Who is Beaver Canuck?

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

Oh Selfish Me(me)

There was an interesting article in the Atlantic called “The Selfish Meme” by Frank Rose
That describes research on how people's reward centres get activated by talking about themselves. Finally! A way to label self-involvement as addiction - the skies opened and the sun shone forth.

I mean if the glove fits...

Most of us know people who really can't stop talking about themselves. Christ, I love talking about myself, but I can a least function in polite society. I've certainly been recognizing how if I don't get my fix though, if I go out looking to bitch or otherwise soliloquize, and my careful “plan” is derailed by there being strangers present, it sours my mood - and can lead to antisocial behaviour like cranking up the sarcasm and general low level sadism.

Hell this blog is all about a semi desperate middle aged attempt to garner some attention - with a thin excuse of “well maybe other people will recognize something of themselves in it”. Or maybe it's more onanistic? Just the act of “over” sharing setting off some pleasure centres in my brain?

And could that be how the whole situation evolved? Why is it pleasant to talk about ourselves? Well, we know experientially that it relieves stress to share what is eating at us, we can do a secchi disk on our current depth of crazy, we can validate hypotheses about the world etc...and for the species this sharing may well be adaptive because vicarious experience does still have value. After seeing “Leaving Los Vegas” I was able to tell Smith “Well, at least between me and Cage’s character there's Kosovo...”

The car wrecks from the lives of others are at least road side memorials intimating we pay a little more attention driving quite so drunk around life's curves.

And I suppose why I liked the article so much - in addition to kind of universalizing my own addictive behaviours around FeelBad and Twatter, is the more general clues it gives to aspects of our motivations.

Why is working for others often unrewarding? Because it doesn't trigger the pleasure centres of when we’re self involved -- why do some people “need” to be the centre of attention? Well let's hook some pop stars up to fMRIs and find out. I suspect their self-stimulating centres aren't as strong as the average, so they need more validation from the outside world. Just like thrill seekers aren't as capable of self-excitation as their more anxiety prone compatriots.

Is this information useful? I think so - when I break down the things that really get my ass in motion - the chance to drink and windbag - maybe what I'm really experiencing is a fairly easily understood nexus of habits that trigger my reward centres.

And maybe, just , maybe that suggests there's ways to get the same high, with fewer units of alcohol. Possibly by actually producing artifacts that embody my experiences in a form that triggers something in others, sending me positive attention in return.

I must go and discuss this with Withnail at once. Withnail & I (Widescreen)


Except I still haven't purged sufficiently from the last time.

The Truth will lead you to Fiction

When I think of some of the things I want to say it makes me realize its time to write fiction. Too personal, too private, too easily misconstrued, too true. I was having the conversation this evening.
“You need to shut down your Facebook profile and do something else. If I knew you were x y z I wouldn't hire you. You can't tell people that.”


And I was like : “Why, because we're living in Fear? I should be screaming this stuff to the rooftops, standing up to the Man. Would it be better if your sister was still closeted? It's taken generations for society to get even a little bit rainbow. I shouldn't be keeping this stuff in, I feel like I've kept too much stuff in.”

It's something I struggle with. If I had the slightest pair, wouldn't I be out in the world, telling people everything I believed in? Wouldn't I refuse to play it safe, fearful of what other people think of me? And it's difficult. Because I know plenty of misfits - plenty of people lacking rudimentary social skills of what to say when, what to reveal, what to hide. I know a bit about posturing, bluffing, biting your tongue. It's a skill set.

But it can also be a straitjacket.

So yeah, maybe fiction.

Douchebag, heal thyself

I have of late, wherefore I know pretty much precisely, lossed much of my mirth.

I'm letting myself flounder between seeking a serious job and making a serious go of some projects of my own.

I'm wallowing in my own filth essentially. And about 7 of you have been following the steps. Thank you. Perhaps if I'd actually been wallowing in my own filth, and filmed it, I could be a You Tube sensation in one of those European countries where that shit (ha) is actually popular.

What I've been struggling with is: what do I want to do that has value? More precisely - what do I want to do that I can sell to others?

And it comes down to helping. And it is a deviously difficult windy road between the selfishness of 'I want' to the potentially remunerative road of 'helping others to help yourself'

When I work as a Picture Editor (link) I help other's tell their stories. I like it, but I've got stories of my own I want to tell.

As a Dad, I'm almost constantly helping - I love it, but it doesn't fulfil my ego's desire for recognition and praise.

I could teach - I could share what I know about editing - and maybe I will. I've certainly thought about that one.

But what I want to do is follow my curiosity - explore the world, both inner and outer, and try and understand my place in it. Our place in it. You know a mix of tweedy adventure and philosophy.

Which is why letting myself remain mired in the foothills of taking action is very frustrating. These top of mind frustrations - this indecisiveness, really only has one solution. Get over it! Get over yourself and actually take the steps that get you off of the floor and onto the next new thing.

The only justification for posting any of this is that perhaps one reader will recognize something of themselves and know they're not alone. That we easily become so weighted down by our own bullshit - our own empty dharmas - that we remain stuck in the same ruts for days…months…years.

People have made fortunes helping others help themselves.

I suppose if 'Getting to Comfy' was a business model that would be it. 'Here…this is what I struggled with…this is what I did, or didn't do…this is what happened.' What the introspective life does give you is quite a bit of experience with analysis - deconstructing what you're thinking and why. Not necessarily tools to do anything about it, but at least some clarity. So when other people tell you their problems you're like "Oh yeah I know what you mean - when I was last in that type of obsessive depressive nightmare I did …. x"

And maybe that's helpful?

Anyhow - once I buy my iphone holder tapping the European market might be the way to go.

Otherwise - time to move on. Endless self-questioning is pathological. There are tonnes more interesting questions to get to. Though like Boynton says: "ooh bellybutton, you're so fine…ooh bellybutton, I'm so happy you're mine"

I saw her boob - and it wasn't at the Oscars

I support a woman's right to breastfeed anywhere she damn chooses and it took me twenty minutes to realize this morning that any discomfort I feel 'not knowing where to look' falls into the more general category in the 'How boys need to behave' handbook of 'Be conscious when you're staring at a woman's breasts'

So Smith was on a much deserved night away and I'd managed to get the kids to their institutions without any overly serious altercations.

We cruise into the garderie and a fairly hippy academic type is breastfeeding big time on one of the benches we sit the kids to get their boots off.

I was ticked. I was all 'I've had three kids that were breastfed semi-publicly where am I supposed to look?'…I furiously averted my eyes and was annoyed to have to do so. Getting the kids changed is a hassle at the best of times and now I have to work around this…this…this public display of maternal love and affection? But I didn't get there at first.

So I started thinking: ok, rationally I support a woman's right to breastfeed, but should she 'cover up' or otherwise 'act with more decorum' - and it bothered me. So I started thinking about 'provocation' - is she being aggressively mega hippy? Should she be conscious of my discomfort and change her actions accordingly? And so the broader questions - what is provocative? Our actions clearly influence each other but is anyone responsible for the reactions their actions trigger in others? And I was thinking about slutwalk, and hijabs, and the whole patriarchal bullshit that intellectually usually seems so simple, but confronted with this woman breastfeeding, when I was SLIGHTLY stressed with having to change two children - threw all that logico-deductive stuff out the window.

Anyhow - it took me awhile to figure the whole thing out. At first I was angry, and then a little later I realized I was INTERESTED, and not in the 'I'd like to read a long boring text about this' way.


(image from KORA Organics, so credit where credit is due)

And that led to whatever 'breakthrough' I think I might of had.

'Confronted' with this woman breastfeeding, I didn't know where to look. And only twenty minutes later did I realize that probably where I WANTED to look was, well, you decide…

And so that's when I saw that my discomfort was just a tiny little part of the dance we all play with each other everyday. What is and is not acceptable behaviour. And so finally I realized that 'don't stare' - and especially 'don't stare at a woman's breasts unless you're pretty sure it's the right time to do so' is just BASIC 'how to avoid being gelded' behaviour.

Is it acceptable to breastfeed in public? Absolutely. Is it rude to stare? Most of the time. Am I going to sneak a peek? Of COURSE not…

And don't tell Smith, she's supposed to be relaxing.

Three is the new too many

Individually, and sometimes in pairs, they are beautiful and charming, but collectively they are overwhelming and parenting three kids often feels like they are taking turns lining up to punch me in the … um, you know.

Today even went well! Nobody swore, screaming was limited to actual physical injuries and not high volume judgments on our parenting, some people ate breakfast. Altogether a good morning.

But then Charlie was sleeping off some nightmares so didn't come down right away and I was sleep deprived so kind of punchy. Almost got into it with Sam but didn't, and he and Mary got out the door without incident. I overheard her even getting part of his story about some altercation - so a red letter day.

The thing with kids - and it was almost as true when it was one as now that it's three - is that you live in an almost perpetual state of triage. Who's bleeding? Is it arterial? Who is or was defecating? Do I need to involve myself? Why are you screaming? Why am I screaming? etc.

From a distance, when they have all been successfully institutionalized for the day, it's often funny. It's often brutally stressful too when the demands are too great and our failings seem too insurmountable.

It has definitely put us on our heels, conflicts that start with the kids can easily spill into spousal fights and simmering unresolved tensions - but you keep going.

Parenting has really taught me to approach each day like the Eastern Front. "The Russians are coming, we're all going to die!" "Yes the Russians are coming, but our orders are to hold the line." Better to die with our boots on, making a go of it, than run from the challenge.

We are far from perfect parents - kids reveal weaknesses of character and blindspots you never knew you had. Added to the ones you were always well aware of and incapable of dealing with, it can be a bit depressing. But on the good days, and even on the slightly less awful days, it's something else. The biggest challenge I've ever faced, many days more stressful than anything I've ever experienced, but worth it.

A wise man once said "If it was easy, everybody would be doing it." and sure, given there are 7 or 8 billion of us, everyone IS doing it - but what each parent that is trying is doing is to attempt the improbable - to fight against the inevitable heat death of the universe, to overcome thermodynamics and the tendency to entropy in all things - to help these beautiful little creatures as best we can, and then hopefully predecease them, preferably suddenly, after some string of blissfully harmonious family dinners and other adventures, having reflected adequately on our place in the world and our immense satisfaction with it.

Or in a fiery pinto flying off a cliff.

Just not in a knife fight with one of the kids, while their mother cheers them on.

Hydrobeef - (reflux)

When Paul Drouin and I wrote Hydrobeef many years ago we sent it to ScriptShark and the reviewer said 'Who cares where their food comes from?' - we knew he lacked vision.

For your consideration 'Hydrobeef' - in an indefinitely near yet sinister future (today?) scientists have learned to grow beef hydroponically. But Doctor Susan Shawk uncovers something unsettling - eating the beef seems to cause feminization.

This time it's going to take a woman to save Mankind.


HYDROBEEF - click to view/download the script in PDF

Living with The Fear - or why honesty IS the best policy

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.

Fries with that?

Some $3.74 CAD More $13.94 CAD Shazam! $42.12 CAD Yahtzee! $86.33 CAD

or Moishes gift certificates.

Or there's some lovely shirts

Oh the Harpocracy!

In which @BeaverCanuck shows you some of his favourite moments from #cdnpoli.

How to support the Young Poodles Movie

Finishing the Young Poodles movie in one form or another is a goal of mine.

I've asked you all for money but haven't thought through yet what I need and what I mean. There are some real costs - in my time and more expensively in having a proper sound edit and mix and colour correction done - (the not me costs could easily approach $6000). Given the quality of the footage etc, I *could* do it all myself - and maybe should. In which case having friends subsidize my time would be gratifying, and perhaps more importantly would hold me accountable for producing something. Left to my own devices the years do slip by - it's not really a commercial project, as much as I've always wanted it to be (cue the riding beggars) - and it's a tricky topic. The band broke up and their album sits 70% recorded and unmixed.

So I need to figure out if I should take your money.

I've thought of trying to finance it piecemeal. Raise $1500, edit another segment, etc. Either through something like an indiegogo project, direct donations, or…

Subscriptions? Try and rope 20 people into contributing something each month…

On the one hand - who am I kidding? Content is supposed to be free - I've certainly not donated to this type of thing…I will buy a CD at a good show, but that's merch…

So perhaps merch - there's the tshirt...

I don't know -- any marketing/fundraising experts out there?

In the meanwhile I'll copy and paste these things again...


Please feel free to support further installments by sending cash

Fries with that?

Some $3.74 CAD More $13.94 CAD Shazam! $42.12 CAD Yahtzee! $86.33 CAD

or Moishes gift certificates.

Or there's some lovely shirts

The Quest for Online Attention

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.

Getting wise(r) - sometimes you don't need to find your voice

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.

A little refresher on why democracy matters for Stephen Harper

Watch the Beaver, Rat and Bunny argue over tar sands development, have the discussion descend into violence, and then, through the wonders of discussion, debate and democracy, resolve their differences sufficiently to carry on.







------

Production notes:

This was filmed in one take on my iphone and YES I forgot to turn off the dehumidifier. I edited on my iPad, with assistance from the microvillain. That green tarp in the background *might* one day be used for green screen. If you'd like that, feel free to buy a tshirt or just send money.

The Beaver tries to Explain Ecosystem services in a way even Stephen Harper Can Understand

Now while I'd like us all to rise above hyperpartisan politics and re-engage each other in constructive democratic debate, I'm flawed, like the rest of us, and just don't like Stephen Harper. In fact, having a pathological need to be liked I even dreamt that I spoke to Stephen Harper. It went I bit like this:

Geezer: "Ok, I'm sorry, I don't even know you, I just don't like or understand where you're taking the country"

At which point in my dream Stephen Harper made an Evil face and lunged at me. I woke up, and reached for my puppet...

Conservatives Don't Muzzle Scientists

...but they've picked up this trick from "Game of Thrones"

Why does time fly as you get older?

Everyone experiences it, the years fly by. But why does time seem to accelerate as you get older? Is the Earth spinning different?

Punishment Vol 5

Two paths diverged upon the floor, he took the one that, well, wasn't blocked. And that has made all the difference.

Self-Help for Losers vol 8

As every parent knows, you lose control of the cookie jar, you lose control of the household...

Punishment Vol 4

In which duckie prepares for nuclear war...