It was a very good year

When is it all going to end?

2009-10-11T13:13:00.003-02:30

This announcement is stale-dated by a couple weeks, but I'm back to reporting. That's why it's been a week or so since my last post. My fingers aren't so itchy now that I'm pounding out 10,000 words every week for the Telegram.

The big news here is that I now have a permanent, full-time, unionized job doing newspaper journalism in North America. I know, I too was under the impression that such jobs didn't exist anymore. It's both supremely awesome and very very scary.

On the one hand, after more short-term contracts than I can count, two turns on the desk, not to mention that pesky layoff, I've finally made it to the land of milk and honey.

On the other hand, what the fuck do I do now? Up 'till now, these have all been episodes of The Newfoundland Adventure: an unlikely series that could get cancelled at any moment. And then I was going to hitchhike to Mongolia (because Genghis Khan is crazy cool.) Now, apparently I'm here for the duration. I mean come on, the URL up top there is "ayearontherock" not "alifeontherock."

All of this has an expiry date, doesn't it?

Come together

2009-10-04T01:36:00.004-02:30

And so here I am -- not quite a 3 a.m. post, but close -- listening to a YouTube cover of "Let It Be."

They don't know each other. I haven't delved into the exact relationship between "AnotherEcho" and "JeremyBub" but I'd wager they've never met face-to-face. And yet, she sings as his guitar weeps. They have a relationship of sorts.

I just wandered home from playing D&D with Dave, Brew and a certain ginger-haired sports reporter who doesn't want to be named. I'll respect his wishes (not really,) but I'll also say that his character is an arachnophobic wussy.

What's the common thread? For about six hours on a Saturday night, I felt a connection. It wasn't anything big; it was just four guys who were all having fun kicking the shit out of some goblins. Then I came home, and watched this video where two people who had never met shared a connection. They also shared a connection with a guy who was gunned down in his prime a few decades ago, and some other guys who are still alive and fabulously rich. Then I watched the video, and I was right there with them for a second. And then I wrote about it, and maybe connected with you.

This is big, people. Don't dismiss this. This is the part where introverts like me (and introverts who are a lot worse than me) come together. No one knows what happens next. But these are people, (myself included) who probably graduated high school convinced that they were alone, different and isolated. And now we're not alone. We have people to play games with. And we sing to each other, apparently.

I'm rambling, and six beers deep, but here's the fundamental message:
None of us is alone.
None of us is a freak.
There is someone out there who will make beautiful music with each of us.
Or maybe just knock the shit out of some elves.

Doesn't that feel good?

If it it doesn't, then I give up. But the Beatles don't. Listen to this. If it doesn't make you feel good, there's no hope for you. Sorry.

The Newfoundland Adventure is Over

2009-09-28T20:50:00.003-02:30

Here we are, at the end of the story.

At the beginning of last week, I got a call from my boss at the Telegram offering me a permanent position. Up 'till now, it's been an eighteen-month saga with more contracts than I can count, two turns on the desk and one layoff. But I'm here now: safe and stable.

Officially, my first shift was on Saturday. I went in for 7:30 a.m. to put up the website and then roll out to the Goulds to interview a guy about the windmill he put up in his backyard. It runs on "rare-earth magnets" apparently, which sounds a bit too much like mysticism for my taste.

I'll be back into full swing tomorrow, when I help cover the municipal election. That'll be fun. Exactly the sort of story that makes me love reporting. At about 1 p.m. I'll walk into the newsroom and everyone will be too busy to say much of anything, but a couple might say "It's good to have you back," or "Welcome back to the dayside." And then we'll all charge out madly mining for quotes from Shannie Duff and Ron Ellsworth.

There are some more far reaching implications to the permanent job. Identity issues, and bullshit like that. I'll write about that later. For now, I'm gonna enjoy this for a few days. And right now, I'm going to drink scotch and listen to Bruce Springsteen. That feels just about right.

I need it like drugs

2009-09-20T18:37:00.003-02:30

In a way, Robert A. Heinlein is to blame for all of this.

Whether or not he changed me, whether it's his fault, Heinlein was there as a continuous undercurrent in my "formative years." And now, staring hatefully at the keyboard in front of me, all I can think about is his damnable "itch."

Let's take this back to the beginning. We might be here a little while.

It started in Grade 7 at Crestwood, in my science class exam. Two hours, and no matter when you finished, you weren't allowed to leave early. But you were allowed to bring a book to read if you finished early. There had been some trailers for the Starship Troopers movie, and none of us Grade 7'ers were old enough to go see it. (I have complicated feelings about the movie, but that's a whole 'nother thing.) Rooting around in the bookshelves in the basement of the house, I found an old copy of Starship Troopers. I brought it in because I thought it would make me seem cool, and back then, (and for many years to come, and maybe still today) I definitely wasn't cool.

The first chapter of Starship Troopers starts with a badass battle scene -- the kind of high-intensity explosions and gore that set a 12-year-old boy's blood rushing. I was hooked. And I stayed hooked. Over the next 10 years or so, I blew through pretty much Heinlein's entire catalogue. It wasn't just his war stories; I loved it all. His lengthy, ultra-libritarian diatribes, his weirdly incestuous/hedonistic views on sex. And for a lot of those years, suffering through abject unpopularity in junior high and high school, I loved those other worlds just to get away. Whatever. If you want to hear my gush about Heinlein some time, just ask.

"Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards"
-Robert A. Heinlein- (I wonder how he would feel about blogs?)

The point is that he wrote a bit about writing itself. He described it as a disease. He talked about how he started writing stories to pay the grocery bill, and tried to quit after he'd made a bit of money. He talked about "the itch." He said he couldn't stop writing, even if he wanted to, and whenever he tried, the itch would drive him mad.

Which brings us a bit closer to today. I have a shitty attention span. Blame it on TV. Blame it on the Internet. Whatever. The point is, with only a couple of exceptions, I can't do anything for too long before I get bored and distracted. Twitter doesn't help one bit.

But writing, on the other hand, helps a lot. I mean, here we are, nearly 500 words deep and the only times I've lifted my fingers from the keyboard were to link Heinlein to that Wikipedia article, and open up a GoogleDocs file to see how many words I've written.

And moreover, it ripples outwards into other things. When I'm not writing regularly, my appetite for reading dries up. Fuck, I can't even watch TV without squirming. My mind goes madly off in all directions.

This past month, I haven't written much of anything, except for a few blog posts. Desk editing will do that to you. I don't know what the powers-that-be at the Telegram have in store for me, but I won't be able to keep this up for too much longer.

The itch is real. Don't fuck around. Don't start writing unless you're serious about it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna drink myself into a stupor until the tips of my fingers stop tingling.

A few of my favourite things

2009-09-17T02:08:00.003-02:30

Ok, before we get into it, here is a picture of a viking fighting a shark.

Here's a video of a crazy-looking old dude doing a lip-sync to "Pretty Woman." You should probably know that he's a registered sex offender. And apparently he re-offended in Florida a couple years ago.

And now, here's the coup de grace. Here's a photo of Obama playing with a toy lightsaber. If you don't think that's awesome enough by itself (what the hell is wrong with you?) then view the picture full-resolution, and check out the guy to the right of Obama. Check out where his finger is.

Invariably, when I bust one of these out at the office, or send it to a friend, the question comes back "Where the hell did you find this?" The short answer is Reddit mostly, but also NYTimes.com, Wired.com and a dozen or so other sites. I spend a lot of time on the Internet. Like, a LOT.

For a while, out of pure boredom, my hobby was looking up funny definitions on Urban Dictionary. A lot of people might remember when I posted "Clam Slam" to my Facebook newsfeed, but check out what "Banana Muffin" is slang for.

It's not all disgusting stuff.

Ted.com is perhaps the most mind-expanding site on the net. The talk on "We Feel Fine" made me feel more connected to, and more love for my fellow Internet denizens than I would have though possible. And given half the chance, I would follow this man anywhere. (Those last two are pretty long, but trust me, they're worth the time. The blog will still be here when you're done.)

There's no grand thesis here. Nothing to really sum up. I just love the Internet a lot, and cannot imagine my life without it. I know that makes a lot of the old people uneasy, you know, the ones who remember 8-track. I mean, how can you be that dependent on technology? *shudder*

Dependent might not be the right word, exactly, but it's close. I mean, at this point it's too late; my personality is heavily coloured by the Internet. If they took it away tomorrow, I think I'd struggle with that for a long while.

Anyway, like I said, there's no grand thesis here. This is just a handful of my favourite links, reaching wide around the Internet to give it a big hug.

And if you've made it this far, here's one last .gif (give it a second to load.) Physics is effin awesome.

The perfect companion for a shitty situation

2009-09-10T02:17:00.004-02:30

I have this nagging feeling that I'm going to fall into a relationship in the next week or two. It's a scary testament to the state of my life right now.

In the past year or so, I've developed an almost obsessive superstition that the quality of my romantic life is inversely related to everything else in my world. Put another way: when life is shit, I always seem to have a girlfriend around to commiserate; when everything are great, well, my right hand will always be there for me.

My relationship with Kerri coincided perfectly with my layoff from The Telegram this past spring. And my last serious dalliance — a complicated, weird situation with Michelle for a few weeks — lined up with my first stint on the desk last summer.

Going even further back, I dated Manda during my first two years at Ryerson when I didn't have much of a social life and I wasn't involved in the Eyeopener. We broke up, and days later I assumed my duties as the Eye photo editor. Chase it all the way back to the beginning: I dated Andrea during my slow slide down in high school and broke up with her during the year when I spectacularly failed all of my Grade 12 courses. The next year, as a newly minted single guy at a different high school, I managed to earn the marks that (barely) garnered acceptance into the Ryerson journalism program.

None of this is to blame the women. If anything I'd say they're a silver lining when my life gets cloudy. More likely it's simple coincidence (with a dash of self-fulfilling prophecy, especially lately.) Regardless, it's enough to plant that seed of superstition in my brain.

So with the 3 a.m. blog posts coming fast and furious (an unfortunate side-effect of the lousy desk shifts) I can't help but wonder if she's waiting out there somewhere, about to step onto the scene like some beautiful consolation prize.

Probably not. But I'll keep you posted.

People don't see me coming

2009-09-08T03:32:00.003-02:30

This, as best I can re-create it, was my stream-of-consciousness while brushing my teeth at 3:32 a.m. after working a shift on the desk:

I'm not the kind of guy people see coming.
I look like a dork wearing this sweater. With the button down collar of my shirt coming out the top of it. Unbuttoned.
People don't see me coming, because I'm not a dork, but I look like a dork.
People don't see me coming until it's too late.
People don't see me coming until after it's too late.
I'm barrelling down on them, and they still don't seem me coming. They're just going about their regular business, oblivious to the fact that I'm coming.
And then I'm right there on top of them, and they step out of the way. Not on purpose -- they just step out of the way because they're going about their regular business, and that business takes them out of the way.
So I barrel past them, and because it's not what I expected, I trip.
I fall crashing down in a loud and spectacular mess after I barrel past them.
Then the see me.
People don't see me coming, but they see me after I barrel past them, and crash in a spectacular mess.
When I crash, and they see me, I look like a dork.
I look like a dork in this sweater.

Then I spit the toothpaste out, and rinsed. The shit gets weird after 3 a.m. This desk business is going to take some gettting used to.

Notes from the other side of the newsroom

2009-09-03T23:14:00.003-02:30

So I'm back on the desk now.

(For my non-journalist readers, that's the newspaper's night shift. After the reporting staff goes home, we desk editors come in and do copy editing and layout before sending completed pages to the printing press across the road.)

There's a little bit of irony here. After 18 months of uncertainty, bouncing around the newsroom —not to mention that pesky layoff — I've finally landed a full-time permanent job. Sadly, it's doing something I hate. Adding to the irony, while my employment future is ostensibly more secure, if something doesn't open up on the reporting side of the newsroom in the next 6-12 months, I suspect I'll quit outright. I'm not (exactly) complaining, I just don't want to be a comma jockey for the rest of my life.

If I'm being really honest with myself, I need the cache and ego boost that a byline provides. I can deal with the shitty hours (although 7:30 p.m. - 2:30 a.m. is no picnic.) And the work — while simultaneously monotonous and stressful — has its good moments. What I really miss though is talking to people and finding out what's going on in the world. Also, even on a shitty day, I could say to myself, "Somewhere along the line, someone decided my words were important enough to reproduce 30,000 times, and then charge people money to read them."

It just doesn't feel the same to say, "I placed that text box, and put runaround on it like a motherfucker."

Whatever. At least now I can go get a girlfriend.

(Stay tuned next week for my semi-misogynistic superstitions about women, my career and living a happy life.)

Old man, take a look at my life...

2009-08-29T19:45:00.003-02:30

A couple weeks ago, John Browne asked me to write down my thoughts about age. I'd just called him "old man" or "father time" or "Methuselah the sports reporter" or something. The point of the exercise -- I think -- is that I read it a bunch of years down the road, and I'm embarrassed at how young and brash I was.

The joke is on John. I know I'm going to be eating my words when I'm 30 (and 40, and 50, for that matter.) I've been eating my words since I was eight years old thanks to an older sister and younger brother, not to mention mom and dad. They're still giving me shit for the time when I was 14 and I swore that I'd be moving out on my own as soon as I turned 16. Let the record show that I did't leave at home 'till I was nearly 23.

So let's tee this up: I'm 24-year-old and frequently accused of acting like an old man. I wear slippers at home, I drink scotch and Laura says I'm a curmudgeon. By the same token though, I'm pretty damn immature. Recently, when getting a physical exam, I was asked if I had any "bone or joint problems." I laughed because I heard "boner." Nuff said.

I don't think John's real problem is that I'm young though. I think he just doesn't like that I'm disrespectful of old people -- which I most certainly am. Well, not quite all old people. I just get my back up when people demand respect simply because they've managed to go 40 or 50 years without dying. If you think I should respect you because you haven't stepped in front of any buses, I'm actually going to respect you less. I mean, I'm 24-and-0 on the not dying thing, but I'm not looking for any standing ovations.

The other thing is that old people have a record to judge. So do I, of course, and you're welcome to judge it (my high school transcript is especially juicy) but in the grand scheme of things, I'm still pretty fresh. On the other hand, if you're 50-something, you've lived a lot of life, and made a lot of decisions. By 50-or-so you're a monument. And I can look up at that monument and say "God damn, I really don't want to look like that when I get there."

Disrespectful, I guess.

Whatever. I'm going to chew the gristle on this stuff, but I think that old-man James, 50-year-old James, will be much better able to deal with it. In the meantime, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, and leave plenty of room to eat my words.

Sorry John.

The Wild City

2009-08-17T19:04:00.003-02:30

I used to really love the wildlife of Toronto.

The raccoons are certainly a nuisance to most people, but with their little hands and inquisitive nature, I just thought they were awesome. One of my earliest memories is Dad waking me up in the summer when I was five- or six-years-old and taking me down to the back deck. There were three or four adults and a half a dozen babies all dangling from the branches of the mulberry tree, squabbling loudly as they ate the berries. With all the lights on in the backyard, Dad and I watched the raccoons together for about an hour before I fell asleep on his lap.

And then there were the foxes. Not a lot of people know that Toronto has foxes, but for the three years I went to Crestwood, they were a fairly regular fixture. They're red, and small enough to be relatively harmless, and pretty much keep to the ravines where the city is still a little bit wild. Every day for those three years, a few of us walked up a winding road to the bus stop after school (which was at the bottom of the ravine just north of Sunnybrook.) Every once in a while we'd see a fox, and it would be awesome. I'd fantasize about catching one as a tiny pup and raising it: the most baddass pet dog ever.

And of course, there were squirrels — lots of squirrels. I never liked them much. Too small to develop a relationship with, too dirty to want to catch. (Not that I ever caught foxes or raccoons mind you, but I caught scores of frogs at The Farm, and a couple garter snakes too.)

St. John's has shitty wildlife.

The city doesn't even have squirrels, just a lot of stray cats. I think that's why even the most die-hard townie likes to escape on Victoria Day to go camping somewhere. Maybe see a moose or a black bear (although not while you're on the road.) The whales are pretty nice too, but the only place in town you can really see them is Signal Hill.

The city would be a totally lost cause if not for the snails. They all seem to cluster around Harvey Road and Long's Hill, and as far south as the Duckworth Street by the Anglican Cathedral. They get killed a lot, either by people's feet, or caught out on a dry sidewalk on a hot day. But after ever rainstorm there are dozens of them checking out the world with those long, googly eyes, and sliding along about their snail business.

Ken tells me they're an introduced species, and back when he was growing up (the dark ages?) the city didn't have snails. Oh well, that's hardly a strike against them; moose are an introduced species too, and so am I.

A couple bitter hours after I get home

2009-08-17T00:22:00.003-02:30

EDITOR'S NOTE: This turned into one of those annoying, introspective blog posts that make the Internet shitty. We're contractually bound to publish it in this space, but tomorrow we're going to goose James with sharp sticks until he writes a funny post about the snails of St. John's. Stay tuned.

Sometimes it feels kind of like a Mitch Hedberg joke:
Back in high school I wasn't very cool, and I didn't fit in. I'm still not very cool, but it was like that back in high school too.

The closest thing I have to a group -- you know, friends who aren't people I work with -- is the comedians and their ilk down at The Levee (formerly the Victory, but that's a whole 'nother bitter topic.) Every week I go down there on Sunday after work, and most weeks I try to tell a few jokes. I know a dozen people by name, and we chat on the deck while they smoke cigarettes. I end up back at home around midnight feeling lonely. My three hours of proscribed social interaction finished, I'm reminded that the other 165 hours of the week I'm talking to work people or I'm hanging out alone.

I'm not complaining. Ninety per cent of the time I'm comfortable in my own skin, and happy in my own head. Just for a couple of hours between when I leave the deck at Holdsworth Court and when I fall asleep, I really miss Toronto. I miss Nat, and Amit and Adam.

It took me 22 damn years to line that up in T.O. because I'm not very cool, and I don't fit in. Maybe I'll figure out a way to do it quicker the second time around.

Sober

2009-08-08T00:56:00.002-02:30

I had a good time tonight. Anyone who saw me, though, would be justifiably skeptical. I didn't talk much, and I was the first one to leave the party (even before the girl who had to be "responsible" and work tomorrow.)

Also, I was sober. Earlier this week, I decided that I'm not going to to do any more drinking for the rest of August. Maybe the rest of 2009.

My drinking has gotten way out of hand. Once or twice a week I get very drunk, and the excess has been creeping up on me for at least six months. The drunken hookups were one thing; there isn't a damn thing in the world wrong with carnal fun. The loudly announcing to a bar that I might have gonorrhea is another thing altogether. The bitter mornings, filled with hazy embarrassment were gradually piling up.

For God's sake, someone called "Fuckmyliver" is following me on Twitter.

And then there was this past weekend. I won't go into much detail (because I don't remember Saturday or Sunday too well,) but I crossed some lines that I'm not proud of. Friends are justifiably pissed with me. I don't think I'm dependent on booze (August will be the acid test for that,) but I can definitely say that I don't know where to draw the line.

So tonight when Kenn called and invited me over to hang out and play some cards, I was eager. I wanted to prove to myself (and a select few others) that I didn't need the sauce. It turns out I don't need it, but apparently I'm not very good company sober. I enjoyed sitting quietly and watching, but a couple people took it upon themselves to (aggressively) encourage me to have a drink.

At one point, Nick said in passing that he'd never actually hung out with me when I was sober. My first thought was to the uncomfortable evening at the Duke when I bumped into his girlfriend and I couldn't remember where I knew her from; she was lightly offended. Whether it's a barbecue, a night at the bar, or hanging out at a friend's house, alcohol appears to be the common denominator.

"The James I'm seeing tonight is nothing like the James I've met other times," Nick said, quickly adding, "Not that there's anything wrong with this James."

He said it just didn't look like I was having much fun.

Random conversation in the park

2009-08-01T15:23:00.004-02:30

After we'd established that I didn't have any weed to sell, he noticed my book lying on the bench, "The Elegant Universe" which explains string theory. He said that he'd really enjoyed Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" and then started to tell me about an experience he'd had while incarcerated in Philadelphia. Apparently, while in jail there (I never did find out for what) he'd lent someone his copy of "A Brief History of Time" to a fellow inmate. This led to a fight a member of the prison's sizable Muslim population on the grounds that the book allegedly contradicts the teachings of Allah.

The guy -- who later introduced himself as John -- walked up to me while I was sitting in the park reading about Ian Brown's experiences with historical re-enactors of the Plains of Abraham battle. John was wearing a Jim Beam baseball cap with slightly greying dreadlocks underneath. Despite no visible patches or bandannas, he still had the look of the 20-something drifters who materialize in St. John's in the summer. To dismiss them as anarchists or bums would be too simplistic, but you get the idea.

What with the prison stories and the skull rudely tattooed on his arm (with the number 206 under it, and S S D C on its forehead) I was so intrigued that I couldn't end the conversation. We probably chatted for 15 minutes on everything from the character of Torontonians to the merits of various heavy metal sub-genres. We also talked about our experiences with different drugs (DMT, acid, salvia and weed) and how one travels from Montreal to St. John's on a budget. Apparently, you can ride freight trains as far as Moncton and then take the ferry to Port Aux Basques and then thumb it across the island.

Anyone who knows my own hitchhiking fantasies will understand why I found this so intriguing.

Like I said above, it's easy to be dismissive of John and his ilk. While we were talking, about a dozen of his compatriots were sitting on blankets under some trees about ten metres away. Your average upstanding voter tends to turn up his nose at a troupe of unwashed vagrants lounging against bursting army-surplus backpacks and playing with their pet dogs. When the same respectable citizen sees a couple of them down on Water Street panhandling their lip begins to curl.

Sure, there's some hypocrisy and idealism in the lifestyle. They reject a lot of the basic elements of society, of take advantage of the infrastructure when they ride the rails. But all that really means is that they've decided to take a pass on the well trodden path, and instead stumble through the woods, taking things as they come. The bottom line is that John lives in a world entirely unlike mine, one that I can barely wrap my head around. Joe Citizen who won't drop a quarter in his hat doesn't stand a chance at understanding. I just hope it's a happy life, although I'm not so sure.

Now I'm back in my well-adorned apartment, listening to "Dance Tonight" by Paul McCartney and writing about all of this.

Adapted from a letter to a friend

2009-07-12T19:05:00.002-02:30

There are days when I'm convinced that everyone is depressed. I certainly am a lot of the time. I feel like I waste an awful lot of my time languishing away on the Internet or chasing cheap, quick pleasure. Sometimes it feels like our entire generation is thinking: "The world we were given is shitty and broken, and no one is going to get out of the way so we can try to fix it. So fuck it, we're just gonna sit down, get comfortable and run out the clock on it all."

If these aren't exactly encouraging thoughts, I'm sorry. I'm also sorry that I'm out here and I can't hug you, and I can't buy the next round. What I can say definitively is that talk isn't the solution. And booze definitely isn't the solution -- it's just another way to get numb.

Of course, that's what this is all about, isn't it? Getting numb. Your life is not where you want it to be, and you don't have any real options to make it better, so you just recoil, get despondent, and then get numb.

I always know I'm in real trouble if I haven't cleaned my apartment in a couple weeks. The shit just piles up, literally and figuratively. Especially the dishes.

In my experience, the only way to cut through the numbness, is to feel something stronger, and to back it up with structure. When it comes to something stronger, any powerful emotion will do: love, hope, fear or anger. Usually I get angry.

I get angry because the dishes are piled high from a week of not washing, and my laundry is everywhere, and my dick won't work anymore because I've spent the last six hours lying in bed looking at porn. I get furious and stalk though the house throwing out garbage, picking up crap and cleaning with the kind of intensity usually saved for fist fights.

A couple hours later I sit down in my clean(er) room and feel a bit better. The anger starts to go away. For me, this is the tricky part. Once the anger is gone, you need to substitute structure -- wash the dishes every day, even if it's just the two forks and a cup in the sink -- because without the anger, and without the structure, you slide back into the depression and numbness. (Full disclosure: I haven't mastered that second part of it yet, but when it's working, I can keep myself organized for a few weeks.)

I don't know if this is just garden-variety young adult angst, or something unique to our generation. I do know that an awful lot of people are taking pills, (hell, they offered me something sinister called Effexor once upon a time.) And the the idea of an entire generation owing their happiness and satisfaction to Pfizer is a damn scary thought.

I hope we get better.

Sincere disobedience

2009-07-10T15:21:00.003-02:30

The editors, legal team and various sponsors of this blog have insisted that I preface this post with a disclaimer. None of this is to be taken seriously or acted upon. This is satire. This is hyperbole. These are the sundry ramblings of a bitter, maladjusted man. Keep walking. Nothing to see here.

I have this fantasy of stalking the suburbs at night with a hunting knife and a list of names. Dressed in black, I would approach my targets silently, flash my blade and leave them crippled and gasping for air. In my fantasy I'm alone, but hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of comrades in other neighbourhoods and other cities are doing the same thing: delivering vigilante justice to the selfish and wicked.

It's pretty simple; here's how it works: You take a list of the least fuel-efficient cars and trucks and SUVs. Then you pick a suburb with two cars in every driveway. Bring a bike, and cruise around for a while. And whenever you see one of the offending vehicles, you slash its tires.

It's a sort of protest -- the kind that might actually get people's attention and bring about meaningful change in a way that waving signs and chanting slogans never will.

There's something kind of offensive about protesting culture these days. With annoyingly mass-produced signs and bullhorns bought in bulk, the self-styled dissidents take to the street and yell and scream and demand that someone else do something to fix the problem. They renounce violence, and civil disobedience, and any sort of legitimate confrontation. They shout and cheer and pontificate (into those damnable bullhorns) for about a few hours, demanding the government spend more money on ... whatever. Then they go home, smug in the knowledge that they're a bit better than their fellow citizens because they're politically engaged and at least trying to make a difference.

(I know, I know, the Iran stuff that we just saw was some real bad ass protesting that arguably made a difference. At the very least it got the world to sit up and take notice. But remember, those Iranians lit a lot of fires, and threw rocks at the cops. When is the last time you saw a white kid with dreadlocks do that?)

Catch any really hard core activist type in a rare moment of honesty, and they'll admit that protests don't change a damn thing. It's a form of very public mutual masturbation, with everyone grooving off the collective righteous anger. The chanting and sign-waving recharges the batteries, and gives the partisan strength to take beating after humiliation in the real corridors of power.

Maybe, instead of the mutual masturbation, we should go out and fuck someone instead. At night. With a knife. And a list of names.

Seriously, don't actually do any of this. Or at the very least, don't tell them I sent you.

Here be dragons!

2009-07-02T21:41:00.004-02:30

Some day, I want to go to a place just like New York.

I'm in love with New York -- the intensity, the surreal hodgepodge, the all-things-to-all people mecca of Western culture. I want to sit in some old high-rise with a cigarette dangling from my lips, watching it rain. I have absolutely no urge to go to New York.

If I ever got there (on a bus, arriving from some place like Cleveland or Des Moines,) the city wouldn't really be something new for me to explore or discover. Instead, I'd be searching for a more vivid version of something that I've already seen in a hundred TV shows and a thousand movies. If I ever visited, the whole thing might fall apart, and I'd rather not let that happen. I'm just as happy to see New York through Scorsese's eyes.

Montreal is even worse. I'd sooner drink peroxide than go there. I don't know anything about the place except for the fact that everyone I know has told me how awesome it is, and how much I'd like it. We can argue the subtleties later -- unrealistic expectations or a bitter desire to prove everyone wrong -- but I've played this game before, and when everyone I know says I'll love it, things never end well.

All of this probably goes some way to explaining why the whole Newfoundland adventure has worked out so well. Two months before arriving here, I wouldn't have been able to tell you which side of the island St. John's was on, and I thought Screech was a character on "Saved by the Bell."

These days, when the Newfoundland adventure ends (and it will, probably sooner than most people think,) I'm going to Costa Rica, Madagascar or Mongolia. I'm leaning towards Mongolia. Costa Rica is a good place to learn Spanish, and I've got a think for catholic chicks and making out on the beach (sorry Newfoundland, but your catholic chicks are pretty much all lapsed, and your beaches suck.) Madagascar has more species of chameleon than anywhere else in the world; nuff said.

And then there's Mongolia. I don't know anything about Mongolia except that to get there, I have to go through either Russia or China (because flying into Ulan Bator would be a lame.) Oh, and I have a quasi-racist fantasy of having a torrid romance with a fiery woman who's been riding horses since she was four-years-old.

See? No preconceived notions that can't be dropped within three hours on the ground. So fuck Montreal, and to hell with New York, I'll see you on the steppes.

Quick Takes

2009-07-01T21:01:00.003-02:30

I saw a good show last night. Whatever I might have said about Hey Rosetta! in the past, they really managed to work George Street last night. Other (lesser) men would be bothered by the fact that the crowd was 70 per cent women (due to the desperate good looks of the lead singer.) Not me, I had fun.

For about five minutes.

The show peaked about half an hour in for me. Everyone was grooving to the same thing, everyone was having fun, and it felt really good. And then I started thinking about the fact that even now, having fun packed in a crowd of a thousand people, I'm still pretty much all alone pretty much all the time. I started imagining it like the end of a movie, where after a series of dramatic events, the plot wraps up with our hero in the middle of the throng having a nice night out. Alone. Then a bird's eye camera pulls out, zooming up past the clouds until we're off somewhere in space, looking at a blue-and-green orb in the darkness.

The rest of the concert was fun, but I never really got back to that really great five minutes.

On the walk home, I realized that five minutes of euphoria is all any of us ever really has. I remember a commercial for Labatt Blue a bunch of years ago, where a people sitting in a diner get in a food fight. At the end of the commercial, our four protagonists run out of the eatery laughing. In an effort to sell beer, Labatt neglected to show the sticky smelly evening they were in for.

It's not that I'm ripping on Labatt. No one ever bothers to show the guy buying the roses, and plucking the petals, they just show the part where the girl arrives, and the petals are all across the bedroom. Also, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever dealt with the thorny issue of a rose petal lodged in someone's butt-crack during the subsequent copulation.

The first lesson I draw from this is that the most any of us can ever hope for is a solid five minutes of euphoria. After that, the illusion starts to fade. I think that's part of why our culture is racing towards such bite-sized gratification. It's possible for a five-minute Youtube video to be incredibly funny, or inspiring or even speak to something bleak, and fairly profound.

I don't know what it says that no one seems interested in Tolstoy or Milton. I also don't know whether it's a better bet to be chasing the five-minute high as often as possible, or eschew it in favour of quiet comfort. There's nothing wrong with unimpressive happiness, but no one talks about it much because it's just so damn ... unimpressive.

The best I can say is that euphoria is great, but some times I have complicated feelings, and nuanced thoughts. And I may blog about those things, but try fitting all of this into a tweet.

I disrespectfully disagree

2009-06-19T17:56:00.002-02:30

Alisha did a nice job of dismissing me as she walked away.

We were talking about the office computers; I don't like the antiseptic iMacs with their almost obsessively clean aesthetic. I guess I'm just more inclined to believe something if I can see the tool marks. If there's a bit of grit in the corner, so much the better. Alisha and Everton both like the white boxes.

"Yeah, but you just disagree with everything James," she said (I wasn't taking notes, so I can't vouch for the exact voracity of the quote.)

In the moment, being called a contrarian hurts. It's dismissive, and implies that my opinion isn't valid, since I'm just disagreeing by rote. There may be some truth in it too. Any time I find myself singing the song as everyone else, I'm a bit uncomfortable. Maybe it's an ego thing, or maybe it's a gut feeling that the majority opinion is usually wrong.

Of course, it doesn't take me long to pick up the accusation, dust it off and wear it. If I do in fact deserve the mantle, then I'm in good company (off the top of my head, Hitchens, Socratese and Jefferson come to mind.) And in any case, just because I disagree with everything, doesn't mean I'm wrong this time.

On an unrelated note, I really enjoy the music of Billy Bob Thorton.

Quotation marks notwithstanding, I'm paraphrasing here

2009-06-13T21:37:00.003-02:30

I have a tough time with geology.

Gros Morne was beautiful and majestic and all, but it seemed like people were always trying to tell me about the rocks. It's not that I have anything against rocks, I just don't find them particularly remarkable. I mean seriously, they're rocks.

It was hard when my dad picked up a gray rock and a reddish rock and said, "This rock here [holds up gray rock] is really really old, whereas this rock [holds up reddish rock] is completely different, and also really really old."

I looked at him blankly.

"No no no, you see, 500 million years ago, this rock [back to that damn reddish rock] was part of the sea floor. Five hundred million years ago!"

"... ok, well I'm 24-years-old, so that's a big number that really doesn't mean anything to me."

The Signal Hill GEO Centre is even worse. It starts out with a film presentation where I guy says in a dramatic voice, "Right now, you're inside a really, really old rock!"

I'm pretty sure they're all old rocks. Except for volcanos. They make new rocks, don't they? Let me know when we stop talking about old rocks and start talking about volcanos.

Volcanos are cool.

Unhappy news

2009-06-09T22:19:00.004-02:30

I will preface this post by saying: a) I really like doing journalism, and b) I like working at the Telegram. Whatever complaints I may have, I firmly believe that every other newsroom is likely singing the same song, albeit sometimes perhaps in a different key.

That being said, it is a damn depressing tune. I don't think I'm saying anything earth shattering when I say that it's a damn bleak feeling among the ranks of the working journalists. Everyone I've talked to is being asked to do more with less. It leaves a disheartening taste in my mouth when the powers that be say "We know you're working hard already, but it's not enough. Try to do more." I'm not too bitter about it; I get it, we're understaffed, but the bottom line is a harsh mistress.

But what really hurts is that outside the newsrooms, our allies are few and far between. Apart from one, poorly received exception, when is the last time you can remember a positive portrayal of a journalist on TV or in a movie (please, no one say "The Wire.") Moreover, at least once a month, someone I'm interviewing blames whatever they're upset about on "the media." Whenever someone says during an interview that the problem is biased reporting, I always want to say, "Dude, I'm standing right here."

Occasionally, journalists screw people over. It's kind of our job to be an independent voice, which means sometimes deliberately getting into peoples' faces. And a lot of other times, it's as simple as a person expects us to tell their story instead of the story. The former is PR, the latter is journalism.

Oh well, in the long run I hope we'll be OK. People need journalism if they want democracy, and if they don't want democracy, I'll be the most popular guy in the gulag.

Two unimpressive thoughts

2009-06-08T08:52:00.003-02:30

My parents are visiting, which is nice. But I feel like I have to impress them that my life in St. John's is good, stable and fulfilling. I cleaned my apartment. I introduced them to Barb and Sharon. I showed them some of my better writing for the paper.

They went out to dinner at the gourmet pizza place down the street, and because they have a key to my apartment, they left me leftover pizza in my fridge.

Which means that when they opened the fridge, they saw that it really only contained two uncooked sausages, a half-eaten block of cheese and a half-eaten bowl of raspberry jello.

***

I have this fantasy that I rig my apartment with a sound system that's built into the walls, piping music into every room. Then I'd rig it up so it would play The Mexican Hat Dance, the Benny Hill Theme and Sing Sing Sing by Benny Goodman in a continuous loop. I would not be able to shut of the system once it was started.

The theory is that I would very quickly go crazy, but it would be an excellent, slapstick sort of insanity. It's a well known fact that everything is funny with the right musical accompaniment.

Sometimes I would try to bring girls home, and the comedic value would double.

All the cool kids are doing it...

2009-05-31T17:39:00.003-02:30

I'm calling it right now: smoking is cool again.

I know, at first blush, this seems like a desperate attempt to retain my status as an edgy malcontent and all-purpose contrarian. Well maybe, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong.

I guess I'm just really tired of busybody, earnest-beyond-reproach do-gooders trying to use increasingly Machiavellian means to get people to quit. Carpet bomb the public debate with shock imagery about the dangers of smoking and unabashed scare tactics — fine. Start delivering the "Don't Smoke" message in kindergarten, well before the audience can engage in any sort of rational discussion — well, OK. Pass a series of nuisance laws based on questionable science that force people to smoke behind the white line — um, I guess so. Anything to avoid having an honest conversation about tobacco, and perhaps making it an illegal substance. No, instead we'll preserve the false notion that people still get to choose whether or not to smoke, and then run a series of disingenuous proxy wars against the tobacco companies and their marketing machine. (Make no mistake, the purveyors of tobacco aren't saints by any means, but there's plenty of room for everyone down here in the mud.)

So here's where we're left: everyone knows smoking is going to kill you, and those who choose to do so are forced to jump through an ever-more-elaborate series of hoop to enjoy their habit. And yet, people still smoke. Whenever I see someone lighting up, all I can think is "Damn that looks cool." I think it's about the inherent rebellion and self-loathing that goes along with sucking on a cigarette in the 21st century.

Oh, by the way, you know what else is cool? Polluting, not voting and acid.

The eyes have it

2009-05-28T23:08:00.003-02:30

It's quickly becoming clear that the best part of my game is eye-flirting.

There was the bus incident referenced below. There's the dark-haired barista at Jumping Bean; her eyes are uncomfortably compelling, but the little sliver of a smile makes up for it. There's every girl I shouldn't end up talking to at a bar or show (and usually don't end up talking to, but nevermind.)

And then there was tonight. I was sitting in Hava Java reading "Burning Chrome" by William Gibson (because 1980s cyberpunk is always best enjoyed in a public place, while consuming caffeine.) She was sitting at a table opposite me. (I was initially interested in her because she bore a striking resemblance to a middle-aged urban planner I'd interviewed the night before -- younger and pretty, though.) Our eyes met, and she didn't look away. I went back to my book, but kept looking up periodically. Often, when I glanced up at her, I found her eyes were already on me. I smiled at her. She acknowledged me.

She wasn't alone, and eventually they began to pack up, and she made to leave. As her two friends were heading for the stairs, she broke off and walked towards me. I looked up from my book. She was smiling nervously.

"Rob?"

"No."

And then she laughed uncomfortably, and was gone. And then I went home to smoke salvia and listen to classical music. Pachelbel's Canon is much better when unencumbered by your other four senses.

And then I wrote a little note to you.

Metrobus: depressing, weird

2009-05-26T22:18:00.005-02:30

The Metrobus system in St. John's is something the TTC in Toronto did not prepare me for. Unlike T.O. where the subway is something of a melting pot, with suits and high school students mingling with old immigrants and homeless people, the Metrobus is reserved for the dregs.

In St. John's, either have to ride the bus, or you drive a car. Mostly, the ridership is skeety men, students, and people with mental disabilities. Also, a St. John's bus is the only place (other than maybe a hospital) where you can reliably find visible minorities.

Tonight I watched as a drunk man did his best to hit on a kind of pretty girl. When he couldn't convince her to come sit next to him, buddy wedged himself into the small space on the bench between her and the window of the bus.

She kept politely turning down his various romantic advances, but in the course of the conversation, she gave her name, and told him where she was headed (a bar on George Street, to work.) All of this raised alarm bells with me; I guess even as a man growing up in Toronto, you learn that one of the basics of rape-prevention is not to give out identifying details.

I had been eye-flirting with her while we waited for the bus, and she'd been periodically smiling at me nervously as I watched buddy lay down his best (drunken) moves. When buddy started playing with her hair as she leaned away, I got ready to step in. Fortunately, after she politely but firmly said "No" for the fourth time, he backed off and started sulking about how she wasn't into himbecause he wasn't intelligent, or he wasn't rich etc.

When her stop came, I sighed inwardly that he didn't try to follow her off the bus. After she rang the bell, she stood up and walked to where I was sitting just behind the rear doors. She looked down at me and blew out her cheeks as she let out a deep breath.

"Have a good night," she said, "don't do anything I wouldn't do."

If I bump into her again (it's a small city) I'll ask her what exactly she meant by that.

Young hot-shot

2009-05-25T22:57:00.006-02:30

You'll have to take my word for it that this is being written on a steno-pad outside a Ramada Inn conference room in St. John's. Inside, there's a union of window-makers voting on whether to accept their employer's contract offer. They've already been on strike for a few days. I'm waiting for them to walk out so I can take a picture either of smiling workers or resolute strikers.

I can intermittently hear shouts, applause and the usual speechifying that goes along with any closed-door union meeting. I don't know whether the sounds mean strike or deal, but they definitely mean they haven't started voting yet.

I'm into my second cup of bad "PJ Billington's" coffee.

The glamorous life of a young, hot-shot journalist.

Last night at the bar I saw a girl wearing a College of the North Atlantic jacket with "Journalism" written on the back. My first thought was "Shit, you might as well go to rock star school." Don't get me wrong, being a journalist isn't as cool as being Mick Jagger (it also doesn't pay as well, it doesn't get you laid, and Mick probably has a better shot of changing the world.) But going to j-skool makes you a journalist about like taking singing lessons makes you Bono. Worse, they're still hiring rock stars, whereas they're getting rid of journalists at every possible turn. (For fuck sake, CanMediaLayoffs has its own Twitter feed.)

Depressing.

(This is about when I had to quit as the meeting broke up. They took the deal but weren't happy about it, so no one would talk to me, and the photos weren't good.)

In any case, (and this is non-steno pad Internet writing now) one day later I was covering city council. There's this kind of annoying kid (18 years old, at the most) who operates a TV camera for the Roger's feed they run locally. He grabbed my copy of the paper.

"Do you have to pay for this?" he asked.
"No, we get it free. There's a big stack of them in the newsroom."
"That's no fair," he said.
"Fair? I wrote the damn thing."

At this point, he looked down at the front page, and there was my story, above the fold. The strikers settled.

The kid shut up.

That felt good.

Hey, good looking.

2009-05-21T11:42:00.004-02:30

My life improves dramatically once there are leaves on the trees.

I don't know what it is about photosynthesis and garish displays of chlorophyll that makes me feel better, but it does. Moreover, it makes everything else better too. There's something subtle but pervasive about a positive environment; it lets me shrug off little problems, and savour small victories.

I think that's one of the things I like about St. John's. It's a very pretty city in its own way, and not just the jellybean houses or the old buildings on Water Street either. The whole contours of the town, and the erratic angles that form at intersections are something to experience and appreciate.

And also, the boats in the harbour. I never really thought about boats before I moved here, but boats are damn cool. Especially the big, offshore supply vessels; I've spent a lot more time in Harbourside Park watching them than I care to admit.

But it all looks better framed by green leaves.

Sarcastic (please don't put me on a CSIS watch list)

2009-05-19T21:04:00.003-02:30

Here's an idea:

Let's round up all of the lawyers, politicians, lobbyists, corporate CEOs, journalists, advertisers, and developers (real estate, not web.)

And then let's shoot 'em. Right in the head.

I'd like to see this happen is because maybe — just maybe — it would shut up those earnest-sounding hippies for a couple hours.

Broadly speaking I consider myself pretty left-wing, but whenever some 21st century flower child starts blaming all the evils of the world on the "lobbyists" and those rat-bastard "developers" who keep bulldozing pastoral (organic) farmland to put up McMansions, I become a raging, right-wing fascist. I just want to grab them by the dreadlocks (wearing a glove), smack them across the face and yell "Shut the hell up, sit down, get a job, and eat some damn meat!"

So let's line all those bastard capitalists up and shoot them. If we make the line straight enough, each bullet should take out three or four. And then we'll all go home, and realize that the world still kind of sucks. Corruption isn't something that happens in politics, it's something that happens in people. Greed isn't something corporations do, it's something people do.

If nothing else, let's make sure we get the journalists. Those guys are assholes.

Devil in the details

2009-05-14T22:46:00.008-02:30

I had this whole thing written about covering the shenanigans involving the nurses and the government today, and how it's incredibly important, but the press conferences devolve into bizarre irrelevant minutia.

Seriously, this is important shit. But that doesn't mean you want to read about Cochrane trying to nail down whether Eastern Health had a legal right to invoke the essential service agreement, effectively bringing about a strike, and whether they would challenge in court if the nurses claimed that they could not be forced into a full on strike.

Anyway, I was done writing, so I tuned out and wandered over to watch the last three minutes of the Bruins-Hurricanes game with the sports guys. Which brings me to my epiphany: Gambling on the news.

Any halfway honest sports reporter will admit that the only reason anyone watches football is because they're betting on it. That's also the only reason they read about the quarterback's ankle, the receiver's diet and the linebacker's divorce proceedings.

So what if newspapers were to publish a page of odds, and take some small time wagers. If you're interested, I can introduced you to someone who'll bet even money that the nurses don't go on strike, and reach some 11th hour settlement. Hell, if a second candidate gets in the race (*cough* Ellsworth *cough*), I will personally take bets on who'll be the next St. John's mayor.

I think at this point the government might let us do it: give newspapers a bit of gambling the same way natives got casinos. Newspaper reporters are also a proud and noble breed, threatened with cultural extinction by strange foreigners with superior technology (read: The Internet).

Oh, and by the way, 3:1 says that when that hotel finally goes up on Prescott Street, it's less than 15 metres tall. Don't know what I'm talking about? Maybe if you had a hundred bucks riding on it, you'd show up to a municipal planning meeting once in a while.

Good to be back

2009-05-12T20:01:00.003-02:30

Six bylines in two days.

I'm not sure, but I think one of my stories was slotted for A1. My ego is directly related to how often I'm on A1. That one week when I managed front-page stories five days in a row, I think I was probably pretty insufferable.

Truthfully though, I like being just about anywhere in the paper. I still think it's hella cool that they're printing my name in the paper. It's been five or six years since I got my first story published in a real newspaper, but that shine has yet to wear off. I doubt it ever will. Somewhere along the line, someone decides every day that my words are worth printing 30,000 times and then charging people money for. That feels damn good.

Whatever criticisms I may have about the paper, it's good to be back on staff at The Telegram.

I won't grow up!

2009-05-11T10:33:00.004-02:30

I'm listening to a lot of high school songs recently. On Saturday morning, when I was hung over, I listened to O Fortuna by Carl Orff. For a while in Grade 11, that song from Carmina Burana was at the very top of my list of favourites.

Those of us on the Stage Crew would eat our lunches in the school's auditorium and listen to music loudly over the big speakers. In hindsight, we were pretty lucky; most high school students don't have their own private hangout, decked out with theatrical lighting and 2,000 watt amplified speakers. Adorned in chains and spiked jewelry (I still have my collar back in T.O.) we would blast homemade CDs that mixed VNV Nation and Rammstein.

I never really was a very convincing goth, even with black painted nails and chains for both my wallet and my pocket watch. I doubt I ever scared anyone. But some of my friends did, and the conformist fuckers who we hated stayed away from the auditorium during lunch hour.

I guess the regression to high school music is a form of misty-eyed nostagia. Those five years of my life were hard (yup, I failed Grade 12 my first crack at it,) but they were also easy in the sense that there was a structure that I could follow, or rebel against. Adulthood, albiet the gawky twenty-something kind that I'm doing, is much trickier.

I'm not complaining, but I guess sometimes it's nice to escape into a world of cheap angst and anger. Say what you will about it being a phase, or immature, there are few things in this world quite so pure as high school rebellion.

My only radical belief ...

2009-05-10T14:55:00.003-02:30

I'm in the mood to pick a fight with someone. It probably has to do with the Hunter Thomson documentary I watched (twice) earlier this week, and reading Ezra Levant's book on Human Rights Commissions.

This weekend I got into it with a vegan who said that the production of milk involves cows getting "raped." She said it must really hurt their feelings to have their young taken away from them. On the other hand, she said she thinks plants have feelings, and definitely respond to gardeners showing them love. The earnest-looking vegan was unable to reconcile the feelings of carrots with the fact that she rips them out of the ground and the gleefully drops them into a pot of boiling water without a hint of remorse. Idiot. It was her birthday party, and I was only tagging along with a friend, so I restrained myself from telling her that she was an irredeemable moron.

The whole episode (along with Mr. Levant) got me thinking about my feelings on free speech: I like it, a lot. I firmly believe that every twit should be allowed to say whatever the hell they want, including racist things, sexist things, homophobic things etc. It was a lot easier to spot the bigots back when they were allowed to call gay people "queers" and black people "niggers." In it's way, I think that's a lot more honest than the caring world we have now where everyone respects everyone else, and no one is racist anymore, and yet somehow most of the people in jail are black, and most of the CEOs are white.

Back to our friend the vegan, I will proudly defend her right to spout all manner of fuckwadery about cows' feelings, despite the fact that I adamantly believe the most useful thing a cow can do is die and be delicious. But I also think it's important that whenever an idiot says something stupid, they're made to feel stupid. Just because people are allowed to say whatever they want doesn't mean they should be encouraged to say foolish things.

I suppose my feelings on free speech are the reason I've gravitated towards journalism and stand-up comedy. They're the two careers where the guiding principle is "Fuck you, I'm gonna say whatever the hell I want." Comedy especially so. Lenny Bruce was arrested a bunch of times for obscenity in the 1950s and early '60s. One night he was hauled off to the police station for something he said during an early show, and was promptly released on bail, only to take to the stage for a late show. This is one of the jokes he told:

"A boy says to his father, 'Daddy, what's obscenity?'
The father looks down at his son and says, 'Shut up and keep sucking.'"
Rimshot!

I'm really feeling much better than earlier

2009-05-09T18:02:00.003-02:30

Classical music seems to provide excellent accompaniment for a serious hangover. Drinking with Alisha always seems to end poorly for me, because she's got this damnable habit of turning around with shots of Jager in her hands. There was no backing down, especially since we were both ostensibly celebrating.

I got my job back at the Telegram. Well, sort of. I owe my employment to another reporter getting in a nasty car accident and being unable to work for a while. This isn't the first time I've benefited employment-wise from the misfortunes of others, and it always makes for a slightly uncomfortable situation. But it's a nasty economy out there, and it's that much worse for young aspiring newspaper reporters, so I won't look a gift-horse in the mouth. I still feel lousy for Terry though.

And now I'm feeling lousy for myself because I drank too much. In case you're interested, my personal recommendations for the accompanyment would be "Palladio II, Largo" by Karl Jenkins, Blue Danube Waltz by Strauss, and the Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven. If the headache is especially bad, try O Fortuna from Carmina Burana by Carl Orff.

Depression, desperation and other downers

2009-05-06T12:02:00.004-02:30

Preface: When I started writing this blog, I promised myself that the tone, or theme, or common vein among the posts would be "probably too honest."

By reading this right now you're an enabler. For me, writing this is also destructive behaviour. Realistically, it's also probably a cry for help, an attempt to break the cycle, and half a dozen other semi-technical psycho-babble terms. Bottom line: I might be suffering from depression.

Exhibit A: I haven't done dishes in a week, and I only own four large plates and four small plates. Except for quick runs to Halliday's for milk and bacon (the staples of my diet,) I haven't done any grocery shopping either. My apartment is a godawful mess, with piles of junk everywhere.

Exhibit B: I have three stories I'm supposed to be writing for Ken; all of them past my self-imposed deadlines. In one case, I've got all of my interviews done, and the only obstacle is transcribing the quotes of my recorder and write the damn thing. I've been putting it off since Monday.

Exhibit C: It's just past noon on a Wendesday and I'm writing a blog entry while lying on my bed in a bathrobe. I woke up this morning, surfed the Internet for about an hour. Then I made myself a pot of tea and read "The Princess Bride" for a while until I fell asleep for a 10 a.m. nap on my couch.

You get the picture.

The problem is that I'm basically non-living right now. I don't have a job. I don't have any close friends in St. John's. I'm supposed to be freelancing, but money isn't really an issue (thanks mommy and daddy) so I rarely get on the go before 10 a.m. and I spend a significant portion of my days in a bathrobe.

The other problem is that despite intermittent bouts with depression (Grade 12 at North Toronto C.I., summer between first and second year at Ryerson, last summer, etc.) I absolutely, blindly refuse the pills. I will sooner take a whole bottle of asprin rather than a single dose of Paxil (or whatever the anti-depressant du jour is this week.)

I don't know how this ends. I don't know how I break the cycle. I don't know where the self-destructive behaviour stops. I do know that I've promised myself that I'll write that damn story before I go to bed tonight, but promises to myself don't mean too much these days.

Play me off Keyboard Cat!

Newspapers, I hardly new you

2009-04-29T18:32:00.003-02:30

I hate newspapers. They're so old, just touching one feels distinctly Dickensian. They make your hands dirty. They're ungainly, crinkly things that require a dining room table to read properly, or an act of practiced origami to read on the bus. They're a far cry from environmentally friendly (a fact which the overwhelmingly left-leaning reporters and editors overlook.) Newspapers need to die, and be buried in an unmarked grave.

And yet every week I read an article or talk to someone about how we need to "save the newspapers." That's a stupid idea. How about we work on saving, oh, I don't know, journalism? Let's let the institution that gave us Cathy and Family Circus die, and focus instead on saving critical, independent, investigative journalism.

Why do we even want to save the newspaper? It's the fastest form of news? Not by a long shot; not with 24-hour cable news networks, radio news (remember radio?) not to mention that pesky old Internet. Newspapers provide the most in-depth coverage? Keep dreaming. Magazine journalism in publications like Harpers, the Atlantic, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and GQ all do much deeper more compelling work than you'll find in the "A" section of most papers. Newspapers provide more variety. Well maybe, except for that pesky Internet thing that just won't go away.

Here's my favourite (idiotic) argument in favour of newspapers: Serendipity. The argument goes that I leaf through the newspaper looking for the stories I'm interested in, and some other story or picture catches my eye, and I stumble across something I never would have otherwise read. That's kind of like telling people not to buy iPods because there's not way to replace the serendipity of listening to music on the radio. I mean, it's not like I've ever stumbled across a news article on the Internet that I wasn't specifically looking for.

So really, can we just bury the damn newspaper? I think there's a plot in the cemetery of anachronisms. I'll buy it the plot right between horse drawn carriages as a means of conveyance, and crossbows for personal self-defence. Maybe after newspapers are dead we can all turn our attention to the really important thing: keeping journalism alive and healthy.

Misty-eyed views of the fog-drenched island

2009-04-28T11:06:00.005-02:30

It seems like the bloggerati is turning their collective guns on the Newfoundland and Labrador tourism campaign. The consensus seems to be that the ads are slick, professional, and really compelling, but unrealistic. (Oh, and too "Photoshopped." Well, maybe, but isn't that advertising? Would you prefer that in all those feminine hygiene commercials they pour sticky red liquid on the wings to demonstrate absorbency?

I guess my real problem isn't with the idealized bullshit in commercials, it's with the idealized bullshit in Newfoundland. Newfoundlanders have swallowed the idea that their province is a magical, unique, historic place (and there's indeed some truth to that) but it took me months and months of living here to get in touch with any sort of real Newfoundland. When I asked people what I should do to experience the province, they told me to go to the GEO-Centre (OMFG! Really old rocks!) When I asked again, they told me to get screeched in (a custom that every Newfoundlander should be angry and embarassed about.)

So to Meeker and Welsh, I say: Don't worry about it. Yes, those ads are totally idealized, but trust me, no one's going to notice it on a week-long trip here. Everyone I know here can smell a tourist three blocks away, and is committed to maintaining the myth. If Joe Blow Mainlander asks which bar to go to for an authentic St. John's experience, everyone says Christians on George Street for the screech in. No one tells them to go up to the Peter Easton Pub and spend a couple hours talking to the skeets.

Make no mistake, I really like this province. And I especially like St. John's (the only part of the province I've really seen.) But my love of St. John's includes the fact that KFC and The Keg have the best views of the harbour, and when my parents come to visit, I'll take them to O'Reilly's on George Street, but they'll be safely home by 1 a.m., well before the fights start.

For a brilliant counterpoint to this entry (or perhaps in support of it, I'm not sure) check out what Joel Hynes has to say about Newfoundland.

Funny

2009-04-26T19:25:00.002-02:30

Riding my bike up the hill to Shea Heights felt really good, until I started worrying that I might become the sort of guy who would say "Feel the burn" unironically.

Now, thoroughly exercised and relaxed, I'm getting ready for comedy night at the Victory. It's gonna suck pretty bad when that's gone (Yuk Yuks just doesn't cut it,) and if no one else gets it together, I might have to get off my ass and set up an open mic myself.

It seems like most of my funniest jokes are somehow at the expense of Newfoundlanders. To their credit, they don't get offended, they just laugh and say "Yes b'y, Danny really is crazy, but as long as he keeps giving Harper hell, I'll keep votin' for him." I try to write jokes about the shared human experience but they just don't seem to resonate in the same way. But damnit, no matter what anyone says, I thinkit's hilarious that six-year-old James believed there were many important similarities between his penis, and Alladin's lamp.

Oh well, I guess Danny Williams is a sort of shared human experience too.

Is this the life?

2009-04-23T21:17:00.002-02:30

As I write this, I'm alone in my apartment listening to "Have a Cigar" by Pink Floyd. There's an bottle of wine on the go, and I'm cooking chicken pesto fusilli (w/ red peppers.) I had a productive day of freelance journalism-ing, and broadly speaking I couldn't be happier.

Almost.

I can put out of my mind the very shaky ground upon which all of this is built. I know my life here could go belly up at any time. The Telegram could decide I'm not worth their trouble. They could hire me on for a couple months in the summer and then send me along my way in September. I could impress the hell out of them and land permanent employment just in time to watch the entire North American newspaper industry fold -- if it hasn't already.

But that's not what's bugging me. The song -- perhaps my favourite by Floyd -- makes me wonder if I'll look back and conclude that this is the time in my life when I sold out. Is this the time when I stopped chasing a better world, and decided that life was pretty good, so I might as well enjoy it? When I'm 45 and my belly is a bit bigger, is some impudent 24-year-old kid going to say that this is the time when I stopped fighting? Stopped being an angry, idealistic, contrarian sonofabitch?

In a sense, this has already happened. If I were ever to sit down with 17-year-old me (spiked collar, black nailpolish and all) he would likely have one question: "What the fuck happened?" Intellectually, I know that this is part of growing up, and not something to be ashamed of or disapointed by. But to this day, whenever someone dismisses me, saying "You'll understand when you're older," I want to punch them square across the jaw. Same as when I was 17.

A friend of mine has the best solution to this. She's simultaneously much more mature than me, and yet still somehow younger at heart. With a wicked sense of humour, she walks through the world, not as it is, but as though it's always subtlely making fun of itself. It's a way of seeing things where instead of the whole world being a terribly serious affair, it's all sligtly riddiculous, and hardly worth getting worked up over. (See that, the last TWO words in that sentence were preopositions. RIDDICULOUS!)

On my best days, I can muster this some of the time, and when I can, it's a good way to be. There's no stress once you realize the things stressing you are gently farcical. And it's true, there is something ludicrous about undermining a nice night alone with wine and good food by obsessing of nebulous hypotheticals.

And as I try to find some kind of conclusion in all of this, I'm reminded that the Pink Floyd track following "Have a Cigar" is "Wish You Were Here."

So you think you can tell/ heaven from hell?/ Blue skies from pain?/ Can you tell a green field/ from a cold steel rail?"

Slightly bitter and depressing, but it's nice to know others have been here before.

Just the facts ma'am

2009-04-21T08:59:00.004-02:30

Last night I found myself in a bar surrounded by about 30 medical researchers engaging in a spirited intellectual discussion. How do you balance the greater good of medical research against the privacy concerns of individuals' health information? The conversation was fueled by alcohol and microphones, and was fun, although I got a bit frustrated because they jumped back and forth between pragmatic concerns (i.e. how do you make data suitably anonymous?) and philosophical problems (i.e. why do we want privacy?)

I got home, poured myself a glass of scotch and read old newspaper columns by Ray Guy from a book Kerri gave me. After about an hour, I got up, picked up another book (Starship Troopers by R.A.H.) and crawled into bed to read for another hour or so.

Between my first and second cups of tea this morning, I had to go to the bathroom. I went into the living room to pick up The Smallwood Years where I'd left it on the coffee table. My hand hovered over the book for a second, then I turned on my heel, went to the bedroom and picked up Starship Troopers. And then I pooed. (I still can't figure out why I abandoned one book at the last minute in favour of another.)

And then I sat down to write a blog entry about all of this.

And then it was now.

And then I don't know what happens.

If anyone is still reading this and thinking 'What the hell? and why is this still in my RSS feeds?' I completely understand. I wouldn't bother to read about my crap either.

The Itch

2009-04-19T22:05:00.002-02:30

I have this prickling in the back of my neck, right at the base of my skull, about five centimetres under the skin. It's where I store all of the things I want to do -- I need to do -- but cannot. It's the one itch I'm never able to properly scratch.

Right now, the only thing that will satiate the itch is the sort of long, brutal bike ride that my body is in no shape for. Last spring, I hopped on my bike, and dragged my body up to the airport. I almost coughed up a lung when I paused on the overpass above the T.C.H. Then, I biked along Portugal Cove Road clear over to the Bell Island ferry. Google Maps says it's about a 17 kilometre ride -- each way -- with a nasty hill to climb back up at the turnaround point. I was in no condition to walk upright the next day, but at least the itch was gone. Of course, just like every other Spring, it was back again in a couple days, and I spent the rest of the summer chasing that one, perfect, glorious ride.

The itch is worse than usual this year. Maybe it's because I'm unemployed and want to ride clean through till I hit antipodes. Maybe it's these damnable Newfoundland Winters (and the Springs, which are basically the same thing.)

In any case, I'm looking forward to taking the bike out Monday.

Observations in the dark

2009-03-31T01:03:00.003-02:30

OK, feel free to disregard this. I'm in a place right now where I'm not ready to sleep yet, so I'm just gonna write until I can't keep my eyelids up.

I'm sitting in the observation lounge of the Halifax Airport. If you ever find yourself in Halifax on a six-hour overnight layover, I highly recommend that you check out the observation lounge. If you're lucky enough to see it during a snowstorm, so much the better.

For the past hour or so, planes have been lumbering back and forth in front of the windows. They make their way steadily to the de-icing station and get sprayed with orange chemicals (at least I think they're orange.) The excess de-icing solution billows along the plane's fuselage and off into the storm. Meanwhile, there's a whole ecosystem of smaller vehicles like remora fish that scurry about their various tasks. The baggage carts are like centipedes, snaking their way across the snow-covered tarmac. There's a snowplow that races along in front of me in a straight line, clearing a narrow band of the thoroughfare that the planes taxi along. I lose sight of it off to my right, and then a few minutes later, it's racing back the other way.

Out past where the planes get de-iced there's a wind-sock which I find to be endlessly mesmerising. I can't decide which is the better metaphor: some sort of glowing worm, or a a firefly, caught in a entemologist's net. It's slowly wiggling back and forth, up and down in the wind. There's some sort of ochre light inside the sock, but it doesn't illuminate the post beneath it, so it appears to be suspended in the darkness.

The goings on inside the lounge are every bit as interesting, although I have to be more subtle in observing them. Behind my right shoulder, theres a mansleeping beside two loaded baggage carts, with his feet resting on a blue plastic carrying case. The case is full of someting, and barks tentatively every once in a while. Every time the carrying case barks, a twenty-somthing guy sitting beside me, typing on a laptop, looks over his shoulder and grins. Over my left shoulder there is a couple who I can only surmise are either homeless, or very, very experienced travellers. They've constructed a full bed for themselves with a sleeping bag, pillows, and a wool blanket. But they're not ready for sleep yet, and they're spooning together, watching a TV show ("24" I think) on a laptop.

I think even the airport is going to sleep for a couple hours. The little vehicles are still bustling around, but I havent seen a plane roll past in half an hour or so. Also, I'm getting to the end of "London Calling" so I think I'm going to close up shop and see if there's anything appealing at the Hortons downstairs.

G'night.

UPDATE: There are about two dozen of us trying to sleep in this airport. In a sort of central indoor courtyard, there is a ring of long wooden benches, and what appears to be an entire family arrayed out on them, all trying to get some sleep. The father has a large, multicoloured sombrero resting on his face like a Mexican cartoon character. In the middle of the courtyard, there are three or four sparrows that are chirping and flitting about, and no one can say how they got in here. It's all very surreal.

2009-03-28T16:16:00.002-02:30

I just deleted 800 words of bitter self-appraisal. It was irrelevant, self-indulgent, and you don't really want to read it. (Who really cares that sometimes freelancing makes me very happy, and sometimes it makes me very sad?) For whatever reason, when I sit down with a text box on my screen and try to write about my life, I turn into a brooding, irritable curmudgeon. Dunno what that says about me.

Last night after dinner (tandoori chicken w/ rice and peas) I drank a glass of scotch and read my book. At about 9:30 p.m. I ended up at the coffee shop with the newspaper, and spent a couple hours reading about the N.L. budget and the Taliban.

The night started to get good a couple hours later when I resumed reading the Globe ROB in Distortion, waiting for the show to start. I really enjoy a good-natured mosh pit, and The Satans put on one helluva show. By 1 a.m. I had blood on my shirt, and a cut on my hand that didn't look so bad after I rinsed the blood off it. The night would have ended there (the last two bands were metal, and not really my bag) if I hadn't bumped into Esteves and Mitchel.

We ended up closing out the bar, and then Mitchel came back to my place (not like that, although he is a very pretty man.) We smoked salvia until about 6 a.m. -- a couple really satisfying trips. It was a very good night.

I guess my point is that there's plenty of room for pensive introspection; my life isn't perfect. But, things are pretty damn good. I'm working, but not too hard. I have a very pretty girlfriend who seems to like me for who I am (yet insists, vehemently, that she's not crazy.) And after an excellent night of irresponsible fun, I can hang out, drink tea, and read Ian Brown on Twitter. Life may not be perfect, but I certainly shouldn't complain.

2009-03-10T17:50:00.002-02:30

Time published a list of the 10 major newspapers most likely to go under in 2009. I find this a great source of hope and excitement, and not just because of my longstanding blood-feud with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

With pretty much every name on the list -- including some pretty major ones like the Detroit News and the Boston Globe -- Time predicts that the paper and the brand will survive in some digital form or another. For much too long, news outlets have been pouring resources into online operations as some sort of short-sighted pissing match. Who cares whether globeandmail.com gets more hits than thestar.com if they're both hopelessly losing money for their efforts?

But the fact is that online outlets are doing some pretty cool things. (Checked out The Big Picture as an example of things you can do without the limitations of print.) And what's cooler is that the Big Picture is a feature on the site of the Boston Globe. Wouldn't it be neat if the paper went under tomorrow and all those whiz kids coming up with these features turned their attention to how to get paid for them? It's just too bad that certain Newfoundland newspapers never gave that a shot

Don't get me wrong; newspapers closing sucks. I fully understand that layoffs hurt. But being a young journalist in an industry that you know is dying a slow death is no picnic either. Basically, I would be happy if only two things came out of this recession: newspapers figure out some sort of sustainable future, and Jim Cramer finally has that massive coronary and drops dead (but that's another blog post altogether.)

Afternoon naps, 5 days a week

2009-03-08T18:59:00.003-02:30

I'm not suited to freelancing at all; a couple weeks of unemployment has taught me that much.

I really like almost everything about journalism -- the way it looks to see my name in print, the process of interviewing, writing furiously with fast music in my ears, and a dozen other little things. But it's stressful and intense, and when doing it in the comfort of my own home, it's damn lonely too. So the notion of pitching ideas, compounding my own intense, stressful loneliness often feels like a self-inflicted wound. It's becoming increasingly clear that I probably won't end up on a sealing vessel, mostly because I lack the inertia to leave my apartment right now.

If all of this sounds a little bitter, it shouldn't; I'm actually really happy right now. I'm just also kind of ambitious, and so I feel like I'm fucking around and wasting my time. I guess I just can't provide my own sense of urgency; I need a middle-aged man with a mustache to do that. Lesson learned, I guess a couple of months of unemployment won't be a total waste.

And everything else in my life is going really well. The Donnie Dumphy feature is came together really well, and will probably be an excellent read whenever I bother to transcribe all that tape. I'm walking everwhere, which feels really good. Best of all, I seem to have found a very pretty lady to lie in bed with me and talk about provincial politics. I think listening to someone talk about Joan Burke and Trevor Taylor in panties and one of my old t-shirts might be my idea of perfect happiness (and yes, I'm aware of just how fucked up that is.)

And I have a story idea of the Steve McQueen of geese, which should be fun to write, so that shouldn't feel too much like a self-inflicted wound. Look for it in The Telegram

Unpredictable plans

2009-02-27T15:45:00.003-03:30

It's becoming increasingly apparent that I have to figure out what I'm gonna do. It was nice to sit in Harbourside Park and read The Muse today, but for a whole host of reasons, I can't do that every day. And yesterday it was fun spending the afternoon watching Futurama and napping, but I think that'll get tiresome after a while. Moreover, many of the things that I do to while away the days -- hanging out in coffee shops, drinking to excess -- cost money, which I keep remembering I don't have anymore.

Right now, Priority No. 1 is getting cash-flow going again. I spent the last hour of my last shift at The Telegram filling out my E.I. claim. I found it immensely satisfying to file my claim from a Telegram computer, but I don't know why. Now I pretty much just have to wait for my record of employment, and then wait some more. Priority No. 2 is getting on a sealing vessel. (Oh, and writing about it, which would be cool too, and probably result in a paycheque, but mostly I just want to get out on the ice because I think it would be cool -- no pun intended.) If anyone reading this knows anyone who will be going sealing, let me know. If I can't line something up by the second week of March, the plan is to hitchhike up to Twillingate and just spend a few weeks drinking Blue Star in bars and trying to make friends with someone who has a boat. (I imagine it will go something like that scene in Moss Eisley in Episode IV.)

For whatever reason, most of my plans seem to involve me hitchhiking somewhere. That's probably partly because I have misguided visions of being the Dean Moriarty of the 21st century. It's also probably because I want to write a story that starts with: "I was somewhere outside of Gander when the drugs began to take hold ..." Mostly though, I think it's because I've been in Newfoundland for a year now, but I've yet to make it off the Avalon Peninsula, and this time of year St. John's feels small, dirty, grey and otherwise unimpressive.

Having friends to drink tea or play a couple games of backgammon with seems to help. And incedentally, the salvia I ordered from Holland arrived yesterday, so if anyone wants to come over and explore other dimensions, that could be fun. Afterwords we can drink tea and play backgammon.

Desperation

2009-02-22T16:14:00.002-03:30

As I write this, I'm nursing a hangover with the "Into The Wild" soundtrack and hot chocolate. The layoff bullshit is throbbing in the back of my head like an all-day headache. But even setting that aside, there's still a sort of numb intensity to the moment that I can only describe as "desperation."

I've spent a lot of time in the past year or so thinking about the word, the state of mind and the motive. If someone were to ask me, I might say that "desperation" is the most interesting word in the English language, (followed closely by "erstwhile," but that's a whole other conversation.)

Desperation will fuck you up; it'll make you do things you don't want to do, and will later regret. Desperation also hurts; no one ever asked to be placed in a desperate situation. But at the same time, it's a terribly honest mindset. All of the other bullshit in your life, the stupid distractions and asinine games we play, all of that falls away. If you do something out of desperation, you don't do it in half-measures, and you do it with sincerity.

And the wicked truth is that we're all living desperation, all the time -- most of the time we just try to numb it out, or distract ourselves with other things. But every waking second of every day of our lives is a little slice that we won't get back. We make decisions and we do things, and we never do it exactly right, and we never get to do it over.

The hot chocolate and the Eddie Vedder tunes remind me of a night this summer. Barb and Sharon were on vacation in Nova Scotia, and I was alone at their house with just Jill and the cats. It was raining really hard, and I sat out on their front porch sipping scotch and listening to Springsteen and Blood on the Tracks. I really tried to savour that moment, the way I try to savour scotch. I roll it around in my mouth, enjoying the feel of it washing over different taste buds. Then I swallow it, and I revel in the smouldering feeling that coats my tongue and throat for minutes after the dram is gone. The moment is nearly perfect.

What the hell am I talking about? Does any of this make sense to anyone else, because as I proof this, it reads like the confused ramblings of a severely hung-over man. Next time I'll just write about the pretty blonde sailor from the Yukon who wanted me to come drinking with her.

Laid off

2009-02-18T23:40:00.000-03:30

I got laid off today.

Which, every other significant consideration aside, kind of throws this whole blog into doubt. I mean, most of the assumptions that the "Preface" was based on are called into question (Will I stay in Nfld? Was it a very good year? Can the next year possibly be better it kicks off with an E.I. cheque?) Moreover, I'm soon to be unemployed, scraping together whatever income I can come by; in these hard economic times, am I really in a position to be giving my precious words away? For free? On the Internet? Even the fancy, polysylabic ones?

I almost missed the meeting where they outlined the restructuring plan at the Telegram. I actually really felt bad for all of the non-unionized managers who will have to take a week off without pay, and I was grateful that they would be taking the hit so that they could minimize the layoffs (i.e. me.) And then they laid me off. It was all pretty easy. I left the boss's office grinning. He'd given me the option of letting the rest of the staff know any way I wanted to, and I briefly thought about standing up on a chair and saying "Excuse me, may I have your attention? This will only take a minute and then I'll be out of your hair..."

In the end I opted for a more subdued approach. When Everton gave me a quizzical look, I pointed at myself, then jabbed my thumb over my shoulder and made a "raspberry" sound with my tongue. As the news spread, I began to feel like everyone else would have appreciated it if was a bit more devestated. Every time I tried to downplay things, someone would say something like, "No, this really is a big deal. This is totally shitty." But the fact is that I haven't given this company 20 years of my life, and working on contract, my existence was always on shaky ground. Also, I don't have a wife, a kids or a mortgage. And I'm not an idiot; I read about a thousand recession stories a day, I know where North American newspapers are at and I know where I am on the Telegram union totem pole. Getting laid off is a shame, but it's not entirely out of left field.

I guess other people just assumed I would grease by some how. Hoped that the powers that be would finagle some solution. I guess I'm just a bit more cynical than that. I tend to believe that while the worst won't always happen, it never pays to hope for the best. I never believe I'll catch a break, and have always assumed if it was even remotely close, I'd be the one to lose. In it's way, that's why I've gotten where I have; when I really want something, I work hard enough to make sure it's well and truly beyond chance.

Anyway, a bit of housekeeping before I wrap up. In my previous post, I mis-typed. I do, in fact, have friends in this province; what I meant was that I don't have friends like I had in Toronto. But to set the record straight, the following people are my friends: Barb, Kenn, Michelle, Nadya, Rebekah, Sharon and You. Especially you. If you read this far, you're by far the coolest, most committed friend I've got. When I get my first E.I. cheque, you and I should go out. Beers are on me.

Preface

2009-02-13T17:15:00.000-03:30

About this time last night, everything in my world was about to change. I was wrapping up a slightly distasteful stretch as news editor of The Ryersonian. In a very real sense, I was also putting the final touches on my university life -- long gone were the lectures and mid-terms, and the only real hurdle between me and graduation was a six-week stint as an intern at a certain St. John's newspaper.

As it turns out, The Telegram internship was a very low hurdle indeed. It came as a major surprise to me, but after four years of education in a program teaching me how to petend to be a journalist without embarassing myself (or, more importantly, Ryerson,) I was actually kinda qualified to pretend to be a journalist. I was even qualified to get paid for my efforts.

In any event, that was a year ago. It's been an interesting, eventful year (but more on that later.) When I arrived in town, severely hung over and shocked that there wasn't a stereotypical "Newfie" in sight, I said that given my druthers, I'd like to be here more than one year, and less than five. Now, with an apartment, a job, a hobby and a year under my belt, it's hard to deny that I live here.

So here's the burried lead: I live in St. John's, which is a long way to go for a boy who spent the previous 22 years of his life in Toronto. I have a life, although one that I occasionally find dissatisfactory (for starters, I have no friends in this particular area code; I've got plenty of aquantances, but no real friends.) So I'm gonna write some stuff in this space, hopefully at least once a week, and some people might read it. Good for you if you're one of those people! But almost as importantly, I'm gonna write about stuff that happened this past year, and things I do in the next year, and I'm gonna read it. Last year was a good year; this year is gonna be even better.

Oh, and for any editors who might read this, that was the longest lead I've ever written. Sorry.