enjoying things while they last...

With the coming robot-human wars fast approaching, it is more important now than ever to take advantage of some of the good things in life before they become unavailable to us. The fact is that, when the time come for people and things to choose sides in the war, it is not difficult to predict which side the buses will take. Humans have exploited and mistreated buses for many decades; we have forced them to carry around our stinkiest and craziests citizens while we drives them into the ground under unthinkable conditions. So when the time comes and the buses join the toasters, computers and ATM machines on the side of the robots, don't be one of the ones who think to them selves: "Man, I wish I had had one last bus ride!"

Super Late Magazine Blog!

So it turns out that I had a blog assignment due about two months ago, that I didn't know about until today, so here it is, hopefully better late than never.
The topic I was assigned is "Magazines", which is cool, because I have a lot to say about that jazz:
I'll start with a story about what used to be my favourite magazine... Ad Busters.
I used to absolutely adore this magazine. It really spoke to my deep seeded hatred for irresponsible advertising. Every issue was filled with great stories and mock advertisements for huge corporations, like one I particularly enjoyed for McDonald's that showed a fat kid in a swimsuit with the caption "There's a little McDonald's in everyone." In fact I ripped that ad out and it's still on my wall.

All of a sudden, however, maybe due to financial necessity, Ad Busters began running ads for their own brand of sneakers. I was so disappointwed with thwem for this complete contradiction, that I actually sent a carefully worded letter to the editor, saying that they had strayed from their primary mission, and that I thought they should make up for this transgression by busting themselves.

The last issue of Ad Busters I ever bought, was the one in which they didn't print my letter.

I couldn't justify paying money for a magazine for which I had lost so much respect.

Now I just bust ads myself in my spare time, sometime while I'm on the bus...

Tackling a Transit Taboo

I realized recently that if I'm going to have a blog about taking public transportation, sooner or later I'm going to need to talk about bus flatulence.

We've all been there: on a long bus ride, when we feel the rumble that warns of the winds of change. In this case of course, the change I'm referring to is the change from not stinky to stinky.

My personal policy has always been to fart as sneakily as possible when on the bus, and only when there are least three people present, as it's very hard to pass the buck when there's only one other person around. "Who farted? uhh.. you did!"

I realized the other day that not only am I sneaky about farting, but I'm more likely to do it when I'm sitting beside someone who looks more likely to fart on a bus than me.

I was on the bus feeling the rumble and considering my options. All of a sudden, a lady got on the bus, and I immediately began intensely hoping she would sit beside me; she was perfect! She had a pretty severe case of the crazy eyes, and was wearing a big ratty wig with a chin strap. I could see as she was walking down the aisle towards me that she had her eye on the open seat beside me. I'd already let go of about half of the goods by the time she sat down next to me. Only a few minutes later, everyone within nose-shot was giving her the dirtiest looks you can imagine, while I was just sitting there beaming and soaking it all in.

It worked so well, that it makes me wonder how many people have done the same to me. I do have a mullet...

social media and mass transportation...

So I was on the bus the other day, and I was creeping on the guy next to me for lack of anything better to do, when I saw that he was updating his Twitter account from his phone. I realize that some people refer to this as "Tweeting", however I choose to abstain from using this term as I find it incredibly lame.

Anyway, this got me to thinking about Twitter as a medium, compared to other social networking sites such as Facebook (or the ancient site recently discovered by anthro-paleontologists which was apparently called "Myspace").

Though I've never really liked Twitter, I realize that it definitely does have some useful features, that aren't really incorporated into it's Face-Space counterparts:

Twitter is really great for letting people know what you are thinking about having for dinner. It's 140 character maximum for posts ensures that nothing of any real substance can be conveyed through it.

Facebook, on the other hand, is much more in depth, giving users room to write essentially what amount to small novellas about themselves, and to their friends and acquaintances in the form of messages or postings. Blogs, like the one I'm currently writing (and none of you are currently reading) share this feature.

On advantage that Twitter does have over other forms of social media however, is the immediacy that it carries. Many people have their twitter accounts sent or linked to their cell phones, so Twitter has actually become a primary means for some people to stay connected to current events or to friends and family. (How else am I supposed to find out what my brother is planning to watch on DVD later tonight?)

Twitter seems like a great way to direct people to OTHER places on the web that actually DO have meaningful content.

Another great feature that has not eluded me, that Twitter holds over the heads of other social media sites is its ease of use. It can easily be updated, say, on the bus, whereas other sites take a little more effort to maintain. Having something like Twitter to keep people occupied on the bus, for example, is a good way to keep people from doing creepy things, like watching strangers update their Twitter accounts.

Winter Bicycles

So, I have to admit that, though I do understand the attraction for some people to ride their bicycles in the winter, here in our fair city, I've also always thought it was s pretty stupid thing to do, given how icy and slippery roads can get. I've never had any ethical problem with those who do it, because, unlike drunk drivers, some hipster on a bike in the snow isn't liable to kill anyone. The only person he is placing at risk is himself. That kind of risk (the kind that doesn't involve me), I am perfectly fine with.

That being said, I saw a guy on his bike the other day as I was waiting for my bus, and I actually thought to myself: "Damn, Self, that guy just might have the right idea. Instead of waiting around here like a sucker, he's getting where he needs to go on his own terms, and under his own power."

I was actually very inspired and was fully planning to take my bike to school the next day, until I looked back at him, and saw him wipe out right in front of a bus. I did the obligatory 'wait to see if he's ok' before I laughed my ass off.

I think part of the reason I laughed so hard is that I felt like an idiot for almost doing the exact same thing.

Drums and Tongues

So far this week, I've been treated to a couple of really great blasts from transit past.

First off, I ran into an old friend of mine, not that we've ever spoken or than she would know who I am at all; I'm just a really big admirer of hers.

I don't know her name, so I've given her one, just for the sake of reference: I call her The Lady Who Can't Control Her Tongue. The first time I ever saw her, I didn't really take much notice. She appeared to be an ordinary lady sitting among other ordinary people on an ordinary bus in an ordinary city. First impressions, as we all know, however, can be very deceiving. A few minutes later, she caught my eye again. This time, she let me have a little glimpse of what would eventually make her one of my favourite Winnipeg Transit characters of all time. She would periodically and without warning let her extraordinarily long tongue out of her mouth, for what looked to me like some sort of an exploratory mission. It would snake around from left to right, and then up and down as if it were searching around in a new land or something. It almost looked as if it was looking for something in particular. All the while, the lady just sat there with an almost impossibly neutral expression on her face; like nothing about having her tongue snaking around through the air and hanging half way out of her face was out of the ordinary in the slightest. I hadn't seen her for a few years, so when I saw her earlier this week, I was overjoyed. I almost began to doubt myself when, after a few minutes her tongue had not emerged from it's den, but finally, out it came waving around frantically as if to say: "It's me! It's me!"

The other old favourite I saw this week (actually this morning to be more precise) was the Air Drummer. The Air Drummer is a man of about 30 or 35 who always sit

s on a sideways facing seat, either at the front or near the back, listens to his walkman, and plays air drums with a pair of drumsticks that he's always got with him for some reason. He's a lot of fun to watch. I've even joined him on air guitar a couple of times before. He didn't seem to care that much when I did, but at least he didn't mind.

My favourite thing about the Air Drummer isn't necessarily watching him drum (let's face it, if you've seen one air drummer, you've seen them all) but rather the reactions of the people around him.

One time, an old snooty lady sitting across from him, tapped him on the arm angrily, waited for him to press stop on his walkman and said "Do you mind?!" I was floored that she could be so annoyed by something so obviously and inherently awesome, that I interjected and said, "Actually I do. I was really enjoying his air drumming, and the only thing on this bus that is annoying me is your negativity and lack of imagination." Surprisingly, this did not win her over. At least while s

he and I were glaring at one another, the Air Drummer was able to get back to what he does best.

Last Friday night, I took a bus to the exchange district. I went because I was on a mission. Part 1 of my mission was to go see a play in the Rachel Brown Theatre; part 2 was to come home and write a witty and poignant review of the play on this blog, as part of an assignment for a creative writing class.

Given that the forum for my review happens to be this blog, I’m going to do my review in two parts. Firstly, I’ll do a review of the play itself, and then (in keeping with the theme of this blog), I’ll do a review of the bus ride that got me there.

The play I saw was one in a series presented by Theatre Projects Manitoba called In the Chamber 2010. Entitled, The Last Men, the play was essentially composed of two hour-long monologues by actors, Gordon Tanner and Steven Ratzlaff, in that order.

In the first segment of the play, Tanner played a man videotaping himself in a hotel room. The tape was obviously intended for the eyes of the owner of the company the man worked for, and dealt with the hog barn fire of July 31, 2008, during which around 15,000 hogs burned to death at Cluny Colony in Cluny Alberta.

Though a little long, the monologue, which was masterfully acted by Tanner, went into great detail about the fire and the conditions in which the hogs were forced to live in the barn. At the same time, however, it had another element of disillusionment and ethical awakening, which I found very reminiscent of the 1976 film Network, or the more recent Michael Clayton.

At one point in the film, Tanner’s character began discussing things that “seemed like a good idea at the time”. To illustrate his point, he showed a photo (on a projector he had set up in his hotel room) of a person leaping to his death, out of the World Trade Center, to escape from the flames in the building. Not only did I think that this was an ineffective example of the concept the character was getting at, but also I found the reference extremely offensive in a way that didn’t fit the mood of the play, and couldn’t help but let it colour my reaction to the rest of the play in a negative way.

The second half of the play came in the form of another monologue, this time delivered by actor Steven Ratzlaff. Ratzlaff’s character was a man who, along with his estranged wife, had lost a baby during the Health Sciences Centre’s infant care scandal. The character had a very unique take on the situation; he wasn’t angry with the program or doctor that led (due to neglect or improper care) to the death of his son, but rather at the inquest which determined that his son shouldn’t have died. He argued that it was this finding that made it impossible to go on living in any real way.

Over all, both monologues were well written and very well acted, though, each ran a little long, causing the entire evening to seem to drag on a little.

The real highlight of the night for me, however, was the bus ride, which brought my friend Chris and I to the theatre before the show.

The driver was a middle-aged man with a well-groomed mustache, and who was wearing the familiar navy blue uniform of Winnipeg Transit.

He was friendly and efficient and drove the number 18 bus very confidently, with very few jerky stops and starts.

The bus itself was relatively clean, and surprisingly free of any sort of stale urine smell, which was a huge bonus.

Another bonus was that neither Chris Nor I was stabbed during our ride to the play.