There's a report in today's Ottawa Citizen that 60% of the CRTC's staff are considering quitting their jobs. On top of that, one in seven feel the Commission is discriminating against them and has adversely affected their career progression and one in three claim there's nothing the CRTC could do to entice them to stay.
My first reaction was, "Wow! The CRTC treats its staff as bad as it treats those of us working in the industries they regulate." My second reaction was more pro-active, "Hey, why don't you guys do yourselves and the rest of us a favor and get out now?"
Think about it! The next time Konrad Von Finkenstien walks down the hall, he's going to know that every other face peeking up from a cubicle would rather be somewhere else. And given that he likes to surround himself with "The right people" (which already doesn't include anybody who actually works in or watches television, overpays for a cell phone and now apparently toils in his office) then what makes you think he isn't already figuring out some way to turf the lot of you?
I mean, let's be honest. He knows you people told the survey company that you felt the CRTC:
1. Had a lack of vision.
2. Saddled you with repetitive tasks.
and
3. Didn't sufficiently challenge you.
Almost anybody working in Canadian television or who pays way more than the rest of the world for mobile phone services has known those things for years. Those who are in favor of net neutrality or opposed to traffic throttling seem to be waking up to the reality of how CRTC regulation really works as well.
But let's take each of those issues you have in turn...
LACK OF VISION
This really isn't Konrad's fault. He, like the Commissioners before him, gets his marching orders from the broadcasters and telecom companies. So he doesn't know where you're going until he gets told.
I know you guys spend endless hours setting up hearings and symposiums, but seriously, have you seen even one of them result in a ruling that didn't give the big money exactly what it wanted, no matter how logical or ultimately proven correct the arguments were from their detractors?
I'm sure you, like the rest of us, thought the appointment of a highly respected Federal Judge to the position of Head Honcho might mean a fresh breeze was going to blow through Gatineau. But it didn't happen, did it? In fact it seems to have gotten worse.
I'm sure it's difficult for a man of Konrad's standing to have fallen from such heights to being little more than a pimp for the broadcasters and telecoms but that's his problem. What you kids need to think about is -- there's a name for people who work for a pimp, isn't there?
REPETITIVE TASKS
Okay, so we already covered the pointless hearings you set up. And I'm sure none of you enjoy photocopying and translating all those binders of interventions you know none of the Commissioners even bother to read or will make any difference to their decisions if they do.
But you also must be asking yourself what the point is of your own in-house studies and reports when nothing happens with them either.
A year ago, two of the lawyers who work in your building, Lawrence Dunbar and Christian LeBlanc, published an astonishingly insightful report firmly opposed to simultaneous transmission and genre protection of specialty channels while supporting prime time content quotas and consumer choice in purchasing channels.
Were any of you asked to help institute any of those initiatives? No! And you won't be because those policies might revolutionize Canadian television and make it better. The Broadcasters can't let that happen. So even if you're a lawyer for the CRTC, the work you do is pointless.
God, get out now and take a job selling Beavertails on Bank Street! At the very least, you'll increase your chances of getting laid. And you won't be an accessory to the continued destruction of the Canadian film and television industries.
I'm serious! It's the end of the month, so you just got paid. It's summer, the perfect time to kick back and consider your options. And -- quite frankly -- the way things in the industries you pretend to regulate are going, you'll get a head start on finding a new job while the co-workers who stick around go down with the ship.
INSUFFICIENT CHALLENGE
Now, I think we both know the reasons for this but, for the sake of argument, let me ask you dissatisfied staffers a couple of questions.
First, how come none of you have phoned Bell, Rogers or Telus and told them to stop telling customers the network service fees they are charging isn't "A CRTC REQUIREMENT" even though that's what they've been claiming for years?
I'm betting it's because you've been told not to since it would force Rogers, Bell and Telus to rebate BILLIONS OF DOLLARS they probably don't have.
So, let's be frank here. Being insufficiently challenged on a job is as much your fault as it is the CRTC's. Maybe before you pack up your McDonald's Happy Meal Figures and walk the Green Mile, you might think of making those calls. At the very least, you could get in touch with Tony Merchant and let him know who told you not to smackdown the telecoms. It would really help him with his class action suit on behalf of the Canadian mobile consumers you guys were hired (and paid by) to protect.
On a similar note, how come none of you have been in touch with History Television to let them know that rebroadcasting "JAG" and "NCIS" is as bogus as the broadcasts of "CSI:NY" you forced them to cancel last year?
Being consistent might not seem sufficiently challenging to some of you. But doing so might make the rest of us believe that regulating the industry you're mandated to regulate wasn't too much of a challenge in the first place.
Finally, I want to address the 14% of you (or 25% of those who are French) who feel you're being discriminated against at work. Because this really confuses me.
You see, as a Canadian producer, I am required to sign a pledge prior to receiving CTF Funding (the terms of which you folks regulate) to apply diversity to all aspects of staffing my productions. Furthermore, the CRTC has mandated any number of diversity programs in the production community not to mention embedding them in the licensing requirements of our broadcasters.
Are you telling me that doesn't apply within the Commission, that there's one rule for the CRTC and another for the rest of us?
If that's the case, it gives an even darker hue to Konrad's constant reference to decisions only being made by "the right people". And you have a responsibility to yourself, your profession and the Canadian people to not only quit right now but to make the details of that discrimination public.
Feel free to send your information directly to me: seraphic@sympatico.ca. The PM may have reneged on his promise to protect government whistleblowers, but I'll definitely get the details out as well as cover your back.
Hey, I know this is a tough situation for all of you. Like most Canadians, you probably thought the CRTC was set up to look out for your interests and not those of a monied elite. I understand that you feel betrayed if not completely fucked over. There's barely a creative artist in this country's film and TV industries who doesn't share your pain and frustration.
Please don't let the situation fester and poison your life. Moreover, don't continue giving your energies to a system that is destroying the ability of Canadian artists to turn things around. Don't wait! Get out now!
If I have one bone to pick with Show Business, it's that so many of us get pre-occupied with it. We tend to forget that there's a far bigger world out there. And therefore, in order to achieve our goals, we try to reflect what's currently considered hip or cool in our work and strive to be perceived in a similar light.
Sometimes our role models and mentors are not people of consumate character but those who have achieved the things we aspire to achieve ourselves. We follow their example and their advice, perhaps succeeding but always losing something of ourselves in the process.
So, let me introduce you to somebody who should be your role model. Randy Pausch.
Unfortunately, you won't ever get to meet Randy in person because he died this week. But a year ago, shortly after learning that his life would soon end, he recorded one final lecture at Carnegie Mellon University where he taught computer science.
Randy's last lecture has nothing to do with show business. But it contains everything you need to know about succeeding in this profession (or any other for that matter). He explains how to find your passion. How to get past the gatekeepers. How to be good at what you do. How to find the people who'll make you better.
He also expounds on the concept of "The Head Fake", the moment when you realize life told you it was going in one direction, when it really had something else in mind -- usually something better.
Randy's lecture will take an hour out of your day and reverberate through every day that follows. If you do one thing to realize your dreams this week, make it this.
In this age of satellite radio and iPods, it's possible to completely control your personal soundtrack. Through these technologies and others, we can design playlists that get us from the morning alarm to our final lullabies without the intrusion of any tune that hasn't been pre-selected.
And while that's all okay, I'm a big fan of being surprised, even ambushed by music I haven't heard before. And when I'm travelling, I also like to get a read on what the locals are liking by giving the dashboard scan button a workout as I drive.
Since my tastes grow more Hillbilly Hardcore by the day, I thought I'd cobble together links to some of the best Country stations you can find as you cross the country, combined with a song they each introduced me to and what those songs tell me about this summer's Country music.
So here goes...
Rolling through the Rockies, you need to constantly surf the FM band to take the peaks and valleys into account as they intrude on local transmitters. Road signs and billboards constantly update you on the two or three frequencies most likely to be your best bet. It's odd to find the same station at multiple locations on your dial, but if that station is CKJC-FM Country 103 in Kamloops, you're in for a treat.
Country 103 has long been the voice of "Mountainfest", the Country Music Festival in nearby Merritt that has revitalized the small mountain town and morphed it into the official "Country Music Capitol of Canada".
The station also features a terrific weekly program hosted by Cowboy poet Hugh McLennan featuring interviews with real cowboys, western history and thematically related music, poetry and stories. It's a very unique show posting weekly podcasts online.
103 didn't introduce me to Canadian singer Shane Yellowbird. This aboriginal Country star has been around for a while with his combination of George Strait lyrical stylings and Tex-Mex Freddie Fender rhythms.
But in "Pick-up Truck" Shane has his first bonafide hit. And his newfound notoriety in Nashville should bode well for a lot of fellow artists and lead to some personal recognition that has been long deserved.
And if General Motors was smart, they'd snap up this number to turn around their lagging sales.
SHANE YELLOWBIRD - "PICK-UP TRUCK"
Somewhere around Banff, you need to tick up the dial to CKRY-FM Country 105 in Calgary, undoubtedly the most influential Country music outlet we've got. Positioned in the Heart of the Heartland, 105 is a monster, mixing mainstream artists with independents and past hits with debuting numbers in awesome waves of great music.
Whatever happens to the rest of the Corus empire, this station will always remain the bright spot on their financial statements. And they do that by championing songs that exemplify the two greatest strengths of the genre, telling a story and touching you where you live.
105 introduced me to Chuck Wicks' astonishing "Stealing Cinderella". If this song doesn't choke you up a little, go read somebody else's blog -- we don't need your kind around here.
CHUCK WICKS - STEALING CINDERELLA
The flatness of the prairies and a night phenomenon where the ionosphere rises allows sound to carry thousands of miles there. So if you plan your trip right, you can ride from Calgary to Winnipeg with Regina's best AM station 620 CKRM on the dial. And that's a very good thing.
When I was growing up in Regina, CKRM was a boring middle-of-the-road station that featured News and the Mantovani Orchestra. But somewhere along the line they morphed into a Country station with major attitude. Listening to CKRM feels like walking into the best Honky Tonk on a red dirt road. They're having a good time and you might as well join in.
RM also hosts Canada's largest Country music festival "The Craven Country Jamboree" in a nearby natural amphitheatre that's about as much fun as you can have ripped on Applejack and stinking of mosquito repellant.
The Jamboree has Nashville's biggest stars constantly lining up for a spot on its massive stage. This year the line-up featured Toby Keith, Sugarland and Paul Brandt. What can you say about a festival so chock full of talent that Montgomery Gentry can only find room to play in the beer garden!
But that's an example of that RM attitude. We're here for a party, bring your Yeehaw. Of course, they were the ones to introduce me to the party song of the summer...(check out the amazing cinematography as well)...
As you navigate the endless cliffs and curves of Northern Ontario, you run into a wall of Country stations that dot the Wisconsin and Michigan coast from Duluth to Detroit. But you need to find 100.7 The Island, a tiny independent on Manitoulin Island that is Canada's first completely wind powered radio station.
"The Island" prides itself on delivering cutting edge independent Country artists, who don't get much airplay elsewhere but still have a lot to say. Like CKRM, they've also got that ready to party Country attitude.
They didn't introduce me to this last song, but for me it exemplifies the new directions of many of "The Island's" artists, as well as how much Country music has changed since the "New Country" rebirth of the early 1990's.
Think of Trace Adkins as a Stetson wearing 50 Cent and his band as boot-heeled gangstas and you'll get an idea of what the people who don't listen to Country music are missing.
It'll also give you an idea of what it's honest-to-God really like in a Country bar.
I once introduced a fellow showrunner to my favorite Cowboy saloon in LA. He took one look at the stunning array of beautiful women at the bar and the handsome cowpokes lounging nearby and shook his head. "We could walk through here naked and nobody would notice" he said, "How come nobody puts these places on TV?"
I just shrugged, sipped a longneck and surveyed my options. A cowboy's work is never done....
Over the course of my life, I've been a member of three political parties. Growing up in Saskatchewan, my first allegiance was to the NDP (The Godless Socialists to you non-Canadian readers). It was part of that Churchillian thing of "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart...". They also had the best keggers at University and by far the best looking female fellow travellers.
Then I got caught up in Trudeau-mania in my 20's and joined that crowd for a while. It gave me the chance to meet our most popular Prime Minister on several occasions and whatever history has to say about him, he was still a pretty cool guy and way smarter than anybody else who's ever held that office.
And finally, the sponsorship scandal drove me into the arms of the Conservatives -- allowing me to complete the other part of the Churchill quote: "If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain".
Yet as another famous adage reminds us -- "Three strikes and you're out."
So as a former insider of all of these philosophies, the only thing I really know for certain is -- you can't trust any of these sons of bitches and hanging your hopes for the future on one of them is a complete waste of your good intentions.
Summer in Canada is traditionally the time when our politicians hit the road to meet the people. And luckily for most of us, it's also the time when we hit the road as well, so we're usually not around when they drop by the neighborhood.
Unfortunately, this summer I had the opposite experience.
I hit the road out of "Beautiful British Columbia" about a week after Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell imposed a 2.5 cents per litre carbon tax on gasoline, claiming it was both "revenue neutral" -- (Don't you love that concept? I mean, if it doesn't make any difference, why bother?) -- and would take the equivalent of 700,000 cars off BC highways.
I hate to tell Premier Campbell this, but the high price of gasoline meant those cars were already gone. I travelled through huge portions of his province without seeing another vehicle on the road and stopped at more than one gas station where I was the only customer they'd had in the last hour.
Now maybe there's an argument for dinging the populace for a carbon tax to "help the environment" but you'd think a responsible government might have taken care of their own in-house major polluter (Coal fired power plants) before going after rural drivers familiar with signs reading "Next Fuel 120 Km".
I'm sure it's a policy that gets votes in Vancouver. But it doesn't make much sense or leave many options to people who have to burn a quarter of a tank just to get to a gas station in the first place. And I wouldn't want to be anybody hoping to make a buck off tourists on Vancouver Island, where that's pretty much the only job they've got left this summer.
Once the Olympics don't turn out to be the promised Bonanza for the masses, I think things are gonna get fairly ugly for the Liberals in BC. Way to go, Gord!
I pulled into oil rich Calgary the same day Conservative Premier Ed Stelmach announced a different carbon cap/trade/storage deal I couldn't fathom that would take the equivalent of "a million cars" off Alberta highways. Apparently, Ed hasn't noticed that there's barely a car travelling between Calgary and Medicine Hat now -- or that he's the province's biggest polluter via his own government run coal fired power plants.
His passing the buck on the real problem was echoed at Conservative Federal Industry Minister Jim Prentice's "Pancake Breakfast" downtown during Stampede Week that was attended by a couple of dozen people far more versed on copyright than the guy who introduced Bill C-61 to regulate it. It's astonishing that after embarrassing himself by not understanding his own Bill when he announced it, the Minister still hadn't bothered to read up on the issue or figure out how the new laws are really going to work.
But then that's how Canadian politicians operate isn't it? Why apply logic or honesty when audacity can keep you at the trough. Which brings me to Bob Rae.
Bob dogged me all across Saskatchewan, a province whose politicians I'll give a pass because they're part of some new cult I've never heard of.
Formerly the NDP Premier of Ontario, Bob Rae almost bankrupt the place, was worse for Unions than ultra-Conservative Mike Harris at his most rabid and folded to pressure from the greedy insurance industry he'd campaigned against his first week in office. But now, Bob has been reincarnated as a future hope for the Federal Liberal party.
He was stumping the West in partnership with the leader he's working behind the scenes to undermine, Stefan Dion, selling a "Green Shift" program most Western Canadians see as a new method of shifting their newfound wealth back East where the Liberals have a more reliable and in desperate need of cash power base.
But Bob kept insisting Prime Minister Harper needed to become "engaged" in the environmental debate, ignoring the reality that Harper is already fully clear on who's paying his freight and that he gains nothing by debating a born loser who did nothing for the environment during all the years he was in charge of it.
So as much as Bob was championing the cause, you knew that he was really using the tour to get his own name out there for the day when the Liberal leadership vote will be between him and torture advocate Michael Ignatief and he'll look like the better choice in that contest.
But there's a story about Bob Rae that hasn't been muttered much since he retooled his philosophy of government to one which gives him another shot at a free pension for life -- and it says a great deal about who the guy really is, if you ask me.
In the fall of 2003, former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson took off on a circumpolar tour of Russia, Finland and Iceland, "using pomp and pageantry to soft sell the best Canada has to offer" as MacLeans magazine reported at the time.
The trip was a certifiable "cause celebre" in Canada, reviled as a pointless airborne wine and cheese party that ended up costing Canadian taxpayers $5 Million and ironically departed on the same day the Toronto Star was reporting local foodbanks being forced to ration their meagre supplies to the needy.
It was a harsh example of the indecent disparities of this country that severely damaged respect for the office of the GG and did nothing to help our own northern communities, where the residents still depend on water sources frequently augmented by raw sewage.
Among those tagging along on that flight were UN adviser Maurice Strong (now embroiled in the "oil for food" scandal) and -- Bob Rae. A former champion of the poor and downtrodden, Bob was opting to pop corks with some folks who might help his career while a hundred thousand people in his home town were doing without so their kids could subsist on Mac and Cheese.
Yeah, that's the kind of guy I want running my country!
And much as it pains me, I gotta believe Stephen Harper is salivating at the chance to go up against Bob in an election, on any issue.
The last Radio talk show I heard about Bob warned me he might be in Winnipeg the next day, so I burned through Manitoba as fast as I could and made it to my home Province of Ontario.
But as I crossed the border into an endless reminder that water-lily munching Moose are a lethal "Night Danger" to drivers, I got my best lesson into how our politicians look at us -- and maybe into why we keep re-electing them.
Each time you cross a Provincial boundary in Canada, there's a big "Welcome to Beautiful..." sign with flags and plaques that's immediately followed by reminders that on this new turf you have to wear a seat belt and drive the speed limit. As if you didn't have to do that before you got to their little fiefdom.
But Ontario takes that concept to a whole new level, warning that speed kills, following too close kills, passing when you can't see kills -- and my favorite...
Anybody like to consider how much taxpayer money was spent coming up with that one, or whose brother-in-law earned a consulting fee, or whose inbred or illegitimate child got the construction contract?
No, I thought not. We're all too used to this stuff, aren't we?
But for me, that sign said it all. Our politicians think we're complete idiots. And by continually electing most of them to office, we prove that they're probably right.
This weekend will no doubt be remembered in showbiz annals for the debut of "The Dark Knight" currently smashing pretty much every box office record imaginable. And just as doubtless, the "Batman" juggernaut will inspire another sequel and more studios turning more graphic novels and comic book heroes into films for next summer and beyond.
It's likely to ignite a resurgence in noir heroes, enormously complicated villains and stories that reverberate with aspects of society that many people don't want to discuss in polite company. And that's a very exciting prospect.
But there's another film opening this weekend. It's based on about the dumbest concept you could imagine. The pitch would get you laughed out of the offices of all but the most junior and in-desperate-need-of-a-meeting development exec. And it has a plot no audience member would buy for a moment or not feel embarrassed in repeating to a friend.
Yet there is something about "Mamma Mia!" which overcomes all of those problems as it continues its own showbiz juggernaut.
In the simplest of box office terms, it really doesn't matter how well "Mamma Mia!" does by comparison this weekend, because it's already ahead of "The Dark Knight" by over Two Billion Dollars!
"Mamma Mia!" was originally conceived in 1983 by British stage producer Judy Craymer as she worked with songwriters Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson (formerly of the pop group ABBA) who were collaborating with Tim Rice on "Chess".
But even she must've known the idea of building a theatrical musical around songs created by a Swedish pop group that, although written in English didn't make a lot of sense in that language, wasn't the kind of thing most theatrical 'angels' (as stage investors are known) would get involved in.
Now, there's no denying ABBA had been a very popular band selling hundreds of millions of records worldwide and touring with great success until the marriages of Benny and Björn to the group's singers Agnetha and Anni-Frid broke up.
But the songs themselves were an issue as far as what's accepted in musical theatre. To begin with, Pop hits rely on a hook, a lick or a turn of phrase that catches the imagination. Songs in musicals help tell the story and/or emotionally move the plot and characters forward. There's also usually a thematic connection between them.
But ABBA's hits were all over the map when it came to subject matter and the lyrics were almost an after-thought composed by guys whose first language wasn't English and who were more concerned with the catchy hooks and disco friendly wall of sound they achieved by overdubbing their wives' voices.
And more than that, there was this low-brow, disco aspect to ABBA. And the music was almost impossible to recreate outside a studio setting. So how do you combine lyrics that don't make sense with music you can't fully realize in a live setting and turn that into a must see evening of theatre?
Even Benny and Björn didn't think the concept would work.
But those tunes were so damn catchy that Craymer kicked the idea around for 15 more years before finally passing the nightmare off to playwright Catherine Johnson to write what's known in the trade as "jukebox musical". And perhaps figuring this was a gig better finished quick and forgotten, Johnson didn't so much create a book for the music as rehash an old Gina Lollobrigida movie she'd liked titled "Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell".
So we've got the plot of a so-so comedy from the 60's mixed with a bunch of songs everybody has heard a million times being launched into a market known for lavish sets and spectacular effects. But in continuing to go against the grain, the show's producers opted for a basic modular set and the kind of lighting and effects you could pick up for a song at a discotheque fire ale.
To be clear, this was a project that everybody who worked on it loved -- but didn't really think had much more than a small chance of success.
But "Mamma Mia!" opened in London in 1999 and was an immediate and overwhelming hit. Audiences went wild, refusing to leave the theatre until some of the biggest numbers had been reprised. Within weeks the producer was advertising that the show had never brought the curtain down to anything less than a standing ovation.
By 2008, more than 30 Million people had seen the show performed in dozens of countries in eleven languages including Norwegian, Japanese and Catalan. Every single performance to this day continues to end with audiences standing and screaming for more.
Much has been made of the fact that the film version of "Mamma Mia!" stars non-singers like Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan which will reduce its box office appeal. Others warn that a film release at this time will hurt the show's relentless assault on "longest run" records in several cities. But I don't think either is a real worry.
Dumb story. Disco music. Odd lyrics. No visual effects. None of that affects the one thing that makes "Mamma Mia!" so successful. It's simply two hours of sheer joy. I'll be surprised if there aren't a few standing ovations at the local Cineplex.
Do your cultural duty and see "The Dark Knight" and then give your heart a treat and slip next door to catch "Mamma Mia!".
Among the movie's great numbers is the stage version showstopper "Does Your Mother Know". Here's ABBA's version. Wooo! Swedes in Spandex! Who cares. Enjoy your Sunday.
I drove across the country this week. It was a great five days. Gave me lots of time to think. Allowed me to catch some great Country stations I've never heard before as well as catch up with a few old friends (see Dixon).
The time to think after an impossibly busy 3 months was much needed and I'll have a lot to say about what seems to be going on in the business and the world in the days to come.
But three things in particular struck me as I drove:
1. We sure have a lot of trees.
2. Saskatchewan is really empty.
3. The country I saw outside the windows of my truck is not the one I see on my television every night.
This is a much more muscular and vibrant place than comes across on most of our programming. From the magnificence of the Rockies to the endless living sky of the Prairies to the walls of wood and stone that define Northern Ontario, there are vistas I've never or rarely seen as backdrops to our stories.
Our peoples and their dreams aren't there much either. There's an energy to this place that seems to get bled out in the development process along with so much of the positive energy and fun I experienced everywhere I went. And the fearful masses constrained by worries about all manner of societal woes, who get trotted out nightly on the news, didn't cross my path anywhere.
But more on all that in Posts to come.
Right now, I want to tell you about the best moment of the trip. I was rolling through Kicking Horse Pass close to sunset, with this golden light bouncing off the granite cliffs on either side. I'd been seeing wildlife all day. Dozens of deer, a Black bear and a fox. All venturing within a few feet of one of the busiest highways in the country. This place is also a lot wilder than we seem to readily admit.
I noticed a couple of cars on the shoulder ahead of me and, as I drew closer, spotted a small team of photographers taking pictures of something out in the river. I knew they could only have stopped for one thing and pulled over.
And i was right. In the middle of the river, about 300 yards away, a lone Grizzly bear was fishing. One of the photographers said it was a "she bear" and offered all kinds of detail I didn't really need.
One of the biggest bears in the world was right in front of me, splashing in the water, doing what bears do and have done for millions of years between the massive walls of rock that border her home. The sun glinted off her fur as it ducked behind the peaks and she caught something, ambling to the rocky shore to eat.
One of the photographers grumbled about losing the light and needing a different lens. I asked why he didn't just take pictures of the closer one.
Photographer: "Closer one? Where?"
Me: "Behind you by the car."
There was a panicked scramble before they realized I was pulling their legs. And then with the light dimming, we all just sat there for a while in silence as, across the river, that magnificent animal finished dinner, surveyed the falling darkness and slowly vanished into the brush.
We share this planet with so many awesome creatures who thrive and endure oblivious to all the issues that entangle us humans. Somehow seeing one always reminds me that my place in this world is neither as unique or as in need of being taken seriously as day-to-day life seems to imply.
Here's a taste of Grizzlies in a less quiet moment from Werner Herzog's terrific documentary "The Grizzly Man".
When I was a kid the standard knock against Rock from adults was that they couldn't understand what the guy was saying.
"Louie, Louie" aside, that never made much sense to me, until I dated one girl who thought Jimi Hendrix was gay ("Scuse me while I kiss this guy") and another who was scandalized by Springsteen ("Wrap your hands 'round my inches"). And then "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came along and I knew they weren't writing songs guys my age were supposed to decode.
Among those the generation before me couldn't understand was one of England's great Blues artists, Joe Cocker. Most North Americans became aware of Joe through a stunning debut performance at "Woodstock".
I must have seen that film 20 times and he and fellow countrymen "Ten Years After" always blew me away.
If you ever get the chance, you should also catch another performance film he did, "Mad Dogs & Englishmen", a rock-doc that chronicles Cocker's tour with Leon Russell and friends.
As a budding performer, there was a defining moment in that one for me; a long, lingering pan of the dressing room after one of the shows. Leon Russell and the band crank the tops off bottles of Jack and Southern Comfort as the place fills with groupies, record execs and hangers-on eager to party. The shot ends on Cocker, slumped in the corner, soaked in sweat, wrapped in a towel and utterly, utterly spent.
It was a lesson that a true artist leaves it all onstage.
The only time I saw him perform was 20 years after Woodstock in a small Toronto bar trying to build its rep on burned out rockers. There were only a handful of people there and most of them couldn't have cared less who was onstage -- or maybe they just couldn't understand what he was saying.
Here's Joe at Woodstock in a mash-up that has a little fun with his performance style and lyrical interpretation but gives you a glimpse of a great artist in full flight.
One of my earliest memories is of "Canada Day" sitting on the edge of the bathroom sink and watching my father shave. It was pre-dawn dark and he was excited about something, implying it was going to be a special day. And it was. For July 1st marked the beginning of the Swift Current rodeo, the biggest one in our part of the country.
Everybody packed saddles and ropes and headed into the city, some of them towing the horses they'd be riding in the events to come.
I was only 4 or 5 and completely knocked out by the flags and rhinestoned cowboys in the sun-drenched outdoor arena. A high school marching band played the National Anthem and a local politician inspected a color guard of WW2 vets before making a speech about national pride.
It was a time when some in the crowd were older than the country itself and many more had been around when Saskatchewan became a province. The day was called "Dominion Day" then and the flag was a different one. But the celebration was identical to the ones that will be held from coast to coast to coast today featuring hot dogs and fireworks and homegrown music.
I remember the bronc riders and the calf ropers and the steer wrestlers, but I was considered too young to watch the Brahma bulls have their way with the local cowpokes.
Luckily that happened after lunch and all around the parking lot, moms similarly concerned with the scars their children might bear from watching cowboys stomped into the dirt were tucking their tots into the back seats of cars and the beds of pick up trucks for their afternoon nap.
In an interesting difference from today, most of those moms went back to the stands once their tots were a-nod, returning after the festivities were over. And nobody of either generation seemed the worse for the experience.
After the rodeo, there was a midway with a merry-go-round and Ferris wheel I could ride and a spinning rocket ship I couldn't. There were more hot dogs, root beer out of a barrel, candy floss and fireworks. July 1st became instantly planted in my brain as the best damn day of the year.
Those of us who work in the story telling trade in Canada are often asked why we stay here. The weather's crappy. Nobody seems to need the tales we come up with and pay you poorly for them when they do.
Writers who become ex-pats often bemoan the fact that more Canadians are exposed to their work after they leave the country than when they were resident. That's hardly ever the motivation for their move, but it's still a truth we all find hard to fathom.
Somehow we're a nation neither comfortable creating our own myths and heroes nor interested in going out of our way to celebrate those that we do have.
Around the time I was going to that first rodeo, my own hero was the Cisco Kid, a Hollywood version of a Mexican Caballero. Nothing about him was remotely "Canadian" but I still thought he was cool. I got my mom to save up some boxtops or coupons from something and sent them off to get my own Cisco Kid coloring book. Another odd choice since the Kid only dressed in black.
Instead of the book, I got a nice letter from the cereal company explaining that the offer wasn't available in Canada. That was the identical experience of another Canadian writer (whose name for the life of me I can't remember) who'd sent off a request for his very own "Captain America" decoder ring a couple of decades earlier, also discovering that it couldn't be sent across the border.
That writer's famous quote went something like. "Not only did they have heroes we didn't, they had codes we weren't able to solve".
He claimed that event inspired him to be a writer and stay in Canada to help create local heroes.
I don't think that Cisco Kid coloring book did the same thing to me, but maybe it did on some subconscious level. At the very least, it would have made me look around for something else to color or draw. And in looking around I might have found a wealth of more interesting stories that nobody has told yet.
I now think I stay (or still write with the soul of this place when I go) because I know it's still virgin territory, that there are stories and ideas here that simply cannot be found or conjured anywhere else.
Today, as Canadians celebrate their country's birth, many of them will be more interested in which hockey free agents are changing teams on this first day of recruiting than how the place ended up as or managed to remain a country in the first place. And I'm kind of okay with that.
For I think it says we'll also never be a nation that needs to make our myths into religions others have to worship or our heroes into character traits we need to send our sons to die in foreign wars to prove are still very much alive.
Lack of sales options aside, I think that's the kind of country I want to stick with.
I know writers who are obsessed with it. The showrunner on one series I did would only deliver scripts to the network on ultra bright 20 lb. bond paper with an embedded watermark.
He was seriously old school, forbidding the re-use of even one brass brad and even importing stainless steel Chicago screws to fasten the final versions that were neatly stacked in his office -- unread, untouched, but perfect.
I'll never forget the look on his face the morning we were to deliver a spin-off pilot...
He'd proofed the final copy a dozen times and made sure there was a fresh ink cartridge in the Laser printer. Each newly minted page was delicately handled and personally collated. Once fastened, the script was slipped into a thin vellum envelope to protect it inside the Fedex box.
Then his assistant walked in. LA couldn't wait til tomorrow. They needed to read it right off the fax...
The Latin word for his obsession is not "Papiroflexia", instead that describes the Japanese art of "Origami" or paper folding. Some Japanese Masters spend their entire lives perfecting the recreation of nature from a single piece of paper.
The first sign I noticed was the guy with the shaky head.
CBC Newsworld was covering the flooding of Cedar Rapids, Iowa and either unable to send their own reporter because of budget cuts or in need of American instruction on how you cover a major TV story these days, they opted for a live feed from NBC News.
The NBC Reporter was parked on the banks of the once placid Cedar River with the flooded city in the background looking suitably dour as the CBC Anchor intro'd him. But as she asked her first question, he began shaking his head in that classic bad actor "I've just never seen anything so bad" mode. Never mind the massive flooding CBC had just been covering from China or the Monsoon death toll in Bangladesh, we had basements underwater here and city records getting soggy.
He even quoted Linn County Sheriff Don Zeller, "We're just kind of at God's mercy right now, so hopefully people that never prayed before this, it might be a good time to start."
Wow -- not two minutes in and we're already suggesting devastation of Biblical proportions requiring intervention from a Deity. This guy was a really good Cheerleader of Doom. No doubt he's destined for a big future at NBC, which is becoming known for its own disasters.
"Oh -- the Humanity..."
Now, I'm sure the folks of Cedar Rapids weren't enjoying their ordeal, but seeing their discomfort milked for every ounce of suffering was a little much. Especially since I'd just seen a Vancouver reporter for Global looking uncomfortable as the "flood ravaged" farmer he'd phoned refused to get any more emotional than farmer nonchalant.
No matter how many suggestions the reporter offered on how devastated the farmer must be, he just -- wasn't. "Nope, it's been flooded worst hereabouts a few times". And, "Well, we're makin' coffee and sittin' her out." Even the dire warning that he'd lost his crop and faced financial devastation was met with, "No, we got insurance."
Damn! Will nobody accept that the Apocalypse is upon us? Doesn't anyone but a seasoned network Anchor know a rabid mob of Zombies when they see one?
A couple of months ago, CBC hired an American consulting firm, Magid and Associates, to "pep up" their newscasts. Ratings were sliding against CTV and (God, forbid) Global.
And rather than explore whether that might be because their newscasts were on when nobody wanted to watch them, showed a little too much enthusiasm for the Federal Liberal Party or that the lead-in programming had failed to draw a crowd in the first place; the Mothercorp decided to toss generations of reliable and reasoned news coverage for the American "Chicken Little" approach.
"Frank Magid is called 'The Maggot' in the United States because he is loathed and despised by pretty much anyone who wants to be, or is, a serious television journalist. He is loved by ratings-hungry station managers and blow-dried airhead anchors."
'60 Minutes' producer Don Hewitt dubbed Magid's formula "Ken and Barbie journalism" while Walter Cronkite denounced the reporting concept as "...total perversions created from outside."
CBC won't say how much they paid Magid and Associates for their consultations. But since he charges $28,000 US for each tiny market US station, I'm sure it's a whack.
Gee, first we get Toledo Affiliate programming with "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune" and now we're watching their version of the News. "Cows loose on I-90! News at Eleven-- er, Ten, uh, 9:30 in Newfoundland." God, DMc, can those cops of yours on "The Border" defend us from nobody?
This Approaching Apocalypse version of journalism has been creeping onto CBC for a while now. No story on disgraced ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Bernier is complete without the now months old clip of his former paramour's cleavage combined with a complete lack of real coverage of that story.
If Bernier left secret NATO documents under his gun moll girlfriend's bed that's certainly worth investigating.
But you had to giggle at CBC's blustering over the last couple of days when Bernier suggested she'd "stolen" them from him and he'd been "set up". Because it wasn't "we got a lying politician" bluster, it was clearly pique at having somebody think up an even better plot twist than the tired old sex and power melodrama they'd been serving.
"The Horror...the horror..."
Last night, the "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid" reporting style was all over a lengthy CBC report on the impending collapse of society as we know it because of higher oil prices.
Futurists who seemed to have a weak grasp on tomorrow's weather pontificated on our return to feeding ourselves on what we could grow at home, that air travel would be a thing of the past and implied that millions of jobless automakers and former Motel 6 employees would roam the country in packs, rampaging through the few remaining Tim Horton's Drive-thru's at will.
My favorite was an "expert" from the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce literally rolling his eyes and perspiring in panic as he described how much we just don't get the complete devastation we're facing. It made me realize that CIBC isn't collapsing because it stupidly dumped Billions into the sub-prime mortgage market. It's because idiots like this guy have executive positions at their soon to be defunct bank.
Although, I have to say, he was positioning himself well to be the next doom and gloom forecaster on Fox. Peter Mansbridge might be heading there too, because he seemed tickled pink at all the bad news he's got coming down the pipe.
Or maybe he just enjoys the feel of a new puppetmaster pulling his strings.
Look, I know the planet is confused and difficult right now. And items reported on newscasts are usually there because they're more serious than normal events to begin with -- Presidential blowjobs and baby Belugas aside.
But I expect journalists to give me the whole story, or at least as much of it as they can dig up on a deadline, instead of just trying to scare me. Like most people, I already have enough problems in my own life and don't need to be endlessly spooked.
I mean, I'd like to make a difference in Darfur and Zimbabwe as much as the next guy, but I need at least a suggestion that it's not all hopeless and pointless over there.
I'm not asking for "feel-good" stories here, I'm asking for some balance, some suggestion that somebody is trying something to fight the darkness.
Sure the airlines are in trouble. But yesterday Pratt & Witney debuted an engine that uses 20% less jet fuel and carriers like Westjet who employed some forethought in their business planning are reaping huge quarterly profits.
How come that never gets mentioned?
The world never stops changing. Dinosaur industries will always die around us, just like some guy with a gun will eternally lose it at the post office and once trusted public officials will forever turn out to be liars and thieves. That's life. I know that part of the story. Tell me the rest of it. Because if you don't, I'll find it somewhere else.
"Rosebud..."
And if you journalists want something to be really scared about, consider this: The first suggestion debt counselors make to people squeezed by rising costs and threatened earnings is to get rid of cable television. It not only saves them $60 a month. It reduces their stress and aggravation so they can better address their situation.
I guess this current game of tag started with Good Dog, who tagged Beavis, who tagged Ken, who tagged me.
At the same time they all tagged other folks so that lately I'm seeing the lists of "The Seven Songs I'm Really into and Enjoying Right Now" on virtually every blog I read.
And knowing I'd have to respond or be a party poop, I watched/listened to all the amazingly eclectic, cutting edge and innovative play lists offered. In the process, I realized that either us TV people are the hippest, coolest music aficionados around -- or -- we really do have a gift for fiction.
Then I took a step back and looked at this entertaining smörgåsbord offered in such a creative way and wondered -- "How much longer is it going to be legal to do this?"
For virtually all of these intelligent and creative people, most of whom are Canadian and depend on copyright law to earn their living, are linking and sharing music and videos that even if they own, the Canadian government is soon going to fine them for linking and sharing.
And I started wondering -- How retroactive is Bill C-61 going to be? Will all of us be getting letters from Sony and Warner Music one day demanding that we remove the clips embedded in our archived pages and reminding us that there's a $20,000 fine for each infraction if we don't?
$20,000 times 7 songs that's (carry the 2)-- Wow! $140,000 per blogger -- for one set of posts in a one week period! That'll make up for a shitload of new Madonna albums that are tanking worldwide, won't it?
Then I started thinking that it's real interesting that when a record company puts up a video on Youtube that's -- "Promotion". But when you do the same thing by linking their promotion to your own circle of friends, you're -- a Pirate!
And that got me thinking about what I'm listening to and enjoying right now. Let me amend that -- listening to -- but NOT enjoying...
At the moment, I'm far away from both my CD collection and my satellite radio. Forgot to pack 'em in the rush to the airport. Nor did I remember to grab my MP3 player with all the cool songs I will eventually be a criminal for ripping from my own CDs.
So, if I want to hear any music, I have to do it the old fashioned way, by turning on the car radio. Unfortunately, I'm so fricken deep in the boonies, I can only get two stations driving in of a morning. One's the CBC, so I'm well up on my Aboriginal chants and budding Jazz stylists from the lower mainland.
My only alternative is a Canadian version of one of those Clear Channel style "Flow" stations where they segue from 60's oldies to 80's oldies to Rod Stewart singing torch songs and Celine Dion taking a shot at Heavy Metal.
The Seven Songs I heard this morning were:
1. To Love Somebody - The BeeGees 2. Daydream Believer - The Monkees 3. I Honestly Love You - Olivia Newton John 4. Tennesee Waltz - Anne Murray 5. The Last Time - Glenn Campbell 7. Quando, Quando, Quando - Englebert Humperdink 8. I Couldn't Live Without Your Love - Petula Clark
Anybody want me posting those videos?
Oh -- and Canadians -- note the cool little "work-around" on the content rules at items 4 & 5. No full out Canadian content anywhere, but an American standard sung by a Canadian and then a Canadian penned song sung by an American standard -- so the radio guys still keep their license.
A culture is diluted so easily isn't it? Pity that a government so concerned with the plight of "copyright holders" didn't feel the need to address any current loopholes.
Anyway, I'm old enough to remember every single one of those songs from when they were hits. And I hated them then too. But they won't go away -- mostly because they all belong to libraries owned or controlled by the same big media conglomerates who own the radio station that endlessly plays them.
But in hearing them again, I suddenly had a blindingly clear insight into the idiotic Copyright bill Industry Minister Jim Prentice is forcing upon us -- where it's come from and what it's really designed to do...
This is a bill intended not to protect artists but to stifle creativity and keep the music market in the hands of a powerful few, a concept that has driven the music business for generations and was on the verge of being erased by new technologies. But unless they regain control it will mean the end of the Media conglomerates who have destroyed countless lives and careers to feed their own rapacious greed.
A few weeks ago, I posted a reminiscence of Buddy Knox, the first rock star I ever saw live, which received an amazing comment.
The writer met Buddy years later and the aging Rocker told him how he and fellow artist Frankie Lymon were threatened with death if they ever tried to claim any of their royalties. I'd heard the same Frankie Lymon story from a NY Cop who'd arrested the teen idol after he'd become a destitute and broken heroin addict.
Back in those days, I was just a high school kid on the Prairies, hanging my Japanese transistor radio out the school bus window so I could get better reception through its single earplug. I didn't know that Buddha Records was run by the mob or that half the songs I was listening to were only being played because somebody had slipped the disk jockey or his station owner a few bucks in Payola.
I just knew that a "Top 50" rotation was making me listen to crap like "Norman", "Tighten Up" and "The Name Game" way too often. And it got worse when the formats became "Top 40". I'd moved on before the shelf space squeezing out any new or independent sounds had dropped to the current "Top 30" level.
That's because my life changed one afternoon while holding that transistor outside the bus in a thunderstorm, when the DJ either needed to take a leak or close a window and put on Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" -- the long version. I suddenly knew there was magic being kept from me and I needed to find more of it.
I was far from alone in that quest and during the late 60's and early 70's, struggling FM stations suddenly found an audience by playing album rock. Music just as suddenly started speaking to its audience directly and that audience was quick to shake its society to the core in return.
But the record guys were smart. They still owned the means of distribution and were able to buy their way back into being in control again and keep doing what they did best -- screwing the artists and their audience.
You don't have to watch a lot of VH-1 "Behind the Music" episodes to realize that no matter how big and influential an artist or band became, right after the last commercial break they would be broke because the record company stole all their money.
And none of this is ancient history. Record companies are still being regularly sued by their artists for withholding funds and convicted of "Payola" style payoffs with estimates that as much as $3 Million a week is being spent to make sure only specific music gets played.
And yet these are the kind of people our government has chosen to align itself with in drafting copyright legislation, criminalizing their own population in the process as well as putting many of the youngest of them in the same direct line of fire as that 16 year old Frankie Lymon.
Some say this is an inevitable alliance between a Conservative government and media companies that are fundamentally conservative. Therefore you have the decidedly bizarre reality of a law and order Prime Minister championing a copyright law molded by repeat white collar criminals who are also peddling gangsta rap that glorifies drug dealing, pimping and violence.
Gee, Mr. Harper, is that the world you really want for your kids -- and this country?
Or maybe big media has learned that instead of paying some NY DJ's to play Celine Dion records, you can get more mileage by simply directing your Payola payments to politicians instead.
What PM Steve and our boneheaded Industry Minister don't seem to get is that by doing the bidding of American media conglomerates they're hastening the arrival of a system that will be closed to new artists or any music that isn't (like the list above) an inoffensive soundtrack controlled by the corporations marketing it.
Not only is such a course for a supposedly independent nation foolish, it's gutless. You won't find a better example of political cowardice than Industry Minister Prentice being interviewed on CBC's "Search Engine". The guy literally runs away. You can link to the podcast here.
Minister Prentice's testicles can apparently be found in a jar at the Recording Industry of America's world headquarters in Mordor.
So in conclusion, Alls I'm sayin' is -- we can either have a future where people can share the music they love and have the opportunity of being exposed to ideas and outlooks that might change the world (or just them) for the better. Or they can have a world owned by big media that'll tell us all what we can listen to.
Like Celine Dion doing heavy metal...
Oh God, I think I just made Bon Scott choke on his own vomit again!
I'm not much of a drinker, but I ask you, is there anything nicer than something cool and alcoholic on a hot day? With summer here and ice moving from our driveways to a bucket stuffed with Coronas or a tall, condensation filmed glass, I started reflecting on my favorite summer beverages.
Back on the prairies, when I was 16, the forbidden drink of choice was a vile concoction called Applejack, basically equal parts grain alcohol and apple juice. Somehow the ingredients were always available without having to go through official channels and what we'd do is mix up a bunch, pour it in a gallon jug and let it get real hot, sitting on the railway trestle over the creek where we used to go skinny dipping.
The process from there got almost as complicated as the contortions Patio barkeeps go through nowadays to invent new martinis they can name after their establishments. You'd get up on the trestle, knock back a mouthful of Applejack and dive in the water, swallowing as you hit the icy surface, so cold liquid was enveloping the outside of your body as a hot one rolled down your throat. The sensation was amazing.
Thinking back, it's a miracle any of us managed to surface.
By my 17th summer, I was working on a construction crew and when four o'clock rolled around, the other (of legal age) guys would camouflage me as we found a darkened beer parlor where nobody looked you over closely as long as the trays of draft kept getting delivered. Hot and dust caked, nothing tasted better than that first chilled "50" or "Red Cap" cutting the parchment out of your throat.
As summers have come and gone, I've drunk wine that's never seen a cork in European vineyards, Sangria made with fresh picked oranges in North Africa and Canada's gift to the world, "The Caesar" sipped from a goblet of carved ice.
I take credit for introducing "The Caesar" to New York. A guest at The Friars Club for lunch in the 70's, I ordered one and the waiter returned to say the bartender didn't know how to make it -- something unheard of in New York. So I gave him the recipe and watched in amazement as he shucked and hand squeezed clams to get the required juice.
I asked him to taste it and by the end of lunch, he was passing them around the room. Trust me, there are no more dedicated practitioners of their craft than New York bartenders.
However, with the rise of the inner tubes, there are tons of places to find recipes to fit your warm weather tastes. Here's one worth trying.
I've been spending a lot of time in Victoria lately. It's the retirement capital of Canada. "Home of the newly wed and nearly dead" as the locals put it.
The honeymooners must all be shacked up somewhere because everywhere you go, you only see old people. They're in front of you in traffic, beside you taking forever to pass the "Half and Half" in Starbucks or behind you, hollering "Hold the door!" It's like "Dawn of the Dead" with less brain eating and more shuffling.
The other night, my dad, who's in his mid-80's, was flipping TV channels and landed on the opening credits for "The Sunshine Boys", Neil Simon's comedy about the reunion of two aged vaudeville stars. I'd done the show once as an actor and (eager to avoid the remote landing on yet another Audie Murphy Western) piped up, "Hey, let's watch this! It's really funny!"
Have you ever watched a movie that makes fun of old people with somebody really old? Boy is it not funny.
As Walter Mathau stumbled through the opening sequence, confused and replicating the average day my dad and his friends endure, I suddenly realized how out of touch most of television -- and maybe our whole culture is -- with the subject of aging.
And I started wondering how much television is going to change as that Boomer bubble that's relentlessly pushing the percentage of the population that's over 65 closer and closer to a majority. "NCIS" just might be our cutting edge future.
God knows, the average age of a TV audience is getting up there. The iconic 18-24 demographic who'll apparently buy anything that's got a commercial are either online or gaming or out getting drunk and laid. And anybody between that age and 55 is trying to figure out a way to do the same. Which leaves Gramps and Grammy jotting down the numbers for adjustable beds and fantasizing about those 4 second Viagra moments.
And the reality of their lives isn't what's being reflected to them.
Everywhere you go here, you see elderly people attempting to hang onto some small part of their independence. You can't navigate an aisle at Safeway without noticing an elderly woman struggling to get a box of frosted flakes off the shelves or some guy dependent on the grocery cart to keep him upright and moving forward.
At first it annoyed me that they couldn't just bite the bullet and go into a home. You know, accept that your life has been reduced and get some help making the remaining days a little easier.
And then I realized that's what our culture (and television in particular) sells us -- "Take the path of least resistance". Downsize. Live in a condo close to work. Don't fly. Don't drive. Don't visit countries that won't speak English. Basically, do all you can to eliminate anything that challenges or makes your day difficult.
But up and down my father's street are people his age or older, living in homes that have become elaborate exoskeletons constructed to shield them from the inexorable march of time.
They have handrails on stairs, bathroom walls and next to the bed. There are spots in the garage for their scooters and mobile walkers. Driveways are immaculately groomed in a world where an errant pine cone can catapult you into permanent disability.
It's gotta be nuts to live this way...
Or maybe it's nuts not to...
Watching this daily slow-motion effort to maintain pride, dignity or some semblance of a lifestyle long past, I've begun to see their journey as something noble and inspiring.
It's gotta be tough to lose the sharpness of your senses, the ability to get change out of your pocket or to latch onto a forgotten name. You simply have to respect the courage and determination that makes you keep going. There's something here that says "Life is precious, dammit! Don't let it go without a fight."
It's not at all like "The Golden Girls" and almost shameful that we expect our elderly to face this on their own.
Maybe we don't put them on ice floes anymore. But we certainly keep almost as much distance. The other day somebody told me about a tribe in Africa (or somewhere they'd been) where every child of 13 is assigned an elder in their village. They're expected to help with the older one's chores and use their own initiative to make their lives better. But mostly, they are expected to listen and learn.
Now, I've had too many recent conversations about the varying consistencies of ear wax and how a guy can get through life with three pairs of pants to want to subject anybody else to that.
But I do wonder how different the world might be if -- instead of fuming in the checkout line while somebody counts out exact change, we took a moment to slow down a little ourselves and maybe appreciate how much effort it took to get into that line in the first place.
And I wonder if, in our own efforts as writers to be cool and cutting edge, we're distancing ourselves from the only audience that may actually be paying close attention to what we have to say.
You gotta wonder if the CBC's "Othello" tanked because nobody cared or because they'd have been more engaged by "King Lear" or "The Tempest". Whatever it is, I know that the elderly stereotypes we're all familiar with are going to seem more and more like white haired versions of Stepin Fetchit -- and we can ill afford to alienate anybody else who's still watching TV.
Our Canadian news networks were all over the Air Canada announcement today that the airline is laying off 2000 employees and cutting routes and flights because of the rising price of oil.
Strangely, the company refused to elaborate on its original press release, letting the talking heads speculate endlessly about how it's going to get impossibly expensive to get anywhere, if you can get a flight at all -- and all because of the new bane of our existences, super expensive oil.
But none of these so-called journalists referenced a story that has been getting a lot of coverage in Europe, Asia and Australia, but oddly enough is barely on the radar here -- a story that might offer a far different explanation for what's happening in the airline industry.
Since 2006, there's been a major investigation into price fixing among many of the world's airlines, specifically in the realm of air cargo. So far, four carriers have pled guilty to manipulating such things as fuel surcharges, including Quantas, Air Korea, British Airways and Japan Airlines. Quantas paid a fine of $61 Million and its boss went to prison. JAL just handed over $110 Million for its involvement and British Airways may have to fork out 10% of its annual sales or $850 Million.
That's because in addition to BA's $300 Million fine, each of the convicted airlines are facing class action suits to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. That'll buy a lot of those little bags of peanuts -- or maybe pay the salaries of a few thousand Air Canada employees.
You see, back on Christmas Eve, Air Canada was put on notice by investigators in the EU that they were under investigation and in April announced they were setting aside $125 Million to deal with the problem. They haven't been convicted yet, but so far the guys going after the airlines are batting a thousand.
Interestingly, that money was set aside just a few days before Air Canada announced their most recent fuel surcharge and an additional fee for those traveling with a second suitcase. Perhaps coincidentally, there was also a further devaluing of Aeroplan points. Now those two lonely seats available on the Toronto-Windsor red-eye next November will take even longer to save up for.
So, the question that's been bugging me all day is -- are 2000 people losing their jobs because the price of oil is too high or because the guys who run the company might be crooks?
We've been through an incredible series of corporate financial disasters from Enron and Worldcom to the current sub-prime mortgage fiasco in the US. And you've got to wonder if this white collar crime spree has more to do with the overall downturn in the economy than how much a barrel of oil costs.
It just seems to me that you can't make billions of dollars of people's savings go away and not have a profound effect on everyday life.
I've heard theories that because nobody trusts corporate accounting anymore, most of the market players have shifted from trading stocks to speculating in commodities, thus driving up the price of oil, corn and gold beyond what they're really worth.
I don't know enough about economics to know if that's true, but I sure know how much the shenanigans that have gone on in the Canadian TV and film industries have done to devalue our situation, so it sorta makes sense. And if there's a conviction in the Livent trial, I fear the small pools of private money still available to the arts will dry up even further.
I used to like Air Canada and flew them as often as I could. But several years ago, they started to change. The staff felt surly and glum and little by little the nice things about traveling with them disappeared. I honestly can't remember the last time I was on one of their planes, let alone the last time I even considered checking what they had to offer when I'm booking a flight.
And it's hard to come to grips with the fact that an airline that's considered the national carrier and paints the name of your country on their side may have been involved in criminal activity and screwing you more than by showing "Big Mama's House -- 1 & 2" as their transcontinental double feature.
I know it's probably hard to run an airline and I'm sure paying for jet fuel is a bitch. But I also wonder how many of those 2000 soon to be unemployed people you could keep if you didn't have to set aside $125 Million to cover a fine.
Or maybe you could keep them all and simply get rid of the handful of guys at the top who fixed prices in the first place.
