meet Joe

I'd like to introduce you to Joe. At least, we're gonna call him that. Even though Joe was raised in South America, in some ways he's a pretty typical North American male. For instance, Joe likes baseball and most anything else to do with sports. If tree planting were a sport (and it is), Joe would have to be considered a professional. First, because he's been paid to do it for eleven years, and second, because he was recently mentioned on a National Canadian Radio program (CBC) for his tree planting prowess.

Why have I brought Joe up? First, because he's my brother, and the last time I tried to write a book I got a whole bunch of complaints from my family that I basically wrote them out of stories that were essentially property of them, and I was a theiving little monkey. I have been trying to rectify that little donkey dimple here on this website, a bit at a time. The second reason I bring Joe up is because he's used to being more famous than me (he's far cooler) and the popularity of this website and my own personal subsequent notoriety has been crimping his style.

The reason for this is that Joe (as I mentioned) is the cool one and has far more reasons than I for fame. As I mentioned nobbut two paragraphs ago, for instance, he's a famous tree planter. Also, Joe is well known for his puppetry. He's travelled the whole planet over, knows how to surf pretty decently, is fluent in Spanish, and was told by a University Drama teacher that he has what it takes to make it on the Floridian improv. comedy circuit. Also (and more importantly), Joe has always had this bizarre animal magnetism for women, to the extent that absolute strangers will come up giggling and shyly ask if they can take their picture with him. He's married now, so he's staunched the waves of his femmagnet musk, but nonetheless it's there, waiting at his beck and call.

What a guy, hey? Well, don't worry, we're not going to let the burgeoning of his brain pan last forever. What kind of brother would I be to stoke the fires of his ego without simultaneously preparing to skewer him at the point of my proverbial pen, I ask? (It's sort of a rhetorical question - but if you must know, the answer is: "A better brother than I actually am".)

See, Joe and I have traded sword strokes most of our lives. When our parents decided we needed "privacy" and strung a sheet across our bedroom when we were five and six, we started to individuate and grow apart. Sure, we met in the hall sometimes to torture Hanners (our younger sister) and Jake (our even younger brother), but mostly we meandered off in our own directions - me, to introspection and the drawing of fuzzy animals (for the girls) and hot girls (for the guys), and Joe to social rabblerousing and athletic huzzahs!

Two strong-willed, close-aged, very different males were forced to live in the same house, or nest if you will - to scrabble for food, attention and power. At times, of course, it got bloody (them's brothers for ya), but eventually a sort of a gentleman's truce was reached, whereby hot-button topics could be skirted and mutual enemies vanquished with extreme prejudice by our two-pronged attack. With time, we learned to appreciate eachother's strengths and the fact that brothers make excellent natural allies.

Every once in a while, however, skirmishes still flare up in the hinterlands (here is where I make up for the flattery). The fights are inevitable, of course, since I am an opinionated, sanctimonious little poo and Joe is, without a doubt, The World's Most Stubborn Male, which is exacerbated by the fact that Joe married a women who agrees with pretty much everybody I know that I'm a bit of a freaky extremist when it comes to things like money, consumerism, and the wholesale destruction of the earth by soul-less, scum-sucking corporations.

Our latest kafluffle was about board shorts, or "boardies". I bought a nearly-new pair at a thrift store for two dollars. They're shiny blue, nice, and a really upscale namebrand I won't mention because they don't need my advertising help. Joe, who hangs out on foreign beaches as a hobby, had dragged me into a skate/surf/snowboard shop I absolutely hate called "Replay" (my first snowboard was stolen and I caught them using it as a rental - which they denied) and was looking for help in buying a new pair of boardies.

Unable to stop myself, I launched into an oratory proclaiming the virtues of all things second-hand and then BAM! was hit upside the head by a counter-diatribe from Joe's wife on how it's better to buy a quality product once than a crappy, skid-marked product eighteen times. Now, I may be a pinko/commie/hippie/whatever, but I know better than to spar with that blondie when she's on a roll, so I waved my hand floridly and in my most regal voice said, "truly, you have a dizzying intellect", which re-routed a careening conversational train from cataclysm into yet another earnest discussion of how I cannot seem to stop quoting "The Princess Bride".

I can do this, see. I can go ahead and lose an argument because I have what Joe and Amy do not - a pen. By which I mean a PEN. By which I mean a website where I can rant and rave and win every single argument because, hey, I'm the one with the administrative password! Boo-yah-kah-shah!

So, here's where I win: "Yeah right, Joe's wife. New boardies cost fifty bones. Mine cost two dollars, so you'd have to wear out twenty-five pairs before you'd paid for one name-brand. And speaking of name-brands, that's what you're buying - the opportunity to walk around advertising some fashion magnate's logo, just so you can identify with the idea of cool cooked up by his compendium of underlings, a concept he deliberately proceeded to meticulously sculpt with a media blitz designed to make you feel like you're less of a person unless you shell out fifty bucks for something made in fifteen minutes by Third-World-Maria, whom he paid fifty cents an hour, which she quietly accepted so she could put another plate of fried rice on her kids' plates.

This PR demon convinces you you're in charge and cool and worthwhile but you know what, he doesn't like you at all. He thinks you're a sucker, and he's using you to get a few pennies closer to a new Lexus. He's mocking you all the way to the bank, calling you a card-carrying cog in his consumer/conformist machine. And he's laughing, too, you know why? Two words: planned obsolescence. He's making crap and he knows it, but he doesn't care because he knows it doesn't have to last very long - it's going to end up in a thrift store somewhere because next year, Brad Pitt's going to get caught on film doing something totally cool and and amazing in boardies of an entirely different cut and color.

Wow! That's a flippin' mouthful. I guess you could mark down a couple of extra points for me (victory dance!). Really, though, the whole fashion thing is just sick if you stop and think about it. I know a whole lot of people have to be idiotic, fashion-following follicles swaying in the breezes of corporate cool for me to be able to buy cheap clothes at thrift stores, but I'd much rather pay more money for a few quality, fairly-made products than buy cheap and live in a culture that judges a person's worth by the fabric they use to be not naked. Let's not forget inner beauty and all that whiz-bang awesome stuff.

But there I go again, arguing and alienating when I should be hugging and dancing. Truth is, I love Joe and Joe's wife. A lot. This rant isn't about them, not really. It's about me feeling extremely uncomfortable with the damage we (the ecological equivalents of wrecking balls) are wreaking on a world growing hungrier and thirstier every day. We're doing this with our wallets and our self obsession and yes, we're doing it by being cool.

There are whole lot of kids out there who don't eat well enough to keep their hair from falling out, who have to hop around naked while their moms (or orphanage-moms) hand-wash their one set of hand-me-downs. It's not really our fault, directly, that we have sixteen more t-shirts than we need, but indirectly the world's going to hell in a handbasket and we, the rich, are holding the steering wheel.

I want to stop writing there, but I can't. I have to remind myself that I am the biggest hypocrite of them all because I have spent my life with my eyes largely glued on this stuff, and I do next to nothing, which is basically just enough to salve my conscience. I want to thank God for grace, cause with out it, I'm the most God-Damned of us all - but in my current state, it just feels like a cop-out.