Here is some video footage of the beginning of clearing the land on the lot we'll be building on on Hornby Island.

It’s become the thing with many on the blogosphere to post images using Instagram with special effects applied to make them look like old photos from cameras that existed when I was a kid.

I get the updating to the Net of these images, I just don’t get the appeal of really grainy, horrible quality images when they are used all the time instead of for special effect.

Why is that? What’s so alluring and cool about it? Is it original?

Baffled.

I work in the world of projects. One of the reasons I love projects so much is that when I’m finished one, it’s truly over. There are no long-term ongoing strings attached. It’s why I’ve not lasted long working as an employee within companies. 

My stints at BC Touring Council and Creative City Network of Canada were short partly due the fact that I disliked the stuff that never seems to end such as cash flow issues, boards that sometimes work/sometimes don’t and annual grant applications where one needs to beg and make the case.

My first job was working at Blackberry Books. I loved who I worked with and for, but inside me I found it stifling to have to work set hours every day, even back then when I was only in my early 20s. 

I knew something had to change so I quit working full-time and went to college to study music. My life then took a number of turns since then and for the most part, I’m very happy with how it’s progressed.

My partner, Darren, just finished his last day at a company he’s been with for 30 years. The total opposite of me.

Though I’ve never been able to stay at a job for very long and I despise the way big companies work and often crush their employees with such silly rules, I actually admire anyone who can do it, withstand it, put up with it, and most of all, be successful at it.

Here’s to you, Darren. I couldn’t have done it myself. 

A new adventure begins.

I had a drug addict as a friend once. Well, in fact, he wasn't using drugs when I met him (he'd start up later), but I learned a lot about how addicts work from him that has some relevancy to social media and networking.

He would talk to everyone: on an elevator with two seniors striking up a conversation; chat with someone beside him on the bus; discuss life with the garbage man; talk about religion with an evangelist on the street. The list goes on and on and on.

It was amazing.

His technique was amazing. He even was good at introducing people who he thought may like each other. I still have two friends I met because of him that I never would have met otherwise.

The reason that he did this networking, as I found out later and in a very painful way, was that he built it for when he'd need something and when he went back to using drugs, you know what he needed? Sad, but true. He came back to every person he could, manipulating and asking for money. (it was very ugly.)

The bad part of what my friend did was that he used his charm and networking abilities strictly for selfish purposes. I often wonder if my friend hadn't had a drug addiction, what amazing things he could have done.

Summary of what I learned

1. Network, network, network, no matter where you are. Just be friendly, open and learn about other people and what they do. Store the information or friend them or follow their tweets, etc. 
2. Introduce people of your network together because you think they can benefit from each other. 
3. Offer to help people in your network (except with no expectation of anything in return) 
4. When things aren't going so great (you lose a job, change careers) access your network of friends. 
5. Don't abuse your network or pressure people in it or tell them they "owe you something." 

- footnote
I hope my lost friend is finding himself. I couldn't take it anymore. He ruined so many good relationships of people who were willing to help him, but he blew it. Maybe one day he'll change. I hope so.

My more recent posts can be seen at Full Bleed Arts Marketing

Last week, the Chair of the BC Arts Council, Jane Danzo, resigned stating that it was her best way of advocating for change and to show her displeasure with the way the BC Arts Council is required to operate by the Government. See letter here 

I don't know Jane and I don't know all the machinery at the BC Arts Council so I could be completely "off" on what I am about to say, but here goes.

Many in the arts community seems to be applauding Ms. Danzo for her bold and courageous move (see Alliance for Arts and Culture's response) and I join them in saying it's great to hear her reasons and frustrations but…

It seems to me that if she'd spoken her mind while she still held the position and made the Government very uncomfortable, they would have fired her which would have had a much bigger impact than the footnote articles the story is now getting in the media.

The move would have made the Government look bad (which they are). We are left now with one more person (soldier in the battle for arts funding) like the rest of us, on the outside but with no explosive impact.

My challenge to the rest of the BC Arts Council board? SPEAK OUT NOW before your term is up or you decide to resign.

Make the Government very uncomfortable.

Get removed.

At least it will have some impact.

Just a little quick thing I came across that I wanted to share.

I was reading through some postings on facebook and saw this link on Keith McPhail's page about a video called, How To Be Alone by poet/singer/songwriter Tanya Davis. What a beautiful 5-minute experience to sit and listen and watch.

If you don't see the video here, you can view it on YouTube 

It's so funny that we come into life alone and leave alone but it seems that most of us spend all the time in between doing everything we can to not be alone.

And yet, there's something very special about alone times but it all seems about how we look at it.

Some alone times I loved include sitting on a beach watching the perseid meteor shower one August on Hornby Island or walking in Central Park in New York City on a crisp fall day in November 2009 or waking up in Bogota, Colombia on my first day in South America in 1989.

But most of the time, I've fought the alone times and have even been afraid of them. Why? Afraid of myself?

I loved this video/poem. It put such a sweet and thoughtful look on the subject.

How about you? What was your favourite alone time (or worst)?

Yes, you heard that right. I’m coming clean. I’m a liberal.

I like being “down the middle,” “on the fence,” “wishy washy.” You name it. 

A dictionary definition includes:

• Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry. 
• Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded. 

I don’t always hit all those, but the key points just make sense to me as a way of living well with my fellow citizens.
That's all I have to say, unless...

If you are a British Columbia reader of this blog:

Though I’ve never had problems voting federally (I think the federal Liberals are actually quite “liberal”) I have hated my choices when voting Provincially.

The former Social Credit party has been replaced by the so-called BC Liberal Party. The former failed doing things for “social credit” when I started voting and the current Liberal party is not acting very liberal at all nor do they have any effective leadership anymore as witnessed by the recent arts cuts and a Premier who seems to have lost touch. 

The only other party in BC that has significance is the BC New Democrats and they are generally too left for me as well as being still so ridiculously aligned with Labour and unions (you want dogma, join a union).

I wish one of those parties would move more to the centre and be more tolerant. Despite the NDP thinking they are tolerant, they are often just a bigoted as the Liberals. 

If you are an NDP or a Liberal supporter, let me know what you think I should do. What am I missing? Is one of these parties more liberal than I am assuming?

HELP! I am a liberal.

Cracking open a mass market paperback and out comes a host of memories brought on by touch, sound, look and especially, scent.

Touch
The feel of the chalky paper in my hands takes me back to when I really discovered reading which was as a teenager.

I've always loved the feel of the paper, even the cheap paper of paperbacks.

Summer afternoons reading with a cold glass of iced tea and a few drops of condensation from the glass falls to the paper making it blot it up.

Sound
The crinkly sound of the spine being bent backwards and the crisp snap of pages as they are turned.

I never liked bookmarks. I preferred to bend the corner of the pages down. To hell with teachers and librarians who admonished me for making books "dog-eared." They were only mass-produced books not works of art. The art was in the content, not the container.

Look
The shape of the pages and the text that was always a little too close to the edges in paperbacks. This was so we could read them at the beach, or under a tree, or on the bus to your first job. Small, portable.

It was a display technology that held up for hundreds, even thousands of years and it's about to end.

Scent
Up from the pages wafts the scent of cheap paper and ink splattered in patterns of letters that decipher the author's meaning.

Of all the things I will miss about paper books is the scent.

It conjures up such memories like a cool basement where I went to read on really hot days in August. Lord of the Rings in 1975, devoured one volume at a time or when I was younger, Hardy Boys novels read on the patio at the summer place on Hornby Island.

All this brought on by cracking open a paperback novel I wanted to read again, but is not in electronic format yet.

Maybe just as well, because truth be told, since I got my iPad, I kind of miss the experience I had with the physical world of books.

What about you? What do you like about books?