I was standing at the Toronto Transit Commission token booth at Yonge and St. Clair station at about 10:40 AM this morning, waiting to buy my monthly Metropass. The woman behind the counter was counting out some money so I waited patiently for her to finish. From behind me stepped two women, one in her 30s or so, and the other old enough to be her mother (which I suspect she was). They walked through the gate unchecked, and after the elder woman passed through the gate, it made a sound I had never heard before. Upon hearing the sound, the TTC employee behind the counter stopped counting her money, stepped outside the booth, and hollered (I wouldn’t say that she “shouted” or “yelled” because she was simply raising her voice to get their attention) in their direction “Excuse me, do you have a pass?” to which the younger woman replied “Yes, I do” and produced it. The TTC worker said something to the effect of “You have to show it to me to pass,” or “I didn’t see it,” or something to that effect. The TTC worker inspected the pass, and politely said “Thank you.” And back to work she went.

She hadn’t touched her chair before she heard the woman yell back in her direction “Bitch!” which got the TTC worker moving again. Out her booth she went, and said “Excuse me?” in the direction of the assumed mother-daughter pair, who were strolling down the stairs at this point walking towards the subway. The younger woman, unbelievable as it may sound, yelled back obscenities I’ve never heard uttered publicly by a woman. “You fucking bitch!” replied the younger of the two. The TTC worker replied by saying “I hope you’re not calling your mother those things!” as if to diffuse the situation, or perhaps giving the woman a second chance to keep from having to report a case of verbal abuse. I can’t recall the exact sequence of the words, but suffice to say that this woman in her 30s (in front of a woman I assume to be her mother) would not let it go, and screamed several times the words “fucking whore” back in the direction of the TTC worker, while also giving her the middle finger.

At this point, the TTC worker decides to retaliate by saying something rude and unfair herself. Again, I can’t recall the exact wording, but “Go back to your country where you can say those things” wouldn’t be far from the exact wording. Then the TTC worker stepped back inside her booth, picked up the phone, and reported the woman’s direction and whereabouts, “heading south from St. Clair station”, and sat back down, obviously shaken.

I stood there, slack-jawed, not believing what I had just witnessed. I couldn’t think of a thing to say to this woman. She looked at me and just went on with her job, and asked me what I needed. I tried to say something innocuous, but I don’t think it hit the mark. “Makes for an interesting Saturday,” I said. She replied with something I suspected but hoped against. “Well it would make for an interesting Saturday if it didn’t happen every single other day of the week.”

I know that I wrote about Tha Carter III last summer, so this is a lil’ more on Lil’ Wayne. There’s tons of Weezy news of late. The most mainstream news has to do with his 8 Grammy nominations, which leads the field this year. I particularly liked the way the Canadian Press described Wayne in their piece on the Grammy nominations. I’d say it’s as good an explanation/summary you’ll find if you’ve never heard of the guy, from how a 10-plus year artist can blow up almost overnight to why people call him Weezy (which I might have another explanation for after this piece):

Lil Wayne stunned the music industry this past summer by selling one million copies of his sixth solo album, “Tha Carter III,” in a week. The record went on to top U.S. sales charts last year, moving nearly 2.9 million units.
Though he signed his first recording contract at age 11, went platinum as a member of Hot Boys in his teens and released several successful solo records in the last decade, the rapper still had done little that would hint at such a titanic opening for his new record.
But Lil Wayne - nicknamed Weezy for his scratchy drawl - built his fanbase by being tirelessly prolific.
In between his official releases, he dropped a steady stream of official and unofficial mixtapes - collections of him rapping over other artists’ hit tracks - that were mostly available for free, and fans busily bootlegged every other spare verse that slipped through the cracks.
Meanwhile, Lil Wayne - who was born Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. - lent his name to nearly anyone who asked, piling up hundreds of collaborations.
The end result? Lil Wayne’s unmistakable voice became one of the most ubiquitous in hip hop and he quickly claimed his place among the genre’s heavyweights.
“I was not surprised by how much (’Tha Carter III’) sold,” says Pemberton, who once wrote for Chicago-based music website Pitchfork Media. “Mainly because he was on every single other person’s record. Every album that anybody bought during a one-year period had a Lil Wayne song on it.”
Indeed, Lil Wayne has become infamous for the way he liberally doles out his guest appearances. When the heavily tattooed rapper dropped a verse on Wale’s superb “Mixtape About Nothing” last year, the track was called “The Cliche Lil Wayne Feature.”
“It was like a media blitz - he’s on every record you buy,” Pemberton says. “And then he ends up outshining every person he’s on a track with. You buy a T.I. album and it’s like, this guy killed T.I. on his own song.
“Of course I’m going to buy his album.”

Go here to read the full story, although this is pretty much all the good stuff on Lil’ Wayne.

On the matter of “Weezy”, the CP reporter explains that it’s because of his raspy, “scratchy drawl”. Possibly true, but I’d suggest it might have something to do with rappers just adding “y” to their names, like Puff Daddy becoming Diddy. One could be the product of the other, though.

Another great piece of Wayne news I heard recently came from GQ Magazine and their GQ Podcast, which is really quite good overall. Devin Friedman had the chance to catch up with Wayne a few times and got him on tape talking about a whole lot of nonsense, and the interview is frequently interrupted (in a good way) by the GQ Podcast team and the magazine’s music experts. Certainly worth a listen. Here’s the link to the GQ Podcast page, where it currently sits at the top. Lots of great stuff in there, so I won’t go into too much detail…but he explains why he’s calls himself a martian, tells us that he loves a Dakota Fanning movie, find out that he’s extremely knowledgeable on the subject of sports, and we learn about his smoking rituals.

Speaking of his sports knowledge, he is all over ESPN. He keeps a blog for ESPN The Magazine, and it’s probably a lot better than you would imagine. Here’s a video of Wayne interviewing athletes before an ESPN Superbowl party - he proves himself to be incredibly engaging and far more than just a rapper. Sadly there is no RSS feed for the blog, so you’ll just have to check back to his blog page on ESPN every so often (or you can probably create your own RSS feed, I guess).

And finally, the music! Wayne is going to try and pull a “Kanye 808″ and drop something different on April 7: a rock album. He’s had some fun with the guitar before, but this time is all-out rock, which could potentially be great. The first single is “Prom Queen” and I honestly don’t enjoy it all that much, but the second single is going to be Hot Revolver, and I think it’s one of those songs that will be pretty big. It’s just a great song with the classic hook from Green Day’s song, “Basket Case”. Check them out below.

Look out for more songs from this album online soon, if not the album in it’s entirety.

Prom Queen - Lil’ Wayne
Hot Revolver - Lil’ Wayne

This year, I made my list pretty hastily, and added the usual “do not buy” list as an appendix (no men’s cologne or aftershave, ever again, as I’m stocked up for life from the previous ten Christmas’ years or so). However, no matter how thorough a job I do for my siblings, I always forget a few things, or purposely leave a few things off because they’re either too expensive or too obscure. With that in mind, here’s my real Christmas wish list:

City Walks Toronto: 50 Adventures on Foot - As someone who has taken about a hundred long, long walks throughout the city of Toronto, I’d love some kind of guide and it sounds like this would do just the trick. Perfect for the urban adventurer in your life.

iPod Touch - Not even for the damn music player, as I already have one that I bought less than a year ago (the Sansa View, which has crapped out on me several times and even once TODAY forcing me to call tech support as the darn thing wouldn’t power on whatsoever) but for the other stuff, like the web browser and the apps. Sorry if iPods are a holiday wish list cliche, but I couldn’t very well put it on my family’s wish list at $300 for the 16 gb version, now could I?

FreeDarko “Jackson for Mayor” T-Shirt - Everyone loves Stephen “Whoooooooo!” Jackson. Plus, “I make love to pressure” would keep me endlessly entertained and endlessly entertaining. I must have it. That and about a dozen other NBA-related Ts that I’ve scoped out online.

Canon PowerShot SD790 - I haven’t figured out which one I want yet, but I figure one will be available on the cheap for Boxing Day at one of the big retailers, but in the meantime this Canon PowerShot is on sale at Futureshop for the lowest price it seems to ever have been listed at, plus it comes with a free tripod. Completely out of stock, except it’s available in lovely Timmins! “Mom, a favor please?” Anyway, my lovely little Pentax, which I bought almost 3 years ago specifically for the mesh Conference in 2006, suddenly had its screen cracked last month as it sat in my pocket with what I think were my keys or my cell phone. Le sigh. On the bright side, I paid over $300 for 6 megapixel Pentax back then, and it probably retails for about $120 or so now if they even make similar cameras anymore. I may need a crash course on the latest technology though, as I haven’t a clue what “SLR” even stands for.

Books from Amazon.com - Since I don’t read the books I already own, probably over 100 that I’ve purchased in the past few years but haven’t read, it’s probably a good idea to buy more. On my wish list are Gladwell’s new book “Outliers”, the Motley Crue book “The Dirt”, Big Daddy Drew’s “Men With Balls”, the Free Darko coffee table book “The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac”, the new John Hodgeman book “More Information than You Require”, a couple of Chuck Klosterman’s that I haven’t read (including his young adult novel, “Downtown Owl”), and two Michael Lewis books, “Blindside” and “Moneyball”. That said, I’d love to get a couple of books I currently own started over the holidays, like “Rejuvenile” which I cracked about two months ago and haven’t touched since, my friend Terry Fallis’ novel “The Best Laid Plans”, and a slew of other fascinating books I’m too stubborn to get down off my very high bookshelf in my bedroom.

That’s it for now. I’m sure I’ll be craving more stuff between now and the time January’s credit card bill comes in. Stay tuned for how I made out in the new year!

Anything you really want for Christmas (or any gift for any reason) that you didn’t ask for?

First, the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. List five Social Media projects that deserve better exposure.
3. Tag EIGHT five“Social Media / Digital Experts” at the end of your post and list their names.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.
5. Tag your post “Five Gems” so we can search for all of these great examples.

Here it goes…

1. Thirsty Thursday: Naturally, and because Parker said I could, I’m throwing out Thirsty Thursday as my first example. We’re hosting our latest one this Thursday (which happens to be tonight) at Paupers Pub in Toronto at 6:30 PM in the Lounge on the 2nd Floor. It’s a pretty simplistic event: young PR, marketing, communications, etc. persons get together for some unstructured networking in Toronto. It’s loosely organized by myself, Parker, Scott MacDonald, and Cathy Kurzbock. We set up an event on Facebook and managed everything from that central location. We’ve been having these events for a while now (the first event took place in May 2007 and was initially called Tipsy Tuesday, but quickly evolved to become Thirsty Thursday) and numbers doubled for our first 4 or 5 events, which was incredible. This time around, we’re expecting record numbers and might end up completely taking over the pub. Watch out Toronto! Oh, and if you’d like to attend, visit the Facebook event page.

2. RedFlagDeals: A website I visit before buying virtually anything. I don’t know where I’d be without it. Actually, I’d probably have more money in my pocket because I cannot pass up some of the deals posted! Basically, it’s a community of bargain hunters, and I’ve been visiting it since I was in university (many years ago) but 2 years ago I became active in their community forums…and boy, is it an active community! They also have a blog, RSS feeds for their many deals, and a solid business as far as I can tell.

3. Porter Novelli: OK, shameless plug time! We’re close to launching our new Porter Novelli corporate website, and I think it looks pretty terrific. I had the chance to give my input to our digital leader in the UK, Mat Morrison, and he’s taken my suggestions even though the site was almost finished and ready to go when I submitted them. I can’t say much now, except go take a peek at the blog Mat set up for the redesign called Under Construction: the making of Porter Novelli’s new corporate website. I’m extremely impressed with the level of transparency displayed throughout the redesign. It really makes me proud to work for PN when they put everything out there in this fashion. Way to go guys!

4. The Basketball Jones: My favorite podcast on the NBA, and one of the most popular on the web, is hosted by two Toronto boys, Tas Melas and JE Skeets. It started off a few years ago as an audio-only, semi-regular show and has evolved into a daily video podcast. The show is pro - it’s produced by Jason Doyle aka JD, who works as a TV producer here in Toronto. The guys have been covered in the Globe and Mail, and they have a community of listeners and viewers from all over the world, all through the power of social media.

5. I have tried to come up with a 5th but I cannot. Yes, I have failed the meme, and will therefore not be tagging anyone. My apologies!

But then the ‘buzz’ started to build. Colleagues were discussing the show as if it were sacrilege to miss last night’s episode. The interwebs were busy talking up the show also, forcing me to at least concede that the show might be worth a taste. Who knows, maybe I’d fall in love like everyone else who went ga-ga for Don Draper?

I settled in to watch the first episode, the pilot, which I distinctly remember being titled ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’, but not because of the frequent smoke-filled scenes in that first episode, but because of the effect the show was having on my eyes. They were drooping. I was bored. How could I possibly find myself bored, ask the fans of the show? For one, the pacing is too slow for my liking, even though I loved slowly-paced movies like ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’. The show also feels inaccessible to me, even though I took an advertising course in university that gave me an appreciation for guys like Bernbach, and it was one of my favorite courses ever. Perhaps I set myself up to fail because I wasn’t what some might call ‘attracted’ to the show in the first place, but I gave it a fair chance and still didn’t care.

I made it towards the end of that first episode (at least I hope that was the end, a scene where the man I assume to have been Don Draper meets with a woman whose name doesn’t matter in a lounge of sorts) and felt jilted because I wouldn’t get to enjoy a show that everyone else seemed to enjoy. I wasn’t about to watch the show in order to keep up with my colleagues (and my new colleagues seem to be fans of the show, too, which confirms that the Mad Men-ness reserved for my old place of business), even though the show was available for free anytime I wanted to watch it on demand courtesy of Rogers Cable and AMC.  It’s a shame because I really wanted to like the show, but at the same time, I didn’t really care to see it in the first place.

To wrap up, I don’t hate the show, and I’m not about to object to anyone’s assertion that is either brilliant or terrible. I simply don’t care for it, and won’t be tuning in next week when the season finale airs and everyone will be buzzing about it.

Please feel free to agree or disagree by leaving me a comment.

My life has been turned virtually upside down in the past month. I’m very lucky to have so many great people in my life who have helped me of late. I owe them more thanks than I’m capable of giving. Thanks to them, I’m ready to get back into the swing of things, and do some great work at my new home at Yonge and Bloor, Porter Novelli.

I promised myself after working at NATIONAL for a year that I would do my due diligence and find the perfect fit (if such a thing existed) no matter how long it would take. I felt like I had only just begun the job hunting process when a friend steered me in the direction of Porter Novelli. Everything about them felt right: they have a variety of interesting accounts I’ll be able to work on, they value my knowledge of social media but won’t pigeonhole me as the “social media guy”, they’re giving me the opportunity to be a consultant, their office is closer to home so my commute is shorter, their benefits package is excellent, and most importantly, everyone I met while interviewing were very nice. It just felt right, and I couldn’t pass up the chance just because I hadn’t spent months exploring other opportunities further. Everything I was looking for was right there in front of me!

I feel like there’s so much more going on! I don’t want to overshare though, so I’ll just say that I had two amazing weekends. I spent time with each side of my family, one weekend spent with my mother’s side and the other with my dad’s side. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend my time out of work! Over the next few months, I’m looking forward to getting to know my colleagues at Porter Novelli, and doing my best work for our clients. I’m also looking forward to spending time with friends over the next few weeks!

Today is the last day of September, and I’m happy to be leaving this month in better shape than I came into it! Bring on October!

By the way, doing anything for SLAM, let alone writing something, is pretty much a dream come true for my 16-year old self. I may be 25 now, but I’m still immensely proud to be part of the great work they’ve done for the past decade and a half.