CBC Summer Shows Review.

The summer is nearly over, and so one of my favourite parts of it is coming to a close, CBC Radio One's summer programming.

For years now for me, CBC's summer radio shows have been a fascinating listening experience give its radio network an enhanced variety that is lamentably missing through its regular season, and its looming budget realities mean the situation is hardly going to improve. As it is, the shows have had to be fewer original series and more repackaged reruns like Vinyl Cafe Stories and The Current's reruns of the concluded season's theme of  stories like Gamechanger.

But as it is, there still have been enjoyable shows to listen to of varying quality this summer and a few thoughts about them is in order:

The real treat has been The Wildside, an enthralling fun show about adventures in the Canadian wilderness.  The story in the first episode about Wes Werbowy,  the wilderness consultant who survived a polar bear intrusion into his tent with an impulsive punch on the nose got me and kept me listening with growing pleasure. That was followed up with great anecdotes and interviews from people like a woman who had to stop a walrus from trying to mate with her canoe and crushing it, a man's whose wilderness jog was joined by a non-aggressive pack of wolves for a stretch and two girls who were attacked by a belligerent grouse that had to be peppersprayed.  All told with good music tracks played, is the epitome of fun summer radio.

Babel was an intriguing summer show about the use of English, especially from an immigrant point of view.  English has been described as one of the most difficult languages to learn with its myriad of words and language rules that are rife with exceptions and this show is an enlightening reminder about that kind of perspective about its challenges from the newcomer.  In other words, it's like the old show, And Sometimes Y, from a non-native anglophone perspective that a whitebread guy like me could bear to understand.

Metamorphosis struck me as a somewhat sunnier version of The Late Show considering the stories are predominately not obituaries. Unlike Gordan Pinsent's wizened drawl, Richard Syratt has a wry tone with a touch of gravel that allows for a welcome neutrality. The stories thankfully have variety like, Jose Prado, the Colombian double arm amputee charity case who fouls up horribly is a standout with others who have cleaned up their lives like Mary Johnson and Oshea Israel, a mother and her son's murderer who managed to make peace. The whole series give a fun mix of about how people cope with mistakes and misfortunes that is an inspiration and eyeopener.

Trailbreakers: This series has some interesting profiles of Native American community leaders who are advancing their people like encouraging business, political activism and broadcasting. However, the show feels disappointingly conventional compared to the early Native American show, Revision Quest, starring Darrell Dennis with his comedy sketches and his overall sense of humour to give the real story about his people.

Fear Itself has a quirky series about human fears, but I couldn't get into that. I prefer stories to enlighten and inspire me and there's enough fear in my life without going out of my way to explore more. Don't get me wrong, the show is interesting in and of itself, but it was not something to get me to archive the podcasts like other shows like Know Your Rights.

The Invisible Hand on the other hand was a show you can't approach ignorantly. As David Bush noted in Rabble.ca, the host, Matthew Lazin-Ryder, has a neo-conservative bias that colours the show to say the least. For myself, I was suspicious from the start about with the first episode being about, price gouging such as using the example of selling ice during a major community disaster. Listening to his case about priorities and his claim of how banning price gouging leads to dangerous shortages sounded maddeningly simplistic; for instance, there is no mention of intelligent rationing such as what Canada and the US imposed during World War II with their ration cards.  The show was still interesting, but it shouldn't in part be because it is a ideological minefield to beware Lazin-Ryder's agenda, even if he is at least rational enough to address real issues like global warming in the context of economics.

Global Perspectives manages to largely avoid the occasional dryness with the international documentaries with the "Old School, New School" theme such as an old shop with changing hands both in generations and in perspective to getting modern kids in China interested in Peking Opera.  It's a pity that the show is not podcast, but its episodes are available on its website.

If you like good radio, warts and all, then check out these shows and experience Canadian aural experiences that only CBC Radio One can provide. 

The Early Summer Bittersweetness of Being

It's the beginning of the summer and my spirits are a bit higher than usual.

Anthony Pyor has finally responded to me after 10 years and seems to have gotten over what grievance he has with me. While it would be too much wishful thinking to hope that I can could chat with him like before, at least he's restarted his Wulf stories and I can enjoy some more of the fantasy erotic adventure you'll ever going to find online. It's at  and while it's definitely not to every taste, it is still a fun series of sexy stories with good humour and wild adventure that deserves a look for anyone who wants to learn how good original online erotic fiction can get.

Furthermore, this is the first week on CBC Radio One's summer schedule and that means a whole new batch of facsinating summer shows like Babel about language usage in Canada, The Invisible Hand about economics for the ordinary person, Metamorphosis: a biography version of the Late Show without the dying part, Fear Itself about the aspects and of course the international radio documentary showcase, Global Perspectives with this year's theme being "Old School, New School." For all, I know, this could be the last summer for such great shows, so I hope you might find them as interesting as I do.

Of mixed elements is that Obama's healthcare law survived the US Supreme Court and while he could have sold the whole thing much better and gone to Canadian style single payer coverage, this is still a feather in his cap to fight with for his re-election campaign. The bad news is that VIA is cutting back on passenger service, even in the busy Quebec-Ontario corridor, but at least I can still use it comfortably enough to still get to  Brantford for my parents or Toronto for whatever.  That frustrating part is that other nations are building up their passenger rail service like China and Europe and we are giving up on ours even when it makes so much economic and environmental sense to use the trains more with them being largely faster and energy efficient.


On the movie front, the upcoming movie, Ted, has a fresh status and a favourable critical consensus statement on Rotten Tomatoes and I couldn't be happier in that regard.  Unlike a dumb mashup premise like Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Killer, Ted feels more natural as a creative film fantasy concept that actually asks a really good story question: what would childhood magic be like if it continued straight into adulthood?  The fact the teddy bear being alive is no secret gives the whole story a fun new element that gives its coming of age theme that much more punch.  Just check out this trailer for an inspired if rather proudly rude film

While Magic Mike is looking promising, Ted will be the first film I want to see while Amazing Spider-Man looks like it has justified the character's movie reboot with style and intelligence this Monday at Rainbow at 8:00.

All in all, these are just small developments, but the positive one are interesting enough for this time of year.

Last Chance to hear CBC Radio's Tradition of Drama

As the CBC copes with its 10+% cut to its budget, one of the casualties to lament is the closing down of CBC Radio's tradition of radio drama.

I was late to this element of CBC, but the weekly radio show became a dearly anticipated treat on Thursday morning/late night, especially after I cancelled my cable TV subscription. Although I could never get into the long running series, Afghanada, Canada's Tour of Duty, all that much, other shows like Monsoon House, Backbencher and Trust Inc. have been wonderful listening in a way that televison can't really match. Certainly, a war series like Afghanada on CBC TV could not have been made with all the production values it would have demanded.

Now, you have one last chance to hear what I mean as CBC Radio's final drama series, Trust Inc., repeats its season starting this morning. It's a fun serio-comedy about a PR firm as they go about their trade managing the truth and the public's perception of it for clients who are often as dubious in character as the spin-doctoring they are expecting from the firm.

What really makes this series special that is that it has an intriguing use of the online materials like a fictional blog by the series' character, a presentation of The Post Telegraph, the series' newspaper where a reporter character writes, and even video clips that illustrate key points of the action of series. Of course, it's also podcast and is available on Itunes.

So, while you still have a chance, check out this terrific series today at 11:31 am and 11:06 pm and listen to  the final product of CBC Radio's dramatic tradition that extends through its 70 year history.
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Regrettably as I have learned this morning, CBC has grown more neglectful of its publicly posted broadcast schedules and the network is rerunning the final season of Afghanada on Radio One. So, enjoy that series as Canada's public broadcaster's commitment to radio drama comes to a close.

I prefer it on my radio

It's remarkable how dramatically your tastes can change over the years.

For instance, there was a time when I simply watched too much TV to the consternation of my parents. In fact my earliest memories include coming home from kindergarten and making a beeline to see Sesame Street every day.  When my parents wanted to punish me, the most memorable penalties were weeks long TV bans, which were agony in their own way.  In fact, one of the most memorable things in my life was watching Magic Shadows on TVO on Friday nights in the 1980s when the classic Republic Pictures serials like The Adventures of Captain Marvel were played and eating a personal pan pizza my mother cooked by hand that night.

Yet, now my TV is unplugged most of the time and disconnected my cable subscription 2 years ago and I don't miss it all that much. Instead, I listen to CBC radio and various podcasts instead. In fact, the biggest treat when I have Saturday mornings free is for that rare opportunity to listen to CBC Radio One's shows.  Any video I want to see is more likely than not available online and DVD and I feel happier about that situation than I ever thought I would be 20 years ago. I do know that I mentioned this state of affairs to my parents, they looked at me as if I had gone insane at doing something so out of character in their eyes.

As for reasons, I don't need hindsight to tell me why.  For instance, my first move was when I heard about the story of Ronald Reagan's press secretary congratualating a major TV news show for a negative story on him, gloating that since the visual footage was flattering, no one was going to listen to the truth they were saying about him.  At that moment, I vowed I would largely avoid TV news and get my news from the radio so I would focus on what is being said and I have largely kept to that ever to my benefit.

Furthermore, I've found that radio as a broadcast medium is simply more convinient;  it's a medium that allows me largely to do any number of things while I am listening, although reading is a challenge with the divided attention. For instance, I can walk or work outside with my MP3 player's radio function going and I can keep going just fine. By contrast, TV demands you stay in one place and focus all your attention to the screen; for many things, that is a shackling I will not have. Furthermore, I grew tired of comforming my life to a TV broadcast schedule and even with recording tech, I've let the recordings pile up.  In that case, online video I could access at will has become far more to my taste and even DVDs seem to be becoming more and more a bother in themselves.

Also there is the fact that CBC Radio One provides largely all of what I want in broadcasting such as news like Ontario Morning and The Current and entertainment like the Vinyl Cafe, Vinyl Tap and Afghanada. It's gotten to the point where their summer replacement shows are the chief things I look forward to in the summer and the fact that I can have all this without commercials is wonderful in itself.  While I enjoy other podcasts, they are a separate medium in my mind to some extent, much like audiobooks; there is a certain delay to them while radio has an immediacy that is compelling itself.

That makes the upcoming budget review developments in Ottawa matter of foreboding with Tony Clemente with his treasury axe with a deficit pretext to bury any protest.  The Conservatives' loathing for the CBC has been obvious for years and its disheartening to read/hear ignorant rightoids screach about it being "biased" when those blatherings seem usually the result of a bullying arrogance that can't stand seeing their views being challenged even in a fair forum. Any radio network perported to be "leftist" and yet have a notorious rightwing reporter like Barbara Frum be one of their top journalists while her son David and even Preston Manning have hosted CBC's marquee current affairs radio show, The Current, occassionally is more fair than they want to admit.

That said, Harper and his cronies aren't all that interested in realties when their self-serving ideologies say otherwise. After all, if they acted like really rational beings they would have left the long form census alone knowing that killing a essential form of societal research because of a handful complaints is nonsensical. Now with a majority government, I don't know what is going to happen next, but I hope the lobby group I've contributed to, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, might be able to protect the CBC, or at least the radio portion from people who can't hear a bigger picture.

In any case, I will enjoy it while it lasts.