April 22, 2010 | reviews
Unless you’re a member of a professional sports franchise, a pilot, or part of some sort of “water of life” cult, you’d probably think it odd if you were handed a jar and told, “Here, Skippy, pee in this.”Compelling your employees to empty their bladders in front of a nurse with a stopwatch and no smile seems like the kind of thing that would fall asunder of some international human rights convention or other. Yet, many workplaces subject their employees to random urine checks on occasion, letting their workers know, in case there was any doubt, “We don’t trust you.”
Having the misfortune to work in a place where your day might be interrupted by a random test so that the higher-ups can find out if you’ve been spending one of your two 15-minute breaks prospecting for a suitable vein certainly sucks.
What’s a poor, hapless employee to do?
Well, one option now that will be less easy to come by is fake urine. A proposal is headed to the governor of Tennessee that would make it illegal to sell fake urine for the purpose of falsifying a drug test.
Tennessee Democratic Senator Doug Jackson says the measure is needed to help companies and says individuals who use fake urine to try to beat the system create a “public safety issue” because many companies are trying to maintain a drug-free environment.
Most large corporations such as Wal-Mart have long-standing policies against drug use—a key public safety issue there say, if someone high is stocking a shelf and loses their balance, dropping heavy lead-based Chinese products on some unsuspecting customer.
Imperial Oil was the first private company in Canada to institute a comprehensive drug testing measure, which in the true land of the free, was found in breach of our Human Rights Code. Later, instead of urinalysis, the firm resumed testing for safety-sensitive positions using saliva swabs.
Here is a level-headed Board of Ontario arbitration ruling on the matter:
“subjecting all employees to random drug testing…simply cannot be reconciled with the well established, predominant Canadian arbitral jurisprudence which holds that, in a safety sensitive working environment, drug and alcohol testing can be required of an individual employee by his or her employer only where there is a reasonable and probable cause to do so, or where there has been an accident or incident which would justify such a measure.”
[Editors' note: Neither author has been asked to pee anywhere, at least not in the context of seeking or holding employment]
April 15, 2010 | reviews
At first glance we could not be more different.
While the Shark Guys are known to seed a cloud if a parade is happening by, Neil at www.1000awesomethings.com is all about acknowledging the simple pleasures of everyday living, which, for all we know, he might soon abandon if this new-found success gets to his head. We kid.
However, there are similarities.
Like ourselves, Neil is a Torontonian (well, the top half of the Shark Guys, hemispherically-speaking, is one too. The other, a former Toronto resident, weathers repeated threats to the established social order in Bangkok). Neil is also a contributor to the excellent website FARK, who’ve been extremely good to us Shark Guys; In addition, he is part of our extended family that is the multinational publishing empire, Penguin Group.
His new book, based on his very popular website, is called The Book of Awesome and chronicles everyday awesome things such as orange slices at soccer game half-time (to which he might’ve added, watered down Gatorade mix to wash it all down), high-fiving babies, universal fry-sharing, ugly actors and the other, non drool-filled side of a pillow.
As kids whose school attendance rivaled opposition parties in legislatures of totalitarian states, we really appreciated his ‘awesome’ designation of ‘Snow days’, fortuitous bits of precipitation that kept us comfortably snacking in front of the television. Ditto his lauding ‘the smell of books’. By all accounts, his new book—favorably reviewed in the New Yorker, Wired, the Guardian and Toronto Star just to name a few— is worth a whiff.
A big congratulations to Neil Pasricha. It’s a great concept and looks like a helluva lot of fun.
Pick up a copy at your better bookstores, your poorly-stocked soon-to-be-going-belly-up bookstores, or online.
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April 6, 2010 | reviews
Anvil: the heartstrings and flying V-plucking documentary of the Canadian metal legends
“I can answer that in 1, 2 uh 3 words: We haven’t got good management”.
That sums up sadsack metal pioneers Anvil, whose post Shark Sandwich Spinal Tap career went south while their contemporaries Guns ‘N’ Roses, Scorpions, Whitesnake, Bon Jovi and Metallica (about whom another sad, yet good rock ‘n’ roll movie, Some Kind of Monster was made) sold millions and “toured the world and elsewhere” to quote David St Hubbins.
The redundantly titled Anvil: the Story of Anvil, follows “Lips” Kudlow and Robb Reiner (not to be confused with the Tap director—clearly not the only Tap-esque element of this film), two Chosen People head-bangers who out-rock KISS’ Simmons and Stanley yet haven’t sold enough albums to be able to abandon side-jobs at a children’s catering company in the industrial hinterlands of east Toronto.
Under the rudderless helm of their foul-mouthed ‘porco dio’-spouting Italian manager, the band’s forays into Eastern Europe are considerably less lucrative there than Russian organized crime as Anvil rocks half-empty nightclubs, only to get into a physical spat with an owner that results in a paltry 100 Euro payout for the band and offers of complimentary goulash instead. And this, while being ferried about in less than deluxe transportation to gigs that aren’t too dissimilar from the west-end sports bars the band rocked back in Toronto.
In a bid to finance their new release, Lips takes out another mortgage on his home and is hired on as a telemarketer by one of his band’s diehard fans and accurately bemoans (as anyone who’s ever had one of these gigs can attest): “You’ve gotta go against everything you’ve learned as a kid.” After only lasting a few hours and realizing chunky down-picked metal riffing is the only thing he’s qualified to do other than delivering meals to elementary schools, he turns to his older sister. Then, in a touching scene, she helps keep the dream alive of her indefatigable half century-plus musician brother and percussionist childhood buddy by financing their comeback.
With testimonials from GNR guitarist Slash, Motorhead’s Lemmy and Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, each of whom citing the band as an early influence, Lips is barely recognized by contemporaries on the has-been rock circuit. This, as they ply their fortunes in the US and Japan looking for an elusive record deal, eventually returning to the Great White North and pinning their hopes on a disinterested EMI—another record company swamped with demo albums, or as they put it, “other entries in the lottery of rock ‘n’ roll”.
Against all odds, their numbers did come up though as upon release of this doc, the movie was hailed by the Times (UK) as “possibly the greatest film yet made about rock and roll” and, The Last Waltz and This is Spinal Tap notwithstanding, a pretty accurate claim.
***1/2 (out of 4)
