colours
6. Deerhunter – Microcastles
7. Love is All – A Hundred Things Keep Me Up at Night
8. Islands – Arm’s Way
9. The Jealous Girlfriends – The Jealous Girlfriends
10. Emiliana Torrini – Me and Armini

Just outside the top ten (either due to quality or just not enough listens yet):

• Of Montreal – Skeletal Lamping
• The Dears – Missiles
• Portishead – Third
• The Vivian Girls – The Vivian Girls
• Los Campesinos! – Hold On Now, Youngster
• Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

Here are some of the “pro’s” lists:

Chromewaves Best of 2008
Pitchfork Top 50 Albums of 2008
Last.fm’s Albums of the Year
Britt Daniel (Spoon) picks his best of 2008 on the Merge Records blog

How about you? What were some of your favourites?

from Consolation Champs

Best Music of 2008

I never wanna write short stories again. They suck. They’re incredibly demanding. A story can be perfect. No novel can be perfect. Novels are awesome. Novels are like us.

From an interview with CBC News reporter Sarah Liss

I’m reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao right now and really enjoying it. Perhaps I’ll write a review when I’m finished. Perhaps not. Either way, it’s worth reading.

from Consolation Champs

Junot Diaz on Short Stories

from Consolation Champs

Nortel and Teleworking

On Wednesday, my wife Brooke and I will be flying to Iceland for the fifth edition of the Reykjavik International Film Festival. We’re staying for the entire duration of the festival, which runs from September 25th through October 5th, and in addition to seeing films, we’ll be doing some sightseeing. We’ve rented a car for the entire time, and are hoping to see as much as we can, including the Golden Circle (the geyser at Geysir, the waterfall at Gullfoss and the site of the world’s oldest parliament at Þhingvellir National Park), the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, and possibly an overnight stay on Vestmannaeyjar, the Westman Islands. Other planned activities include whale-watching and horseback riding, depending on the weather.

All that to say that I haven’t quite decided how I’m going to cover the film festival yet. Ideally, I’ll be able to blog as usual, posting reviews shortly after seeing the films, but because it’s a vacation, I might just be having too much fun to post right away.

Though the entire schedule hasn’t yet been posted, the main program (Open Seas) features the following 18 films:

• 33 sceny z zycia (33 Scenes From Life) – Malgorzata Szumowska
• Pandoranin kutusu (Pandora’s Box) – Yesim Ustuoglu
• Adoration – Atom Egoyan
• Avant que j’oublie (Before I Forget) – Jacques Nolot
• Piao lang qing chun (Drifting Flowers) – Zero Chou
• Il y a longtemps que je t’aime (I’ve Loved You So Long) – Philipe Claudel
• Good Cats – Ying Liang
• Revanche – Götz Spielmann*
• Frygtelig lykkelig (Terribly Happy) – Henrik Ruben Genz*
• Barcelona (A Map) – Ventura Pons
• Venkovský ucitel (The Country Teacher) – Bogdan Slama*
• Zui yao yuan de ju li (The Most Distant Course) – Jing-Jie Lin*
• A Feast of Villains – Pan Jian-Lin
• My Winnipeg – Guy Maddin*
• O’Horten – Bent Hamer*
• A Nyomozó (The Investigator) – Attila Galambos
• Dos Miradas (Two Looks) – Sergio Candel
• Til døden os skiller (With Your Permission) – Paprika Steen*

Some of these played at TIFF this year and some others were released earlier, but I haven’t seen any of them. So far, I’m planning on seeing the ones marked with asterisks based on either recommendations from friends or just my own interest. If you have any recommendations I haven’t marked, please comment and let me know why I should see them.

from Consolation Champs

Off to Reykjavik

You can see my masterpiece here.

from Consolation Champs

Iceland Socks Rocks

A few months back, I was introduced to Leona Hobbs, the marketing honcho (honcha?) at Tucows who was looking for someone for her team. It turned out that it wasn’t the right position (my euphemistic way of saying I wasn’t qualified) and I didn’t think I’d hear from Leona or Tucows again. And then about six weeks ago, she contacted me about a brand new position with her team and after several weeks of interviews and paperwork, I’m happy to announce that on Monday August 25th, I’ll join Tucows as a Community Specialist. The job description ticks off all my favourite boxes and basically allows me to be an internet rockstar for money. Of course, there’s more to it than that, but I’m looking forward to stretching out in the social media space again.

I know this opportunity wouldn’t have come along without all the meeting and greeting and learning I’ve been doing in the past year, starting with the Talk is Cheap unconference, continuing throughout the year at the excellent Third Tuesday PR events, CaseCamp and Mesh, in addition to my eighth South by Southwest Interactive conference. To everyone I’ve met and chatted with over the past few months (and especially to my colleagues at PwC), thank you for giving me the benefit of your knowledge, your experience, your connections and your encouragement. I hope that I’ll be able to repay it in some way.

from Consolation Champs

On the Move Again

Now, my local (jealous) friend Neil has pointed me to this Charlie Rose interview with David. I suppose it might just be that much harder to get a table now, which is too bad. But I wish Momofuku every success.

from Consolation Champs

Charlie Rose Interviews Chef David Chang

You’d better believe that the Gitch Band will soon be included in the canon of “those who tried to rock”!!! But I’ll post the story here first. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to lift some of our music off that ancient cassette somehow.

(via Canuckflack)

from Consolation Champs

We Salute You

• American Airlines has removed pillows from most domestic flights to save $375,000 a year.
• American and others are charging $15 for the first checked bag.
• Southwest Airlines is among those slowing down to reduce fuel.
• Delta has swapped heavier seats for models weighing about 5 pounds less.
• American’s new drink carts are 17 pounds lighter, a move that saves 1.9 million gallons of fuel a year.
• Lufthansa is among those washing its planes more often to reduce wind resistance.
• Japan Airlines is redesigning cutlery to save 2 grams per piece. It is also saving 50 pounds per flight by cutting the number of newspapers and magazines it carries.
• Cathay Pacific has removed paint from its 747 freighters, removing as much as 440 pounds per plane.
• Delta is studying whether it is feasible to divide pilot manuals required on each flight between the captain and first officer, so they are not toting duplicate sets of five or six books that each weigh about a pound and a half.
• Northwest is carrying 25 percent less water for bathroom taps and toilets on international flights. Each 25 pounds removed, saves $440,000 a year.

It is definitely only a matter of time before passengers will be paying fares based on their own weight. With rising obesity rates in the developed world, some passengers may find themselves, er, grounded unless they can pay their way. It only seems fair, since there are already extra charges for overweight baggage. But I wonder what kind of a “human rights” kerfuffle will result?

With some peak oil commentators like James Howard Kunstler arguing that the whole airline industry will be dead and gone within 24 months, the point may be moot.

from Consolation Champs

Air Travel in Crisis

Saturday June 28, 2008

Episode 1: McCarren Park, Brooklyn

Duration: 7:58

Episode 2: McCarren Park, Brooklyn (after my tour of the Brooklyn Brewery)

Duration: 2:52

Episode 3: Hotel Kitano, Manhattan

Duration: 1:57

Sunday June 29, 2008

Episode 4: Hotel Kitano, Manhattan (morning, before almost drowning at the Pride Parade)

Duration: 2:55

I meant to record a few more episodes, especially since my experience on Sunday was so crazy. I walked out to Fifth Avenue to catch the Pride Parade and ended up following it all the way down to Christopher Street, about 40 blocks. Just as I got there, the heavens opened and without an umbrella, I was drenched. The rain didn’t let up for more than an hour so it kind of put a damper on some of the specators, though to their credit, the parade marchers kept up appearances. Well, except when the storm first broke and the parade stopped. I’ll never forget the sight of four drag queens huddled under a tiny umbrella trying to keep their wigs dry. Later, as I made my way back uptown, I tried to huddle under various awnings with hundreds of others. It was interesting sharing a bit of shelter with a group of soggy drag queens! By the time I got back to my hotel, my shoes, pants and shirt were waterlogged and I even had to spread all my paper money out to dry. Luckily the Euro 2008 final between Germany and Spain was on TV so I wrapped myself up in a robe and watched that.

Later, instead of going out to see a comedian (Eddie Izzard’s show was sold out, and Brooke doesn’t know Patton Oswalt at all), we just decided to see Pixar’s new film, Wall-E. First we ate at Empanada Mama, somewhere we discovered on our last visit in January. Delicious, reasonable and a short walk from the cinema which was on 42nd St.

On Monday, I met up with filmmaker Aaron Katz for breakfast (I’d met him the previous weekend in Toronto when he was here for Generation DIY) at Junior’s in Brooklyn and then went to the IFC Center to see Daisuke Tengan’s film The Most Beautiful Night in the World, screening as part of the New York Asian Film Festival. After that, a quick stop at Italian Wine Merchants to pick up few bottles from my favourite Slovenian wine producer (Movia) and then back to the hotel to meet Brooke and catch our shuttle bus to the airport.

Another great trip, and I’m still only just discovering what this amazing city has to offer.

Oh yeah, pictures are up on Flickr. Fair warning: lots of origami models.

from Consolation Champs

New York Audioblogs

Simply listening to music doesn’t bring us face to face with the people who make it. Going to live shows is somewhat better, although it can often be hard to make a connection in a crowded sweaty club full of drunk people, or, in the case of a more successful band like Radiohead, in a huge stadium sitting quietly in an overpriced plastic seat.

Stripping the music down in some way, and allowing us to get closer, really helps to make the musicians human again, and the music feels much more immediate when it’s being played live in an intimate setting.

I noticed this trend taking hold recently when I began to download the wonderful HD video files from Soft City Lights, sometimes from bands I either didn’t know or previously didn’t like. The Black Cab Sessions is another favourite, with musicians performing live and acoustic in the back of a London taxicab.

The Radiohead album is the first time I’ve actually paid for music video online, but I suspect that it won’t be the last.

from Consolation Champs

The Future of Music (for Me)

By the time the race started at 8:00am, the temperature was 25°C and the humidity was stifling. Brooke was running the 15K race, which started at the same time, but by the time she finished the temperature was over 30°C. Needless to say, her time wasn’t as good as the last time she ran this race, in 2004. On the other hand, even running without a watch, I managed to pace myself well even though I had no idea what my finishing time would be. I thought it would be between 27:00 and 28:00, so was very pleasantly surprised.

The race itself was really well supported, with lots of families and several groups of schoolchildren running in teams. I even got to see long-serving Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion, still going strong into her 80s. Though she wasn’t running, she did have her running shoes on!

That’s all the racing for me for a while. It figures that my Garmin Forerunner 405 shipped last Thursday and will arrive this Tuesday. Though it would have been nice to have it today, at least it will motivate me to go outside as we enter the hottest part of the year. At least, I hope it does.

Gun Time: 26:16.3
Chip Time: 25:43.2
Overall Place: 161/665
Gender Place: 122/286
Age Group (M40-44) Place: 15/41

Full results from 2008 (5K race)

from Consolation Champs

Bread and Honey 5K 2008

Since I’m still without a watch, I ran with Brooke for the first 3.5km or so. I wanted us to stick to a 5:30/km pace, and we actually were slightly ahead of that pace when I took off. While I was satisfied with my time, I’m still pretty far from my best performances. Brooke, however, set a personal best at the distance (44:45) so we went home happy.

Gun Time: 43:38
Chip Time: 43:25
Overall Place: 122/272
Gender Place: 92/137
Age Group (M40-49) Place: 33/50

Full results from 2008

from Consolation Champs

Alfie Shrubb 8K 2008

Ben says it’s just the first of many planned giveaway events, since the Foundation’s goal is to give away 1,000 computers by the end of 2008. Bravo, Ben, and Go Little Geeks! It’s only a little sad that the computers are running Microsoft Windows.

from Consolation Champs

Go Little Geeks!

CBC Radio’s Nora Young hosts a radio program called Spark! and her session was being taped for later broadcast as a show. She spoke with Microsoft researcher Bill Buxton on the subject “Does Location Matter?” which I thought would be about the benefits of telecommuting. It turned out to be mostly about the advances in video conferencing software and how to use it to work and socialize virtually with our colleagues and friends. It was fascinating stuff, but I was hoping the conversation would be broader.

We interact in a variety of ways with others online, but it’s mostly in the course of doing several other things at the same time. I can post a Twitter message, comment on a blog, and carry on an IM conversation all at the same time, possibly interacting with three different people, while at the same time writing in Microsoft Word or working with an image in Photoshop. I call these “micro-interactions” because they usually involve very little time, and are usually quite focussed on a particular subject or question. I’m reacting to a specific thing the other person has posted, for instance. These interactions have a defined purpose and they require little etiquette because online, interruptions can be dealt with later.

I’m finding more and more, though, that when I meet some of these same people offline, I’m finding the interactions more difficult. The idea of giving or getting “full attention” seems a bit overwhelming. I often fear that in offline situations, we won’t have enough conversation to keep things running smoothly. I also dread the awkwardness of introductions and departures, and knowing how long to just “hang around.” These are all non-issues with people I’ve met and known offline, because there is established etiquette. But I find that the more we interact online, the more awkward we get when we can’t interact the same way in the physical world. Among even good friends whom I’ve met online, our face-to-face interactions can sometimes feel awkward. “Just hanging out” can be difficult without some issue or topic to focus our energies toward.

Paul Collins tells a funny but illuminating story in his book Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism. He describes a speaking engagement at Microsoft in which the heads of more than half the audience are down over their laptops, a scene familiar to many conference speakers nowadays. When he asks what’s going on, his host tells him the audience members are watching the streaming video broadcast of the very talk they’re attending. It’s joked that many web geeks are probably mildly autistic, and that their legendary social awkwardness may actually be symptomatic of Asperger’s Syndrome, but it’s not really a joke.

The incidence of autism in general is rising rapidly; some statistics say it now affects one in 100 births. It’s interesting to me that the number is rising just as more and more of our social interactions are moving online. If I’m finding my own feelings and confidence around social interactions changing, I wonder how it will be for the generation of children who are growing up with the sort of “micro-interactions” I’ve described earlier?

Now all of this could just be unique to me. Maybe I’m just having a bad day socially. But I’m glad that it forced me to think about some of these issues. I’m very curious to see what others think about this. Feel free to comment below, or should you see me wandering around at Mesh tomorrow, by all means stop me. At least we’ll have a defined topic to discuss.

from Consolation Champs

Is Asperger’s Contagious?

Thanks to David Crow for linking to this thought-provoking article. I can identify deeply with the first three reasons, especially the feeling that I got a “late start” to my career. In fact, sometimes I don’t feel like I’ve started at all. My father, a Boomer, was laid off from a comfortable corporate job at the age of 49, which is just six years away for me. Also very true that I fear the “narrowing” of options that many career paths dictate. I prefer to be a creative generalist, though that can make the search for meaningful work (not to mention job interviews) pretty difficult.

from Consolation Champs

Amen from this Gen X Lad

Wii Wii Time!
Originally uploaded by jmcnally

I bought two Wiis on Friday. One is for me and one for a friend. There were only five in the whole store!

My Wii number is 7657 1175 3719 5076.

from Consolation Champs

Wii Wii Time!

• I think I’m smarter than 90% of the people you have working here. I may not be as focused or even as motivated, but I’m capable of being focused and motivated.
• I’m a little scared that I don’t know what I’m talking about.
• Whatever you think I haven’t done enough of, I can easily learn.
• But what if I can’t? And even if I can, what if I hate it?
• I don’t think that you’re telling me the truth about what it’s really like to work here.
• I’m not sure yet if want this job, but you’re not going to give me enough time or information to make a good decision.
• I’m a little scared that I really want this job, and that I’ll come across as too eager.
• I’m worried that I’ll become restless in six months and want a different job.
• I really have no idea what I want to “do” with my life.

What are some things you’d like to say in a job interview?

from Consolation Champs

Things I Wish I Could Say in a Job Interview

That being said, it was pretty cold when we headed out at 7:00am for an 8:00am start. The temperature was around 6° Celsius, though it did get up to about 10° later. Since I’m still without a functioning watch, I had decided to stick with Brooke for as long as possible, but she started to slow down around the 7K mark, so I took off. I wasn’t feeling particularly speedy, but my regular pace is faster than hers. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I struggled a bit for the last few kilometres. I’m definitely not in as good shape as I’ve been in past years. I need to get out and run more between races. But I was still quite happy with my time. I’d hoped to run sub-55:00 and I accomplished that. The discrepancy between gun and chip times is because we were quite far back from the starting line. Unfortunately, gun time is still how races rank you for placing.

Brooke has already signed us up for two more races in June, with a strong possibility that we’ll do a third. The Alfie Shrubb 8K is a small race held in Bowmanville, Ontario on June 1st. And the following weekend, I’m doing the Bread and Honey 5K in Streetsville, while Brooke runs the 15K. The third is the Pride and Remembrance Run, a personal favourite that we’ve run every year since 2003. There is a possibility that we might be in New York City that weekend, so we’ll have to wait and see. Hopefully I can secure my Garmin Forerunner 405 before my next race! And run faster! (P.S. Brooke ran 55:10.4)

Gun Time: 56:17.7
Chip Time: 54:32.1
Overall Place: 3072/8590
Gender Place: 2106/3895
Age Group (M40-44) Place: 318/543

2007 Chip Time: 51:22.7 (wow, forgotten how well I did last year!)
2006 Chip Time: (didn’t run)
2005 Chip Time: (didn’t run)
2004 Chip Time: 52:30.9

Full results from 2008

from Consolation Champs

Sporting Life 10K 2008

About a month ago, Terry was nominated for the 2008 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, in the company of such literary luminaries as Douglas Coupland and Will Ferguson. The happy ending came this morning, when he found out that he had won. Bravo, Terry!

from Consolation Champs

Terry Fallis Wins Leacock Medal

I’d always loved the Garmin Forerunner series of GPS-enabled watches, but they were enormous and ugly, and often didn’t work in the city, where tall buildings interfered with their ability to pick up a signal. I kept telling myself that when they got smaller and more capable, I’d pick one up. I believe that day is now at hand. Behold the Forerunner 405:

This thing will do everything: track distance, time, map routes, even heart-rate (on one model). Best of all, it can upload its data to the web, where you can analyze it or compare yourself with others on Garmin’s new Connect community.

This is exactly the sort of tech geekery that gets me excited and motivated to exercise more. There are only two notes of caution here. One is that there won’t be any Mac support for the 405 until November 2008. The other is that Apple has long been rumoured to be working on a much fuller implementation of the Nike + iPod kit. While it’s doubtful that Apple could build something as sophisticated as the Forerunner (though it would play music!), I might still try to wait a while. Although I’m sure I could use Windows under Parallels for a few months to sync my data with my iMac, there could be some potential hiccups.

Don’t be surprised if I go out and buy one this weekend, though!

from Consolation Champs

Technolust: Garmin Forerunner 405

Before I continue, I want to recognize all the hard work done by Eli and his group of volunteers and sponsors. But now that I’ve made that disclaimer, I’d have to say that I came away slightly disappointed this evening. Part of it is my own fault. Today was a very long day for me. I was up at 6:00am to travel to a financial services conference being held in the far northeast of the city. My journey by transit was an hour each way. I was only able to attend half the day because I had to get back to my office for a 90-minute conference call with a “social media platform” (ie. blog software) vendor, whose sales representative seemed incredibly unprepared, not to mention tacitly unconvinced by the product he was selling. So as I headed over to Circa night club, I was already feeling pretty exhausted. Nevertheless, navigating a crowd of close to 500 people in a night club setting where the music was turned way up was not conducive to any kind of networking for me. Call me old and crotchety, I don’t care.

The actual case studies were enjoyable, and I took some notes that I think will be useful. But the large setting (with haphazardly arranged plastic patio chairs) made it difficult to find a seat. And the size of the crowd made it difficult to hear all the questions. Overall, I’d divide my complaint into two:

1. The venue was unsuitable: A night club might seem like a “cool” place to hold a business function, but not if the music drowns out attempts at conversation. As well, their inexperience putting on “conference” type events showed, with poorly-arranged seating.
2. There were simply too many people: Close to 500 people is unmanageable for this type of event. Even had I been a bit less tired, I still don’t think I could have managed to introduce myself to many people in a crowd of that size. I recognized about a dozen names on the wiki signup page, and thought I’d have no trouble finding some people I knew. I was wrong.

I was hoping that CaseCamp would be similar to another “unconference” event that I attend as often as I can, Third Tuesday. Though more narrowly focused on public relations practitioners, the events (at least in Toronto) are held at a pub with a function room. The volume of music is much lower, the vibe is more laid back, and you actually sit around tables to listen to speakers. In this way, you can introduce yourself to the people around you first, and continue the conversations there afterward. Most importantly, the number of people hasn’t (so far) exceeded 100. I believe that this is a key issue. While online social networks can scale significantly, in the real world this isn’t possible. Groups larger than 100-150 become difficult to navigate. I certainly felt that way tonight.

What I’d like to see for the next CaseCamp is a “soft” cap of 150 attendees. After that, another group should be created and another venue found for the next 150. In this way, there is value for everyone. If that means featuring different cases at each, then so be it. Presenters could be rotated for the next event if necessary. As well, this makes finding venues a bit easier and certainly less expensive.

Part of tonight’s CaseCamp schedule was the afterparty, in which 5 DJs would spin tunes for the campers to dance to after all the case studies had been presented. People were invited to join from a few other events taking place tonight, such as StartupCamp and CopyCamp. I’m glad that the organizers extended the invitation to these others, and I’m sure they’re leveraging the very expensive rental of Circa night club, but honestly, the last thing I want to do at 9:00pm on a Tuesday night is dance, especially after a 15-hour day.

In conclusion, I think the exploding popularity of the event has even caught the organizers by surprise, and I’m sure that some of these thoughts might be crossing their minds as well. I very much enjoy the concept of CaseCamp and will look forward to seeing what the next one looks like. For any of you who were there tonight, first of all, sorry we didn’t get to talk! Secondly, what are some of your impressions of the evening?

from Consolation Champs

CaseCamp 7 Report

My friend Neil just let me know that my RSS feed is, in his parlance, “borked.” The problem is that it seems to have happened just over a month ago, at the confluence of a few different events. First, I added the Disqus plugin, changing my entire commenting system. Second, I upgraded to WordPress 2.5. And last, but not least, I was the target of a Distributed Denial of Service attack, seemingly as part of a strange hacker SEO contest.

So, as brilliant as I am (!), I’m having a hard time figuring out what’s happening. The feeds all validate fine, it’s just that they’re completely empty.

My feeling is that the culprit might be the upgrade, since a few other people have experienced this over on the WordPress forums (or is that fora?). But no one seems to have a definitive answer as to how to fix it.

Any suggestions? Of course, anyone subscribed to my feed won’t actually see this, but I’m hoping there are at least a few of you still coming to look at the pretty pictures.

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RSS Woes

I’m worried that making that sort of commitment after such a one-sided and inadequate evaluation is hurting both parties. Although the good interviewers encourage you to ask questions about the company during your interview, most of us aren’t as well-prepared as we might be. How do you ask questions about a place you’ve just seen for the first time? Also, most people aren’t that comfortable asking about things like what operating system do they have to use, or whether they can ever work from home, or take a “sick” day when they’re not sick. Many people are even too afraid to ask about salary and benefits, desperately hoping that the interviewer will volunteer that information. The good ones do, but that doesn’t mean they can anticipate the other questions you might have. Like the ones that won’t pop into your head until you’ve been working there for six months.

Why can’t working be more like dating? Why can’t there be a process of gradually getting to know each other to decide whether you like each other, and only then to commit?

I’ve been a big fan of something called “informational interviewing” for many years now. Basically, it’s just a fancy name for contacting someone at a company you’re interested in and taking them out for lunch, coffee or a beer. One of my big discoveries is that there are all kinds of jobs in all kinds of interesting companies out there, but you’d never read about them in the want ads. Some of these jobs have strange titles, or none at all. Some of the jobs don’t even exist yet.

Something great happens when two people meet on an equal footing in a non-threatening space. Even better if some intoxicants are involved (but not too many!). These are NOT job interviews; they’re more like job dates. You’re not even required to meet with the person actually capable of hiring. Just someone who can be honest about where they work, about what they and their company do, and about what it feels like to be there for eight (or more) hours a day.

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Why Can’t Working Be More Like Dating?

• A box set with Roman Polanski’s Knife in the Water, Repulsion, and Cul-de-sac, along with 8 shorts (Anchor Bay)
• Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (Artificial Eye)
• Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf (Artificial Eye)
• Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s Innocence (Artificial Eye)
• Ken Loach’s Land and Freedom (Artificial Eye)
• Mike Leigh’s Life is Sweet (FilmFour)
• Keisuke Kinoshita’s Twenty-Four Eyes (Masters of Cinema)
• Alan Parker’s Bugsy Malone (Optimum)

If that weren’t enough, a screener for Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly arrived this week, too, which I’ve been eager to see. Brooke is reading the book right now and raving about it.

I think the sale might be on for a while yet, especially on the Artificial Eye releases. If you have a region-free DVD player, these are some great deals.

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Region 2 Bargains Arrive

Borrowing some ideas from Chris Anderson‘s Long Tail concept, Kevin postulates that to make a decent living, an independent creator (musician, artist, writer, whatever) need only amass a thousand “true fans,” defined as people who will buy whatever the maker creates. The challenge, says Kelly, is that the artist has to maintain direct contact with all of these people or they will stop feeling “connected” to you. The good news is that the web has many tools (blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts) that allow creators to maintain direct connections with their fans.

It’s a compelling argument, and the discussion unfolding in the comments is enlightening, with people jumping in with examples of successes and failures. Go over and have a look. Then come back, if you’re a True Fan of mine!

from Consolation Champs

Kevin Kelly: 1,000 True Fans

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CaseCamp Toronto 7

Gun Time: 48:30.3
Chip Time: 47:43.6
Overall Place: 1064/1950
Gender Place: 737/1045
Age Group (M40-44) Place: 117/166

2007 Chip Time: 45:23.7
2006 Chip Time: 44:16.8
2005 Chip Time: 42:38.3
2004 Chip Time: 43:26.5

Full results from 2008

from Consolation Champs

Harry’s Spring Run-Off 8K 2008

I did know how, once. Just like every other kid, I signed up for the driver education classes at my high school and did perfectly well. Except for one thing. It was probably at my very last lesson when my driving instructor advised me not to book my test appointment until I practiced my parallel parking. A lot. At this point in the story, my memory gets a bit foggy (this is, after all, now more than 25 years ago). I did NOT practice my parallel parking. In fact, I got a bit annoyed with his advice. And when it came down to it, I guess I just didn’t care enough. All of my friends were getting licences, and some of them were even buying cars. I was happy, like Iggy, to be the Passenger. Until now.

It’s not that Klosterman has made me crave the experience of actually driving thousands of miles. The physical and mental effort of keeping the car safely between the lines and away from the cars in front and behind strikes me as exhausting. But there’s just something about the particular kind of solitude with musical accompaniment a “road trip” offers that a bus journey with an iPod just can’t match.

Even if I were to practice my parallel parking, after all this time, and successfully obtain my driving licence, I doubt very much whether I’d be able to take off on my own with a trunk full of music. I suspect that there would be some marital payback which would involve me doing every single bit of driving for the next ten years, and beyond. And as a much older new driver, I could never build up the self-confidence that would let me roll down the window and rest one arm on the doorframe. Instead of the freedom that I have in mind, more likely I’d be squinting at highway exit signs, nervously changing lanes and trying not to fall asleep behind the wheel.

If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll get back to my vicarious road trip now. At least when I start to get sleepy, I can just put the book down and go to bed.

from Consolation Champs

Vicarious Road Trip

If you had trouble getting the site to load today, I apologize. And I’m glad you’re reading this now. No, not you, malicious freaks. You guys can go away and not come back. kthxbye.

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DDOS!

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Freshened Up

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Disqus: Discuss

P.S. One of my favourite things about the game so far is the extensive use of Esperanto, the “world language” that hardly anyone speaks. It’s tied into the hopeless optimism of the Olympic movement, and that gets me all choked up, but it’s also supremely geeky.

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Find the Lost Ring

I didn’t plan well this year. And work got crazy. And I foolishly solicited SXSW filmmakers to send me screeners. So the leadup to this year’s conference was a flurry of late nights and trying to compile a super-calendar of Interactive, Film and Music events. Now that I’m here, it’s clear that I just can’t do it all.

In fact, my normal “shy extravert” personality has taken a hit and I am finding myself cocooning in my hotel room, which is unusual for me. I think part of it might be that I’m a bit nervous about trying to meet new people (ie. Film people). On the one hand, I’m a lazy man and don’t mind hanging around with my old Interactive tribe. But I feel like I might be missing an opportunity to learn something new and talk about another of my favourite things with like-minded people. But I’m also afraid of being embraced by the Film people and then missing out on all the stuff I’ve come to love about the Interactive conference. This conflict over different social choices as well as scheduling options has left me even more paralyzed than usual. And I don’t like feeling like this.

I’m hoping that staying a few days extra to see free Music day shows and hang around with my Austin pals will sort me out. I’ll post an update in a few days.

from Consolation Champs

SXSW 2008: Social Networking Indeed

In fact, I may have taken my last job for that reason. I felt good about selling wine because of the experiences I was offering. Family gatherings, social events, parties; all are places where people feel connected to each other and where the pleasure of enjoying our product would enhance (in most cases) people’s good feelings. Of course, I don’t think my employers thought about this directly, but it was a positive that 95% of the people who worked for us were wine lovers (in one or two cases, perhaps a little too enthusiastic in their appreciation) and one of the perks of the job was meeting people at events and enjoying our products at our own company parties.

The barriers, of course, were competence and self-esteem. The world of wine can still seem stuffy and class-conscious and there are enough wine snobs around to make even the most eager student feel stupid. I think this is why so many wine web communities sprouted around the same time. WineLog and Cork’d are great ways to share your drinking experiences with others, and Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library TV video blog makes learning about wine fun.

Now, how do I begin to apply some of these concepts to the new world of accounting I find myself in?

from Consolation Champs

The Pursuit of Happiness

• Immediacy
• Personalization
• Interpretation
• Authenticity
• Accessibility
• Embodiment
• Patronage
• Findability

In a real sense, these are eight things that are better than free. Eight uncopyable values. I call them “generatives.” A generative value is a quality or attribute that must be generated, grown, cultivated, nurtured. A generative thing can not be copied, cloned, faked, replicated, counterfeited, or reproduced. It is generated uniquely, in place, over time. In the digital arena, generative qualities add value to free copies, and therefore are something that can be sold.

Another overriding factor he mentions is trust. I suggest that if you or your business have any connection with the internet (and that’s all of us, especially if you’re reading this!), then you read Kevin’s article immediately. I think there are the seeds of a million business plans in there.

from Consolation Champs

Kevin Kelly: Better Than Free

You’re curious about new things and always try stuff like Skype, Second Life, Twitter, Ryze, XING, digg, and reddit early.

People who are willing to try new things and are not afraid of a little dabbling should be getting work. Perhaps this is what Joe Thornley was getting at in his assertion that he won’t hire people who don’t blog. I reacted strongly to that statement, but I can definitely see where he and others like him are coming from. They want people who are using the tools already, who don’t have to be taught to use them. But that’s where the educators can seem just a little off base. You can’t teach curiosity, or passion. Joe feels he can figure out who someone is from reading their blog and following their online trail, and he’s right. But should educators be counseling people to create these things in the first place? I mean, if a 50 year old professor has to tell a 20 year old student about new technologies on the web, then something feels amiss.

from Consolation Champs

Job Description 2.0

The doctor told us she’s got pneumonia, but she’s doing better already. A good night’s sleep was the first thing she needed. But instead of her staying with us for just one night and then driving home to Collingwood, it looks like we’re hosting a sick houseguest for the next few days.

There’ll be another Super Bowl next year, I hear, but it still would have been great to see such a competitive game. How was the halftime show? Did I miss any wardrobe malfunctions?

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Super Bah!

I do not hire entry level people without looking at their blog, following their twitter stream and checking their Facebook presence. I want a sense of who they are over time, not just when they are in my office. I want to know what they think on the issues they care about and how they express themselves. I want to see whether and how they connect with others. And I can find out all those things from their social media presence.

It’s not really Joe’s post specifically that bothered me. It’s how it will be interpreted by students eager to line up that first job. I’ve already seen what I call “the rise of the pundit” drain all the personality out of a huge part of the blogosphere. Eager to show how much we know, many of us now use our blogs as soapboxes, hoping to be noticed and hired. Maybe I’m just a crotchety old blogger, but I miss the days when blogs were an extension of a person’s whole life, not just of their job.

In fact, the advice Thornley gives to these students makes me afraid that their “blogs” will be nothing more than collections of sycophantic links to the people they want to notice them, or empty boosterism of a career they’ve yet to fully try on. When the doubts come, and the disappointment, and they finally have something interesting to say, will they be afraid to say it on their blogs?

I’m rehashing a lot of what I said in my comment over on Joe’s site, but one thing I want to repeat is that it would be a real shame if the blog became just an extension of the resumé.

I’ve had a few wobbles lately about crossing the boundary here and talking about work, but ultimately, I want this space to be a true representation of what I am thinking about and struggling with over time. If I was beginning my blog in 2008 instead of way back in 2000, I don’t know if I’d be able to hold that conviction with any confidence. And I find that sad.

Rebecca Blood, pioneer weblog historian, wrote way back in 2000 in Weblogs: A History and Perspective:

As corporate interests exert tighter and tighter control over information and even art, critical evaluation is more essential than ever. As advertisements creep onto banana peels, attach themselves to paper cup sleeves, and interrupt our ATM transactions, we urgently need to cultivate forms of self-expression in order to counteract our self-defensive numbness and remember what it is to be human. We are being pummeled by a deluge of data and unless we create time and spaces in which to reflect, we will be left with only our reactions. I strongly believe in the power of weblogs to transform both writers and readers from “audience” to “public” and from “consumer” to “creator.” Weblogs are no panacea for the crippling effects of a media-saturated culture, but I believe they are one antidote.

It’s getting harder to fly that idealistic flag, but I’m not ready to give up yet. The question is, how do we teach students to be fearless when they are being taught to blog in college to make them better employees?

from Consolation Champs

Is Blogging Now A Career Move?

Shady business practices, drug abuse, sexual harassment, lawsuits. And I’m only about a quarter way down the page. The thread starter has been participating in this conversation for more than three years now. Word of mouth is real.

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Word of Mouth is Real

Good to know.

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Ligers and Tigons and Bears, Oh My

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Protected: Transparency, Not Spin

After hearing about New York my entire life, I was happy and relieved to say that within an hour of arriving, I felt like I “got” the city. I felt at home and comfortable, which was unusual. American cities usually feel different to me, and it normally takes me about a day to settle in. I was also surprised that New York actually felt small to me. Not literally, because we only really got to see a small patch of midtown on our trip, but I guess I mean it felt manageable. We found that we could walk almost anywhere we wanted to go in just a few minutes, and if we needed to jump on the subway, we normally only had a ride of a few stops. I’m also a bit proud that I grasped the subway almost right away. Our subway in Toronto is much more basic, but I’m a transit user, so it was fun to figure out a more ambitious system.

Most delightful of all was the feeling that I actually knew people in this vast and hitherto-unexplored metropolis. When Brooke mentioned she’d like to tour the New York Times, I emailed Khoi Vinh, the design director of their web site, to see if any were offered. He graciously offered to show us around, himself, on Friday afternoon. On Saturday, we arranged to meet newly-engaged Dan Budiac and Kathryn Yu for brunch. And then while browsing in the 14th Street Apple Store, we serendipitously bumped into Anil Dash and his wife Alaina Browne. On this weekend, the big, intimidating city felt more like a village to us.

It helped a lot that we stayed at the wonderful Chelsea Lodge, a quiet, comfy and affordable haven on a quiet residential street. We ate two delicious breakfasts at the nearby Empire Diner on Tenth Avenue, where we overheard a number of great conversations, including the subject of a Men’s Vogue cover story reading the story to his group of friends. Our other breakfast was at the wonderful Pastis, in the revitalized Meatpacking District. It’s said to be a celebrity hangout, and we did spot Sam Shepard and Jessica Lange and their daughter having breakfast just before we left. While we’re on the theme of food, we also enjoyed great and unfussy food at Empanada Mama and the “Burger Joint” hidden in the luxe Parker-Meridien Hotel.

Other highlights of our whirlwind trip include:

• Visiting all three of NYC’s Apple Stores
• New York City Ballet‘s production of Balanchine’s Prodigal Son
• the huge Japanese bookstore Kinokuniya
• MoMa
• Nintendo World
• Strand Books
• Touring the United Nations Headquarters
• New York Public Library’s exhibit of Kerouac’s On the Road

By Sunday we were pretty wiped, and the only vaguely stressful things that we encountered were:

• looking for a Starbucks near Times Square that had somewhere to sit down, just after all the theatre matinees let out.
• trying to bring a special bottle of wine back through security in my carry-on bag and being forced to leave it there—no liquids allowed, even in sealed bottles.

For anyone interested, I’ll post a link to our photos when I get them posted to Flickr.

New York, I will be back soon!

from Consolation Champs

I Love New York, Seriously

Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life, by Steve Martin

Brooke picked this book up for me a few weeks ago, knowing I’d been a huge fan of Steve Martin during his standup years. You could even say that as a teenager, I idolized Martin. To this day, I’m in awe of people (including myself!) who can make others laugh. But I’ve always been slightly bemused by some of Martin’s latter-day forays into melancholy (Shopgirl, for example) and wondered what had happened to the sense of the absurd that fuelled his edgy comedy routines of the 1970s. I think I was 13 when I saw him perform at Toronto’s cavernous Maple Leaf Gardens, and it still boggles my mind today that a comedian could fill a 20,000 seat arena. It almost seems unreal now. But Saturday Night Live, his appearances on The Tonight Show, and for me, his comedy albums made Martin a bonafide superstar. But as Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life reveals, he was not quite an overnight success.

In fact, in this book he writes with a sometimes dewy-eyed sentimentality about all the hard work it took for him to look “wild and crazy.” A driven perfectionist with a Protestant work ethic, Martin grew up studying magic tricks and practiced for hours upon hours until his act looked effortless. Martin’s seemingly absurd routines were fuelled not by the ubiquitous drugs of that period, but by a ruthless intelligence and curiosity. He was a student of philosophy, and of comedy.

I smiled with recognition as he recalled some of his more inspired bits, but Martin himself seems still somewhat detached from this period of his life. He admits that after he left standup for the movies in the early 1980s, he rarely thought about that time. Only now with this book does he realize that it was the most fruitful, exciting, and just plain funny period of his long and (now) distinguished career. He’s honest enough to admit that he was never really after fame, and became very uncomfortable with it pretty quickly. But he loved performing. Although he seems at peace with his life, he still seems to look at his standup self as if he were looking at a completely different man. I find that a bit sad.

Steve Martin is less funny these days, and I think he knows that. But he’s had tremendous success as a writer of essays, fiction, plays and screenplays, and as an actor. For me, though, Steve Martin will always be the man who let me know it was OK to make a smart joke that nobody else got. Along with Monty Python and, later, the Coen Brothers, Steve Martin’s “bits” were the currency that was shared among me and my friends. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been thirty years. Now, before I start becoming the dewy-eyed sentimentalist, I’ll wrap up. If you’re of my generation, and actually saw Steve live on Saturday Night Live, you’ll want to read this slim but rewarding volume. Although the real Steve is considerably more complicated than the “funny” Steve, this was still a great read. In fact, I read the whole thing today.

from Consolation Champs

Born Standing Up

Lloyd Cole and the Commotions – Rattlesnakes (1984)

I’d met Goldie through my friend Colin around 1983, I think. With his thinning hair and permanent scowl, he looked like a perennially pissed off old man. We shared a love for punk, even though he was somehow affiliated with the strange evangelical subculture I’d recently become part of. I remember him bringing us Dead Boys records when Colin and I were in residence at Bible College. We’d play those and Colin’s Zapp funk records as loud as we could, enjoying the vicarious thrill of swearing and talking sexy. I remember Goldie and I commandeering the lounge television one night when Rock ‘n’ Roll High School was on. So we shared a taste in music and a slightly skeptical attitude toward the world around us.

Around 1984, our tastes were broadening. Goldie was the first one to tip me off to The Style Council, a new direction from The Jam‘s Paul Weller. So it was no surprise when he showed up one afternoon with a home-recorded tape that he wanted me to hear. Side A was Eden by Everything But The Girl, well before their dance music days. Though I enjoyed Tracey Thorn’s soulful vocals, I was much more interested in Side B, which Goldie hadn’t even mentioned.

Lloyd Cole’s anguished voice and whipsmart lyrics drew me in. Here was a guy who seemed impossibly sophisticated and world-weary at the same time. Every song was tinged with regret but filled with literary barbs and wry humour. One of my favourite lines is from Four Flights Up: “Must you tell me all your secrets when it’s hard enough to love you knowing nothing?” The songs had a sophistication that screamed Europe but the album title sounded American. And Lloyd seemed worldly enough to know New York, London and Paris equally well. This guy was flat out cool, like an upper class and definitely more hetero Morrissey.

In the same vicarious way that I listened to Zapp and the Dead Boys, I absorbed the heartbreak and romantic adventures of Lloyd Cole. I didn’t have anywhere near that sort of experience (and still don’t), but when on the final track Lloyd sang “Are You Ready to be Heartbroken?” I wanted to jump up and scream out “Yes!”

Track Listing

1. Perfect Skin
2. Speedboat
3. Rattlesnakes
4. Down on Mission Street
5. Forest Fire
6. Charlotte Street
7. 2cv
8. Four Flights Up
9. Patience
10. Are You Ready to be Heartbroken?

Lloyd Cole’s weblog
“Perfect Skin” video on YouTube
“Forest Fire” video on YouTube

Great Albums is an occasional feature on Consolation Champs where I relate some personal stories about life-changing music in lieu of any proper music criticism. You’ll probably learn more about me than about music, so consider that fair warning. For more, click the Great Albums category tag.

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Great Albums: Rattlesnakes

• March: We lost Brooke’s dad to cancer, which has been tough on both of us. Jim had survived lots of things and it was sad to see him go at the relatively young age of 73. His booming Scottish brogue (both spoken and sung) is sorely missed. Although I lost my mum a full twenty years ago, the death of a parent at this stage of life always reminds us of our own aging and mortality.
• March: For the first (and hopefully not last) time, I chaired a panel at South by Southwest. After six years of attending, I decided to contribute a little, suggesting and then moderating a panel called “Ghost in the Machine: Spirituality on the Web.” Although I’m not repeating in 2008, I hope to be able to do something like it again soon. It was immensely rewarding for me and I got to meet some of my online heroes for the first (and hopefully not last!) time.
• March: I started a new weblog, gathering all my film reviewing into its own space. Efforts to make it a group blog have met with limited success, but I’m really enjoying all the new people I’ve met through Toronto Screen Shots.
• August: We moved to a bigger apartment, on a higher floor. We have more room and a great view of Lake Ontario. Unfortunately, now that it’s winter, our 27th floor pad feels more like an eyrie, with the cold Metric winds howling all night long.
• August: I changed jobs, from being the jack-of-all-trades web guy at a small but market-leading wine importing agency to being a web producer-writer at a huge “Big Four” accounting/professional services firm. The jury is still out on whether this is a good long-term fit for me, but I like having a bit more change in my pockets.
• October: Celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary and our tenth year as a couple. I hope we’re beginning to get the hang of this.
• October-November: Brooke and I took our annual holiday, this time to Havana. It was perhaps the strangest holiday we’ve ever taken together and I’m still not sure I’m ready or able to write about it. From almost-missed flights to a broken camera to illness, it almost felt like we shouldn’t have gone. Now that we’re back, I almost can’t remember being there. Our pictures are terrible, but at least they’re evidence.
• November: Celebrated the marriage of our friends Philip and Ian, finally tying the knot after fifteen years together. Congratulations, guys!

Plans for 2008, though subject to change and the will of the Universe, include:

• January: Visiting New York City for the first time since I was a small boy. We’re planning to see the United Nations, the NYC Ballet, maybe some theatre, the Nintendo World store and some good food.
• March: Attending my 8th South by Southwest, staying a few extra days (like last year) to enjoy more films and music.
• September: Holidaying in Iceland and covering the Reykjavik International Film Festival.
• Yearlong: connecting and reconnecting with new and old friends, being the best husband I can be, overcoming my shyness to love people more, rewiring my spiritual self to remove some scar tissue, continuing to figure out how to use more of myself at work.

Here’s to 2008, cyberfriends!

from Consolation Champs

2007: The Year That Was

1. Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
2. Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
3. Okkervil River – The Stage Names
4. The Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
5. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova – Music from the film “Once”
6. Apples In Stereo – New Magnetic Wonder
7. Modest Mouse – We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
8. LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver
9. St. Vincent – Marry Me
10. Interpol – Our Love to Admire

Outside the top ten:

• The New Pornographers – Challengers
• The Shins – Wincing the Night Away
• Radiohead – In Rainbows
• Stars – In Our Bedroom After the War
• Peter Bjorn and John – Writer’s Block

Other great albums that I just haven’t got around to buying yet:

• The National – Boxer
• Beirut – The Flying Club Cup

How about you? What were some of your favourites?

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Best Music of 2007

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Cooking the Books

I found this, by the way, through the very cool, though slightly creepy Spock.com, which had already built a profile page for me before I ever visited the site. I joked on Twitter that that’s probably exactly why it’s called Spock.com.

from Consolation Champs

Who Wants To Go Camping This Summer?

Dowd is a proponent of evolutionary theology, which embraces the science of evolution while maintaining faith in God as the “ultimate reality” behind the process. The article refers to the work of Thomas Berry, whom I am eager to check out. The wikipedia article refers to him as following in the footsteps of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a fascinating thinker who was proposing this sort of understanding back when evolutionary theory was only a few decades old.

I’m sure I’ll be driven back to these thinkers after I finish reading the free PDF download of Dowd’s latest book, entitled Thank God for Evolution. I get the impression this guy likes to shake people up.

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Thank God For Evolution

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Iran: Deja Vu All Over Again

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What He Said

This became apparent as I listened to several very good speakers, like Joe Thornley and Michael O’Connor Clarke, both of Thornley Fallis (whose employees actually communicate with me regularly in their capacity as PR agents for ThinkFilm, whose films I review for Toronto Screen Shots. Small world sometimes.) Thornley Fallis is a small Canadian public relations firm who have made great use of social media and established a reputation as leaders in helping their clients apply that knowledge. I found myself envious of working in an environment like that, and thought, perhaps foolishly, that maybe I should be working in public relations instead. But I can clearly see that my apparent zigs and zags, career-wise, are attempts to find that ideal environment where I can apply my skills and passions to the fullest while still making a decent amount of money. While I’m not going to be hasty, maybe I should examine whether my skills and experience as a web-savvy writer might be better applied in a field that is embracing social media.

While I can foresee that PwC might call upon my experience in a limited way, it’s a large firm. So large that even after several months, I still feel like I’m learning what they do. It also feels very decentralized and finding the right person to talk to takes a fair amount of work. I haven’t been there long enough to have a truly informed opinion, but my initial impression is that they’re using cumbersome and limiting technology to publish their web site. As well, they’ve separated my job function from the actual coding of web pages, so that I’m working only in Microsoft Word, writing content that someone else will mark up. So it may be too soon to tell if PwC will be a long-term home for me, or if I just have a perennially roving eye. I’m trying to get some insight into myself, anyway, and tonight was useful.

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Social Media, Unrequited

I’m going to check out the local YMCA in the next few weeks and will probably join. It has a running track and is closer to my new job than the University of Toronto Athletic Centre where I usually run in winter. I’m realizing that I need this physical activity for more than just physical health. I think that running will help me to reverse this feeling of unraveling. I hope so, because it’s really beginning to creep me out.

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Out of Body Autoreply

What The New Atheists Don’t See

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Theodore Dalrymple on the Neo-Atheists

Cuban flag
Originally uploaded by Patrick Dinnen

Brooke and I are off early tomorrow morning for eight days in Havana. We’ve never been to Cuba before and thought we should go now before it all changes. We’re not beach people, so we didn’t care about staying at a resort where we wouldn’t be able to meet Cuban people or see what their lives are like. Instead, we’re staying at a casa particular, a kind of Cuban version of a bed and breakfast. After reading raves about them on TripAdvisor.com, we’ve decided to stay with Ana and Pepe in the Vedado neighbourhood of the city. Though they do have internet access, don’t expect me to tie it up posting to Flickr. But when we get back, I’ll likely be posting like a fiend. Wish us safe travels, everyone, and we’ll raise a mojito for you!

By the way, Viva Cuba is actually a very charming recent film from filmmaker Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti. I reviewed it over on Toronto Screen Shots.

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Viva Cuba

This is interesting in light of some of the issues we discussed at our panel at SXSW Interactive this past spring. You can listen to the podcast here. I wonder if there’s a way to measure if more people are actually “attending” church online than offline. They certainly seem to be indulging their curiosity at this new site.

Of course, my fear is always that online “community’ is often just an invitation to flame others with views different than your own. The internet makes it much easier to express views you wouldn’t feel comfortable expressing to a stranger IRL, but it also makes it easier to trash someone else’s views without getting to know them first.

Must keep an eye on this GodTube thing…

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GodTube.com Growing Fast

From a summary of recommendations in Enlisting Madison Avenue: The Marketing Approach to Earning Popular Support in Theaters of Operation, a 211-page report released in July by the RAND Corporation’s National Defense Research Institute, under a $400,000 contract with the United States Joint Forces Command.

HARNESS THE POWER OF INFLUENCERS: Businesses strive to harness the power of influencers and word of mouth in their marketing efforts. The U.S. military should harness the influencing power of indigenous government employees and security forces by having them blog about their views regarding coalition forces. The military might further consider enhancing the Internet access of indigenous populations via distribution of cheap and durable Wi-Fi-capable laptops and by sponsoring Wi-Fi clouds around U.S. operating bases.

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Just Give Them Blogs and WiFi

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There Goes The Neighbourhood

On top of all that, I was in the midst of several job interviews. I had second interviews with two places right around the time we were moving. In fact, I had my final two and a half hour long interview on the morning we were moving. The movers were scheduled to arrive at our place at 1:30, and I got home at 1:20. It was a crazy day. The good thing is that later that day, after we’d finally moved all of our stuff into the new place, there was a message on our phone. I got the job.

So, I’m happy to report that on Monday August 27th, I’ll start my new position as Web Producer/Writer with PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the biggest accounting and business consulting firms in the world. It will be a big culture change from the small office setting I’m used to (and, ulp, I’ll have to use a Windows PC again), but it will also be really nice to spend my working day doing what I love, and as part of a team of other people.

I will really miss the people I worked with for the past four years at Lifford Wine Agency, and I’ll especially miss all the great wine events I was able to attend, but I’ve promised to keep volunteering at their big annual portfolio tasting, an event that I wouldn’t miss for the world.

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On The Move

During the excavations that took place this past week while Brooke and I moved, I found this ancient relic from the past. My “cyberspace companion” featured some helpful articles. My favourite was “Six Myths: Unmasking Cyber Lore”:

• Myth 1: The Internet is a single network controlled by one organization.
  • Fact: The Internet is actually a patchwork of commercial, educational, government and public and private networks, all cooperating to achieve an open, interconnected communications system.
• Myth 2: The Internet is free
  • Fact: Don’t believe it for a moment. All of the Internet’s conduits, computers, and information resources are paid for by someone. Often an organization provides free Internet access to its members as part of an affiliation. But, for people lacking Internet access through an organization, getting on the Internet carries a price tag.
• Myth 3: The Internet will usher in a new age of democracy, a socio-political nirvana.
  • Fact: People created the Internet, people run the Internet, people drive what happens on the Internet — and people are human. No inherent technological properties of the Internet will bring democracy or a new age of global community.
• Myth 4: Internet users are cyberpunks and content they create is cyberporn.
  • Fact: While some consider portions of the material on the Internet to be immoral, obscene, or useless, much of it is no more controversial than what’s found at a public library or in a bookstore.
• Myth 5: The Internet is chaotic. There’s simply no way to find anything.
  • Fact: While no Internet information-collection or resource-searching tool is flawless, there are landmark collections and tools on the Internet that you can use to find what you want.
• Myth 6: The Internet is hostile to newcomers — the hapless newbies.
  • Fact: While a newbie can get mercilessly flamed for ignoring or flouting the Internet’s social customs, there are plenty of ways a new user can get up to speed in a hurry.

In this pre-Google world, Myth 5 was especially amusing to read. Yahoo still resided at its Stanford URL (http://akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo). And I love how many times they use the prefix “cyber”! Can you remember your first experiences with the “Internet”?

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Unearthed

Kilometre 1: 5:06.9
Kilometre 2: 5:11.6
Kilometre 3: 5:11.7
Kilometre 4: 5:08.0
Kilometre 5: 5:03.4

Chip Time: 25:35.8
Gun Time: 26:06.8
Overall Place: 111/425
Gender Place: 75/174
Age Group (M40-44) Place: 7/16

P.S. Brooke took three minutes off her previous time at this distance, so I’m very proud of her!

Official Results from the 2007 Nissan Toronto 5k

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Nissan Toronto 5K 2007

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and that they should read your blog.

Ok, here we go:

1. I have a thing for visiting obscure countries. In the past two years, my wife and I have vacationed in Uruguay and Slovenia. Iceland and the Baltic republics are high on the list for future trips.
2. I’ve formally studied French, Italian, Spanish and Russian, but can speak none of them even passably well.
3. I still don’t have a driver’s licence, at the age of 42.
4. I have a Bachelor’s degree in theology that so far hasn’t come in that handy.
5. As a teenager I had a pet hamster named Fergus.
6. The first rock concert I attended was Queen in 1978. Freddy Mercury in a leotard. Yikes.
7. I once played drums in a bad “Christian” rock band. Our gimmick involved wearing underwear over our pants. That was my idea.
8. When I was visiting Finland in 1989, I took a 36 hour round-trip train journey so I could say I’ve been north of the Artic Circle.

One more thing that Pamela might not have known about me was that I actually have two other blogs. She knows me from Toronto Screen Shots (my film blog). But this one was first (established AD 2000!) and there’s also Runner-Up (mostly sports-related stories about “non-winners”).Next victims:

• David Thomas
• Kevin Smokler
• Neil Lee
• Gord Fynes
• Josh Benton
• Jay Kerr
• Jason Chu
• Jane Hoskyn

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8 Things Meme

I’ve been listening to Spoon’s new album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga for the past few weeks, “unofficially.” Today in the mail I was delighted to receive my pre-order of the new CD from the nifty guys at Merge Records. Because I was among the first 200 geeks to order, I got a signed 7″ (you know, a 45rpm record!) with two non-album tracks. Problem is, I no longer have a turntable. I also have a rare 7″ of “Anticipation” that I can’t play, either, but who’s counting. Anyway, I want to beseech you to go out and buy this CD. It sort of crept up on me, but the Aha! moment came last weekend when I played it LOUD on the stereo in my bedroom and crawled back under the covers. At that moment, it was the perfect record for me. And I think it’s stronger than their last two albums, which makes it well-nigh perfect.

There are at least three perfect singles that should launch Spoon to superstardom (although I think I say that about every album they release, and it hasn’t happened yet.) Find and listen to “Don’t Make Me A Target,” “The Underdog,” and especially “Finer Feelings” and then buy this CD. Really.

And the boys are playing in Toronto on October 15th, after a gap of just about two years. You’ll want to be there, too. Here are some other shows.

from Consolation Champs

Ga Ga For Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Official Time (Gun): 24:50.4
Official Time (Chip): 24:28.5
Overall Place: 189/658
Gender Place: 161/368
Age Group (M26-49) Place: 134/298

My 2006 Time: 25:08
My 2005 Time: 26:06
My 2004 Time: 24:10
My 2003 Time: 28:45

So far, 2007 seems to be shaping up to be a good year, which is odd because I’m generally running less. Just one longer run a week on Sundays with Brooke. It seems to be working so far.

Official Results from the 2007 Pride and Remembrance 5K

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Pride and Remembrance 5K 2007

• Caroline Ryan
• Michelle Vautour (now Rowe)
• Gilles Lafond, and his sister Lise
• Ken McCourt, and his brother Craig and sister Lorraine
• Mike McArthur
• Bill Haddock, his brother Chris and sister June
• Andy McNeil, his brother Steve and sister Belinda
• Lisa Hornet
• Joanna Connor
• Jimmy Baird, and his brother Johnny
• Aubrey Singer
• James Mason, and his sister Claire
• Mark Gillespie, and his sister Katrina
• Steve Parent, and his brother Terry
• Dave Batterton
• Joanne Mackie
• Kevin O’Connor
• Bryan Oldham, and his brother Danny

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270 Cassandra Boulevard

Watch Time: 23:34.0

Kilometre 1: 4:18.3
Kilometre 2: 4:56.3
Kilometre 3: 4:18.1
Kilometre 4: 5:08.8
Kilometre 5: 4:52.5

Official Time: 23:34
Overall Place: 88/388
Gender Place: 73/194
Age Group (M40-49) Place: 14/37

My 2006 Time: 24:45
My 2005 Time: 25:12
My 2004 Time: 24:16
My 2003 Time: 29:03

As you can see, I went out really fast, and knew that I wouldn’t be able to maintain that pace. The temperature climbed above 20° Celsius pretty quickly, even though the race started at 9:30am. The fourth kilometre was slower because of a slight hill over a bridge, although I’m sure the markers weren’t quite evenly spaced, either.

In any case, I’m happy with my time, and looking forward to our next race in two weeks, the Pride and Remembrance Run, which takes place during Gay Pride Week.

Official Results from the 2007 Toronto Challenge

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Toronto Challenge 2007

• Podcast of the panel I moderated (Ghost In The Machine: Spirituality Online) at this year’s SXSW is now available.
• I was featured along with my friends Philip and Ian on an episode of Livebait.tv about Hot Docs.
• Related to the Livebait.tv story, my new film blog Toronto Screen Shots has been going like gangbusters, and I’ve got a huge stack of great DVDs to review.

So, although there hasn’t been a lot of text here lately, you can see and hear me in a few different places.

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Still Here! And There! And There!