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?
Me during the broadcast of "Much On Demand" outside in front of the Muchmusic building in Toronto, ON on September 25, 2003.
Friday, April 25, 2014
Monday, January 6, 2014
Home Town Improvement: Last Man Standing's Winnipeg Connection
Winnipeg has had more than its' share of mentions as part of the dialogue by characters on various U.S. prime-time TV comedies and dramas over the last several years. Possibly because of the David Steinberg influence: Big-time/long-time director/comedian/actor Steinberg hails from Winnipeg, so I think "Winnipeg" is put into the dialogue and plots of these shows as a spoof/inside rib directed to/about him.
But there's been a new one in the past year or so, and it's my favorite. It's also part of a background to a permanent character, so it's not just an isolated Winnipeg reference mentioned in only one episode, it's continuous.
And it has yet to be mentioned in any Winnipeg newspapers, believe it or not.
It's Tim Allen's new sitcom, Last Man Standing, that airs Friday nights on ABC.
I started watching it by accident last year, as it came on at a good time for me each week. I think it had been on for a year or so already before I found it.
Now, being the horndog I am, I, of course, started watching it for all the sex humor involving Mandy, Mike's (Allen's character) free-spirited middle daughter.
But, as it turns out, Mike's eldest daughter, Kristin, has a child with her ex, who she has been slowly getting back together with, and his name is Ryan, and he's from.....WINNIPEG!!!
Last season, for example, one episode dealt with Ryan's parents wanting the couple and their child, Boyd, to come live with them in Winnipeg. Kristen doesn't want to. She says, "First of all, because it's Winnipeg," with a yucky look on her face. They end up not moving. Hey, where were the nasty-but-good-natured comments in the papers about that?
This season, on the Halloween episode, a few family members were discussing the day before Halloween. Now, I zoned out for a sec and didn't hear what someone said they called it, but I did hear Ryan follow up with, "In Winnipeg, growing up, we called it Cabbage Night." (Cabbage Night? I never heard of that. We - in the mid '70s, when I was around 15 - always called it Gate Night. I tweeted that to the show.)
So it's a running gag that Ryan is from Winnipeg. But it also adds another dimension to the show. You see, Mike is an old-school Republican (i.e., he hasn't gone out of his mind, kind of like Will McAvoy hasn't, either) and he and Ryan frequently debate U.S. politics, with Ryan taking the Democrats' side, as Ryan is a staunch left winger, reminiscent of Mike Stivic (the "meathead") on All In The Family. Meaning these whole exchanges are reminiscent of the Archie Bunker/Stivic All In The Family arguments. Except on this show, the dynamic includes the fact Ryan is from Winnipeg, as that takes into account Canadians overall being more left-leaning than Americans. (With our Conservative Party not leaning as far to the right as the U.S. Republican Party.)
Therefore, this show, as a result, has it all: This whole Winnipeg thing with Ryan, the aforementioned Mandy sexpot stuff (and Kristin's pretty hot, too), and even the occasional Home Improvement inside joke thrown in for good measure whenever a cast member from that show makes a guest appearance. Like when Johnathan Taylor Thomas appears as Kristin's boss at the restaurant, and Mike takes another shot at Ryan by telling JTT's character, "You're like a son to me."
Only thing that's unexplained is this: How does someone from Winnipeg drive a beer truck in the United States (Ryan's job)? How did U.S. Immigration let him cross the border to live in the U.S. if he just drives a beer truck? Maybe we'll find that out some day. Maybe he has dual citizenship if his mother gave birth to him when they were visiting the U.S., kind of like Chris Jericho. He could have a green card if he was married to Kristin, but I believe that does not entitle him to work. And I don't believe they were married, just boyfriend and girlfriend, but someone correct me if I'm wrong.
So there's the tip: For the best in "Winnipeg" humor, watch Last Man Standing Fridays at 7:00 p.m. CST on ABC!
(Or could this "Ryan From Winnipeg" thing have anything to do with the fact that Wendy Crewson, Tim Allen's co-star in the three "Santa Clause" movies, is from Winnipeg?)
(And Mandy: You're a legal adult at 18. Please come up to Winnipeg where becoming a legal adult means you CAN drink booze and go to nightclubs. Maybe you could visit Ryan's family while you're at it. You know how grating it is to constantly see other characters take glasses of booze out of your 18-year old hands when here, ever since 1970, YOU ARE LEGAL TO DRINK ALCOHOL? Maybe I'll have to visit that family and buy Mandy some booze. I would have no problem whatsoever supplying alcohol to anyone in the U.S. between 18 and 21. My conscience is clear. I have been influenced by my Winnipeg surroundings. I can't be "reformed.")
But there's been a new one in the past year or so, and it's my favorite. It's also part of a background to a permanent character, so it's not just an isolated Winnipeg reference mentioned in only one episode, it's continuous.
And it has yet to be mentioned in any Winnipeg newspapers, believe it or not.
It's Tim Allen's new sitcom, Last Man Standing, that airs Friday nights on ABC.
I started watching it by accident last year, as it came on at a good time for me each week. I think it had been on for a year or so already before I found it.
Now, being the horndog I am, I, of course, started watching it for all the sex humor involving Mandy, Mike's (Allen's character) free-spirited middle daughter.
But, as it turns out, Mike's eldest daughter, Kristin, has a child with her ex, who she has been slowly getting back together with, and his name is Ryan, and he's from.....WINNIPEG!!!
Last season, for example, one episode dealt with Ryan's parents wanting the couple and their child, Boyd, to come live with them in Winnipeg. Kristen doesn't want to. She says, "First of all, because it's Winnipeg," with a yucky look on her face. They end up not moving. Hey, where were the nasty-but-good-natured comments in the papers about that?
This season, on the Halloween episode, a few family members were discussing the day before Halloween. Now, I zoned out for a sec and didn't hear what someone said they called it, but I did hear Ryan follow up with, "In Winnipeg, growing up, we called it Cabbage Night." (Cabbage Night? I never heard of that. We - in the mid '70s, when I was around 15 - always called it Gate Night. I tweeted that to the show.)
So it's a running gag that Ryan is from Winnipeg. But it also adds another dimension to the show. You see, Mike is an old-school Republican (i.e., he hasn't gone out of his mind, kind of like Will McAvoy hasn't, either) and he and Ryan frequently debate U.S. politics, with Ryan taking the Democrats' side, as Ryan is a staunch left winger, reminiscent of Mike Stivic (the "meathead") on All In The Family. Meaning these whole exchanges are reminiscent of the Archie Bunker/Stivic All In The Family arguments. Except on this show, the dynamic includes the fact Ryan is from Winnipeg, as that takes into account Canadians overall being more left-leaning than Americans. (With our Conservative Party not leaning as far to the right as the U.S. Republican Party.)
Therefore, this show, as a result, has it all: This whole Winnipeg thing with Ryan, the aforementioned Mandy sexpot stuff (and Kristin's pretty hot, too), and even the occasional Home Improvement inside joke thrown in for good measure whenever a cast member from that show makes a guest appearance. Like when Johnathan Taylor Thomas appears as Kristin's boss at the restaurant, and Mike takes another shot at Ryan by telling JTT's character, "You're like a son to me."
Only thing that's unexplained is this: How does someone from Winnipeg drive a beer truck in the United States (Ryan's job)? How did U.S. Immigration let him cross the border to live in the U.S. if he just drives a beer truck? Maybe we'll find that out some day. Maybe he has dual citizenship if his mother gave birth to him when they were visiting the U.S., kind of like Chris Jericho. He could have a green card if he was married to Kristin, but I believe that does not entitle him to work. And I don't believe they were married, just boyfriend and girlfriend, but someone correct me if I'm wrong.
So there's the tip: For the best in "Winnipeg" humor, watch Last Man Standing Fridays at 7:00 p.m. CST on ABC!
(Or could this "Ryan From Winnipeg" thing have anything to do with the fact that Wendy Crewson, Tim Allen's co-star in the three "Santa Clause" movies, is from Winnipeg?)
(And Mandy: You're a legal adult at 18. Please come up to Winnipeg where becoming a legal adult means you CAN drink booze and go to nightclubs. Maybe you could visit Ryan's family while you're at it. You know how grating it is to constantly see other characters take glasses of booze out of your 18-year old hands when here, ever since 1970, YOU ARE LEGAL TO DRINK ALCOHOL? Maybe I'll have to visit that family and buy Mandy some booze. I would have no problem whatsoever supplying alcohol to anyone in the U.S. between 18 and 21. My conscience is clear. I have been influenced by my Winnipeg surroundings. I can't be "reformed.")
Monday, October 7, 2013
Winnipeg's Arena Area (AA): The Magic Is Gone
Winnipeg Stadium. Polo Park. The Red River Ex. Chi-Chi's. McDonald's on St. James Street. And the grande dame of all, the Winnipeg Arena.
The demolition of Canad Inns Stadium, the successor moniker of Winnipeg Stadium, is now finished. That now completes the long, drawn-out end to the wonderful era people my age have been fortunate to live through (and be the right age for), the era when this unofficial entertainment conglomerate comprising the two largest Winnipeg music venues, combined with the best shopping and fast-food Winnipeg has to offer, added to the magic and excitement that your favorite world-class music acts visiting Winnipeg, brings.
This conglomerate never had an official name, did it? At least a name for Winnipeg Arena and Winnipeg Stadium together. Everything in this area was just described as being "around the arena." I ponder whether, had everything stayed, someone would have finally come up with, like Black Friday and the SHED, a formal or informal moniker for this heavenly area. So for this blog post, we'll just refer to it as "The Arena Area (AA)."
What made this AA so special? Some things that were obvious, some not so obvious.
Obviously, the fact Winnipeg Arena and Winnipeg Stadium, the two biggest places in town to attend concerts by music's hottest stars, were across the street from each other was the most obvious factor. (And I'm not going to use the "close proximity" term because that sounds like they were 2 blocks from each other; No, they were friggin' ACROSS THE STREET from each other.)
Winnipeg Arena had such a comfortable, down-home quality to it. It was like an old shoe that fits just right. You could go anywhere, downstairs or upstairs. During AWA wrestling cards, you could go downstairs and see the barricaded area that contained the hallway the wrestlers would walk through in the centre of the building to get to the arena bowl. You could peer through the cracks and maybe see the wrestlers! Maybe you could hear them. One time, there were too many people crowded around "the cracks" but I could hear Mad Dog Vachon's voice from the barricade's other side loud and clear from a few feet away from that barricade. When you are in the concession area, and you walked around to the portion that was behind the stage, there were no curtains or security guards like MTS Centre today has: You could walk right into the section and peer at the gear being stored behind the stage. Who knows, maybe you'd see one of the band members talking to a crew member if you were lucky! And up to probably well into the '80s, there was only ONE entry point into the floor area (split into two, actually - one at the left, one at the right). The ticket checker couldn't catch everybody, so if you maneuvered right and picked your spot when he was busy looking at the ticket of someone who took too much time, you could sneak through, and that was it! YOU MADE IT INTO THE ENTIRE FLOOR AREA! There were no ticket checkers stationed all over the floor area back then, checking your ticket five times as you made your way up to your third-row seat, should that be your legitimate seat. I did this for Van Halen's 1984 tour when my ticket was for an upper deck seat. Instead of sitting way up there, I was smooshed and squeezed in like sardines up front with a thousand other people in the first-few-rows area with my feet kind of resting on chairs when they could. Who cares? I WAS RIGHT UP THERE, JUST FEET AWAY FROM THE MIGHTY VAN HALEN!!!!!
Then you had the thing that joined these two music behemoths in the AA into one once a year for almost two weeks: The Red River Exhibition. All the games, rides, and music you could shake a stick at. At the Ex, you could walk into Winnipeg Arena, where booths of displays and vendors were kept, anytime all day long, not just the time period before a concert starts, and actually go through the doors and walk anywhere in the building FOR FREE!! What a novelty! And you could walk through the areas fans were normally barred from, the area the performers hung out in. That entrance in the middle of the building that the wrestlers walked out of on AWA wrestling cards that I mentioned last paragraph, I COULD WALK THROUGH!! Wow! The Stadium had the Ex's free concerts, and those are really my most memorable concerts I saw at the Stadium: Donny & Marie, Starship, The Monkees, Burton Cummings, Cheap Trick. At night the Ex was free after 11:00 p.m. (formally closed but everyone knew you can still walk through the gate and just not pay), and the combination of the darkness of the night, the Ex's rides and their lights, the warm-but-cooling-off night summer air, and the people made this the summer's most attractive and passionate environment to be in.
And parking was almost always free at the Polo Park lot. Polo Park never cared enough to stop AA parkers from parking on what was technically their lot. In later years, they tried for Winnipeg Jets games, but never for concerts or wrestling. So you could go to the Ex and park for free, unlike now. Are there any side streets or shopping mall parking lots where the Ex is now, past the Perimeter, where you can park for free? In fact, I have no idea if what I say above, where you could still get through the gates past 11:00 p.m. when they stopped charging for tickets, still applies at the Ex today in their new location. It might. But to find out, you have to pay for parking first in their lot. Then you find out the Ex really is closed and are out the money you paid for parking. Or maybe they don't let you even park, saying, "The Ex is closed for the night." So you've driven all that way for nothing. Not nice. Not good. Not cool. The Ex's new location stinks, pure and simple. (Back to the Ex at the AA: They did charge for parking at the Polo Park lot on Sunday afternoon, because they could. No Sunday shopping or all those restaurants like Earl's or Joey's back then, so you'd have no other reason to drive onto the lot. So I parked for free on St. James Street south of Portage for those Sunday afternoons, by where Olive Garden is now.)
And what of Polo Park, which still stands today? Well, does anyone remember when Polo Park was the only shopping mall in Winnipeg? There's magic right there. To those of us who grew up thinking of downtown as Winnipeg's shopping mecca, a far-off mouth-hushed-in-wonderous-amazement anomaly of an indoor enclosed shopping mall where you aren't outside between stores and subjected to the elements or the mundane, down-to-earth qualities of sidewalks, street signs and outdoor storefronts (all of which could be dirty) was ultra-sleek and shiny in comparison to begin with. When I was a kid in St. Vital, Polo Park was a place my mother and I had to transfer buses downtown to get to. Then later there was the even more far-off Unicity Fashion Square, by the Perimeter Highway, where you still transferred buses but the second bus ride was REALLY long. It all seemed exotic. And this was long before St. Vital Centre opened. But to add to that the fact Polo Park was right beside Winnipeg Arena? Electricity unparalleled. If you had the time to go through Polo Park before a concert, you could cut the buzz in the mall surrounding tonight's upcoming show with a knife. Especially in the record stores. The one drawback was attempting to buy albums by tonight's performers. What do you do with them? Who wants to lug them around the arena? If you took a car, you could leave them in the car only if it was winter. If it was summer, they'd warp. I used to think about those poor albums by tonight's artist that are left in the store unsold; The store and the mall are closing by the time the headline act hits the stage, and that act's albums have to stay and sit there, lonely, in the quiet, closed store. They can't be part of the action next door. Nowadays, of course, Polo Park is still there, but without the arena and stadium there, it's just another mall. And today, it's a mall that has been slowly eroding the spaces devoted to record stores, book/rock magazine stores, ice cream, and stationery stores in favor of clothes, clothes, and more clothes. But I digress.
The buzz before the show at Polo Park? Well, that was actually secondary. The biggest buzz was, of course, at the nearby restaurants. I mentioned Chi-Chi's. I have actually never eaten there, but walked in there once to look for someone. But certainly that was the place to go and to see and be seen before a concert or any arena event. But me, being a self-respecting jean-jacketed or black-leather-jacketed and long-haired hard rock fan back then, I went to McDonald's across St. James Street instead, where Future Shop and Old Navy are now. Again, electricity unparalleled. Everyone wearing band shirts bought from previous tours or Solar News or Dominion News downtown or through the mail from the ads in rock magazines. Guys playing air guitar. Denim, leather and hot chicks (in denim and leather) everywhere. Rock and roll ecstasy. THE place to hang out before and after the show. Long lineups don't matter when there's hot chicks in front of you to look at and maybe talk to, if they're actually there with no guy standing next to them. Is there anywhere like that close to MTS Centre? Is McDonald's at Cityplace still open before a concert or does that whole food court perhaps close at 6:00 p.m., perhaps dating back to when MTS Centre was Eatons? I guess there's Moxie's, but that's a real restaurant where you don't have the freedom to be on your own; you still have to wait for the server to bring you your check, wait for her to come back to accept payment, etc. Is that the price we pay for the mini-skirted-and-black-high-heels environment Moxie's at least provides?
And now, mainly precipitated by Winnipeg Arena's closing and demolition and replacement by the downtown MTS Centre, the AA is now gone. All being replaced by retail, offices, and more general ho-hum everyday stuff. We can sit in our parked cars in the Marshall's parking lot, where Winnipeg Arena stood, and reminisce of Winnipeg Arena concerts and how our car is parked IN THE VERY SAME SPOT THE WINNIPEG ARENA STAGE WAS ON! THE SAME SPOT THAT ALL THOSE LEGENDARY PERFORMERS PLAYED MUSIC ON!!! We can go inside Marshall's and go to the menswear section - more like old men's wear section, but whatever - and say, "This spot was where Gagne & Brunzell beat Duncum & Lanza for the AWA tag team titles on July 7, 1977," or "This is where Chris Jericho won the WWE Musical Chairs Championship live on Monday Night Raw on July 5, 2004." But the magic is gone. The ONE element that still exists today is the parking lot at the back where I used to park for Winnipeg Arena concerts and wrestling; I still enter the Polo Park lot from Portage Avenue and make the trek to the back today, except now it's for the Silver City movie theatre that now stands where Chi-Chi's mexican restaurant used to. Silver City opened before Winnipeg Arena closed in 2004, so the timelines intersect. I still think I'm parking in "Winnipeg Arena parking" when I go to Silver City for a movie now.
MTS Centre is downtown, Investors Group Stadium is in south Winnipeg, and the Red River Ex is in very extreme west Winnipeg. All at extreme ends from one another. All fine venues in and of themselves, but all with serious flaws contained in the experience of seeing shows there. (And I live in Osborne Village, right by downtown.) Some of that is written about here, but this blog's purpose is mainly be a tribute to, and celebrate the memory and nostalgia of, the AA, and to point out the uniqueness of all the elements of this area that had been huddled together, and how we had it so good in Winnipeg while it all lasted. And now it's over. And I thank my lucky stars I lived through it. Future generations will not.
Concerts weren't $100 back then, either. I think I've only seen around ten or twelve shows at MTS Centre. Well, at least I can see today's shows for free on You Tube. Thanks, all you guys that do that with your cell phones! I appreciate it. Well, there's something that's changed that's actually good.
The demolition of Canad Inns Stadium, the successor moniker of Winnipeg Stadium, is now finished. That now completes the long, drawn-out end to the wonderful era people my age have been fortunate to live through (and be the right age for), the era when this unofficial entertainment conglomerate comprising the two largest Winnipeg music venues, combined with the best shopping and fast-food Winnipeg has to offer, added to the magic and excitement that your favorite world-class music acts visiting Winnipeg, brings.
This conglomerate never had an official name, did it? At least a name for Winnipeg Arena and Winnipeg Stadium together. Everything in this area was just described as being "around the arena." I ponder whether, had everything stayed, someone would have finally come up with, like Black Friday and the SHED, a formal or informal moniker for this heavenly area. So for this blog post, we'll just refer to it as "The Arena Area (AA)."
What made this AA so special? Some things that were obvious, some not so obvious.
Obviously, the fact Winnipeg Arena and Winnipeg Stadium, the two biggest places in town to attend concerts by music's hottest stars, were across the street from each other was the most obvious factor. (And I'm not going to use the "close proximity" term because that sounds like they were 2 blocks from each other; No, they were friggin' ACROSS THE STREET from each other.)
Winnipeg Arena had such a comfortable, down-home quality to it. It was like an old shoe that fits just right. You could go anywhere, downstairs or upstairs. During AWA wrestling cards, you could go downstairs and see the barricaded area that contained the hallway the wrestlers would walk through in the centre of the building to get to the arena bowl. You could peer through the cracks and maybe see the wrestlers! Maybe you could hear them. One time, there were too many people crowded around "the cracks" but I could hear Mad Dog Vachon's voice from the barricade's other side loud and clear from a few feet away from that barricade. When you are in the concession area, and you walked around to the portion that was behind the stage, there were no curtains or security guards like MTS Centre today has: You could walk right into the section and peer at the gear being stored behind the stage. Who knows, maybe you'd see one of the band members talking to a crew member if you were lucky! And up to probably well into the '80s, there was only ONE entry point into the floor area (split into two, actually - one at the left, one at the right). The ticket checker couldn't catch everybody, so if you maneuvered right and picked your spot when he was busy looking at the ticket of someone who took too much time, you could sneak through, and that was it! YOU MADE IT INTO THE ENTIRE FLOOR AREA! There were no ticket checkers stationed all over the floor area back then, checking your ticket five times as you made your way up to your third-row seat, should that be your legitimate seat. I did this for Van Halen's 1984 tour when my ticket was for an upper deck seat. Instead of sitting way up there, I was smooshed and squeezed in like sardines up front with a thousand other people in the first-few-rows area with my feet kind of resting on chairs when they could. Who cares? I WAS RIGHT UP THERE, JUST FEET AWAY FROM THE MIGHTY VAN HALEN!!!!!
Then you had the thing that joined these two music behemoths in the AA into one once a year for almost two weeks: The Red River Exhibition. All the games, rides, and music you could shake a stick at. At the Ex, you could walk into Winnipeg Arena, where booths of displays and vendors were kept, anytime all day long, not just the time period before a concert starts, and actually go through the doors and walk anywhere in the building FOR FREE!! What a novelty! And you could walk through the areas fans were normally barred from, the area the performers hung out in. That entrance in the middle of the building that the wrestlers walked out of on AWA wrestling cards that I mentioned last paragraph, I COULD WALK THROUGH!! Wow! The Stadium had the Ex's free concerts, and those are really my most memorable concerts I saw at the Stadium: Donny & Marie, Starship, The Monkees, Burton Cummings, Cheap Trick. At night the Ex was free after 11:00 p.m. (formally closed but everyone knew you can still walk through the gate and just not pay), and the combination of the darkness of the night, the Ex's rides and their lights, the warm-but-cooling-off night summer air, and the people made this the summer's most attractive and passionate environment to be in.
And parking was almost always free at the Polo Park lot. Polo Park never cared enough to stop AA parkers from parking on what was technically their lot. In later years, they tried for Winnipeg Jets games, but never for concerts or wrestling. So you could go to the Ex and park for free, unlike now. Are there any side streets or shopping mall parking lots where the Ex is now, past the Perimeter, where you can park for free? In fact, I have no idea if what I say above, where you could still get through the gates past 11:00 p.m. when they stopped charging for tickets, still applies at the Ex today in their new location. It might. But to find out, you have to pay for parking first in their lot. Then you find out the Ex really is closed and are out the money you paid for parking. Or maybe they don't let you even park, saying, "The Ex is closed for the night." So you've driven all that way for nothing. Not nice. Not good. Not cool. The Ex's new location stinks, pure and simple. (Back to the Ex at the AA: They did charge for parking at the Polo Park lot on Sunday afternoon, because they could. No Sunday shopping or all those restaurants like Earl's or Joey's back then, so you'd have no other reason to drive onto the lot. So I parked for free on St. James Street south of Portage for those Sunday afternoons, by where Olive Garden is now.)
And what of Polo Park, which still stands today? Well, does anyone remember when Polo Park was the only shopping mall in Winnipeg? There's magic right there. To those of us who grew up thinking of downtown as Winnipeg's shopping mecca, a far-off mouth-hushed-in-wonderous-amazement anomaly of an indoor enclosed shopping mall where you aren't outside between stores and subjected to the elements or the mundane, down-to-earth qualities of sidewalks, street signs and outdoor storefronts (all of which could be dirty) was ultra-sleek and shiny in comparison to begin with. When I was a kid in St. Vital, Polo Park was a place my mother and I had to transfer buses downtown to get to. Then later there was the even more far-off Unicity Fashion Square, by the Perimeter Highway, where you still transferred buses but the second bus ride was REALLY long. It all seemed exotic. And this was long before St. Vital Centre opened. But to add to that the fact Polo Park was right beside Winnipeg Arena? Electricity unparalleled. If you had the time to go through Polo Park before a concert, you could cut the buzz in the mall surrounding tonight's upcoming show with a knife. Especially in the record stores. The one drawback was attempting to buy albums by tonight's performers. What do you do with them? Who wants to lug them around the arena? If you took a car, you could leave them in the car only if it was winter. If it was summer, they'd warp. I used to think about those poor albums by tonight's artist that are left in the store unsold; The store and the mall are closing by the time the headline act hits the stage, and that act's albums have to stay and sit there, lonely, in the quiet, closed store. They can't be part of the action next door. Nowadays, of course, Polo Park is still there, but without the arena and stadium there, it's just another mall. And today, it's a mall that has been slowly eroding the spaces devoted to record stores, book/rock magazine stores, ice cream, and stationery stores in favor of clothes, clothes, and more clothes. But I digress.
The buzz before the show at Polo Park? Well, that was actually secondary. The biggest buzz was, of course, at the nearby restaurants. I mentioned Chi-Chi's. I have actually never eaten there, but walked in there once to look for someone. But certainly that was the place to go and to see and be seen before a concert or any arena event. But me, being a self-respecting jean-jacketed or black-leather-jacketed and long-haired hard rock fan back then, I went to McDonald's across St. James Street instead, where Future Shop and Old Navy are now. Again, electricity unparalleled. Everyone wearing band shirts bought from previous tours or Solar News or Dominion News downtown or through the mail from the ads in rock magazines. Guys playing air guitar. Denim, leather and hot chicks (in denim and leather) everywhere. Rock and roll ecstasy. THE place to hang out before and after the show. Long lineups don't matter when there's hot chicks in front of you to look at and maybe talk to, if they're actually there with no guy standing next to them. Is there anywhere like that close to MTS Centre? Is McDonald's at Cityplace still open before a concert or does that whole food court perhaps close at 6:00 p.m., perhaps dating back to when MTS Centre was Eatons? I guess there's Moxie's, but that's a real restaurant where you don't have the freedom to be on your own; you still have to wait for the server to bring you your check, wait for her to come back to accept payment, etc. Is that the price we pay for the mini-skirted-and-black-high-heels environment Moxie's at least provides?
And now, mainly precipitated by Winnipeg Arena's closing and demolition and replacement by the downtown MTS Centre, the AA is now gone. All being replaced by retail, offices, and more general ho-hum everyday stuff. We can sit in our parked cars in the Marshall's parking lot, where Winnipeg Arena stood, and reminisce of Winnipeg Arena concerts and how our car is parked IN THE VERY SAME SPOT THE WINNIPEG ARENA STAGE WAS ON! THE SAME SPOT THAT ALL THOSE LEGENDARY PERFORMERS PLAYED MUSIC ON!!! We can go inside Marshall's and go to the menswear section - more like old men's wear section, but whatever - and say, "This spot was where Gagne & Brunzell beat Duncum & Lanza for the AWA tag team titles on July 7, 1977," or "This is where Chris Jericho won the WWE Musical Chairs Championship live on Monday Night Raw on July 5, 2004." But the magic is gone. The ONE element that still exists today is the parking lot at the back where I used to park for Winnipeg Arena concerts and wrestling; I still enter the Polo Park lot from Portage Avenue and make the trek to the back today, except now it's for the Silver City movie theatre that now stands where Chi-Chi's mexican restaurant used to. Silver City opened before Winnipeg Arena closed in 2004, so the timelines intersect. I still think I'm parking in "Winnipeg Arena parking" when I go to Silver City for a movie now.
MTS Centre is downtown, Investors Group Stadium is in south Winnipeg, and the Red River Ex is in very extreme west Winnipeg. All at extreme ends from one another. All fine venues in and of themselves, but all with serious flaws contained in the experience of seeing shows there. (And I live in Osborne Village, right by downtown.) Some of that is written about here, but this blog's purpose is mainly be a tribute to, and celebrate the memory and nostalgia of, the AA, and to point out the uniqueness of all the elements of this area that had been huddled together, and how we had it so good in Winnipeg while it all lasted. And now it's over. And I thank my lucky stars I lived through it. Future generations will not.
Concerts weren't $100 back then, either. I think I've only seen around ten or twelve shows at MTS Centre. Well, at least I can see today's shows for free on You Tube. Thanks, all you guys that do that with your cell phones! I appreciate it. Well, there's something that's changed that's actually good.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Let's Do The Samoan Time Warp: My Idea For Back To The Future, Part 4
Robert Zemeckis, where are you?
I have an idea for Back to the Future Part 4!
In Part 4, Marty McFly has grown up, has unfortunately acquired Parkinson's disease (not funny, not supposed to be, like the Family Guy parodies, but necessary), and has a teen-aged son. Marty and his son visit Doc Brown, and the Doc tells them he has added a new feature to the DeLorean time machine that allows them to land somewhere else in time in any other spot in the world, not just the spot they left from.
Okay, now read this condensed news item that was in the press after New Year's last year, at the start of 2012:
"A hop across the international date line transported the South Pacific island nation of Samoa 24 hours into the future - making it the first in the world to ring in the new year. Samoans began celebrating.....at the stroke of midnight on Thursday, Dec. 29, when the country skipped over Friday and moved straight into 12:01 a.m. on Dec. 31. Samoa and neighbouring Tokelau lie near the date line that zigzags vertically through the Pacific Ocean, and both sets of islands decided to realign themselves this year from the Americas side of the line to the Asia side, to be more in tune with key trading partners."
So back to our story: Marty's son thinks the time machine is really neat, but, with Marty and the Doc in the car, accidentally sets it to travel back in time to Samoa on.....you guessed it - December 30, 2011!!!!! A DAY THAT DOESN'T EXIST! Great Scott!!
What happens then? Do the three of them get sucked into some kind of epic vortex? Well, that's for Zemeckis and the writers to find out, I guess. But Robert, baby, if you're reading this, e-mail me at beauh@mts.net and I'll tell you where to send my cheque for coming up with the idea for the film. And if a film gets made like that and no one from the film sees this, well, you guys know who got the idea first, so.....LAWYER TIME!!! Well, once we determine if Zemeckis and his crew didn't come up with the idea themselves in the last year. It's taken me a year to get to this. If they didn't, then film or no film: bring on the cash. Then, once I have the cash, bring on the girls. It's party time. Evander Kane, eat your heart out. If no film gets made? Then at least all of you have gotten a lot of fun and enjoyment from reading this!
I have an idea for Back to the Future Part 4!
In Part 4, Marty McFly has grown up, has unfortunately acquired Parkinson's disease (not funny, not supposed to be, like the Family Guy parodies, but necessary), and has a teen-aged son. Marty and his son visit Doc Brown, and the Doc tells them he has added a new feature to the DeLorean time machine that allows them to land somewhere else in time in any other spot in the world, not just the spot they left from.
Okay, now read this condensed news item that was in the press after New Year's last year, at the start of 2012:
"A hop across the international date line transported the South Pacific island nation of Samoa 24 hours into the future - making it the first in the world to ring in the new year. Samoans began celebrating.....at the stroke of midnight on Thursday, Dec. 29, when the country skipped over Friday and moved straight into 12:01 a.m. on Dec. 31. Samoa and neighbouring Tokelau lie near the date line that zigzags vertically through the Pacific Ocean, and both sets of islands decided to realign themselves this year from the Americas side of the line to the Asia side, to be more in tune with key trading partners."
So back to our story: Marty's son thinks the time machine is really neat, but, with Marty and the Doc in the car, accidentally sets it to travel back in time to Samoa on.....you guessed it - December 30, 2011!!!!! A DAY THAT DOESN'T EXIST! Great Scott!!
What happens then? Do the three of them get sucked into some kind of epic vortex? Well, that's for Zemeckis and the writers to find out, I guess. But Robert, baby, if you're reading this, e-mail me at beauh@mts.net and I'll tell you where to send my cheque for coming up with the idea for the film. And if a film gets made like that and no one from the film sees this, well, you guys know who got the idea first, so.....LAWYER TIME!!! Well, once we determine if Zemeckis and his crew didn't come up with the idea themselves in the last year. It's taken me a year to get to this. If they didn't, then film or no film: bring on the cash. Then, once I have the cash, bring on the girls. It's party time. Evander Kane, eat your heart out. If no film gets made? Then at least all of you have gotten a lot of fun and enjoyment from reading this!
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Rock Of Ages stuff
Okay, first let's get this out of the way - ROCK OF AGES IS THE GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME!!! Well, actually, I'm not sure how it fares and compares with The Brady Bunch parody movies, The Blues Brothers, or the Back To The Future trilogy. As time goes on, will I think it's better than all of those, or will it just take its' own place among those films as "its' own thing," a film that, like those others, simply stands on its' own? I don't know. In fact, due to the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, I failed to see Rock Of Ages a second time in the theatre before it left the screens. But the movie's mixing of '80s hair metal power ballads and Broadway musical tugs right at my heartstrings, because for me it mixes the musical environment I grew up in as a kid with my mother's show-tune albums, the FM and vinyl record store rock environment I was introduced to as a '70s teen, and the environment that spawned, the '80s hair-band/cock-rock scene that was in full force when I did my TV show Hard Rock Heroes. And it mixes those worlds perfectly and effortlessly.
So, with that, I tweeted a great deal about this movie. But comments like the ones above aren't suitable for Tweets - too long and can't adequately be shortened. So the stuff I ended up tweeting were my fun observations of the film's historical accuracy, which was mostly bang-on. And, by coincidence, in my last blog post, I talked about possibly reprinting Twitter comments here. So without further adieu, here are those comments, all collected and reprinted here. BUT: I actually had taken those comments previously and turned them into a writeup I had sent one of the Winnipeg media music writers. So it's actually that writeup that I will now pull apart to seperate ideas into their own paragraphs below. So that's why what's below doesn't really look like Tweets.
So here we go:
"In the poster for this film, why is Alec Baldwin wearing a 1996 Kiss reunion t-shirt when Rock Of Ages is set in 1987? And that shirt would be purported to be a '70s one, too, or it better, 'cause in 1987 the last time Kiss had worn makeup and had both Ace and Peter in the band was in very early 1980." (Note: Baldwin, or anyone else, never actually wore that shirt in the film. Good.)
"In the Tower Records store, there was a Kiss Crazy Nights poster, and that album came out in September 1987, so the movie is obviously set in the fall. But why is 'More Than Words' by Extreme here, when that song came out in 1990? And funny how that's the only song that doesn't fit timewise. Is someone an Extreme fan?"
"The first time Stacee Jaxx is presented to us is a mixture of Gene's entrance and Paul's re-entrance, when the reporter finds him in his bedroom, in the home video Kiss Exposed, and Stacee's monkey is also stolen from Kiss Exposed."
"Ironically, Kiss Exposed came out in 1987. Maybe the picture is trying to be painted that monkeys were hip then."
"Oh, and Steven Tyler's monkey in that skit in the American Idol finale was stolen from Kiss Exposed, too. He should get that monkey to help him at Burger King."
"Teaching today's generation about records and used record store culture. Try the plotline about Sherrie's stolen records with a fucking IPod."
So, with that, I tweeted a great deal about this movie. But comments like the ones above aren't suitable for Tweets - too long and can't adequately be shortened. So the stuff I ended up tweeting were my fun observations of the film's historical accuracy, which was mostly bang-on. And, by coincidence, in my last blog post, I talked about possibly reprinting Twitter comments here. So without further adieu, here are those comments, all collected and reprinted here. BUT: I actually had taken those comments previously and turned them into a writeup I had sent one of the Winnipeg media music writers. So it's actually that writeup that I will now pull apart to seperate ideas into their own paragraphs below. So that's why what's below doesn't really look like Tweets.
So here we go:
"In the poster for this film, why is Alec Baldwin wearing a 1996 Kiss reunion t-shirt when Rock Of Ages is set in 1987? And that shirt would be purported to be a '70s one, too, or it better, 'cause in 1987 the last time Kiss had worn makeup and had both Ace and Peter in the band was in very early 1980." (Note: Baldwin, or anyone else, never actually wore that shirt in the film. Good.)
"In the Tower Records store, there was a Kiss Crazy Nights poster, and that album came out in September 1987, so the movie is obviously set in the fall. But why is 'More Than Words' by Extreme here, when that song came out in 1990? And funny how that's the only song that doesn't fit timewise. Is someone an Extreme fan?"
"The first time Stacee Jaxx is presented to us is a mixture of Gene's entrance and Paul's re-entrance, when the reporter finds him in his bedroom, in the home video Kiss Exposed, and Stacee's monkey is also stolen from Kiss Exposed."
"Ironically, Kiss Exposed came out in 1987. Maybe the picture is trying to be painted that monkeys were hip then."
"Oh, and Steven Tyler's monkey in that skit in the American Idol finale was stolen from Kiss Exposed, too. He should get that monkey to help him at Burger King."
"Teaching today's generation about records and used record store culture. Try the plotline about Sherrie's stolen records with a fucking IPod."
Saturday, March 24, 2012
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.
Monday, June 6, 2011
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)