Assorted Nonsense

It works… and in Firefox too!

I’ve been trying to get my Wimpy MP3 player working to no avail. Just couldn’t make it and Firefox friendly. So this is 1 Pixel Out Audio player to the rescue, designed especially for WordPress.

I am pleased.

And a word about this particular MP3… it’s (of course) Eric Idle doing the credits for Q back when the original Q gang was making the show (a few of us have moved on since then). I always had the piano miked just in case a guest like the eminent Mr. Idle might prove to be a good sport.

Incidentally, the fellow playing the piano in this bit is Idle’s cousin, Canadian born Peter Oundjian.

According to CBC Radio’s Metro Morning, the concept of blogging is ten years old today. Also according to Metro Morning, the way to get host Andy Barrie to check out your blog is to mention Metro Morning on your blog.

So… hi Andy! Thanks for dropping by.

Speaking of Andy, as many of you know, I work for CBC Radio, and Andy is one of the few on air personalities with whom I’ve never worked. I do have a story about him, though:

One day back when he first came to us from private radio I happened to be working down in his area in CBL. For some reason a get-together of all CBL employees happened in the afternoon so a bunch of us gathered in a big room for snacks and conversation. Andy wasn’t there, but naturally talk soon turned to him. Just for fun I asked the head of CBL how much Andy would be making. The entire room went silent as she answered, “More than you.”

Everybody laughed.

A tiny bit offended at what was essentially a put down (I was working as a lowly tech at the time), I replied, “You don’t know that.”

Everybody laughed again and somebody said, “touche”.

Of course the joke was on me, because he was making at least twice what I was making at the time. He’s almost certainly still making more… but it isn’t about money, is it?

At least, that’s not what I got into public radio for.

I just stumbled across a blog post that contained the following in the comments:

“…back to CBC, especially CBC-AM — it isn’t perfect by any means, and sometimes it tries to chase popularity a bit too much, but when it knows what it’s doing it’s fantastic. I like Ideas, myself, weekdays at 9 p.m., and also we’ve got a couple goddamn funny radio shows on there. And, hey, I like that we can all tune into the same thing, all over the country.

I just wish they hadn’t killed off their science-fiction radio-play show from a few years back, I thought it was really impressive. The first broadcast featured a play made from The Cold Equations, and it was outstanding. Think what they could’ve done with, I don’t know, a serialization of Foundation, or something! So much material to pick and choose from, I can’t believe it didn’t fly. I met Spider Robinson recently at a party, and just missed buttonholing him about this: “come on, Spider, call CBC up and tell them you’ll host that show! You know you want to!”

I may still tell him that.”

Got a serious pang reading that.  He’s talking about Faster Than Light, a pilot I produced with Robert J. Sawyer a few years back.  It had been my intention to adapt a wide variety of classic science fiction stories in future episodes.  Alas…

The pilot, which aired on Sunday Showcase, received excellent listener response.  The deputy director of the department championed the show to the Program Director.  When told how much mail the show had received over a short period of time, the Program Director responded: “You see, that’s the problem with a show like that.  Once you put it on the air you’ll never get it off!”

That Program Director didn’t last long.  Sadly, neither did Faster Than Light.  But it’s great to know that someone out there liked it.

It still ticks me off that:

A. the good Ol U.S. of A. was being difficult at Bali

B. idiots are killing their daughters because they’re not dressing the way they want them to and

C. that I lost the original version of this blog.

Okay yes, I realize that that’s nowhere as serious as A and B, but unlike A and B it is something I can do something about.

Now, I thought I had the blog all backed up, but it looks like all I had backed up was the structure and look of the thing.  Because I’ve changed providers, all my tables have become inaccessible to me, and although I could be wrong, it seems I can’t reproduce my original posts and comments without those original tables.

But it turns out it may not matter after all.  I’ve been able to retrieve some material via google searches and finding cached versions of my posts.  And just today I remembered about the brilliant Wayback Machine archival site.Turns out a good portion of Assorted Nonsense has been archived there.  They’re missing the first four months, there’s some weird duplication and inexplicable absences, but they’ve got a good portion of the thing.

So I’m a fair bit happier about the loss of my blog than I was.  

And now, just because I can, here’s yet another glimpse of the original version of Assorted Nonsense, lost lo these last two months.  This was a post called Taxi Radio (hey, I never claimed any of the blog was actually WORTH preserving):

I just took a taxi home. The cab driver was listening to 680 on the AM dial, which used to be CFTR in Toronto. Maybe it still is.

Do people still listen to AM, I wondered? Obviously they do.

I said, “What is that you’re listening to?”

He said, “Dunno. News and stuff. I like to hear the news.”

“Do you ever listen to CBC Radio?” I asked, just for fun.

He said, “What’s that?”

“99.1 on the FM,” I said. I didn’t tell him that’s where I worked.

He switched to 99.1. It was ten to eleven on a Saturday morning. We heard some strange kid’s music.

The cab driver laughed. “Good one, buddy!” he said, and switched right back to what he’d been listening to before.

People keep asking me: so how’s life on the dark side?

The dark side is looking pretty bright.

I don’t mind telling you that my first week in management I was a bit freaked out.  No union to back me up, the workload seemed nothing short of back breaking, and what if it didn’t work out?  Would I be out on my ass in three months?

But now I find myself enjoying it.  Oh sure, I’ve made a few little booboos so far.  But a couple of days in the management stockade soon straightens a fellow out.

What’s making it a little easier is the fact that the players are all the same, I’ve known most of them for years.  It’s just the context that’s different. There’s tons of work to be done and new stuff to learn but that’s what keeps life interesting.  And I would be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate the gold plated urinals in the executive washroom and the frequent joyrides in the departmental Porsche.

The best part is seeing how it’s all done behind the scenes.  It goes without saying that there’s a tremendous amount of effort required to make a national operation like CBC Radio work.  Had I ever stopped to think about it I might have had an inkling as to the extent of it.  Now that I’m in the thick of it I’m beginning to understand it viscerally.  It’s becoming pretty clear the calibre of thinking required.  How do you configure a studio from the ground up?  How do you make a new master control while the old one is still operating?  How do you allocate your resources?  What do you spend your money on when everyone’s clamouring for a piece of the pie?

The management team I’ve joined works quietly behind the scenes to make it possible for others to make the radio that Canadians enjoy every day.  I’ve had nineteen years of being able to make radio with the best gear in the best studios thanks to the line managers that came before me; now it’s my chance to pay it forward by helping create a stable, invigorating environment for future generations of radio makers to create their sonic magic.

And I have to tell you I’m into it.   

It has been a crazy year.

If anybody had told me this time last year all the stuff that would happen to me in the next twelve months I’d have said, okay that’s interesting, but if you can really tell the future what can you tell me about lottery numbers? 

One year ago I was happily toiling away on radio plays, content in the knowledge that I’d probably be doing so the rest of my career.  Then Q came along, totally turned my career path on its ear, and this past week I started a job in management.  My head is still spinning.

Q finished nicely with a trip to Moosejaw and Regina, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Hey, I doubled my money at Blackjack in the Moosejaw casino (turned twenty into forty using a friend’s ”system”).  The folks at Q were far nicer to me than I deserved, what with me abandoning them and all.  Jian bought me a spiderman mug shortly before the end… lugged it all the way from London, England to give to me.  The Q gang bought me a cake and made nice speeches about me.  In return I told them what I thought of them… to wit, that they are an amazing team, all working at the top of their game, making terrific radio often under the most stressful conditions.

It’s no secret that I wasn’t too keen on moving out of drama… but in the end the Q experience was a positive one.  I recorded some amazing musical artists (my favourites were the indies like Kobotown, Basia Bulat, Patrick Watson, Jully Black and more).  The best shows for me were the Friday Lives… the Friday Live with Blue Rodeo topping them all. 

I want to make something perfectly clear… I have been asked a number of times why I left Q, if it was because (insert reason here).  So here’s a brief Why Joe Left Q FAQ:

Q.   Was it because you didn’t get along with Jian?

A. Absolutely not… several people have pumped me for info on Jian, trying to get some dirt on the man.  Well, I worked with him closely, often under highly stressful situations, and I have nothing but good to say about the man.  We got along great, the three of us in the studio (me, Matt Tunnacliffe and Jian) worked really well together.  Jian and I parted company as friends, and I think the reason why the show worked so well out of the gate was largely because Jian made it work.   Hey, the man got me a spider man mug.  ‘Nuff said.

So I’m one week into my gig as a manager.  And I’ll tell you the hardest part so far… having my soul sucked out of me.  Man that hurt.  But you get over it.

People say, so you joined the dark side.  The dark side just got a whole lot lighter, I tell them.

I’m enjoying it so far.  That’s not to say there weren’t a few anxious moments… after 19 years in the union it’s a helluva change.  There will be a few challenges ahead, I’m sure.

Bring’em on.   

Recently I gave an interview to the Ryerson Review of Journalism. They wanted to know my opinion on the new blogging guidelines laid down by the CBC. A few friends advised me not to give the interview, but it seemed churlish not to do so… Ryerson is my alma mater (although I took radio and television arts, not journalism) and the Ryerson Review of Journalism is about giving students practice in their chosen field. So to me it was more about helping out a student.

Apparently budding journalist Emerald Austerberry approached several CBC and CBC related bloggers and a few of us consented to give interviews.

And it appears some of us came down on separate sides of the fence concerning the new CBC blogging guidelines…

Yesterday I engineered my last ever live show. I tell people this and they can’t believe it. They refuse to believe it… they think I’ll be back.

Ain’t gonna happen.

It was the last show I’ll ever engineer for Q. Today my replacement took over. His name is Alain and he’s pretty sharp. About eight times as sharp as me, give or take a sharp or two. So he’s doing it from now on and I’m spending these last few days showing him the ropes, although he’s shown me a rope or two as well. Q is in good hands with this guy.

But it felt pretty strange watching him engineer the show today. I kept wanting to leap in and push buttons. I managed to restrain myself. Our musical guest today was Murray Mclaughlin. I felt a pang when one of our Associate Producers introduced Murray to Alain instead of me, and they discussed how the show was going to go. It was only right… it’s Alain doing the show now, not me.

I’m just going to have to get used to it.

Another week of showing Alain around, then three days of drama work, and on November the second it’s all over. I’m out of the Union. No longer a recording engineer. Moving to the dark side. Becoming a big, bad manager.

Yep…

…it’s gonna take some getting used to.

So there I am, in Moosejaw, with the world’s larget moose (photo courtesy of CBC Regina’s Network Producer Sean Prpick).

I love Moosejaw. It reminds me of towns in the Maritimes. I mentioned this to one woman and she told me that the Prairies and the Maritimes are interchangeable.

“A little windy today,” I mentioned to this same woman.

She said, “It’s always windy.” She told me her Dad had moved to Vancouver, then came back after five years and complained about the wind. She had to go outside and see if it was actually windy. She hadn’t noticed, she was so used to it.

What about the remote? you ask, and rightfully so. That is what we are up here for, after all.

The Moosejaw edition of Q went well, I’m happy to report. Two egregious errors were made, though, one by myself and one by Jian. I was playing back some IDs and themes from a laptop, and I didn’t have a mouse (we needed the mouse on a different computer). During the show I was getting ready to play an ID, and placed the cursor over the start button. The damn ID started to play, interrupting Jian.

He said, (and we’re broadcasting this live nationally, remember), “Ah, don’t I have more time?” And I had to stop the ID in the middle. We were in front of a live audience, it was kind of embarrassing. But hey, that’s live for you.

The other mistake worked well for us because it was pretty funny… forgetting for a split second where we were, Jian accidentally called Moosejaw Toronto. The audience thought it was hilarious and in his usual witty fashion Jian ran with it. It became a running joke throughout the show, to the benefit of all.

My mistakes are ugly, brutal affairs… Jian’s are hilarious. It’s the nature of the beast. But it doesn’t get me down, as everyone is so supportive. The only one to mention my mistake afterward was me… everyone else complimented me on a job well done whether I deserved it or not. Plus you just can’t get upset over little stuff like that. Life is too short and it’s only radio.

I’m actually in Regina now. Tomorrow we broadcast out of CBC Regina, then fly home tomorrow afternoon. It will be nice to hang with my family again. I was going a little stir crazy in my hotel room today… had several Canadia scripts to story edit, which kept me cooped up for much of the day.

Although the scripts are shaping up quite well, I think… lots of time travel. And I love time travel.

Even better than cross-country travel.

Moosejaw tomorrow!

It’s not every day you go to Moosejaw.

Then Regina on Sunday and back home Monday. If you want to check up on me, listen to Q Friday (from the Moose) and Monday (from Regina). I’ll be using different gear, different studios, and I expect I’ll screw everything up, so it should be quite entertaining to listen to Jian curse at me on air.

Ah, I can’t wait.

Be blogging at you next week!