Life's A Fairy Tale: What A Music Video For Streetheart's "Snow White" Might Look Like

How about another blog entry on Streetheart? The last one was my idea of the ultimate set list. This one will be much more creative: What if Streetheart had done a music video for their song "Snow White," off their fifth album, the self-titled Streetheart album? What would it look like?

First, some background information and housekeeping. Okay. That album came out in 1982. MTV started in 1981. I don't believe there are any music videos for any songs on this album. Why? I believe it's because this album was released only in Canada, and MTV did not air in Canada. Canada did not yet have Muchmusic, which started in 1984. So there was no place to air videos. I can't remember if the CBC was airing Good Rockin' Tonight in 1982, but if they were, that's just one show, so to air a Streetheart video once and be done with it wouldn't have been worth it to produce a video just for that.

When you look at what the '80s became with music videos, partying, and hair metal, the song "Snow White" would be a natural for a music video, with lyrics about a high-school girl who everyone thinks is "peaches and cream" but who sneaks out of her room and goes "out the window and down the ladder" to go out and party late at night after her parents think she's gone to bed. 

So here's my fantasy about what this music video could/would look like:

As with a lot of videos, before the music starts, you see the girl in bed with the covers on her. Her mother has put her to bed, and as the mother talks to her about family issues as she looks at things or cleans up things in the room, not really looking at her daughter, the girl rolls her eyes. One of the things in the room we see could be a photo of the girl wearing her school uniform standing beside her mother, to go with the line in the song, "School uniform, looks so charming." The mother looks at her, wishes her a good night's sleep, and leaves the room. The mother doesn't question her daughter as to why the girl is wearing full makeup and red lipstick.

Now the song starts. The girl smiles and pulls back the covers. She's wearing a black sequined minidress and black stiletto heels. She opens the window and climbs down a tree to her waiting girlfriends friends in a cab. They head to a club.

Now, when they arrive at the club, this next scene recreates what I actually saw once at Fridays, the club that used to be at the Travelodge in St. Vital here in Winnipeg, that is now Doubles Fun Club, coincidentally right around the time this album was released. I waited in line the longest I have ever waited in a nightclub lineup - two hours. During that two hours, two girls pushed through the lineup, the one girl, who, by the way, I have been picturing in my mind as the girl in the video this whole time while writing all this, who looked with her hairstyle and face like a cross between Disney's Snow White and Sarah Hyland, jumped up and wrapped her legs around one of the bouncers and kissed him on the cheek, and the bouncer let her and her friend in the club without waiting in line or paying cover. I remember seeing her dancing with a big grin on her face when I finally got in. I was thinking, "Who are these girls?" So why not do that in the video? If you're watching this on TV or on You Tube and you're not one of the people actually in line, you enjoy watching the underdog triumph. Especially when the underdog is normally smothered and overwhelmed in a world of parents and teachers.

So now the girls are dancing with guys they know at the club. And lo and behold, behind them on the dance floor, on the stage, are Streetheart playing the song. I hope there is the right archival footage that can be used for this. Maybe AI can help. It would be cool if we could see the girl wave "hi" or give a look, then we see Kenny Shields on stage wave back, or return a look. Then we see Jeff Neill and Spider beside each other giving the girl a thumbs-up and a look as they're playing their guitars and basses.

Now, because they're in a club and not at school, and because things are so politically correct nowadays, this video would have to completely ignore the second verse about the "special classes" a teacher is giving Snow White after school that includes the line, "I bet I know who's teaching who." But I think everything I am describing, both before and after this paragraph, will take up the time of the second verse just fine.

Okay, so now it hits the girl the amount of time they've spent in the club. She has a "yikes" look on her face and looks at her watch and is horrified. She runs out of the club by herself and looks around. There's a cab! She gets in. The cab races to her home. She gets out, runs up the tree (yes, with her stilettos still on - eat your heart out, Mariah Carey), climbs in the window, and gets in bed just in time. Her mother walks into the room as she pretends to sleep. Her mother has a contented look on her face. She begins to leave, and says, as she looks at her watch, "Sweetheart, you better be getting up for school soon." As she finishes saying that, she sees the girl's foot with the black high heel her daughter's wearing sticking out the end of the bed. She looks horrified and looks at her daughter's face. Her daughter is fast asleep and the sleep has gotten more intense. She calls out her daughter's name repeatedly, and her daughter doesn't hear her, that's how badly she needs sleep now. And that's how the video ends!

What is the girl's name the mother calls her at the end? I don't know, but in addition to the girl from Fridays I saw above, who I didn't know, so I didn't know her name, there was a girl I worked with at McDonald's on St. Anne's Road in the early '80s who, with her girlfriend, did this exact kind of stuff described in "Snow White." Her name was Debbie, but that name sounds old-fashioned today, unfortunately. Debbie was estranged from her parents and lived with her girlfriend in the Southdale suburb of Winnipeg. Debbie had hair kind of like Disney's Snow White, too, at one point. And Debbie and her friend, Andrea, used to sneak out of the house to go partying, too. Not sure if they went out the window. I think they were underage. But the whole "Snow White" scenario could still work if the girl(s) are 18 (and presumably in grade 12) and can legally drink and go to clubs in Manitoba, because of the parents' "my house, my rules" thing. But people could get into bars while underage a lot easier in the early '80s than today. My first time in a bar was when I was 16. Alas, I didn't become legal until after high school was over. My birthday is in July.

So both that girl from Fridays and Debbie make me think of "Snow White" by Streetheart, and both inspired me to write this. Another Streetheart song has the lyric, "Wonder where she'll be in five years." I wonder where both girls are now.  

Bell Media Part 2: They had 91 layoffs and you might be one

Whenever I've tried to brainstorm ideas of what to blog about next, this Bell Media thing keeps coming back to me.

Because when I wrote my Bell Media/MuchMusic blog entry last time, even with all I brought up in it, that was still before they.....wait for it.....laid off 91 employees, mostly at Much, M3, and MTV Canada.

So now, I guess I have to do a followup.

Talk about being dumbfounded.

Something is clearly wrong with this company.

Isn't Bell Media supposedly the biggest private broadcaster in Canada? And they can't financially run these channels adequately? (Without telling us why not, as I reiterate my last blog's theme.)

In addition to all my observations and complaints last blog about what Bell Media has done to Much (formerly MuchMusic, I hate to say but must), those 91 layoffs mean that almost all the on-air personalities known as VJs that were on Much (most of which Bell Media had moved to other channels after they got rid of Much's flagship show New.Music.Live and replaced the MuchMusic Environment with the studio for CTV's The Social) are now gone, except for Tyrone Edwards and Chloe Wilde, who are still on E! Canada, and Liz Trinnear, now the sole VJ on Much. Much, M3, and MTV Canada now run on skeleton crews, and Much now has only one produced show, the Much Countdown, hosted by Liz. Liz still interviews music stars in the Bell Media building (after they're finished with ETalk, I'm sure), but those interviews run online, and now as insets during the videos on the Much Countdown (a good idea, but I'll come back to this). The rest of the schedule consists of morning videos (that extend into the afternoon and even the evening on some days), the fratboy comedies, and back-to-back Simpsons and South Park reruns. Also back-to-back Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air reruns which, after seemingly forever, they aren't even dropping in favor of another rerun show. This past Christmas season, if you remember all the hour-long review shows the former MuchMusic used to do, like Hisses, Disses, and Kisses, well, Much still did two or three of those, but they were around two minutes long and ran during the commercials on Much and online. Hey, at least they're trying, but, as I said in the brackets, I'll come back to that subject. And Tanya Kim was laid off from ETalk.

How can Bell Media, all of a sudden, decide they can't afford to keep these channels going in a proper manner? Something fishy is going on here, and it's more than just Bell Media taking the MuchMusic Environment away from them and giving that studio space to The Social. And, yeah, that is exactly what happened, as I finally got confirmation on that from, of all people, Jess Allen, on The Social itself, when they were promoting the 30 Years Of Much half-hour special (only half an hour?; more on that later) and they were showing clips of all the music stars that came to the building to play songs in the MuchMusic Environment and, in between songs, answered fan questions and walked up to Much's huge Queen Street storefront window where Much regularly took the glass out so the fans outside could be a part of the show, and signed autographs from those fans and answered their questions, and Jess says, "And that all took place in this very room!" Bless you, Jess. I wonder if she wasn't supposed to say that, because I wonder if Bell Media didn't want anyone pointing out that those days are actually over now, and that there won't be any more stars coming to Much to play and promote any more. I wonder if the MMVAs are no more now, as well.

Whatever Bell Media's financial problems are, clearly, what they are doing now is this: They are simply holding onto these channels for as long as they can so that the competition doesn't acquire them. Because if anyone out there thinks they can do a better job at running them (and I'm hearing rumblings that Ed The Sock might be getting involved in a new music video channel - no, really) and they think Bell Media has lost interest and will sell to them, guess again. If Bell Media sells to them, that will make the buyer a Bell Media competitor. Bell Media doesn't want that. And Bell Media can probably still charge top advertising rates for portions of these channels' programming, because the actual shows themselves - from Pretty Little Liars to Reign to Broad City to Workaholics - are fine shows and attract audiences. If the audience wants to watch these shows, they'll watch them on whatever channel they're on. That's a different issue than the issue of them being on the wrong channel, that I discussed in my last blog. I'm sure Bell Media does advertising package deals that involve these channels plus CTV and CTV Two, too.

Yet what defies logic in Bell Media's stance is how they think they can get away with next to no CanCon (Canadian content) on these channels as per their conditions of license with the CRTC for these channels. When does their renewal hearing come up? When it does, they will undoubtebly be hauled onto the carpet by the CRTC. I don't know how much produced CanCon content they are supposed to provide vs. purchased CanCon, but on MTV Canada, there is zero produced content now, and next to nothing for purchased CanCon. When MTV Canada were at the Masonic Temple building on Yonge Street, they did lots of produced content: MTV Live (I saw a taping), MTV Aftershow, 5 Gays 1 Girl, MTV News. When they moved into the main CTV building at 299 Queen Street West, MTV Live turned into Showtown, but that, and everything else, is now gone. I thought the reason for that content in the first place was to fulfill Bell Media's CRTC license requirements. As said, Much has one produced show, the Countdown, and a few between-commercials Liz Trinnear segments, and that's it. M3, for whatever reason, mostly carries on, as they didn't have too much produced content to begin with, so Gabby Henderson replaces the departed Matt Wells, and they mostly just carry on. So it appears the CRTC will either force Bell Media to live up to their conditions of license at a "show cause" hearing, or take the channels away from Bell Media themselves. Why would Bell Media open themselves up to that? If Bell Media was going to do what they did, instead of laying off 91 people, why not lay off only 75 and keep some more produced content on these channels (especially MTV Canada) to secure their licences? It doesn't make sense.

Now, to be fair, the remaining staff Bell Media has at Much does at least appear to be making lemonade out of lemons. These blogs I have been writing have nothing to do with them; they're just doing their jobs, and they appear to be doing them quite well. After I tweeted to Much, "You don't even have the resources to take those great Liz Trinnear interviews and edit them into a half-hour show?" they.....well, they didn't do that, but they at least run parts of them now in inset interviews on the Much Countdown during the videos. I told them that's a good idea, because on a countdown show, the videos can get repetitive, so those inset interviews relieve any boredom that might set in. They have done some interesting things with the blocks of videos that still remain in the New.Music.Live time slot: Brought back the Spotlight (one artist's videos) one night a week, made another night new videos called "Brand New Shit," made another night videos curated (chosen) by a famous artist, and made Thursday a Throwback Thursday night. All of which are still just videos with no host, no nothing, just the videos, but it's better than just regular videoflow. Because if the morning videoflow (and even that was retitled "Playlist") is too early for people to catch up on videos, you can always tape it while you sleep or work. I've done that. And at least Much did do those two-minute Holiday Wrap "shows" with Liz I brought up above. They could have done nothing. (Because I don't think two-minute segments fulfills license requirements.)

Then there's the curious show they did called "30 Years Of Much." For the last several years, Much has driven away screaming from its' past, because their most recent audience had been teenage girls screaming over The Jonas Brothers and One Direction, and Much didn't want to drive them away by suggesting their parents watched Much in the '80s and '90s in the form of referring to/airing their past all the time. But Bell Media bigwigs canned Much from airing anything that audience was interested in, as I covered last blog, except early morning videoflow, so I suppose the creative people (person?) still left at Much thought they had nothing to lose by mining their past and putting those segments together to create 30 Years Of Much. That show might have even been a way for the people still left at Much to shove the middle finger in Bell Media's face, as if to say, "See how much BETTER things were when Much did all this stuff, mostly when Moses ran the place?" So I looked forward to it, and wondered if it would be an hour or two hours. But it turned out to be only HALF AN HOUR?!?!? Of course: Much doesn't have the resources to make it more than half an hour. I'll bet Winnipeg's Shaw TV Community Channel has more resources today than Much does.

Oh, and CTV President Kevin Crull says people are watching music videos online now. The big problem with that argument is that when people are in control of what they want to watch, they won't punch up videos or artists that they don't know. How would they know about them? Killing new artists is killing the lifeblood of the industry. Today, I STILL come into contact with new artists and current artists' new videos for the first time ("Oh, that artist has a new video? I didn't know that!") by watching the early-morning videos on Much, maybe on tape later as I'm sleeping when they're on. Because Much is controlling what I see and is surprising me and introducing me to things. Someone online, like me, can't do that for himself. Someone has to do it for him.

Throughout my youth and early adulthood, I never found anything I wanted to be. Maybe I'm smart enough for university, but there was never anything taught there that I gave a shit about. I just looked at a job as a needed way to finance my personal life, to give me the money I needed to buy records by Kiss and Cheap Trick and Van Halen and Streetheart and to discuss the intellectual ramifications of those records at drunken house parties. I never found my calling, until I discovered MTV U.S. and then MuchMusic. To this day, all I ever wanted to be was a VJ on Muchmusic. And, while I never made that goal a reality, partly because of my age, I did accomplish the next best thing: I created my own TV show, Hard Rock Heroes, and became a VJ on that show. I mentioned my age; I turned 30 in 1992, right in the middle of the Hard Rock Heroes period.

So to see all of this crap go down with Bell Media and Much and MTV Canada and M3 is not only disheartening, it is cruel, it is heartache, it is inhumane, and it is barbaric. To think that VJs on camera talking about music and artists and throwing to videos all day is something that became too expensive to provide is both head-scratching and pain-inducing. People are passionate about their businesses. Well, this is MY business. And I want to see it survive and thrive, not get kicked in the head like a home invader does to a dog like Bell Media has done.

Hopefully, this story isn't over yet. Hopefully in the coming days the CRTC will investigate why Canada's biggest private broadcaster can't make these channels work. Hopefully someone will come forth and start-up a new music video service with VJs, whether it's on one of the Bell Media channels, if the CRTC takes them away from Bell, or a new channel. Hopefully someone will fix this. Someone MUST fix this! And hopefully whatever the public has been watching on the internet is just a supplement to TV viewing and hasn't really been enough to drive audiences away from channels like Much, unlike what some in the media might think. Audiences of all ages must be educated (re-educated?) to believe, know, and understand, that the music-video/VJ format is not an outdated concept or a fad; that it is as standard a television format as the late-night talk show format is, and that is is simply Bell Media that is trying to kill it. They must become hungry enough (are they already?) that when someone brings it back fully, it will be flocked to and embraced.

If those things don't happen, both the music industry (especially the Canadian artists), music culture, and yes, even pop culture, will ultimately suffer for it.

Bell Media, is that what you want?

Why is Bell Media trying to sabotage MuchMusic?

It was June 2007 when the CRTC approved the bid of CTV - in the form of their then-corporate moniker of CTVglobemedia - to acquire the CHUM specialty channels, which included MuchMusic, Muchmore (formerly Muchmoremusic), MTV Canada, and E! Canada, among others.

Since that time, I had been impressed for several years with how CTV not only didn't tinker with CHUM's winning formula for MuchMusic - including its' iconic storefront headquarters at 299 Queen Street West in Toronto, home to the "MuchMusic environment" in the northwest corner of the building, right at Queen and John - but actually enhanced it in small nuances by adding its' own ETalk studios to the building and cross-branding the two by doing such things as adding ETalk to the MuchMusic Video Awards' (MMVA) red carpet, but still being careful not to alienate the younger, hipper Much fans by ever actually showing the ETalk personalities on Much. Telethons and TV commercials featured all CTV/Much/MTV personalities together ("love is louder") but that was the extent of it.

Now, Bell Media has taken over CTVglobemedia. If that fact is relevant to what you are about to read. And it probably is.

And what has Bell Media now done to the historically fabled MuchMusic?

Lots. And all of it bad. Suddenly, they have: 1) Cancelled Much's flagship show New.Music.Live. 2) Taken off all of Much's non-music shows that appealed to an audience who had interest in Much's music programming and replaced them with fratboy U.S. Comedy Central shows that have nothing to do with Much, and, likewise, South Park and reruns of The Simpsons and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon; the shows that aren't on Much anymore have been reassigned to other Bell Media channels. 3) Removed all but two of the "MuchMusic VJs," if they're still even called that, from Much and have sent them to do things on the other Bell Media channels. 4) This one is pure speculation on my part, but my gut tells me that New.Music.Live's cancellation had to do with the removal (?) of the famous "MuchMusic Environment," as it was called in the CHUM days, and its' space given to.....The Social? Now, I love CTV's new View-styled gabfest with the four saucy ladies, but that studio they're in looks suspiciously big, so I wonder if it was taken away from Much to give to them. Can anyone reading this in Toronto confirm or deny? What remains of Much's music programming is done on a small set that is in no way indicative of the "MuchMusic Environment" and I can't decide if it's done on a small sliver of space left intact at Queen and John (with the windows covered up) or if it's just some room on the second floor somewhere. Either way, don't expect any more "Live At Much" or "Intimate And Interactive" shows any longer, if the space is not Much's space any more, and the streetside windows are permanently closed as a result.

What makes this even more mystifying is the fact this space was just renovated in 2010 in the first place, as part of the renovation that took us from the Much On Demand era to the New.Music.Live era. Well, that was before Bell or Bell Media came onto the scene, I guess.

Some background is required here for non-Torontonions: Although we non-Toronto Canadians have referred to this building as the "MuchMusic building," it was actually the CHUM/City building before CTV took over CHUM. Toronto's local City TV station was located there as well. The CRTC didn't let CTV take over City TV. So City TV had to find new owners and move out. So CTV then moved in. So the building is still home to more than MuchMusic. It always was. But the potential is certainly there for a new owner, like Bell Media, that might not believe in, or understand, MuchMusic (keep reading) to downgrade the channel's prominent studio space in favor of studio space for their other channels, since it is the CTV building, after all, and the new owner might wonder why so much space and resources was devoted to this one, out of many, channels. And it looks like that is what has happened.

I recall a version of this company - not sure which version - applying to the CRTC to air less music video programming as a condition of their license. The CRTC denied it.

I say that, as well as the observations in the paragraph before that, because I believe that Bell Media not only doesn't understand MuchMusic, but doesn't want Much to even be a music video channel any longer.

Look at the evidence: The music videos now run from 5:00 a.m. to noon-ish each day. Not exactly prime viewing time for a young audience that is either sleeping or in school or working during those hours. Today's Top 10 and the Countdown still continue, and with the only two VJs Much retained, Liz Trinnear and Scotty Willats, but virtually no other music programming does. Obviously, Bell Media is only doing this to satisfy the requirements of their CRTC license that states that Much has to appear to be some kind of music video channel with a certain number of hours devoted to music videos. And they have even (not sure if it's official or unofficial) apparently changed the name of the channel from "MuchMusic" to just plain "Much." They're airing promos that promise Much this, Much that, with "music" being just one of the options, but they didn't say what that really meant was that they were replacing the Much shows that appealed to fans - mostly girls, but whatever (keep reading) - of current pop and hip-hop music with immature fratboy comedy shows whose audience isn't the slightest bit interested in music shows and whose passed out and hungover bodies certainly won't be tuning in to Much at 9:00 a.m. to view the music videos.

I will say this: With message boards dropping left and right, it's hard to find people saying things on the internet anymore, unless you're on Facebook, but I did read somewhere there was supposed to be some kind of replacement show for New.Music.Live. All this time later, it looks like maybe that report was incorrect, but Much does appear to be holding that time slot for some reason. They are, in addition to what I said last paragraph, also airing just an hour of music videos in the show's old time slot. Unless it's a CRTC requirement that they play music videos for at least one hour in almost-prime time.

But WHY would Bell Media sabotage its' MuchMusic channel like this?

WHY would Bell Media want to turn this channel from a music-oriented channel into a fratboy comedy channel? (Oh yeah, and I will acknowledge the retained Video On Trial does satisfy Bell Media's apparent new desire here.)

WHY has Bell Media not retained the interest in keeping MuchMusic the way it was that CTV and CTVglobemedia apparently did?

Not only is this is the hardest part of this blog entry to discuss, it's overall a hard blog entry to write, too, due to all the little details here, there, and everywhere, and no clear order to put everything you're reading in. Plus I want to make sure I don't forget anything. As a result, this blog was written at three different sit-downs. So let's discuss:

See, the fact, if it's so, that Much has lost much of their "environment," doesn't have to have anything to do with all these fratboy comedy shows Much has acquired. Much's music programming could adapt to the loss of the "environment," even if the adaption results were less than stellar. The fact these comedy shows are on the channel could signal a couple of things:

1) Maybe there was a desire at Bell Media to attempt to increase the audience of the channels that they gave Much's former programming to. Maybe people had forgotten that Muchmore existed, or that MTV Canada ever did exist. Maybe the audience for both Much and the Much shows was so strong that Bell Media figured that by sending Pretty Little Liars and The Vampire Diaries to Muchmore (now M3 - keep reading for more on that) and by sending Awkward and Degrassi to MTV Canada, that they would send those audiences to those channels as well, perhaps increasing viewership for other shows on those channels, and not decreasing Much's audience because everyone knows Much and will tune into Much anyway. Some people might actually not even be aware what is happening on Much's channel with this horrible move to replace the shows I mentioned with the immature fratboy comedy shows. It may not dawn on them until later. Maybe after this summer is over and they've realized there haven't been any "Live At Much" shows.

2) As I said, in the U.S., these new fratboy comedy shows air on Comedy Central, whose overall schedule I'm not familiar with. In Canada, there may have been a desire by Bell Media to not intermix these fratboy comedy shows with the more traditional brands of comedy that The Comedy Network (also a Bell Media channel) seems to air. Why, I don't know. I'm just grasping at straws here. Certainly Teletoon airs edgier fare at night. Why couldn't The Comedy Network air Workaholics or Broad City or The Kroll Show instead of Much airing them? Maybe it's simply a case of, when you combine what I said last paragraph with this, what WOULD Bell Media put on Much? They have to air something! That's what makes part of me think that the only reason Much airs these fratboy comedy shows was because someone high above decreed they were going to build this big set for The Social and that they didn't care that it took away the MuchMusic environment, and that they were going to just not worry about the Much channel until later. Maybe Bell Media just doesn't even know what to do with this channel anymore because they think it's a "lost cause" because they can't just dump the music video coverage due to the conditions of their CRTC license for the channel which they acquired from CHUM. Either way, keeping Much as the MuchMusic of old, the way the channel was when Erica Ehm and Steve Anthony were VJs there, just isn't a priority, or even a desire, anymore, by the new owners, Bell Media. And back then, MuchMusic didn't need a flagship show, because interviews were just done whenever the stars stopped by throughout the day, because the whole channel was music videos all day, except for a select few one-hour shows devoted to music genres. Eventually, for fans who couldn't watch all day, highlights were aired on half-hour music news shows like Fax or Much News Weekly.

This is made even more complicated by the new M3 Countdown show. Okay, here we go: Now we'll start talking about M3/Muchmore.

M3 used to be Muchmore, which used to be Muchmoremusic. It was originally created as a Canadian version of the U.S.' VH1, which means a music video channel that would appeal to people older than the Much demographic. It aired Sarah Mclachlan music videos, music nostalgia shows, and old prime-time reruns that would appear to a music-video crowd.

But now, here's another channel that seemingly Bell Media doesn't know what to do with.

First, they rename it "M3." What does "M3" stand for? Is it short for Muchmoremusic? Wait a sec, the channel was called Muchmore. They had already shortened it to that from Muchmoremusic years ago. So shouldn't it be called "M2" now? Unless they thought people would think "M2" stands for MuchMusic. There has already been confusion over the years between the two channels when people would write online that something was on "MuchMusic" when they really meant Muchmore. But now, no one would definitely have a clue what "M3" indicates.

Then they use it to air shows like Mike And Molly and The Mentalist that have no appeal whatsoever to music-video fans. If those series are first-run (not sure), then obviously M3 is being used as a dumping ground for shows Bell Media can't find room for on either CTV or CTV2. Now, as mentioned earlier, they sent shows like Pretty Little Liars and The Vampire Diaries to M3 for whatever reason, as well. Would the teen-girl-pop-fans who watch those shows, as well as new ones that started after all this happened, like Reign, like the rest of the M3 channel? Well, even before everything in this blog entry happened, Muchmore's music video playlist had started inching closer to Much's playlist. And honestly, very recently I just haven't had the time to adequately compare the videos on the two channels. But it could be irrelevant anyway, since M3 appears to air the videos all cuddled up in those morning time slots as well. It's possible Bell Media has given up on the idea of Much and M3 having two distinct playlists of music videos with only slight overlap.

Maybe Bell Media also considers this channel to be a "lost cause" due to the music video/CRTC requirements. But more of a channel they can do something with, since it doesn't have the "youth" stigma. So they fill it up with all sorts of prime-time series that overall appeal to a broad range of age groups.

Which brings me back to the new M3 Countdown show that kicked off this M3 section.

Someone realized that without New.Music.Live on Much, there was no outlet for interviews with artists on Much. So, instead of doing anything in that regard that would air on Much, which at least still, after all these years had past, purported to appeal to album-buying music fans, even if that crowd is now just a cult audience, which is why Much went for the teen-girl One Direction fan audience to begin with, because that audience was at least still interested in music and pop culture (how's this for a run-on sentence?), someone came up with the idea to put that stuff on a new show on M3 that included a countdown. The show itself is fine, and it reminds me a bit of the old CBC '70s radio show 90 Minutes With A Bullet. But its' existence on M3, combined with the sort of artists profiled and interviewed that would have in the past been on either Much or Muchmore, seem to further underline the erasing of the lines that defined Much and Muchmore to begin with, and in favor of.....what? In favor of keeping Matt Wells employed on M3 because he wouldn't fit in on Much? (Well, he does appeal to older people, and both Much's "former" audience, and the audience they seemingly want to appeal to now have one thing in common: youth.)

All of this makes me wonder what a Bell Media executive would say if you asked him. "What are your target audiences for Much and M3 now?" Or "What are the formats of Much and M3 supposed to be now?" I think that executive wouldn't even know. I think he might have asked his superiors that question already, and that his superiors shot him down, as their decisions I have detailed here were all knee-jerk reactions to one issue or another that they don't wish to discuss. Who knows, maybe someone at Bell Media just wanted to get rid of the teen-girl Much audience (why, don't they buy products?) and the only way they knew how to do it was to disperse everything on the channel to their other channels to fragment that audience and break it away from exclusively watching Much, before, maybe, eventually, in the future, turning Much into something substantial again?!?! Meaning they thought perhaps they couldn't do that M3 Countdown show on Much?

Or maybe it's just goes back to the simple issue I stated earlier of this new company basically not understanding what MuchMusic is to Canadians and basically thinking of it as just one of many channels they own, and treating (or in this case, abusing) it as such. (I've assumed your knowledge of this so far, but to anyone who doesn't know: At one time MuchMusic was City TV's only specialty channel. There was no Muchmoremusic or anything else. So most of that building was divided in half: One-half devoted to City TV, and one-half devoted to the MuchMusic Environment. That's what started MuchMusic as a "big deal" in Canada besides the music-video revolution of the '80s.)

I haven't e-mailed my concerns to anyone at Bell Media for two reasons: 1) It's easier to do this blog first. Heck, I can just send this blog's link via Twitter or e-mail to Bell Media executives, I don't have to even use copy and paste. And, 2) over the winter, I already was having a heated e-mail exchange with Bell Media executives over my quest to find out why Bell Media had taken away all evening E! channel broadcasts of ETalk, leaving Winnipeggers to watch ETalk for the first time of the night at 10:30 p.m. CST on both CTV Winnipeg (CKY) and E! (coincidentally the same time), unless they had the Canadian Time Shift package that cable offers, like I do. You see, in the Central Time Zone, we go from local news into prime-time programming, one hour earlier. So the Big Bang Theory rerun/ETalk hour airs AFTER that, unlike the other time zones where that hour airs after suppertime local news. But we had access to ETalk on E! at 5:00 p.m. CST, and a rerun at 7:30 p.m. Those are gone now. So, for myself, I can continue to watch/tape it at 5:00 p.m. but it will be on ATV in the Maritimes. Or at 6:00 p.m. on CFTO Toronto. Or at 8:00 p.m. on CFCN Calgary. Or 9:00 p.m. on CTVBC (don't know the call letters). But Winnipeggers without that package have to wait until 10:30 p.m. now. And I just could not find out from Bell Media the reasons WHY. All they would say was in the form of an executive from E!, who said, "We feature the premiere airing of the show as a single feed in a timeslot when the majority of our viewers can watch it across the country." That's it. What the hell does that mean? They won't tell me. That's from someone at E!, so are they talking about THEIR first airing, which is at 10:30 p.m. CST? If so, their answer makes no sense, as 10:30 p.m. is many hours after CTV airs it, except for here in Winnipeg. It sounds like it means that the "we" in that answer means the CTV network and that the executive is not just an E! executive, but has a regular CTV network position as well, meaning he is speaking for both the CTV network and the E! channel, and that he means that by taking it off E! until 10:30 p.m., that they filter all the formerly fragmented viewers into the CTV airings, creating higher ratings. So why don't they TELL me that, instead of me coming up with (i.e., SPECULATING, which is just that: speculating) that myself? And again, that doesn't help Winnipeggers without the Canadian Time Shift package. So I'm not crazy to open up another can of worms this soon, unless it's with different people. It may be, it may not be. But for now, I'll let this blog stand on its' own and worry what else I'll do with it after I have it up.

So, now that I think I have gotten in all the most pertinent points, what happens now? Where is this headed? Is this the end of the famous MuchMusic channel as generations of fans have known it since 1984? Are these "changes" just more crap that we music and media fans have to just learn to suck up and live with because answers will not be forthcoming? Or will someone with connections at least use this blog as inspiration to write a book detailing all the answers? Because I, at least, am not satisfied with what Bell Media has done to Much, and, to a lesser extent, M3. (MTV Canada's content always was dictated by what MTV U.S. does, and Awkward is actually an MTV show. So I haven't written much here about that channel. Degrassi might work on it. Without MTV Live/Showtown and all those MTV News airings that have mostly disappeared, how do they get their CanCon requirements in, I wonder? And MTV Canada operates on CTV's old Talk TV license, so they never did have a license to air music videos. This was a venture CTV initiated before they took over CHUM, so that's why MTV Canada and Much both existed by the same company in the first place. CTV/CTVglobemedia/Bell Media haven't actually shut down any of the channels they acquired.) They have sabotaged MuchMusic. This blog is at least one thing I can do to show that someone out there in music/media fandom will not let Much sink without putting up some kind of a fight.

Bell Media, it's your turn. You owe us Canadians, your viewing audience, an explanation.

What are you doing?

What have you done?

And WHY?

Still here, people

Don't worry, everyone, I haven't suddenly dropped off the face of the earth. I just kind of made a conscious decision after I did the last blog entry that I was so satisfied with what I wrote that I was going to leave it up as the last blog entry for a really long time. So it's been around nine months now, and I don't really have any ideas for a new blog, at least none that don't require a lot of time, which is in short supply these days. Add to that the fact that in November I went through some horrid audio-video computer problems that were mostly fixed before the end of 2011, but not fully fixed until two weeks ago. So that's why, for those of you who watch my You Tube videos, I haven't done a "Webcam 2" video yet. But that can now be green-lighted again. And I still use my MySpace blog as a secondary blog for secondary issues. I think the way I used to do The Beau Zone in the past (check the archives) is dead now due to lack of time, plus the fact the jokes I think of are now directed to my Twitter feed. Although I could reprint that stuff here, I suppose. I've just never thought of it. Maybe I'll consider it. But for now, this text you're reading is my free pass to make even more time pass to keep that last blog entry I did prominent on this page before I do a next real blog, and to direct you, if you haven't already, and especially if you're someone in the media who has power and influence in hiring, to check out that blog entry that is called "Toys In The Attic: The Aspirations And Regrets Of A Media Fan And Personality." It is directly below. TTYL, everyone, and don't drink the water in Mexico.

Toys In The Attic: The Aspirations And Regrets Of A Media Fan And Personality

I don't have a broadcasting degree.

I sort-of took a broadcasting course, the old NIB one, and at night, too (you can roll your eyes now, people), but got so disgusted with the place I never came back after the last official class and never officially graduated.

And the first part of that course was actually during the last few months of Hard Rock Heroes in 1993.

So, on occasion, I find myself wondering for a second of any possible regrets I might have about not taking a full-time broadcasting/journalism course - a real one - at the time most people take such courses, which is in the years directly after high school.

And the answer is always the same - no.

How could I? The world was different back then.

I was a teenager in the '70s. I graduated high school in 1980. On my show Hard Rock Heroes, I was like a Muchmusic VJ. In the '70s and early '80s, there were no such things as music video channels. There weren't even any specialty channels, as they're called in Canada, yet. (I prefer David Letterman's label "cable deal.") Winnipeg/Canadian TV was represented by three channels - affiliates of CBC and CTV and independent CKND - and "cable" was affiliates from North Dakota of U.S. networks CBS, NBC, and ABC. And that's it.

People on TV were very stuffy and intellectual older men in suits like Ray Torgrud, save for the occasional attractive weather girl. Men I couldn't relate to. Men whose words that came out of their mouths still mostly went over my head (Torgrud again), even after two years of Mr. Keddie lectures from his Glenlawn Collegiate history classes.

You would be hard-pressed to find anyone even wearing a pair of jeans of television back then, never mind anyone talking about Cheap Trick, Aerosmith, The Hangover (both the movie and real ones) McDonald's Big Macs, or anything that comes out of the mouths of anyone, including hosts, of today's daytime talk shows and reality shows. Even look at just the studio audience of the more women's-oriented shows today like the Marilyn Dennis show or The Talk and compare it with '70s versions of shows like that. The '70s version had an audience that looked like war-torn babas from the Ukraine who had never heard of facial expressions. Marilyn's studio audience is all rocked-up gals in jeans, who no doubt partied until 5:00 a.m. when they were teens in the '80s at alcohol-fueled house parties laced with Van Halen played louder than God when someone's parents were away.

There certainly weren't any entertainment reporters back then, either. And that's about the only thing I would be cut out for in broadcasting. (I'm going to leave radio out of this essay, because I'd kind of be digressing if I discussed radio due to my long-time opinions about rock radio and all the great music they don't play that intertwines with this subject.)

Not only that, but even today, I would be over my head when it came to news reporting. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to the goings-on of the federal, provincial, and civic governments, or the American government. Certainly not the economy. I understand the most basic things, and I know how the parliamentary system works, and how a party's seats won translates to who governs and what majority and minority governments are all about. But a lot of the contents of, say, Tom Brodbeck's Winnipeg Sun column, or the things Marty Gold used to rant about on The Great Canadian Talk Show (and still does on his blog) that involve the inner workings of government and the police are things I just don't have the mental resources to ever come up with, or even comment on, myself.

So there was absolutely nothing that existed in the '70s and early '80s that would have made me aspire to being any kind of on-air personality.

The course I took did do one thing to me, however. Throughout the course, the instructor (if I can use that term) used the word "broadcaster" a lot. Well, yeah, because we're supposed to be there to learn how to be broadcasters. But I didn't get that at first. That's why I started off the eighth paragraph above by saying "people on TV," 'cause I'm trying to paint a picture of me in the '70s there. See, with Hard Rock Heroes, I wanted to promote myself from being just an ordinary concert audience member. It frustrated me that I couldn't go hang out backstage and hobnob with all the celebrities and media types back there. The routine of buy a ticket, watch the show from your seat, maybe buy food and hang out in the concession area checking out girls, socialize with your friends, and leaving the show afterward had started to get old to me. Doesn't matter if I went with friends or by myself. So I thought that, of all us audience members, if I had a forum for it, I could be the guy who COULD go backstage to talk to the band, as long as I had a microphone in my hand and a cameraperson to record it. Then I could air it in my forum, which, as it turned out, manifested itself in the form of being my own TV show called Hard Rock Heroes. I became the guy from that show. But.....a broadcaster? That word never entered my mind. I never thought of the VJs on Muchmusic as broadcasters, either. They were like me: Hot dudes and babes on TV, wearing jeans and talking about music, and awkwardly finding ways around using rock fans' favorite swear words. I spent the Hard Rock Heroes years so wanting to be a Much VJ - sending in tapes, having an in-person interview with Much's Nancy Oliver. My idea of a "broadcaster" was still someone like Lloyd Robertson. Then later, I became interested in the power of television, and tried to use my power, if I had any, to promote local bands.

But, fast forward to the present, and I have become more comfortable with the word "broadcaster." It's grown on me. I'm pushing 50 now, and, while I'm not your parents' 50, I'm way too old to be on Much now. But that's okay. Because, as I illustrated in the paragraph above where I talk about things like Marilyn Dennis' audience, the world has changed. '70s and '80s teens have grown up, but in a different fashion. They've taken their rock albums with them. The MTV/Much casual/rock music attitudes in which now everyone is an overgrown teenager, college degree in something or not, have swept North America. News departments at TV stations have entertainment departments and reporters and segments, and, beginning with Entertainment Tonight in 1981, there are now a slew of TV shows dedicated solely to entertainment reporting. And I love all of them. And I want to be on all of them. I'd love to be a Winnipeg ETalk correspondent for CTV, if there was such a thing. I'm a complete couch potato for those shows, but with the eyes of someone paying attention to who the reporters are and how they do their jobs and everything revolving around "if I was in their shoes in being given this assignment" when I'm watching one of their reports.

So, yeah, I would feel like, if the job was the right one that I could perform, like an entertainment-oriented one, that I would certainly feel comfortable performing it, and calling myself a "broadcaster." If I were in jeans or a suit. And hopefully it's an awards-show type of suit, not the one Lloyd's wearing.

Now the flip side: What I WAS doing in the years after high school.

I actually cover this pretty well in my biography on my Hard Rock Heroes website. In a nutshell: Throughout grades 1 to 12, I pretty much had the same curfew. I did "break through" to see my first rock concerts - Alice Cooper, then Aerosmith/AC/DC - in 1978, but I basically had a sheltered life due to a parent who didn't know how to parent. Good thing I had friends to teach me about life back then. Then I got so busy with homework in grade 12 (all 300 courses) I just did homework all night, every night. I didn't even watch TV. I might spend 1.5 hours figuring out one math problem. Then, through a friend at school, I got a job at McDonald's on St. Anne's Road. The crowd there was totally different than my high school. My classmates were like the guys on The Big Bang Theory. My McDonald's co-workers were all rock and roll partiers and Judas Priest/AC/DC fans. All denim and leather. So were the girls, and they looked like Playboy centerfolds, too. (Too bad it was still the era of jeans, white socks, and white runners for girls, and not today's minidresses and black high heels, but I digress.) The people were different because my classmates were from St. Vital, and my McDonald's co-workers were mostly from Windsor Park and Southdale, the suburbs across the Seine River that I still today refer to as "the party capitals of Winnipeg." So began a good three years of what most people experience during their high school years but I experienced AFTER those years, the ROCK AND ROLL PARTYING YEARS. And there were a lot of parties during those years, including in the McDonald's crew room. In fact, those years and the Hard Rock Heroes years are tied in my mind as being the best years of my life.

So it's kind of hard to regret not going to college - well, actually I did try twice, with other courses, but quit both times, and again, more details are in the "Beau's Biography" section of the Hard Rock Heroes website - when that would have taken the place of the best partying years of my life.

I should acknowledge somewhere in here that, while MTV started in 1981, it didn't seem real as a career aspiration because 1) it was new, and 2) it was American. The odds are too overwhelming against coming up with the idea to do something like Hard Rock Heroes and doing that for three years to use it to springboard to being a VJ on an American music video network. No way in hell can a Canadian with what would still be seen as too-little experience become an MTV VJ. I don't think MTV can convince the U.S. government that they can't find, among 250 million U.S. citizens, someone to be a VJ, causing them to have to hire a Canadian like me. That's the way it works in getting a U.S. job, unless a particular field has shortages, like nursing. Plus we couldn't really see MTV on our Canadian TV screens. Red River College showed MTV in their lounge in 1981 via satellite, and fortunately, I had a friend then who attended that college, so I would drop him off and pick him up all the time, giving myself an hour either before or after to watch MTV in the lounge. So I did see original MTV VJs Nina Blackwood and Mark Goodman. Muchmusic started in 1984, but as Winnipeggers like me residing on the west side of the Red River (I moved from St. Vital to Osborne Village in 1984) that had cable company Videon back then know, Videon could not provide us with Much or TSN until September 1987. In fact, a popular hangout in the '80s for my crowd was the bar at the Marion Hotel, on the east side of the Red River, first because they presented on their huge TV screens in 1981 this new invention called rock videos, then later because they had either Much or TSN on their screens, even though it was just the pictures only due to the DJ music in the bar. I first saw Much VJ Erica Ehm do her thing on the Marion screens, and I remember when we were in the bar early one night, before the DJ started, and we could hear the TV sound, and I was fascinated watching her and hearing the sound of her voice for the first time. When we finally got Much in September 1987, I remember watching her in my living room and being thrilled that I could finally hear what she was saying on a regular basis.

The point being that music video channels, although they started in the '80s, remained on the peripherals of our lives for most of the decade, not really ingraining themselves into our lives, or my life, until the last years of the decade. With the exception of the frustration of reading about the goings-on on MTV in U.S. rock magazines, especially the Headbangers Ball, and not being able to see any of it. (Hey, there's something I should look for on You Tube.)

So here I sit, a former cable access Muchmusic-style-oriented TV show host, having bombarded the appropriate people in my city of Winnipeg with the appropriate materials - and yes, over the years I have done that - in hopes of parlaying my unique broadcasting experience into some kind of full-time paying gig, and receiving little real interest. Well, at least they know me. Both from that and, by now, all my internet stuff.

I am a fan of Red River's CreComm, though. Saw their pamphlets in the early '80s, thought they were too intellectual for me back then or that the course was more for the print journalism or advertising industries, or to teach people how to be Ray Torgrud. Basically, in some form, those may have been a combination of truths and excuses and that I wasn't ready. Now, it seems closer to what I'm interested in, maybe partly because I've grown and matured as a person and can relate to the material more. It's also fun now, with the internet, perusing the blogs online of both the students and instructors and following what avenues students have gone on to. Which students? The ones I saw at one of their yearly Independent Professional Project (IPP) presentations that are open to the public, this one held at the Park Theatre. And heck, the way the world seems to be today, you can't just be a fan of media anymore - if you are, everyone tells you you should be in media, and/or in this course. I'd love to take the course. But I have to work to make a living. I can't work and take a full-time course at the same time. And if I were to take CreComm, I would not want to work anywhere, even part time. I would want to devote my entire life to that course and to the media.

But the elephant in the room for me is - well, besides the fact that Red River College might not accept a 49-year old (this July) man into CreComm - that I don't know whether a course like CreComm, or the Academy Of Broadcasting course, will do any good for me. Maybe TV stations in Winnipeg just "don't want that Hard Rock Heroes guy" regardless of whether I have official broadcasting credentials or not. Maybe I've pigeonholed myself with my Hard Rock Heroes persona. If so, then taking those courses are just a waste of time. All I can do is speculate, because when there's no interest, you don't get anything in the mail as a response. Well, I did get a couple of responses from news directors, but they were short and didn't say much about what they thought about my personal broadcasting experience.

If I won the lottery, then I could quit my job and take CreComm, even if it were just to entertain myself. I'm sure I would just love it. Maybe make some new friends. But that will never happen, because I don't buy lottery tickets.

And that again brings me to: Do I have any regrets over how things have turned out up to this point? And I have to mull it over, think of all the things you have just read, and conclude yet again: "No."

Was I born too soon? Maybe, but I loved growing up when I grew up, so I wouldn't change that, either. The Archies, The Partridge Family, The Brady Bunch when I was 7 to 10 years old. Kiss, Happy Days, Welcome Back Kotter, Aerosmith, disco, north Portage Avenue record stores when I was a tween, then a teen. No, man, I wouldn't change a thing.

My being ahead of my time is just the way it turned out.

And life isn't over yet.

Getting "Shit"-Faced On MTV Canada And Muchmusic

I love it when you get that feeling of accomplishment, especially when it's unexpected. All I did was write an e-mail.

I have noticed the last few months, on MTV Canada, they can say the word "shit" now, just like on Muchmusic. Well, I should hope so, now that both channels are now owned by the same company, CTV. Actually, I thought the reverse would happen, that after CTV's takeover of CHUM (where they had to divest themselves of CITY-TV, now owned by Rogers), CTV would can Muchmusic personalities from saying "shit." But no, CTV is continuing to let that word go and has now extended the practice to their MTV channel that CTV had started prior to the CHUM takeover.

Could that be as a result of my self-explanatory e-mail to MTV Canada's feedback address this past January?

That e-mail, through the magic of copy and paste, goes like this:

"Regarding your 'Top Ten Holy Shit Moments' show you aired at Christmas: Isn't it ironic that, while on another show similiar to this one you also aired around Christmas, you appear to be taking a potshot at Muchmusic and the kind of young audience they cater to nowadays, on the Top Ten Holy Shit Moments show on MTV, every time you actually say the word 'shit,' it's bleeped out, while Muchmusic has been letting that word air for years and years now. I recall a Much On Demand where Leah Miller appeared to be deliberately saying it all through the hour, so I was wondering if she had just found out that day that Much lets it air unbleeped. But that practice must go back, gosh, about 10 years by now.

"And, to add further irony, Much and MTV are both owned by CTV now. Do the CTV honchos know that 'shit' airs on Much, the target audience channel of ages 10-25, but is bleeped on MTV, the target audience channel of college age and higher?

"Maybe the Much people don't want to bring that up to their new CTV bosses, because that could be the way they find that out, and then they'll can that practice. Personally, I hope it goes the other way and you get to say 'shit' unbleeped. I would love it if you could find a way to air all your shows that air, say, late at night, completely language uncensored. Only bleep stuff during the day. I realize why that can't happen, though."

I hit "send" and.....voila! There's Daryn Jones & Nicole saying "shit" on MTV Live. Not bad.

This, of course, represents another baby-step in the repositioning of all cuss words to just being slang words. Another one is the movies CTV airs overnight on weekends that are completely uncensored, too, if they can get an uncensored cut. The envelope is getting pushed, baby.

And, as a dude with the rock and roll attitude that used to host a hard rock TV show, the fact that I could be held a little bit partially responsible for this evolution is, well, yeah, something to be proud of. Something to be FUCKING proud of, dude! YEAH!

(And, hey, that also means Much and MTV Canada can say the entire title of William Shatner's new sitcom "Shit My Dad Says" on air! The subject of this blog post coupled with this sitcom's title could add another baby-step to all this, too, as the days march on.)

Portage And Main

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON THE THIRD EDITION OF "THE BEAU ZONE" ON THE HARD ROCK HEROES WEBSITE FROM SEPTEMBER TO DECEMBER 2004.

Agencies have been looking for ideas on what to do with the corner of Portage & Main recently. I wrote in, and here's what I suggested:

Perhaps one component of the corner could be provided by Global, now that they own the TD Centre.

Muchmusic has been doing live TV in their ground floor "environment", or outside it, with people on the street being part of the scenery, for 20 years now. NBC and ABC have copied this approach, unbeknownst to Americans without Much, for their morning shows Today and Good Morning America, respectively, making them more vibrant and exciting shows. ABC even gave Good Morning America their own studio in Times Square for this purpose.

Maybe Global can do the same thing: Move their suppertime news broadcast from St. Vital to a new studio at the ground floor of the TD Centre in front of the windows and the street, where we would see all the passers-by. It would make for fun TV, and would open up new possibilities for Global to add more local broadcasts to the day shot from this location, like perhaps a competing show to A-Channel's The Big Breakfast, or even a late night weekend entertainment and music video show. Perhaps, as the former host of VPW's Hard Rock Heroes, Global would let me host it, too. We could get a steady stream of people from the nearby nightclubs late at night for audience interaction.

All of this would definitely add people traffic to Portage & Main, along with excitement over being in the background on TV. People could set their VCR's and watch themselves later.

Television

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON THE FIRST EDITION OF "THE BEAU ZONE" ON THE HARD ROCK HEROES WEBSITE FROM APRIL TO JUNE 2004.

An open letter to Muchmusic VJ Amanda Walsh: Amanda, I almost died when I saw your dress and those shoes you were wearing at the MMVAs in 2003. Those kind of stilettos that lace up the girls' legs just drive me wild when I see them in magazines, but I never thought I'd see YOU wearing them. NEVER, EVER take those shoes off, especially when you have sex with the man of your dreams. You should put those shoes on, get your hair done up all sexy, get your makeup done all sexy with red lipstick, take off your clothes, light up a smoke and stand in front of a full-length mirror and admire yourself. Ever do that? Maybe fantasize about doing porn while you're looking at yourself? Just a thought.

Instead of CTV here in Canada not bleeping out the swearing during The Osbournes, how about doing that for Punk'd? I'd much rather hear Jessica Alba or Mandy Moore uttering "fuck" and "shit" on TV than The Osbournes. It would be more exciting, too, if you get my drift, heh, heh, heh. Maybe Mandy Moore saying "fuck" on TV will help her to sell more records, too. As Gene Simmons says, "Good girls may go to heaven, but bad girls go anywhere they want."