Sell Out

In my ongoing quest to stop sleeping (and also to overcome bronchitis), Marty and I watched a Morgan Spurlock documentary, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.  For those of you who haven’t had the privilege of watching the most random movies that Netflix has to offer, this film followed Spurlock on a quest to obtain corporate sponsors for his latest movie, which just so happened to be a film about product placement and securing sponsorship for a movie. Go figure!

Many companies signed on as sponsors for the film, but each company served Spurlock with a lengthy list of specific conditions that had to be met before they would agree to back the movie. For example, only the title sponsor’s beverage could be consumed on film. A scene with Spurlock enjoying another sponsor’s frozen pizza had to be included in the movie. He had to conduct on-camera interviews while being seated in the premises of other sponsors, etc., etc.. What started as an awesome-sounding way to have his movie paid for became a logistically challenging nightmare. Was it possible for Spurlock to please every signed-on corporation but still maintain a shred of creative direction in the film, not to mention his personal integrity and dignity overall?

As if I’d ever tell.

Since I often excel at Missing the Point, when we started watching this movie, I immediately compiled a mental list of all the companies I wouldn’t mind shilling for in exchange for a tiny piece of my soul. Fluevog Shoes was an obvious first choice, followed closely by Zenka eyewear and then a handful of local stores here in Victoria (Smoking Lily for killer women’s clothes and Cafe Bliss for the best restaurant salad known to humankind.) Finding myself on a roll, I figured I could also be the unexpected spokeswoman for WordPress (Me and my underdog blog!), and I’d happily be the face of a thrift store in exchange for new-to-me outfits. Heck, I’d even pour my heart into promoting Mason Jars (which I love!) or organic lemons, although I’m not sure a jar contract would be the hippest or most lucrative sponsorship opportunity available in the world. (That said, the Mason Jar contract might be the coolest and most lucrative sponsorship opportunity available to me. Wayne Gretzky, I am not. But while we’re on a Wayne Tangent, I happened to spot him on a package of green tea at the grocery store recently. Schlepping for Mason Jars would be on par with posing for a box of green tea, methinks. But would I be offered as much money as Wayne? Highly doubtful.)

Image of the Great One via www.bigelowtea.com. Seriously, Wayne?

(I suppose I should clarify at this point that I do not receive anything from any of these companies, unless an enzymatic pick-me-up from a lemon every morning counts as sponsorship. Last time I checked, it didn’t. I do not receive monetary or in-kind payment from any of the above-mentioned companies, but if they were interested in owning a little piece of my soul moving forward, I just might oblige! )

*Note to companies that might be interested in sponsoring me in the future– please do not continue reading this post. Your time on this post is officially done. Thanks! For non-corporate readers, feel free to continue reading below.

The fact is, for most companies and products, I would probably make a terrible spokesperson. (Yes, I’m one of those people who prefers potential sponsorship contracts to line up with my pesky set of core values.) If I were a professional athlete– I know it’s a stretch but stay with me on this one– I wouldn’t feel right being the face of a fast food restaurant or a sugary breakfast cereal. If I were a high-powered celebrity– again, bear with me– I certainly wouldn’t be the one with a milk mustache in the magazine ads. (Squeezing a lemon, though? Sure thing! Call me, organic citrus industry!) I know that junk food is where most/all of the sponsorship money is, but who’s to say that an obscure French eyeglasses company wouldn’t want a little schlepping? And maybe the Mason Jar industry could use a little boosting with the under-75 crowd?

I’m really good at saying nice things about the people, products, and companies I believe in, but maybe it’s just because it’s way easier to be passionate about something when you’re telling the truth. (Case in point: during our crazy summers at the Harbour, people tell me every day that I’m a great spokesperson for our art business. Um, you think? Not to take away from the actual artwork, but saying nice things about my husband is a real no-brainer, people.) Would accepting money or gifts from companies to say those same nice things about them compromise my values or dilute my personal integrity? I wouldn’t know from personal experience, but it seems like the line between making a go at life via legitimate sponsors and plain old selling out is a very fine one.

What say you, readers?

Is there a product or company you’d gladly slap your face, signature, or tiny piece of your soul on?

Is sponsorship ever a good thing?

Do you think the Mason Jar people will call me?

Nostalgia

In case any of you were dying to know, the 2012 mantra for Cancer-born people such as myself is:

Letting Go Is Not Loss, It’s Freedom.

I have a bit of a hoarding problem, but mostly when it comes to memories. I’m getting much better at reducing the amount of physical stuff I have lying around (I’m talking to you, Grade 7 Social Studies class notes!), but I find it more difficult to part with the past or tokens that transport me down Memory Lane. Does de-cluttering involve getting rid of old journals and scrapbooks? Photo albums? Pictures that were supposed to go into albums but never made it past the lab sleeve? Photo negatives from the good old days of film cameras? Duplicates of photos I had planned to mail to friends, back in the good old days of regular post?

Me (in the middle) fake-smoking a cigarette that had been patched up with electrical tape. Classy memories to cherish forever!

(Yes, I have a lot of photos.) (And yes, I welcome suggestions re: what to do with a teetering stack of photos from Grade 11. Anyone? Bueller?)

You can’t just throw away your memories, can you? You can’t even donate them to Goodwill or recycle them in the most eco-friendly way possible. (Though my sister did score an XXXL shirt at the Goodwill once that proclaimed “World’s Best Grandma!” and boasted a screened photo of some random granny with a random tot on the front. She scaled it down to fit her rod-thin frame with her mad sewing skillz and then wore it with ironic pride for years.) Doesn’t that feel wrong, though? Can you really subject your should-be-private memories to the gaggle of hipster art students that pore through the aisles of local thrift stores seeking exactly these sorts of hand-me-down gems?

Front of the tin I use to store my crafty supplies

To date, I’ve burned some old notebooks in our wood stove– lined pages that contained countless lists and bullet points of everything I did in the summer of 1996. (Judging from the looks of it, not only was 1996 a stunningly boring summer– “8 glasses of water today, 650 jumps with the jump rope”– but I was also boring enough to write it all down! I wish I was making that particular jot note up, but thankfully, the whole notebook is ashes now.)

I can’t burn photographs, though. And there are some things I would never part with– but can’t, for the life of me, figure out how to save– except for keeping them in a box for eternity. There is the self-portrait that my 18-year old dad created for my 16-year old mother, one that embarrasses him profusely today and that only escaped inevitable destruction at his hands by landing into my piles of random shit:

The board is in terrible condition now, and the paint is fading and chipping, but I hold this painting so dear to my heart.

(By the way, I don’t think it’s the raw emotion or the tender-heartedness of the gesture that causes my dad to blush now. I think it’s the fact that he went on to art college and bid a firm adieu to figurative renderings– and especially self-portraits– forever.)

There’s a stack of posters I kept from the days when my mom worked closely with the design firms in Calgary. I wanted a career in advertising at the time and savoured the pop-art samples that the design firms produced:

Poster since donated, but worked with 3D glasses, too!

There’s the pair of underwear I coveted (but never wore– are you kidding me?) when my sister went to art college. I was working at a sexual health centre at the time and appreciated anything with a uterus on it. (I still do!)

Best purchase... ever? I used to pin these babies up on my bulletin board at work. Most of my coworkers rolled their eyes, but a select few understood my "so bad, it's good!" affinity for them.

(Even better than this was the shirt I bought from the same artist– no photos– which featured a flying uterus on the back! It was like the Detroit Red Wings logo, but with a uterus in place of the wheel. Absolutely righteous in my books!)

I can’t, and won’t, get rid of things like these– even if “letting go is freedom!” Where do you draw the line, though? What’s worth keeping, and what gets tossed, recycled, or donated? What do you do with buckets of old photographs, especially if the “gigantic collage” idea doesn’t seem even remotely appealing? (Seriously. The pics aren’t nearly old or good enough to be considered vintage and cool, but how many pictures do I really need of my junior high and high school friends? Suggestions are welcome!)

PS: I found it! A pic of me with my BFF, Gloria Steinem.

Distractions

I have several busy days awaiting me to round out the rest of this week. Like a blissful fool, I always picture our winter months involving a whole lotta nothing (except maybe kicking back or sipping on a tropical drink), but there’s always a gigantic To Do List looming and many Important Tasks that demand my undivided attention. This is life. “Time off” isn’t really time off completely… it’s just time off of the Harbour and time to do other, work-related things. Oh well.

The Things I Have To Do This Week are– even from an objective, practical standpoint– pretty important, and they also stand to shape the rest of 2012, for better or worse. (If I complete these tasks well, 2012 could become an exciting, prosperous, and thrilling adventure for Marty and I, but if I complete these tasks not so well…. well…. 2012 will carry on like any other year. It won’t be the end of the world, for sure, but wouldn’t it be fun to have an adventuresome 2012 instead?)

Deadlines are fast approaching, and I’m trying to focus, focus on the tasks at hand. Hocus pocus, focus focus. For the most part, things are getting written and revised, elaborated upon or neatly summarized, and progress is being made. But every now and again, I catch my mind wandering. It thinks about the weather outside or whether I could find any mail in our mailbox. (Should I walk the 2km there to find out?) It focuses on the lake, on the trees, on the sunshine, on the fog, on the squirrels, on the chickadees, and on those nameless water birds that swim right close to the beach. (Should I look them up on the internet?)

A particularly enchanting afternoon at the lake. Everything was candy-tinted and covered in a delicately sweet, marshmallowy mist.

Shamefully, my mind is also wandering even farther away sometimes, into Guilty, Forbidden Territory like reality television and who Ben might end up with on The Bachelor. (Gulp!!) I’m thinking about the afghan I’m knitting and wondering whether I particularly like the colours I’m using. (Why so neutral? What happened to the reds?) But the most common distraction I’m encountering has to do with boots. Tall boots. Red boots. Specifically, these boots:

Oh, John Fluevog-- why must you seize my mostly non-materialistic heart and make it so hellbent on owning your shoes??

I can’t stop thinking about them. I don’t need them, for sure, but I certainly want them. (Did you know you can remove the biker-ish hardware from them and have almost a completely different-looking pair of beautiful, red boots?) A January Sale is on, and I’m constantly debating: should I buy them? Will I love them? Should I reward myself for completing this week’s tasks with an over-the-top pair of delicious, red boots?

My thrift store heart is appalled. My modest bank account is trembling. My distracted, boot-loving brain is foaming at its brain-mouth. MUST HAVE THOSE BOOTS!

I’ve put a moratorium on my boot-buying debate until I can finish what’s ahead of me and approach the issue with a clear(er) head. What do you think? Do you love these boots or do you love them?

Thrift Score Wednesdays: Beggars Can’t Be Choosers

I have been bitten by the notorious travel bug. Again. Funnily enough, this always seems to happen right at the start of the Harbour season, aka right when we should be psyching ourselves up to spend six full months working long hours on the waterfront. Oops! The sun starts peeking out from the winter clouds here on the (gorgeous and scenic) west coast of Canada, and I instantly begin to daydream about exotic locales and faraway destinations: Morocco! Mongolia! Portugal! Croatia! India! Bali! Heck, I’ll even go to North Dakota– I just want to travel!

The Dancing Building, Prague

Clearly, now is not the time for jet-setting. Now is the time for hunkering down and earning a good chunk of this year’s income! I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. If we were smart and proactive, we would squirrel away enough funds during the summer to head off for 3 or 4 months each winter, but we haven’t developed our intelligence quite that much so far… We’re still trying like neanderthals to survive in regular ol’ Victoria all year round. (Until this winter, perhaps. Maybe this winter will finally be the time for jet-setting again. Fingers crossed?)

Anyway. Today’s edition of Thrift Scores shows off my easy, breezy, traveling-in-the-Czech-Republic secondhand ensemble:

Please, suh-- can I have some mo'?

When we visited the Czech Republic for 3 months back in 2006 (five whole years ago– can you believe it??), we brought a whole assortment of items with us over from Canada. (As you already know, we have a bit of a problem with packing light. You should see our emergency kit here in our apartment– good luck ever lifting that thing up without significant body building experience! Rawr!!) We packed hiking clothes (and hiking gear), cycling clothes (and cycling gear), summer clothes, autumn clothes, sunny weather clothes, rainy weather clothes, and some “nicer” city clothes in which to bum around fashionable Prague. We considered strapping our kitchen sink to our expedition packs as well (you know, just to be prepared and to round things off), but luckily, our home base suite just outside of Prague had a decent bathtub in which to wash our vegetables and dishes. Thank goodness for running water, at least.

Marty prepping our dinner in the boiler/bathtub/laundry room.

Ratty tank tops and short shorts weren’t going to cut it on days when we were taking in the city’s churches and museums, and we also weren’t about to hike on the country’s straight-up, straight-down hiking trails in a skirt… especially not me. (Marty? Maybe. The man looks delicious in a sarong.) So in addition to my quick-dry hiking pants and shorts, I also packed one sort-of-nice outfit: a cotton skirt and a pastel blouse– see above. Both of these items were picked up for less than $5 at two different thrift stores in Calgary. They served me very well every time we headed into a city or town and needed to look somewhat presentable. I could pass as a respectable member of the tourist society… at least when I wasn’t lounging on the cobblestones looking up like a little beggar girl.

(Just so you know, the people of the Czech Republic– as well as the people in most Eastern European countries, though everyone will vehemently deny it– still harbour a lot of prejudice against the Roma people. This can pose a particular problem for people like me, who have darker complexions by default and occasionally sit on the cobblestones to rest, which can look a bit like begging to the average passerby… As the summer heatwave went on in CZ and my skin got darker and darker, I started to feel the disparaging eyes of some locals on me. There was no open hostility towards me– possibly because I was on the arm of a blond-haired, Czech-speaking man– but things might have been worse if I was on my own. Just so you know.)

What are your travel outfit essentials? Any items that you won’t leave home without?

My "Tombraider" look... if Angelina Jolie ever sported a GIGANTIC fanny pack whilst kicking ass! (I'm trying to hide the monstrosity behind a jaunty hand-on-hip pose.)