Author Archives: Jay Menard

Appreciating Our Passengers Along the Road of Life

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By Jason Menard

In rushing through our everyday lives, we often are so focused on getting ahead that we forget to look around and appreciate those who have joined us for a ride down the road of life.

I recently attended a funeral, and the adult daughter of the deceased got up and read from a letter that she wrote to her father on the occasion of his 80 th birthday. In it, she stated that she didn’t want to wait for a funeral to express her feelings, when it would be more appropriate to share them while he was still alive. And I was struck as to what a profound yet simple concept that was.

Why do we wait for eulogies to express our feelings? Why is it that we are constantly doomed to repeat the mistake of not appreciating what we’ve got until its gone? Why do we take for granted those that are with us while they’re here, and not appreciate them fully until after their gone?

The game of life can be cruel. Anyone of us, young or old, healthy or frail, can shuffle off this mortal coil at any time, with or without warning. And it’s partly because of that fact that we dwell upon our own self-reflection. Our candle could be snuffed at any time, so we’re bound and determined to make that flame burn as brightly as it can!

There is a reason why important starts with an I – because that is the person we generally put first and foremost in our lives. From our hedonistic, world-revolves-around-us youth to our budding adulthood, we are possessed with the idea of being better, experiencing more, and exploring the world around us. We live, learn, and work to satisfy our Id.

Yet, often when it’s too late, we feel the loss of a loved one. We regret the words unspoken, the harsh feelings, or the wasted time arguing over petty issues. We look back on friends left behind as we’ve moved on.

But why should we wait? The old saying says that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone is a mantra we all repeat without taking it to heart.

But how do we remedy this situation? Personally, despite being a man of many words, I find it hard to express my true feelings. My parents, who I love and care for deeply, don’t hear that enough. I have friendships that I cherished in my youth that have been worn away by the eroding forces of time and distance. Even in this digital age, when communication is as simple as sending an e-mail, we rationalize our distance and attribute our lack of interaction to “being too busy” and “life.” But what good is life without friends and family to share it with?

So what do we do? We can do our best. Even if we can’t say “I love you,” we can show it through our interactions with our friends and family. We can cherish old memories and strive to make new ones. We can reach out for long-lost acquaintances and catch up on old times. The fact of the matter is that the bonds that hold us tight never truly break. They may slacken through neglect and they may be covered in cobwebs, but it only takes a quick dusting off to rediscover what brings us together.

There are some people in the world who are naturally mushy. They emote and empathize with the best of them. They cry at long-distance telephone commercials. Their eyes well up with tears when someone is telling an emotional story. I’m not one of those people and probably never will be. That doesn’t mean that people like me don’t feel. Don’t care. We’re just not as adept at expressing it.

The important thing is that deep down inside, whether you’re an emotional cripple or a blubbering fool, we all have attachments, we all have those we hold dear to us, and we all need to do a better job letting those we love know it.

Because once they’re in that pine box, it’s too late. And all the would haves, should haves, and could haves in the world won’t make up for those lost moments.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Our Health — Are There any Right Answers or Just Different Degrees of Wrong?

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By Jason Menard

It seems like everyday something else has been shown that it will eventually kill you – and it’s getting harder and harder to know what’s good for you or what’s going to get you in the end.

A Health Canada expert panel investigating the risk factors of COX-2 inhibitors such as Vioxx, Celebrex, and Bextra released a report on July 7, 2005 outlining their findings. The good news was that these drugs offer no more risk of cardiovascular issues than ibuprofen.

The bad news? Ibuprofen’s worse for you than they thought!

It’s just another in the long list of products that were supposed to be of benefit to you that allegedly can end up killing you. Remember the wonder vitamin that was Vitamin E? People were gulping mass quantities of it and touting its antioxidant properties. Oh, wait, it seems that Vitamin E, in certain doses, may actually increase the risk of cancer. Oops. Sorry about that one. Or, with obesity being the number-one health concern for North Americans, people flocked to the fen-phen regimen, only to find that some of the side effects had nasty consequences for your heart – like death.

Where do you turn? The next time I have a headache to I have to weight the benefits of pain relief with the long-term risks of a stroke? Who do you trust? A couple of years back my wife and I were in an auto accident, the result of which has left us with lingering pain. Originally, I was given Vioxx, but I scrapped that after initial reports. Then I took Celebrex, after researching that it was a safer alternative in that class of drugs – but, lo and behold, that may not be the case. So that was taken out of the medicine cabinet.

So what now? Grin and bear it? Or pop a few Advils and mortgage my long-term cardiovascular health for short-term comfort? Continue taking acetaminophen and codeine and hope my liver doesn’t call it quits? Who do you trust, who do you believe? And how can we trust anything anymore when one year’s wonder drug is next year’s health scandal?

Advil or Tylenol? Butter or margarine? Fried or grilled? Sugar or aspartame? Boxers or briefs? Are there any right answers or just different degrees of wrong? Sometimes it makes you long for simpler days – like when we were still drawing on cave walls and trying to make that wheel thing work. At least then the things that would kill you were obvious. Trees good, water good, dinosaurs and big, toothy cats – avoid.

We’re a society obsessed with the conflicting ideals of youthfulness and longevity. We’re so desperate to combine both that we’re always looking for the next great advance in medicine and science. That’s why snake oil sellers were – and are – so successful. They play on the base need we have to find that magic bullet, a panacea for all that ails us.

This desire for optimal health now has blinded us to the importance of long-term studies. We’re willing to believe anyone and anything as long as we can justify it to ourselves. Whether it’s the pharmaceutical industry hyping the next wonder drug or anecdotal evidence on a particular natural health product, we’re starving as a society for anything that offers the promise of living a long and healthy life, without considering the consequences.

What we really need is a pill for patience – but that would probably end up killing you in the long run anyway. The simple fact of the matter is that there really is no magic bullet, and all we’re doing is playing Russian Roulette with our lives. Time and time again the key to a long, healthy life has been laid out before us – eat right, exercise occasionally, and avoid poisoning yourself with habits like smoking and excessive drinking.

But we’re all hedonists at heart and that simple, yet boring, message of practicality doesn’t mesh with the lifestyle we want to lead. We want it all, and then we want a simple solution to eliminate the negative effects of our actions. Conversely, when we’re legitimately dealing with pain, we’re always on the lookout for something newer, something that works better to improve the quality of life – and hopefully not affect its quantity.

Whether it’s fat in foods, aspartame in drinks, compounds in medicine, there are always going to be conflicting reports about whether or not their good for you. Some people are so concerned about micromanaging what goes into their body they end up creating yet another insidious force to their lives – stress.

So perhaps we should turn to a revered Canadian anthem for guidance. As Trooper once said, “We’re here for a good time, not a long time. So have a good time — the sun can’t shine everyday.” It’s sound advice. And, to quote another 80s icon, Schoolhouse Rock, “knowledge is power.” Today’s world moves so quickly that we have to inform ourselves to the best of our ability and try to make the best decisions we can, given the resources we have.

All we can do in this life – and to live our lives – is to do our best. And to avoid the things we know will kill us in the end. I know about dinosaurs, it’s just the rest of the world that I’m not sure about.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Thawing Fans’ Frozen Hearts

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By Jason Menard

It’s somewhat appropriate that during a time much of Canada is undergoing an oppressive heat wave, the labour relations between the National Hockey League’s players and owners finally thawed.

Of course, there is the not-so-insignificant matter of both sides’ rank-and-file ratifying the deal. But after so much acrimony and so much loss, the players really have no choice but to admit defeat and sign off on this pact. And the owners’ pen-wielding hands will be nice and warm from rubbing them with glee!

Now a group of people who have built a reputation of playing balls-to-the-wall, both on and off the ice, will have to find a way to come back to the game with their tails between their legs, effectively neutered as a group by the ownership. Worst of all, there’s no time for licking their wounds – those lips will be otherwise occupied by kissing up to the fans.

That’s right. It’s not just the owners that wanted to cut the players down a peg or two – the fans, who have been subjected to a year without their beloved game, will want their pound of flesh. There’s real anger and real disappointment permeating the fan base, and it falls to the players to diffuse those feelings.

You see, the owners already weren’t the favourite people for most fans. At best there was a love-hate relationship with certain owners, but they’re a behind-the-scenes (or, more accurately, an up-in-a-luxury-box) group. The players, like it or not, are the faces of these organizations – regardless of whether they’re covered in egg.

So what do the players do? What can they do? Any public apology is just going to come across as insincere and staged. They’ve lost whatever goodwill they may have earned being “Good Canadian Boys” who weren’t as spoiled as those NBA or MLB-types. Rightly or wrongly, there is a perception that hockey players lost out because of their own greed – refusing to take a better deal to save the season, and being forced to swallow a much more bitter pill in the end.

The solution to this dilemma? Play the game and play it like the fans would love to play it. If you’re in the NHL, hockey is your job. But for the average fan, playing in the NHL is a dream. The realities of getting paid, a short career, and hectic travel schedules cutting in on family time are often lost on Joe or Jill Average who would give their right arm to lace up with their favourite teams just once. Because of that, the players need to come back and play hard, every night, and make the game the exciting display of dynamism that it has the potential to be.

If the lockout has done anything, it’s created an environment where excitement is going to grow in spite of itself. With so many free agents, the NHL has turned into a giant rotisserie league, wherein every fan can dream about their team going out and signing players that previously would have been financially unattainable. Each and every fan will get caught up in the potential swap meet of players and the excitement of a new season, with new hope, and new potential for all will start to stoke the flames of passion that have been cooled by the lockout.

The NHL has done a lot of damage to itself with this lockout, and both players and owners share in the blame. Hockey hotbeds like the Canadian cities and some northern U.S. locations will be able to draw upon their large fan base for whom hockey is a way of life. But it is those non-traditional markets, like the southern States that the damage will be felt most.

But like anyone who has suffered a serious wound, the NHL will need to accept that it takes time to heal. There are no quick fixes, there is no panacea that will cure all hurt feelings and salve festering wounds – but there is the belief that time heals all wounds.

If the NHL goes through with rules changes designed to speed up the game and let the players play, fans will be drawn back in spite of themselves. The game is in our blood – and no matter how much we want to freeze the players out, the fact of the matter is that hockey played at its best will warm the heart of even the most disgruntled fan.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

A Half-Million Dollar Hangover

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By Jason Menard

The fact that Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara has summarily dismissed a recent report on the future of the LCBO isn’t so bad – what has Ontarians in need of a stiff drink right now is that we’re left picking up the $500,000 tab!

I admit, it’s been a while since I’ve bought a case of beer, but the price hasn’t gone up that much, has it?

Instead of drowning their sorrows, Ontarians should be up in arms at the decision to essentially shelve The Beverage Alcohol System Review and ignore its recommendations. I mean, I get frustrated when it rains after I water the garden, thinking that I’ve wasted my time – but it’s not like someone’s paying me $1,000 a day to do it.

If the concept of privatizing the LCBO is too stiff of a drink to swallow straight up, there are a number of sub-sections that are worth the government taking a look at.

The tourism sector was represented with the idea of loosening the regulations to allow Ontario resorts to offer all-inclusive packages. Now, not too many people will be forsaking Cuba for Cambridge, but having the option of offering all-inclusive packages, including booze, would certainly be attractive to our vacation hot spots like the Muskokas and Niagara Falls. The ancillary benefits are high for taxpayers, but the idea is sitting on a shelf somewhere – now aging like a fine wine.

The concerns of small brewers are being ignored. Micro-Breweries have expressed their frustration with the difficulty of competing with the big boys for shelf space on the racks of The Beer Store and the LCBO outlets. Opening up the process would have enabled local retailers to prominently feature local products. Quebec is a prime example in that their microbreweries enjoy equal – if not, at times, preferential – treatment in certain retailers!

But these ideas won’t even be examined. As the report states, the market is changing but we’re using a system that was put in place in the 1920s. Producers, bars, restaurants, and other vendors are surviving in spite of the system – not because of it. To not even entertain other opportunities and possibilities is unconscionable.

Our retail environment is changing. The mom-and-pop grocery stores are, in large part, a thing of the past. Big box stores and mega grocery centres are popping up left and right. As the report states, this marketplace will eventually mature – will the LCBO be left behind?

One of the great misconceptions out there is that the report is advocating a complete deregulation of the system. This isn’t going to be like Quebec, where every dépanneur on every corner has a cooler full of booze ready for the taking. The proposal suggests that a maximum of 10 licenses be issued to the highest bidders who would have the right to market and sell alcohol across the province!

Unless the owner of Jimmy’s Corner Store has a few million burning a hole in his pocket, there’s no way that they’re going to be able to compete with the big boys – and that’s a good thing in this case. It will be the Wal-Marts and the Loblaws of the province that will have the means and the ability to distribute booze in their aisles. And they’ll also be the best equipped to police the situation.

Publicly, no one will admit it, but privately everyone knows that buying alcohol underage in Quebec is as easy as falling – drunkenly – off a log. In fact, at some corner stores it seems the age of majority is a foreign concept. But, Ontario’s proposal would allow the large companies with the wherewithal to monitor sales to benefit from it.

And what do we, as taxpayers get, as benefits? Increased convenience, more competition, a chance at increased revenue, and, potentially, better regionalization. Referring back to Quebec, between the SAQ, grocery, and convenience stores, a nice bottle of wine or a six-pack is only a short hop away – usually with more convenient hours.

But if the provincial government doesn’t want to entertain the concept of a more open marketplace, then that’s their decision. If they choose to shelve the entire project, burn a half-million dollars, ignore any potential solutions, and disrespect the time and effort put in by the study’s authors, then that’s the true travesty.

And that nauseated feeling we all have right now comes from a hangover brought about by lost opportunity.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

The Soundtrack of Our Lives

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By Jason Menard

They say that music is the soundtrack of our lives, but why should we restrict ourselves to repeating the same song over and over in perpetuity?

Music takes us to a time and a place that may never have existed. It lets us imagine our lives in a different context and helps to define the person we envision ourselves as being – the true inner self manifested through a horn section.

We look at the music of the past through rose-coloured glasses, embracing its ideals and purity, without being tainted by the day-to-day reality of life. That’s why, on a long drive, I spent the better part of an hour swinging with the Rat Pack, Louis Prima, and their contemporaries, being transported to an idealized hipster lifestyle. And, yes, I lament the loss of the fedora (I did try, unsuccessfully, to bring it back into vogue during my high-school years).

Music’s also the reason why I want to walk down the street with a 70’s blaxsploitation groove in the background. My inner funkster demands to be set free. And think of how cool it would have been to woo my wife with a four-man Temptations-style band in the background, echoing my sweet words of inspiration!

But music is more than just a representation of who we want to be, it’s an indicator of who we are.

In our early youth, we want to conform and be like the others – and that’s why teen pop has and always will be so popular. Yet, what the critics don’t understand is that teen pop is a necessary evil. It’s an introduction into music based on conformity that forms the foundation for individuality. And many of us cynics tend to forget that we, once, were young and passionate about music – appreciating it for its ability to move us, not stand up to scrutiny.

In our insecure youths, we all have a need to fit in, which is why we’re drawn to the music of our peers. And because music is such an integral part of our self-validation, we defend it with fiery passion and vigour. Try reproaching a teen or a pre-teen about their music and the response you’ll get is akin to an emotional wound – and that’s because, in a way, it is.

By questioning a youth’s music choice, we’re – in essence – questioning who they are and where they fit in this world. When you define yourself by your musical taste, having it called into question also calls into question your sense of self.

Eventually youthful passion burns away and a desire for exploration takes hold in all of us. That desire to conform to the masses fades away and is replaced by a desire to assert our individuality. And the best way to broadcast our newfound emancipation from the masses? Music!

Of course, the irony of all of this is that we move from conforming to one set of norms to another – but on a smaller scale. As we age, we are defined by our musical affiliations: rockers, punks, skaters, hippies, artsy types, etc. We move in smaller circles, embracing a new sense of self that’s reflected in the lyrics. We wear our musical tastes as a badge of honour and use them like secret handshakes into a private club.

In a rejection of the music of my youth and in an attempt to set myself apart from the crowd, I embraced the music of the 50’s, particularly that of Elvis Presley. And as I moved through the halls, I encountered little musical cliques, ranging from the Led-Zeppelin retro-rockers, the CSNY-influenced modern-day hippies, the Cure and Smiths-fed melancholic popsters, and the various members of Public Enemy’s Nation (please remember I was a child of the 80s…)

Of course, university was no different. Despite the increasingly diverse collective of people, the basic need to affiliate to a style of music remained the same. Except now we increasingly encountered the Hipper-Than-You Brit Poppers, the Smarter-Than-You College Rock fans, and the Drunker-Than-You Frat Boy/Tragically Hip collective.

But what meeting all these people throughout our lives enables us to do is to search out new styles and genres, learning from our musical history and appreciating what came before us. Like a musical buffet, we’re able to sample the flavours of each and every style – embracing what we like and rejecting others as not suited to our tastes.

It’s then when we learn to appreciate all the genres, styles, and forms music takes. Ask most teenagers to listen to Bach and you’ll get indifferent stares back for your efforts. But find those same people 20 years later and they’ll be more receptive to the idea.

I may be a child of the 80s, but I’m by no means defined by that musical era. However, that music is why I can spend an enjoyable morning passionately discussing with a friend of mine soul/funk music that predates both of our births. It’s why I can feel my frozen Canadian blood warmed by Latin and Brazilian beats. And it’s why I’m now able to appreciate music for what it is – an expression of life.

No matter when we’re born, our contemporary music gives us the foundation from which we are able to build a varied and diverse appreciation of music. Eventually we outgrow our youthful passion and zealousness and learn that one style of music doesn’t define us completely.

We are, by nature, rich and diverse people that move – and are moved – by different beats at different times. And that’s truly the soundtrack of our lives.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved