put that on toast

Thoughts

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embrace change.

Can I mention New Zealand. This is a nation that since 1867 has had equal seats in parliament for colonialists and the aboriginal Maori. Since 1867, the same year that Canada became its own nation. Not even a decade later the first of the Numbered Treaties began. Taking land form the Natives in return for sums of money, farming equipment and other European ways of life as well as placing them on reserves. 

Somehow, against all European odds, the nation is still fully functional. Beyond that, the Aboriginal culture of New Zealand has remained strong and has been adopted by the colonials to some extent.

Yet here in Canada we have continued to move forward with a blatant racist agenda. Continually oppressing our hosts at every turn. Either through the dishonorable way we have handled the Treaties or through forcing a European way of life on to a culture and environment that was never meant to operate in such a fashion.

Canada was formed with three groups. Anglophone, Francophone and Aboriginal. We have two of those three groups represented in our parliament. Why not the third?

Is it so beyond us to think that we would have nothing to gain if the First Nations of Canada were equally representing us in our government? How far does our oppression run?

I mentioned racism a second ago. I know that most Canadians would not identify with being racist to any group let alone our own Aboriginal population. Yet day after day we sit complacently and allow this to continue. It needs to be our number one priority to bring back the First Nations cultures that were so diverse across this huge land. Somehow though, we as Canadians fail at every turn to do so. It has been ingrained in us for centuries that the Aboriginals of this land are lesser beings. That they need to be coddled and guided though. That they have very little to offer. 

I feel we look at the First Nations of Canada the way some people view Africa. Africa is not one place. There are many countries with many cultures and languages. North America was the same way. Thousands of languages and ways of life across the land. Many different ways of living in the regions that make up the land. Each culture specific to the region. Not one broad European way of living. How could our ancestors, from a nation the size of England, think that their way of life would work in a land as vast and diverse as this? Ego and Racism are the two that spring to mind.

Perhaps it’s time we start hearing the thoughts and opinions of the people who have been here for thousands of years. People who figured out a rich and healthy way of living with the land as opposed to living on the land. Now is the time to embrace change in the way we think about ourselves and others. If not now, then when?

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canadian values?

What are “Canadian Values”?

This is a question I began to ask myself after hearing Stephen Harper claim that Women wearing Hijab or other face coverings are from places that are “Anti-woman” and that it goes against our core “Canadian values”.

Now, there is some truth to Steve's claim. Indeed it seems to be that some women are forced into wearing face coverings against their wishes. Some women chose to wear them. I feel as though Canada has already gone through this once before with Sikh men wearing Turbans. Perhaps the issue isn't so much with the fact that it's women but more to do with the fact that they aren't white Canadians.

It seems to me that we as Canadians have an obligation to allow anyone of any race or religion into this country, as long as the person or people are not already a threat to others. This is a nation that should not be making assumptions about someones guilt or innocence on any matter.

I wish we could say that we know better but it's obvious we do not. It is implied in Stephen Harpers words that a core Canadian values is the equal rights and respect for all women, not just in our country but abroad as well. I feel as though this is a fair statement. I think most Canadians would agree that we feel as though all women are equal, heck, I think its fair to say that we believe all people are equal.

There is just one glaring omission that we are all making. Canada, it's government and it's people, have allowed over 1200 Aboriginal Women and Children to remain missing and for the most part never searched for. Programs to aid Aboriginal Women are almost non existent and the few that are available must be independently funded.

Volunteers in Winnipeg have taken it upon themselves to drag the Red River following the discovery of 15 year old Tina Fontain in August. This should be something that happens in the hours, days and weeks following the disappearance of anyone. I could safely guarantee that is the woman missing was blond and blue eyed last seen in her SUV leaving hot yoga class, the water would have been dragged immediately.

Bottom line is, our track record for the treatment of women in the country is appalling. On the same day that Steve made his comments in question period, The UN released a report which found Canada to be in “Grave violation” of the rights and freedoms of Canada’s Aboriginal women. This from a the UN who also has said the same for women in nations where the face coverings are mandatory. Harper’s conservative government responded by saying that not only do they think there is no need for an inquiry of the matter but that they strongly oppose any sort of national action plan to tackle this matter head on.

So, when it comes to Canada's core values in regards to women's rights and freedoms where is it exactly that we stand. Do we stand with Steve, nostrils flared and hair sitting just right so as to hide the horns. Or do we feel something different.

When it comes to immigration perhaps we should be looking to the same group of people that we have alienated for over two centuries. Perhaps all immigration into Canada should be handled by the First Nations themselves. Seeing as how they allowed us onto the land and shepherded us through the first 100 years. We the Anglo-Canadians should have no say in this matter. Why is it that we can lay down the gauntlet into this land. We could let in 100 million immigrants for all over the world and we would still not have half the population of America and we have twice the land mass. Immigration is going to happen. Our country was founded on it. And until we can figure out exactly what it is our core values are and then actually live up to them we should have no right to impose them on someone else.

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For years I have felt the vortex pull of mental pollution dragging me down into a place the human mind was never designed to endure. A small cramped room that was intended to hold no more than a desk, a chair, a lamp and perhaps some stationary. A room that is now being squatted in by a hoarder. Filling the room with junk mail, piling it to the ceiling, leaving just a small path by which one can squeeze into, ever so carefully stacking in hopes that the avalanche will come down long after the room has been abandoned.

I have a mind which allows for me to see certain things and store them for far longer than I wish. For some things it's a boon, no doubt. I have no problem with directions for example. I can go somewhere once and then have no problem getting back there ever again. I can remember land marks and seem always to know in what direction I need to go. I can not, however, remember faces and names without having met someone a handful of times or remember what that person and I talked about for 10 minutes at a party. What my mind seems to be very apt at is sponging up all sorts of pop culture news, bands, actors, celebrity rag covers at the super market. All this garbage, once seen, is implanted into my memory like a tick. A parasite, along for the ride, taking up space that should for all intents and purposes be used for something much more interesting or at least useful.

Advertising has to be the worst of all the mental pollution that we are subjected to on a daily basis. Weather it's on the t.v., radio, internet or magazine there is no escaping the loud, smelly, shiny hooks that barb themselves into our consciousness. With these advertisements we have at least signed a social contract which allows for these intrusions. T.V., radio, internet, magazines, all of these are possible because of the advertising revenue. We all know this, it's fine. When I start to feel violated is when the city bus that i'm waiting for arrives with an advert for a new cologne, or blue jean, or television show plastered along it's side. Even worse if I'm in my car and that bus pulls up along side me. The adverts on the billboards, the neon signs for fast food chains, the blimp, the dancing inflatable balloon man. All of these are a violation of the mind. A sensory overload, driving a collective mental collapse closer and closer to the brink. 

I've been looking at photos from inside North Korea these days. There is of course photos of thousands of people participating in mandatory events which look slightly terrifying. There are photos of giant statues of glorious leaders. Photos of subways and street cars, apartments and slums and mansions and all the rest. There is a striking thing about all these photos though. It was the first thing I noticed but I didn't realize it right away. The thing I noticed or more fittingly, didn't notice was advertising. There is none and I don't mean that figuratively. Not a single billboard, buses with nothing on the sides, stadiums with out HSBC in big lit up red letters 60 feet high. It is, remarkable.

The argument would be that there is wall to wall propaganda in place of advertising. This is indeed true, but what is advertising if not corporate propaganda? National pride or  Pepsi pride. It seems as though if global capitalism is to continue, the nation state as we know it serves no purpose. If Capitalism is to work, all trade is done without the involvement of the government. If there are no governments and only corporations with a world wide currency would this not seem to be the end game of capitalism. A world wide capitalist oligarchy. If we are to celebrate our national pride than it should also be at its most pure. Schools, stadiums, libraries, hi-ways, should all be state owned and free to be used by anyone. 

We are seeing it now on a world wide scale. People are no longer throwing stones at parliament or the court house. They are throwing rocks at the Chevron, the bank, the 7-11. People know who is really running things. There aren't any politicians who can stop the pulling of strings by their lobbyist puppet masters. What good does it do to cut the head off the Hydra? It is not the job of one person either. Look at poor Obama. He never stood a chance. Americans let him fail, the people were the ones who could bring about change but it takes more than voting. We will have to be ready to fight. Both bleed and draw blood. Corporate warfare is at hand. They have been at war with us for a long time and have not only won the physical battle to this point but they have almost won the war of the mind. If we don't act quickly, within a matter of generations there will be no fight to be had. Our surrender will have been complete. All that will remain in our minds will be slogans written in the new texting language that we ourselves help to create.

Find a friend and find a way to create a new sport. One centered around the destruction or corporate properties and slogans. It's easier than you think and a hell of a lot more fun than playing modern warfare in your moms basement.

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Whistle Blower Party in Haiku

We have a big choice 

Here lies the time before us

Indignation time!

Stand up for your rights

Take back your freedom with words 

Let them hear you scream!

Each of us is hope

Bradley Manning showed us how

Live for our children!

Obey your conscious 

We will have your back my friend 

End game is at hand!

Revolution time 

People, fill your city square

Attack Goldman-Sacs

Raise whistles to lips

Take in air then let it out

Yes we will be heard!

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"There is an art to whistle blowing. It sounds better in a symphony than as a solo."

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The Art of Whistle Blowing

I've spent the better part of half my life working in restaurants. In that time I've seem some of the most obtuse human behaviour, not from the cooks or serves staff but from the patrons of these restaurants. 

If the most minute detail of their dinner is not up to their person standard of excellence, rest assured that they will be raising hell, demanding free food and drink and a guarantee that if they don't get what they want they will tell everyone they know about how AWFUL their experience was. These people will take time out of their busy lives to write long winded reviews about meals, hotels, car rental agencies and so on and so on.

Now, give these same people a front row seat to watch unions being crushed, farmers being blackmailed into using GMO seeds, local politicians making backroom deals on condo developments. Total radio silence. Not a peep, not a rustled feather, nothing.

Why is it that we are so willing to call bullshit when our steak is chewy but choose to turn the other cheek when upper level execs for bailed out banks still receive huge bonuses? Is it because those who are supposed to be teaching us the difference between right and wrong have gotten so greedy they the line has become too blurry?

Churches, the staple of human morality for centuries and millenia, are so rot with corruption, greed and filth that there can be very few who don't look at their teachings with scepticism. With each schism or interpretation of these teachings there is a small black hole left behind. Each person now sees that they are able to create their own believe system with the line between right and wrong set at a different place and at a different thickness. There is nothing wrong with having this choice as it is what make each of us unique. However, there is something in all of us that knows when something is wrong and should be brought to attention.

If you did have a complaint to make about something, who would you bring it to? If it is work related, do you take it to a manager? Human Resources? Local media? The police? These are the people, you have been told, that will allow you to blow the whistle and will have your back throughout the process. But what if your manager has to much on the line and doesn't want to stir the pot. What if the media is owned by a group who would rather not share your opinion?  What if you know that by coming forward you will in turn be labeled a rat more likely than a hero? Would you come forward and say anything if you were going to loose your friends, if you knew that life would get harder before it got easier?

The police have a code of honor that seems to say, " uphold the law, peoples rights and freedoms, unless one of your police brothers is in trouble. In that case, fuck the law and take care of your own." We've seen this time and time again, there is no need to site examples as we all know more than enough. Politics is the same principal.

Why is it that it takes Bradley Manning to unveil the horrors of the American military? How were whistles not sounding off on this instantly? Because the people in charge of these crimes - not just the people pulling the trigger, but the ones pulling the strings- believe that we, the proles, are dumb self-involved cattle that can be easily distracted by shiny objects and trivial pursuits. Unfortunately, I have seen very little evidence that would suggest otherwise. 

If shit runs down hill, then so to must corruption, greed, lust etc. We learn from our elders, peers, mentors and idols. When everyone around  us has created a culture of silence, we feel the need to let loose on occasion. So, when your steak is chewy, are you really angry about the steak, or are you just venting because you've done nothing to stop Monsanto's globalization? 

 If and when we as a society can learn how to protest together over things that really do matter, perhaps we will be nicer to our neighbors. Maybe there would be a little less road rage if people weren't rushing home to get back to work over dinner. Over worked because mobile technologies has allowed big business to push the work week from 40 hours to 24-7. These shiny technologies have taken away something that our fathers fought so hard to win. A fair wage for a fair days work. We have begun to yield freely the rights and freedoms we took for granted.

There is an art to whistle blowing. It sounds better in a symphony than as a solo.

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Oil, Gas and Cocaine. How the drilling for oil has left a void in the morals of the workers

I just had a visit from an old friend who I haven't seen or talked with in several years. He and I grew up together in a small city in north eastern British Columbia, Canada. A region know for its wealth of natural resources - Oil, Gas and Hydro. 

Some of our friends moved away after high school - myself included - and some of us stayed put and went to work in the natural resources sector. Of those who left home to go to school, there are some moderate success stories but no one person is raking in large sums of cash or leading people to the promise land. Of those who stayed, most are making an easy six figures a year, have several children, own their own homes outright and have toys to fill several garages. They are now in their early thirties and set up pretty well. My friend told me one other thing about their lives in northern BC, almost everyone I know from my home town is living life with severe cocaine addictions.

This is of course heartbreaking news. I knew it was going on and I also knew that it was a part of life for many people in the area, but to see friends that were such strong spirits earlier in life, throwing it all away for this drug is devastating.

This got us talking at the bakery, about what the cause may be that such a drug, cocaine in particular, is taking such a grip on so many people in that part of the world.

There are several reasons that we came up with straight off the bat. Firstly, they all make a lot of money. Secondly, it's a cold ass place with nothing to do other than work. Thirdly, there is already a very strong drinking culture and lastly, we couldn't help but think that the work itself may have a lot to do with it.

Now lets just take a minute to think about just how far away Northern BC is from the cocaine producing regions of the world. Almost from the arctic circle all the way down to the equator. That's half a world away. It's not like they are all using crack of meth either. They're all using the "good" stuff. So this drug is traveling that far without being watered down or busted on a regular basis...how? why?

The jobs that these men and women are doing on a daily basis are gross. They're raping the planet for all it's worth. Many of these people had other dreams for their lives before the lure of money became too strong. They are essentially whoring themselves and the planet for the all mighty dollar. This is the main reason I moved away from home at 18. I had no desire to get sucked into the vortex of Big Oil. You would have to put blinders on everyday you went to work, knowing what it was and who it was that you were working for. Yet everyday, tens of thousands of people go to work to help feed our insatiable need for fossil fuels and other forms of eco-terrorist energies.

The question we started to ask ourselves was; Has Big Oil created a pipeline of cocaine to the oilfields of Northern Canada in order to erode the moral fabric of the people needed to do the work? 

It makes perfect sense. No other drug is know for more effectively taking a persons moral fabric and very quickly destroying it. It also has the benefit of being extremely expensive. What better way to re-acquire wages spent on employees that to sell them an expensive and highly addictive substance. Cocaine is also going to get those troops moving when it's -40C and there is a month of work to do with no days off. You can't have a bunch of people on Heroin sleeping through the day now can you.

I've seen marriages and young families fall apart, lifelong friendships ruined and bankruptcy, both financial and more importantly, moral. From high school graduation to just over a decade later, people I was friends with have gone from zero cocaine use to daily users. Why is this not happening to myself or any of the friends we had that moved away? Why have we found other things to occupy ourselves with? Is it that we are better or stronger people? I know that that's not the case. These were people that I loved and now I can't trust them to be around my family.

In the same way that Wall Street has an insatiable craving for Cocaine so to do the people working in the extraction of oil and gas. Both of these professions are linked through the stock exchange but also through the moral void it takes to show up to work everyday and knowingly fuck over your planet and your fellow man.

For so many of us, we drive our cars and heat our homes without a second thought. We choose to ignore the obvious damage that these fossil fuels are having on our planet. What no one sees is the people who are getting these fuels for us. There is a whole different drug war going on. There is an amplification of our shame and guilt for the people doing the dirty work. It has started to creep into our lives in the rest of the world. We should all take a look at the toll that is being taken on the people in the epicenter of this global destruction because it is only a matter of time before we all start feeling and living the same way. We're all going to need stronger drugs to help cope with what is to come if we continue to embrace our dependence on fossil fuels. Our only option now is rehab, and time is running out.

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"The future is not now. The future is in the future and we have no fucking clue what it might bring"

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Your child on facebook

Facebook. We all have a love hate with the social media titan for one reason or another. We've heard and thought of most of the possible infringements into our private lives that we so freely yield in the name of one big friendly social network. 

It's crazy to think that a mere decade ago there was no Facebook. No place to share all the photos, thoughts, relationship updates and so on and so forth. I had an account for several years before closing it down for several more and now again I have started my account back up again. Only a few months in and I am getting ready to pull the plug on Facebook once again.

I'm astonished at how the way people use Facebook has changed in the short decade it has been around. Forget the conspiracy theories about who really runs Facebook or who they sell our information to. It's all a mute point if we are giving up this information freely. The platform is still so fresh to us as a community, both on the global and local scale and we are far to short sighted to see what's coming. Since 2005 over a billion people have signed up to Facebook, 1/8 of the worlds population. Along the way these billion of us have recorded every action and thought we have had. A perfect record of our global history on such a massive scale that it is impossible to understand what the fallout will be. 

I've witnessed such personal moments between close friends or most likely people I only met once or twice. We've all read the ruthless public arguments as marriages fall apart, friendships crumble, working relationships are terminated. These have always been things for bedrooms or boardrooms, not for public consumption. How are we to forgive one another when the words that were said never go away. Those arguments are now recorded, word for word, forever. 

What is concerning to me these days is the Facebook Timeline or Lifeline. It use to begin at the time your account was activated, not anymore. If you or someone else decides to post and tag a photo of you from, say, 1976, your timeline now goes as far back as 1976. Post a photo of your first baby picture and your timeline goes back to the day of your birth. So, Facebook has begun to compile not only a very detailed history of everyone since its inception, it is now doing the same for decades long since passed. All this, for the most part is happening as of our free will. I'm more concerned about those who are being exploited and recorded without their consent or understanding of the ramifications. Our children.

My wife and I had our first child in June of 2012. We have never posted a single photo of him on Facebook or any other social media site. We have also made it very clear to our friends and family that they do NOT have our permission to do so either. The majority of these people think that we are over reacting or at least just being unreasonable and paranoid. For us it is a matter of our sons freedom and liberty. He is not our property. He is in our care. It is our responsibility to make sure that he is safe at all times from any sort of predator that may be out there. 

I'm sure that I'm not alone here, am very tired of seeing the multiple daily photos and posts about Johnny and his spaghetti incident. No one really cares. Sure the photos are cute, I've taken hundreds of photos of our little guy and am sure to annoy anyone who comes within 20 feet of my laptop. This doesn't give me the right to put them up on Facebook without his consent. If you need to 13 years of age in order to sign up and get a Facebook account, doesn't it stand to reason that tagged photos or photos in general for that matter should not be permitted if the child is under the age of 13? As is stands now, if a child 13 years from now opens a Facebook account(provided that they don't lie in order to get one younger) they will instantly have photos and a complete documentation on their life up to this point. Advertisers will know what kind of music, cloths, sports, video games, movies etc. that this child likes. Where this will lead as far as political agendas is anyone's guess. 

If a photo says 1000 words, how much has been said about a child by the time they turn one? But more importantly, how were those 1000 words read by people you may not want reading into your child's life now? How will these pictures be read in the future? What may it cost your child one day if there is a photo of him at a political rally sitting on your shoulders? If there is a photo of him as a child at the Museum of Modern Art, or touring a Sikh temple on a school field trip? History does have a habit of repeating itself, imagine how many people would have died for having photos of themselves hanging out with a Jewish family? We've all seen the benefits of social media with the events of The Arab Spring, but don't think for one second that governments all around the world didn't learn from that experience. When will the next massive public protest be organized by not the people but a desperate government. When will twitter and Facebook be used to lure tens of thousands of people into a public square only to be gunned down?

Let's give our children the chance to make their own paths in life. Let them remain anonymous for as long as possible. Let them be free as possible from persecution or judgments saddled upon them by choices that we their parents made. We have no clue what the future holds. If the last decade is any indicator, it will be the most momentous decade in recorded history. So before we full embrace these technologies, should we not first try as a community to fully understand their reach and power?

The future is not now. The future is in the future and we have no fucking clue what it might bring.

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"The system can't stop you as long as you connect with beautiful and powerful people such as yourself"

Boots Riley of The Coup

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The Economy of Nothing

On the way to work I heard a story about the decline in Spanish bull fighting. In the last 5 years Spain has gone from hosting just shy of 3000 fights per year to just 500. The economic troubles of the nation have resulted in fewer people willing to shell out the high ticket prices to view their national past-time. 

For some people I'm sure this is wonderful news, fewer bulls to the slaughter for the entertainment of the masses. For others it is the loss of their livelihood. For most though, it is the loss of piece of culture, a rich history that reaches back to a time before Capitalism was conceived. People in Spain are loosing their way of life in order to catch up with a system that is in it's final act. 

These arenas are a way to keep local economies strong and the spirit of the people strong as well. 

Here in Canada our bull fighting arenas are hockey rinks. There are a myriad of them in large centers and at least one in every small town or village across the country. They are part of our culture and part of out local economies. 

In 2012 when the NHL went on strike, it was estimated that local businesses lost almost 2 billion dollars in revenue. So, yes, the players are payed way to much. The owners profit margins are way to high and the taxes they pay are far to low. But it is undeniable that there is a huge upside to the industry on the whole. From the food vendors and parking lot attendants to the bar owners and taxi drivers, game nights are a big money maker. 

Purchasing a ticket to see a bull fight or a hockey game may seem like a poor way to spend ones money, especially when money is tight. People may feel as thought they aren't getting anything valuable in return, and while this may be true for some people, for others it may be well worth their hard earned dollar. At least money is being exchanged for goods and services.

What concerns me is the money that people are spending on absolutely nothing.

Worldwide, consumers are spending almost 10 billion a year on imaginary goods. Virtual real estate, pictures of gifts, imaginary bullets of imaginary guns to shoot at imaginary people. This is a where the whole system falls apart. If something is only made once and then sold hundreds or thousands or millions of times, there has only been one legitimate purchase...the first one. 

I think of i-tunes or other sites of digital music downloads and can't help but notice that the economy is being destroyed by technology. It made sense to me a decade ago, when buying a CD cost $15-$20. You went to a store where someone payed rent, gave money to a person who was payed to take your money and re-stock the CD you bought. Then that person handed you a bag that was made in a factory in some far away land and in that bag was your physical compact disc. A disk that contained music, put onto said disc in a building where someone payed rent and payed someone to make these cd's. I know, a bit of a run on, but you get my point. A whole lot of people when into me buying that CD. 

When I go and download an album for $10 on i-tunes I get the songs, sure, but I get physically nothing. This is not how Capitalism works. Once the song has been recorded and uploaded to i-tunes there is no more labor force needed what so ever.

There is a huge benefit to our eco-system thanks to this technological development that we will be seeing in generations to come, but for now, we have yet to make sense of how this can work on an economic level.

Is technology steering us towards a greener future? Most definitely. Have we been able to grasp a way to keep 8 billion people at work while these same technologies make most of our jobs obsolete? Most definitely not!

Our inability to keep up with technology has been obvious for quite some time. The people who are in charge of multi-national corporations and G-20 nations have seen the writing on the wall. They are well aware that this system that we are living in can't be sustained, so they're bleeding every last penny out of the populous while they can.

It is quite obvious that in order to fix the system people have to go back to work. Get the robots out of the factories and get the people back in. Profits won't be maximized but there will be profits over a much longer period. Current laws make it illegal for corporations to make any choices that would sacrifice profits, this is the achillies heel of the Capitalist model. If corporations had to put business ethics first and profit second, or at least equal, I'm convinced that the ship would begin to right itself.

I guess the question that we, the working class, need to be asking ourselves is; "are we ready and willing to go back to work, and are we willing and able to stop spending money on nothing?". We the working class can get back to work for ourselves, on the local level. Keep the money out of the hands of companies that produce nothing or produce goods without human contact. I know that it's not easy, but like anything, with practice comes ease. 

My wife and I spent a week in Spain about 5 years back and fell in love with the nation. The culture was awe inspiring. To come from North America and see a culture that was so laid back, warm and above all, comfortable in it's own skin, was something that I have craved all my life. Their way of life has been intact for centuries and to see that culture crumbling, all so that it can pay off debts to the EU is heart breaking.

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An introduction

It's a strange feeling. To go to work while the rest of the world is asleep, or at least on their way there.

Waking briefly to a strange voice, Snooze! Half sleep, not restful, not sleep, not awake. Wake again to strange voice. Expected this time but still a shock. Snooze! Feeling guilty. Not the right way to start a day, with procrastination. Also, each snooze brings her and our little son closer to awake. Anticipate the alarm this time; 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 minute. Turn off, before the voice returns.

Wobble to the bathroom. The cloths are on the floor, set out from the night before. Bending to put on socks has become a chore these days. Stretching must be brought back into the daily routine, after September. Brushing teeth is what really brings back the wakefulness. 

It's a short drive to the bakery. I should bike it... Lassitude is all encompassing these days. If it's Friday or Saturday it's 1am. The street that intersects the bakery has a popular nite spot. Those who have better things to do than wait for last call are on the streets. Land of the walking dead. There is always a desire to swerve and get a couple of them with the bumper, or would it just ruin the body? Leaving the head and brain in tact, puddles of zombies with fully functioning mandibles.I only lock the car on Fridays and Saturdays. Drunks do dumb things. 

The bakery always has a smell, a bakery smell. Some of the neighboring tenants have complained in the past, " our offices smell like the bakery". Sorry, but the proximity of our bakery to your clinics makes our shop smell like x-rays, fluoride and contact solution. I turn on the exhaust fan in the bathroom, hopefully that helps. I doubt it, but at least it's something.

This is my time. From 1 until 6am I am alone. Utterly alone. I used to have a lot of time to myself, I was always comfortable in it. I still am very comfortable in the silence and in my thoughts. Now I long for it. From 6am on I will not be alone until I fall asleep, and even then, there is company. 

This is my time. From 1 until 6am I think about almost nothing. The tasks at hand. The repetition of bread. In and out of the ovens. H.y.p.n.o.t.i.c. 

Sometimes I will listen to a podcast. You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes. Never music, there will be enough of that later. Just someone else's conversation. It appeals to my sensibilities; comedy, sex, god. Well, more conversations involving these topics. I find it relaxing to hear about other peoples views on god and religion. So taboo to discuss with people, especially when you don't subscribe to one. Hopefully optimistic seems to still be labeled as a non-believer. Not part of team atheism, not part of team religion.

One of the employees shows up at six. Five mornings a week it's Jason, Two mornings a week its Marie. The later is from France. She has been living in Canada with her partner for almost a year now. She has no prior experience in bread. We joke that it's like me moving to France to learn hockey. We are lucky to have her. She has passion and work ethic. She's also just happy to be improving her English, the more talking the better. She spends her other working days in a wine shop. Her real passion, wine. Jason also has a passion. Jazz. Saxaphone to be exact. Free form jazz sax to be more exact. Making a living playing music is hard enough, trying to do it playing free form jazz is next to impossible. I respect him and his punk rock sensibility. It would be all to easy for him to do the studio musician thing. Knock out the tunes for someone else, add it to the masses of wasted music. Instead he plays what he wants and makes a living knocking out loaves of bread day in and day out.

Jason and I spend the next three hours or so jumping between moments of silence to conversations about life and the world we live in. I treasure these conversations. I'm not sure if he knows it or not, but I really do find it cathartic, therapeutic, necessary. These conversations help me make sense of the world we live in, both on a global scale and more importantly, on a local level.

I am hoping to remember some of these conversations, or at least the themes of them and bring them to this blog. Just some ideas that can be cooked up and then put on toast.