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28.2.02
Think your DJ is local? Think again
MIGHTY CRAP! I just wrote this 750-word rant on community radio and its value in a rapidly-homogenizing radio world...and goddamn blogger DESTROYED IT!!!
ARRRGH!
MUST WRITE THESE THINGS IN NOTEPAD FIRST!
ARRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hulklike rage...subsiding...anyway. Thanks to Boxjam for the initial link above, which got me thinkin'. I'll continue this when I feel like rewriting the ENTIRE GODDAMN ESSAY.
Stupid free and highly utilitarian service that provides me with undreamt-of convenience in posting my thoughts with relatively little hassle!
Okay. So. My original point is that while a lot of people see Small Radio as a dying breed, I actually have a lot of faith in it as a medium. Radio's all about personality, see, and as people lose "their" personalities on commercial stations, there's a local void to be filled by the smaller fish. Granted, programming on volunteer-based stations is often a little more hectic, but when it gets down (as I think it will) to listening to one of four National Radio Chains or listening to your cousin's boyfriend on the local c/c station, the latter stands a pretty good chance.
The problems? One, c/c stations depend on volunteers to donate time (and sometimes money) to support them. Two, if you don't have a good leader -- a REALLY good leader -- it just doesn't work. The volunteers need to be managed and rallied, but most of all, they need focus.
This has been the problem with the radio station I used to manage, CJMQ, since, well, since I stopped managing it. I know that sounds egotistical, but I believe it to be true. We've had some pretty good managers in there, but nobody who's made it a balls-to-the-wall number one priority. Nobody who's truly believed that this might be the most important thing that the volunteers ever do with their lives. I believed that, and it caused me a lot of grief and frustration, but it also moved things forward like nobody's business. In two years managing the station, I spent a total of twelve days not being AT the station...even if just for ten minutes on a Sunday. And that's what it took to really make CJMQ rock.
Once a couple of people who come through who lack the motivation, or the initiative, or just the sympatico, however...a vicious circle is a hard thing to reverse, especially with a small and underfunded volunteer organization.
I believe that community radio can be the most dynamic media on the continent in the next ten years. But it takes volunteers, and faith, and enthusiasm.
If you're reading this and you're NOT involved in community radio -- think about it! The number one reason people don't support their real bona fide local independent radio station is they don't like all the music -- but they're bound to have some music you like, and if the music you love isn't getting played anywhere...maybe you should be ON community radio playing it!
It's the future. At the very least, it's your only alternative to a bland, homogeneous national radio scene that will drain every ounce of creativity out of North American music.
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NP: Spookey Ruben, "Breakfast"
Matt Shepherd 28.2.02
Jesus with heat vision.
It was just a wandering thought as I was shoveling out the driveway this morning. Superman is Jesus with heat vision. I'm sure other people have made the Kal-El-Christ comparison before, but has anybody ever taken it to the comic-book point where people worship Kal as the Second Coming? When you think about it, he'd make a hell of a "first I came as the lamb, but I shall return as the lion" kind of guy.
It's also kinda funny to think about Jesus with heat vision. "Pedlars in the temple, BEGONE!" ZOW! FOOM! ZAWASHIE! "Get ye behind me, Satan!" ZAM! BZZAP! KACHOW!
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np: MMW, "The Dropper"
Matt Shepherd 28.2.02
27.2.02
Man, weren't the Cure GREAT when they were just wee lads? I've been listening to Seventeen Seconds and Three Imaginary Boys lately, to say nothing of Boys Don't Cry, and I'm re-blown away by Young Snotty Robert Smith (as opposed to Old Fat Complacent Robert Smith).
They were recording back in 1979. That means they have at least one album that is 100% categorizable CLASSIC ROCK.
Weep, ye Goths and Gothlings. Weep, for the Cure are Classic Rock.
Matt Shepherd 27.2.02
Mr. Dolphin watches sports because he likes watching people grow old, weaken, and fail.
He loves it, in fact. Sits there on one of those creaking metal chairs in the group home, usually alone or near-alone in the rec room, looking up at that fizzing black-and-white hanging down from the ceiling on bolted black arms. The flourescents interfere with the picture sometimes, and the medication he's on makes his vision blur, but he doesn't mind that so much any more.
The reason he watches alone is because nobody can bear to be in there with him. "See there?" he'll crow, pointing at a red blur that stumbles. "He was top of the league, few years back. They'll be putting him out to pasture soon." His yellowed tongue moistens his lips when he thinks about these things. "He's lost it. And he knows." Rubbing hands, stomping feet like a freezing man. "Brother, he knows."
So we leave Mr. Dolphin alone now, to watch and chortle as the heroes of millions grow old, and wither, and disappear. Most of them without fanfare or news. One year, they just aren't there any more.
The funny thing about Mr. Dolphin: I've worked here for fifteen years, and every single day he's been in there watching, and damned if the bastard seems a day older now than when I started.
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NP: Dead Can Dance, "The Serpent's Egg"
Matt Shepherd 27.2.02
26.2.02
ATV Accessories and Equipment for Logging and Forestry Operations
Anyone out there know what a "poulie déviation" is in English? Anyone?
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NP: Ursula 1000, S/T
Matt Shepherd 26.2.02
Oh, for Christ's sake.
I was idly thinking about the name for the upcoming Mysterious Radio Project while working -- oddly enough, translating promotional documents for an ATV-trailer company doesn't command my full and enthusiastic attention -- and "Master of Nothing" was one prospect. I typed in masterofnothing.com just to see what happened, and the link above popped up.
Normally, I'd be disappointed that I couldn't dot-com my show name. But in this case, I'm thinking about ditching the show name entirely, if it means me and this yutz are thinking along the same lines. Oy.
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NP: "Seventeen Seconds," The Cure
Matt Shepherd 26.2.02
download these and listen to them or I will destroy you
Step one: buy a monkey.
Step two: over years of labourious and time-consuming effort, teach it to only go to the bathroom in full bowls of cereal.
Step three: stock up on penicillin. Boatloads of it.
Step four: get some anti-malarial drugs, too. Can't be too careful.
Step five: dose yourself up, get yourself good and liquoured, and invite a friend over with a very good high-resolution camera.
Step six: unleash the monkey. Have it crap in a giant bowl of cereal as your friend photographs it.
Step seven: eat the cereal as your friend photographs you.
Step eight: spend several days in bed, blasted through with penicillin and other medications.
Step nine: have the photos developed, with about three dozen copies made. Keep the copies in a binder with you at all times.
Step ten: next time some twit responds to a negative comment with some stupid saying like "hey, who peed in your corn flakes this morning?" give them a blank stare and whip out the binder. Reply simply "Nobody. But this monkey keeps crapping in my cereal." Show him the photos. Give him his own set. Send him on his way.
Seems like a lot of trouble, but it'll be worth it. Trust me.
NP: still the Lain soundtrack.
Matt Shepherd 26.2.02
Oh. NP: Nakado Chaibo Reiki, "Serial Experiments: Lain" soundtrack.
Matt Shepherd 26.2.02
The scary thing about the internet is that people can choose how to present themselves, except maybe in live chat rooms. They can edit their posts on message boards, alter their photos, and basically eliminate all those weaknesses and misrepresentations that creep into human conversation. There's no body language. There's no stumbles, no slips. You can't see somebody's eyes roll or dart around the room. You can't seem them wet their lips or rub their hands.
Personalities are reduced to refined and shining concepts, as flawless as time and research allows.
How's that scary?
It's scary when you realize that and look at how people still choose to represent themselves. They can strive for perfection; great ideas presented well, the most shining aspects of their selves shared with the world to the greater glory of them.
And, d00dz, most of them don't even bother to spell.
Matt Shepherd 26.2.02
np: Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited, "The Space Sound Effect."
Man, finding an artist for a comics project is gonna be harder than I thought. I met the inestimable Salgood Sam last weekend through some friends in Montréal, and he was kind enough to put me on to some comics-community message boards. Lots of writers looking for artists...very few artists looking for writers.
The main problem is that most of these writers, well, suck. Horrific ideas floating around out there. If I were a decent and serious artist, I sure as hell wouldn't be poking around on these boards trying to find something decent amidst the muck of "Cyberdemonz fighting this, like, evil corporation!"
Back to plan A -- keep doing good work on Man-Man and hope that I can connect with someone good through the webcomics community...
Matt Shepherd 26.2.02
25.2.02
Oh yeah...
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np: Various artists, "Covert Operations" (18th St. Lounge)
Matt Shepherd 25.2.02
CLICK ME YOU GORGEOUS BASTARD
Another passing note about the trip to Montreal -- at no point was I consumed with the urge to buy music! WHAT'S HAPPENING TO MEEEE? I spent a bundle on a MD recorder (far TOO much, according to the Internet, but I've sworn off mail-ordering large-ticket items for a variety of reasons, so what's another $130 for the satisfaction of dealing with a store and...aw, fuck, I got ripped) but I didn't have any desire to go into an HMV or even the super-amazing record store on St. Catherines (Esoterik) even before I spent my life savings.
Mel even asked me, on several occasions, if I wanted to go CD or record shopping. My response? "Nah. I have too much music I haven't even really listened to yet."
I HAVE CLEARLY GONE MAD.
Matt Shepherd 25.2.02
In passing -- I was at a Chinese buffet yesterday, which was about as Chinese and going to China and finding a "Canadian" buffet of deep-fried steak and chocolate-covered bacon, when I thought that it would be really cool to pick somebody at random and just follow them around the buffet, having exactly what they had, in as equal a portion as you could manage. Smile and nod encouragingly every time they look at you, then take whatever they just took. See how long it would take before they got really freaked out. Arrr har har har.
Matt Shepherd 25.2.02
This is a re-posting, hopefully correct, of the post that should have appeared below, which was a re-creation of an earlier post that got destroyed by blogger. Holy crap.
Okay, this is me recreating an earlier blog in response to an e-mail from Dave Wright of Todd and Penguin (http://toddandpenguin.keenspace.com), a really cool comic strip. I have to start copying these things to Notepad so they survive when Blogger screws up.
Anyway, Canada apparently won the Olympic Gold Medal in hockey yesterday, which I found out this morning. To be honest, I'd forgotten they were even playing last night; I was on my way back from MTL with my sweetie Mel after a wonderful (but very expensive) weekend in Canada's Linguistic Confusion Capital.
I just can't get worked up about it. Maybe I'm a lousy Canadian, but most of my pride in This Great Nation stems from our comprehensive and socialist-leaning approaches to accessible health care and decent universal education, rather than the ability of a dozen or so people to run around on ice with blades on their feet whacking away at a piece of hardened rubber with a stick.
This is a bone of contention (minor) between The Mel and I (wasn't that a movie?)...I say I'd just as soon scrap Olympic funding and put the whole thing into health care, poverty relief, public housing, and etc. My take on the situation is that if you're waiting for a heart transplant, knowing that we have our country has paid a bajoolian dollars to support some people who can run real fast isn't much solace. Unless they're running to the hospital with your &^%$ new heart.
Mel, on the other hand, says that Olympic-level sport raises people's general awareness of fitness and athleticism and inspires average joes to try to be more fit; that sort of thing, especially with children, is a good idea. Hard to argue with that.
Unless...how about we scrap Olympic funding and re-start the "Participaction" program? Anybody else remember that?
Oh...my favourite line from press coverage of the win:
'"You don't know what it's like to have a piano on your back," said Canadian player Al MacInnis.'
What the hell has been going on in their training camp, anyway?
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np -- Radiohead, "Kid A"
Matt Shepherd 25.2.02
Putting the Id back in idiot
Okay, this is me recreating an earlier blog in response to an e-mail from Dave Wright of
Oh...my favourite line from press coverage of the win:
'"You don't know what it's like to have a piano on your back," said Canadian player Al MacInnis.'
What the hairy hell has been going on in their training camp, anyway?
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np -- Radiohead, "Kid A"
Matt Shepherd 25.2.02
22.2.02
I was just reminded of old SPIDEY SUPER-STORIES comics, which came out in the late '70s by grace of that old CTW show The Electric Company. Each one had a picture of Morgan "Easy Reader" Freeman at the top saying "THIS COMIC IS EASY TO READ!"
The funny thing about SSS is that I have a distinct memory of reading one of these in, like, grade one and realizing (in a bolt of knowledge that near rent my young brain) that EACH word balloon had an EMPHASIZED word that was BOLDED AND ITALICIZED.
Every single one. It was amazing, and didn't really make any sense. It was like the words were being italicized as part of some Warholesque experiment in comic-book pacing. Spider-Man would grab the Kingpin's stickpin, for instance...
"Give me my CANE, Spider-Man!"
"No WAY, Kingpin! You'll JUST try to hit me with it!"
"You MEDDLING fool!"
Later...
"Look out for that ROCK!"
"It's going TO crush US!"
...and so on. Weirdass stuff. Gotta check Ebay to see if there's any of these old goodies out there and available...
Matt Shepherd 22.2.02
21.2.02
KeenSpace Forums - View Topic
I posted this to the above Todd and Penguin message board a while ago, and realized it might make sense to copy it here for general informational purposes.
Really, I should blog my m-board posts. Sadly, it's where most of my funniest writing gets done. This, however, is a true story...
Two months before I moved, I started making it a point to switch long-distance plans when ANYBODY called. It made for short conversations.
"This is Doug calling from Sprint Canada..."
"Sign me up, Doug!"
"Come again?"
"Thanks for your call! I'm switching to Sprint! Right now!"
"Oh...okay..."
"Hello?"
"Mr. Shepherd? My name is Julie, and I'm calling from Bell Canada. We noticed that you've switched long-distance providers..."
"Julie, I've been a damned fool. Switch me back to Bell."
"...really?"
"Sure!"
"Mr. Shepherd, my name is Roger, from AT&T long distance..."
and etc. I kept track on a notepad near the door. By the time they stopped calling (I wound up back with Bell) I had switched long-distance companies twenty-two times. Once I switched long-distance providers three times in one night. I got phone bills from seven different companies, most of them for nothing, in one month.
Then I disconnected my line and moved.
AH HA HA HA!
It still warms the cockles of my heart.
Matt Shepherd 21.2.02
Putting the Id back in idiot
Rereading entries from the past three days, I suddenly notice that I dwell on zombies and cannibalism. A lot.
For a moment, I wonder if something might be horribly wrong with me. Then I remember that zombies + cannibals = funny!
If more people would talk about zombies and cannibals, the world would be a merrier place.
Matt Shepherd 21.2.02
Upon editing stuff for tourism guides, it strikes me how often historical sites think it might be clever to have a "figure from the past" as a tour guide or site host.
Maybe it is. Maybe it's quaint and the tourstas just love it. But when you're running through dozens and dozens of entries that read things like "Lula Belle, born in 1834, will be your guide to the many mysteries of Hill House!" you begin to wonder who the hell all these undead people are, and why they're roaming around our national historic sites.
"My, what a wonderful old house!"
"Braiiiins...braiiinsss..."
"Yes, we saw the trains -- ARRGH!"
That's no way to get repeat business. Then again, it's a swell way to keep the supply of Government Cheese fresh, isn't it? I've called for tax information. I know who -- or WHAT -- is manning the phones in there.
Or "zombieing" the phones, maybe. Semantics are confusing.
Matt Shepherd 21.2.02
20.2.02
They keep doing news stories on the logging industry, but never mention the salient fact that 99% of logging industry workers get involved because of all the fun, cheap innuendo they can spout.
Matt Shepherd 20.2.02
Who the hell LISTENS to R&B? It's seeping through the ceiling once again, like somebody forgot to put the lid on the crap-o-matic and it's overflowed and saturated the floorboards. Saccharine R&B is dripping from above. I think it's giving me a rash.
I like some rap; even the rap I don't like, I can sort of understand why some people might like it. I don't really like punk, but I can sort of understand why some people might like it. I don't like new country, but I can semi-sort-of-conceivably-in-a-pinch-with-a-few-beers-in-me kind of mildly wrap my head around the concept of somebody perhaps liking it.
But R&B is a mystery. It's like somebody took music and squeezed all the interesting out of it. It's more formulaic than classic rock, duller than Britney, and about as mentally engaging as a warm sponge.
ARRRGH.
Matt Shepherd 20.2.02
18.2.02
Say, you know what the obituary columns are called in Sherbrooke's French-language daily La Tribune?
"NÉCROLOGIE."
It's a legit translation of the English word "obituary," but it does rather make the casual English observer wonder what's up with the French and their dead.
Like, if a loved one dies, you can have him listed in the obituaries...or in the Nécrologie pages, with a 50/50 shot that he might come back, and a subsequent 50/50 shot that he might be coherent and not a brain-munching hell thing.
"Where's daddy?"
"He fell into the wine press, sweetheart. But he might be back soon...through the miracle of NÉCROLOGIE!"
"Unnngh! Unnnngh!"
"DADDY!"
"Hooray! Hooray for Nécrologie! Welcome home, dear!"
"GnnnarrrgghhhBRAINS!"
(munch munch munch)
Obituary, while not a humdinger of a word, doesn't conjure up images of men in black cloaks trying to find out where you hid the good silver six months after you've passed on, at least.
Matt Shepherd 18.2.02
Mmm. Music's back. I guess we're freakin' clean now.
I'd better get back to the grind, here. I should also make it clear for wanderin' eyes that there's a lot of music by black artists that I like -- a lot -- from Stevie Wonder to Public Enemy, from Outkast to Angie Stone. What I'm subjected to daily, though, is R&B hell. Phil Collins and Steve Winwood never died...they just got pigmented, and instead of producing insipid, trite, predictable crap to torture white people with, they now produce inispid, trite predictible crap to torture black people with.
Lord save me.
Matt Shepherd 18.2.02
The only thing I don't like about my job? The fact that I work in a duplex, directly underneath the stereo of a very loud, very tastless Bishop's University student that gets up around noon and proceeds to play God-awful R&B for a few hours. Jazz on the computer speakers does a bit, but to actually drown out the bass requires a volume that makes conversation near-impossible.
The upstairs neighbour is black, which is relevant only in that his musical tastes are terrifyingly stereotypical. It's like he buys all his music solely by looking at the ads in VIBE magazine and buying anything with an ad that features the word "smooth."
Essentially, there are three songs:
1. I's gonna freak you girl. Cuz I care so much about you an I's gonna freak you girl. Freak you freak you. Cuz you my baby an I's gonna freak you all nite. Freak you up an down. I's gonna freak you.
2. I got really high. I's really high. I's smoked so much dope. I's really high. I's smoked a lot of weed. I gonna get really high. I got high and now I gonna get high. I's high. High.
3. I's so lonely. Where's my baby? Baby not here. I's not high. No dope fo' me. Nobody to freak. I's so sad. Where my baby? Who I gonna freak? I's so low. No baby no weed so low. I's low.
It's like Ernest Hemingway and Jack Kerouac were in a head-on collision, and had to have two brain cells each transferred into the body of Smoove Daddy P-Lo Diddy Wah Groove. Short sentences, but somehow a stream-of-consciousness narrative. Treating it like a dadaist cut-up experiment is one survival strategy, but even Burroughs ripped on skag and rambling on ad nauseum about the glowing homosexual insect boys of Neptune is more engaging than this.
Whoa! Music's stopped. Water's running. The non-stop freakin' smokin' self-pity party may be winding down for some cleanin'.
Because the ladies won't freak ya if your dope is all dirty, yo.
Matt Shepherd 18.2.02
Man-Man
So I had a dream last night about cannibalism, which featured old friend Heather McCall in sort of a minor role. I don't think she's ever been a vegetarian, but in the dream I had been kidnapped by a mutual acquaintance who was planning to eat me. Cooked, of course. And then, in a pulp-novel revelation, it was unveiled that (gasp) HEATHER MCCALL was going to join in!
"But she's a vegetarian!" crieth dream-I.
Dream-Heather patiently explains that she realized that she should eat meat for health reasons, and after some reflection realized that humans are really the most environmentally-sound meat out there.
Couldn't argue with that. Even in a dream.
I wish I were this sensible awake.
Matt Shepherd 18.2.02
Do you know what death is in corporate medi-speak? "Serious Adverse Event." If you suffer from multiple coronaries and your eyeballs explode as your brain grows exponentially a la Tetsuo in the last reel (or final six books) of Akira, you have experienced a "Serious Adverse Event."
Jargon reaches the point where it can't even be mocked any more, just whistled at in low tones, as one does when watching a particularly severe car wreck or natural disaster on the evening news.
Matt Shepherd 18.2.02
6.2.02
Okay, so this is my blogger thingymadoo. I really have an exquisite lack of knowledge about exactly what the poop I'm a-doing here. So I'm typing, and then I will click "post" above, and then it will go up. And then I will be a blogger.
Soon I will be a blogger.
Matt Shepherd 6.2.02
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