Author: Nic Olson

An all night winter party, Nuit Blanche, to cap off a week long winter festival, Festival Montreal en Lumiere.  It began with a walk outside in February, wearing only a hoody and eating a Blizzard, from the only DQ in Montreal that is open year round. Standing in line for an hour for a free gospel concert. Standing still in the middle of an electric crowd an an electronic concert. Standing in line for the ferris wheel before realizing it would take three hours. Standing in line for the Planetarium. Enjoying contemporary art, the most peculiar pieces of art I’ve ever seen. All for free. All so cool. For more, click the photo above.

Arriving home at 5:30 I needed some time to catch up with myself and get ready for a 3pm EST start, the biggest hockey game I can recall. The entire time, under cursing Kesler, Burke, Wilson, Kessel, my mind was prepared for maximum depression and that familiar football feeling I felt in November and that recent burning that tore up a nation in January. I watched with separatists (not really, but they cheered for Halak and not Canada in the semis) and Saskatchewanites, anticipating a loss in my usual negative manner, and replaying the American celebrations in January, and last Sunday. But it happened, and Luongo didn’t even choke. Not as bad as he usually does anyways.

And now Alanis Morrisette is lip syncing and Simple Plan ruining Canada’s last chance at legitimacy. Again. Our country’s music is world class.

I want to release something when I die. When I die as an eighty year old, like I was told I will, I want it to be both preluded and followed by a release of something mythical, legendary. There is always some sort of significant tone built around a famous mind’s last piece of work. Untouchable wisdom of years, true understanding, complete vulnerability and freedom from fear can produce unseen blends of music or unequaled combinations of words that wouldn’t otherwise be created. I have documents. I have written documents, compositions, sitting on a spinning hard drive of my computer, unseen by any human eyes beside myself. Password protected so that my secrets can’t get out. So that no one will steal my brilliant images and visualizations and capitalize off of my distinct mind. I really hope to finish a piece of literature before I die. The pace I’m setting, as long as I live until eighty I should be alright.

I have given thought to my death and what will happen to these ever important pieces of literature, and how they will probably be deemed as some of the classic written works of our pathetic generation and how famous I could be when I die. How my family could just sit back and collect royalties, money pouring in from the inevitable ‘best seller’ status. Only because I was dead.
But I’ve got sixty plus years of writing ahead of me, and the only thing that will be any good to read, is the three quarters of a book that I write while sitting in a hospital bed being treated for advanced esophagus cancer and colon polyps from overexposure to capsicum. This is all leading up to that. Three or four chronicles of life in quotes that might someday end up as an advertisement on the Metro like Nietzsche, or tampered in a way to be generationally relevant like a t-shirt of Mona Lisa smoking a huge joint. That is all I ask.

I’m (still) reading ‘The Brothers Karamazov’, apparently written three months before Dostoevsky’s death. Johnny Cash’s newest album, ‘American VI: Ain’t No Grave’ was released posthumously this week and has the unique tone same as any production that surrounds the death of the creator. I plan to see ‘The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnasus’, Heath Ledger’s last piece of work before suicide, and in my mind it has a certain undertone that allows it to be among the classics.

If I die, The Last Will and Testament of Nicholas Olson:

I own nothing of worth, so split that up between my brothers.
My writings. They can be found on my computer, or on a small external hard drive that is hidden under the hardwood in my room, where the floor begins to give out and rats probably pass by every other day, in a plastic bag, in a sock. Please distribute them to the people to whom they are dedicated, and then sell them as fast as possible.  I’ll tattoo the passwords for each document on the bottom of my left foot. If, when I die, my left foot is severed and missing, it is a sign that my writings should not be released.
My legacy. Can’t be distributed physically. But it can live on through the souls of children, the cynical, the unshowered, and those with chronic heartburn.

Enjoy me when I’m dead.

At 9:10am I called David at Paterson Auto. I had 4 hours of sleep the night before, and my enthusiastic salesman voice usually takes a good two hours to lube up properly to be able to butter the bread of my opponents/clients. I pitched David, like I get paid to do. I pitched him so half-assed that I thought there was no way he’d be interested in our service, which was my plan. But he promptly sent a fax of his information over, as I indirectly tried to convince him not to.
‘Don’t change, David. Stay naive and unsuspecting, it will do you good.’

I had a list on paper of ‘manual leads’ because our ‘legitimate’ ‘business’ couldn’t even have the one thing that is necessary in a call centre: calls.  I had Toy Stores in Alberta. I kept calling, desperately hoping that no one would answer the phone, and if they did, to be having a bad enough day or a perceptive enough mind to tell me to piss off. I was always surprised at the kinds of people that answered the phone at locally owned toy stores. Often old prickly men or women, with a raspy smokers voice probably wearing paint stained sweatpants with the aura of breakfast grease and cigarettes surrounding them. I called a man, a different man named David. We can call him David-2. He owned a Teddy Bear store. My sister once worked at a Teddy Bear store. I can’t think of any store in the world that could be considered more useless. I semi-pitched him, as I did to David-1. But this man laughed. Out loud. For several seconds, and I laughed with him. He told me we were a scam, and I told him I knew that. He told me to get an ethical job. And I told him I will.

Today my choice was to either Moron or Hypocrite. Moron, because leaving a job that easy is foolish. I need a job, because I need money, because I don’t live at home anymore. Hypocrite, because staying at a job that backwards, opposes what I feel is proper or principled. I was skeptical from day one (paragraph three, sentence five). For a while I thought I could choose neither, I could put off the choice for a week or two, siphon in the funds and do nothing until I got canned. I eventually started putting people on the company’s Do Not Call List, which apparently does nothing but delay another call by a week. I began to tell people that their rates were fine where they were. I embarked on a three day journey of trying to bring down the system from the inside. But then I got a fax from David-1, and talked to David-2, and that was the end of it.

I chose moron. I usually do.

I love quitting jobs. It is one of my favourite things to do. That feeling of liberty from a system you are forced into is a special feeling, paralleled only by free real love and/or free real DQ. But this time it wasn’t the same. Possibly because every other time I quit a job was to open the door for travel, school or a new job. This time I had nothing to open the door to. Except the desperate search for new employment. Or maybe it was that I didn’t actually get to quit, but had to do so through my hiring agency, and they told my boss for me. I didn’t have the satisfaction of packing my things and leaving in front of everyone, acting all self-righteous because I knew things they didn’t and my conscience did not allow me to perform after this gained knowledge.

I sat outside my building after I quit, leaning against the department store window, with water dripping on my head from above and snow dissolving into the sidewalk. And similar sentiments re-echoed from week two (paragraph two, sentence one). I listened to Good Riddance, as I rode the #24 bus right back home, to help solidify that I made the correct choice. This is what I heard.

‘There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious. Makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.’ – Mario Savio

A man wearing a Red Sox hat and Yankees hoody at the same time.

Obama saying, ‘Thank you Satan.’

Cracking a Great Western riding alone on the city bus. It wasn’t me.

Seeing who can ride down a tube of ice on a sled, head first, the fastest.

The peculiarity of human beings waiting at a bus stop or metro station, having the idea that constantly looking down the street or tunnel will make the bus or train arrive sooner. Will slow down time. Will delay the inevitability of lateness.

The newness of Google Buzz. I want to join it so that I can be the person sending constant emails saying, ‘Nic has invited you to join Google Buzz! Check it out now!’ and feel like I’m ahead of the game while everyone deletes their Facebook accounts and shifts their lives to a new network of communication.

The peculiarity of human beings waiting on the main floor for an elevator going up. When the light ‘ding’ sound is heard and everyone’s necks jerk up and eyes dart, looking for the green arrow, and bodies funnel into the small steel box, and no one says a word because the office life has taken the pleasantness out of simple pleasures like elevators.

The idea that giant companies that are run by banks which are giant companies, still see it necessary to take complete advantage of small business and regular human beings, and do so completely legally. And the the fact that the idea of fair business is something that has to be worked for and not something that is common place and natural.

I’ve enjoyed month number one of life number two. Or possibly life number three or four. Each time you move, it’s a new life I think. I enjoy watching people, and the way things are done in a city or in a different person’s life. And as you can see from my above observations, that there has been ample amounts of observing. And sufficient amounts of life wisdom gained. And more than enough public transit time spent. Basically everything I’ve done here has been completely brand new and original which is maybe inevitable in a new city. After over a month of life, two jobs quit (almost), an old lady, a visit from those out west, two months of rent, thousands of dollars in groceries, and millions of seconds watching humans act like people, I am happy I’m here. But am excited for the next steps.

The world is a mind warp.

For the past x amount of years that Family Day has existed it has been my favourite holiday. The perfect holiday doesn’t impose beliefs of religion or nationalism. The perfect holiday that has more purpose than a day of labour or a day of turkey. A holiday that is too youthful and too local to have been corrupted by any outside force. I had an entire Family Weekend. Brews and food and hockey. Shared with family. They don’t celebrate Family Day in Quebec, so I called in on Friday, my own personal sick/family day. Then on Friday I got a call from work today telling me that I didn’t have to work on Monday. Double Family Day weekend.

This year, the biggest crock of a ‘holiday’ happened the day before Family day, and was celebrated by millions of pressured losers. You are a republican if you celebrate Valentines Day. That is what I learned this weekend. And tonight at Cinema Politica at Concordia University, I surrounded myself with a hall full of people that were about the furthest thing away from republican as you can get, but they still couldn’t get along. I guess the left wing hates Valentines Day, but they also hate each other.

It seems backwards that stat holidays are created because we don’t get enough days off. That the government creates holidays so that we all don’t lose our mother loving minds. It seems backwards that there must be laws about how much you work and what represents too much work, because although work sucks no matter what it is, the fact that it is bad enough to force the government to regulate how much we do of it seems backwards. We should be working at things we love with people we love. I spend 8 hours a day sitting with people who share no common interests and with people who want to see me ragged on the street (he got fired this morning) and I only get to spend a few hours daily with people I actually like. And we accept this as inevitable. Holidays should feel like chores because we love our jobs so much. Our families should maybe get more than one day a year to be celebrated. Work is work and I’ll do it until I die but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be happy about it. But it also doesn’t mean that I’ll hate my life either.

Cash money. Family Matters. Fam-lintines Day.

After a month of a new city, I was worried that I hadn’t made any new friends. I had obviously met people, but had I met anyone that actually had a desire to spend time with me, I didn’t know. I was the friendly one night stand that everyone loved to talk about.

‘That guy from Saskatchewan who is so mysterious and dreamy, but could I start a long-term friendship with him, I just don’t know.’

Then I went to the best bar in town last night to watch hockey and I saw a few people that I think wanted to see me. Along with some old time friends in town for the weekend, here to revel in the glory of a game two victory, there were a few new people that weren’t just in it for the sexy times, but for the hard times too. Then I went to a fundraiser show afterwards, where basically everyone else that I have met in this city was there, enjoying the soothing blends of guitars, beers, banana bread and brownies. There were people who I knew, who knew me, and who wanted to spend time. I may have found people who don’t just want me for my body…

But on Thursday, before I found out friends, I found out hatred. A call centre is an interesting place. It is actually the most absurd place I’ve ever worked. The egos and the vibes and the suits and the lack of recycling bins and the brainwashed employees thinking they are making a difference; it all throws me off pretty hard. I literally shake my head and cuss to my cubicle when I hear sales pitches or notice colleagues talking to their computers with hand emphasis and eyebrow raises, as if their fifteen inch Dell screens were human beings with eyes, minds or emotions. One thirty two year old sitting behind me, who I was sure was 19, kept asking the girl next to me some pretty personal questions. He kept on this way for a few days, cackling after every ‘joke’ he told, or every comment he made. I don’t want to sit here and complain about a human being, but he is number two on the list of coworkers that I’d like to run over with a zoomboom or strangle with a telephone headset cord. Later I asked the girl quietly if she wanted me to tell him to back off because she was too nice to do it herself. She said, yes, please. Chivalrous as I am, I asked him if being creepy and obnoxious has gotten him girls in the past. And for some reason after that he wanted to fight me. We went through the day like business men, he threw a few ‘subtle comments’ my way, and I thought that would be it. But after work he followed me onto the street so he could talk to me. Things got real, he wanted to stab me, I walked away and told him to have a good night. I’m making all kinds of friends.

So this weekend is devoted to old friends in new settings.
Because new friends are great, but they still may want me for only my body.
Because work friends are great, but getting stabbed the day of your second live Habs game isn’t my dream.

My mom bought me a ‘French for Dummies’ compact disc set, so I could learn basic French. I don’t think there is a human being that has had the will or ability to finish an audio language guide since they were invented and instituted in vinyl format. Impossibly boring and possibly ineffective. But practice nonetheless. So I enrolled in French courses, beginning March 3 I have no life from Monday to Thursday for two months. Not that I have a life on those days anyway. But every time some nighttime commitment arises, all that I can think about is how many hockey games I will miss. Not how much money I would make. Nor how many new words I could speak. But how many goals I’d miss. And how many memories I wouldn’t make.

As an Anglophone I was lucky enough to find two jobs in two weeks. Montreal is Montreal, and English speaking jobs exist, but usually only for the bilingual, although that seems backwards. The first job I didn’t need to speak any language, as Marius spoke through hand signals, ‘whoooop-dee-doo’ whistles and hip thrusts. The second job requires a special English that highlights all the hawker vocal tones and cringeworthy jargon that shouldn’t even be a part of any self-respecting language. Oh I forgot, English has no dignity.

So I am learning French. Which I’m sure has it’s downfalls with reasons to be respected. The lady conducting my French class assessment asked me in French if I have studied her language in Saskatchewan, and wondered if we ever use French in Saskatchewan. I replied with a soft ‘No’ and laughed to myself thinking of friends back home cursing the fact that the national anthem was being sung half in French during the Grey Cup where Saskatchewan was playing the league’s French team. Or when someone told me that they didn’t like me anymore because I was moving to Quebec. Gravelbourg, is all I’ve got to say.

I think my French teacher would understand if I took the odd self led class at Primetime to learn the proper way to conjugate the verb shoot (tirer: tire, tires, tire, tirons, tirez, tirent?).

Language is still exhausting, and being here with the lack of knowledge I have makes me feel more like a fool than ever. I have already met dogs and one year old children that have a better grasp than I. Being bilingual or multilingual is something that is important to me. But looking like a complete ass is something that is not important to me. So I’m going to have to make some concessions on either end. I look like a fool everyday anyway, so I guess I know where I’ll concede.

I worked at the Bell Centre. Now I work downtown (centre-ville) in a call centre attached to the Eaton Centre. Thanks to some friends, via another friend, I noticed this. I am very very centred.

At lunch break I read in the Eaton Centre, and for proper reading focus I place small plastic buds into my ears and play instrumental and classical music, so the words of the page are not compromised by the words in the ears. I sometimes try to read without electronic music, and focus on the noon-hour hum of the food court masses four floors below, but I am distracted by the imagination creating conversations between coworkers enjoying a plastic plate of Kojax, or the lonely screen touching by a Nintendo DS addict and his RPG. So to properly catch the wit of Fyodor Pavlovitch I centre myself around Brahms. I centre myself on being a pompous ass, as you may have noticed with that previous sentence.

I am centred on a vision of the now. Sometimes my centre is warped and a vision of the future occurs, and my actual centre is compromised, and things get dizzy. I sometimes think that I moved here to be the centre of attention. So people at home, or people living regular lives would think,
‘That Nic is a real wanderer.’ or,
‘Nic, really needs to find his way (his centre).’
So that I could look at these people and either think to myself,
‘That is right, I’m living the dream.’ or,
‘My centre is perfectly found, thank you.’ Craving to be the centre of something is natural, but needy. And I don’t think that being the temporary centre of people’s minds was the centre of my plan.

When the centre cannot hold. I don’t know what my centre is, so I don’t know if it is holding or not. But I am learning more about who I am, so maybe my centre is not holding so well. Now to find exactly what is not holding, then I’ll know what my centre is, and what is causing me to be here in this way.

Centre. Center. Damn.