Unkie Herb

It’s a verb. Trust me.

It all started out innocent enough. I wanted to ride down to the local community centre to check out the gym and membership fees. As these things are subsidized by our underfunded city government, the prices are astronomically low (i.e. less than $10 a month) though they will be raised at the beginning of October. The gym, when I got there, was two floors and had tons of gear, a great set up. I’m looking forward to getting back in a weight room again.

The real story, though, is not about the facilities this city has on offer at great prices. No, unfortunately, this post is all about my first dooring. I’ve never been doored before, though all my cycling friends have a few scars from encounters with doors. I am, of course, talking about that neglectful piece of shit who opens their car door into the path of a vulnerable cyclist, causing superficial damage to the car and dangerous injuries to the rider.

As always, I was taking side streets. I cruised down a small street and noticed a large, white van obstructing most of the thoroughfare. A small space was between the passenger door and the parked cars on the right side of the road. As I neared the obstacle, I saw that the passenger door was slightly ajar, giving me just enough room to slide through. I approached and began whistling loudly, trying to get the attention of the man attached to the arm holding the door open. About ten feet from the rear of the vehicle, I began yelling loudly:

“Close your door! Close your door!”

The door didn’t move. I slowed but continued on to attempt cutting through the tiny gap that remained. Then, as if intentionally, right I was passing by, the man swung his door open, striking me in the left shoulder. I was mid sentence when it happened, and so ended up shouting “Close your…. FUCKING DOOR!”

I was flung off the bike, striking my shin on the pedals and my back on the parked car. I was bleeding and my shoulder throbbed. The man in the truck, which I now noticed was a City of Toronto maintenance van (touche), lazily leaned out the passenger window of his now closed door.

“Oh, sorry bud, didn’t see ya.”

“You didn’t hear me, you stupid fuck, ‘CLOSE YOUR DOOR! CLOSE YOUR DOOR!’?”

“Guess not, bud, maybe give me some bell next time.” He said, shrugging.

What a piece of shit, honestly. Doesn’t even have the decency to step out of the car, pick up my bike, or give me a genuine apology. But what am I to do? Pick a fight? Start a scene? I wasn’t that banged up, my bike was fine. But the asshole was so nonchalant about it that I felt like smashing his face in.

I hopped on my bike and rode away before I lost control. I’m sure he and his buddy laughed about it as I took off.

I feel like part of every driver’s test should be a dooring. They make you get on a bike and ride down a laneway, and random car doors will pop out and smack you. Then, once you’re all bruised up, you can get your license.

CHECK your goddamn mirror BEFORE you open your door. Every time.

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I only took my shirt off. I swear.

My name was Hunter. I took the elevator up to the 58th floor of First Canadian Place, the Bank of Montreal tower in downtown Toronto. It’s the highest skyscraper in the country, and I was about to delve as low as I’ve ever been. I stepped off the elevator and met with my friend’s sister, who was esctatic that I showed. She locked the reception area doors behind me and asked:

“Are you ready?”

Was I? I’m trying to treat this as no big deal but somewhere deep down I can’t help but feel like a low-key prostitute. The request was innocent enough: My friend’s sister is organizing a bridal shower for a co-worker. They are having a lunchtime party in the board room. She had arranged for a male friend of hers to “deliver” the cake to the bride-to-be, perhaps staying for a while to take photos. I have no idea how far the friend had agreed to go. The friend fell through.

And so, the night of my birthday, I returned home late at night to a new facebook message. It was long and apologetic. She needed someone to come through on short notice. I should be flattered, because she’s only asking guys she considers “cute” enough. She’ll pay me fifty bucks, it will only be fifteen minutes of my time, during my lunch break. My friend encouraged me: “since when are you shy?”

I took my shirt off and she handed me the cake. I knocked on the door and it was opened for me. Laughter and cheers all around. I smiled broadly and asked for the lady of the party. I sat on laps, took pictures, finger-fed and finger-ate. No dancing or anything, but still I couldn’t help but feel completely cheap and dirty. Not even the good dirty; nah, it was all dirty dirty. Ten minutes later, Hunter said his goodbyes and I got to put my shirt back on. The sister gave me lunch and a tip, which was nice, I suppose.

Financially speaking, it was a great job. In terms of self-respect, it was a kick in the balls. I sort of feel like this is the marijuana of whoredom, and that in three years I’ll have moved on to the crack of selling my body. Gateway drugs, indeed.

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It’s all your fault.

Sometimes I just want to rant on here. Write some stream of consciousness blab about this political bullshit or that annoying dude at the Starbucks counter, whatever. Sometimes I think that I am God’s gift to blogging and that all of you should run out and commission a billboard in your hometown devoted to me and my site to raise awareness.

What stops me is you. I sit down and check my site: no comments, again. I look at the date of my last post. Bah, a week ago. Gotta write something. Anything, just get something down. Rant. Just ramble. Go for it dude, you’re good at it. Ok… what to write about…. I know! I’ll check globeandmail.com and find some article or column that is crap or amazing. Either way, right?

This is generally where the whole system breaks down. I consider all your poor saps who religiously hop to unkieherb.com, anxiously awaiting the next gospel. I can only imagine your disappointment when it’s that same photo shoot from last week. But, even worse, are those terrible posts that bloggers toss up in a lame attempt to keep some regular posting going, regardless of how busy or boring their lives are. And so, self-consciously considering the well-being of the Unkie Herb Nation, I write nothing, and instead go on facecrack and get my voyeur fix for the hour (it regenerates quickly). The photo shoot stays.

I want you to know that I will keep writing, and only when I have something to say. I want you to know that I value your opinions and feedback (let’s derail the “no comments” train, shall we?). I want you to know that I love you, and I wouldn’t subject you to meaningless filler crap posts that are written just for the sake of removing that photo shoot from the top of my page.

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Thailand gets lowballed sometimes when people rap it as nothing but a sex-tourist hub. Man, it is so much more. The north especially is all about mountains, parks, waterfalls, temples and markets. That isn’t to say that the bar scene is lacking in places like Pai or Chiang Mai, but compared to Bangkok and the Kos, things are pretty laid back.

Here are a few shots from my motorbike loop from Chiang Mai, through Mae Hong Son and Pai.

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Driving home in my boxers felt good.

When I started this job I figured a few weeks at the most. I also figured I’d be able to work four or five days a week. I figured that I could use the exercise and the challenge of physically demanding, outdoor labour. What I didn’t figure into the equation was how mentally exhausting harassing people into having their driveways sealed could be.

So, I quit. I lasted six weeks, working three days a week on average, though this past week I only worked once. My days were generally, as mentioned, long. I’d wake up at six thirty, leave the house around ten after seven, and return home sometime after eleven at night. My commute was generally forty five minutes in the morning and thirty coming home. Isn’t there some sort of labour law against this sort of thing?

I did make decent money. I began to get good at selling, which is the key to pulling in the commission. I couldn’t help but feel slightly tainted, though, as people on budgets were pulled into spending a couple hundred on a driveway that, to be honest, probably doesn’t make a huge difference in their lives. Some days I’d make one to two hundred. Once or twice I made three to four hundred. It seems like a lot of money, but when you spend fifteen hours working, a three hundred dollar day is still just twenty bucks an hour.

Some guys I worked with came up with reasons they dug the job. It was outside, so they didn’t spend their summers locked in some office somewhere. They could take time off when they wanted, working every other day if they pleased. The single biggest motivator for everyone there was, of course the potential to earn hundreds of dollars a day, cash, tax free.

For me, I also enjoy being outdoors. Though, generally, I’m more satisfied by a day spent relaxing or playing sports, rather than on my hands and knees scraping weeds out of a frying pan hot asphalt driveway. When it’s forty degrees out, that black rock is hot. As well, taking a day off between fifteen hour days doesn’t exactly free up the sched. You get home from work with barely enough energy to wash yourself in paint thinner to remove the tar, then have a real shower, then go to bed. The next night you can’t go out and be social either, because you have to wake up at six. Real cracker of a vacation there.

The money. It’s all about the money. I sort of feel like the guys who work this job to pay their tuition are the male equivalent of those desperate girls who, going against every moral and self-respecting fiber in their body, strip for college money. They are your average, intelligent, attractive women who know that just a night or two a week and they can pay their way through. They hate the job and what they deal with, but the money breeds the sacrifice. Many of the guys I worked with were intelligent, personable guys (some girls work the job too, but not many). They had potential. And yet, instead of career advancing internships, they sacrifice mind and body for the allure of the green.

The worst part of every night was coming back to the headquarters and asking your friends how they did that day. Many, many times, people would only have finished one or two jobs. Twelve hours of knocking on doors, interrupting meals, disturbing families, and only a couple of hours of actual work. Fifteen hours after arriving, they’re on the bus back to Scarborough, with fifty bucks to show for it. That’s three dollars an hour.

Whore.

Last night I walked out of there and felt somewhat liberated. I knew that, if I wanted, I could come back and work another couple of days later this month. I didn’t want that option. And so, stopping at the dumpster in the parking lot, I removed all of my tar stained stuff and junked it. Off went my boots, socks, shirt, hat and even my pants. All of it into the bin. I drove home that night in my boxers, feeling the wind and laughing.

I may be poor. But the only night I took my clothes off was for me.

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How many spiders?

I had a funny thought just now while brushing my teeth. I laughed toothpaste all over the sink and mirror. It went like this.

While furiously scrubbing away a day’s worth of gunk, I came across a chunky bit or three. I immediately dismissed them, both physically and mentally, into the sink as hardened Crest bits. I then (almost as immediately) pulled a cerebral 180, my mind creating all sorts of tragicomic scenarios which would result in white chunks in one’s toothpaste. An early concept involved corrosive counterfeit Chinese “whitning” stuff plucking pieces off my molars.

And then, the transitional moment. I (predictably) considered seamen. That’s right. Envision an assembly line prank - two goofball factory workers get bored during a routine shift, let’s say. One of them jokes about how no one would ever notice a little spooge, given the immensity of the vats. The other takes it a little further, guffawing over Americans cleaning their pearls with pron putz (the factory’s still gotta be in China, after all). You get where I’m going. For some reason, the clue goo hardens into little chunks - reacts with the baking soda, whatever.

I’m still brushing at this point, but now pretty distracted. I begin to consider the actual likelihood that all of us consume, at some point, prank or accident based funky elements in food, drinks, and other consumables. We’ve all heard the “the average spliy aasdae consumes ankjnh spiders while sleeping asdad ompkm” crap. I can’t really believe that in all of the breweries, canneries, meat packers, restaurants, coffee shops, factories, production lines and whatever else my endlessly ingested products go through, someone hasn’t taken a piss, jerk, pinch, spit, pour, toss, whatever in the wrong place. I’ve probably consumed some shit.

The thing that clinches it for me as I rinse off my brush and wipe my face is that some scandals have revealed embarrassing additives in public places. I find a story about a kid in suburban Chicago who gets busted after banking one into the ranch dressing bottle and replacing it for public use in the cafeteria. How many kids have done that without us noticing? It’s easier (and probably covered up better) when it happens into a vat of a few thousand gallons in some factory somewhere.

Anyway, you can see where my mind goes when I let it off the leash. No wonder I have fantasies of novels and screenplays (though trust this isn’t a central idea for a new storyboard). It does lend some support, however, for my rival camp, the “ignorance is…” crew.

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Give it a few days and US senators will be blaming it for the “homosexual epidemic”.

An American health panel has revealed that unsafe levels of a chemical - bisphenol A - are being found in human test subjects. Check the Globe and Mail article here. This chemical is, effectively speaking, a whole lot like estrogen, a female sex hormone.

Now, those in the biz - i.e. plastics manufacturers who use it in everything from baby bottles, soup can linings and sunglasses - claim that our body breaks it down into some harmless substance that floats around unobtrusively. Doctors and scientists are beginning to question that claim, simply because the sheer amount of intake is overwhelming the body’s ability to do so. Should you be afraid?

Well, no. Concerned, maybe, but fear never solves nothing. I, for one, am concerned. After all, who wants an uninvited estrogen invasion every time I crack a can of Campbell’s or fill up my Nalgene? Won’t that shrink my testicles up into little grapes that shoot blanks?

No, Evan, calm down.

But, laboratory tests on animals with similar levels of the chemical are worrying. Studies, which are always taken with salt grains, show increased levels of bisphenol A can lead to a whole load of health issues. The list includes, but isn’t exclusive to:

breast cancer, prostate cancer, obesity, hyperactivity, attention deficit disorder, and so on.

Once again I wish to avoid the fear-monger title and I reiterate that these are just studies. But, then again, consider that levels of all of the above illnesses have risen incredibly in the last few decades. I wonder if the frequency of ingesting this chemical has followed a similar path?

Two questions I have, just trying to be realistic here:

1. Isn’t it possible that we can take this stuff out of baby bottles? I mean, clearly infants are the most vulnerable to this sort of thing, being smaller and also in a rapid state of development.

2. Do we really need this stuff? Why is it loaded into every food container and dental sealant? Isn’t there some other substance without a laundry list of negative results that could be considered? Why does the industry defend its dirty record - whether or not it’s justified - when they could remove the product and save everyone a lot of trouble?

In the end, I’m sort of torn here. I hate reactionary behaviour - like dismantling playgrounds because a kid broke his leg - but I also hate the way we shrug off harmful products. Perhaps governments should regulate this substance, but maybe all they need to do is force companies to list the level of the chemical on the packaging. That way, it is a consumer driven move away from the substance, forcing manufacturers to change.

I already saw an advertisement for bisphenol-A free baby bottles on Google. There you go. Progress.

Anyway, off to pour some hot soup into a baby bottle and then crush up and inhale my shades.

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