THANK YOU CBC SPORTS!

Before the Olympics, I put up a post taking the CBC to task for taking such a low-key approach to the non-sports issues related to 2008's host country China. And while I'm not backing off those opinions, the work of those at CBC Sports who covered and brought us the Games themselves deserve to be congratulated for their excellence.

I once had the opportunity to be present in the broadcast trailer of a World Series game. It's something all of us who finger thesauruses for the right words, ponder notes, try additional takes and cut things a couple of ways to see what fits the music best, should do at least once -- if only to experience the sheer terror of creativity on the fly.

Almost anything that can happen during a live sporting event usually does, often within the tenths of seconds that measure the action. And woe to the broadcast team that doesn't have immediate coverage, perspective and background color at the ready. A shortstop fielding a grounder usually only has to process a couple of possible outcomes. But the Broadcaster faces exponentially more challenges.

Maybe that's why the Chinese faked the fireworks on Opening Night and lip-synched some of the music. The pressure of that kind of moment can bring out the inferiority complex in even the most repressive dictatorial regime. Although I have to say that all that pre-Olympic hype about China using their gymnasts and divers to prove the power of their political system was lost as they deservedly shot themselves in the foot on Day One.

The minute 7 year-old singer Yang Peiyi was displaced by a "perfect" child for the International audience, China let us all know that it might be a force to be reckoned with at table tennis, but it still can't turn out one decent Orthodontist.


And to their credit, in the midst of the Games, CBC reported all this and then got right back to the athletes -- unlike their main competition NBC.

I spent part of the Olympics in the States and it was odd to go from a 24 hour buffet of sport to a pre-crafted Prime Time soap opera. While I could watch Khazak boxers, Korean weightlifters and track stars from countries I probably can't find on a map on CBC, NBC coverage was completely US-centric and maudlin. It robbed me of a lot of things, most notably, the experience of being reminded that no matter the race, creed or political system of the athletes, we all cherish victory and grieve defeat in the same ways.

And while CBC brought me the world in all its diverse similarity, NBC only showed me the USA and not the real one, but the one that best fit a reality show format and a jingoistic philosophy that frankly doesn't exist outside the Washington beltway or LA's Thirty Mile Zone.

For the most part, NBC exhibited all I had said was wrong about the Olympic Games, from detailing swimmer Michael Phelps' endorsement deals (and is anybody really going to believe a guy who downs a 12,000 calorie breakfast when training actually eats Kellogg's Frosted Flakes) or forensically examining the birth certificates of Asian nymphets.

Okay, maybe the Chinese Women's Gymnasts cheated. But I saw African Boxers robbed of points, Platform divers undeservedly penalized and ribbon dancers score tens for unfathomable reasons. But over at NBC, losing that gymnastics medal by a point seemed to be all they talked about. Guys, it's a judged sport. It's as fixed when you win as when you lose. Move on!

And even though NBC had far more channels than the CBC and more online bandwidth apparently available (that Microsoft Silverlight system is truly awesome), CBC consistently found ways to involve me in sports I'd never heard of or was certain had been made up on the spot to fill out 16 days of competition.

I mean, I do get synchronized diving and prancing around with a ribbon on a stick on one level. But now there's prancing events with red ropes and big rubber balls and they've even got horses doing it. When your total medal count can include stuff like that, I started wondering why some countries aren't lobbying for synchronized high-jump, the eights in hammer throw or fencing with broadswords.

Maybe Jacques Rogge should stop crapping all over Usain Bolt for celebrating the most spectacular moment of the games and get his Olympic committees doing what they do best, taking bribes to fill up the schedule with more unfathomable sports.


On the reverse side of that coin, I totally get the broadcast value of Beach Volleyball.


CBC did too. And maybe it was my constantly shifting time zones over the last weeks, but I'm positive they covered every single game in the Women's bracket in full HD close-up. I'd venture this was a test for "Beach Volleyball Night in Canada" which is almost certainly being prepped for whichever night of new dramas doesn't pan out. Something tells me it'll get better numbers than "Little Mosque".

Oh, and guys -- keep the Cheerleaders. Just sayin'...

But the most important thing CBC gave me with its holistic coverage was an entree into the hearts of the athletes of these games. Suddenly, all that nation vs nation, own the podium or be a loser stuff was shown for the nonsense it really is. Whether it was the accessibility of the media or CBC's integrating real athletes into their broadcast teams (Donovan Bailey Rules!), we finally got to experience the sheer joy of competition that these people share.

You saw athletes having fun, respecting each other no matter the final placings and exhibiting all those laudable traits of character and humanity that the Olympics are supposed to be about celebrating.

The credit for some of that goes to three friends of mine who've been working 24 hour days for the last three weeks (not to mention months of prep) most of it in windowless bunkers at CBC HQ. Fellow WGC writer Luciano Casimiri, announcer Tony Daniels (Elvis from "Eerie, Indiana") and sports producer extraordinaire John Whaley were among those behind the stories, highlight packages and sidebars that enhanced the coverage.

According to them, the real behind the scenes heroes were Executive Producer Trevor Pilling, Senior Producer Jeff MacDonald and Producer David Sole, who captained various decks on the ship. Actually, Whaley referred to the CBC team as replicating the Burloak Canoe Club, where experience and energy were shared among a happy few determined to compete with the more than 2900 staffers NBC dispatched to China.

As far as I'm concerned, the small town paddlers more than succeeded and additionally delivered programming that truly reflected the even-handed, inclusive character that represents the best of what Canada is to the world. Guys, Gold medals all around!


As for me, my high point of the Games was seeing Equestrian Eric Lamaze, who lives just up the road, win individual Gold in Show Jumping. This is a guy who would have medalled in Barcelona and Sydney if not for a Cocaine issue and saw other personal problems keep him out of the Athens Games. His win was a perfect example of not only the triumph of the human spirit but the reality that talent can be delayed but never denied.

There's a great Canadian movie in Eric's story. Now maybe somebody at CBC will pick up that torch and carry the excellence of CBC Sports into the Drama department.

LAZY SUNDAY #36: OKTAPODI

Well, that great gift the Greeks gave the world, the Olympics, are over and it's time to get back outside and enjoy the rest of the summer. I don't know about your part of the planet, but where I am it's an absolutely perfect day. So I'm off to make the most of it.

And at some point I may park my butt on a patio, crack a cold beer and enjoy that other great gift the Greeks gave the world -- a plate of Calamari. Unless I think too long about where that delicious dish came from.

The following was voted the best PC Animation of 2007 and demonstrates the kind of courage and determination you need to compete in the Olympics or to swallow that first crispy tentacle.

Enjoy your Sunday. Tonight we dine in Hell-as...

ADVENTURES IN THE SKIN TRADE PT. III

Those of us who work in film and TV know that the cheapest special effect you can use is a nude scene or a sex scene. No need for CGI, stunts or even costumes -- you've got their attention. For the most part, we use that advantage to tell a story, exhibit emotion or reveal character.

Others take the same concept one step further and create porn films. Unfortunately, that slim dividing line makes a lot of people think the actors in legit films are really "doing it" or that those behind the cameras embrace some kind of moral indolence. And from my experience, both are far from the reality.

Yet, last week, the same Canadian government agency, the CRTC, that regulates the broadcast industry granted a license for an all-porn channel called "Northern Peaks" requiring that it program 50% Canadian content.

Like all decision making, what's most interesting about the CRTC's latest edict is what it tells us about those making the decision. For once again, the CRTC has exhibited that it is woefully ignorant of the business it is regulating, hopelessly out of touch and out of date.

Perhaps amid the current frenzy of slashing Arts funding, Prime Minister Harper could save the country $9 Million a year by turfing these guys. In the process, he might be simultaneously freeing our artists from any need to continue accessing the public purse.

Let's start with the concept of licensing an all-porn channel in the first place. "Why?". If you want hardcore, you can already find it by flipping around the current channel listings. Our movie channels are already loaded with the stuff from sunset onwards.

In addition, Expressvu, Shaw & Rogers, our cable and satellite "service providers" (and doesn't that term take on a different hue in this discussion) also offer almost unlimited Video-on-demand and Pay-Per-View options in the category.

So, who's still not being served? And for that matter, have any of you bright lights who cash cheques made out to CRTC Commissioners realized that you can get porn on an iPod, PSP, mobile phone as well as a Tsunami of it on that box with the flickering screen that your assistants stare at all day?


We just don't need this. And what's more, none of those "service providers" are going to pick up Northern Peaks anyway. Do any of you Commissioners really think Ted Rogers, Jim Shaw or Mr. CTV-Bell-GlobeMedia-Ontario-Teachers-Pension-Plan are going to happily share the VOD gravy train with some upstart from Edmonton with a fondness for the local beaver?

These guys make a fortune peddling this stuff. They're not giving up their claim on that Gold rush riverbank to anybody. And if any of you knew the first thing about Broadcasting you'd know that -- but, unfortunately for all of us -- you don't!

Back in April, while watching interventions on changes to the CTF, one small network described a problem they'd had in renegotiating a carriage agreement with Shaw Cable. Shaw had agreed to carry their signal for a couple of years, which confirmed their license and got them on the dial. But at renewal time, Shaw called the CRTC and got the total profit that had been earned by the channel and that number became what Shaw requested as the annual fee for continued carriage.

The Commissioners hearing this tut-tutted and allowed as how they shouldn't maybe have made that information public. And now they've put the owners of "Northern Peaks" in exactly the same barrel. How much more proof do you need that the people who sit on the CRTC don't have the brains to turn on a television let alone regulate what gets broadcast?

Additionally, after years of listening to broadcasters claim "Nobody wants to see Canadian shows" and "Canadians aren't interested in Canadian stars", all of a sudden they find favor with a Porn producer who champions Canadian production by asserting, "I've always found there's a real turn-on to watching and knowing it's (stars are) people you could run into in the grocery store."

Once again, the CRTC takes its cues and marching orders from a broadcaster. Whatever they say is true. Whatever anybody else says carries no weight whatsoever.

One of the readers of Part One or Part Two of this trilogy took me to task for suggesting the CRTC had set "Northern Peaks" promised 50% Canadian content, when that number was volunteered by the broadcaster. Unfortunately that ignores the reality that these decisions are reached after a number of "What's it going to take to make this happen" confabs. Mandarins hint to lobbyists who advise appellants on what to say and when.

So, in the end, "Northern Peaks" is obligated to spend $1 Million on indigenous production in its first year. Given the cost of actually shooting a porn feature, that means they could shoot 20 or more in their first year. Therefore, in a direct comparison, Canada would annually release more porn titles than legitimate feature films.

That's something to be proud of, isn't it?

Thanks, CRTC! Way to make the Canadian film industry look even more anemic and ineffectual than it already is. But, as so often before, nobody on the CRTC seems able to discern the ramifications of their decisions. From gutting drama to ghettoizing production as "popular" or "cultural" the assault on indigenous production is relentless.

And because of bureaucratic lack of foresight and the reality that many people can't tell the difference between the porn industry and legitimate films with an adult point of view anyway, we'll once again be kicked around and pilloried by the Charles McVetys of the world.

And for those who haven't been paying attention, Reverend Chuck is back from Bible Camp, his first words on the subject being "...for the Government to use a Public resource to promote such degradation, shows how detached the bureaucracy is from the Canadian people."

And so it continues -- in the same way that medieval villages would tar and feather traveling players and drive them past the city limits content to live in fear and ignorance; our own government nourishes our baser instincts and allows the artists who could set us apart and save an industry on the verge of collapse to die of neglect.

Maybe they'll wake up when the only Canadian content their kids can download to their PSPs is porn -- maybe...

ADVENTURES IN THE SKIN TRADE PT. II

The film usually credited with launching the current Porn industry is "Deep Throat", produced in 1972 for less than $23,000 and grossing more than $600 Million. By perfectly catching the wave of sexual liberation that had started in the late 60's, it became a cultural phenomenon.


I saw "Deep Throat" at a midnight screening in Miami. Just in on a red-eye flight and with a body clock too screwed up to sleep, I looked out my hotel window and noticed a line of people outside the Pussycat Theatre across the street. They appeared to be mostly middle class couples and retirees, not the kind you normally associate with the raincoat crowd. So, I joined them, finding a seat in front of two elderly women in their 70's.

"Deep Throat" follows the journey of a woman unable to orgasm, who learns from a doctor that her clitoris is where her epiglottis ought to be. And if you need more anatomical detail on where all that leads, you're probably too young to be reading this blog. Anyway, the doctor tells her that when she finally climaxes, the earth will move, she'll hear bells ringing, etc.

And sure enough, concurrent with the final money shot, we get a Hollywood montage of doves in flight and church bells chiming. At which point, one of the old girls behind me sighed, "Oh, she heard her bells" cracking up the front rows. As the lights went up and I followed the two women up the aisle, one turned to the other and said, "I'm so glad it had a happy ending."

Unfortunately, happy endings are usually confined to the screen in the real world of making Porn.

The success of "Deep Throat" spawned an entire industry in the United States, one that now grosses (if the figures are to be believed) upwards of $13 Billion a year. The combination of low production costs and stunningly large profits is hard for many filmmakers to resist. And perhaps the belief that such success could just as easily happen here played a part in the recent CRTC decision to license a Canadian porn channel with 50% home grown content.

As I've said before, I don't have a problem with consenting adults doing whatever or watching whatever they want. The state really does not belong in the bedrooms of the nation. But I wonder if the CRTC really considered who they are helping some Canadians get into bed with.

While working on "Top Cops" I met a couple of FBI Agents who had been undercover in New York's Gambino family. And they had a very different take on the success of "Deep Throat".

The Gambino crew had a piece of the action in many American porn theatres as well as the distribution of the product that was exhibited there. Therefore, the cash that rolled in from these legal operations was liberally mixed with incomes from drugs, gambling and prostitution; laundering the latter while building up the expectation of potential riches for those contemplating creating the former.

In the eyes of these cops, Porn helped the Mob gain footholds in countless legal businesses while building a bankroll that bought them better lawyers, smarter accountants and more politicians.

It also convinced many in the film business that making Porn was a fast track to the financial success or celebrity they craved. Three of these people were friends of mine.

Let's start with a guy I'll call Dick...


Dick was a male model who married an actress I'd worked with in LA. He was and is a stunningly handsome man. He was also funny and kind hearted. Unfortunately, what he possessed in those departments was offset by what he didn't have in the talent division. Despite his skills at modelling underwear and posing next to fast cars, he really wanted to be an actor.

Over time, that obsession began to strain their relationship and one night she called, asking me if I could find "something, anything" for him in the show I was producing. There was a small part available, only a few lines, but with the potential for a nice clip for his reel, so we called him in. The audition was painful and no matter how much help we gave him, there was no way we could justify hiring him.

But Dick had a talent I apparently hadn't noticed, probably because he'd kept his pants on. And shortly after he and the actress separated it came to the attention of a porn producer.

I spoke to Dick the day the script for his first film arrived. He told me it was really well written.

The shoot took place over a weekend and the next week he phoned all his friends to tell us it would be in the stores in about a month and the shoot had gone well -- although he was a little tired by the end.

Over the next year, he made 8 or 9 more films at a fraction of what he'd used to earn for holding up a glass of Scotch and smiling. And although no legit modelling agency would touch him anymore, in his new world he had lines and emotional transitions and was becoming a star. He began talking about getting out and making the cross-over to episodic TV and Indy films now that he had "experience".

Eight years later, Dick's still making porn. The parts are smaller now and his partners are starlets trying to break in or former divas on their way out, rather than the big names in the business. He's been ripped off, pressured to do scenes he finds dangerous or brutal and told that with his still good looks he'd do much better making gay porn.

He's thinking about that, mostly because he doesn't feel he has any other options.


My second friend is Cam, an aspiring cinematographer who graduated from a Canadian Community College at the top of his class and planned to someday parlay his visual skills into directing. He broke into the business about three years ago, when the outlook for the local industry was grim. But he was still good enough to land a few gigs in that environment which resulted in a short but impressive resume and a stellar sample reel.

His girlfriend pregnant and unwilling to spend a potentially unemployed winter in Toronto, he headed to LA because that's where he was going to end up eventually anyway.

Finding living and medical expenses more than he expected, Cam took a couple of days on a porn shoot. When the producer discovered he had his own kit, he began calling more often. Suddenly, Cam had a steady job. And while it kept him from making the rounds with his resume and schmoozing producers, it was only for a little while.

Sure there were annoyances, like cleaning spilled bodily fluids off the lens, but the producers let him try his own shots and the people he worked with were up-and-comers like him.

When he explained what came next, he asked if I'd ever seen the wrestling documentary "Beyond the Mat" and wrestler Jake "The Snake" Roberts' description of the pitfalls to be found in that world.

Initially, Cam just found it hard to come home from a set filled with Porn starlets to a wife who'd just had breast milk puked on her T-shirt. Then he learned that some of those Porn stars, like many actresses, appreciated how a good Cinematographer could improve their looks or hide their flaws. Only they didn't repay him with a bottle of wine or box of chocolates.

Then, like Jake, a different woman a night wasn't enough, then neither were two, and then...

Cam's wife and child have moved back to Toronto. He's still in LA, working full time now. His plans to direct independent features are on hold and the images he's recording look like those of anybody else trying to get 50-plus set-ups a day. But that's okay. They're going to let him direct their stuff soon.


I'll call my third friend Kitty.

Kitty hailed from Florida and had no showbiz aspirations. She'd simply put as much turf as she could between home and a creepy stepfather. When I met her, she was working the service counter of a Chatsworth car dealership and tending bar part time in my favorite country saloon.

Over the years, Kitty had battled a self-esteem problem. She knew she was beautiful and that men got whiplash when she walked through the mall, but something was missing from her life.

One night in the bar, or one day at the dealership, somebody handed her his card and told her she could have a lot of fun being in a porn film. She carried that card around for weeks before calling back and making her debut in the background of an orgy scene. Pretty soon, she was working regularly enough to give up her other part time jobs.

I don't know if Kitty found a way to fill that inner emptiness or found her new life harder to live than the previous ones. All I know is that she overdosed on sleeping pills two years later.

According to a mutual friend, at the end, Kitty was struggling with Hepatitis A and a coke habit, both of which had been contracted on the job.

Now -- I'm certain you could find similar tales in other areas of show business, not to mention in the realms of banking, real estate or dentistry. But within the porn industry they are legion. For every Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy, there are a thousand stories like those above.

And now they can be Canadian content.

In closing, I want to say that while I know that there are studies that say the availability of porn has reduced the incidents of sexual assault, increased acceptance of sexual preferences and saved marriages, I also know there are as many asserting that increased exposure to pornography is contributing to several social ills.

I don't know who's right in all that. And the last thing I'd ever want to do is shackle anybody's personal expression, artistic exploration or their inalienable right to party.

Apparently, 2/3 of all hotel movie rentals are porn films, but they are only watched for an average of 12 minutes. So that makes me think that the bulk of society approaches the issue as either some experience they want to sample like those old ladies in Miami or as a quick method of winding down after a trying day.

But something's still offside here and the CRTC's initial defense of its decision -- "There were no interventions" -- bespeaks an incredible lack of insight into what their decision might actually mean.

Not that that's any different from most of their other decisions, but more on that in Part III.

ADVENTURES IN THE SKIN TRADE -- PT.I

Recently, Will Dixon wrote a perceptive piece on the show that most exemplifies recent Canadian television, "Train 48". In his post, Will focused on the Canadian network tradition of eschewing quality and entertainment value in favor of cheaply produced quota fulfillment.

Ken Girotti followed up with his own musings on the subject, positing that the CRTC wanted more of the same and in their perfect world, we'd all be doing porn.

Not 24 hours later, Denis McGrath broke the news that the CRTC had licensed a new Porn Channel with the proviso that it program 50% Canadian content.

A lot of giggles and merriment ensued in various comment sections from us creative types. Some of it provoked by the perfect comic timing of the announcement and some out of fear that Girotti's prediction might be coming true.

The Family Compact only wants us around if we'll fuck for them.

Over this week, I'm going to publish three posts about the porn trade. Each will focus on a different aspect of the game. Because what most people don't know is that I started out in Porn.

Now, I've never been in a porn movie, nor written or produced one. But one of my first jobs was in the industry.

I arrived in Toronto in 1971, fresh out of theatre school, my first professional contract under my belt and ready to break into the big time. But I needed some way to pay the rent until I'd made the rounds with my sparse resume and 8x10's, found an agent and shown the casting directors what I could do.

So I trotted down to the Canada Manpower office to find a job. The helpful Government clerk looked over his files and sent me off to a Yonge Street hole-in-the-wall called "Reid Books" which, along with its sister outlet "Cinema 2000", were the city's main purveyors of smut and where the efficient public servant had discerned I had a marketable skill.

For during my time at the University of Regina, there had been a failed attempt to launch a student TV station. In the process I'd learned to operate one of those old 2" video tape machines. And Cinema 2000 showed porn films on video tape because of a little wrinkle in the Law.

Exhibiting Porn could get you arrested back then. But nobody had foreseen the advent of video tape, so it wasn't listed in the criminal code and therefore charges couldn't be laid for screening dirty movies on video.

Not that the Toronto Police Morality Squad didn't try. One of the first things the store manager warned me about was that I could get arrested for working there. But hey, the money was good, the hours allowed me to go to auditions and shoot commercials and I looked cool in the "Fuck Censorship" T-shirt all the staff got to wear.

So my first summer in Toronto was spent working the midnight shift in two of the sleaziest joints in town. Both were narrow store fronts. At Reid, the first third could be mistaken for any other book or magazine outlet. The second third was hardcore porn magazines and books, the hardest shielded in provincially mandated plastic wrap. A curtain hid the back third where video booths that resembled the original Pac-Man games would play 3 minutes from a stag film for a quarter.

We sold a lot of rolls of quarters -- and didn't go past that curtain into the back unless we absolutely had to.

Cinema 2000 was more in your face. The books, magazines and an assortment of sex toys were right up front along with posters for what was playing in the plush red velvet 40 seat theatre downstairs, where you watched the movie on a 4 foot screen.

I've always been convinced this was where Garth Drabinsky got the inspiration for the first Cineplex.

And except for a few minutes of hardcore sex, most of the movies weren't much different from what you'd see in a neighborhood multiplex or Art house today. Most had an actual story although it was little more than an excuse to hang nude scenes on and there were always a couple of completely irrelevant plot points to wrap up after the final money shot. I soon realized they were there to allow the clientele to scurry out before the lights came up.

I hadn't had much exposure to porn, but as a child of the 60's I didn't find anything offensive about it. And from the point of view of an aspiring actor, being around it offered me an incredible insight into people.

Biologists may claim our first instinct is survival, finding food and water, etc. But I'm convinced they're only the necessities required so that we can follow our prime directive which is to fuck somebody.

You saw all kinds in the store, from the furtive perverts to the anxious to understand teenagers to women who'd slip you a 20 to deliver a vibrator to them in the coffee shop next door so their friends would think they had only come in to buy the early edition of the Globe and Mail.

Some of the clerks called the customers "maggots", tired of their constant cloying desperation to somehow get off. All of "us" were young, hip and cool. We were struggling artists and musicians who had no trouble getting laid.

We found a myriad of ways to have fun with them. One night we created a display of fresh cucumbers labelled "Organic Vibrators -- No Fuss, No Muss, No Batteries or Cords" and we actually sold one. On another occasion, we invented a perversion, placing signs in the magazine section that Customs officers had seized that month's issue of "Thighbiters International" but we had a limited stash offshore we could mail. In a week we'd collected over a hundred names and addresses.

But the more I watched the customers, the more I started to see something else -- the way their need for gratification was being used to control or subjugate them.

Julian Berry's 1971 Broadway Play "Lenny", the stage biography of comedian Lenny Bruce, opens with a scene depicting ancient tribal elders choosing the best man in the tribe, who will be chosen by what he will sacrifice for the tribe. One offers to divest himself of his cows, another will give away his lands. But the winner announces that he's giving up fucking. The others can't believe it.

Then they realize that the people will be in awe of anybody who they believe has given up fucking. It's the ultimate proof that you are superior to them. The scene ends with the decision to make people feel shame for needing sex and to harass anybody who talks about it.

Cue Lenny's entrance...

Likewise, the feeling in the store was always that of an illicit activity in progress. Sometimes uniformed cops would walk in, instantly emptying the place. And we were regularly raided, with the Morality squad walking out with boxes of books and magazines that might or might not be used as evidence.

All of the clerks were harassed. I awoke one morning to find two Morality Squad detectives at the door. Their names were Cryderman and Parks, later immortalized as the Pinkerton Men in Carol Bolt's play "Red Emma" -- after being the guys who busted the Toronto Free Theatre's production of Michael Hollingsworth's "Clear Light" in 1973, the only time a Canadian drama has been closed as a threat to public morality, its artists living for months under the shadow of criminal prosecution.

I made the guys tea, following my personal credo of showing your adversary an initial courtesy and the opportunity to exhibit their own humanity. But the two cops were there to put the fear of God into me. Either I quit or they'd bust me. I told them I didn't understand how I could be arrested for doing a job the government had found for me. That stopped them cold and they soon left. But I've often wondered if their next stop was Canada Manpower to kick somebody's ass.

I always had this nagging suspicion that something else was going on in the Porn trade. If what we were doing was so harmful, nothing was stopping the authorities from coming down on us like a ton of bricks, confiscating our entire stock and tossing a few guys in jail. But they never did. And there was no perceivable link between what was seized. Sometimes it was bondage, sometimes copies of "Jugs" or "Gent" that were no different from the issue they'd ignored the month before.

I'd also noticed something else that I hadn't mentioned to the cops that morning. Somebody had told me that the best way to get to know a new city was to read the newspaper every day from cover to cover. And it worked. I soon knew who was who on City council, who the big business players and influential citizens were, and how some of them were inter-connected. And I also saw most of them in the store.

Many would swan in on a Saturday evening, wives in tow after an evening at dinner or the theatre, the wife carrying the ubiquitous rose from a street seller that signified date night. They'd sweep through, weaving between the pervs, sniggering at a title or two, before leaving with a dismissive glance to the guy at the cash register -- communicating clearly that they were far above such activities.

And then, the guy would come back -- sometimes later -- sometimes the next day and pocket what had caught their eye, unaware the same clerk was taking their money.

As porn has become more pervasive in our culture, the stigma attached to it has diminished. But not that much. It's still seen as being created by less savory individuals; a kind of necessary evil that somehow keeps the masses preoccupied.

So it doesn't surprise me that the CRTC is demanding that half of the programming on the new porn channel be Canadian in content. They'd never require that the primary content of any other broadcaster approach those numbers. It's a ruling that almost  instantly creates an industry within months of rulings which have reduced work opportunities for legitimate artists.

There's a message being sent here. A direction is being charted. More on that in Part Two.

LAZY SUNDAY # 35: THE REEL GEEZERS

I'm almost done with my latest hopscotching of North America. Phew! Ten days, both coasts, Nashville to set up a new pilot and visits to the Heartlands (North and South) in between.

The summer's half gone and the only blockbuster I've seen was "The Dark Knight". Now, is it just me, or was that supposed to be a Batman movie? I mean, shouldn't a Batman movie have Batman in it as more than just transitional filler?

Anyway, I've got some major movie catching up to do and that means perusing all of the reviews I normally never bother with to sort what's worthy of the theatrical experience from what can wait for rental or an evening with the movie channels.

I know there are people who swear by certain critics or have a circle of friends with similar tastes. But I like to get guidance from people who've been there and are impervious to marketing, fanboys and the need to appear hip and cool.

Geezers.

A little while ago, old friends, screenwriter Lorenzo Semple ("Three Days of the Condor, "The Parallax View", "The Drowning Pool") and producer Marcia Nasatir ("The Big Chill", "Hamburger Hill", "Ironweed") decided to experiment with this newfangled innertubes thing and offer their own take on current films.

It started out as a goof, but in a few short months their filmic discussions have garnered a huge audience among Hollywood insiders, drawn (as you will be) by their intelligent debates. These are two people with more days on movie sets than most of us have spent on the planet. There is little in the film world they haven't personally experienced or seen before.

On top of that, neither has a personal agenda, a career relationship they want to curry favor with or a media conglomerate to placate, so what you get is a straightforward reaction that's of far more value than your average review.

Here's a sample of "The Reel Geezers" work. You can find more on Youtube or their own website www.thereelgeezers.com.

And enjoy your Sunday. Me, I've got another border to cross.

OLYMPIC DREAMS

The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics arrived today toting enough moral ambiguity to fill a full season of "The Sopranos" with ethical dilemmas aplenty left over to service the needs of "Dexter" and "Mad Men" to boot.

Human Rights abuses, Environmental Chaos, Censorship, Slave labor camps, Darfur, Tibet, Government corruption, Religious repression, Organ harvesting and Counterfeit goods, just to name a few...

Juxtaposing those repugnant realities, we have the Olympic movement's professed "celebration of the Human Spirit and the highest Ideals of Humanity" not to mention that basic TV viewer's desire to watch some of the best athletes on the planet do some really cool shit.

So what is the television audience to do -- boycott the games or set their values and sense of right and wrong aside for a couple of weeks, joining in the celebration of nationality and corporate excess?

Maybe there's another option -- watching the Olympics with your eyes fully open for a change. Yes, there will be a lot of spectacle, pageantry and physical prowess. Enjoy and be impressed by that. These are real people doing exceptional things.

But look past all that and think beyond the narrow "either or" parameters the media and pundits have defined for you.

Boycotting the 2008 Olympics is pointless because they're going ahead whether they offend your sensibilities or not. And getting grouchy about the whole thing will be taken as an insult by the Chinese people, the vast majority of whom have no more control over how their country is run than you do. Like any other nation chosen to host the Olympics, they are justifiably proud of having this moment in the sun and anxious to be appreciated, respected and embraced by the rest of us.

C'mon, give our Asian buddies a hug. God knows a lot of them are down a quart. And you might learn something about them in the process.

I'll never forget an opening night party I attended in honor of the 2000 Sydney Games in Australia's (aptly named) Surfer's Paradise. As the spectacle unfolded on television, I must've been asked a hundred times if some aspect of the ceremony was "too much", "over the top" or "embarrassing". At a similar closing night event, the hostess cornered me to apologize for a ceremony peopled with Rock Geezers like "Midnight Oil" and "Men At Work" . She insisted that most Aussies were far more sophisticated than that.

I couldn't have been more pleased. For the first time on my sojourn there, I got to see past their national trait of insistent independence and knew they were just like the rest of us.

If the world snubs China over the next two weeks or tries to embarrass her, it won't be seen by the average citizen as a wake up call to change what's going on in their country. It'll just prove that what their disreputable leaders have told them about us is true.

Likewise, there's no point berating the athletes for not protesting or for turning up to compete. They didn't get a vote about where the games were going to be held either.

Past Olympians have had to deal with competing at altitude or after making an arduous trek to the other side of the planet with a body clock completely out of balance. This year's crop will have to deal with intense security and air that's barely breathable.

If you want to take your anger out on somebody for what's happening, go after the real culprits; the IOC and their corporate enablers, so anxious for access to the Chinese market, that they set aside their principles (if they had any) and paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fees to get this shameful show on the road.

Muhtar Kent, President and CEO of Coca-Cola knows the Chinese government are funding the atrocities in Darfur and apparently doesn't care. Bubba and Skeeter, who live in the trailer parks ringing his corporate home in Atlanta, are having trouble finding work these days and they're not buying as many of his beverages. So he has to dig up new customers. Why should a few hundred thousand raped or butchered African farmers be allowed to interfere with that?

Likewise. Ralph Alvarez, President and COO of McDonald's has Happy Meals to unload. He didn't get where he is by not reading the newspapers. So he likely knows that the Chinese government regularly executes prisoners (China executes more people than the whole rest of the world combined) and often executes criminals (or political dissidents or the followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement) to order to provide transplant organs.

Perhaps Ralph sees that practise as an asset to his core business. Some of those organs might come in handy replacing the clogged arteries he's assisted his North American customers in acquiring.

Over at Canada's Manulife, CEO Dominic D'Alessandro may be salivating at the prospect of selling Life insurance in China. Although I'm sure he's cautioned his sales force to avoid Tibet, where life expectancy of the residents is less reliable. I also suspect his Flexcare options over there won't cover respiratory illnesses.

You can find a whole list of the companies hoping to profit from cozying up to the IOC and Chinese government here. And the Toronto Star's John Hoberman has a remarkably insightful expose of the truth behind the noble claims of the Olympic sponsors here.

But we must add to this list of morally suspect corporations, those who shelled out Billions to become "Official Broadcasters" of the Games in their home countries.

I know for a fact that all of the television executives who negotiated those deals watch their own nightly news reports religiously. It's part of their jobs. So from the moment the IOC announced that Beijing would host these games, they, more than anyone, knew they would be walking over corpses to deliver their programming. But that didn't stop them.

Perhaps the worst offender is our own CBC, less dependent on corporate profit than many of the others and formerly at the forefront of exposing Human Rights abuses.

But in the last year, the CBC has edited documentaries so as not to offend the Chinese Government. Sportscaster Ron MacLean (regularly bullied and cowed by Don Cherry, so I'm sure he wasn't a problem for the Chinese police) did a cheery series of vignettes leading up to the Games which included a walk across "historic" Tiananmen Square, all the while neglecting to mention the 1989 slaughter for which it is most widely known.

But then the CBC also kept its Olympic mouth shut in 1968 when Mexico City police and the Mexican army were machine gunning hundreds of protesters to death right outside their downtown hotel rooms.

It's been enlightening to see how swiftly CBC journalists have segued from passionately reporting on Tibet to gushing over how gosh darn chipper and helpful all those Olympic volunteers are.

Wake up Sluggo -- they have no choice!   

I hope George Stroumboulopoulos and Jian Ghomeshi will spare us any future thoughtful discourse about Tibet, Darfur or Human Rights. Their show budgets this season will be covered at the expense of a lot of broken bodies. Don't pretend you didn't know or aren't part of the problem, fellas.

And after all the carping about the lack of Internet access it's correspondents are getting, it'll be interesting to see just how free the National broadcasters are with their own coverage. I'm thinking some of them can see an upside to this censorship and limited access thing.

There has always been a dark side to the Olympic Games, from cities winning bids through bribes to corrupt judging and doping. But now we appear to have entered an era where corporate greed may make all that seem like amateur league stuff. How vile is a crooked boxing official or basketball referee in comparison with the corporate whitewash of genocide and brutality by companies from democratic countries?

If nothing else, the 2008 Olympics reflect the reality that the celebration of human ability places a distant second to the celebration of profit. Who cares if the venues were built by slaves or that the athletes can't breathe if it means sales spike on Samsung phones and Lenovo notebooks.

I'll be watching the Olympics, but likely not seeing that many new Olympic or World records in an atmosphere where Soccer players are reporting being "winded" after climbing a flight of stairs and our Olympic rowers are already bemoaning not getting pre-approval to use Asthma inhalers.

I'm hoping that the shots of smog blanketed Beijing will finally wake us up to the fact that the Kyoto Accord and Carbon taxes are a joke in the face of a nation 10,000 times the size of our own that's doing nothing. Hopefully, it will spur us to make real change that actually might make a difference to the planet.

I'll also be taking this Olympic lemon and making real lemonade instead of reaching for a Coke. I'll be removing my name from the list at my local Bell Mobility store to buy the almost available Samsung iPhone killer. And I'll be watching all those heartwarming commercials for Olympic sponsors knowing that no real heart was involved in their creation.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who died last week, once wrote "Violence does not live alone...It is necessarily woven with falsehood. The role of the writer is to penetrate the guard by refusing to participate in the falsehood -- by telling the truth and only the truth, leaving violence helpless to persist in the world."

Those of us who call ourselves writers need to start living that way and encouraging those around us to do the same.

LAZY SUNDAY #34: SPACE:1899

It's impossible to create any dramatic work without becoming completely absorbed in the world you're imagining. The bulk of the writer's job is constructing and then adhering to the unique rules that must be followed in this fictional setting; thus building an internal logic that governs the people, places and things included in the script.

On television series, there are also formulae and formats that further define the show's style and the flow of its stories and dictate how they are intended to be perceived and embraced by the audience.

"Perry Mason" always built to a sudden courtroom confession. No matter how good he had things, "The Littlest Hobo" was always moving on when the final credits rolled. And how would any of us follow the drift of "CSI: Miami" if David Caruso ever lost his sunglasses?

In "Adderly", our hero always had a signature moment when he figured out the mystery he was trying to solve. He was always one step ahead of the audience (we hoped) and in that moment had to communicate to them that he had put the last pieces of the puzzle together. Some bright light at the network insisted that was by saying "Bingo!" usually breathlessly or with a satisfied smile.

We hated the conceit so much we tried to find all kinds of ways to let the audience know we found the repetitive moment as laughable as we were certain they did. That led to giving his secretary  a hamster named "Bingo" in one episode that became the final piece in that week's puzzle so Adderly could look at Bingo and say "Bingo".

We had a plan B in place for when the immaturity of our plot was recognized in dailies. But instead, they told us it was the best "Bingo" moment yet.

Because TV worlds are so tightly wound and regulated. It doesn't take much to completely unravel them -- one small shift in perception is all it takes.

So please accept "Space: 1999" kinked 100 years earlier.

And enjoy your Sunday...

YO! CRTC STAFFERS! WHY WAIT!

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!

LAZY SUNDAY # 33: THE HEAD FAKE

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.

Enjoy your Sunday.

LISTENING TO THE "COUNTRY"

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)...

JAKE OWEN - YEEHAW

Artist Site

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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....

TRACE ADKINS - HONKY TONK BADONKADONK

ON THE ROAD -- WITH POLITICIANS

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.

Lazy Sunday #32: MAMMA MIA!

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.