An open letter to Canadian reality TV apologists.

Dear Canadian reality TV apologists,

How are you?  Are you working hard?  You must be working hard.  Thanks for working so hard during the sunlight hours of the day.  You help the world!  When you get home you must be exhausted.  I would be.  Maybe you want to flop into your favourite fancy chair that doesn’t look like a La-Z-Boy but actually is a La-Z-Boy.  Maybe you can’t wait to have that beer, that wine, that whiskey when you get home.  Right on, you deserve it.

So now I gather you would subsequently turn on your 100″  flat panel LCD plasma laser ecobamboo ultra pixel television.  Those look really nice.  And that Sunday football looks amazing on it.  It’s like you’re in the 300 section or something!  Really you’re saving money by not ever having to go outside and be with people and go to a game.  Bonus.  Convenient.

I was just curious about something.  When you turn on that lovely television, why do you turn to the most unfortunate, sad, derivative, no-merit, ultra formaggi heartless programming?  I know what you’re thinking – some artsy pretentious snob is judging me.  Someone who doesn’t appreciate unabashed innocent fun.  A bohemian tightass, perhaps.  You’re right, who am I to judge?  I try not to, but it always ends up happening.  And you’re judging me too, so bygones.  I know all you want to do is watch something you don’t have to think about.  Tune out, turn off, auto pilot, fake drama.  No harm no foul.

But there is harm – millions agree with you.  The masses will be heard!  And so you should.  Your pens and your swords and your sitting bums are mighty.  But what I want you to know is that this fully brings out worst in Canadian creativity and culture.  For me, for better or for worse, our television programming is a direct reflection of our culture.  I can qualify this.   Picture if you will, an easily concluded sentence in the CBC executive office in Toronto:  “Let’s copy something America does but make it with iiiiice.  Ice is so Canadian!  It’ll be exactly like Dancing with the Stars but much more derivative and much worse!  Or better yet, a direct copy of an awful movie made in 1992!” You know it, I know it.  The best we can come up with is America… with ice.  And you just made me cry.

We can do better than this, Canadian reality TV apologists.  This is exactly the same as when America thought Paul Blart : Mall Cop was the best movie in North America for many weeks.  You guys are nice people, and you have great heads and thirsty brains.  Don’t be afraid to quench with something meaningful, dare I say important.  It won’t hurt, I promise.  I know that when times are tough, bacon sales go up, beer sales go up, High School Musical DVDs and buddy bandz go up, and so do shitty television ratings.  We want campy comfort ingestables.  But babies and boomers – please don’t run away.  We need you to care about non-entertainment things. We also need you to have an educated view on these non-entertainment things.  We all need a release, just make sure you think about what it does.

Lots of love.

m

p.s. See you in the car.

CBC Radio 1 piece.

CBC tees forever!  So I got my hands on the piece CBC Radio 1 did on a new song me and collaborator Chris DePaul finished called “Soncarte” (literally translated in English “sound map” or grammatically incorrect “his map”).  News reporter Ann Lang was gracious enough to try and clearly explain the technicalities behind the song, although difficult to do with the time she had and like most, limited experience in non-traditional music and audio engineering.  If you haven’t listened to the song before, the end of the song has much less “experimental” aspects than what was played during the interview.  Regardless,  I am grateful for her and the CBC’s interest in the song!  Here’s the piece:

CBC Radio 1 Montreal 88.5 FM – Daybreak – April 14th, 2009

And here again, is Soncarte.  Read more about it here.

The Handkerchief Revival – Soncarte

Thanks to everyone who has listened or supported!  Missions go.

Bruce Peninsula @ Q.

Who does this guy sound like?  I can’t place it.  Not Bruce, not Tom Waits, just some awesome cigarette scruff though.  I saw these guys a while back and they were great.  I think we all love choirs deep down, because 1 000 000 Schrutebucks says you were in a choir in school at least once.  Gang vocal me uuuppp.  Plus they’re on the Fleet Foxes southern gospel folk rock wave.  If we don’t get no tolls, then we don’t get no rolls.  I made that up.  Bruce Peninsula playing “Crabapples” on QTV with international interviewer superstar Jian Ghomeshi:

Say Bay Say.

Got a random email from Ann Lang and Jeanette Kelly from CBC Radio 1 in Montreal this morning about my new song, Soncarte.  I did a small interview this afternoon and the song/talk should be on today or tomorrow on the show “Home Run”.  Listen here.  If you’re constrained by time, check out the show either between 3:30-4 or around 5:20.  Most likely nicely juxtaposed to traffic reports and discussions on who’s buying the Canadiens.

YARRRR!

Pssstt…. HEY….. CBC…. I would give you (more) money for top-tier journalism and programming.   Put it on my tab.  You won my heart at the age of 20.  Just so you know,  in your bigwig meetings…. mid 20 somethings would pay for it too.  Plus it’ll level the playing field so Global and CTV won’t bitch about not getting as much money as you.  Or maybe Harper will begrudgingly bail you all out.  Who knows, but if it comes down to this, I’d be down with Andrew Coyne’s opinion.

At war.

Did you see this on the National last week?  Please please watch it.  Please.

I encourage all of you to watch clips of the Canadian battle in Afghanistan on YouTube, tons of videos.  What happened to peacekeeping?  I need to look into this more, as well as a proper way to thank Canadian soldiers, really.  The validity of this war  just amplifies the sacrifice they make.

Forgive my possible lack of understanding, but if we had a stronger non-interventionist mentality and focused on peacekeeping, wouldn’t we be considerably less likely to face hostility from Muslim extremist groups?  Maybe that’s too Switzerland, but often other governments (i.e. Australia) take it way too far to chum the U.S.  I understand that Canada has little to no defence and supporting them supports Canada’s defence.  But defending yourself and fighting a questionable war on foreign soil are two completely different things.

And who would hypothetically attack us?  Muslim extremist groups?  The exact people we are trying to kill right now by supporting the US?  And why?  Because they think we’re trying to modernize or moderate Islam?  Because we support Israel?  Because their fundamentalism is dangerous?  Because of our need for middle eastern oil?  Because we started it?  Because we funded militant extremeist groups?  Could be all of the above.  Messy.

The infinite and immanent brain.

I know I post a lot of YouTube videos, but free streaming video is one of the internet’s biggest resources.

I stayed up way past my bedtime to be glued to The Nature of Things documentary on “The Brain That Changes Itself”.  It discusses the emerging concept of neuroplasticity, a theory that proves how our brain is not a static system and continually changes until you die.  It then destroys our old conceptual model of the “computer or machinist” brain and exemplifies this through showing how the brain can rehabilitate itself to actually cure paralysis, phantom pains, and improve health simply through our own thoughts.

Here is part one, and if your interest is piqued, links to parts II-III-IV are below as well.

Part II | Part III | Part IV

I know everyone loves psychology, but it’s just too fascinating not too post.  I love how more than any part of our body, the most important piece is also the most mysterious.  Doesn’t this make the scientific community truly revel in its power, its dynamism, its infiniteness, its beauty?  Something seemingly so immanent is really something transcendent.  Sound like something to you?

After seeing this, I shall wear my CBC Suzuki t-shirt even more proudly.  CBC, is there anything you can’t do?  Oh yes, write a successful fictional series.  But I’ll take great alternative journalism over shitty Helvetica-laced Douglas Coupland remakes any day of the week.

Oh my dear Jian.

“He’s better than Strombolopolopolopolopolous!” - me

I will paint you a picture.  Educated with a graduate degree, mid 20s, educated parents, fan and proponent of Canadian arts and culture, enjoys stimulating, commercial free discussion and music with a global view.  Can you guess that I think CBC Radio 1 is the best thing since freshly squeezed orange juice?  Well I do, and it’s only been a few years that I’ve seen the lights.  And yes fine I own a CBC tshirt.  It would only be hip if I fit into the small rib hugging XS.  Thus it defaults to nerd based reasons.

I remember between the ages of as early as I can remember and 18 I always was annoyed when my mum always had 107.5, CBC radio 1 in Kingston on our minivan dial.  As a typical teen, I wanted the sweet sounds of Sloan, Weezer, and Radiohead and not Anna Maria Tremonti nor how I can improve my gardening skills.  But the CBC knows they’re not going for the teen demo, they just look forward to when you get older and know better.  To me, the CBC does an active job in seeking interesting, broad topics, as well as the real and wide flavours of Canadian culture.

What first got me hooked on CBC Radio was my dear friend, Jian Ghomeshi.  I watched him when he hosted “>play” on Newsworld years back and was sad when it was taken off the air.  Luckily, the poster child of Canadian media soon replaced him.  If you don’t listen to CBC Radio 1, Jian’s delivery is buttery and homey, and his knowledge and insight into the arts all over the world is inspiring.  Every day he has something that is truly worthy of a Canadian’s ears.  He gets you excited, engaged, and introduces you to things that make you sound smart, and that’s the whole point for all us wannabe snobs.  The funny thing is it’s really not snobby at all, it definitely keeps the stream of popular culture close to chest. The only difference here is that it considers pop culture in a seasoned and mature manner, and virtually all in good taste.

Not only was he part of Moxy Fruvous (you remember “King of Spain“), he now is involved in artist management. among a host of other endeavours.  He has developed the new indie teen darling Lights – this radio friendly, Millenial targeted, poppy postal service offshoot singer will be invading your life very soon.

Check him out, he has podcasts if you’re iPodified.  He even has a YouTube channel, it’s excellent as well.  You will be entertained, and you can actually learn something neat!  Golllly.