Resurrection

Saturday, March 28th - 2009.
Toronto.

...as I was saying,

(bringing this little blog back from the dead has proven a bit more challenging than I'd initially thought. Too little time; too much at stake. However, I'm going to give it another shot).

Here's something to take the spring time warmth away: it's an excerpt from an email I recently received from a respected, former colleague.

Don,

I am at my friend's place in North Miami Beach looking out my bedroom window and seeing the Atlantic. I have decided to take up drinking. I figure if fate will take you into the gutter it is easier being an alcoholic. As you know I have never been able to drink that much, so now I'm going to practice.

I have had a winter of writing proposals that nobody will buy. After each proposal I say now THAT would make great TV and then off to the next one. I enjoy writing proposals even when I get paid nothing, which is why I think skid row is an excellent thing for me to aspire to.

Or as Steppenwolf may have sung "Goddamm the media man"

Well that's life, I think I will go back and enjoy the sun. This should have been my goal thirty years ago rather than using my imagination and creativity to profit others. That, as I have learned is for saps and geniuses; and I am not a genius.

When I started writing this blog I wanted to contribute something marginally useful to the social history of Canada's media culture from a front line perspective. I also hoped that some of the students in my J-school class might pick up on one or two of the warning signals which I (and too many others) had missed completely.

Why resurrect The Book of Don? Because there's a blood-letting underway in our industry right now worthy of any Balkan warlord...

...and this too, is part of that history.

The Spring Book

Edmonton AM, April 10th. 1981.

The numbers are in - and they're about what I expected. We're UP one spot, which is a huge achievement around here.

Our little morning radio show stands at #4 in a nine station market. The a.m. rock station is #1, the shit-kicking C-and-W station #2, the Easy Listening guys #3. We're getting about 30-thousand listeners a morning.
It could be worse - our noon show peaks at 12,000 and the drive home show at 18,000. I guess Eric's XT5 idea hasn't exactly taken the province by storm (although we've all got very cool coffee mugs).

My old boss, Richard Bronstein blew through town last week to talk about a new TV show that's in the works - The Journal. He didn't have too many details but said he thought it'd be a nightly magazine show with both a domestic and an international focus. Sounds interesting.

Richard's talk has fueled the gossip mills around the plant as he's going to hire an Alberta field producer. They're looking for someone with a Current Affairs background, some network experience. and a willingness to learn TV.

The fact that this show will be run by the "radio crowd" has sparked considerable bitching. One of the longtime TV guys here - Gerry Olsen, came up to me to ask if I was going to apply. He said that I should because (quote) "when you fuck up they won't know that you've fucked up".

Nice.

I am the Zombie

CTV Toronto
Sunday, October 19th. 2008

To paraphrase John Lennon...I am the Zombie. This small blog is back from the dead.

It's been an exciting, stimulating, almost overwhelming six months and - to be perfectly frank - I am going to have to be discreet in what I write, but I've decided to re-join the War of the Blogs and try to post a couple of times a week.

Now let me see...where was I ?? Had Pam Wallen just used the "C" word to describe me or was that Rachel ? Or maybe it was that French tech in Montreal ?

And for those of you at the cbc.ca server who've been flaming me anonymously - "Yes", I know I'm a bastard but you're still reading this, right ?

Big John

Journal Entry, Edmonton.
Wednesday, January 14th, 1981.

A late, late night. Beers at the Strath. Dinner at the Keg. Etcetera at Bob Spence's.

Spence is the eminence gris around the CBC. For the past few years he's been the morning show host but got bumped to reading the news by the Vicki/Gail experiment.

He's a pretty easy going guy - all 6'5" of him. "Built to Scale" is his stock pick up line. Must work 'cause he gets plenty of action. Claimed he bedded Maria Muldaur of "Midnight at the Oasis" fame when she was through town last year...said he made her wail like an "Xoxa yodeller". Don't believe it myself, but the allusion was pretty funny.

Spence hangs out with another big guy, John Candy who is leaving town this week. The 'Chuk will NOT be the same.

He's been here with the SCTV gang for the past couple of months shooting at ITV where they get cheap studio time and non-union crews. Candy and Spence have been crashing around town like a couple of bored 15 year olds with adult pay cheques for allowances.

Last weekend SCTV had their wrap party as most of the actors were heading back east; the consensus was to have it on set, but the plant management would not give them the studio.

So, Candy rented it - in fact he rented the entire station.

He rented the gaffers so we'd have lights, the sound guy to spin tunes, the staging guys to put up tables, the security guys to keep things cool, the parking guy to jockey cars, and best of all he rented every production assistant at ITV Edmonton as....table dancers.

A great time was had by all. At the end of the night the bill was 22-thousand dollars. Big John picked up the tab. Every last dime.

That man loves to party.

Missing In Action

Journal Entry, Toronto
July 28th, 2008.

So, this is how Jim Bouton must have felt when he played for the Seattle Pilots. Sitting in the dug out with his eyes wide open and his mouth tight shut scribbling notes to himself in the club house crapper.

I've had to take a break from this modest endeavour to get on top of my job and decide whether or not to continue blogging at all -- after all, as my pal Tom Alderman pointed out ... nobody cares what you think; it's what you know - and have the guts to write, that really counts.

After three months watching this complicated game being played from a cushy seat in the Owner's Box I know a helluva a lot more than I did when I was scraping snow off my Winnipeg mailbox desperately hoping a cheque was nesting amidst the bills and junk mail.

But as a single dad of three cash-consuming young adults I can't really write all that much about the game in progress because I like being back in the Show.

Old habits are hard to break however and Jim Bouton eventually DID write 'Ball Four'.

Of course he never pitched again in the Big Leagues. Last I heard he was throwing knuckle-balls for the Moncton Mud Hens.

But when the lights went down at the end of the ninth he went to the showers as someone who'd given it his all; surviving on junk but taking pride in the fact that he still had enough juice left for the occasional fastball.