Let's Talk (About Mental Illness)

In the mid-to-end 1990s, following the telecom boom and as the World Wide Web was just beginning to be used as a means for self-promotion, companies were trying to present a more humane side by publicly showcasing the benefits their employees could take advantage of, such as an in-house daycare services (Patagonia, SAS) and gyms, multiple team-building retreats per year (Philip Morris, Distributech), State of the Union-type gatherings in exotic locations where spouses were welcome (Industrial Alliance, Toyota), etc.

For many of these companies (Google, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Industrial Light & Magic), the ethical treatment of their employees translated into additional sales; for others, however, additional expenses meant nearing the brink of bankruptcy.

And, thus, because every major action brings forth an equal reaction, the 00s brought with them budget tightening, with organizations looking mainly to reduce what they saw as expenditures: wages, customer service, free coffee, lowering their standards from “excellence” to “satisfying” or “good enough”, extending their client base’s patience to its limit. Some cut on the big expenditures such as rent, travel or daycare. Others, such as American Apparel, saw their managers take on a more hands-on approach that was not appreciated by their employees.

What we are left with in the wake of a noble idea like #BellLetsTalk is to bring attention to such things as employee comfort and peace of mind, as work-related exhaustion and depression now accounts for 90% of mental illness in North America, among other overwhelming statistics such as:

(This infographic was crafted by Officevibe. )
So when Patagonia (and Goldman Sachs, for what it’s worth) claims it has a 25% lower turnover rate, that 100% of moms return to work after maternity leave and that morale is always high, when, in Canada, a dozen of the Top 100 Employers (according to the Globe & Mail) offer family-related perks and benefits, when ten of the Top 100 Employers (according to Fortune Magazine) in the U.S. offer daycare - including five insurance companies (Aflac, Atlantic Health, Meridian Health, Baptist Health South Florida and Bright Horizons Family Solutions) - it may be time for some employers to think about certain expenses, particularly those related to employee morale, as investments in current and future productivity instead of just money thrown away.

Which brings me back to #BellLetsTalk, a smart initiative and tool in de-stigmatizing mental illness in Canada, in getting people to talk about it and trying to find solutions to the problem. Marketing-wise, it’s also pure genius, as social media was saturated with Bell’s brand name for an entire day in support of a great cause.

If only they didn’t have a couple of public-relations disasters on their hands involving their firing of medium-profile employees over their asking for help in dealing with… mental illness.

Death In Vegas

I was in Las Vegas a month ago when the Paris attacks took place.

And this week, fellow Quebecers were in an accident on the strip where I spent most of my time there:



Those interviewed keep asking ''why''? The same was said about what happened in Paris, and in Beirut.

But there is no why. This one was a distressed woman. Terrorists have a cause. People need to realize many things, chief among them the fact that even if we cure everyone and every ill, one dissatisfied customer can take things to the extreme and crack - and kill.

That's life.

Another part of life is that we all die.

At birth, at one year old, at ten, at twenty-five, at fifty, at eighty-three, at one hundred years of age. Natural causes, AIDS, cancer, accident, murder - no one walking the earth's surface survives, ever.

Who the fuck cares how you die. Live for the moment. LIVE. Because Life hangs by a thread, and a tiny one that no one can see most times.

The Amanda Bynes Fiasco

Just when you thought it couldn't get any more entertaining/sad than Lindsay Lohan... another former child-star, Amanda Bynes, goes and puts herself in a situation where she gets in trouble.

Ultimately, it'll be up to a judge to decide to not treat her as he would a regular person because she is rich and famous and and rule her innocent, but for now, let us compare her mugshot her court picture, and her words:

Making Courtney Love look 'normal'

''I'm sotally tober, officer!''

And these pearls of wisdom:

“I'm suing NYPD for illegally entering my apartment, lying about drugs on me and lying about me tampering with non existent drug paraphernalia, then I'm suing for being put into a mental hospital against my will, then locked up overnight for coming home after a facial and working out with my trainer like the good girl that I am. I’m allergic to alcohol and drugs and don’t partake in any of the above. I’m so offended by all of this but so proud to not be a drug or alcohol user”.

Also:

“The judge saw that there was no drugs on me or proof of any type of bong or mental illness. I was so offended to even be taken to a mental hospital and they would not let me call my lawyer until the next day after being in jail all night, then I went to court and was immediately released because the judge saw that I was wrongly arrested.”

 Overlooking the fact that a judge cannot ''see'' something missing in the past in his absence, I take offense at her offense over the mental illness thing, as if it were something to be ashamed of, it shows a deep misunderstanding of people, and life in general. It's a pretty ignorant statement.

But the best part is still coming up:

“I'm also suing my apartment complex for lying about me smoking in my building. I'm free forever! You can't lock up an innocent person! Thanks for caring! Look forward to seeing me in music videos! I'm getting in shape and getting a nose job! I'm looking forward to a long and wonderful career as a singer/rapper!”

Uh, first of all, tons of innocent people are locked up - a few of them even made it to Death Row. Usually just because they are poor nobodies who suffer from mental illness. But you're clearly none of those, Amanda, so carry on.

So, uh, singer/rapper, eh? Are you so talented that you can be an actress - something that most 'actual' actresses devote decades to without ever earning a living from, and you've been doing on and off in a mediocre way for 10 years or so - and a singer at the same time - another job most professionals perfect for decades before even attempting public performance, then countless years honing their craft?

And rapper? You have a mastery of words and poetry beyond the scope that others do? Your grammar isn't all that awesome -although that could be the booze and/or drugs, but no, you're allergic to those -
and I'm guessing your improv (i.e. ''freestyle'') skills aren't that great if they couldn't get you out of getting arrested.

Unless... oh, did you mean as part of the Star System, with auto-tune, part of the big money-making machine, not in the real world? You wanna make a record, like Paris Hilton? A song featuring a young, hot rapper you can bone while filming a video over a weekend at a Hawaii resort? No need to go through the whole process, then, dear - just call up Pitbull. Everybody else already did. Except Miley Cyrus, she went to Snoop Dogg Lion.

The Sugar Shack

We could only handle it for two and a half hours...

The Sugar Shack is a yearly Québec tradition, where you convene either family members or friends - or both if you're really courageous - to a far-out place no one can get to without a vehicle to go eat, essentially, breakfast at supper time drenched in maple syrup. And you conclude it with maple taffy - or sugar on snow, which is exactly what it sounds like, boiled maple syrup essence hardened when it collides with the cold from the snow. It is one case where eating the brown/yellow snow is actually encouraged.

These places are alike more and more - and they take on each other's defects rather than qualities, as evidenced by most of them no longer serving fucking bacon anymore. Eggs, ham, toast, cretons, marmelade, baked potatoes - all good. Fried, salted bacon fat (''oreilles de crisse''), too, yeah. But bacon? Oh-the-fuck-no!

I was even told ''Sugar Shacks don't serve bacon, why would they''? Then why the fuck do grocery stores sell maple-fucking-flavoured bacon, then, genius? Where did they get the fucking idea?

At $20 a pop, plus gas, plus the fact that you have to endure everybody else's fucking kids running around on sugar highs when you deliberately chose not to have any of your own with this precise moment in mind as to why, having no bacon is really not going to put you on my good side.

I don't eat eggs, I'd rather not eat ham but will here, entirely submerged in maple syrup; same goes for cocktail-sized hot dog sausages. Without bacon, basically, these are all things I'd rather avoid, at a ridiculous cost to boot.

What I do, basically, is fill up on cretons and test my blood-sugar's capacities to the extreme by over-indulging in maple, both in syrup form and taffy-on-snow, then I get sleepy at 7PM because my body's on the brink of shutting down from temporary diabetes. But I don't care. I won't let these fuckers take my twenty bucks without a fight. Although after an hour and a half of kids running around like chickens with their heads cut off, and screaming like a b-movie actress in a casting session for a Wes Craven flick, I was more than ready to raise the white flag.

That could have been the epilogue to my story, but it isn't.

This was organized by a friend-of-a-friend, a radio personality. 80 of her guests were there... 40 of whom got sick. Major gastroenteritis. I was fine but know many of the ill. Either I have the super-stomach of a rat and can digest anything, or it was in something I didn't eat (eggs), or ate very little of (ham, sausages). It sure wasn't the maple syrup, the bread or the cretons.

I know one thing for sure, though: we won't be going back to that hell-hole next year!

R.I.P. Patrice O'Neal

After suffering a stroke in October, stand-up comedian Patrice O'Neal died today, succombing to a long, hard struggle with diabetes.

I last saw him in The Comedy Central Roast Of Charlie Sheen, and he alluded briefly to his disease, but I didn't think it was that serious.

I need to get tested. Soon.

Did you know that in Canada, 25% of diabetics are unaware they even have it?

Rats Exonerated For Plague

Nearly 700 years after the fact, a British archaeologist named Barney Sloane claims rats can now be considered off the hook for the infection which cost countless human lives - perhaps up to two-thirds of London in 1348 and 1349.

That's a relief. For rat lovers.

It now leaves the rest of us with more questions than answers, though.

Dirty People

Ok, so Fox News has a thing for scaring people and aren't the most reliable news provider out there.

Therefore, it shouldn't come as a surprise that they'd publish a piece about the human bellybutton and how it's home to hundreds of new species of bacteria. And that they'd slap it with a ''sexy and ethnic'' picture.

''Foreign is bad'', seems to be their motto, and anything concerning the human body is icky, particularly near the mid-section.

My Local Dive Burnt Down... And My Whole Fucking Hood Is Going Bat-Shit Crazy

What. The. Fuck. Eh?

It started a few weeks ago with some dude getting beat up right on my fucking doorstep. Like, seriously, pounded on the sidewalk, at 3:30 AM, parts of him touching my front porch. It pissed me off, but I had to intervene.

It seems the whole neighbourhood is on the brink of tremendous violence, in a fit of rage I can't even begin to comprehend.

Hours ago, in the middle of the night, my local neighbourhood dive bar, Bar Fullum, a place I was happy to frequent one a week because it was at the corner of my street and was now equipped with huge HD screens for me to watch hockey games and incite me to leave home during the cold, dead winter months, albeit not by straying too far - well, it burned down. 5:30 AM. It's gone, along with the two apartments that were on top of it. The newspapers say it wasn't criminal, but those who worked there aren't convinced.

And just a few minutes ago, as I went to the grocery, I saw a couple fighting violently on the street - screaming at each other and she hitting him - and what looked like two gangs engaging in a beef, two groups of maybe a dozen late teens/young adults each, engaging in fights, then forming a circle as two combatants got into it - right in the middle of a McDonald's parking lot.

It feels like one of those zombie/disease/violent rage movies, when shit's about to break loose. I'm here with two baseball bats, protecting my two cats and possessions, waiting for it to actually start so I can get working on upgrading my weapons, one at a time, so I can survive those fuckers.

I'm not crazy, I know it's not likely to happen. But if it does, I'll be the one asshole who is prepared: good music, enough brains to not follow everybody's path, a habit of not sleeping much and a bad attitude.

Germany's Top Goalie Plays Despite Incurable Cancer

If I had half this guy's will power, I'd sleep even less.

He has terminal brain cancer, yet still plays hockey at a top level in Europe.

He also has a wife and two kids, mind you, and maybe if I were in his situation, I'd try to see them a little more often than not, but you have to keep doing what you love to make it through the day, and if he can make time for both family and work/passion, all the better for him.

Hats off to you, Robert Müller of Kölner Haie (Cologne Sharks) in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga.