your average early morning rant

So Saturday morning 5am I launch out of bed, my head crammed with anger that has since withered a bit. Regardless I hammer out this in one sitting...and then posted on Facebook:

If you think that there's nothing wrong with the Canadian entertainment industry you probably live in a post-communist eastern block country, because that is the only place I've seen where the contemporary mainstream music, television, and film industry is as terrible as Canada's. That being said, if you think there's nothing wrong with the Canadian entertainment industry you will be offended by this –my open letter to Canada which asks:

Why is Canadian-made entertainment so broodle, eh?

Evidence abounds of this. CBC is the big may-pole around which all Canadians dance and two-step. We skip and riverdance to folksy fiddle music around the thing while lauding it's virtues and the fact that it binds our great and impressive country together with cheer and swagger. And, in a lot of ways it does. CBC Radio is a pretty great thing. CBC Radio is a great source of news, intelligent commentary, humour, music, personalities, and interviews. CBC *Radio* really does keep Canada connected in the way the railway once did –as is so popular to say.

CBC Television, on the other hand…

You take out Hockey Night in Canada, and all the News shows, and you literally have tripe, idiotic, smarm which fails to be funny when it's a comedy, ends up being banal if it's a drama, and is just plain aggravating if it's anything else. Of course, if all you watch is CBC Television you'll think it's great.

You'll think Little Mosque on the Prairie is genius, "Hey, can you believe it? There are Muslims in Saskatchewan, and boy are they up to some silliness! Ha ha ha." It's almost as if all the other CBC shows are so heavily laden with white people they decided to lump all the minorities into one show and label them all wacky Muslims. Egyptian, Indian, Hispanic, whatever, they're all Allah fearing Muslims who are hilarious.

Or so the writers think. The show is just not funny. How do I know this? Because I've actually seen funny shows. They're out there. The show could be funny, but then you'd have to offend a lot of Muslims which would be very un-Canadian.

Another comedy: Corner Gas. Occasionally it will illicit a "huh", but those are few and far between. Besides does anyone watch that show for any other reason than to see the hot cop and the cute diner lady? That's the only reason I've lingered there. I've never stayed to long, though, because all that show does is make me miss canned laughter. And I hate canned laughter.

And do we really need two shows about loose women riding horses in the prairies? There are so many of them it's a wonder they don't run over hilarious Muslims more often. To the best of my knowledge Heartland appears to be about a young girl who gets into awkward teenage situations– usually to do with sex and arguing in barns –and then gets on her horse and rides around when she can't take it anymore.

Wild Roses, on the other hand, is about many adult women that get into awkward adult situations– usually to do with sex and arguing in barns –and then get on their horses and ride around when they can't take it anymore.

The plots in both shows are static, the writing is cliché-ridden (ha ha, get it? "ridden") and forced, and the acting makes you want to light your face on fire.

And why all the shows that take place in Prairies? Nothing happens in the prairies. We all know that, including the people in the Prairies. Who is CBC trying to fool?

Of course you have to give them credit because they are attempting to provide a bit of geographic balance by bringing in some of the Atlantic provinces in the way of Ron James. Ron James: the only man that makes me want to kick a midget in the head.

Here's a guy whose stand-up blatantly rips-off Hunter Stockton Thompson– who's not alive to defend himself anymore –blends in a little of "awe-shucks" facial expressions, spit-laden Dennis Miller verbosity, and Monty Python's silly walk with an Eastern brogue that borders on the retarded. There is nothing remotely funny about this guy. So what do they do? Give him his own show, of course.

I suppose I could crucify the Canadian audience for letting this travesty continue but I don't think they're to blame. I was once watching his stand-up on CBC when the camera suddenly panned to catch audience reaction. It settled on the beautiful girl in the crowd (as cameras often do) and she looked really pissed that she was there. I'm fairly sure that you don't go see stand-up to work yourself into a rage because you lost 15 minutes of your life to a Newfy jack-ass.

CBC is not alone in producing garbage either. One show comes to mind called The Listener. It's a show about a moody Corey Hart-looking twenty-something that can read minds only when it serves to further the plot. The makers of this show have skirted the conundrum of inherent redundancy in having a mind-reading lead character by making it so he can only read minds *some of the time*. That is to say, when someone killed somebody, or they want to shag another character. Look, Toronto has enough of a bad rep without making other Canadians believe the city is filled with people thinking lurid thoughts about homicide and sex.

Then again…

The show is a no-brainer, and the writing and characterization is not strong enough to up-hold the formulaic template they super-impose on every single episode. That being, Corey Hart hears the voice of someone dying/murdering/about to be murdering/raping then murdering so he wanders around Toronto only hearing the minds of people directly involved in the day's story-line. The police don't believe him (ah the age-old Dumb Cop Effect) so he solves the case on his own with the bitter law-enforcement trailing behind him like huskies chasing the sled. Everyone on the show is frowning, and the two female leads are so incredibly hot you stay tuned in for a couple more moments.

Television in Quebec is not much better. They have one style of show that I have only seen in Eastern European countries. It's hosted by a cocaine-addled middle-aged fat man who enthusiastically does an embarrassing group-dance routine with gorgeous models at the beginning of every show. He then un-hinges his guest musicians by having them play along with his own musicians who are in random places throughout the venue. Forget the drum cue, unless you know that the drummer is located on the upper-mezzanine behind the bar.

Another game show, again with gorgeous girls, features them asking skill-testing questions to the viewing audience over a bed of electronic music. They then jabber awkwardly for hours on end as the viewing audience refuses to call in with the correct answers.

Then there's the films. Hundreds are made apparently, but in my life-time I have only seen two good one's: Good Cop, Bon Cop, and The Crow. I eagerly saw Passchendaele because, not only was it a film from the Canadian perspective about the significant role that Canada played in WWII, but there appeared to be many guns and things blowing up. Hey, I'm easily amused, that should make my critique all the more significant.

Sadly, it turns out that the Canadian perspective is pretty much the American perspective with all the prowess of 1950s movie-making. That is to say, every word any character uttered sounded familiar because someone had already written it already. And not even recently. These lines were taken right out of every spaghetti western, and black-and-white war film ever made.

Admittedly, the bits with battle were pretty good.

I'll make this easy for you. I challenge anyone to go to here and find 3 exceptional films. There are 890 there. Just find three, and not the two I named already. Find one that has been critically acclaimed outside of Canada. And, keep in mind that even if you find some (I'm not going through the list myself, it's too aggravating) there are 890 there. I'm not asking you to find 100, which would be about 1 good film out of every 9 very-expensive-to-make piles of twaddle. Christ, even the States can do that.

Then there's music… I cringe as I begin writing this.

Every Nickleback song sounds the same. It's so true it has become a cliché. Think of Bryan Adams, Jann Arden, Celine Dion, The Northern Pikes (They Ain't Crap, They Just Seem that Way), Gowan, Colin James, Tom Cochrane, Avril Lavigne (Oops, I've Heard this Before), and hundreds of other Canadian artists who are in constant rotation on radio stations.

We hate them, if not all of them, at least most of them. They are unoriginal, uninspired, perpetrators of soul-less, meaningless drivel which exist only because the CRTC has created a competition-free range for the musically-disabled. We hate them because under CanCon we have listen to them, and they're rarely any good.

And that's important, we're talking mainstream here. So before you blast me for there being a lot of great Canadian music out there, I know. Trust me. Listen, the Guess Who (before CanCon) were awesome. Sadly we got to know Randy Bachmann a little too well, thanks to the CBC, and have come to realize that he is a twat. On the other hand I cheered when Moxy Fruvous broke up– they sounded to me like how mime looks –but was pleased with the Gian Gohmeshi acquisition the same venerable institution made.

The point is that we are constantly bamboozled by the same three chords being hollered by men who sound like they're passing un-husked lychee nuts out of their urethra. On our radio station we play Faber Drive. They sound no different from Finger 11, or The Stereos in that they make up for quality by drowning out bad singing by beating a guitar against a bass drum. Faber Drive, by the way, was discovered by, and signed to, Chad Kroeger's label. I don't know about you, but he may be a greater threat than H1N1.

And I won't even get into our writing, only to say that Bloodletting and Other Miraculous Cures has permanently jaded The Giller Prize for me. Stick to doctoring Vincent Lam, you witless jerk, at least that way you can heal the people that are injured by reading your terrible schlock.

I need you to tell me: what the hell is going?

Why is Canadian-made entertainment so broodle, eh?

cliff-side deer-drop

An ability that an announcer must have is a complete dedication to the moment. They need to focus on the now so that the delivery is clear and smooth. It seems I need to work on this particular aspect of my announcing.

The big problem is ignoring the interior monologue I’m sometimes shouting at myself while I’m trying to speak on-air.

A few hours ago I was back-selling some songs, including Roxette. I looked online before I turned on the microphone and came to realize that Roxette had broken up in 2001 but were re-forming for a big tour which will kick off in Holland on the 23rd of this month –this is staggering news, I know.

Anyway, to myself, I thought, Ah! This is relevant to the listening demographic who love Roxette.

So I went on the air, “That was Lifehouse, Broken, on 95-7 Sun FM the energy of Powell River. Before that you heard Lenny Kravitz, and Roxette, It Must Have Been Love, “ I paused, “Hey a lot of people are wondering what happened to Roxette-“

And then the voice in my head started jabbering, Dude, who gives a crap what happened to Roxette?
“-well , ah, they’ve been quietly releasing albums-“
Why don’t you name some albums?
“-up until 2001-“
..Or don’t mention the albums, but definitely mention Marie’s brain tumor..
“...and it looks like after-“
Brain tumor, brain tumor, brain tumor.
“ –eight years they’re, ah, getting back together to go on tour.”
Hey! Heeeeeeeey!
“The first concert for the newly reformed-“
Call them “Roxy”.
“-Roxy- um, I mean Roxette, sorry -will be in Antwerp on the 23rd of this month.”
Do NOT say it will be an “interesting” show. Any other word but “interesting”, please.
“ Wow, won’t that be an interesting-“
Aaargh!
“-show to see after all these years.”
Disaster! Get out, get out now! Just don’t say “a lot more great music on the way”. For the love of Christ, don’t say it!
“Well, stick around, a lot more great music on the way,”
I hate you.

I’m dealing with a rather unique problem in that every single day someone calls in and asks me where Bobby Fields is. Bobby Fields was the former morning show host. The kind of morning show host that has a little bicycle horn which she honked frequently on air; a horn that she meekly offered to me which I subsequebtly threw in the trash.

I’m not what you’d call a “horn honker”.

Regardless it seemed people loved her which makes me- the new guy -a shady pretender to the morning show. In a normal office environment, when you’re the new guy, your critics have faces. Not so in radio. My critics exist somewhere in the listening ether. This puts me at a significant disadvantage when trying to defend myself against not fulfilling all the giggling rowdiness that Bobby perpetuated.

Last week one woman called and, without introduction, demanded, “Where’s Bobby?”
“She’s not here anymore. Can I ask who’s calling?”
“Oh, that’s what’s wrong with the radio. I’ll be listening to Courtenay from now on.” Click, Bzzzzzzzzzz.

Notwithstanding the fact that by listening to Courtenay she’s actually listening to the parent radio station anyway, this threw me into a paroxysm of helpless rage. How do I defend against that? I wanted to ask her what needs improving, but this evil twat didn’t even give me that opportunity. She blasted me then hung-up.

The worse thing is that she knows who I am, but I don’t know who she is. It’s a small town we’re bound to run into each other.

To illustrate how small this town is, I’ll relate a story:

Last week someone called in to wish a little girl a happy birthday. As usual the guy was barely coherent as the words stumbled through his gapped and gnarled teeth. He said he was the girl’s step-father.

Moments later, jockeying for the chance to win a free birthday cake, a woman called in to wish the same girl a happy birthday. She said she was the girl’s mother. I told her that the girl’s step-father already called in. She said, “Oh, he’s not her step-father, he’s her uncle.”

I couldn’t help thinking, does he know that? Does the girl know that? Is this place so backwards and small that a little girl’s step-father can also be her uncle? And what’s his relation to you: cousin?

The little girl got her cake. I imagine the family will toss it in a blender and suck it up through a straw.

Sadly, my step-mom’s father died. Doug Baird. A man’s man and a real diamond. I loved that guy and I’ll miss him dearly. I went to Vancouver this weekend to celebrate- yes “celebrate”, he wanted it that way -his passing with about 80 of his friends and relations. Doug Baird flew bombers in World War II. Appropriately his favourite poem was this:

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron,
RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941

I was honoured by being asked to read it aloud by Leslie. I read the shit out of the thing with all the speaking prowess I could muster. I read it for Doug, I hope he heard me.

dry heaves

This ever happened to you?

You've popped all your clothing into the communal dryer- one of many -in your building and you return to your apartment to do other stuff. Then, when you come back to get your clothes someone has carefully folded them. This happened to me today. I came down to the laundry room and the clothes-folder was still there.

It's a weird thing because while someone's hands have been all over your clothes, they have also folded them. It also means that a complete stranger has been handling you underwear. Personally I don't like anybody touching my underwear unless I'm about to shag them.

And what do you say? The expectation is that you say "sorry" for occupying a machine they obviously desperately needed. My first reaction, thought, was to walk right up to her face, poke her in the forehead and say, " Don't you ever, ever, fucking touch my clothes again. Ever."

Of course, I didn't actually do that. That would be crazy, right?

What really ensued was an awkward exchange between two strangers, one of whom knows what the other's underwear looks like. She said, "I had to use the dryer, I'm under a time constraint."

What possible time constraint would still allow you enough time to, not only do your laundry, but fold someone elses on a Sunday? This was clearly someone that planned every minute of their day and was not to be tangled with.

I suppose I haven't been here long enough to let that B.C. chill I keep hearing about wash over me.

Yesterday was a busy day for me. I did my first remote. That's when you go to some business that's holding a special event and you broadcast live on location. The business I was at for 4 hours yesterday was Valley Building Supplies. Sort of a family-owned Home Depot type place. They were having the grand opening for their new showroom which featured wood-stoves. Due to budgetary constraints (I imagine) I didn't have the usual microphone and mixing board you usually see jocks using in bigger cities. I had a cell phone.

When you're at these things you cut into the regular broadcast, about three times an hour, and rave about the incredible things going on in the store. You're supposed to sound excited about the deals and try to attract people to the place. For me, it's really hard getting excited about wood stoves. I think I did manufacture the bulk of the emotion, but it must have sounded contrived.

I whooped about the free food, the great prices, the raffle, and other stuff you could buy at Valley Building. For one reason or another- and I did this about 5 times -I kept saying, "They've got everything from knee-pads to screen-doors!". The last time I told myself that I would not mention knee-pads or screen doors and ended up saying, " ...and they've got everything from power-drills to knee-pads!".

Here's the thing though; because my broadcast was via cellular telephone, to the casual shopper I must have looked like a lunatic screaming into his phone about how amazing the place was while demanding that the person on the other end get here as soon as possible to take advantage of the store's excellent customer service and bask in the glory of 40 wood-stoves. . . And finally, incongruously, naming a song that's coming up next.

This quest of mine to blend in is not going so well.

By the way, a woodstove showroom is not a place you want to be in 27 degree weather unless you have hypothermia.

After that I went to the town's Fall Fair. This was a cute little deal with local artisans selling stuff and farmers showing-off recent crops. There were many contests; from Best Pickled Fruit, to Nicest Home Made Pie, to Best Diarama of My Family. In addition, there appeared to be a contest for Strangest Looking Vegetable. First Prize went to a zucchini that had a conjoined twin.
There was also a table with depressed fat rabbits in small cages.

The whole thing was quaint. Really, really quaint.

Sun FM has something called "The Birthday Line". This is where anybody can call in and wish somebody a happy birthday. That person can also win a free cake from the Mitchell Brother's Grocer (by the way, if you Google "Mitchell Brothers" it takes you to the O'Farrell Theater in San Francisco which features live sex-shows. This is not the same pair of Mitchell Brothers). Now, if you have a certain kind of mind you may think: Doesn't that mean that anyone can call in and falsely get a free cake? You would be right, but I've been told that Powell Riverites don't cheat. Basically, if you're a sociopath you'd make out over here like a tiger in a chicken farm.

Anyway, as it turns out, the kinds of people that would go for the free cake are the exact kinds of people that don't have a firm grasp on the English language. This means that occasionally- on Sun FM in the early morning -you can suddenly hear someone jabbering excitedly, and incoherently, in no known human language, for about 30 seconds.

I get a lot of dumb calls too; like people asking me to see If I can announce that someone needs a ride to Surrey, or if I can enquire as to whether anybody has seen a husky named Ely wandering about.

Overall I'm still crawling up a vertical learning curve, but every day I get a little bit better. I've got most of the technical stuff down and soon I'll add a new aspect to my breaks: the music bed. That's probably meaningless to most of you, but to me it's adding an extra revolution to my high-dive.

single malt scotch

It's amazing how much your life can change in a couple of weeks. This time last week I was in a state of mild anxiety because I was about to be going live the following morning at 6am - gazing at a board of lights with hundreds of dials, buttons, keys, and faders and a wall of computer screens. Like the first monkey to space staring at the cockpit array during the pre-launch countdown.

A week before that I was looking at my entire life packed into a suitcase, guitar case, and duffle-bag on the floor of my dad's place in Ottawa.

This past week has been a 5 to 5 marathon of learning the systems: How to load commercials, how to load the news, PSAs and spots, how to record a conversation, how to voice-track, how to change the face of the day-to-day programming, learning entire software and hardware from scratch, battling the edginess of a moody mixing board, learning how to use an FTP window, how to log the day, how to set the system up for the next day, and a myriad of other technical ding-bats, whatsits, and blubbersnaps. Yeah I know you stopped reading. I don't blame you. I did too.

...And that was just behind the scenes. On top of that I was getting used to proper on-air levels for my voice, where the mic should go in relation to my face, that certain buttons will broadcast the wrong things on air, that the weather needs to be shorter, that my voice needs to be longer, that I need to sound more enthusiastic about Mission Distract, Rod Stewart, and Hedley.

Then there's the interviews: I've recorded interviews at an average of about two a day with everybody from the United Way, to theatre organizers, to cops and hockey coaches, to people who've made calendars that they think are amazing enough to be talked about on-air. I am the major source for news clips that are sent to Courtenay where the news guys, namely Derek Bouchard, turns them into something newsworthy.

All this while dealing with the usual crap associated with living in the digital age; email crashes, program glitches, and generally stuff that you never saw Chris Stevens deal with on Northern Exposure.

Oh, yeah. Did I mention that I was alone out here?

When I agreed to the job at the end of August I was told that that it would be me and two others - that I was meant to show up and “show some initiative” and “take charge”. When I arrived to the Courtenay station on the 8th, to “learn” software from people that have a hard time elucidating, I was told the station in Powell River was down to one person – Bobby Fields. More about her in a second.

When I arrived, via ferry, to Powell River with Derek Bouchard, my guide, there was no one here. Bobby Fields had been laid off.

Derek is a good soul, he drove me all over the place so I could get a bead on Powell River. The trip was a blur as I fought exhaustion and could only muster up, “Yeah, it's stunning”, or “Wow, it's gorgeous”, or, “Hey, that's awe inspiring” without the conviction of being in -as people keep telling me- “God's country”.

God is definitely here in terms of the imaginations of the kinds of people who host a Creative Arts event in honour of it being “Creation Month”. An event that I cringeingly had to promote on air.

I counted several fundamentalist churches here including the Jehovah's Witness, Seventh Day Adventists, and a huge amphitheater with the unmistakable look of an evangelist's hollering block.

Yes it's beautiful here. It's the kind of place that the Alien and Predator do battle, and the whole town gets nuked at the end. It's the kind of place where Jack Nicholson is a “dull boy” and later shows up to seduce three middle-aged women. It's the kind of place where angsty scowling teens screw each other, and others die in horrible drunken collisions. It's a tiny San Francisco without the homosexuals and nightlife. It's the set for any chain-saw wielding horror flick. It's pick-up trucks and Indian reservations, farmers markets and opulent sea-side houses, massive trees and a crumbling airport, two stoplights and a much ballyhooed junior hockey team.

There is a lot of nature here. There is a dying lumber mill, yet the town still keeps it's head significantly above the water line. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of this.

And once again I am the incongruous 'other' who looks entirely out of place and draws looks from the population which averages about 50-years-old. People here are white. I saw one lady at the Telus counter who might have been East Indian but perpetrated a homey small-town Canadian drawl. I did see one brother speed by in an SUV with his head ducked behind the steering wheel as he made his way to the wild nothingness North of town. I thought, “That can't be right.”

Embarrassingly, in a town filled with trucks jacked-up on tires so large they could crush a house, i'm driving a white Toyota Matrix with a baby-blue and orange Sun FM logo blasted on it's sides, hood, and bumper. A car that can only be described as “gay looking”.

This draws looks. Even more when a tall, bald, dark person emerges.

A couple of days ago a gas station attendant saw me coming and was scrambling to find the Sun FM signal on the radio when I walked into his store. He apologized for not being able to find it. I said, “I'll tell you what, in the studio where I work I can't tune in the station either. I have to stream it online.”

He said, “That's Powell River for ya.”

People are not used to change here. And it doesn't help that Sun-FM has a revolving door. I can't count the number of times somebody asked me, “Where's Bobby?”. Indeed, where is Bobby? Well, she's often at the studio moping depressively, or twisted on caffeine, picking up her mail and talking endlessly as I try to get work done. I don't have the heart to kick her out. I did, after all, unwittingly end up with her job. I don't know the exact circumstances of her firing, so I exist under the threat of suddenly being canned for doing, or not doing, something she did or didn't do.

I've found a one-bedroom apartment to live in. It's filled with the following furniture:

A bed

I've had to pace myself in terms of expenditures towards housey type items. I have three forks, three spoons, and three butter knives. I've got a cutting board. I have my computer and an internet connection (thank the cavalry). I have my clothes and my guitar. I have a mobile telephone.

Okay, this all may sound grim. But let me put it into perspective:

This is a dream job for someone right out of college. It happened faster than the average grad will achieve. I've skipped over all the usual garbage surrounding trying to break into The Industry including mindlessly pushing buttons and dancing like a doof near banners and other branding silliness. I have a lot of lateral leeway in terms of where I want to take the station and what the output is outside of advertising (awful, awful, evil advertising).

I'm learning everything about the day-to-day operating of a radio station.

I'm working with (remotely of course, everybody I answer to is across a massive body of water in an entirely different station) really nice patient people.

The music is not country.

The landscape is not prairies.

I'm on the ocean, which has always been where I hoped to be. I know I'm near the ocean because I've tasted the water. It was salty.

Finally. I've been lonely before. I have my parents to thank for making me an only-child and equipping me with the right shoes to stride right through it.