When you learn the parsha for your Bar/Bat Mitzvah, you have to learn both Hebrew letters and notes. The trick is that when you are actually up at the bimah in front of everybody, the Torah doesn’t have notes in it! So you just have to remember. Luckily, your shitty, adolescent breaking voice will cover…
Ten Things I've Learned
Ten things I've learned from making eye contact
Keep your head up, in basketball and in life. It really helps to see what’s going on around you. Court vision. Holding eye contact can be threatening, powerful, awkward, meaningful, sad, or passionate. It’s hard to be apathetic when you are staring into somebody’s eyes…it evokes some kind of emotional response. When you want to…
Ten things I've learned from being depressed
Depression isn’t a constant…it comes and goes. Being depressed often has little to do with how much you have or don’t have. A good job, a relationship, friends, money…none of those things necessarily mean that you will avoid the emotional or physical manifestations of depression. Being friendly and happy can be incredibly draining when it’s…
Ten things I've learned working for charities
Free is never really free. A friend who helps you as a favour or a volunteer (great as they are) do not have the same accountability of paid professionals. You can get by with a lot less than you think you need to get by. People talk a lot about overpaid non-profit staff, but I…
Ten things I've learned from meeting celebrities
If you have an opportunity to ask one question of a seminal funk and jazz musician, do not ask “who’s your favourite rapper?” Celebrities are just like us, only they aren’t. And both of you know it. “When you try to pull a girl, who is also famous too…it feels just like when you wasn’t…
Ten things I've learned from making speeches
Speak to the back of the room. Keep your chin up. Body language is often more impactful than the words you are saying. You are as confident as you feel. Speeches should be, ideally, memorized. Second best is off-the-cuff with bullet-point notes. Worst is read straight off the page without looking up. The audience is…
Ten things I've learned from my mom
Comedy may not be genetic, but it sure helps to have a funny mom. In my case, my mom was professionally funny (she was in the Air Farce when it was a sketch troupe called “The Jest Society”!). Even if you are 5 feet and change, you can be very intimidating with the right gestures…
Ten things I’ve learned from getting a mohawk in high school
When a seemingly conventional person makes an unconventional statement, everybody around them notices. Maintaining a mohawk is harder than you might initially think. You need “Ice” spray, or egg whites, the right comb, and a lot of time. There was a time when punk music was relevant, exciting, and anti-authoritarian. It may not sound the…
Ten things I’ve learned from passive-aggression
Note: I have both perpetuated and been the recipient of passive-aggressive behaviour. The internal logic that says it is reasonable to, say, steal somebody’s milk because they made too much noise last night does not function the same way in the outside world. Writing a note may still result in a confrontation at a later…
Ten things I've learned from networking events
Over 90% of strangers you meet at any given event will be boring people you have very little in common with. At first glance, most people will probably feel the same way about you. Schmoozing and socializing well is a learned skill. It takes a lot of training to do well, and even then, you…
Ten things I’ve learned from my cousin Jimmy
If you own a bar in Costa Rica, and that bar is staffed with young women, and those young women approach male clients who pay them for sex, then you own a brothel, which makes you a pimp. You can’t say you love America and then brag about how you live outside of the country…
Ten things I’ve learned from never smoking marijuana
Some things are so common, that people cannot understand why you have never done them. Most people have at least tried weed, even if they don’t smoke it regularly. Different drugs make people annoying in different ways. Ecstasy makes people hug you when they are sweaty. Cocaine makes people talk at you quickly and energetically.…
Ten things I've learned from conflict
Being young, dumb, and full of repressed sexuality often means embracing conflict, and creating antagonistic situations. Maybe it’s physical, maybe it’s activism, maybe it’s just yelling for the hell of it. I still get nervous whenever I know I might be in a potentially serious conflict with another person. I use humour as a defense…
Ten things I've learned from the blues
The pentatonic scale can fake you through a lot of solos, and make you sound a lot better than you are to the untrained ear. Every day but Saturday can give you the blues. Saturday gives you the blues by Sunday morning. A woman can really break a man down. And a ramblin’ man can…
Ten things I’ve learned from quitting jobs
It’s never as hard as you think it’s going to be. They will, eventually, be ok without you. No matter how cathartic it may seem to be dramatic or tell your boss to fuck off, it’s always better to be professional. Give two weeks (at least), have a letter ready, and be honest but diplomatic.…
Ten things I’ve learned from visiting Wreck (nude) beach in Vancouver
With a healthy demand and the right demographic, you can make an excellent living selling almost anything: sarongs, rain sticks, beer by the bottle, and of course “chicken…coconut buns!” Flaccid penises = no big deal…kinda funny. It is equally strange to be naked among suit-wearing people as it is to be wearing a suit at…