Blog: Articles filed under CBC

A week ago Thursday, I went to see The Vinyl Cafe live at our auditorium. But because I’ve been busy doing other things—i.e., homework—I haven’t bothered blogging about it until now.

I love The Vinyl Cafe, and nothing beats going to see it live. I went the last time the show was in Thunder Bay, two years ago, and I’ll go when it comes back in two years. Until then, I’ll continue listening to the show in podcast form and nurse my lovely swag, which this year consists of Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe and the Planet Boy CD, both of which I got signed by Stuart!

The musical guests accompanying The Vinyl Cafe were The Good Lovelies. I love how The Vinyl Cafe gives play to Canadian artists, especially new or relatively unknown artists—I’ve some songs I really like from listening to the show.

Why do I so love The Vinyl Cafe? We often define Canadian identity by negation (for example, Canadians are “not American”). Yet if I had to name something quintessentially Canadian, I would choose The Vinyl Cafe. Say what you will about what sort of programming the CBC is producing these days: the seats in that auditorium were packed on March 19, filled with people old and young.

As Stuart likes to do at these shows, he picked out the youngest and oldest people in the audience and gave them some prizes. Morgan, a 12-year-old girl, was not the youngest, but Stuart invited her on stage to showcase the prizes (albums from The Vinyl Cafe and associated musical acts). Upon learning that Morgan plays the piano, Stuart invited her to play something for us—and she did.

The oldest people in the audience were 93 and 95 years old (Stuart ended up giving them both prizes—he tends to be generous that way). The youngest person in the audience was an absolutely forthright and precocious 7-year-old named Connor. He was sitting in the balcony, and when Stuart had identified him as the youngest and asked, “How should I get your prize to you?” Connor’s response was, “Can I come down there?” Only it was in the loud, auditorium-quality voice only a 7-year-old has. So Connor came down on stage and did some very interesting dance moves. After Stuart presented a cake to one of the musicians, because it was her birthday, Connor also asked for a piece of cake, as 7-year-olds on stage are wont to do. Schenanigans such as these prompted Stuart, upon returning from intermission, to joke that they were “losing control of the show … we’ll look back and say, ’Remember that time in Thunder Bay when we lost control of the show?’”

But as he went on to explain, that tended to happen whenever The Vinyl Cafe performed live. The shows always “teeter” on the brink of losing control. Stuart always gets the audience involved with everything, turning his performance into dialogue rather than monologue—frequently commenting, for example, when we laugh in anticipation of something about to happen in a Dave and Morley story. We tend to get ahead of him.

The Vinyl Cafe is all about story, not just as a form of entertainment but as a way of bringing people together. The audience that night, listening to Stuart’s stories, to the musical performances, and to the forward requests of 7-year-olds, couldn’t help but feel more intimate with each other. And in that sort of atmosphere, we can relax, and then we can laugh at ourselves and at each other. We laugh at Dave and Morley because we do the same things, get in the same sort of situations, and so we’re laughing at ourselves. The same goes for the stories Stuart shares from other listeners through the Vinyl Cafe Story Exchange segments. Through music and story, The Vinyl Cafe lets friends and strangers alike share a common experience.

Thus, The Vinyl Cafe is quintessentially Canadian because it captures that quixotic Canadian oxymoron of self-deprecating pride in our country. By sharing stories, and sharing our stories, Stuart and his crew let us make fun of each other and of ourselves, even as we take pride in the things closest to us, like small towns, cherished shops, talented musicians, and lucky children. Sitting in the auditorium in that warm and charged atmosphere, I understood what pathos was. The Vinyl Cafe is all about expressing moments, and what it achieves is always beautiful, and very Canadian.

Lately I‘ve been listening to CBC Radio’s new show Spark.

Some of you may recall that I‘m not always fond of the CBC, but they’ve got something good going with Spark. It’s the sort of show that would appeal to demographics that might otherwise view the CBC as stodgy and uninteresting. Spark’s host, Nora Young, discusses the latest technology and technological phenomena with guests. Specifically, the show focuses on how technology integrates into and impacts our daily life. So even if you aren’t a technowizard, you could still find the show interesting (and perhaps even informative).

Take a look at the Spark blog to get an idea of what sort of topics the show’s covered in the past. Even if you don’t get CBC radio where you live, you can listen to Spark via podcast—that’s how I listen, because then I can just put it on when it’s convenient.

Wow, that break went by pretty fast. So fast that if you blinked you probably missed it. I must say…I‘m not all that enthused about going back to school. This saddens me, because last year I would be definitely ready. This year, as I’ve said in previous posts, not so much. So I won’t harp on that here. This isn’t supposed to be a rant, eh.

I‘ve started work on Vanilla Guestbook’s total rewrite. I have the installation functions done and am working with the signing functions now.

I’ve also started book two—as in, the sequel to my novel. Originally I intended for it to be a trilogy, but lately a little doubt about that has been cast into my mind. Today at work I thought of a brilliant ending for book two! I’m really excited, because it has given me direction and inspiration. However, if I use the ending, it also opens up the unforeseen possibility of additional books before the saga reaches its conclusion. Maybe four, five—possibly even six. I’m open to the possibility—I was never locked on the idea of a trilogy; it was just a rough guide to start out. But it will require some thought.

Anyway, I should get to bed. School tomorrow and what not. Good night.

P.S. Did anyone else watch This Hour Has 22 Minutes on Friday?! If you haven’t heard yet, Canadian Tire has fired the Canadian Tire family. Any true Canadian is (if they haven’t already) now feeling a happy, satisfied glow over this news. Now remember that we have Stephen Harper as the Prime Minister. (And the glow disappears).

Well 22 Minutes had an excellent farewell parody. They had Mark Critch as the Canadian Tire guy and Cathy Jones as his wife talking about being fired. The Canadian Tire guy just couldn’t stop working Canadian Tire products into his sentences, though, and his wife was getting annoyed. She matter-factly told him that she was divorcing him and left, passing him at his request some rope (from Canadian Tire) and closing the garage door with the automatic door closer (from Canadian Tire). We last see Critch looping the rope around his neck (the implication being that he’s going to hang himself).

I shall post a link to the video when/if they put it up.

And now to sleep.

There’s such a thing as “too much of the CBC”. That is what I learned today.

I went into work for six hours (because the pay is lucrative but I find it difficult to work for any large amount of time due to the fact I have “school” ). From noon until six today, I mostly sat down in the basement of the Chapples Building and carefully sorted paper from paperclips, the former going into a container to be shredded. This humdrum existence was periodically punctuated by brief trips upstairs to return a full bin and downstairs with an empty bin.

By 5:30 I sort of ran out of steam. I had been listening to CBC Radio One for nearly six full hours by that time. A number of revelations flashed through my mind!

You start to notice how often the host cuts off the guest by interrupting them. I started counting how many times the hosts would say “Okay,” or some other acknowledgement until they had to actually step in and blatantly talk over the guest in order to end the segment. It’s just like listening for people’s intakes of breath before they talk, it’s this bad habit I latch onto after listening to something for any period of time.

Oh, and the hourly world news things? Yeah, they record that. They have about two different recordings for the day that tell the same stories in different orders. After four hours, I realised that they were repeating it word for word. It’s not so much the fact that they record it, I can understand, but I guess no one counts on anyone actually listening to the radio for four hours and finding out that the eagerly-anticipated hourly news turns out to be a rerun from two hours ago.

By 5:30, I was running out of steam. Rex Murphy’s Cross Country Checkup was on. Rex Murphy is cool, not because of who he is, but because the CBC actually pays him money to pontificate with his large vocabulary about any sort of subject. It’s the kind of thing that only the CBC can get away with; those American stations all have their personalities who espouse their points of view, but Rex Murphy seems like the only one who can be blatantly biased and still come off seeming like an intelligent individual.

I think it’s the accent.

Anyway, so I was listening to Cross Country Checkup, where there’s an issue and people from across the country phone in with their take on it. Today was “gun violence amongst inner city youths,” in response to the alarming increase in (you guesed it) gun violence in Toronto. Scarily enough, I was actually tempted to phone in. I was saved from actually touching a phone by the rationalisation that I had nothing to say on the subject. I‘m sure that, had I touched the phone, something disastrous would have happened, like, say a meteor strike that completely wipes out human life on the planet.

The moral of the story: listening to the CBC is good. I like the CBC. I just don’t think I’ll ever try listening to it for six hours straight ever again.

So CBC News: The Hour had its season premiere tonight. I loved this show, and I still do. I have been waiting all summer for it to come back, because I can finally watch something each night and get up to date on all that “news” stuff happening in our world.

They changed the format a bit … and the guy working the cues needs to pay more attention to which buttons he (or she) is pressing and when. So while I mourn the loss of last season’s opening music, I think this season will grow on me.

So to start of the season, I shall now blog about politics!

One of the things I’ve always found interesting about Canadian politics is the fact that, especially with a minority government, our government is technically always on the verge of “collapse.” In the U.S., you vote someone into the White House as president and they stay there for four years. In Canada, Paul Martin has been struggling to stay in power within the last year alone.

Now, to change the tune about, how about that Gomery Report, eh? I actually liked Jean Chrétien better than Paul Martin, because at least you couldn’t understand when he was a lying and when he was being incomprehensible. However, his latest reactions to the Gomery Report are blatantly selfish and just goes to show that the public really doesn’t have any power.

What’s the point of setting up a public inquiry if you’re just going to do what you want after the results are delivered anyway?

Canadian politics. So much more interesting than your average politics, because we spell colour with a u.

Subject: Canadian programming is dead.

Dear CBC:

I am an adolescent who enjoys watching much of the CBC’s programming, including the wonderful show CBC News: The Hour. I know this may come as a surprise to you (I mean, you’re governed by the Department of _Heritage_!) but yes, I quite enjoy CBC programming.

Which is one of the reasons that I was extremely disappointed that instead of CBC News: The Hour, I was invited to watch Political Assassinations. Lo and behold, after an entire summer of anticipation, I am forced to wait yet again! Thus, I am urging the CBC to resolve this labour dispute so that we can get back to what you really should be doing, which is providing quality Canadian programming, rather than attempting to satisfy a fictional system based on arbitrarily decided amounts of numbers.

I am quite frankly tired of everything being about money. We have gone, as Canadians, an entire season without hockey for precisely the same reason that we are now facing the worst shortage of Canadian programming in my lifetime. I would not like to see an entire season pass by without CBC News: The Hour.

I had hoped that somewhere out there, deep within the festering bowls of bureaucratic red tape and indolent political sludge, there was a fortress to defend against the polluting tendency for the world to revolve around money, rather than using money (the economic principle being that money should be a means, not an end, as it seems to inevitably be in this modern age). I had hoped to find a heart gilded in gold that would rise above such petty disputes and find an expedient answer to questions that should never have become quandaries in the first place.

I guess I was wrong.

After my school board lets me down, my Minister of Education lets me down, and my laptop lets me down, I started to wonder what would go wrong next. It turns out that was a bad idea.

The CBC is having some labour difficulties right now. Basically, the permanent staff wants the management to hire more permanent staff and decrease the amount of work they contract out. From the management point of view, it’s cheaper to contract work because if they cancel a show, any permanent staff have to find a new job with another show, whereas contractors can just be let go. From the permanent staff’s point of view, it’s a job security issue.

NHL Lockout, anyone? The stupidity quotients on each side are just about right.

My real gripe is that it interferes with something I consider one of the greatest things since sliced bread: CBC News: The Hour. It’s a new show on CBC Newsworld hosted by former MuchMusic host George Stroumboulopolos (I think I spelt that right). You may remember him, he advocated for Tommy Douglas on CBC’s The Greatest Canadian. The show is blatantly targetted at a younger audience (which, for the CBC, is anyone under 65). Although I am not the stereotypical youth (and I doubt the stereotypical youth even knows what channel is the CBC!) I enjoyed the show immensely and couldn’t wait for its premiere tonight.

Only it never happened. After watching Stargate: Atlantis, I flipped channels to CBC Newsworld and found Political Assassinations on instead. That’s when it hit me. The CBC was messing with my show!

I can see a big angry corporation like Fox or (dare I whisper their hallowed name) UPN disrupting their schedule like this, but the CBC?! It’s a government corporation! I expected to be blogging here about political issues, not about my lack of a great news show to follow political issues!

So now I feel like writing an angry email to the CBC, something along the lines of:

Dear CBC Management:

I am a 15-year-old adolescent who enjoys your program (specifically, CBC News: The Hour) and am angered by your insipid quest to save money. I know this may come as a shock, considering that you probably thought you only had an audience of about 10 65-year-olds and a dog outside a TV store window. Well, you were wrong. So give me back my show.

I may or may not decide to make it more or less coherent. And I‘ve no clue if I’m going to send the email … maybe if I could persuade some friends to bombard them with email too… .

That’s right. I’m asking you now, email the CBC’s Negotations Web Site and have your say!

Anyway … down the CBC Management!

I watched the CBC’s premiere of the BBC’s new Doctor Who series last night. Sadly, I’ve never had the opportunity to see any of the previous series, but I do think this one is … okay. I haven’t really seen a lot of British television before, so it was a little surprising. But overall I did like the storyline, if the episode itself wasn’t that great. The teaser for next week does look interesting, so I’ll be watching that.

Hmm … well, I got to borrow hair spray from my principal today. Indeed, that was first. I made a propaganda poster for history class, and because I used chalk my history teacher suggested I spray it with hair spray to prevent smudging. Thus, I borrowed someone’s hairspray (and the poster didn’t smudge!).