Go Winnipeg!

I just got back from visiting my in-laws in Winnipeg. This statement is usually met with, "Why would anyone live in Winnipeg?" or more commonly "Ummm, where's Winnipeg?" (Due north of Fargo, North Dakota in the Canadian province of Manitoba).

(Ed. Note - Even if you don't watch this four-minute video, please at least hit play to hear this post's accompanying soundtrack).

Despite an intolerable climate and bleak landscape, Winnipeg is strangely compelling. Here's why:

1. I was there this year during Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. I expected nothing short of a Super Bowl party on New years Eve while the Molsons runneth over to celebrate this blessed event. Instead, I went to Game 6 of the American Hockey League's (AHL) Calder Cup, in which, the hometown Manitoba Moose lost 4-1 to perennial champs, the Hershey Bears (that's Hershey, Pennsylvania). The sold out crowd at the MTS Centre came out to support their second rate team while hockey's biggest show was taking place at that same exact time on television screens everywhere. Everywhere but the MTS Centre. So while the live, albeit mediocre hockey game took place right before our eyes, a crowd of 15,003, mostly clad in Jets jerseys (the NHL franchise that left Winnipeg in 1996 to become the Phoenix coyotes), transfixed their collective gaze on handheld communication devices, awaiting updates from Joe Louis arena.

2. Many notable talents have come out of Winnipeg. Most notably Neil Young. Which alone, is pretty notable. The town also gave birth to the Guess Who, which later spawned, BTO (Bachman Turner Overdrive), First-Blood-shirt-shirking-actress, Anna Paquin, art-house filmmaker, Guy Madden, Lilith Fair-ian singer/songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk, Let's Make a Deal host, Monty Hall, and the Disney character's namesake, Winnie the Pooh.

3. There's a Canadian television show called "Less Than Kind" about a dysfunctional Jewish family in Winnipeg that operates a driving school. It's basically the Canadian version of "Arrested Development." But the city plays an integral role in the story. The story was written by the uncle of my wife's childhood friend, who taught everyone how to drive and smoke a cigarette at the same time. Coincidentally, we spent the weekend hanging out with my in-law's neighbor, who also happens to star in this show, filmed on location. So we watched. It was great. Really, it was.

4. I learned this weekend, that "According to Environment Canada, Winnipeg is the coldest city in the world with a population of over 600,000." IN THE WORLD!! The city's record low reached -57 degrees. Fahrenheit.

5. Winnipeg is the Slurpee capitol of the word, as my wife often reminds me. It's also the Bingo capitol of Canada, which my wife does not know. I've enjoyed both on past visits.

So what am I getting at with all this useless Winnipeg trivia, and why should you care?

It's nice to see people take so much pride in a town that could easily be written off.

It's nice to know the local celebrities, and even have a connection to them.

It's a nice place to live. But I wouldn't want to visit.

The Chemicals May Just Kill You - A Love Story

Last Thursday, around 4 pm, at my desk, the phone rings.

“Hello?”

My wife: (voice tinged with panic) “We’ve got a problem.”

I ask her what’s wrong (my own voice trembling a bit, now).

My wife: (More panic – can’t get words out fast enough) Mike and Melanie (our neighbors three doors down - names changed) are blow torching the paint off their house.

I know these calls. They happen often. Not blow torches specifically. But some other panic-strewn response to chemical exposure. And yet, after nine blissful years of this, I still have no idea how to handle it.

My wife has an extremely rare disorder. So rare that no doctor has yet to diagnose it properly. We’ve heard everything from fibromyalgia to your common clinical anxiety case. The best we can ascertain is that it’s something akin to what’s known as Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS).

In lay terms, the woman runs screaming at the sight of a Sharpee.

She smells things you and I would never smell. Paint smells. Glue smells. Gas smells. Plastic smells. Cleaning supply smells. If it doesn’t come from the earth, my wife doesn’t like the way it smells.

The way she describes it, these smells cause her throat and tongue to swell up and she feels shooting pains in her chest.

You could say one of two things in response.
1. That’s awful, god, I feel horrible for her.
2. That woman is bat shit crazy. Run, man. Run.

I’ll admit, the first time she complained of the duct tape in the house bothering her and asked me to take it out to the garage, I thought she was out of her goddamned mind. I resisted the urge to just say “no” – actually force her to consume all that rich, silvery plastic and adhesive to prove there’s nothing wrong with it.

But I went the other route. I decided to stick it out for the woman I love. Through thick and thin as they say. And it’s been pretty thin.

We’ve considered moving three separate times because of smells in our house, including our current one.

We’ve purchased new furniture that needed to “off-gas” at a friend’s house for a few months before we could take it in. Because of the smells.

We leave restaurants and friends houses that have been painted or remodeled in previous months. Because of the smells.

Since having a kid, the severity of this disorder increased monumentally. Part of that was chalked up to weird hormonal shit that happens during pregnancy. The other part is absolutely her fierce lioness-like protection of our daughter from all that is evil in the world (sic. chemicals).

So there’s your background. I'd like to break up this ridiculously long post with a glimpse into my life - this awesome trailer for the movie Safe.



Based on this trailer, the subject matter and the talent, I should have loved this movie. But it sucked.

So back to that phone call last week from my wife about the blow torches. My only viable response at that point was, "Are you sure?"

My wife: (More panic. More rushed speech) I just drove by. There are guys in haz-mat suits doing the work! We’re heading to Sellwood (the neighborhood farthest from our home, while still in Portland, where friends will provide a safe house).

Blow torching paint? Haz mat suits? What?

I actually knew exactly what. We once looked at a house that had been stripped down to the foundation and rebuilt with all natural materials – even the soil was replaced around the home – because their painters had used blow torches to remove old paint from their home and it was lead-based paint. Subsequently, at least one of their three kids, maybe two, has developed autism, thought to be caused by the lead paint that was burned off. Meanwhile, it was happening three doors down from my house.

Needless to say, we really did have a problem.

I started by trying to call the home owners, people we really like, and ask them if we could stop the blow torching and find another way. No answer.

Next the CDC. Gone for the day. The DEQ. Nothing.

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!

If I didn’t get those blow torches turned off, my wife would never go back to that house. I had no choice. I called the cops. I pleaded with them to send a car over and try to stop the madness while I biked home to meet them.

They passed me off to the fire department. The fire department said they would send a truck, but I could tell from her voice, the dispatcher clearly thought I was out of my mind.

I hopped on my bike and raced home, fully prepared to throw myself in front of the blow torches, ala Mel Gibson taking a bullet for Danny Glover, Lethal Weapon style. The wind was blowing south. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! We live south of Mike and Melanie.

When I got there, the blow torches were thankfully off. I got Mike on the phone who was thankfully open to idea of not blowtorching anymore (he later decided to continue). Even more thankfully, he told me that they had the boards on their home stripped down to the wood and repainted 15 years ago, which would suggest there wasn’t any lead in the paint – or at least not much.

And the fire truck never showed up. Thankfully.

My wife and kid stayed at the safe house one more night while the last of the blow torching of the lead-free paint took place. I stood there watching the process from a safe distance, and I couldn’t help but look at these guys, still in their haz-mat suits, blow torching latex (still a chemical) off of a house, with kids, right across the street, riding their bikes not wearing haz-mat suits, and thought to myself "why is this all perfectly normal?"

Maybe my wife is right. Beware of the chemicals.

***UPDATE*** I just got a call from an environmental health specialist with the State of Oregon, Dept. of Human Services, who tells me that according to the EPA, it is in fact illegal to blow torch paint off a house in Oregon. I provided the name of the outfit responsible for the blow torching, Ed Bell & Sons, and apparently, there is a mounting case against them. Our story was added to the mounting.

(Ed. note: I've wanted to write all this about my wife's disorder each time another one of these ridiculous situations come up. I worried about how I would capture it all without throwing my dear sweet wife under the proverbial bus. But with fodder this good, my wife knew she couldn't deny me the pleasure of sharing, and if you have any information about this disorder, we're always looking for a new perspective. All subsequent posts about our chemical run-ins will be much shorter, with links to this post serving as the subtext).

Carry on.

Not Anonymous

Yes friends, my ship has come in.

The words of this otherwise anonymous blogger graced the hallowed pantheon of the "I, Anonymous" column today.

I just picked up a copy of this week's Portland Mercury, still hot off 'em, and turned immediately to the back page. Much to my delight, there I found last week's rant about the paper towel chucker in the bathroom at work. They changed the title and a few words. And the illustration (right) is pathetic, but that's ok. I've finally made it.

Just remember - you heard it here, first.

Carry on.

All the ads fit to print

With the daily edition of your local fishwrap getting thinner, fluffier or just stopping the presses once and for all, it's not exactly news to say, content is suffering.

I don't pretend to be one of these newspaper purists who believes we must protect the printed edition of every major periodical at all costs, including those that only affect the shareholders. I say, if the online edition has a growing audience, while printed subscription rates drop, the newspapers ought to figure out a new business model. One that compensates journalists for solid reporting, regardless of how it appears - ink or pixelated form. In fact, I tend to favor a move toward digital news, if for no other reason than to save a few trees, but that's an entirely different conversation.

Online or traditional newsprint, the great dailies of this country - The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal - must remain credible and reputable sources of news. At all costs.

It pains me to log into any of these pillars of printed word and find anything Brittany-Octomom-Jon-and-Kate-plus-eight-related. And yet, the only chance these organizations have at survival, the only way for them to compete with the trash that really moves product, like the people magazines and the Perez Hiltons, is to enter the gossip game. I've come to terms with the idea that if I really want to know who Jennifer Aniston is fucking these days, or what Amy Winehouse is sniffing, I'm just as likely to find that out from the Cincinnati Enquirer as I am, The National Enquirer.

As someone who makes their livliehood from the advertising industry, I'm especially ok with the idea of more ads. It's just the price of doing business. Especially if they're entertaining ads. Let's face it. Newspapers have gone into, as we all know, the business of entertainment.

Boards >> Screening Room >> Apple - Second Opinion

Sure, it brings into question how objectively a newspaper might report on one of their larger corporate sponsors, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Where I draw the line is at the New York Times and what they've sacrificed in return for the almighty Apple dollar.

For anyone who reads the New York Times online, the ultimate media whores have given up approximately 2/3 of their front page (the majority of it, for all you math-letes out there) to feature the humorous stylings of Apple's bumbling PC man and his foil, the young, hip mac guy. Entertaining? Perhaps. But two fucking thirds. That's no longer news. That's just a few headlines squished between a big, fat, corporate shill. What happened to America's most trusted (albeit liberal) rag?

And the newspaper industry wonders why nobody cares about them anymore.

I, Anonymous (Part 2)

A while back, I posted a rant which I had also sent into the local alternative weekly, The Portland Mercury, in hopes of making it to their column, I, Anonymous. It never did get published in the paper - just on their site. Their loss.

I'm at it again. And rather than wait to see if it ever get's posted, I'll simply share it with you, my loyalists, in this exclusive preview to what will hopefully be coming soon to an I, Anonymous column near you.


Bathroom Savages
Hey Germ Freak working on the second floor of my office building - I feel ya. I don’t like touching bathroom door handles, either. And though you waste an obscene amount of paper managing this disorder, I’ll even forgive you that, too. But after you use the paper towel to open the door, so that you’re precious little hands never make indirect contact with some other dude’s dirty dong, could you please stop throwing crumpled wads of paper on the floor. Besides, don’t you have to open the door to your office after you leave the bathroom? The same door all those filthy cock fondlers also handle? This is a place of business, but where is it ok to drop your detritus into a mounting pile on the floor? Apparently where only people with very clean penises live.
- Anonymous

Nike retread

I love Nike hoops ads. I look forward to them with every NBA playoffs.
The original, Mars Blackman with his main man Michael Jordan.
Barber shop smack talk between C. Webb and Spree.
The LeBrons.
I love what Nike and their ad agency, Wieden and Kennedy have done together. But I gotta say, this...this is disappointing, if not incredibly annoying.

Some jackass (SNL's Keenan Thompson?) making Bron look like a tool:


OR

Chris Rock making Penny Hardaway look smooth:




Really?

**UPDATE**
The other jackass (Kobe's voice) is David Allen Grier, just confirmed by ESPN announcers as the puppets were trotted out for more on-air hijinx. And the charade soldiers on with three, new, equally uninspired, flat falling spots. Perhaps the most interesting part of it all, is the director, Stacy Wall, an old Wieden vet, most likely had a hand in the little Penny campaign that got so egregiously bit.

Have an opinion, please

You know why I love Miss California, Carrie Prejean? Not because she's a walking hypocrisy - playing the family values card while naked photos of her pop up all over the internet. But that is all fantastic.

No, I love Miss Prejean because she has an opinion. And as unpopular as her opinion may have been (probably not very among Miss USA audiences), she stood by it.

A couple nights ago, I went out for dinner and asked my server whether he preferred the berry cobbler or the bread pudding. Without skipping a beat, he answered "berry cobbler." I ordered it and I realized at that moment just how much I loathe a server who won't indulge me in this simple exercise.

Invariably, when I go out to eat, I engage in this little ritual while ordering, regardless of how dissimilar the two menu items I'm deliberating on may be. The discourse has become some kind of subconscious habit for me and while it drives my less confrontational co-diners to cringe, I really don't really care. I figure nobody at my table knows the kitchen better than our server and I want to hear what they have to say.

Too often, the response is "it depends on what you're in the mood for." I'm not a fucking moron. I understand that the bacon-wrapped pork loin is very different than the tofu sprout salad and that someone who may be in the mood for one, probably isn't in the mood for the other. But if I'm asking which you prefer, than I care to know your opinion. Take that as a compliment. You, my server, strike me as someone who I can trust, and, unless you have non-functioning taste buds, I'm pretty sure you have an opinion to give.

You either like cilantro or you don't. You either prefer chocolate over vanilla, or you're a frigid, angry person. And if you spend a decent part of your life working in a kitchen, you most certainly have some idea of what you'd order from it.*

Today's workplace is full of answers like "it depends on what you're in the mood for." That's the safe answer. That's the answer that gets you invited to lots of meetings and slapped on the back. That's the answer that keeps you firmly rooted in middle management with no where to go but down. That's not the answer that gained a Miss USA contestant 15 minutes of national hoopla.

Mind you, I don't ask everyone what they think. And frankly, I have no interest in what Miss Prejean has to say about same sex marriage. But, if I do ask for your opinion, whether you're serving me dinner or selling me insurance, make sure you have one. I might just buy it.

*If the server is a vegetarian, or has some other dietary restrictions, their response comes with inherent limitations. I can live with that and even account for it in making my decision. But to not have an opinion at all is complete and utter bullshit.