They launch today in Los Angeles. Here’s what they’re all about:

“GMG is a large-scale, high-profile environmental coalition of musicians, industry leaders and music fans using our collective power to bring about widespread environmental change within the music industry and around the globe.”

Pretty cool, right?

::

Your clutch has been lost
And your master cylinder
No longer masters

::

You, never icy
Me, cranking your defrost knob
In heat together

I’ve slept in your bed
But now I can’t turn you on
How time changes all

::

Your lazy eye sags
You always saw the rogue cats
While looking straight down

Your bumper bumped
While protecting your big heart
Rust is your gray hair

::

With no stereo
I basked in your RPMs
you purred like a dog

Oh, mixed messages
Your stick made me question your
Femininity

::

Two Hundred Dollars
You were cheaper than my phone
And went twice as fast

::

Sweet, sweet Margaret
How can we go back in time
When you can’t reverse

I don’t think I ever believed that 27 existed. Well, sure I did, but only for old people. That’s how old my mom was when she had me. That means it’s old. And it means that for the rest of my life, I’ll be more than half as old as her.

My Grandpa told me that women don’t truly get interesting until they’re 27. Maybe it’s just something that 27 year old men say because it’s the first time that their declining sex drive has put “looks good in jeans” after “is interesting” on the check list. In fact, I bet that testicles see 27 as the optimal transition into early retirement. Them, and hair follicles, who I’m sure will just start packing up to migrate toward the greener pastures around my nipples and anus (which I imagine to be like Florida and Palm Springs for hair).

27 is the end of the mid-20s. It’s the late 20’s, a time that’s seems to be characterized by being overworked, underpaid, and conflicted between being expected to grow up and wanting to stay young. It’s the year that you go to your 10 year high school reunion and gawk at the hot people that used to get picked on and the fat/bald people that used to pick on them, while trying to figure out which category you fit into because it’s been too long to remember or still care.

27 means that, while I think back to my glory days as a “hockey player”, there are kids being drafted to play in the NHL that weren’t born until I already had pubic hair. It means that I’m still sore after my beer league game 3 days ago because, well, my back just isn’t as strong as it used to be.

I’d write more, but my bladder control isn’t so good. And after I deal with that I need to go trim some rogue ear hairs and refill my Viagra prescription.

I turned 27 today.

A campaign video for tcktcktck.org

A video explaining SFU’s Canada’s World project.

A series of 20 simple motion pieces describing MEC’s new bike offering.

A 4-episode cooking show for Gardein & Harper Collins for the launch of Tal Ronnen’s new book, The Conscious Cook. Note: we didn’t choose the music :) — but the video is on Oprah.com, which more than makes up for it.

Nothing funny happened today.

We left this morning early and drove out — ”we” being the HOW volunteer team — to a government-run orphanage. The intent was to bring milk and socks and treats and to play with the children. My job was to film. When we arrived, it turned out that I had to leave the video camera in the van… and that there wasn’t a whole lot of play allowed at all. They treated us like tourists at a zoo, leading us from room to room displaying a group of kids in some condition or another. We wore masks.

We spent about 15 minutes with a group of kids suffering from hydrocephalus — a swelling of the head due to fluid accumulation around the brain. They were lying in their beds, heads the size of watermelons in some cases, waiting to die.

The car was full of broken hearts on the way back… and it raised huge question for many of us: what is the gauge of positive impact? Does holding a child’s hand for 5 minutes help? Yes. Does it help enough? No. What’s enough? Fucked if I know.

I had a long talk with a few from the group when we returned (over a beer, naturally), and it really made me see the heart of this organization. These people care so so deeply about these kids, and we weren’t at the orphanage so that we could witness something awful; it was so that each time they return, more and more trust can be built up. It starts with socks and milk. Then sanitation and medical supplies. Then art projects. Then with medical assistance and surgeries. And eventually, bit by bit, these children start to get more, and get a chance to be loved properly before they get to where we saw them today — with heads three times the size they should be, connected to a feeding tube, in a numbered room with numbered rows and nobody to touch or smile at them.

More photos from Vietnam on Flickr

My first day in Ho Chi Minh City was spent filming at a girls’ orphanage with a team of HOW (Helping Orphans Worldwide) volunteers as they drew with, cuddled, blew bubbles at, and pretty much just loved like crazy a group of young girls.

You may hear people referring to the “vietnam war” — in many cases, they’re talking about the bubble fight that I lost miserably at the Lotus Girl’s School. Those girls are tough. They beat the shite out of me with bubbles, and I have greasy film all over my camera gear to prove it.

As we headed back to town, a dinner location was decided upon and I heard myself say aloud, “Sounds great, but first I need to pop out and find some dong.” I spend the majority of the uncomfortable silence that followed reminding myself that, although “dong” may be the vietnamese currency, it’s also slang for penis. Is that a dong in your pocket or are you just…. oh never mind.

Today was a day off for the volunteers, so I accompanied Hillary — the Executive Director — to the children’s hospital. Awesome. Cute. Great. Perfect.

This was followed by an ambitious trip to the “Chinese Market” — a large “wholesale market” that presumably services “retail markets” — in search of paper lanterns. Well, it’s too bad we weren’t looking for EVERYTHING, because we would have found it. I stumbled into a giant stall that only sold plastic plants and fruit. All I could think as I looked through the rows and rows of… stuff, was that one day we’ll run out of oil and wonder, “Why did we have to make all of those fucking plastic bananas?”

Closing tidbit: if I were ever to fall out of a window here, my sole concern would be getting electrocuted. I find it improbable to think that I may reach the ground. See below.

They need a video.

In five minutes I board a flight to Taipei and then on to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

I’m making them a video.

Life has been happening so fast lately — it turns out that I haven’t logged into my own blog in 2 months — so I’m simultaneously elated and terrified to be out of the office for a week with time to watch, photograph, reflect and hopefully write. What I’m hoping is that this is a chance for my spirit to take a deep breath. Spend time with children. Make beautiful media. Help, in some part, to make a difference for a group of people that are really making a difference.

So, for the next week I’ll be with the seemingly wonderful people at HOW, which thrills me. Although, what thrills me more than anything is a 13 hour flight with no phone, no internet, and nothing to do but sleep.

Boarding.

PS - the tree was going to be cut down anyway… so I offered to do it by hand.

You are one fresh and original provider of marketing solutions. I’m excited and relieved that you have joined the twitter revolution and that you have a new tool with which to exercise your freshness/originality (freshinality?) and to provide valuable transparency about your marketing expertise. I’m honoured that you’ve followed me and I simply can’t wait to click through to your website and—oh, wait a sec… Hey, no harm, no foul Allison! I’m still interested in following you (admittedly because I can see cleavage in your profile photo). I’ll just read some of your recent tweets so that I can get a real sense of who you, and your fresh and original team, are—oh, wait a minute… You know what Allison, forget the silly foreplay. All good marketers know that there are perfectly good bots to do all of this personal feel good marketing stuff anyway. And that’s what I like about you; you know efficiency when you see it. In fact, I bet you’re too busy providing fresh and original marketing solutions to use these fresh and original marketing tools anyhow. Let’s just draft up a large contract and get started. At least you spelled Twitter right—oh, hold on a minute…

Truly yours from your new client,

Jay

If I was Photoshop, I’d use the clone stamp tool to get rid of the odd zit.

Really, all you need to know is on pages 25, 60, 90, 93, 111, 123, and 168 which is when I’m imparting deep wisdom about things like YouTube, and making money on it. As you can see from the glossary, I’m 7 times more important than Al Gore, Greenpeace and Google. And (not shown in the image) I can’t fail to mention that my company, Giant Ant Media is also twice as important as Google (a little company that you may have heard of which owns YouTube). In fact, right now we’re planning to buy Youtube outright from Google. I’m also thinking about running for President. I figure I’m about 7 times more likely to be elected than that Gore guy… if this is any indication.

If you pick up the book, you’ll learn secrets about how I was able to quit my job and sit back as the phat cheques roll in every few months. The snapshot below was taken right before I ran to the bank and bought like six cars or something. I don’t know, I lost track.

On a serious note, I’m flattered that Brad and Deb Schepp interviewed us for the book. They talked about us very graciously as an example of people that were able to start a business (Giant Ant Media) after a video (How to Shower: Men vs Women) did well on YouTube.

I wish them great success!

On the way up we stopped for ice cream at a used car lot, drank Jack Daniels and ate fatty American treats to refresh our thirst.

I fell asleep some time after crossing the Mackinac Bridge - the one that was on my drivers license that traverses the straight between Lakes Michigan and Huron - and woke up as we drove through an immense cemetery full of a perfect grid of white headstones. I rubbed my eyes and, as they focused, I saw that it was just a clear cut full of sun-bleached stumps. There was something sad about the similarity. It was as though they had been planted in that perfect grid just so that they would look orderly when dead. They had perfectly scribed epitaphs on their sawed tops - decades of rings that told a story about each and every year that protected their core until it didn’t matter anymore. If we’d stopped the car we could have read about years of flood, years of drought, years of disease.

It got me thinking about James. We didn’t talk about, or even mention, cancer for the entire four days. I wondered if, on the inside, James had layers of rings in there somewhere that told the story.

In the end, it didn’t matter. We didn’t talk about his growth rings. Instead, we drank around the fire until it was a good idea to jump over it naked while others spat JD on the flame, and then slept and repeated. But I still wondered about his rings.

When Jess’ sister, Leila, decided to shave her head for cancer awareness recently, it automatically made me think of that weekend with James and the tree grave yard. And, because of that, it seemed like a cool thing to try to help her with.

Leila is shaving her head with Balding For Dollars on May 9th in order to raise money for families dealing with childhood Cancer… as a way of easing the severity of the growth rings that they will inevitably add.

Jess put a website together for her, and I made some videos to help her tell her story. If you feel compelled, please engage.

Brought to you by AdHack.com… and Ren, the guy that wrote the script.

At first it was scary. I was confused. But then something changed inside me… I picked up a book… and began to read. In fact, over the course of the weekend, I read an ENTIRE novel (A Long Way Gone - worth picking up). For those of you unsure what this means, that’s like reading… I dunno… 300 blog posts. Or, like… 5000 tweets.

It got crazier! I dug a hole, and we filled it with fire and rocks…. and then we buried a pot with a turkey in it and cooked dinner underground!

And then I cut a tree down. With an axe!

And then I went out onto the beach with a shovel and dug up clams. And then boiled them over the turkey fire!

And then we ate the turkey! And went to bed early because it was dark!

I’m so pumped… although disappointed that my first instinct was to write a blog post.

Analog, I’ve failed you.

Courtesy of James Sherrett, who also coerced us into the above salumi stuffing.

Although I loved the talk, I couldn’t relate. My romance with the internet was more like a happenstance of us standing side by side when the ugly lights went on at 2am. We were hammered, and went home with one another because the other’s pants fit nice and snug.

At breakfast in the morning there was a lot of, “This will never work… I’m so analog, you’re so digital.” But the damage was done; we’d tasted one another. We were in love.

So, when I saw Brett Gaylor’s film, RiP: A Remix Manifesto, last night, I stared at the screen with that starry look in my eyes that only happens when you glance at something that you love and remember exactly why you fell in love in the first place. The film is a meticulously chaotic survey of remix culture and its implications on art, commerce and law. What’s a remix? Something re-structured or a combination two or more things to create something new.

So what? For me, the moment where I truly realized what the internet was 26 months ago was when I took a couple of viral emails (script), two good electronic songs (score), and shot some crude digital video with Leah. I went back to Michigan and we bounced the file back and forth via email, remixing each other’s work… which was a remix to begin with. We threw it out to the internet to give it back to where we took it from. The video we made, How to Shower: Men Vs Women, went all over the place. Somebody even re-shot it in Portuguese. That was it - we quit our jobs and decided to be full time content creators, mixing and remixing content to make new stuff that’s better, worse, different.. or all three.

Go see this film. It might just change the way you think about stuff. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to start remixing everything; I’m gonna poop standing up, wear white after Labour Day…. All in the name of art.

Here’s a preview that we put together to give you all a taste of the project.

Know an Austin Powers enthusiast? Give the gift of B-level comedy (the kind everyone likes) in the form of B-level sweets. Come on, you remember Cinnamon Toast Crunch right? It was a breakfast cereal box office smash! And I know that some of you watched Gold Member and thought, “That Minime… I could just eat him.”

CocoYoko Ono

Still pissed at Yoko for ruining your life when she broke up the Beatles? Lord knows I am [*shakes fist in the air, angrily screaming "Yooooookooooo, you've won this battle but the war has just begun!*]. Well, it’s time to get back at that beeeotch. Eat her head, melt her down and pour her on strawberries [did you know that she HATES strawberries? Why do you think she broke the Beatles up? It was that Strawberry Fields Forever song... she never forgave Paul]. There’s nothing more loco than eating a coco Yoko.

This is war, Yoko! And I know how much you hate that!

Bachs of Chocolate

Need a highbrow treat for a symphony enthusiast? Look no further! Bachs of Chocolate are the answer. Let them close their eyes and listen to the celebrated Toccata and Fugue in D Minor while nibbling Bach’s white chocolate ear. Allow me to suggest a pairing of the Cello Suites with dark chocolate, and perhaps the Sonatas and Partitas for violin solo with milk chocolate Bach.

Please treat lightly while listening to St. Matthew Passion. I won’t be held responsible for any unexpected Bachgasms.

A time capsule

_____________________________________________________________________

Friday May 16 2003

Bonjour. How are you all? Things here going quite nicely. I’m starting to feel settled. All of the new roomies have arrived… no bitter fighting yet. I feel like i’m on estrogen overload though. Better in theory than in practice.

I’m starting to feel like i’ve got a pretty good handle on the city. My place couldn’t be in a better spot…. I can’t get over it. Lots of really done up people… like a bunch of cookie cutter drones; everyone in bleach stained jeans, wierd euro loud shirts that i don’t yet understand and those trendy see through sunglasses… you know?

I was somewhere down in old montreal the other day drawing a building or something and it hit me that I have absolutely nothing to do until july…. it was exciting.

I’m determined to figure out the guitar and have some pretty wicked blisters to prove it. I’m almost finished a big painting of Adam Neilson sitting on the toilet. Adam, you might need to buy it for your wife.

Yesterday I decided it would be a good idea to run up the mountain. It seemed like a good idea until i started to run. Since when do run anywhere, let alone up mountains? (For those of you who aren’t sure, the answer is I don’t). Not only did i run up a mountain, I pulled my “yeah, I jog” routine and ran really fast up the mountain. when I got to the top I realized that I could have driven up… or taken a cab… and felt extremely misled. “BULLSHIT,” I shouted! Then i swore in french too so that no one was left out from my dismay. The top was lovely…. good view, although it’s no vancouver. I took the short cut on the way down (which also left me feeling deceived, having not discovered it on the way up).

I discovered the problem with my gym: until a couple of years ago, when they let us breeders join, LaCite was an exclusive club for gay francophones. It explains everything. Well, not everything, but it explains all of the naked men rubbing one another… and the hotpants… and the tanning bed in the change room.

J

VASS is holding their [only] annual fundraiser this month, and could use some serious word of mouth (and mouse).

Please enjoy. A time capsule from my life.

_____________________________________________________________________

Friday May 2 2003

I’m here… in montreal. Tuesday was the day from hell. I booked my flight with Aeroplan (thanx dad) and they made it their mission to give me the scenic ruite with a stop in Edmonton, Winepeg, then Ottawa… 4 HOURS IN OTTAWA. If was on something high enough, I could have peed on Montreal from where I sat, longingly staring East.

So after 4 hours without the book that I left on the seat of my previous flight, I got onto a plane that looked like a toy and which sat about 20. It felt like some weird Air Canada Jazz version of a bad foreshadowing scene from an Indiana Jones film. I ended up sitting next to the “I hate flying” guy. It was either that, or he was Indiana Jones and knew something that I didn’t. There were about 15 open seats and he climbed over my lap to sit next to emergency exit. It didn’t much matter because as soon as we stopped climbing we started to descent again. I should have walked.

Wednesday was beautiful…. not super warm, but absolutely gorgeous. I spent about three hours walking around the city in my toque and the wool jacket i stole from Jason [edit: I actually left it in Montreal. I still feel bad about it]… i think i was the only guy on St. Dennis without leather pants. I managed to get a wicked sunburn that nicely followed the contour of my toque down the side of my face.

On the porch.

Yesterday we moved into our new place…. It is GREAT. My room looks out to the street from the third floor of this old old house/apartment. Twelve foot ceilings, hardwood floors… my room has a huge blue stained glass window. It’s about the size of three of my rooms…. four. It’s amazing. I’ll take photos.

Today i went down to a local gym and grabbed a membership for two months. The place is a gay man’s mecca. I made the decision that i didn’t need to go into the change room again; it was as though I’d stumbled though a wrinkle in time right into a Greek bath house…. sauna, jacuzzis, steam room, tanning bed… all, apparently, with an unwritten no clothing man-code. I think the other rule that I missed was that you need to pair up and rub your partner down with moisturizer… really bizarre….

Alright. Enough for now… having a good time. As soon as we get the internet set up, I’ll send some individual emails.

Ciao. j

Swing over to AdHack.com/BALLS for the contest. You tell them what happened next. The best script will get made. And that’s pretty cool ::

While you’re there, listen to the Balls song and make your own avatar like these ones (and if you do, make a comment so that it can be found and shown off with the others) ::

Don’t forget to share the balls. Pass it along on twitter, facebook, your blog, etc. A little balls go a long way!

This is a little animation we put together for the Giant Ant Media open house this past Friday.

As you may have noticed, we re-launched our little company last week in conjunction with Chinese New Years with a new studio in Gastown, a couple of new team members, and a brand spanking new website. 2009 is the year of the Ant.

Thanks to those of you that come down on Friday and drank beer with us. We had a great time. For those of you who couldn’t make it, swing by the site and poke around.

I want to break up. And I want to have one of those ugly breakups where none of my friends ever talk to you again. I want sides to be taken. I don’t want you dating my buddies a few months from now. It needs to be a clean break.

Why, you might ask? Things were going so well, right? It all started about a year ago. Remember that non-profit I helped to start, Watch For Change? Well, we ordered business cards from you. The files said grey, but you printed them purple. Remember when you sent new ones to fix the mishap and they were purple too? And then you sent more purple cards to make up for it. I have a closet full of cards now that I’m still embarrassed to give out. Once the dust has settled, you can pick them up along with your toothbrush and Moulin Rouge DVD.

It was only one time? No it wasn’t, Overnightprints.com. Remeber that time that I ordered Christmas Cards for Urban Project, that charity I’m a Director of? They were supposed to arrive by December 17th. Remember when I called you on Dec 22nd asking where they were, and you told me I’d have them by the 26th? Yeah… I can see by the look on your face that you remember. And then remember when they hadn’t arrived by the 28th and I called? Do you remember telling me that you’d gone ahead and cancelled the order for no particular reason? Yeah, that was pretty lame.

I know you hate it when I yell at you, so at first I really appreciated the “full refund” you gave me when you cancelled the order. So much so, that I changed the card to a Happy New Year card and re-ordered.

But then I looked at my credit card statement. Did you really need to stiff me for that $6? I know you might have been angry about the things I said and I know that we shouldn’t argue when I’ve been drinking… but $6? Do you really feel better about the situation after stealing six lousy bucks from a charity?

I’m over you Overnightprints.com. I’ve thrown out your love letters, I’ve deleted your number from my phone.

I’m over-reacting, you say? Well, I haven’t told you about the best part yet. Remember those cards that I re-ordered? The ones that I changed to Happy New Year cards? The ones that were a week late? Well they arrived. At first I didn’t mind paying the $ 34.00 brokerage fee; I was just so happy to have you back in my life. Excitedly, I poured myself a glass of wine, put on my nicest shirt, and tore open my package from you.

You sent me blank cards. You charged a me $71.00 for blank cards, with a $ 34.00 brokerage fee.

I knew you were petty, Overnightprints.com, but I never knew you’d stoop this low. I want to tell you though, I got the last laugh; I peed on your toothbrush… and then I told all my friends about what you did.

Sincerely from your ex-customer,

Jay Grandin

PS - I’ll be calling you between 9 and 5 tomorrow for my full refund.

They tell the story much better than I in this video they just put together.

10 things I may, or may not have, called a bowel movement in 2008

1. A bowel Movement
2. Moving Brown
3. Hanging a Root
4. Dropping the Kids off at the Pool (or other comedically-timed location)
5. Defecating
6. Greasing the Loaf Pan
7. Making a Poo
8. Laying a Coil
9. Merde-ing
10. Slaying a Poo Dragon

10 over-hyped food items by year

2008 Pho
2007 Yam Fries
2006 Tapas
2005 Edimame
2003 Asian/Oriental/Thai Chicken Salad
1996 Bubble Tea
1995 The Cappuccino
1994 Chicken Caesar Salad
1988 Quiche
1972 Fondu

(photo by Arnór Hreiðarsson’s on flickr)

10 songs I never want to hear again

1. Coldplay - Don’t Panic
2. The Shins - Caring Is Creepy
3. Zero 7 - In The Waiting Line
4. The Shins - New Slang
5. Colin Hay - I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You
6. Cary Brothers - Blue Eyes
7. Remy Zero - Fair
8. Nick Drake - One Of These Things First
9. Thievery Corporation - Lebanese Blonde
10. Simon & Garfunkel - The Only Living Boy In New York

You might be thinking, “Aren’t those the first ten songs of the Garden State soundtrack?” Yes they are. Stop playing it at parties.

Happy [almost] New Year everybody!

In any case, I peed a little bit [it would have been in my pants if I were wearing any - instead I just peed all over my desk chair] when I saw the Giant Ant Media holiday card occupying a lovely piece of real-estate on the home page. Thanks Mocoloco :)

Well… I actually just wore a terrible sweater and bell bottoms. But I did make an effort to be as inappropriate as possible.

Here are some vintage-o-matic snaps from the night. How did we do? Tacky?

I don’t claim to be on the brink of original thought, but the absurdity with which we view resource vs commodity is just so outrageous. Our concept of ownership is ludicrous. I’m not sure why I needed to watch a movie to bother thinking about it.

Everything seems to come down to the concept of delivery. Taking a thing from one place to another. The idea of offering something, or presenting something, or receiving something has become so oddly ceremonious that we find all sorts of endless economies within which to make it happen. In the films, the example of bottled water was driven home. Corps like Nestle appear, pump ground water that belongs to all of us, bottle it (adding “value” which makes it a “product”) and then sell it to us… the same water that we drink from the tap. The amount of effort, resource, sub-economy (labels, bottles, transport, storage, retail) involved in that ceremony of us traveling a few kilometers from our taps to a store to purchase that thing that was free in the first place is just so mind boggling. The thing that kills me is that the “value proposition” added, especially if you’re lucky enough live in a place that has water like Vancouver, is essentially nil. Unless, of course, you’re talking about the non-renewable bottle it came in that ceases to have use after the bottle is swiftly drained.

It’s like a disposable stir stick. So many people involved, processes performed, resources affected… just so that I could move the sugar around in my cup of coffee for 3 seconds.

We’re so interested in the idea of owning things such that they can be ceremoniously distributed in nice ways that make people feel good… but then the ceremonial bits seems so much less interesting after the ceremony is complete… mere seconds after it began. That bottle isn’t desirable anymore. It’s trash. But isn’t that what made the water so interesting in the first place? The elite shape of the bottle and thickness of the plastic, or that refreshing-looking name on the label that means water in a different language?

You presented it to me so nicely, don’t you want it back? No. You bought it. It was your ceremony.

Ceremonies suck. Tomorrow I’m drinking tap water. And stirring my coffee with my finger ;)

But then on Sunday I’ll probably get sucked in by a pretty package somewhere. It is Christmas after all. And then I’ll wrap the package that I thought was so desirable in the first place in another package so that I can deliver a proper ceremony.

I believe they plan to preview Mama, one of the tracks from the album we recorded with the group of youth. In case you don’t get a chance to tune in, here’s a sneak peak ::

Mama - Maisha Magumu Track 2