At the corner of Ste Catherine and Creescent sits an Energie Cardio ‘Select’ and a Burger King. They are on the South side of Ste Catherine, separated by Crescent. Both have entrances on the ground floor. Both have large windows facing each other. Burger eaters can watch cardio raisers and sweating exercisers see cigarettes enjoyed with large cups of coffee. The street is reality, the upper floor an escape. The upstairs of the Burger King is filled with smokers eating hamburgers and drinking coffee financed by the generous spare-change offerings of passerby on the street. The upstairs is a refuge from the tough face of the reality of –20 degree weather waiting outside. Stories are traded, alliances are made and warmth is savoured. These people are going nowhere, except back out to the street in search of more spare change.
“What are you doing tonight?”
“Getting stoned.”
“That girl come up to me and tells me she’s pregnant! (big laugh) She wanna have my baby…I can just see it now. That baby, when it comes out, a big smile with my big tooth missing.”
Across the street, a nubile young woman strikes an enticing pose on her workout ball. Her tight underwear visible through her tight yoga-style pants.
Fit.
Serious.
Sweating.
Muscular.
New shoes.
Inside the Burger King, a hand slaps the table as a bearded wheezing man laughs heartily and coughs loudly, emitting a cloud of smoke from the deepest depth of his lungs.
Laughing.
Unkempt.
Scruffy.
Toothless.
Bad shoes.
Each world is oblivious to the other, yet for each, this is an escape.
Through the smoke and din of rowdy stories I see the folks at Energie Cardio stare blankly into up-to-the-minute headline news and stock quotes on TV screens suspended over the front of their treadmills. It’s like a carrot suspended over the head of a rabbit. The rabbit never gets the carrot but continues to run forward in hopes of a tasty treat. Intermittently, a highlight from an NBA game is celebrated with two guys giving each other a big high five. A fist punches the air as a game winning three-pointer hits its mark. A fit woman steps of the stairmaster and slams a specially-formulated electrolyte-replacing drink. The coordinated exercise class stares themselves intently in the mirror as they complete a maneuver using large rubber balls in unison. A heart-rate is checked, a towel wipes down a stationary bike.
“She ain’t pregnant, she just going through menopause.”
“She ain’t pregnant, you shooting blanks!”
The men coffee-drinkers high five each other.
“Yeah, blanks all right: blank bullets.”
Revello Equipped by DJ Dancefloor
This video is pretty self explanatory. We don't know who these guys are, and it's really awesome to be Revello Equipped.
Beat Generation by DJ Dancefloor
This is near Pense Saskatchewan. I made the song on my laptop somewhere. Probably over a bowl of cereal at our place in Montreal. Don't miss the truck!
Snow Fence by DJ Dancefloor
I find snow removal to be utterly fascinating. Maybe because I grew up in a place where snow removal meant turning on the garden hose and washing the snow away, but maybe not. Montreal gets rocked with snow, and then these magical snow removal elves come out in their flashing disco light trucks and whisk it all away, at night.
1991 by DJ Dancefloor
This song goes out to all overweight glasses-clad Japanese men in overalls who've ever fallen off a fence because they were so excited about the prospect of a bowl of steaming hot noodles, from Hokkaido! A staple of my diet for most of the 90s, and you'd be hard pressed to find a kid who lived in Vancouver in 1991 who doesn't know this commercial by heart. When I was a kid our neighbor Mitch's mom was Japanese and she said she remembered this ad from her childhood in Japan. So safe bet it's been playing i some form or another for about 40 years now. Being only 15 seconds long, the commercial always played twice in a row to make sure you'd never miss out on all the good parts. The original is in the previous blog post here. Thanks Japan!
Our New Approach
Facts:
1. Smoking kills 10,000 Quebecers every year.
2. du Maurier updated their packaging to help reduce its impact on the environment.
3. Our small steps make the difference.
My first impression:
So by smoking du Maurier cigarettes, I'll be making a difference? Right. Anyone who's stupid enough to think they're doing the planet a service consuming cancerous products wrapped in recycled paper deserves to, in my opinion, well, die.
Upon further consideration:
I wholeheartedly believe that the only way we can possibly "save the environment" is if billions of humans, well, die. Or aren't born in the first place. Whatever works.
Any family with five kids who claims to be making the "conscious choice" by filling the trunk of their flex fuel truck with reusable cloth bags filled with organic locally-produced family owned hand picked vegetables is completely delusional. You have five kids. The damage is done. You might as well buy a monster truck and crush baby seals for profit as far as the planet is concerned. Those five kids are going to use more planetary resources than you can ever offset by planting a tree or by installing low flow toilets. Sure, one of those five kids might turn out to be the climate Einstein and invent something that will improve the planet in ways we can only imagine, but let's get real here. They probably won't. Now, I've personally got nothing against anyone who was five children, hell, I've got nothing against anyone who has five hundred children. But please stop cranking out kids and then claim to be 'environmentally conscious'. In my school of though, the less humans on the planet, the better the established biological processes of nearly every other species will fare. Well, except maybe Pomeranians. Sans humans, the wolves will take care of 'em in hours. But I guess they're the same species. Which is pretty weird. So less people = happier and more successful all other life forms....which is kinda what people want to describe when they refer "the environment" though those rose colored glasses that leave out what makes up the real environment, or our surroundings. Forget virgin alpine peaks and pristine jungles. We're surrounded mostly by packed used car lots, porno theatres, nut and bolt factories, air freshener distributors, abandoned drive in theatres, and commission salespeople in airports who coax us into signing up for credit cards by offering us a free hat.
So back to the smokes. Here's my logic. I set out to ridicule this newspaper's obvious mixed-messaging greenwashed advertising cash grab. Then I though about it for a second. Less people = pretty much blanket improvement in all ecosystems of the planet. (Pocket dog variety excepted.) If a cigarette company wants people to believe smoking their product will help the rose-colored-glasses version of the "environment", then they're 100% right. You smoke, you die, you leave more room for other species. Everybody wins! Well, except for anyone who smokes these cigarettes. They just die. But consider these newly-dead smokers as an eco-sacrifice for the rest of us. If we're really serious about climate change, we need to make big changes in each of our lives. Smoking kills 10,000 Quebecers every year. This is a good start.
Kyle
PS
Important recession notes: Smoking and dying will create jobs in tobacco farming, manufacturing, trucking, convenience store retail, marketing, medical, mortuary services, funeral homes, cemetery maintenance, but will likely hurt companies that produce rose colored glasses.
Attention TEENAGERS! Basement party make out sessions are resevered for vaccinated individuals.
Get vaccinated kids. You so don't want to be green shirt guy.
Ticket to the Limit
I met Randy Cohen at a conference called Gathering of Titans at MIT last spring. He's the CEO (Chief Energizing Officer) of TicketCity, a ticket brokerage based out of Austin TX. Randy's an awesome guy. And he just wrote a book called Ticket to the Limit. I promptly bought a copy of Ticket to the Limit and inhaled the whole thing in less than 5 hours of binge reading, partially while drinking tea and dancing to Shakira remixes in our kitchen. Yes, it's that good!
And I won't lie, I'm feeling really, really good right about now. In the secondary ticket market, Randy lives in the exciting world of extreme supply and demand, something that I experienced in many forms while trading from a red paperclip to a house. It's a pretty thrilling world, and I understand fully why Randy can approach his work with such enthusiasm. He's also a big believer in a liberal sprinkling of exclamation marks to convey excitement, something I'm on board with! Randy has the kind of infectious energy that's addictive to the point of being scary. Well, maybe not scary, but if there is a limit to how much somebody can energize others, Randy's right on the razor's edge of the limit. Definitely not past the point of no return, but we're talking about rocking to the break-of-dawn, live your life to the fullest optimism in a way few are able to pull off. Also, he can get you great tickets to the Superbowl. Here's a except that made an impression:
Sometimes when you chance what you are doing, you do not enjoy immediate success. Maybe you've made more than your share of mistakes. That's good! Mistakes are how we learn and grow. I remember I used to watch Superman when I was a young kid, about five years old. I thought it would be great if I could don a cape and fly, too. So I got a big beach towel, tied it around my neck, and went up to a second-storey window. I opened the window and climbed up on the ledge. I jumped - and plummeted to the ground! It was a very valuable lesson about gravity. I learned the hard way that you can't fly. But guess what? I never jumped out of a second-storey window again!
So I obviously recommend reading Ticket to the Limit. Doing so while dancing in your kitchen to Shakira is optional, but also something I endorse fully. Because after all, is there anything better than a ticket to the limit?
Montreal Flag Geneology Check
Married to French Canadian: Check.
Mother with English ancestors: Check.
Dad with Scottish ancestors: Check.
Clover = I need to go buy Guinness.
Overheard at NASCAR
"Talladega Superspeedway wants to remind you that Band-Aid brand band aids are the official band-aid of NASCAR. If you have a small cut or scratch, don't forget to turn to Band-Aid brand band aids, the official band aid brand of NASCAR."
I am DJ Dancefloor
Yes, it's true. I know, I know. The rumors, there were many. I had an exceedingly large amount of free time in September and decided to hack away at an album of low budget electronic music. The album is called Club Thumping Beats and can be downloaded for free here: http://www.mediafire.com/?3zimn2xttwd I even set up myspace page for passive computer listening. www.myspace.com/iamdjdancefloor I hope you enjoy it. No word yet on imminent world touring to support the record. But I might go to Laval this week to pick up a BBQ, so that's pretty cool.
DJ Dancefloor makes huge club hits
Download his club thumping beats to become a dancefloor bandit: www.myspace.com/iamdjdancefloor
The Yellow Pages by DJ Dancefloor
The Yellow Pages by DJ Dancefloor
High Quality Reference Literature
Your email address? Oh, no. Please, don't bother to write it down or email it to me. That'll be far to much effort on both our parts. I'll simply go to the library and look it up in the National E-Mail and Fax Directory. It'll save tons of trouble for both of us.
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