Fake it till you make it

When I was accepted into grad school,  I feared I did not fit the role I was about to step into.

I went to Tommy Hilfiger for the first and only time. I got shirts with collars. I got a pair khakis. I got a wool skirt. I got shoes that I felt smart people would wear (knock-off oxfords, duh).

As if wearing jeans and kicks will rob your brain of all analytical capabilities.

While preparing my presentation letter I met with the program director a number of times. A québécois francophone who clearly believes that being french from Europe gives you far more credibility. Who speaks with a slight, yet noticeably fabricated, french accent.

It’s comparable to the way the CBC insists all its TV and radio broadcasters pronounce certain words à la britannique.

Politics? No, POLE-itics.

Status? No, STATE-us

And my personal favorite: HARE-ess instead of harassed.

This one was showcased an inordinate number of times last year in the midst of the Ghomeshi scandal.

In a recent interview I witnessed Debra Arbec struggle with the accepted pronunciation of harassment so HARD that after alternating between both she invents an entirely new word; HARRASTED.

As if your type of accent can augment your brains capacity for critical thinking.

Well, I guess the point here is yes, it totally can, when that accent isn’t your own.

Good old imposter-syndrome.

You have probably heard or read it many times; fake it till you make it aids in the achievement of a variety of different goals. Feeling depressed? Force yourself to smile and your brain will think you’re happy! Even better, change your posture and fool yourself AND others into thinking you are more confident! And of course wear the uniform that fits the part.

Playing dress-up is fun and stepping outside of your own shoes is a great way to gain perspective. Also, lifehacks that teach you how to trick your brain into being less of a douche are definitely useful. ALSO good posture is sexy so totally work on that. But faking it till you make it can ultimately make you just appear, well, FAKE.

Sometimes the time and effort you put into seeming like you know what you’re doing really should just be put into getting to know what you’re doing. Which means being ok with not knowing what the hell is going on for a little while. Pretending to be someone or speaking in a certain way because it is the standardized format of what’s supposedly better turns us into prefabricated, pre-approved robots with no room for innovation. Fucking up, learning from said fuckups and growing from them humbles and humanizes us.

In the words of Mindy Kaling :

(…) confidence is like respect; you have to earn it. Work hard, know your shit, show your shit, and then feel entitled.

And really, who the hell feels like they own it in fucking khakis?

The original Disney Princess: The life and times of Sissi (1837-1898)

first world problems royalty edition: Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Queen Consort of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia and Duchess of Bavaria.

1865

Sissi was beautiful, cultured and loved by the people. She seems like the prototype for every Disney princess ever. In reality, she lamented her privileged life in a way only those who relish in luxury are able to. Basically, If Paul Verlaine had first world problems, Sissi had 0,01% world problems. Let’s explore both sides of the coin.

Disney-esque features:

-She had Rapunzel’s hair

Clearly

It eventually reached her heels. Her hairslave (dresser?) cared for it for 3 hours a day. Bi-weekly, the mass needed to be washed (with a solution of egg and cognac no less). So they did nothing else but wash her goddamn hair all goddamn day.

Basically, she invented the “no I can’t come, I have to wash my hair” excuse.

-She had Cinderella’s evil stepmother

Before the Targaryens, there were the Habsburgs, a royal family so powerful and so incestuous that there’s an inbreeding related deformity named after them: the Habsburg Jaw. Princess Sophie of the Habsburg-Lorraine line was Franz-Josephs’s mother. She was also Sissi’s aunt and the bane of her existence (I guess that makes her the evil-stepauntmother?).

Here’s a short list of bitch moves Sophie pulled:

-Named Sissi’s first born Sophie after herself, without asking

-Basically confiscated Sissi’s first 3 children fresh out of the box to raise them according to tradition, ensuring that Sissi could only visit them with Sophie’s permission and supervision.

– Had a note dropped on Sissi’s desk, reading, amongst other lovely things: “if the Queen bears no sons, she is merely a foreigner in the State, and a very dangerous foreigner, too. For as she can never hope to be looked on kindly here, and must always expect to be sent back whence she came”. 

Ain’t no bitch like a Habsburg matriarch.

-She was the prettiest in all of the land and stole the prince’s heart (every Disney film ever)

Franz Joseph was supposed to marry Sissi’s older sister, but fell hopelessly in love with the 15 year old instead. Her entire life she was hailed as the most beautiful woman in Europe. He, on the other hand, was hailed as the monarch with the weirdest fucking beard ever:

Franz Joseph of Austria (1865)

Whether  his beard was styled as such to showcase his non-habsburgian chin remains unknown.

The non-disney reality

Sissi was eccentric and enticing. She was also deeply troubled and hopelessly miserable. Just like the tragic characters Disney princesses are based on, the reality of Sissi’s world was much darker than the fairytale.

Hungarian coronation (1867)

-She battled serious eating disorders her entire life.

She was obsessed with tight-lacing to maintain a 19 inch waist. To put that in perspective; a barbie doll waist would proportionately measure 16 inches. She exercised daily in her custom built home gym. She wrapped her body in cider vinegar cloths and wore masks raw veal every night to preserve the youthfulness of her skin. Her physicians forced her to drink the juice of raw beefsteaks for protein in her numerous periods of fasting (juice cleanse?). She was definitely anorexic, with some hint of Bulimia, having a secret staircase built that connected her bedroom to the kitchen so she could binge in private (ok, that actually sounds AWESOME).

-She was depressed.

I wander lonely in this world
Delight and life longtime averted
No confidant to share my inner self
A matching soul never revealed.

She wrote lots of poetry and, for the most part, it’s depressing as fuck. The ways of the Habsburg court were diametrically opposed to her carefree bavarian upbringing and she never fit in. Being separated from her children by means of evil stepauntmotherness and finding little in common with her cold, bureaucratic husband increased her sense of isolation and she never felt at home anywhere.

O'er thee, like thine own sea birds 
I'll circle without rest
For me earth holds no corner
To build a lasting nest.

-Her only son died in a tragic murder-suicide

Crown Prince Rudolph of Habsburg (1888)

Rudolph, the only son of Sissi and Franz-Joseph, was heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, he didn’t want to be Emperor and was like omg dad I don’t want your life leave me alone. So he rebelled, mainly with extramarital affairs. One of them produced my great-grandfather, another lead to murder-suicide, A.K.A. the Mayerling incident. The throne then went to Rudolph’s cousin, Franz Ferdinand, who was assassinated, and then a little thing called WW1 happened.

Way to go, Rudolph.

Sissi didn’t raise Rudolph. Like his two older sisters he was snatched up by Sophie, and Sissi wasn’t even around until he was about 4, travelling to Madeira and Corfu spas to treat her anemia, edema and tuberculosis.  Still, Rudolph was clearly his mothers son, inheriting her disregard for traditional monarchial duties. He died in 1889 at just 30 years old.

-She was assassinated by happenstance.

Luigi Lucheni was planning on assassinating the Duke of Orleans, but a change in this one’s itinerary forced Luigi to settle for the next monarch at hand, Sissi. Hating the fuss of a procession, she travelled only with her handmaiden to catch a boat in Geneva. Pretending to trip and fall into her, Luigi stabbed her in the heart with a needle file. Her tight-laced corset prevented her from bleeding out immediately and no one noticed what happened until she collapsed and died an hour later :  “the hemorrhage of blood into the pericardial sac around the heart was slowed to mere drops (…). Had the weapon not been removed, she would have lived a while longer, as it would have acted like a plug to stop the bleeding.“

lIKE SLEEPING BEAUTY…

Sissi’s handmaiden compared her to a child in a fairytale, bestowed with many gifts by good fairies, and then cursed as follows:

"Nothing will bring you happiness, everything will turn against you. 
Even your beauty will bring you nothing but sorrow and you will never find peace."

This is not to say that Sissi’s problems weren’t real, regardless of her royal status. Unlike Verlaine, many of her life’s tragedies were not of her own doing. She was plucked from near obscurity (by monarchial standards) and thrust into the spotlight of the oldest and most rigid court in Europe, with responsibilities and expectations no teenager would be prepared to handle on a whim:

"Marriage is an absurd arrangement. One is sold as a fifteen-year-old child and makes a vow one does not understand and then regrets for 
thirty years or more, and which one can never undo again."

Our many roles and identities are ever changing. Forging your personal identity is a volatile experience that never truly ends. Not only did she lack the freedom to explore possibilities, as a public figure, she was required to offer herself up for constant scrutiny to see if she measured up to her imposed role. There was no way out of the gilded cage she loathed so much.

She had to assume an identity, Empress of Austria, in a world where appearances trumped inner experience. She was also deprived of being a mother, an identity that could’ve kept her grounded. So she rebelled, obsessively taking control of the parts of her life she still could, never drawing any sense of wholeness from her experiences.

And in a final stroke of irony, she was murdered because of the very identity she tried to escape her entire life.

Kelly Faircloth wrote a much more comprehensive and professional article about Elisabeth. I used it to make sure my bad jokes were factual. Read it here.

Distance from home and sexual awakening.

WHEN YOU’RE NOT A GIRL, NOT YET A WOMAN, AND COMPLETELY UN-FREE TO EXPLORE YOUR SEXUALITY.

It’s pretty ironic now to consider highly sexualized 20 year old Britney asking us to give her time to figure out her sexuality. It might even seem contradictory. Because sexy clothing.

And boobies.

It’s always hard to navigate your blossoming sexuality as a teenager-young adult, whether you’re a guy, a girl or an international popstar. However, for us ladies, it also implies internalizing a double-edged sword.

On the one hand it seems like guys glorify sexually promiscuous women, but then when you go there you are more often than not slut-shamed.

All the while you’re just trying to navigate your new and improved hormonal system, and really so are they! Maybe guys feel like they have to glorify sexually promiscuous girls to seem masculine… but since I don’t have a penis I can’t really go any further down that road of speculation.

It’s pretty undeniable that while boys are thoroughly encouraged to explore their sexuality, whether girls can or can’t or could or shouldn’t or maybe this way but not that way but don’t wear that and not enough makeup or too much or… is anyone’s guess.

First acquaintances with one’s sexuality will probably affect you for the rest of your life. Think of it like the germinating seed of your blossoming sexual flower. Do you think that’s a metaphor? I did too, but then I googled sexual flower and now I’m really confused. No wonder pollination is used to explain sex to kids.

“the most sexual macro shot of a flower ever?” cried the embarassed author of this shot Suzanne Hagerty

 

The Terri Conley Stigmatized Sexualities lab is teaching us awesome things.

“A University of Michigan professor of psychology and women’s studies, she’s systematically debunking the conventional wisdom surrounding gender, sexuality, orgasm, and desire.”

Their studies have proven that there are essentially 2 reasons women turn down casual sex :

1. The obvious one; fear of being labelled as a slut afterwards,

2. The smart one; belief that it wouldn’t be worth the trouble because it is unlikely they would achieve orgasm.

Shocker! Neither of them have to do with women not wanting sex as much as men.

Even more interesting, when it comes to gender differences in sexual regrets women’s mostly have to do with action, while men’s have to do with inaction.

Basically women are like: eeewww why did I sleep with him?

guys are like: aarrrrggghh why didn’t I make a move??

Isn’t it strange how the same things that each gender is traditionally stigmatized for is what each ends up feeling guilty about?

the loophole

Pretty much anyone who’s travelled has a ridiculous sex story or seven. I’d venture as far as to say it’s one of the main motivations for travelling in your early 20s. There’s a lot of things we do while travelling that we would never do at home for various reasons. Mostly, it revolves around a possibly false sense of freedom from judgement… The judgement of those that we expect to see again at some point.

The contrast between the way we act when surrounded by our peers versus the way we do when we think no one we know is watching speaks volumes. You can’t always choose who you see and don’t see in your day-to-day back home. In a foreign country, you can let loose like you never have before and no one else has to know (provided your travel buddies don’t take pictures or have equally embarrassing stories you can bribe them with). And those people you just met? you can hop on a train-plane-boat and be like ciao bitches! see ya never. Of course they will judge you, but you won’t be around to witness it. Thus, freedom to act on impulse occurs.

My point isn’t to encourage everyone to travel the world and sleep with random people (well, if that’s not your thing).

Ok we aren’t teenagers anymore, but fear of judgement, although probably diminished, hasn’t left us entirely. We often shun possible objects of our desire because we worry too much about their profile and how they will seem to other people in our lives. I’m not just talking about casual sex here, but I do think it’s important to explore just being with somebody simply out of instinctual attraction because it seriously helps us discover what it is we actually want and don’t want FOR OURSELVES.

It doesn’t even have to be about sex at all. Think about what holds you back from approaching people, and what makes you write off a possible interest. Think about what you consider your turn-ons and turn-offs. Now, consider if they are actually yours, or what you think the people around you would approve of. It’s hard to know for sure, but stepping out of that framework is one of the best ways to change your perspective considering possible objects of desire, enabling you to get to know your preferences without worrying if they align with those of your peers.

Just make sure you don’t  end up with your own personal Kevin Federline.

So, what do you do?

Sticking to your alternative lifestyle guns in the face of the soul-crushing criticism of your peers/elders.

Have you been doing the same job for a while? Do people ask you every single year if you’re still doing it, then seem disappointed and ask you why? My guess is for the most part, no. Not unless you live some sort of “alternate lifestyle”. Which is such a crappy expression, but for lack of a better one please bear with me.

I plant trees. Like most people who find an occupation that gives them a decent income/sense of fulfilment, I plan on doing it until I don’t want to anymore. I guess I live what you can call an alternative lifestyle since from April to August I live in a tent out in the middle of several different buttfuck nowheres between British Colombia and Alberta.

Buttfuck nowhere can be surprisingly charming.

When family gathering-dinners-random meet-ups with acquaintances occur, the ever sought out conversation starter comes up:

So what are you DOING? Oh, you still do that? But really though. What are you going to DOOOOOOOOO?

People, especially those older or that view themselves more successful than you, love explaining to you how the world works in all it’s soul-crushing idealism bashing glory. But don’t feel like shit as a result! They’re helping you, you see, by underlining how your choices suck and coincidentally, so do you.

Unless, of course, you follow their advice closely.

Working for the weekend: your chair is plotting your doom.

After facing these types of conversations countless times, I’ve come to realize some things about them:

1. People mean well, and you can’t take said well-meaning criticism too personally.

Most of the time if someone takes the time to have one of these “chats” with you it’s because they love you and want the best for you. Thing is, that “best” is defined on their own terms. We form our opinions according to our limited perception. Those who don’t see your lifestyle as appealing for themselves will figure that you’re doing it wrong. And that’s fine.

However…

2. Just because you don’t define yourself by your job, doesn’t mean other people won’t.

We all have many roles and titles. We can define ourselves by our family life, our hobbies, our geographical location as well as our jobs. For most people, the majority of hours in a week are devoted to this particular role, which means it sticks out more prominently compared to other ones. So they will mostly define themselves by their means of income, and use the same framework to define you. It’s another case of limited perception giving us a shortcut to understanding.

3. There is still a stigma against manual labor.

Because I have an education, I am deemed too good for the job I am doing. Not only that, the work in itself is SO HARD!!! BACK BREAKING WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO YOURSELF??

Yes it’s hard, but you know what I find just as hard in an entirely different way?

Sitting down, inside, all damn day.

Recent research backs up this claim, and the internet has been awesomely dramatic about it. You see, sitting is very dangerous because your chair is possessed by a demon.

4. Finally, there is only one way to react to these types of situations:

Amen.

Perception, Public Figures and Facial Hair

Well, hi there.

If you’re like me then that phrase, once inviting, now sounds creepy as fuck. And with good reason.

As time has gone by, I still feel as if the strangest thing about the whole Ghomeshi story (even stranger than the teddy bear thing), in all it’s sadness, is his initial move: the Facebook post.

But first we must elucidate the complex reality of public figures.

Public figures aren’t quite people, you see. Of course, at their initial state they are in a format adjacent to personhood, but fame and critical acclaim warps perception, public and personal, into something entirely different. The public figure is often a two-dimensional shell of the actual multi-faceted human being, at once created by the public and probably internalized by the person. Yet all we have is our perception, our own sample of reality, which at large, is far too overwhelming for our limited capabilities to absorb. Perception is our gateway to experience. Even when we become aware of it, it frames our understanding of the world and what we just understood about our personal perceptions newly perceived.

Confusing? Yeah, that’s why I didn’t pursue political philosophy.

Social media permits us to craft our on personal publicity page, in case any one gives a shit. More than ever, we have the capability to sculpt the image of ourselves we want to present to the world. In some cases, people successfully sculpt public perception (that is, through this medium) to the form they desire. In a sense, playing this game is playing the public figure game, because trying to mould perception of the self you present into someone likeable, fascinating and envied is the desired result.

For a while there, it seemed like Ghomeshi was winning this game.

Or at least he thought he was, which is the only possible explanation for that post, full of lies as we now know it was. It seems a shift occurred within Ghomeshi. The public figure replaced the person. A powerful public figure, a wildly successful one, an interviewer praised by none other than Barbara Walters. He believed it to be so powerful that it could either trump the truth in every way or deter any one from speaking out against him. But the public figure is the shell, and the core is a deeply troubled man who, hopefully, has since checked out the definition of “consent” in the dictionary.

Perception is all we have. All we can truly, undoubtedly perceive in this case is the person in himself. So I propose we fully jump into the exercise and judge a book by it’s cover.

They are so thirsty.
-Hamilton Nolan 
Carefully Groomed Stubble is a Mark of Low Moral Character.

The devil in the detail, the widespread truth hidden within a small, perhaps almost unnoticeable, fact. In this case, that fact is facial hair. I stumbled upon this article and found it hilarious and perplexing. It basically argues that stubble represents a lax attitude towards social expectations. It is the byproduct of not caring about upkeep, a symbol of laid-back bad-boyism. Thus, deliberately maintained stubble is an oxymoron, a clear indicator of someone trying to be something they are not :

Stubble is supposed to be a byproduct of an underlying lifestyle that some find attractive. It is a transitory state in the ongoing drama of a man who doesn’t give a fuck about society’s facial hair grooming expectations. Now consider the man who grooms his stubble. He is living a lie. He wants to experience the social benefits of the non-caring attitude that stubble conveys, while actually caring very much. He does not care for authenticity; he cares only for appearance. His image is not grounded in truth. He is a man who cares less for honesty than he does for his own self-dealing. He may appear, in all ways, to be a fine person. But he is not to be trusted.

This article was posted on October 21st 2014, 10 days before the Facebook post. It stuck with me, mainly because I thought this makes so much sense, yet I can’t think of anyone who fits this description, who are these people?  You see, between the treeplanters and hipsters of my social life (beards) and the lawyers and other professionals of my family life (clean-shaven), I couldn’t think of anyone who fit the profile.

The carefully crafted Ghomeshi image.

When the story initially broke, I, like many, googled the shit out of Ghomeshi. From staring at photographs and noticing how leery his eyes were to finding out that there once was a thing called Moxy Fruvous and feeling profoundly embarassed for Canada, I dove head first into the Internet searching for understanding.

And I will never, ever, understand that shirt.

 

Eventually I stumbled upon an exposé from 2012, published in the Toronto Life and the initial description by the author of her subject sent bells off in my brain:

” He is dressed in his usual uniform: a slim-fit V-neck, black blazer, distressed denim and haphazard stubble that is in fact deliberately maintained using the level three setting on his electric beard trimmer.”

HAPHAZARD STUBBLE DELIBERATELY MAINTAINED.

A carefree public image shell masking an entirely different reality.

And what really drove it home for me was the face he finally showed the world a month after the horrifying cat came out of the bag: a clean-shaven face.

 

Forget normcore; everyone dresses like the Olsens circa 2006.

So the latest flash in the pan ridiculousness of a media coined trend is “normcore”.

Apparently it has something to do with dressing like a white middle-class person on vacation from the early 90’s crossed with Jerry Seinfeld (via The Cut, and their subsequent we called it first article). So lots of regular fit denim, button down shirts, and most definitely running shoes while doing anything but actually running.

Bonus points for the minivan.

Fanny-packs, track pants, ill-formed neon ball caps and that tan vest with every single sized pocket possible that my dad’s had forever are all apparently “IN” now.

There are two things to keep in mind when general pop culture media declares something is now a “thing”.

1. These trends are usually a self-fulfilling prophecy, fuelled and even created in some way, by excessive coverage of mostly isolated occurrences in real life.

For example, remember the whole Emo thing from the early 2000’s? I really only remember ever seeing like, 2 people that dressed in a way that would qualify as such and they’d always say no I’m NoooOOOt in a really offended voice (maybe they were hipsters?).

But everyone kept. talking. about. it. and low and behold a little known aging and waning in popularity punk trio went out and bought some silk ties and eye-liner. They were Green Day, and their emo detour American Idiot simultaneously made them millions and cost them their credibility. NOT because of their success, but because it was such a strong departure from their previous body of work and style. And, really, it’s not like the albums came pouring out after the release of that album in 2004. One came out in 2011 that I don’t even remember hearing about. And Emo? When’s the last time you heard about that?

Which brings me to number 2:

2. Once the media is talking about it, it’s like the final nail in the coffin.

See, the emo culture, or emocore because nothing is anything until you add core at the end, originated in the mid 80’s and generally referred to punk music with emotionally revealing lyrics. Flash-forward 20 years and we get Jesus of Suburbia.

It’s entirely possible that the 90’s revival that’s been happening, what with it’s constant referrals to Seinfeld and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (and buzzfeed), has made the style of the era more visible that it really ever needed to be. Basically, you know that a “period inspired” trend is dying when even it’s most ridiculous elements are being recycled.

For example, Lisa Frank-ing your dog.

I believe I have pinpointed the true inspiration for current (mostly) ladies fashion, and it’s far more recent.

You want to talk influential in the 90’s? Here’s a few things you should know about Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen:

-They invented the ultimate loophole to youth labor laws by switching duties as Michelle Tanner on Full House, starting at the age of 9 months old (“screw you, 8 hour work days!” is also what they told the bangladeshi manufacturers of their Walmart clothing line years later).

-They founded a multibillion dollar company when they were 7 years old.

-They really enjoy making purses that cost upwards of 30 000$ (and people love buying them, they sell out immediately).

The girls of my generation worshipped the Olsen twins (or secretly worshipped them or maybe didn’t but could not deny general awareness of their activities). They dominated tweendom, they basically invented the tween market (which gave us such genius inventions as Bratz Dollz).

Basically, they wore cargo capris with platform sneakers, so did we. They used a flabbergasting amount of bobby pins and butterfly clips? GAME ON.

What the actual fuck is up with your hair Mary-Kate?

Are you making a point yet?

Well, let me ask you something: what year do you think this photo was taken?

 

Ok fine, the title gave it away. It’s from 2006. Notice anything familiar, anything that you’ve seen a lot of in the past year or two? Things like plaid, red lipstick, sky-high platform hells, leather accents, leggings?

How about leather leggings?

Oversized sweaters, beanies and leather booties?

Maxi skirts and chunky jewelry?

Men’s blazers and miniskirts?

Fur and chunky necklaces?

Deep V’s, absence of bra and oversized crosses?

Was this taken yesterday at a trendy spot near you?

No, no it wasn’t. That sequence of pictures was taken between 2006 and 2008. Back then, anyone who cared about fashion was absolutely flabbergasted by their clothing combinations, calling it “hobo-chic” or “bag-lady chic”. Really, chic only meant “don’t forget that tiny bag-lady looking kid is one of the richest people on the continent”. Even the New York Times published an article about the way they dressed back in 2005 calling it ashcan chic (as in a used coffee tin full of cigarette butts, zexy) which is a genre of chic now featured on the Wikipedia list of chics (the ultimate accomplishment).

Leather accents, platform heels or wedges, boho tangled hair, plaid, baggy baggy baggy, menswear and even red lipstick.

Speaking of menswear… notice how Johnny Depp has been dressing like a serious douche lately?

They are basically the same person.

Now comes the big reveal where my theory fails.

So I thought I had it all figured out.

However, because you can never pinpoint an Olsen. Because  you can never truly begin to understand the depth of their pioneering vision of billionairist infused fashion, just as I had mapped out this entire post in my mind…

THIS HAPPENENED :

SOCKS,

AND BIRKENSTOCKS.

Not only the ultimate faux-pas on the feet on visionaries. But pretty much the ultimate symbol of normcore, as in I’m-comfortable-I-don’t-give-a-fuck. Everyone dresses like the Olsens, AND NOW THE OLSENS DRESS LIKE EVERYONE.

SO what does this mean? Normcore, you win, for now, but is it the end? The beginning? Are the Olsens going Green Day?

Remember folks, these problems matter.

Planet Earth, treeplanting and the narration styles of David Attenborough

How to make the necessarily boring parts of your life more entertaining.

I started treeplanting in 2008, and I love it, but that doesn’t mean it can’t seriously suck. Every job most probably has things about it that are stimulating and unique and fascinating, as well as those that are loathsome and tedious yet necessary to it’s accomplishment.

Yeah, that giant water hole? Just walk right through it.

The scenery changes, but planting is nothing if not repetitive. It has all the right ingredients to drive you absolutely insane. It’s kind of like data entry, but the data is a seedling and the program is a cutblock. And then your cubicle gets hit with toonie-sized hail. You can hide under your desk and take a nap, but you’re getting paid by the piece, not the hour, so if you want to make money you put your hood up and keep at it while mother nature kicks your ass.

Or you hide under the tarp and take ridiculous selfies

Sometimes you forget the repetitiveness because planting can be mind-blowingly awesome. Knowing that you’re one of the only human beings that will ever gaze on a particular piece of land, and that there are so many more that will never be seen, is an incredibly humbling feeling. I’ve looked up to see breathtaking mountain ranges,  looked over a cliff to a gushing river, stumbled upon fawns napping in mound holes or gazed up to see majestic birds of prey.

I’ve also drowned in a sea of blackflies while wading through an even bigger sea of stupid ass grass mat while it’s so obliteratingly fucking hot and shade is like a distant dream because hey it’s Northern Alberta at the end of July and the sun doesn’t even ever really set at this point and the forest is mostly a bog with twigs jutting out of it.

Which is great, if you’re a moose.

Ok, but what does this have to do with Planet Earth?

When Planet Earth came out it was a total game changer as far as documentaries go. I worked at HMV at the time, and we played it constantly. We also restocked it constantly yet were always sold out. There was nothing quite like it, but not just because of the visuals (it was the first time a nature documentary was filmed in HD). Sir David Attenborough has been doing wildlife documentaries with the BBC for years, but usually you saw him talking directly to the camera. Planet Earth’s whole schtick was to have a series void of human presence in order to really give the feeling of peeking into a world untouched by humanity. All guided by the disembodied fascination of it’s narrator. It made for a truly magical experience (yes, I am a massive dork, thank you).

At one point, when I don’t know which season was wearing out and I was deliriously plugging through an aforementioned field of shitty stupid grass, I started to hear David Attenborough’s voice in my mind, narrating my movements and purpose…

The treeplanter, although often an urbanized creature like most of it’s species, becomes a wild animal once it is thrust into the open land to lonesomely hack away at it’s unforgiving task. Through the enthralling tone of my amazing narrative skills, we will come to find new appreciation and a sense of wonderment for the lone human amidst the banal vastness of the boreal forest.

Somehow, his voice accompanying me made so many days more bearable, even if I was just being entertained at the extent of my bush craziness. It was like the ultimate cure for being bored by what I was doing because he has this power to make everything sound seriously majestic.

And what I found out this morning is that HE KNOWS.

The BBC released a clip of the man narrating the british women’s curling match as if it was a nature documentary. When I saw this video, I was shocked, I was so happy. It was everything I had ever imagined. Everyone bashes on curling and how it’s kind of ridiculous and boring right? It’s like the running gag of winter sports. BUT a bit of David Attenborough breaking it down for you and it’s like you’re watching something completely different altogether.

So I encourage you next time you’re doing something boring, routine, and repetitive, fire up your imagination and let Sir Attenborough walk you through it, or Morgan Freeman. I promise it’ll put a smile on your face.

How deep is your love?

John Travolta, you may have done some seriously questionable shit in your 40+ year stint in the spotlight, you may support a dangerous cult and you may have acted like an unbelievable douche throughout this entire movie, but for this dance scene, I will love you forever (especially the part where you blow off The Nanny because she’s a terrible dancer).

Happy 60th birthday to some of the fanciest feet to ever hit the luminescent dance floor:

Fuck your couch.

Dave Chappelles’ Rick James skit is 10 years old today.

Read about it over at the vulture, then watch it here, then SHOW ME YOUR TITTIES!

Your mid-morning freak out

The question is: If it came to a showdown who would win?

Proceed to shiver as if thousands of ants were crawling all over you.

EEEEEEWWWWWWW

Now relax, listen, to this album and jam like it’s 94 and you’re rocking baggy-ass silk pajamas.