When Life Gives Lemons

This is an old maxim, you all know the answer right?

This saying, and so many like it, exemplify the foundations of the self-help movement, people will flock to you, all you have to do is just offer them a simplistic catch phrase. Something that encapsulates life's down side that everyone can identify with yet offers the hope of an easy, do-it-yourself quick-fix. 5min abs my ass!

How do I create a catch phrase like that? You know, a pithy witticism as bait hiding a barbed treble hook of ubiquity beneath it. I was listening to Subliminal the other day and thinking about what the people in power might have been listening to growing up; as odd a segue as that may seem it brought me to thinking of how the art of manipulation has evolved over the years. How do I go about accomplishing my goal of subverting popular culture from self-serving game zombies into willing participants in the largest global charitable event the world has ever seen.

Here's the elevator pitch:

1. Take a globally recognizable character and market him as "Our Hero"
2. Build a central event around that character.
3. Create a charitable foundation to benefit from this central event, one that shares the money with organizations who already have the infrastructure in place to help people, to serve the cause of humanity {i.e. The United Way, The March of Dimes, AbuseHurts.ca, PFLAGG and The Alzheimer Society of Canada.}
4. Engage youth organizations as partners, give them the opportunity to establish their own events to raise money for their humanitarian efforts.
5. Think globally, Act locally. Encourage communities everywhere to organize events influenced and inspired by Our Hero.

How's that for dreaming big? The problem is, if the plan's as good as I honestly believe it is, it's completely feasible.

The Plan:

"Our Hero" is Wally, or better known in North America as Waldo of "Where's Waldo" Fame! {who just happens to have a live action feature film debut in the works with Point Grey Pictures.} The central fundraising event is "The World's Most Massive Where's Waldo Book", I'm very proud to say, the people at Guinness World Records created a new category just for our fundraiser.
The foundation in question is called The Sweet Tom Fund created by Tomorrow Sweetwater in order to answer the question, what would Karma do? {if you're not familiar with his narrative yet, Tom saved my life after years of depression.}

There are at least a dozen youth groups at The University of Toronto alone who could be enlisted to the cause of spreading the word. It's critical to remember that students bring to the table great resources and inspiration.

The mechanism, the catalyst if you will, to convert pop culture from Gamers to Givers will be the method of Crowdfunding used; a Kickstarter style reward system for donors to Our Hero's efforts to help humanity. We'll develop an app, something to capitalize on the popularity of Pokemon Go, an app that will allow donors to search for Waldo anywhere in the world, in real time and at the same scale as the book. The faces in the book, with the exception of Waldo, will all be pictures of Our Hero's friends, those donors who have "backed the campaign" so to speak. The size of the book will be determined by the number of backers who choose that Reward Level.

Reward levels:

1. $5 The app to search the book
2. $20 The app and a photo in the book
3. $500 The app, photo and a logo.
4. $TBD The only existent copy of "The World's Most Massive Where's Waldo" sold at auction.

Imagine the scenario if you will: The World's Most Massive Where's Waldo Book on display at The Eaton Centre during Nuit Blanche, a copy printed to stretch from the floor of the food court all the way to the top of the office tower. People all around the world raising money for humanitarian causes together with the same theme. We can set another record, the most money ever raised by crowd funding. We live in a world where it's easier to raise money for a game than it is to help your fellow human beings. Let's change that!

Now that's what I call a dream worth chasing!

So goes my narrative, the one in which I help myself by helping others, the one where I asked myself a simple question: "what would Karma do?"

I thought it would be fun to have Seth Rogen play me in the movie version of my memoirs "Sweet Oblivion, Tomorrow Sweetwater's Odd Odyssey into Oblivion". If I live an interesting life people will be interested in reading about it and so I set out on an ill advised and manic journey trying to live a life worthy of a Seth Rogen movie. I went on a crazy camping trip north of Gravenhurst in December, I went home to visit family and friends for two days at Christmas and came back to discover that my tent had been stolen.

That was a low, had no idea what to do, should I give up? I decided to say f-you, you need the tent more than I do obviously. I will not let it stop me, not only did I sleep in a hammock for 3 nights, dumped under 8 inches of snow, but I set it up on a moonless night in the dark with no lights completely bombed and making stupid videos.
Life gave me lemons, I tried to make lemonade but it's very sour as I have no money for sugar, maybe with your help I can finish the job.
I would really like to make this dream become a reality but I need help, I need help setting up the foundation, I need marketing and media support, I need a committee like the Olympic Organizing Committee. How does a simple sign man put together such a team? I wish I knew.
Live, Love and Stay Wild my Friends.