MAX(imum) HEAD ROOM

He's funny, cheerful, confident.
He can read a teleprompter better than the average bear.

And it takes only four people to write every word that comes out of his mouth.

war is a force that gives The Current meaning

It's 8:30 AM.
Time to get depressed.

After a pleasant local morning show that makes my immediate environment seem vibrant, creative and manageable, makes me feel like I'm a citizen and a participant in the affairs and running of my own community, it's time for ... WORLD AFFAIRS.
Gee, thanks CBC Radio One.
North Korea wants to blow me to smithereens and the "i" in CSIS stands for idiots.
Why was I even born?

And how many more minutes until Regis and Kelly?

Qmeshi

Yes, it pains to admit it, but "Q" is ... yes, you want to grimace, you feel like you've lost a bet, you absolutely do not want to encourage them, but ... "Q" is, apart from the "classics" like Happens and Ideas and Enright and Ms. Rogers ... you pull your finger out of your throat and find you didn't actually throw up ... "Q" is the best show on radio or TV that the CBC is currently producing.
It's actually interesting. And topical.

And yes, it's not perfect.
The flaw is of course the host.
He's not a fake like Strombo, and he's not really a bad person.
But he is someone who likes to say his own name several times each program.
Several times too many. And it's indicative of the most annoying aspect of an otherwise very good radio show.
The host's questions seem longer than the answers. There's just too much of him.
Which is especially irritating because, as a culture celebrity he is so insignificant. (again, unlike Strombo)
He hints at being a complex and deeply insecure individual, traits that would otherwise catapult many other "artists" to stardom. But we sense he is hiding this real person under a giant mask of verbal dexterity. He wants desperately to impress us with his mind, as if being the de facto host of a national radio show (!) with the most fascinating guests and topics, is somehow ... just ... not ... good ... enough.
It's like he turned up for work as a hotel concierge dressed like a Musketeer.

Relax, man, you already have the job.
And it happens to be hosting the best show produced by the CBC today.

Evan Solomon Forever?

Only in Canada, it seems, does a fundamental principle of broadcasting not apply.
Only in this country of a largely unmotivated population could a broadcaster get away with continually putting someone on the air that does not attract an audience. In fact, someone who actually repels an audience.

No show has ever succeeded with Evan Solomon on it.
But the CBC will not let go of him.
And Evan appears to think himself entitled to on-going employment, as if he had signed a lifetime contract.
Even a meaningless filler of a show on a Sunday TV time slot that has virtually no audience will still fail with Evan as the host.
And in another example of skewed judgement, the same broadcaster that will hold auditions and choose Barbara Budd to voice the great As It Happens, will take a guy who always sounds like his collar is too tight and so can barely get out a sentence, and deem him acceptable as the sole announcer/interviewer for the national radio show The Current.
And, come fall, this person will suddenly transform into a charming, genial game show host.
The next Fred Davis.
Someone, apparently, no, obviously, thinks that there's such a thing as finding the right show for Evan. That he's indispensable. That he will one day, as if by magic, suddenly attract an audience. That there is no one else in a country of 40 million people who is better suited to the task of being a presenter for a national broadcaster. Not at McGill, U of T, SFU, UBC or Carleton. Not anywhere.
But then someone also thinks that if the National Post just keeps doing what it does day after day that one year it will suddenly begin to make a profit.


The same magical thinking that has the CBC believing that anyone wants any more of Evan Solomon.
Ever again.

Can you sink the honour of the CBC any lower, Mr. Stursberg?

Drabinsky's "success" was complete and utter fakery, yet the the print scribes won't denounce him. They easily forgive his swindling, of pocketbooks and minds, and call him talented. He even writes a book about himself, which despite his lame attempt at humility nevertheless reveals that anything he did that was worthwhile (rarely) was quite simply, a fluke. He just wanted to grow up and become important in some way, and the glamour and excitement of show business is a very good cover for ineptitude and a weak mind (Kiefer Sutherland, e.g.).
He had nothing to offer but bluff, yet over the course of the years that he was pretending to know what he was doing he gave out enough "favours" to the media leeches that they still feel beholding to this charlatan.
He's a convicted criminal, but the management of the CBC has no qualms about giving him a platform of legitimacy and respectability.
As if it were still yet to be conclusively proven that he is a bald-faced liar and a crook.

‘Variety Lives on CBC Radio’

Another gem from the Canadian Design Resource.

(Typeface, incidentally, is Dynamo.)

KanKonKwiz™

NOW WITH SOLUTION

For a fun diversion as we head into a long, hot summer of pogey, “blockbuster” Hollywood movies, and high-UV-index Saturdays pretending to give a shit about Toronto FC, take the Tea Makers’ fun new KanKonKwiz™!
(First in a series!)

Can you spot the distinctive, legal-mandate-conformant CBC Television series hidden in plain sight in this omnibus list of brand-new “Canadian” programming, compiled from press releases from CBC and Canada’s valued private broadcasters?

1. Ford Models Supermodel of the World Canada
2. Great Canadian Bio-Series
3. Ice Pilots NWT
4. Canada’s Super Speller
5. Pow-wow’s Playhouse
6. Innovators of Music
7. Leaders of Lieder
8. Bloodsport: Opera
9. Photo Xplorers
10. Star Portraits
11. Anna & Kristina’s Style Bag
12. The Cupcake Girls
13. Of Kiwis and Men
14. L’Oréal Paris Presents Spitting L’Image Canada
15. Re-Vamped
16. The Jane Show
17. How to Marry a Millionaire
18. Battle of the Blades
19. Over the Bolts
20. Junk Raiders
21. Johnny Knoxville’s Jackass: The Series Canada
22. Peak Season
23. Crash & Burn
24. The Half-Hour News Parody Hour
25. Angel on Campus
26. Baxter
27. The Republic of Doyle
28. Meet Phil Fitz
29. The Bougons
30. The Ron James Show
31. Eat Your Heart Out, Adrienne Clarkson
32. Stella and Sam
33. Justin Time
34. Sanctuary
35. Traders: The Musical
36. Bloodletting
37. All Families Are Psychotic
38. Homeroom Vampire
39. Love Among the Tar Sands
40. Fakers
41. Harlequin Presents The Kilting Bee: The Colin & Justin Story
42. Phantom
43. 18 to Life
44. The Pillars of the Earth
45. The Foundation
46. Living in Your Car
47. My Other Car Is a Prius
48. Straighten Out Your Life with Mark Tewksbury
49. My Rona Home
50. The Basement Design Department
51. Holmes Inspection
52. Conviction Kitchen
53. Realtor vs. Realtor

Answers!

Well, I see nobody gave a shit.

The new CBC shows are Ron James, Battle of the Blades, Canada’s Super Speller, 18 to Life, and The Republic of Doyle (AKA “Not Charlie Jade”).

The list included a number of ringers I made up. You should have spotted at least one or two, but nobody would have gotten all of them. This theory will remain untested.

1. My Other Car Is a Prius
   (as surely any Riverdale-semi-owning CBC manager’s wife’s must be)
2. L’Oréal Paris Presents Spitting L’Image Canada
   (après Project Runway Canada avec Iman, le déluge?)
3. Leaders of Lieder
   (ahhhts programming)
4. Bloodsport: Opera
   (Repo: The Genetic Opera half-assedly cloned 1996–CITY-TV/Canadian style)
5. Straighten Out Your Life with Mark Tewkesbury
   (who’s already doing Newsworld segments)
6. The Bougons
   (from Les Bougon, one of those actually funny Radio-Canada series that tightassed, PC Fort Dork pretends doesn’t exist and isn’t worth remaking in English)
7. The Basement Design Department
   (which got dismantled)
8. Love Among the Tar Sands
   (AKA Son of Wild Roses)
9. How to Marry a Millionaire
   (please: a gimme)
10. Eat Your Heart Out, Adrienne Clarkson
    (hommage to Her Excellency the Sashimïst General)
11. Homeroom Vampire
    (YTV-style tween comedy)
12. Traders: The Musical
    (could it work?)
13. Of Kiwis and Men
    (calque of Des kiwis et des hommes)
14. All Families Are Psychotic
    (après jPod, le déluge?)
15. Harlequin Presents The Kilting Bee: The Colin & Justin Story
    (they really are on book covers; plus they’re reputedly hung like horses)
16. Pow-wow’s Playhouse
    (Cowboy Curtis’s aboriginal reconciliation)