Doesn't give a French seal which makes my blood boil
What the ph....
Aimee Davison provided the voice of Beavette, and Scott Ryan provided the music and vocals.
Deb Grey is featured holding her autobiography "Mein Kramps"... And the young Steve Harper is shown attending the Wild Rose Public School. I've always found the name of this particular brand of right wing zealotry funny as I once interviewed at Wild Rose Productions...I wonder if there's any official connection?
The episode occurs after Happy Forest has been destroyed by tar sands development and it's the first we learn that Beavette was not killed by heavy machinery. She's clearly distraught, so we don't know if she lost the babies.
I've been making @beavercanuckpuppet videos for awhile - attacking the #cpc and @pmharper over being asshats. Yeah, they're a little partisan - and VERY esoteric.
So having put another bunch of hours into another video
that is only understandable to #cdnpoli geeks…and even then at a stretch assuming the 'humour' works at all - I have to ask myself am I willfully making videos so obscure that they cannot possibly reach a wide audience?
and I think the truth of it is is that I'm somewhat obsessive over Canadian politics on twitter, so I've got real blinkers on what even the average Canadian knows about…and I've got a hate on for Stephen Harper and feel the need to do something to mock him.
As a 'business' strategy it's not really working - but it is keeping me motivated enough to keep producing. Which is probably as important as whether anyone watches.
Having spent years kind of producing my own 'stuff' very sporadically, we're kind of at a sweet point technologically where it's easier than ever to produce material, and personally I'm both sufficiently desperate to put out 'something' and proficient enough with the software to churn stuff out relatively quickly.
Now - I know some of the corners I'm cutting - the worst being the writing. In my rush to 'do something' I either don't script or only lightly script my videos, and then put much more time into producing and editing them - the result being that the jokes aren't exactly screamers, and they still take a long time to get out there. In the past I've gotten discouraged by the lack of audience feedback and stopped.
But I'm also of the opinion that I need to embarrass my way forward - I'm experimenting, and the costs of each video, in time, likely needs to be incurred no matter what my approach.
I don't just want to write and rewrite jokes - I want to put stuff out in front of an audience, no matter how small.
I'm trying different approaches - My Thomas Mulcair runs a stop sign
was basically improv'ed straight into my (new) microphone - and was a lot more spontaneous and 'fun' than other stuff I've written and then 'performed'…
the sweet spot I'm really looking for is a balance between fast and cheap and worthwhile - I'd written a five page script for what became Elizabeth May Pants John Baird and Stephen Harper dodges questions - which I may append to the end of this…and wanted the video to be much faster with more elements - a whole section mocking Pauline Marois for her Quebec soccer federation turban ban position 'I am Sikh of this…' 'Quoi?' 'Le hasch est muet…' 'Hash?' - anyhow - hilarious TO ME…
Now pretty much any book on startups, and this likely applies to anyone building a brand or band or whatever, is that you need to spend twice the time marketing, and figuring out how to get paid, for your product or ideas as you do working on your ideas…
so I go as far as tweeting links, and have started posting to reddit (thanks @aimeedavison)…a pinterest, etc…
But this falls into the dilemma so many people have that people don't 'want' to promote themselves - they want to be 'creative' etc…which, at 42, reeks of bullshit. NO ONE DESERVES TO GET RICH SCREWING AROUND WITH FELT PUPPETS! - or playing indie emo drivel, or whatever your 'thing' is…if people are going to give you money - which is essentially give you some of their life force, because money is generally earned with time, which is all we have and not much of it, then you better be worth it.
For the moment my level of creative anxiety is manageable - I'm supposed to be starting a job so 'have some time' and am enjoying the process. Each time I hit a beat - like getting Elizabeth May's biplane to shoot with the propeller spinning, or putting Stephen Harper in a crown…it's pretty amusing…and if 'This Hour has 22 Minutes' or 'Rick Mercer' or whoever happens to fall upon this stuff - well, I'd love to take your money for it.
Have I reached out to them? Not yet. I want to get better first…could you, dear reader, help by sharing and favoritting and subscribing? Yes - that is exactly WHAT I WANT FROM YOU.
It's google juice - how things get momentum. But I have to earn it. And keep asking.
It's not clear where Beaver Canuck came from - except he keeps talking about 'Happy Forest' - but you can't find it on any map because the area he seems to be referring to is covered with tar sands development. I think that's why he's pissed.
What is known is that he came onto the scene a couple years ago strapped onto a bixi as some sort of tour guide, or something, for web videos filmed on a cheap cell phone. It didn't go well. But over the years more of his story has come out - in fits and starts. He's fixated with Stephen Harper, and blames him for destroying his home
Apocalypse Soon
It seems that his girl from back home may have been killed when the bipeds bulldozed Happy Forest for Tar Sand Development
Beavette in trouble
And it only got worse from there.
He's tried getting his message out in song
Pirogue or Prorogue
And he's uncovered a conspiracy or two little known to the general public.
Prorogues
And has had a thing or two to say about Stephen Harper' tastes in music - especially Nickleback which he resents because HE owns the nickle
Taking the Nickleback
Between frustration with the #cpc conservative party of Canada's relentless bullying and name calling he's tried to educate about basic political science:
If I'm a commie you're a Nazi
A Democracy refresher for Stephen Harper
Ecology...
Ecosystem services explained so even Stephen Harper can understand
History...
Peter Mackay Needs Wikipedia or a Book
Child psychology
Developmental immaturity so even Conservatives can understand it
General asshattery (see Jason Kenney's career - all of it)
Jason Kenney Starts a petition to thank himself
Which landed him on Canada's most wanted list
Wanted! The Beaver ends up on Canada's Wanted War Criminals list
…
and a bunch of other stuff like trying to make *lite* of the whole situation
Beaver Canuck tells Stephen Harper jokes
But all in all it's given him some anxiety issues, and he's sought professional help.
A Beaver Writes to his psychiatrist about Stephen Harper
Shall I compare thee to a slimy toad?
Who deals with scandal by throwing bodies on the road?
Tying science funding to profitability is like legislating that poems have to rhyme…you won't discover insulin, but you will produce a lot of dog shit. Wait a second - maybe that's how they invented Nickleback.
That's not how discovery works - but Stephen Harper hates science. He has no interest in confirming what he already knows - that he's an awful lonely man desperately clinging to evil as the only thing he's good at…
It doesn't let you discover insulin, free radicals, the Ricker curve, weather forecasting, plate tectonics, t cell receptors, the geometry of higher dimensions but whatever. It appeals to his base who think innovation works that way and it subsidizes his industrial cronies. Well played, french shower bag...
why did the Harper conservative cross the road?
Because Stephen Harper needed a body to throw under a bus.
-----
Knock knock
Who's there
Stephen?
Stephen who?
you know, the asshole…
-------
How many Harper conservatives does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Are you kidding? Harper conservatives reproduce by spreading lies on a rich bed of bullshit.
----
what do you get when you cross a Harper conservative like dean del mastro and an ethics committee?
an empty seat…for months
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pop quiz -
Canadian tax dollars should fund
a) a strong stable conservative majority direct mailing attack ads to Canadians
b) a rub and tug for Stephen Harper to take the edge off his self loathing
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Pop Quiz:
The Canadian economy needs:
a) support for Canadian scientists to help inform evidence based public policy and innovation
b) partisan austerity measures, ineffective pro punishment law and order tom foolery, economic action plan boon doggles, and unaccounted for billions?
c) a rub and tug for Stephen Harper to tone down his self-loathing?
A Canadian and his three Canadian children should not be separated from their mother - how is it that under your government a woman like this is arrested, kept separated from her family, and is due to be shipped back to Egypt?
Unless there is some part of this story we don't know about - and, uh, transparency? it seems a clear situation where something needs to be done to prevent this travesty.
Get to it!
I know you've had your disagreements with the Beaver in the past, and after he insulted you for your vanity petition...
You put him on Canada's most wanted war criminals list...
And he was a little miffed that you didn't send him a creepy letter explaining how the #cpc was doing such a great job for "chewers" and other lifestyles...
But don't worry about all that. As I'm sure some of your cpc briefing notes on "heathen and other needed but unsavoury cultures told you" there's a belief that the good of one moment can undo the evil of a thousand years.
So do some good...this moment...keep the Wilkie family together.
Thatcher is dead - condolences to her family. But lest the hagiographers turn her into something she was not, let's remember she was pretty mean and laid the groundwork for the crypto-fascist state we find today.
PRESS RELEASE: From the Happy Forest Protection League spokesperson Beaver Canuck:
"There comes a time when everyone has to stand up for what they believe in. With environmental degradation, climate change, unsustainable industrial development and overpopulation bearing down on a finite planet, this Beaver has had enough. That, and tar sands development destroyed my home, Happy Forest, and separated me from my girl, Beavette - heck, I don't even know if she's alive or dead.
I am Beaver Canuck, and I'm on a mission. To educate, to politicize, to motivate all Canadians to stand up for a better future. A future where prosperity isn't built on short term opportunism and destructive resource exploitation. A future where we leave the world a better place than how we found it. A future where I get my revenge on Stephen Harper for destroying Happy Forest!! And find Beavette! Sorry, sometimes my emotions run away from me.
Your responsibility is to help me make this happen."
While times are tough for the rest of us, this frickin' felt hand puppet may well be on his way...
For the love of kittens...
So the lady, erm, woman, suggests that there are a few tried and true ways to build your you tube channel, like asking people to subscribe...
You have to have a thick skin, or well pelt, but don't get any "I'm going to make me a bedazzler" ideas...you have to be tough, to deal with all the haters...all the 15 year olds ( and, well, people of all ages)! That love spreading the unhappy ...
So follow the Beaver, as he may, or may not land a job...
Yesterday I felt like a can of smashed assholes. Decallage horaire, a weekend of road food, a man cold, and well, the weather was shitey.
All day I could barely work for more than a few minutes at a stretch, so busy was I pleasuring the canine.
(image credit - e-spirations which actually had some good advice right under the dog photo...)
Despair mounted.
It doesn't take much to knock the wind out of you. To feel discouraged. It can lead to a touch of negative introspection - I lack clear goals, I have no discipline, bla mega boring bla.
Now, I do lack clear goals - and this post was going to be, what the internet shills call "A call to action" for the five to six of you non bots who might be reading this. A call to ask 'What the hell in all this mess holds any interest for you?"
I start many projects but get discouraged. I have an almost physical aversion to actually being serious about my goals. The one or two grants I've applied for have been so last minute, so poorly executed it was like I was purposefully sabotaging myself.
Which I probably was.
I've constructed this narrative, which is far from original, in which I will be discovered for my own genius, without slooting myself at all (i.e without any actual real effort), and the world will rain praise and riches upon me. So I start half baked projects like The Beaver, or Self-Help for Losers, The Young Poodles Movie, etc. and while I'm proud of some of it, I get discouraged and try something new. Hey! Blogging…
It is both the rankest, freshest, and oldest bullshit in the world. The insecure creative's wish to be swept to greatness without having had to expose themselves to the world.
So here it is. Having reached my late early early forties I know my approach needs to be tweaked.
I need to set clear achievable goals, find people to help hold me accountable to them, and then execute. Because it's always so satisfying when a real world deadline looms and you go through despair, resistance, reluctant application and onto victory and euphoria. I want to tap into some of that for my own projects.
So if you've got any advice let me know.
If there's any particular direction you think I should apply myself, let me know - just don't say accountancy, cause that's what Dad said for many years and I'd always ask myself if we'd just met.
And it's probably nothing to do with man's best friend, because after yesterday, she thinks we're running off to Vegas…
12 years ago we got some bad news - the kind of scary stuff that makes you cry and worry and not eat. But it didn't kill us.
What it did do though is make Fear a daily part of our lives. I was thinking about this today because yesterday we visited our accountant and he literally said 'You're richer than you think' - he essentially told us to renovate the house, pay off all our debts and, well, live a little. And walking in there my guts had been more or less in knots because AGAIN I've not put aside enough taxes. I've had a personal relationship with the tax man longer than most people stay married, and having sailed through 2011 paying down my installments, 2012 was, well, a little less disciplined.
And so to have him say look at your bottom line, you're not doing badly, consider doing x y and z NOW because you'll have longer to enjoy it…really has done me a world of good - and probably knocked my blood pressure into the happy realm of High-Normal.
Which gets me back to The Fear.
When I was around 18 - 19 - 20, certain friends and I had this fun little game. We'd sit around boozing, and inevitably, because we were all prone to it, we'd start bad tripping each other. Little things, little worries, and before you knew it we'd basically provoke in ourselves localized anxiety attacks. Really great stuff, some of these guys are still among my best friends.
Maybe it's just youthful exploration - gazing into the Abyss to see if anything snaps at you, who knows? But in 2000 when we got actual bad news The Fear came back, and we've been living with it ever since.
And here is the thing - Fear and stress robs your brain of oxygen as the blood is diverted to the fight or flight responses. You literally become stupider. And lose the ability to spel. And so living in Fear means you are probably making bad decisions, not weighing alternatives appropriately, and otherwise fucking up your life.
I am, perhaps surprisingly, a naturally optimistic person. As much as Fear leads you to scarcity thinking - we don't have enough money, we can't take risks, we're all going to die, optimism leads you to abundance thinking. It's going to be ok, we should seize the day, we're all going to die so lets party wasted NOW while we can still pour a beer without shaking.
Now this leads me to not put aside my taxes and run a deficit - but it also led me to insist we buy the house when Mary was pregnant and I was TOTALLY unemployed. And buying the house is the SINGLE best financial decision we've ever made. Riding the property bubble has likely increased our net worth by more than well let's just say 'several' of my best years working.
So we can afford to think differently. And what it forces us to do is ask the question that's been going around Facebook - 'What would you do if money wasn't an obstacle?' - because we do have choices. We can invest in renovations, or going back to school. And this has always driven me a little nuts because I've 'invested' tons of money and time in various film projects that haven't been obviously profitable. I've spent months writing instead of working and not sold any scripts or pitches.
But I have managed a sort of career in the film business. And all that stuff I said yesterday about being an editor is only half of the story. I actually love editing. I love being trusted with someone's baby and pouring my heart into seeing it into the world. Does it satisfy my fragile little ego? No. I want to produce my own projects and find my own voice and bla fucking bla. But that's up to me. And I've never stopped dabbling. The Beaver may not be hilariously funny - but he COULD be. The Young Poodles Movie is not finished - but it was an honour to be able to film my friends and learn to love music as much as they do from them. And the reams of navel gazing I pour into the computer? Hell, maybe I should just hire an editor…
I was going to title this post 'Honesty is never the best policy' and that's because yesterday I was like "am I intentionally burning bridges? No one wants to hire an embittered pathetic wannabe" but today the world looks different. If you've got this far thank you. Buy a Young Poodle's tshirt if you like, or make a donation (there are actually no fries with the donation though for donations over $5 there could be…) And above all practice abundance thinking. Make choices out of Love and not out of Fear because we all have to live with our own mortality and that of EVERYONE EVER we've known and loved. So while life serves up some heavy shit it hasn't killed us yet, and its time it makes us stronger.
The Case against my inner censor took years to build, and while the sentiment of the court in the end was clear for all to hear - "shoot the bastard! up against the wall!" the spin out from his execution has yet to resolve itself. While the Censor may have been shot square in the face, it is still somewhat unclear whether another, perhaps more powerful one has taken his place, or if the bureaucracy of my bullshit is such that I continue to avoid the point of all this out of habit, if less out of raw fear.
Better a bad artist than a loser. Because while some bad artist's may be losers, it is far less likely that most losers can even lay claim to being bad artists.
The snob's dilemma, the argument from fear, all the excuses in the world for self-censorship are painful to work through - to be discarded quickly if you can - and maybe it's just a lifetime of inadequate testosterone? Lacking the balls to just take the risk of looking stupid. Because by all accounts more than a few people seem to live what for them appear to be relatively adequate lives while radiating, no, sometimes indeed, glorying in their stupidity. Take the conservatives, just to grab a group out of the air.
So the puppet's back - and I've started singing. And sweet Jay Z H Christ, it's got some room to, erm, mature. But the song I recorded yesterday sounds way better than the one from last week - and I like to believe it's really quite ridiculous. And that's kind of the point isn't it? All of this life is quite ridiculous. We get pushed or carved out of our moms, we spin around the sun for awhile, and then we die. More often than not really fucking terribly. So am I happy to have recorded a version of the Ballad of Happy Forest, where the Beaver and Beavette sing about their love for each other and the righteousness of diverting small waterways? All the while knowing that the bulldozers of the Evil Doer Stephen Harper are about to descend upon their boreal idyll destroying it forever? Separating Beaver from a now visibly pregnant Beavette, who for all he knows is dead with so many other of the forest animals? Yup.
Nonsense, glorious nonsense, and it would be funny if it wasn't actually so serious, and well, if it was written a little better and someone sent me a voice coach, or, well, sang it for me. But what's the fun of that?
I am not a lawyer nor have I read all of the details of Omar Khadr's case and the legal avenues that have been pursued to allow him to come back to Canada.
What I have witnessed are the banal exchanges on Twitter where generally Conservative pundits and just plain idiots proclaim how he is an Evil Terrorist, chomping at the bit to murder more people, totally responsible for his purported crimes etc. etc.
None of these people seem to hold the fact that he was 15 years old at the time of the incident as particularly germane.
But, the brain of a 15 year old is different from that of an adult, and whether the conservatives like it or not, that should be taken into consideration.
Pursuant to the rather undignified quest of seeking online attention, here is a video denouncing Nickleback for supporting Stephen Harper.
It's really just an experiment in gaming the You Tube search engine - parasitizing a popular band to drive views to the Beaver.
I don't actually care much one way or the other about Nickleback - the little I've heard doesn't do anything for me - maybe I'm too old, or grew up on Zeppelin etc. I'm just looking to see if it draws attention to the site.
My inner Kardashian I suppose. The problem then would be - the Beaver stuff would have to actually be a lot stronger to hold any attention. That's a problem for another day.
Why you must never write E_ra L_ev_nt's name online but why you should definitely subscribe to the Beaver and favorite and like everything he's associated with.
In our celebrity obsessed culture fame or at least notoriety is often enough to make an income. The age of search engine optimization, where you deploy online content in a way that the automatic search 'bots of google and its competitors deem your material relevant to one or several search queries, is upon us and allows a small subset of the community of people posting material online to earn money by drawing attention to their content.
Either through advertising, merchandising, selling access to 'premium content' or whatever, this attention seeking behaviour has become a business model, not unlike 'becoming a rock star' or 'the next Andy Warhol' has led many an aspirant to eschew more traditional routes to renumeration.
The real people making money of course are the distributors - the you tubes and googles (same company) who facilitate the dream of being the next online sensation by offering a venue to host people's content for free (well it's not free because it took you time to make it and post it), and even provide kindly advice on how to make your stuff better (see You Tube Partners) all the while selling advertising around your content and keeping the bulk, if not all of the revenue.
It's a bit like during the gold rush where some people struck it rich, but where the hardware stores, banks and railroads made the real killing because in order to pursue the gold, you needed the supplies and infrastructure. Anyone who has ever taken an acting class, paid for a headshot or paid to play a rock show knows how this works -- the dreamers pay, the schemers earn. Perhaps that is as it should be. The dreamers I know aren't interested in scheming, much as they wouldn't mind a bit more money, and the schemers, looking for an angle, do actually provide platforms for the few dreamers who break through to achieve their goals, as well as fostering a lot of innovation for the toiling masses who get to pursue their dreams of glory, even if they're only likes and subscribers are immediate friends, families, and that drunk guy who's phone you scammed at the bar and subscribed to your entire online oeuvre.
Where I am going with this? Well, I'm a dreamer - so subscribe to the Beaver, follow him on twitter Follow @BeaverCanuck
and never, and I mean never, mention E_ra L_v_nt online anywhere because if you give HIM attention, it's like watering a dandelion. Just don't do it.
What better way to get the Beaver's message out that Stephen Harper and his purse dogs are ass hats than to mock Nickleback for being friendly with him? I don't know, but please tell me if you do.
So there I am, kind of painfully editing the Beaver's first rap song - and the pain is more from working with pictures of Nickleback than the Beaver's questionable rhyming...and what comes across Twitter? Well that Peter MacKay, in order to suck up to the French Ambassador, gives a speech crediting the french with fighting alongside the British in the War of 1812
Now I'll have to school up on the history, I have fetched the little puppet Pierre Berton's The Invasion of Canada and Flames across the Border The Invasion of Canada: 1812-1813
to study up, but really...it's n'importe quoi with these fellows, oh, except apparently they ALL have to knit their butt hairs into toques for the obligatory asshats...
One of the best parts of being a geezer is that a lot of the things that held you back when you were younger drop away. Like not putting out work because you're too embarrassed what other people are going to think.
As the years pile on you start to realize there's a million and one empty dharmas like this. A million and one excuses for not taking action - I know, I've made lists.
And then you stop caring. "Better a bad artist than a loser" Bruno said, and it's true. The best part of putting out work that's questionable or not ready? It IS embarrassing - and that discomfort is powerful. Because it means the next time you want to do better.
People have started saying "you have to embrace failure". And you do. Because there's no rational thought process that allows you to learn how to do something. The process is practice - not thinking about practice. So here's my questionable singing, with a song I didn't exactly over write. But it forced me to jerry rig (your honor can I take the jury rig option ?) a green screen and work through the process - learned a little garage band too along the way.
Happy with the product? That's beside the point. Eager for the next one to be better and having learnt way more than by bailing? Well, I think I'll be collecting on those lifesavers.
