Hey Ricky
One of life’s little delights is discovering that the artist whose work you admire is also a great human being. So often it happens the other way. I’m looking at you, Louis ck. …
Politics
Bot and Sold
I suppose I should feel flattered. Scores of Twitter bots, those automated, pre-programmed fake accounts, started following me last week. I didn’t even realize it was part of a trend until London’s Medical Officer of Health tweeted about it. Then CTV London did a story about it, explaining that ‘prominent’ Londoners were being targeted by these sinister little twits. …
Filling the Hole in the Soul
What in the world happened in Toronto yesterday? Ten people are dead after a man ran a van along a sidewalk I walked a million times as a Torontonian. We can dismiss people as evil but that’s too easy. The hard stuff is trying to understand why they did what they’ve done. …
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Master Impressionist
Thousands of broadcasters and actors in this country dream of making it in the US. Our friend Ed Kelly has been doing it for decades. The way I see it, his career is successful for three reasons.
- He’s versatile; from broadcasting to voice-over to acting to live stage performances including comedy, impressions and singing – he does it all.
- He’s mobile. He can go where the work is.
- He’s wickedly talented. Like, a one in ten-million kind of talent. And that might be selling him short.
…
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Leftover Rant II
This is the second and last column I wrote for a magazine that had a change at the helm. You know what that’s like; the new person wants to make their own decisions and hire their own people. It’s all good. But why let a collection of carefully chosen sentences go to waste? And so I ranted:Â …
Clean Getaway
Derek and I have been looking around to invest in a vacation retreat. Something modest to match our budget. A little place near water we can spruce up and customize. Our summer home when we’re ready to become snowbirds. We’re looking everywhere – from other provinces to other countries. Nothing is off the table. If you’ve explored the cottage areas of Ontario and you don’t have a million dollars to spend, you know how difficult it is to find something affordable close to home. …
March Saneness
So many young people. Millions around the world and even some in my own city, joining in Saturday’s March For Our Lives. Also, Parkland school shooting survivors and others, enduring taunts and ridicule from adult gun advocates. But gathering support from thousands of others. …
Keep Talking
I’m concerned that the new era of openness about harassment, bullying and toxicity is going to have an unintended consequence: driving the sexes even further apart. …
Don’t Bug Me
Last week, I ate a cricket. I hadn’t planned to but I got caught up in the moment. Ken and I were interviewing a naturalist from the Butterfly Conservancy of Cambridge about their Chocolate Bugfeast that’s on this week. Ken chomped on some chocolate-covered critters and I decided to join in. Â …
A Ford, A Woman and a Tulip
The “progressive” part of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives was removed from their name on the weekend. What a mess. The Liberals were the real winners of the PC leadership debacle that elected Doug Ford. …
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Pressing Matters
A report last week claims the federal Heritage Ministry is considering a bailout for Canada’s newspaper industry. While the struggling middle-class in that industry attempts to keep its jobs, our Liberal government might reward the CEOs for their greed and self-preservation on the backs of employees. I hope it’s not so. …
Love’s Labour’s Lost
It’s possible that I’m falling out of love with my first love: media. Okay, you got me. My first love was Donny Osmond but that was unrequited so it doesn’t count. Media has mostly loved me back even when I thought I was unlovable. Media has kept me guessing, engaged, interested and energized. And it’s not even media’s fault that my feelings are changing. It’s the fault of its wild child, social media. …
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Two Little Words
Changing the lyrics to O Canada to “of us” from “thy sons” set social media on fire. Here’s a sampling of comments from the CJBK Facebook page. …
Caught Between Two Schools
Someone in authority recently called me “old school” as high praise because in the old school we put in extra effort and we put on our game faces when we needed to. We followed policy and didn’t make a scene – often to our detriment. Old school wasn’t necessarily the better school, to be sure. …
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Throwback Thursday – Biker Buddies
We spent some time sorting stuff in the basement last weekend, after the temperature plummeted to -22C after hitting 9C the day before. Bins of papers from The World of Motorcycles Expo are stacked floor to ceiling. As suspected, not all of them have to be kept. …
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Judge With Caution
I’ve written and set aside at least a half-dozen columns about the #metoo movement. Most of what’s worth saying has already been said. Then I considered my own experiences and realized I had an unusual one, long ago, that might serve as a cautionary tale. It became my final column before Our London closed its pages for good. I was also invited to talk about it this week on News 95.7 in Halifax. …
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Related Regrets
Over the holidays, the sister of a London police Constable posted photos on social media. They showed the officer – long before she was an officer – step by step as she dressed up in blackface, tribal-like beads and a colourful dress for Halloween 2006. At the time, she was a teenager who thought she was putting on a costume and didn’t understand the implications of her actions. Now she certainly does. …
Write With Me
Back in September, I posted a blog about what potential radio guests should know before they pitch an idea. (Want to Attract the Media? Follow These Tips!) It was shared several times on social media and some people messaged me privately to say that these things never occurred to them. I know! That’s why I wrote it. 🙂 …