Poussin's "baccanalia", 1631.



to those of you who read this who believe that mankind needs to work, i give you the day 'sunday'.

even the christian big guy had to take a break.

the jewish patriarch (i'm guessing he's the same as the christian one: a white-bearded fellow, only meaner... maybe they were twins and had abusive and sadistic parents), he took saturday's off.

so we're given the weekend to relax. the other five days must be spent in slavery.

in france, they get 2 months holiday, and work 35 hours a week. They have universal healthcare in better shape than ours, have produced some of the best philosophers in the world, and incubated countless artists...

they have more red wine than they know what to do with, are freer sexually, have a beautiful metropolis, are incredibly individualistic, educated and proud, and yet... we don't live there.

i can't figure this out. shouldn't we all just get up and go?

the south of france looks like one of the most beautiful places on earth. it is a country that believes in its students. in ideas. in grand visions of nationhood.

although it may not believe in minimum wage (see recent riots), it does believe in loathing the english (which seems like fun, but only if you really really really mean it).

when i was working at desjardins, the world of money and stocks and profit and capitalism was paramount. a serious affair, discussed by serious people. educated, nice, friendly, but staunchly principled when it came to money: don't fuck with my money, or my belief in money. it makes my world go around, and it makes yours go around too, you're just too stupid to know it.

but i'm not motivated to this degree. therefore, when it comes time to fight for money, i don't fight as hard as they do for it, and will wind up with less of it. that's fair, as they're willing to fight harder to have more of it.

where it seems unfair is that, that wealth bequeaths more than prettier vacations and cars. it grants them culture shaping status.

and the people holding the power and the wealth, they think that other people (those like me) want what they have. yes, it's true, i would love to earn half a million a year writing screenplays that never get made from the comfort of my home. but as that's not going to happen, and the trade off to me (office hours, office life, forced to choose between your morality and money daily) is too steep, i'll keep writing. i don't want to live their life to get that financial reward.

but to those in power, they think others are insanely jealous. so they buy their cars and their labels and their materials to display their wealth to show that they have what they think others want. this is the equivalent of a child holding out an ice cream to a kid and saying "nah nah nah nah nah". i'd like it if we as a culture admitted that this was the case. that this was, technically, what those label-conscious folk were doing. Let our culture be more frank about what the motivations were for spending half your earnings on a purse and sunglasses, or a car. because then we could really see how stupid it was, and we'd be less apt to partake.

for those to whom money is no option, yes, you would buy the ferrari. of course you would. there is no cost-benefit analysis required, as there is no real cost. i have no problem with excessive wealth. if you have money, by all means play with it.

but where this all moves into the annoying is that living 'off the mall' (ie, off the grid) is next to impossible in toronto, because you become self conscious at how much egregious displays of wealth there are. it's everywhere.

there doesn't feel like there is a world (in toronto at least) where the 'nah nah nah nah nah's' haven't moved in. Queen Street West used to be down and dirty but fun and sexy, until the Prat's moved in there too, driving up rents, home prices, and the amount of starbucks per block. it's too bad. the street was once littered with pretty girls in handmade frocks, artists slumming on the curb drinking coffee, and a general bohemian chic that has been usurped by a wealthier, showier group who wanted to aspire towards the 'real', but ended up turning the 'real' into a catwalk and a show and a scene. not that it wasn't a scene before, it's just that it has become a scene i don't like.

My gal and I call these invaders prat's (which has a real definition as: the fleshy part of the human body that you sit on, or: An ass (slang since 1968), equivalent to arsehole, as in the phrase 'don't be such a prat').

Our version of prat, however, means People Really About Themselves. The new yuppies: those who can't afford to wear Prada sunglasses, but do anyway, so they can feel superior to their middle class co-workers.... no, i don't understand either.

we then formed a club, PRAP: People Really Against Prats, but the first P is silent :), so if you ever get a verbal invite to "RAP", you'll know you're being invited into the club.

so, of course, this leads to: why do my coworkers hate the French? Not only do they hate their culture, they hate the people, the history, the language, the fact that service in a restaurant takes a long time (ummm... you're on vacation, relax :), that they gave up and ran 60 years ago, and that they are really liberal there, and liberal is the new word for idiot. yes, reader, there is a lot i do not understand about the modern world.

the french are capitalists too, they are a G8 member, they have an army, an air force, a democratic government... but because the french, as a nation, have mandated that they need only work 35 hours a week, 10 months a year, this flies in the face of their PRATishness, get more and more and more and more mentality.

it seems they react to any position that might render theirs invalid (ie, the French seem to have a good thing going, which flies in the face of their position, which is: money = happiness, work = money, therefore work = happiness). i'm sure we all react to position that might wound, puncture or bruise the fragile pyscho-bubbles we invent for ourselves to inhabit. it's just that... well, i think i must have been a frenchman in another life... or at least, a french poodle. a pampered one.

anyway, that my coworkers (ex-coworkers) greatest insult about the french was how long it takes to get service in a restaurant says more about the one insulting then the one insulted.

ours is a flawed system dominated by and reflecting the values of those who believe that everyone wants more money, because they have the money, they have the power, and they set the mandate. having wealth thrown in your face makes you aware of the power of money, and your position as a person without it: poo.

you are less important, less visible, less interesting. the arbiter of all things current and a great reflector of a society's taste, television, doesn't have shows about "people who do little things of no great import" (unless they're beautiful or rich, in which case there's an adundance of them) or "people who can't afford breast surgery who are moms at home" (unless they're brought onto a show and ridiculed for being ugly and poor) and "working middle class people buying toyotas" (unless they're poor schlups like you who get to win toyotas, in which case you're talking to bob barker and are a desperate representation of the american dream).

there will always be rich and poor. i understand.

there will always be classism. i get that too.

there will always be those who want to flaunt their success: i get it. that's fine.

there will always be labels and pretty things and dressing up and going out on the town and living a little and opening the purse strings and on and on and on, and i get all those things.

i'm not talking about owning a beautiful car because you love it (i am partial to the 1971 or 1970 porsche 911 myself - that 1970 is gold), or a nice pair of sunglasses because you thought they were awesome and wanted to splurge. i'm all fine with enjoying your life and rewarding yourself for working.

i'm talking about living and breathing eating sleeping and shitting money, and ways to show people that you have it so that you can say 'nah nah nah nah nah'. it's the nah nah nah nah nah that gets me. you love chanel sunglasses? great. they look lovely on you. but why are all the sunglass makers putting a humongous label on the side (have you seen the new sunglasses??) .

i would just like to see a little more fight against this type of materialism in popular culture, a little more rebellion. a little more 'sticking it to the man' instead of 'working for the man' (ie the apprentice), a little more 'money isn't everything' instead of 'i'll eat poo for money if it's on tv - yes, i will prove how depraved we are'.

until then... i'll just keep writing