President Bill Clinton Speaks In Toronto

Proud To Be At TIFF

Make no mistake, I am not a major player at The Toronto International Film Festival, but I am proud to be a part of this amazing event. I have the pleasure of contributing to this amazing event, for the 12th year, and I am proud to be here.

This year, I have been with TIFF since early in June, and it is amazing to be a part of building the infrastructure that makes TIFF work. While the public may view us as some major media machine, the spirit of those who work for the festival is very human.

Due to the success of TIFF, many people seem to think that we are some major corporate operation, when in fact we are just a bunch of dedicated human beings who believe in what we do.

Some people treat us like we should operate like a major media corporation, but the truth is that we are far more grassroots than we are corporate. And that is why I am here, yet again. I have the utmost respect for TIFF, the people who created it, and the people who run it.

To watch and participate in the building of this global cultural event from the ground up is breathtaking.

I must confess that each year, when I attend my first screening, and the lights go down my eyes well up with pride when I look at the screen and see our promo trailer and the volunteer trailer on the big screen and I think of the herculean effort of all involved to make this happen.

On behalf of all those who make this happen, you're welcome Toronto.

And I must express my own gratitude to Cayelle, who lets this experience happen for me.

Embracing Our Common Humanity

I cannot describe the excitement I am feeling right now. I have a second row seat to hear President Clinton speak at BMO Field on Saturday here in Toronto. The subject of his address will be "Embracing Our Common Humanity".

I can honestly say that it has been a long time since I have been this giddy about attending an event.

Like many of us, I have a great respect for Mr. Clinton and to be this close to one of the great men of modern history and to hear his thoughts on this powerful topic is going to be a great privilege. I'm usually nonplussed by celebrities, and I have been in proximity to many over the years at TIFF, but to me Mr. Clinton towers over any rock star or athlete or Hollywood actor.

I am also expecting a lot of emotion, as President Clinton will be attending the funeral of Democratic icon Ted Kennedy earlier in the day, then will fly to Toronto.

I think it is going to be a very profound evening, and I feel so blessed to have this opportunity. I will fill you in on the details, and special gratitude to Kristine, without you I wouldn't have known about this.

OMG, I'm a nerd!

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I am blogging about blogging. Its all over now, baby blue. I have crossed the fine line between man and nerd.

The original idea was to share my trip to Ghana with a few friends and most importantly, record details of the journey for my own archive.

Last night I read my Ghana blog with a wistful "was I ever so young?" attitude. I was amazed at how many details I had forgotten and reading through my blog it was almost like I was there. Wait a second.....

I was also appalled at all the typos and long paragraphs and other mistakes. Way back then, (four months ago) I didn't know about SEO, how Wordpress is best, or adsense, or analytics, or twitter or myspace or facebook.

I have even written the worlds first blogging haiku. (please don't google it and shatter my dreams)

If I Post A Blog
And No One Is Reading It
Does It Have Impact?

By the way if you're thinking about what to get me for Christmas, I'm starting to develop a fondness for pocket protecters.

Ashamed To Be Canadian

When I started blogging, I made a promise that I would avoid politics, but that I would speak about human rights. Hmm... that sounds pretty much impossible. That impossibility finally came to a head when I realized that my own government was still stuck in a mentality that it is Sept 12th, 2001 and it always will be.

I am becoming very concerned about the competency of The Foreign Affairs Department and each and every individual under its employ and the ability of this department to protect the interest of Canadians traveling abroad.

And for good reason, I am even more concerned about my fellow citizens who happen to have brown skin.

People like
Huseyin Celil , Bashir Makhtal , Abousfian Abdelrazik , Omar Khadr , Suaad Hagi Mohamud
, Abdihakim Mohamed.

Other than the list of immigrants above there is also the case of Amanda Lindhout.

Individually, each of these stories frighten me. When taken together, they make me terrified at what my own government is capable of.

http://goyestoeverything.com

Here Comes TIFF

Image via Wikipedia

While I have had the pleasure of working for TIFF for months, I am starting to get excited. While The Toronto International Film Festival has had a public presence at Nathan Phillips Square since early July, the real beginning of the divine madness begins on "Book Day".

This is the day that the full schedule is released and the Official Program book is released. It is also the day that the vast majority of Torontonians rush (for the 34th consecutive year) to our ticketing office to try and buy packages that have been on sale since early July, and are now sold out.

I'm going to post here some advice to the individual seeking single tickets or access to high profile events as we move forward, but here are some basic principles.

You can always "Rush" shows.

Rush is like flying standby. I have two basic strategies for rushing a film. The first is "if its a big venue, I have a greater chance to get in" . I use this when I want to see a specific film. RTH, Elgin and Ryerson are the three largest screening rooms at the festival, and therefore the chance of getting in is larger because of the size of the house. However keep in mind that many of the screenings at these venues are premium priced. Know before you go!

My second strategy is to fly by the seat of your pants. Find a timeframe that works for you that combines with a flurry of screenings on the schedule at a single location You need to have some sense of adventure, but flexibility is key to enjoying the festival.

My basic message is to chill, y'all. If you want to get into a film badly enough, you will, but I seriously favour looking for the smaller films and day screenings. After all my years at the festival the two films I remember most are films you have likely never heard of.

Also for those on a budget, there are a lot of free events happening. I will be posting about this next!

So What Do You Do?

Image via Wikipedia

This is a question that I have always hated. I especially hated it when I didn't like what I was "doing". Even now, while I am very happy with what I am "doing", I still detest the question.

A very wise teacher once told me that " we are human beings, not human doings". That statement has always resonated with me. It also made me want to understand why I hated the question, "So What Do You Do? ".

It took me a long time, but I finally figured out why I hate that question.

The question is imbued with the self limiting values of our career oriented consumer culture.While the intent of this question is generally innocuous on a personal level, on a cultural level the question is far more loaded.

The real meaning of this question in Western culture is " What Is Your Job, or "How Much Money Do You Make?". The subtext of all this is "are you better than me in the hierarchy of careering and consumption?

The underlying subtext of the question is really quite predatory. Am I "better" than you or are you "better" than me?

In reality the question is far more complex if taken at face value. I may have three jobs, but what I "do" is far more varied and diverse than the tasks I undertake in order to make money and I think that most people would agree that their lives are far more than whatever it is that brings in a paycheck.

So now when people ask me this question I always answer "as much as I possibly can". I am not trying to be glib in my response, but merely suggesting that such a seemingly simple question actually begs for a complicated response and if you have half an our or so, I'll be glad to answer you fully.

And thank you for asking, by the way what do you do?

Yes, We are Different

Image via Wikipedia

On Easter Sunday, 2009, I was walking through the unbelievable Kejetia Market in Kumasi, Ghana.

The market was breathtaking in its scope .

I was both fortunate and unfortunate that it was Easter Sunday, one of the biggest holidays in the non Muslim part of Ghana.

Fortunate because I could walk freely, and unfortunate because I could walk freely. The upside was that I could interact with the vendors, and my Obama shirt proved to be a nice calling card in Ghana.

It was around this point in my journey that this rookie traveler began to feel confident in his surroundings, overwhelmed by the decency and warmth that I had encountered to this point, I felt very free to interact with the good people around me.

Wandering around the market, I was touched by the welcome I received, and struck by the daily struggle of the people who occupied this place.

As I wandered through the market in my Obama shirt many people called out to me. One man who was butchering a goat asked me if I was American. "No", I yelled back, "I am Canadian"

He yelled back to me "Canada, America , it is the same!"

"No", I yelled back "Canada is much better!"

It was a slow day and we both had time, so I walked over to him and introduced myself. I explained that while I was a supporter of Barack Obama, I was not American.

He asked me why Canada was better. I explained to him the magic of living in multicultural Toronto, I showed him the scars from the three surgeries I've had over the years and tried to explain how any one of these surgeries could have bankrupted me if I lived in America and I expressed my pride in the fact that Canada chose not to participate in the Iraq war.

I also explained that I have nothing but the utmost respect for America, but we are very different countries and that I love Canada as much as he loves Ghana. At this he smiled, shook my hand., and I went on my way.

Almost everyone loves where they're from, don't they?

When I Was Seventeen, It Was A very Good Year

Image via Wikipedia

In 1982, on or around the occasion of my seventeenth birthday I inherited $17,000 dollars from my great-grandfather.

This occurred through a conflagration of circumstances, not the least of which was the fact that my great-grandfather and his lawyer were both non compos mentis.

My great-grandfather mistook my father for my grandfather and erroneously wrote him out of the will, thinking that my father was a wife beater who abandoned his family, which by all accounts my grandfather was and by my account my father was not.

The will stated that my father should get nothing and that the estate should be divided equally among my mother, my brother and myself. And just to make things really interesting, this occurred just after my parents had divorced. Rightly so, I think that this injustice caused my father great consternation at the time.

Eventually it was agreed that the money should be divided four ways, as any legal action would merely serve to eat up the estate with lawyers fees.

The upshot of all this was that on this day twenty seven years ago I woke up with 17k in the tank, my own apartment and a world rife with possibilities.

I teamed up with my buddy Jim Rogers, who owned a Honda 750K motorbike and a loose itinerary for heading south and west from Vancouver was established. Throw in the fact that my brother had loaned me his passport, which made me "legal" in any number of cultural establishments and the fun was on.

We hit Seattle, Portland, Big Sur, Carmel, Monterey, San Fran, L.A., Newport Beach, Las Vegas, The Grand Canyon, The Four Corners, and The Painted Desert. We stayed in hotels and camped.

At one point, driving through the mist covered morning of the Oregon Coast, I had an epiphany. I was in the perfect moment. I promised myself that I would never forget the magic of this moment, and that if I was lucky, the future would hold more of these moments, but it was unlikely that anything would ever exceed the feeling that I had in that moment. And nothing ever has, but as time goes by these perfect moments do come with greater frequency.

The National Sport of Canada

If you ask people in Canada about what our national sport is most would answer "hockey", and they would be wrong. Some smartypants would chime in "lacrosse" and they would be correct, but only partially.

The real national sport of Canada is neither. It is not the nobility of Paul Henderson propelling us over the hated communists in 1972, nor the historic significance of our First Nations engaging in a sport that is uniquely North American.

No, Canadians are not capable of holding such high aspirations, no matter what our government may tell us. Our real national sport only serves to reveal to ourselves that as a nation we are a small minded and petty group of people, the poor cousin to Jerry Springers' America.

The true national sport of Canada, the activity that binds most of us from sea to shining sea is not an actual sport, but a stupid activity employed by toothless and inbred morons who seem to make up most of the population outside the GTA.

In short, the true national sport of this egotistical and spoiled country is "Hating Toronto". It seems that even the syphillis ridden marketing department at whatever foreign owned brewery is currently ramming Coors Light down our throats is now playing this game.

The thing that they seem to forget is that there are people like me in this world. Alberta born, BC raised, and currently living and working in Toronto as a bartender.

Whats that? You want a Coors Light? Sorry but we're all sold out. Hows that for cold, you morons.

Making Lemonade

The resiliency of human beings never ceases to amaze me.

Case in point, one Mr. Matt Weinstein. Mr Weinstein came to my attention today through an article in the Toronto Star

Mr. Weinstein is the founder of Playfair Inc., a company that shows organisations to have more fun in the workplace.

Unfortunately, Mr. Weinstein and his wife invested everything they had with the infamous Bernie Madoff . The couple saw their net worth go from seven figures to four in one fell swoop. In the article in The Toronto Star, Mr Weinstein recounts the moment when he learned that his lifes work had been wiped out.

"It was December 11th, 2008. I was on vacation in Antarctica, when I got a page from the icebreaker I was on to go up to the bridge to take a satellite phone call. I started running because these phone calls cost $10 a minute".

On the phone was his wife with the bad news.

"We realized at that point that we were no longer the kind of people who could afford to talk on a satellite phone" he says with a laugh.

Already in demand as a motivational speaker, Mr Weinstein immediately saw the cathartic opportunity in sharing the story of his misfortune.

He has created a new presentation entitled, "What Bernie Madoff Couldn't Steal From Me". He also has a book deal for a new work entitled "Losing Everything".

I, for one, will be buying this book when it is published just because it seems like the right thing to do.

I leave you with the following quote from the article and one of my favourite poems, and while Mr. Weinstein is "speaking a word about his loss", he is using his experience to teach the rest of us. I think Rudyard Kipling would be OK with that.

"Long term happiness is not about your bank account. Asking for support, asking for community....its about the kind of positive relationships you can make".

"We always have our eyes fixed on 'They have more money than me' or 'if only I'd invested this', but thats not what it is all about".

"When all that is gone, there is still a lot left".

amen, good sir

IF.....

IF you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!' If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, ' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Would this happen to a white Canadian?

Image via Wikipedia

Posted Today, 12:06 PM

While I am proud to live in a multicultural country, as a white citizen I often wonder what the experience of my fellow non white citizens is. Canadians like to have an image in our mind that this country is a beacon of fairness and tolerance.

While in Ghana, many people remarked to me that they liked Canada because it was a peaceful country. I simply nodded, not wishing to discuss politics while traveling. What I really wanted to say was that Canada has been involved in a war in Afghanistan for many years, so we are not entirely peaceful. The fact is that my fellow citizens are dying in Afghanistan while killing other people.

Make no mistake, I love my country, but we still have work to do. In smaller locales our foreign service is a pile of junk run by twits. To have the Canadian embassy actually tell the Kenyan government that this woman was "an imposter" is truly frightening.

My own experience of trying to contact the Canadian Embassy in Accra, Ghana prior to my trip was an embarrassment of unanswered emails and dead links.

The message to all Canadians who wish to travel to obscure places is that at best you are on your own and at worst your own government may actively participate in your unjust incarceration.

d'Oh, Canada

The following is reprinted from The Waterloo Star.

August 13, 2009

A Canadian mother has endured intolerable treatment at the hands of her own government.

On May 21, Suaad Hagi Mohamud was at the airport in Nairobi, Kenya, getting ready to board a flight back to Canada after visiting her mother, when Kenyan police pulled her aside, saying she did not look like the photo in her four-year-old passport.

She appealed to Canadian diplomats in Kenya, who, far from helping her, sent her voided passport to Kenyan immigration authorities to help prosecute her.

Mohamud produced plenty of other Canadian-issued identification to prove that she was, in fact, who she said she was: her driver’s licence, OHIP card, social insurance card and citizenship card. She also produced her credit card and bank cards, a hospital card, receipts from a Toronto dry cleaner and a letter from her Toronto employer. To no avail.

The 31-year-old spent four days in airport detention, eight days in a Kenyan prison for women before a friend managed to scare up bail money. She has been separated from her 12-year-old son, who stayed in Canada with his dad when she left on what was supposed to be a two-week trip. She worried that after her long absence, she would lose her job (her boss says there’s no fear of that) and her apartment, where the rent hasn’t been paid while she fought her legal battles in Nairobi.

She insisted on being fingerprinted, remembering that she had been fingerprinted more than a decade before when applying for her Canadian citizenship, only to discover those prints had been destroyed after her citizenship application was successful. Her ex-husband filed affidavits, her Canadian lawyer argued on her behalf, friends and co-workers vouched for her and sent her money. Finally, the DNA test she demanded has vindicated her, proving with “99.99 per cent” certainty that she is no impostor. Canadian officials now say they are working to issue her documents to allow her to return home.

Her Kafkaesque treatment by Canadian government officials is nothing short of outrageous.

No one should have to go through the humiliating and frightening experience Mohamud went through, especially not at the hands of officials from your own country.

“I’d hate to be stuck in some country and call my embassy for help and get a reaction like this,” said her Canadian lawyer, Raoul Boulakia.

If the government feels that the photo identification provided on a tamper-proof passport is insufficient, then the onus is on the authorities to provide Canadians travelling abroad with a document they feel is adequate.

If the government has concerns that Mohamud is some sort of security risk — and there is no suggestion that it does — then authorities have plenty of tools at their disposal to monitor her and detain her if necessary. But to leave a Canadian stranded, in limbo, much as it left Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik in limbo for years in Sudan, is shameful. Is this the standard to which our federal government strives to help citizens and respect their human rights?

Federal officials should, in very short order, re-examine their security standards for the Canadian passport, and compensate Mohamud for this shoddy treatment. The federal government’s cavalier treatment of its citizens abroad is deeply troubling.

The City's Secret Life

So today it finally happened. For about six weeks now, I have been observing life at Nathan Phillips Square, enjoying the kaleidoscope of life, human and otherwise. One day I discovered "Nathan", ( or more accurately Nathania) a cat that calls the square home. After a little investigating, I discovered Nathan's lair. Once base camp was discovered I began leaving food for Nathan and we slowly began to bond.

Today, this culminated with me being granted a full audience. All inclusive petting privileges were finally granted and I began to realise that Nathan was not some vicious, feral street cat, but a being just like the rest of us: in need of love.

I also learned today that I am being transferred back to my previous job for the duration of The Toronto International Film Festival, so I will probably not see Nathan again. However, I have made my colleagues aware of her presence and I am confident that the fine people working at the tent will look out for her.

My larger concern is what will happen after TIFF disappears and it is -20c in February. Can Nathan survive on her own? Is she adoptable? She is certainly capable of being friendly and loving, but could she be happy living in confinement?

On the upside, someone else is trying to help. I know this because I see a small dish of broken up hot dog outside her "crib". Either a compassionate member of the homeless community has adopted her, or she has bonded with one of the many hot dog vendors who permeate the square. The former being more likely than the latter.

In any event, tomorrow will be my last day working at the square, but soon the number of staff at the tent will increase dramatically. Hopefully the number of people looking out for Nathan will do the same.

Either way girl, I'm going to miss you and I wish you luck. You're going to need it.

UPDATE

About a week or so after this post, Nathan disappeared. I think that people saw the cans of food I was leaving and someone either took her in or took her to the Humane Society. My hope is that someone took her home, because in my judgement she was better off on her own than she would be at the Humane Society, at least while the weather was warm.

The Story of Stuff

An intelligent expose on the folly of our blind consumerism. 20 minutes, but worth the time.

Eyes On The Prize

I love getting mail, and I mean real mail, not bills or the endless junkmail that usually pollutes my inbox and our environment, but real honest to God mail.

Recently, I have been very busy busy, working two jobs, slowly building content for my website and adding other platforms to present that content on social networking sites.

As a result, you can now view my content on my website Facebook,and MySpace. In addition I am also Tweeting and I have a YouTube channel.

Integrating all of these platforms is still a work in progress and all of this infrastructure building has strayed me from my main purpose. Near as I can recall that purpose was to plan a trip to The Mekong Delta and to create a small microproject in the region, like The Omenako School Project

Oh yeah; that

Anyway, as did my weekly mailbox check, among the twenty flyers and one bill was an unexpected envelope from my brother and sister in-law. The envelope contained a cover article from the July 2009 issue of National Geographic

The article is a fascinating account of trying to understand why Angkor Wat was abandoned and forgotten.

In its heyday, Angkor Wat and the surrounding area was home to hundreds of thousands of people. In 1860 it was "rediscovered" by Alexandre Henri Mahout who was tipped off by a French missionary. Publication of his journals and drawings reintroduced this marvel to the modern world.

Make no mistake, this lost city rivals anything that human beings have accomplished anywhere ever.

Need Some Inspiration?

I was feeling tired and resistant to my responsibilities when I came across this.

Fifty People, One Question

I ran across this today and it made me think a lot about what my own answer would be. Feel free to leave your answer as a comment.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

Its almost August 4th, Barack Obama's birthday, and I wish him all the best. I have a lot of respect for him and I hope that he gets the chance to celebrate with his young family.

I happen to know this, because it is also my own birthday and I am honoured to share this day with a man of such esteem.

I am not much for publicly celebrating my own birthday. Few of my friends even know that it is my birthday, and I have worked hard to not promote my birthday. In short, this is by design, so pity me not.

However, I do like to mark the day by reflecting on the last twelve months and "taking Stock" as it were.

The last twelve months or so has been a profound reassessment of my own life, spurned by a series of events. This began with the death of my father in July 2008.

Soon after, I watched two young female friends put in the ground due to cancer. In October I had to put down my beloved cat, a friend of fourteen years, ironically on Thanksgiving Day.

Overwhelmed by death, I began to realize my own mortality. The fact that I had been so fortunate to not have attended a lot of funerals up to this point in my life was a blessing. Though my Dad should have lived for a few more years, at the end of the day he contributed to his own demise. Losing two fine friends to cancer who are in my age group is just plain unfair. Having to proactively participate in the demise of my beloved cat/friend of fourteen years was truly gut wrenching. I was getting used to family and friends dying, but I was still unused to actively participating in their demise.

Out of all this grief came .a realization that it could be me taking the big dirt nap at anytime. Spurned to action, I decided that I should take that trip to Ghana that I had been dreaming about for so long.

All this led to an idea of trying to do a little good . All that happened from that post led to the idea of this website .

So, as I raise my glass to absent friends, I acknowledge that their demise inspired me to do better in my own life. In the death of others, I have learned much. This past year has been the most difficult and rewarding, chock full of teachable moments.

My brother once said to me " you can run your life, or let life run you". This year I finally committed to the better choice.. The next twelve months hold possibilities that were unimaginable a year ago.

And Barack, before I blow out my candle, I'm gonna wish you all the best in your next twelve months. May the next twelve months teach as us much as the last twelve months.

Happy birthday, dude.

One Mans Incredible Journey

• Main Entry: ¹jour·ney
• Pronunciation: \ˈjər-nē\
• Function: noun
• Inflected Form(s): plural journeys
• Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French jurnee day, day's journey, from jur day, from Late Latin diurnum, from Latin, neuter of diurnus
• Date: 13th century

1 : an act or instance of traveling from one place to another : trip
2 chiefly dialect : a day's travel
3 : something suggesting travel or passage from one place to another journey from youth to maturity> journey through time>

While we may not always recognise it we are all on a journey. I believe that the more we can look at our life as a journey (whether we are traveling or not), the more open we will be to the wonderful experiences that beckon all of us each and every day.

His website is down at the time of this writing. The film is about five minutes long. Do yourself a favour and enjoy this beautiful piece of travelart, thanks to The Smasher for making me aware of this film and thanks to Christoph Rehage for creating this inspiring work.