Erin's Journals

Hey – first of all, thanks if you were one of many who posted on my public FB page about the fact that BC is going to align its Family Day with the rest of the country next year. I don’t know where I was when that news came out, but I will be sure to mention it on my midday radio show today here in Victoria. And speaking of radio….
 
Today is World Radio Day, so I am going to wave the flag and sing the praises of my favourite medium, and tell you why it always has been and always will be, too, for that matter. I hope it’s yours, too.
 
When I was a kid, I would have a cassette recorder at the ready and tape (yes, tape) songs as they played on the radio. I thought deejays on our local radio station, AM 800 CJBQ in Belleville, were gods. When Randy Quinn did an interview with Wilbur, a rodent from Omeemee, I thought it was hilarious (and soon learned when I got into radio how to speed up the tape and make those chipmunk type voices, too). New Years Day I’d run a tape on the whole countdown of the top songs of the past year and God help anyone who came into the room I shared with my younger sister when the tape was running. ‘Cause I was hooked!
 
When I spent summers at my grandparents, I had 1140 CKXL out of Calgary keeping me company on a tiny transistor radio that had two prongs that flipped up out of the back so that you could charge it every night. Cool technology from Panasonic, I’m pretty sure. I would go to sleep listening to Garner Ted Armstrong preaching on a show called The World Tomorrow and I couldn’t get the radio on fast enough in the morning to hear my favourite Top 40 songs. Clear as day, I remember keeping that little black radio in an apron pocket as I hung out or retrieved laundry for Gram.
 
Radio was my life even before it became my life. You remember being in the car with your parents, begging them not to turn off a song just because a guitar solo had started. “It’ll be over soon!” I would say in desperation. (Most of the time it worked.) 
 
You probably have your own stories. The song that came on when your heart had just been broken or the one that made you jump up and dance until your hair was wet with sweat. The soundtrack to your summer, the moments in your mornings that still stand out to this day. The deejays (later to be known as hosts, thank you) who made you laugh, made you think, made you cry, made you feel you weren’t alone. Best of all, they played the songs you loved…and a few you couldn’t stand, but you remembered – always – that another one was coming right up.
 
You remember where you were when you heard on the radio that something huge had happened. The morning after John Lennon died, I had CJBQ on, was about to go to school (college by now) and was washing my hair in the kitchen sink. As I heard the horrible news through the whooooosh of the water, I pulled my head up so fast I hit it right on the tap…and trust me, my day didn’t get any better. 
 

 
When people, some of them reporters, have asked me over the decades how radio will survive CDs or satellite music or Spotify or whatever else has come down the pike, I’ve always had the same answer: it will survive because radio is all about the human connection. Anyone can hear their favourite song now at the touch of a button. But there’s still something special about hearing that song come on when you’re not expecting it, or hearing one for the first time and wanting to hear it again right away. 
 
One of the biggest regrets of my career came on the 12th of September 2001. We’d been there on the radio on 9/11 when the Twin Towers were first hit; Michelle Butterly (whose birthday it is today!) talked you through the impossibly sad events that happened in the hours to follow.
 
But that night, having just launched a format called the 8 am All-Music Hour a week earlier, my boss (not the one I loved and had to leave in 2016) called and said that we’d go back to all music; that everything that had to be said about the event had been said(!). In other words, rather than give people what they needed – comfort, information and just someone they knew was with them in this time of confusion and fear – we were to shut up and play the music. I had to do as I was told; it was terrible advice and I had no choice. Today I would not let that happen – no way.
 
Because it’s that connection, the answer to the question “is my world safe?” as my radio mentor Valerie Geller puts it, that makes all of the difference. I hope it’s what radio will always do and I also hope, in some way, to be a part of this marvelous, magical medium until my days are done.
 
We can hope. Tomorrow – speaking of radio magic – I have some very exciting news. It has to do with you (hopefully), me, a riverboat and a very special someone whom we all love. Tell you soon!
 

Happy Monday! For reasons that are entirely beyond me, British Columbia marks Family Day today. Of course, since it’s not observed nationally either today or next Monday, when most of the rest of the country takes the day off, it means that federal workers will show up at work – doesn’t it? I’m sure that makes for a cheery day at the office.
 
This is what I do know: I’m lucky to have a day off from my radio show on Ocean 98.5 in Victoria, even though I would happily have done one today if they’d asked, but most of the rest of the country – except federal workers – are off next Monday. I bet you can’t wait. 
 
But here’s the thing: it’s not even called Family Day across the country! For example, in Manitoba it’s Louis Riel Day, in PEI it’s Islander Day, while in Nova Scotia they celebrate Heritage Day. Yay! Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan will just mark good ol’ Family Day, leaving out Newfoundland and Labrador, the territories and Quebec, which don’t take a Monday off in February at all! While in the Yukon, the holiday is the Friday before the last Sunday of the month – so, the 23rd. 
 
Have you got all of that? Yeah, me neither.
 
The holiday for almost all of Canada will coincide, as always, with the big car and mattress sale event in the US known as Presidents’ Day, but is officially called Washington’s Birthday. And although it falls on February 19th this year, George Washington was actually born on February 22nd, but no one wants a holiday in the middle of the week unless, of course, it’s Canada Day. And then we tack on a couple of extra days and make it a nice long weekend in the summer!
 
Come to think of it, is a long weekend in February a good thing? I remember when the idea was first floated (was it in a beer commercial?) and I tend to think it is; any day that many Canadians don’t have to get up and battle snow and cold is a good day. You stay inside, you cocoon, you may even take advantage of that extra day to get away some place warm. That’s what our little family used to do on Family Day.
 
The important thing is making memories. I’m not sure if it has the same meaning if you’re saluting Louis Riel, but I’ve no doubt it’s a great spark to learn about the founder of Manitoba and the leader of the Métis people. I haven’t thought much about Riel since high school so I, for one, am grateful for the name. See how that all works?
 
Have a gentle Monday and hang in there – your long weekend (if you’re reading this anywhere but in BC) is on its way, probably. I promise not to have too much fun. Tomorrow: a big day for radio.
 

Happy Friday! Of course, everyone’s thoughts are with the Canadians competing under our beautiful maple leaf in Korea. In case you’ll be waiting out the night time broadcasts, may I suggest a movie? It’s three weeks now until the Oscars and I thought I’d visit the topic of films again, in the event you were thinking of going to see a movie this weekend. After Wednesday’s journal about the “mean moms of the movies” this year, I got emails asking what I thought of The Shape of Water, which leads the Oscar pack with 14 nominations this year. Let me tell you – with some background.
 
A good friend here on the island went to see it and, like so many, just didn’t like it. And that’s the thing with this film: people either seem to love it or hate it. I saw it because I knew, with over a dozen nods, there had to be something to it.
 
I can’t remember going into a film so ready to hold my nose as I was with The Shape of Water because I usually avoid those I know I won’t like. I’m not a big fan of super hero movies or other fantasies (count me among the few who didn’t love the Lord of the Rings or Star Wars films). I understand why people do love them, don’t get me wrong. And who am I to say my choices in movies are the right ones? As a friend used to say, “If everyone liked the same things, there would be long lineups for everything.” So true.
 
There’s willful suspension of disbelief when you buy your ticket for TSOW and I was fine with that. A cleaning woman in a Cold War era USA lab forms a bond with a water creature that has some human characteristics – especially that of needing connection. It’s a love story, a horror story, a thriller and a sci-fi homage to 1954’s Creature From the Black Lagoon. Michael Shannon is perfection as the actual monster of the film; I even thought he bore a resemblance to his scaly nemesis. I’d love to hear if anyone else had that thought.
 
Can I recommend this movie to you? Let me put it this way: last year I saw La La Land and lo-lo-loved it. It was audacious and, although it paid homage, I thought it was daring and original. But as I watched it, I thought, Oh, Cooper (my radio partner Mike) would hate this. He’d get up halfway through saying, ‘what the hell is this?’ (I don’t know if that’s actually what Mike thought of it, by the way. I’ll have to ask him.) But that’s the thing: movies are a deeply personal experience. Your enjoyment or dislike comes in part from the filters you run this film through. 
 
The Best Picture winner, Moonlight, was exceptional, too, but to compare it to the frothy originality of La La Land would be futile. Apples, meet oranges. Likewise, although it was a nod to sci-fi films like Black Lagoon, I can’t say that I’ve ever seen or experienced anything like The Shape of Water. If that is something you seek in a movie, then this is the one for you. It’s also fun to spot locales like the Elgin Theatre and Hamilton City Hall in this Toronto-area production. Writer/director Guillermo del Toro, who is Mexican, calls Toronto home. 
 
The performances by Shannon, Oscar nominees Sally Hawkins, Richard Jenkins and Octavia Spencer are top notch. The story is, as I say, a fantastical step away from reality. But it’s the human connection that is the basis for this film and that stays with you, long after you’ve emptied the popcorn grebbles out of your bra. 
 
Have a gentle weekend – it’s a long one here in BC, which gets a jump start on the whole Family Day thing – but I’ll be back with a journal for you here on Monday.
 

I’ve been thinking a lot about a poor, very rich woman in New Hampshire. And, as always, I try to put myself in her shoes, which could be handmade by Christian Louboutin himself from now on, if she so chooses. In case you haven’t heard this woman’s story, here it is in a nutshell: Jane Doe (not her real name) won $560 million US in the recent giant Powerball lottery. And she’s fighting to remain anonymous, although that’s simply not allowed under lottery rules. Says right there in the fine print.
 
You see, there’s no point in having a multi-million dollar lottery if you can’t have photographers capturing its winner holding a giant fake cheque, while reporters take down details of this person’s former life and how they plan to spend said windfall. (Do you remember the smaller, subsidiary prize that Wintario gave away and called it a “winfall?” That’s messed with my head every time I want to say “windfall” instead ever since. Some 40 years later….)
 
Back to the Ballad of Jane Doe. She’s active in her New Hampshire community which, if it’s where the ticket was bought, is small with a population of 25,000. You know, one of those little places where most everyone knows everybody else – and their business.
 
If half of the town doesn’t already know she’s won, this woman’s a better secret keeper than most. But she’s afraid that now she’s signed her ticket (which is the first thing we’re all told to do) she has signed away her rights to anonymity. And unless she wins her bid to stay private, that is exactly the case. Lottery officials say that if they don’t publicize the winner, how do players know that there’s been one and that the whole thing’s legit? 
 
Some of the comments on her story have said, “She should have known this going in…” and I suppose that’s true. But does anyone ever read the fine print or think they’re actually going to win half a billion dollars and then do the mental steps that take them through how that’s going to ruin their lives? Because that is what this woman is afraid of. Her lawyers are even citing beautiful, bucolic New Hampshire’s opioid crisis as evidence that she could be targetted by criminals. 
 
They’re not making this up. More than one lottery winner has been murdered for money; one man, I want to say in Florida (I’ve been reading a lot of lottery stories this week), was shot dead in front of his wife and children by seven people who’d burst into his home. This, after he’d offered to give them his bank card.
 
And of course, it’s not just criminals. It’s the con artists. It’s the relatives who were “long lost” for a reason. It’s the people who play your guilty conscience like a violin and never let up. 
 
In a way, I feel for this woman, even though I never buy lottery tickets. For the longest time, I maintained that I’d already won the lottery, so why would I? I also had in mind the fact that if I won, everyone would know exactly where to find me and I’m an awfully easy touch when it comes to a sad story or even one of hope or love or…well, you get it. 
 
What would you do? You’ve won half a billion dollars and you’re about to be outed.
 
I think I’d buy several suites on that floating hotel cruise ship that I wrote about here when it visited Victoria last year. I’d pay for people I love to come and visit (“meet you in Singapore!”) and cruise with us. We’d have a nomadic life but a safe one – a good one. I’d write, I’d welcome family and friends to our floating paradise and start up a foundation to give away as much money as I pleased to the causes and people that mean the most to us.
 
I wish this woman luck. I mean, she’s already had more than her share; but has it been good luck, I wonder? Talk to you here tomorrow.
 

It used to be that if you wanted a clear path to a big movie award nomination, you should try to find a role in which you played a prostitute. “Play a Hooker, Win an Oscar,” as the New York Times put it back in the 1990s. For a while there, playing a nun would also be a very good career move. But now? Find yourself a really messed up mother role. Or at least, that’s the case this year.
 
In some kind of weird coincidence, the last three films Rob and I have gone to, in an effort to get caught up on the biggest nominees before the 90th Academy Awards on March 4th, have all featured the most bizarre sorts of mothers. I mean, most of us have mothers – or are mothers – with enough flaws to fill an hour on Dr. Phil. But these three characters are truly worthy of not just a couch, but a wing in a psychiatric facility. 
 
Here they are in order that we saw them: Frances McDormand’s tormented mother in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is profoundly angry and profanely expressive. Her daughter’s been murdered and mother is exasperated with the lack of progress in solving the case, but she has her own reasons to feel extremely guilty. For my money, Ms McDormand’s performance is out of this world. That’s the mean-but-means-well mom #1.
 
The second in this category is the character played by Laurie Metcalf in Lady Bird. She berates her teenaged daughter mercilessly. Is it love? Is it nastiness? Is she trying to protect her daughter from a world that is going to break her heart? 
 
When I was about ten years old I told my mother I wanted to be a singer. I remember exactly where we were – on a bridge in Trenton, Ontario in a blue Plymouth Valiant – when she matter of factly said, “There are a million girls out there better than you.”
 
Did it break my heart? Sure it did, at the time. Was she right? Absolutely. In her “take no prisoners” kind of way, my mother was saving me from going out there and failing. And maybe I have her to thank for me getting into radio instead, although she did ask, “Why would you want to do that?” Remembering that discussion makes me give Lady Bird’s mom a bit of slack. But just a bit. I do think she meant well.
 
Then there’s Tonya Harding’s mother in I, Tonya. There is only one scene in the movie where it appears LaVona Golden (played to perfection by Allison Janney) might have a heart somewhere in her smoke-filled chest and it turns out she was just trying to get something. LaVona Golden used not just her sharp tongue, but her hands (and even a knife) to make her points with her skating-crazy daughter. And there is absolutely no room for mercy in judging her, although the mother claimed that Tonya only responded to negative reinforcement.
 
There you have it: three very different characters, three films well worth seeing. We’ve put Three Billboards at the top of our ranking (although we’re seeing Shape of Water this week) for Best Picture. Of course, if Dunkirk could take all of the awards, I’d just have Christopher Nolan’s name on everything. That doesn’t seem to be the way things are leaning this year. Perhaps Winston Churchill needed a meaner mother.
 
I’ll be back with you here tomorrow.