I am a Victim!: A Slightly Exagerated Tale of my Life

 I am a victim of marketing! I'm sitting here smoking a cigarette, and drinking a beer...why? I'm a victim of years of the beer and tobacco industry feeding me bullshit. If I smoke I can be cool like the Marlboro man, he's rugged ain't he? Sure he had cancer but he also had a horse! Well shit if that's the case then this beer should equal party times...where are the ladies though...Am I having a good time, no?! I'm a victim to the system, the very system I hate, I've come to the realization I'm just as much of a slave to everything I hate! I love beer and I love cigarettes but both big beer (kinda) and big tobacco have won me over....how did this happen though?

Growing up an Americanized Canadian I've been exposed to ads from the beer and tobacco industry my entire life. It's really a shame it's all just hit me now, it has a thousand times before but it all makes sense why targeting to the young really does work, and at the end of the day it's fucked!


Tobacco:
It's quite reasonable that in today's society to find smoking disgusting, it's dirty, it smells, people probably look down on me as low class, but it's cool ain't it?! It must be right, why else would I do it?! I mean it feels good, it tastes good, or is it literally all smoke and mirrors deceiving me courtesy of big tobacco. Honestly it's bad, but I've always thought that smoking has looked cool, how though? This seriously needs to be analyzed.

Joe Camel cool!

Growing up in Windsor, an Americanized Canadian I've been exposed to tobacco my entire life, people used to smoke in restaurant and still do in Detroit, it was only just until a couple years ago that stopped in Canada. As a young boy who read my parents Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone, I saw tons of tobacco ads, if athletes and musicians dug it must be cool right? Big tobacco may be paying now but they won me over, Newport always had fun couples in riding snow mobiles and hugging, Marlboro had the alpha male, and Joe Camel was just too cool for school...they had me hooked before I knew it...a victim of advertisers. I guess it's not my fault and even if I kick it smoking will always seem cool in the back of my mind.

Booze:

Beer goggles or reality?

I am a victim of the alcohol industry because they have and always will promise good times. The beer I'm drinking tastes good but where is the party? Where are the ladies, and where is the buzz...I suppose a few to may bottles away still. I mean fun times aren't easy, and at this point in time it's getting harder and harder to find a good time that doesn't involve getting wasted/hammered/trashed. I mean shit, I can't remember the last time I had a gathering of friends where booze wasn't involved which I guess is kind of sad. (It does happen, just exaggerating a bit) Again, I feel I am a victim of my surroundings. Everyone I knew have always been good people my parents enjoy drinking as do family and friends so it has always been tolerable. As a drinker since the age of 16 it kind of bothers me that it has always been so accepted, I mean is the temporary pleasure going to lead to further reward, I highly doubt it. I've done my best to avoid the beer giants of Labbat & Molson both foreign owned but still I'm still buying into drinking is social and that's it.I guess it's how it always will be, but at the end of the day, all I can feel is I am a victim to two industries destined to kill me.

All in all this isn't my best blog as it's just observations but it just goes to show how two major dealers of death can capture a young mind and influence it forever. I would never promote prohibition either substance as I feel as free citizens we should be able to beat our bodies with what we please, but it just goes to show advertising works. As cynical as I am to big whatever I am a victim as much as anyone as a much as I try to bash the Wal-Mart's of the world, I am just as much as a sellout and a victim to the man as everyone else even if unwilling...It's really all just a means to an end anyways.

Urban Sprawl: Destroying the World One McMansion at a Time

I just finished reading an article in the Toronto Star about the so called 'Ford Effect'. Apparently there are a whole lot of anti-government Conservatives in favour of urban sprawl in the GTA. I think these people for lack of a better word are stupid. Now I don't agree with the McGuinty government on everything but I do feel the Places to Grow Initiative is very important. The idea that urban sprawl and constant development further and further away from city cores is just ridiculous.

Obvliously stopping new development is impossible because development does bring money into the economy and keeps people working; but restoration of older neighbourhoods and builidng in a cities core can be way more beneficial than pure sprawl and also boost the economy.The reason growth control is needed though is to protect some of Canada's best lands in Southern Ontario because once it is developed it's never coming back, and urban sprawl just leads to more troubles in the end. Urban sprawl sucks in so many ways, below are a few reasons;

1) Subdivisions:

The joys of subdivisions.

While the so called American dream is to have the perfect house with the white picket fence, 2.5 kids, beautiful wife and family dog is nice, it is just not feasible with the amount of people and population explosion in the last 40-60 years. Sadly this is still the dream home to many...where can they find this house? A subdivision of course! Subdivisions began to gain popularity in the 50's with Levittown, (an early planned community) after war veterans began to settle down and start families away from the hustle and bustle of the city but still close enough to the daily commute. Unfortunately as more subdivisions popped up they began to get further away from the city, and they went from the welcoming picket fence and smiling family to the generic house, the uninviting privacy fence, and of course the McMansion. Today a subdivision is just a generic neighbourhood, houses that look the same, people that are too busy working to realize they have their heads to far up their ass to enjoy the simple pleasures of life because they are either commuting to work, working, or staying holed up in their house avoiding human contact with their equal private fearful of the world neighbours. Yes in their subdivisions and maybe even gated ones they are shielded from the inner city crime, minorities, human interaction, and a soul. Subdivisions are one of the main things wrong with society today; keeping everyone gated in their little property is not the way humans should be by nature.

2) The Paving of Paradise/the Rise of Big Box Stores:
"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot." Joni Mitchell was right on, with urban sprawl and just outside subdivisions these new bedroom communities could flourish. Now that people lived in the suburbs they did not need to support their local retailer in the downtown core. No, now the stores came to them, massive paved wastelands begun to be built over once fertile farmland and beautiful woods to make way for the Wal-Mart's of the world along with other major chains. These chain stores have led to shopping cores losing their atmosphere and magic; if I’ve been to one Sport Check/Chapters/HMV I’ve been to them all, they all hire mediocre staff with little knowledge or care because they are paid a minimum wage salary to push goods for a mega chain that does not care about them. These stores can never provide the service and knowledge an independent shop with people who care can. So bad enough that massive parking lots are now everywhere but these mega stores are now places where people are forced to work because they’re the only spots in town to buy everything and the only places to shop because they ran everybody else out of town.

3) Killing the World One Car at a Time:

A typical trip through Toronto.

Naturally with folks living farther away from work in the sprawling bedroom communities they needed transportation. Of course in your average sprawling community this was not planned out to well, as most sprawl along major roads, ex 401, traffic moves slowly and you idle. Basically you better have a car or you are screwed, but hey even if you do you can still comfort in the fact during the four our drive to work you can read a book, do your hair, and maybe even brush your teeth. Unfortunately cars make pollution and with extra cars on the road taking longer to get to work from Sprawl Ville congestion builds, cars idle, and pollution is everywhere. Fortunatley if your city has money, they'll build more lanes! More lanes equal more lanes to idle in and more people can live in the community to fill them! It's really a perfect system...not!

4) Didn't we Just See that Same House/Store/Restaurant &The McMansion

A McMansion

Finally urban sprawl has led to generic communities with no sense of identity. A perfect example of this is Mississauga Ontario; a city I feel has done everything wrong all in the name of getting bigger to develop a bigger tax base to build more shit. My first and only time in the newer part of Mississauga was awful, you can drive miles and miles and see maybe three different models of houses, all with two cars, one tree, and absolutely no soul what so ever...it's the same with all the giant big box stores and chain restaurants. What set's this mess of cars and ugly buildings apart from any other sprawling community? Nothing I suppose but yet people continue to move there and seem to enjoy it. The generic neighbourhood also breeds urban sprawl the McMansion, a McMansion is the giant home with more rooms then any upper middle class-to so called 'high society' family needs. These houses are architectural monstrosities, some with so many garage doors they begin to look warehouses. The other problems with these homes is that they are usually built on small lots so you get a  nice small yard so the family never needs to go outside and see the light of day and can become the typical fat and lazy Western family the rest of the world perceives us as, but that's a whole other issue.

As I am trying to get across in this blog, urban sprawl sucks, everything about is mostly bad. Instead of expanding cities far and wide, let’s move back to the core, build vibrant downtowns, and build up, the sky is the limit. It's really the only smart way to build cities as the population explosion continues and hopefully people will begin to realize how much sprawl really sucks!

Toronto Trip

This past Wednesday I made my first visit to Toronto that wasn't just sitting around Union Station for the first time in years. The visit to Toronto included a visit to the Steam Whistle Brewery, Royal Bank of Canada, and ended at CBC where we viewed a live taping of the George Stroumboulopoulos talk show.

The Steam Whistle Brewery was a great way to start the day, who doesn't love a drink before 12 in the morning?! We toured the brewery first and I decided to try some hops, and man was I ever sorry! The rest of the tour consisted of watching the workers do their job and then a fire alarm went off. Good times were had by all and I finally got to sip an ice cold beer at the very end.

The RBC visit was a little less exciting, firstly we had just had beer and then it was lunch time so being full was making me quite tired. We learned about how the bank got to sponsor the Olympic torch run along with Coca Cola, but in the end RBC got most of the glory for helping communities all along the way. The one thing that will stick out in my mind though will be the crazy man and the video of his daughter with the torch...and of course Celine Dion blaring! Ughhhhh!

Finally we got to visit the CBC and see how a real television studio works. My goal was to meet Peter Mansbridge but of course I missed it. I settled with their mediocre at best museum and watching The Queen in 3D. From there we went to the Strombo show and George interviewed Jeremy Hotz who was really funny, and George ended up being a really cool and humble guy himself. He was actually exactly the way I imagined him to be which made the show a lot more enjoyable.

At the end of the day after a long bus ride home I was just thinking that it was a pretty cool class trip, and an experience I wont soon forget. I got to better know much of the class, and just get a better understanding of how PR and the working world works in general. So all and all good times were had by all it seems.

How to Look and Act Like a Business Person

Today in introduction to public relations we were talking about the business world, and how work no longer ends after the 9-5 shift. Social media has made the world a very different place. No longer can the stressed office gopher sip on his bottle of gin in the desk, and the secretary must refrain from suggestive photos on Facebook, and what ever you do don't get drunk in public...unless of course you're no less than three towns and over the mountain from where you live.

Actually thinking about it the world was always like this; the office drunk was just tolerated, the frisky secretary was unknown of outside of work, and liquid lunches was the standard. I was just thinking of making a list of sorts of how to become a corporate drone in the 21^st century and how it can pay off big time, so here goes:

1) Be a Suck-up to the Boss:

The Office suck-up

The key to success in the office is sucking up to the boss, by all means, bosses love suck-ups. To succeed one must first remember to take it slow, nobody likes a suck-up from the get go, start out small, be the guy who does his job half assed enough to not get noticed but still good enough that you don't get fired. When the boss decides to talk to you one day about your extreme averageness simply rat on every co-worker who has ever said anything bad about him, taken pencils and pens, or showed up even five minutes late, from that point on you'll have him and it'll only be promotions from there until one day you become CEO and then realize that you actually know nothing about running a company because you are a suck-up and then the vicious cycle begins yet again.

2) Be Safe on the World Wide Web:

The only way to protect yourself from the damages of the inter-web is to never leave the house, and don't own a computer, also not showering is sure to keep the commoners away and keep you out of any potentially career ending drunken photos. For those of us that don't live in a cave it is not that easy unfortunately. There are some ways to look like a 'moral' and 'self respecting' worker on the net, the easiest solution is delete all negative photos, for the average youth that will be all of them but 3, and don't forget to change your info, mention Mary Jane as an interest and your career is over before it begins. An easier way to get by on the net though is to simply put a fake name on the fun profile and set up a new 'professional' one. This is the one where you can put all the pictures of yourself as a loving husband hard worker, and serious business man. Include interests such as work, perseverance, and my family. The boss loves a family man, and you will surely be promoted sooner than later. Protip: Use Facebook to suck-up, (see section 1) try updating your status with comments like, “Work was really rewarding today, I really feel my boss appreciates me and I will continue to strive to do my best in the office everyday. <3 work!”

3) Change Your Look:

Dressed for Success

Nothing can ruin your great resume in a job interview worse than a poor appearance. If you are thinking about entering the interview rocking long hair, wife beater, and jeans don't even bother, hell a Harvard grad probably wouldn't even get hired like that. How you look means everything, that fancy diploma from that super expensive University means nothing without the right look. This can be countered by looking 'right'. To look like a future cigar chomping corporate bigwig all you need is a suit, nice shoes, a John Edwards haircut and a pair of glasses to make you look smart. Yes when you are dressed for success you can go from buying cheap $10 dollar hooch at the liquor to store to a $400 dollar a week cocaine/polyester suit habit in no time! The boss will be happy that you don't drink plus actually care how you look, and the cocaine will keep you up for those long crazy nights at the office.

4) Know How to Talk:
Finally you must know how to talk. Every boss wants someone who can speak English in a way that they say absolutely nothing, but sound like they are saying something important. Instead of saying I filed that report this afternoon say...well I don't know bust out a thesaurus and throw in some big words that no one understands, no one cares what your saying, but you at least sound smart and the boss will respect you. Protip: Hush by rockers Tool has a line that goes “I can say what I want to even if I'm not serious.” In the office you can't...that could lead to sexual harassment accusations or worse!

Follow these four tips, and you will move on up in the working world and discover that you are going from crappy apartment downtown to four million dollar mansion in no time! Yes it will be in some prestigious gated community without poor people...unless of course they are shining your shoes.

All kidding aside, seriously I'm starting to think that the corporate world is impossible to succeed in. You can't drink, you can't grow your hair, you can't say what you want, you can't date your co-workers, and most importantly you cannot be yourself. I really hope this view changes in the future as the youth of the day and our creative minds change the future for tomorrows workplace, a place where I can have a liquid lunch, where pants are optional, and most importantly I can scream fu** when something goes oh so horribly wrong...if not maybe I'll just open my own mega company, ya Brandon's Auto Parts, Battle Axes, and Assorted Meat Products, sounds cool at least...Until that day I'll continue to fake a smile, tighten my collar, bite my tongue and pretend everything is alright!