Captain Dreyfus Goes to Aghanistan

Inside Television 512
Publication date: 7-30-10
By: Hubert O’Hearn

As irony is the outcome of coincidence, I would have say it was ironic that I was watching the news of the volcanic eruption of 90,000 leaked documents concerning the Afghan War at the same time as I was reviewing a novel called A Man in Uniform for bythebookreviews.blogspot.com. The subject of the book? The Dreyfus Affair.

For those who nodded off in history class, Captain Alfred Dreyfus was an artillery officer in the French Army in the 1890s. He was convicted of attempting to sell military secrets to Germany, was sent to Devil’s Island to be shackled and imprisoned.

As it turned out, the case against Dreyfus was false, evidence circumstantial or flat-out forged, and thanks to an eventual popular outrage spurred by the press - most notably Emile Zola’s famous letter ‘J’Accuse’ - Dreyfus was finally re-tried and freed. He returned to the Armya nd served with distinction through the end of World War One.

Why oh why is it that every schoolboy hears the phrase, ‘those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,’ but once the telling moments of adult life arrive, the lesson is completely forgotten? The Afghan revelations are the Dreyfus Affair brought back to life, minus the convenient scapegoat. So far. Heads will roll like melons on a conveyor belt.

At the crux of it is a military-governmental elite in the U.S., UK and even tidy old Canada that is as preternaturally disposed to cover-up or lying as a classroom of naughty little boys. Except naughty little boys fire rubber bands at little girls. Afghanistan involves six 2,000 pound bombs dropped on a village in an attempt to kill one man; who wasn’t there. Between 150 and 300 villagers were there. Emphasis on the past tense.

There used to be joking speculation that George W. Bush never really wanted to kill or capture bin Laden. To do so would be to eliminate the purported reason for the war and the war’s lucrative supply contracts. Now that we see documents showing that bin Laden’s movements and activities were well-tracked from 2003 to 2009, one seriously has to wonder if the paranoid were actually the sane, and the supposedly sane were the paranoids.

This sort of thing keeps happening throughout modern history and eventually one just wants to shut the drapes, lock the doors and cancel the newspapers. What frustrates to the point of tears is that the same pattern always repeats, like a snake shedding its skin only to reveal an identical skin. A misjudgement leads to criminal neglect leads to cover-up leads to revelation leads to embarrassment leads to counter-attack leads to scapegoat leads to nothing learned or at least nothing changed.

Because of space limitations, i can’t go one forever about this, but I invite the reader to take some time and look at Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers scandal of 1971; or the 1925 trial of General Billy Mitchell. Or in Canada’s case, we need only go back a few months to the reporting by Richard Colvin of the Canadian military illegally turning over prisoners to the Afghans. Colvin may not have been sent to Devil’s Island, but given the ferocity of the attacks waged against him by Tory ministers and various top brass during Question Period and televised hearings ... well, I’m sure the Prime Minister at least thought back on Dreyfus’ shackles and wistfully sang, ‘Those Were the Days.’

The saddest part of it is that deep down inside there has been a nagging voice in me that makes me think that the Afghan War actually was just. One cannot promote the causes of freedom and justice at home while looking abroad where those values are not enforced and say that these principles shall not apply over there because ‘you people are different.’ That is racism at its swinish worst. I suspect Christopher Hitchens, sadly battling cancer of esophagus, came to the same conclusions.

But the war is lost now. I think we all know that in our hearts. At the bluntest, were you an Afghan, would you trust us? The final word will go to the historian Garry Wills, who was invited along with several of his colleagues to have a private dinner with President Obama. Wills this week revealed his advice to the President. As he remembers in this week’s New York Review of Books:

I said that a government so corrupt and tribal and drug-based as Afghanistan’s could not be made stable. He replied that he was not naïve about the difficulties but he thought a realistic solution could be reached. I wanted to add “when pigs fly,” but restrained myself.

Keats had it partially wrong. Beauty may always be truth, but truth is not always beauty. Be seeing you.

(I look forward to your comments - and I welcome you to share this blog. And...clicking on ads does put food on the table. Cheers! - H)

 

Root Beer, Car Hops and Old Spice

after forced retirement, the Root Bear was reduced to begging

Inside Television 511
Publication Date: 7-23-10
By: Hubert O’Hearn

This is a story about two commercial campaigns I’ve grown to love as much as many as you. The first is the A&W campaign featured the rotund manager (whose real name I could not find anywhere) and the gawky employee Ryan (played by Ryan Beil). The ads have been running for years of course, but that made me curious. What makes these commercials work?

And they have worked. The latest trade figures I could find showed A&W (Canada) opening a pretty impressive 30 restaurants a week, having shifted focus away from a declining mall business into stand-alone restaurants. In some locations they are even bringing back car hops.

This of course is a fine idea, as anyone aged 40 or above will be happy to blather your ear off in confirming. For the younger reader, car hops were almost always teenage girls who came to your car window, took your order and delivered the goods. If you are in the car, she would come back to take your tray. The advantage for shy teenage boys was obvious. You were given the opportunity to chat three times to a cute teenage girl and where else was that opportunity going to come along? I remember having a massive crush on a car hop at the Arthur Street location in or around 1976 when I was 18. Remember her smile and the Dorothy Hamill-type blonde bob like it was yesterday. I still bear the scars. Not from the crush - from the acne brought on by over-consumption of Mama Burgers and Root Beer floats.

So the current campaign plays into the same nostalgia in that the restaurant is usually quiet, the service is personal and the music is soft. The sun always shines and summer is as endless as a Beach Boys tour. The interesting edge is that even though Ryan is about as competent as a German Shepherd left in charge of wallpapering the bedroom, the manager is always right there. The customer never suffers.

The second ad campaign - brilliant ... but really not doing what it’s supposed to do. I speak, as many have before me, of Old Spice Guy. The spots are brilliant. Interestingly, the rapid-paced ultra macho clipped as a cigar delivery was done as a prank by the actor, Isaiah Mustafa. Mustafa played a little ball in his day and called his old quarterback, Jake Plummer; ex-Bronco, current Bears disaster. Plummer wasn’t home so Mustafa read the script in that exaggerated way into the answering machine. Then he thought, “Hmmmmm...”

And holy sweet Matilda - I just looked at YouTube to check how many views Old Spice Guy has had since going viral in the last two weeks. He now responds to Tweets with videos. One video - just one of them - has over 10 million views.

So that must be leading to the sweet smell of success for Old Spice, right? Ehhhhhh, not quite. According to Brandweek, one of those anaesthetically boring trade publications, sales of Old Spice have declined 7% over the 52 weeks ending June 13th. The Old Spice Guy ads have been around since the Winter Olympics. If the ads were actually tugging people towards after-shave purchases, there should have been some positive signs by mid-June.

This in turn puts Old Spice into a vicious trap. They can’t very well kill a campaign this successful; for they shall be hated - torches lit, villagers enraged. It is a fascinating conundrum and one that I cannot find a parallel to in media history. Love the ad, hate the product to the point of buying less of it.

Then again - and come on now, you were thinking it too - have you ever actually smelled Old Spice? Be seeing you.

Sex, Power and Justice

No no, we want you to be blind NOT blind drunk.

Inside Television 510
Publication date: 7-16-10
By: Hubert O’Hearn

Power, sex and justice are three of the four basic themes that have driven human interest since the time human interest began. The fourth is money, if you’re interested. This week’s news coverage has been driven by two stories that involve all three. One is the dismissal of Candian Brigadier-General Daniel Menard for having consensual sex with Master-Corporal Bianka Langlois (and no, I’ve never seen that name spelt anything other than Bianca either). The second is a Swiss Court denying an extradition order filed by the United States seeking trial for film director Roman Polanski. the charges against Polanski are that he had sex with a thirteen year old girl in 1977. Polanski at the time was 44. This may have been a very good week for media, but it has been a very bad week for justice.

Let us deal first with the Menard case. His dismissal followed the filing of four counts against him, three of which involve section 129 of the National Defence Act (the NDA). Master-Corporal Langlois also faces a charge of being in violation of section 129. Let us look at that relevant section of the NDA:
Prejudicing good order or discipline
129. (1) Any act, conduct, disorder or neglect to the prejudice of good order and discipline is an offence and every person convicted thereof is liable to dismissal with disgrace from Her Majesty’s service or to less punishment.

In other words, break any code of behaviour set by the Department of National Defence and you face dishonourable discharge. Section 129 of the NDA is written that broadly, as you can clearly see. Therefore, 129 acts as a comfortable and very proper sounding ermine cloak within which to wrap the code of behaviour. Thou shalt not have sex with an officer or enlisted personnel under your command. To which I respond with my finest Edmund Burke rhetoric; Well, why the hell not?

The obvious stricture is about abuse of power. While power may have been an attracting element between Menard and Langlois - leave us face it, successful and powerful people tend to be more attractive than others who may look the same but aren’t powerful. The German gnome Henry Kissinger was even considered to be attractive when he was at his most powerful. There is  no counter-argument. So while power may have been present, was there abuse? I have seen no evidence to suggest its presence. And if there was abuse - ‘Have sex with me or else’ abuse - then why is there a charge against Langlois. For there to be abuse there must be a victim. Surely the Canadian Department of National Defence are not charging an admired and highly-ranked General like Menard on behalf of his abandoned wife? (Which is regrettable, but how many divorced men are there in the DND - I’d wager more than a few.) Is that not a matter for civil courts?

And finally on that subject - Dear God these people risk their lives every second they serve this nation’s purported goals in that quagmire of Empires, Afghanistan. Who else are they going to meet? Locals who may or may not be Taliban? I tend to think not.

As for Polanski, I remember that case very well. I was 19 at the time and a man who would become my email friend, the late Tom Snyder devoted I think three shows to the topic. What was nauseatingly remarkable then and remains so today was Polanski’s defence. Assuming the event actually happened, which I say to keep lawyers happy, the line that went out among Polanski’s supporters was based on two arguments. One, the girl looked and acted older than 13; and besides, she and her mother were a sort of harlotry-based family tag team available to grace the finest of parties with their wits and talents. And second, poor Roman Polanski. In 1969 his wife Sharon Tate had been killed by the Charles Manson gang in the grisliest and most notorious crime of a decade that had its fair share. The man is a victim and deserves our sympathy.

Let us destroy that second argument first. All men who suffer tragedy do not get a licence to become pedophiles. If celebrity gossip is anything to go by, this sickness of Polanski’s has carried on. The year before the charged incident, Polanski and the then 16 year old Nastassja Kinski had an openly romantic relationship which carried on for three years. The wonder is that he wasn’t charged with that as well. But you know, gosh darn it, its them Hollywood folks.

As for the first, there is not a thirteen year old girl in existence capable of making the rational decision to become a harlot or to have sex. That is why statutory rape laws exist. And to the American legal system’s credit it did finally file charges. For the Swiss courts to protect Polanski from extradition is an abrogation of justice.

Imagine if the case was twisted the other way. What if Polanski had raped a 13 year old girl in Switzerland, had fled to the United States and the American courts had refused extradition? You need to be about as perceptive as an anvil to imagine the shameful outcry that would be heard around Europe and Canada.

A fascinating week of news watching, but not one I can describe as a good week. Be seeing you.

Fear and Loathing at the Thunder Bay Blues Festival

Robert Johnson: probably not accepting engagements this year

...the good Lord, TBaytel and wireless services willing, I'll be posting live from the Blues Festival from about 4:45PM today. Feel free to bookmark and share with anyone you know who is attending the Festival. I have this weird goal of getting a "That was awesome" chant going.

Either that or "Coca-Cola"!

Later ...

H

Jimmy gets nervous this time of year...

UPDATE: 2:50PM:  Having just woken up from a pre-Festival nap, it is easy to see that the Blues Fest's dark side has once again raised its visage. Sacrifice. Ritual sacrifice. Every year a harmonica player is tossed into a smoldering pyre of old swag T-shirts, melted guitar picks, and possibly the horns of a stag deer in order to ensure exactly the kind of broiling sun and electraglide in blue skies that make one look to the horizon for Lawrence of Arabia to come riding over a sand dune on a camel. If the harmonica player lives - perfect weather. If he screams, partly cloudy. If he weeps, rain.
      Shocked? Horrified? Well, it is the Blues after all.




UPDATE: 5:15PM


FINALLY! Damn Tbaytel and their rumoured wireless capabilities. Anyway. We're in. The place is crawling with more police than in past years but I'm sure there's still trouble to be had if one tries hard enough ... What? ... I mean - thank Heavens for the security and clean living of Canada!

Crowd arriving steady trickle. No music yet. Will keep you posted - I hope.

Best news so far - free Nacho chips.

Better - Mark Potvin is on. Granted he's about as bluesy (in the classic, two packs of smokes and a guitar named Lucille sense) as Glenn Miller but ...why are the Thunder Bay bands always the 'curtain jerkers?'

UPDATE 7:57PM

Well that was awkward. You could tell something was up when the Community Auditorium's Bob Halvorsen did not have his usual happy smile on his usual happy face. And good reason. The announcement was made by Mark Potvin at 6:20PM that the second act of the opening evening of the 9th Annual Thunder Bay Blues Festival, Michael Burks could not make it across the border. Surely a tire issue. Who would ever think anything different? And it's not like this hasn't happened before, albeit infrequently. It was fortunate for Potvin that things worked out that way. His brand of quasi-Big Band blues was given the extended showcase it deserved rather than the usual curtain jerker spot reserved for Northwestern Ontario acts. And personally I've never found one hour to be quite enough time for an audience to settle in and discover a band's flow. The first evening represented a gathering of the clans as familiar faces were picked out, general foraging and grazing went on at the concession booths (Fox on the Run Beef on a Bun? Not only rhyme-worthy but tasty too). As always the weather cooperated with a gentle breeze breaking a heat that threatened to be intolerable. Then again, every one of the six Blues Festivals I have covered has had letter perfect weather. I suspect sacrifices are involved. I will investigate further and report back tomorrow. Saturday promises to be an extra-special day, beginning with my favourite of Thunder Bay Blues Bands - Slap Johnson and the Trowellers. They hit the stage at noon and  Blues Traveler wraps it up in the headline spot. But be prepared to be blown away by Ana Popovic at 6:15, my pick for the artist that will be the show-stopper of 2010. Be there - aloha! UPDATE: 11:29PM Closing Thoughts on the First Day It is pleasantly coincidental that a very soft Irish mist of a summer's night just started to fall, leaving just enough time for a non-straggling Blues Fest patron to make it to bus, car and home; or to have found a safe and welcoming tavern at which to enjoy the Blues Walk. Tomorrow we will look at the Blues Walk on this blog. Tonight would have been ... well, fours of sleep is good for most men on occasion but no good for any man on all occasions. Tomorrow will be time enough for that jam-packed joyful madness. hard at work ignoring cigarette by-laws amidst merry clouds of marijuana It has always struck me, ever since the Blues Walk began at almost all the north side clubs and bars, as a sort of weird prissiness on the Blues Fest's part that the latter chooses to ignore the former. The truth of it, as I understand it, is that as Fest and Walk have always had different promoters, the Festians have looked at the Walkurgers as somehow poaching on the Holy Land. For instance, I heard more than one person ask another  if Albert Cummings was playing after the Blues Fest closed and if so where? There was not a shred or hint of advertisement to be found anywhere on the Marina Park grounds to indicate the bookings of the private hospitality houses. This of course disregards the fact that those self-same businesses pay the taxes that go to renovate and hopefully not thoroughly muck up the stunning waterfront that God granted this area as a trade-off for winter, muskeg, flies and isolation. Yay water. Point being - and here we have evidence of the freedom of the blog as opposed to the newspaper - the Blues Festival needs to get its head out of its arse and realize that the Blues Walk makes the Blues Fest more attractive to ticket-buyers, not less. It's a perfect synergistic relationship to go from sun and sunset and rhapsody in pink outdoors to the tight rooms where all this Blues stuff was perfected in the first place. (You can't, or at least I can't put that thought in teh Chronicle-Journal. You put something in a newspaper, even a relatively mild criticism of an audaciously successful, well-run event and it becomes a political 'thing'. And I in no way want to hurt the Blues Festival.) I mentioned Albert Cummings. I also mentioned in an earlier posting that I liked the extended set. Well, the 41 year old guitarist and singer also got an extended set and he took full advantage. It was a brilliants et. To give you a sense of it, Cummings built to encores of Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll, followed by Cummings' take on Stevie Ray Vaughan's version of Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child. He let the energy drop in the last two minutes of the Hendrix number, which was a shame. The audience relaxed and therefore did not thunder him off the stage as they would have done ... two minutes previously. He impressed the hell out of me. And the way the audience perked for the two songs mentioned does make me wonder if Thunder Bay's secret desire is to have an outdoor rock concert of 5-6,000 per night with acts of equivalent marquee appeal to those offered by the Blues. However, Thunder Bay knows it can't afford twelve huge rock acts, so let's all love the Blues. Always wondered that. (Don't talk to me about the Dead Man's Tour at the  Fort or the Casino - those are breaks between shopping mall openings.) The headliner, Robert Randolph, was okay. If you liked his version of Prince meets Robert Johnson while Jesus plays bass, then you were really happy. Not my thing, but I applaud the execution. Which makes me sound like a Republican Governor. So on that note - Aloha! DAY TWO - Power Restored! 1:12PM Update It figures. I left the Blues Fest last night about 10:30PM. At 10:36 the power went out. But not to fear - a combination of Thunder Bay Hydro and the guts n' glory Auditorium crew put in a new transformer. Onwards. The Trowelers did their usual solid set in the curtain jerker spot and now is the intermission before Big walter Smith. Hoping to get an interview with Ana Popovic. And I highly recommend the Healthy Eating booth run by the George Jeffrey Children's Centre - so nice to have food that won't give you a heart attack! Speaking of ... beer time. Later! Updated: 2:52 PM (working model of tomorrow's column...) Blues Festival Saturday, July 10 2010 B y: Hubert O’Hearn The Thunder Bay Blues Festival had briefly threatened to become the Blues Festival Unplugged Festival when a transformer blew out at 10:38PM. Thanks to the hard work of a nine man crew pulled together by Thunder Bay Hydro and the assistance of the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium crack technicians, all systems were back up and running at 8:10AM Saturday. And Robert Randolph wasn’t all that great anyway. One of the wonderful benefits of the waterfront site is that many, many more than 15,000 ticketbuyers are entertained annually. One tends to forget about what a musician friend of mine fondly calls the ‘gate crashers’ - those who live and work in the surrounding area. The former lake bed that forms the hills of the former city of Port Arthur also makes for a giant concert bowl effect. And even allowing for the usual cranky letter that appears annually from Dennis the Menace’s neighbour harping on about those darn kids and their wackety-wackety music ... for a lot of people it is a blessing. I spent part of the afternoon sat in a lovely arbor in the back corner of the St. Joseph’s Hospital lot, with patients and staff enjoying the sound of Big Walter Smith rolling like a big warm wave up Red River Road. These patients are the people who have taken God’s best Sunday punch, been knocked down but don’t quit, don’t give up and will rise to fight again. They are the Blues in person and in wheelchair. And they happily send their thanks to all involved in giving them a little break from rehab to just sit back, relax and remind themselves of happy days to come. Update: 4:47 PM Joanne Shaw Taylor Musically, the day experienced a solid build from long-time festival favouritesThe Trowellers followed by Big Walter Smith. Then came the first big pleasant surprise of the weekend in the person of Joanne Shaw Taylor on guitar and vocals. As one experienced musician said to me, “Any one can play fast, but you really have the goods if you can play fast and still hear all the notes.” It was definitely a positive sign when other musicians and off-duty techs poked their way out of show trailers to catch Taylor’s set. UPDATE: 6:26PM Ana Popovic Following the latest travel glitch causing a last-second audible changing the booking order, the audience were treated - truly treated - by Ana Popovic. Here as last night, the change meant a longer set and more of a chance for both audience to understand and work with one another. Popovic is the Bomb. Being a bombshell too doesn’t hurt, but her skills bear analysis. It’s the unfortunate fate for every white female blues singer to be compared to Janis Joplin. It’s extraordinarily unfair, but Popovic can carry the test further than virtually anyone else. Her voice has Janis’s growl and howl but she also has an upper range with a slightly sweet, grrrrrl appeal to it. Given her Belgrade origins, I listened for any accent waver and picked up none. Popovic is as likely to have been born in Bethesda as Belgrade for all the difference it would have made. Saturday’s headliner was Blues Traveler, which explained the arrival of a packed audience even earlier than usual. And those who arrived early were treated by Joanne Shaw Talyor and Ana Popovic - acts of the Festival so far. And isn’t it nice that they’re both Eurpean women? Blues got legs. Aloha! UPDATE: Day Two Summary - 12:15 AM Sunday All Blues Festivals, indeed all festivals, indeed all great communal events become a narrative in some way in order to attain and retain memorable status. Today was an incredibly special day for me, and here again, this isn't a Chronicle piece - this is a blog piece. It meant so much to me last year, when I renewed my daily Blues Fest coverage in order for Kimberly to experience it. As I've written before, it was rotten timing that we met when I was coming off my peak in theatre and entertainment writing. So at least I could share the whole joy of the Blues Festival with her. This year, as I imagine readers know (if not, right click HERE.) Kimberly is recovering from a burst brain aneurysm suffered in February. Therefore, Amanda who is Kimberly's 21 year old daughter whom I truly love as my own for reasons which shall become obvious, got first dibs on my second VIP Pass. I think she discovered something she loves today. I'd mentioned that it would be a nice idea to bring along a camera. We'd send in any good shots to the newspaper and wouldn't it be cool if they ran one? Nice. Maybe get $25 out of the deal, or whatever the Chronicle paysfor freelance pictures. So the first shots were of my friend Hugh Hamilton's band The Trowelers. He'll like that description, by the way. But he hates being written about, so don't tell him. But the first photographs from the very nice Nikon camera she borrowed from her boyfriend Ty were taken from a respectful distance. There were a few. One I thought was particularly nice but you would categorize them as snapshots. Time goes on, bands come on. We've found the best spot on the whole grounds. A picnic bench behind the bushes under the trees stage right, very close to the VIP tent and its refreshments. It was lovely and cool on a skin blistering hot day. (Now forget I told you this - I don't need you horning in on my spot! But do visit.) And Hugh at with us and we looked over some shots Amanda had taken of Jimmy Thackery.. These were better and I showed her what angles I thought worked and what to avoid. Hugh - bless his dear, kind heart - told her she could go up in the tech tower and shoot from there. No telephoto lens however. Alas - but! - the encouragement for bravery was there. Our VIP passes were not All Access. We did not have backstage access. Well, after Amanda had first tested the waters by going through the gate into the immediate downstage area, she then figured, 'oh what the hell' and went right backstage. Where she successfully took shots of Ana Popovic, Jimmyu Thackery and others. And then - oh yes - these truly amusing older ladies we were sat with on the picnic bench - it came as quite a shock to the adult daughter of one of them that dear old Mom used to do mushrooms and freak out in the rose bushes that sat in front of the hospital in a small B.C. town - another of the not-so-extensively-personal ladies got a tip that the Stanley Cup had arrived and Patrick Sharpe of the Black Hawks was going to make a surprise visit with it on stage. Any. Minute. Now. News! Now Amanda's pumped. There was no time to call Sandy Krasowski from the paper either. We had no way of downloading the pictures to my laptop and emailing them to the Chronicle. Shit. Okay, I told Amanda, you take the shot, I'll get a hold of the night editor and we'll run down to the newspaper, give them the picture and bang there you are front page. Slam dunk picture right? The two biggest things happening in town on Saturday from a happy news point of view were the Cup and the Blues and here they are together for your enjoyment. Amanda does her end. By now she's fearless and also firing off the kind of rapid fire shots you need in order to grab the golden moment. She took not one or two, but 10 or 15 really plausible front page cover pictures. And I think I know a little bit about newspapers by now. I do my end. I finally track down someone at the paper at about 10:10PM - last minute but not after last minute - tell them that we have the pic, we'll be right there, open the door -(it was loud, I'm not positive who, so I won't risk being wrong and speculating on who said the following) - and the response is ... ... oh that's okay. We'll put a line in your column about it. Well, it was close to absolute deadline. And Amanda was undeterred in her ambition. But back to the beautiful bits. So I'd also mentioned, fairly early on, 'By the way, if you have any really good shots, send them to the bands. They do buy them.' While I went up to the hospital to visit dear Kimberly, Amanda worked the backstage area like a seasoned pro. By the end of it Bob Halvorsen was giving Amanda his card because Bob wanted a particular backstage shot of he, his daughter, Sharpe and the Stanley Cup, Ana Popovic wanted copies of her pictures and ... they all must have liked Amanda because there's also some nice snaps of Amanda smiling with the band taken by the bass player. Does the reader have the slightest inkling that as I write this I have tears in my eyes? Seeing my dear daughter get turned on by journalism - even if this is a five minute wonder (which I strongly doubt) - well ... I had the atom bomb of parental pride. Most of the readers I suspect are parents already and were from birth. So therefore, you've had those moments stretched out over years. Figure skating medals. School choir placement in the Festival. First dinner made. But when you've had the desire for such a moment to come along pent up inside like a thoroughbred left too long in the gate, when it then occurs it is a volcanic eruption of parental love and general glory in the fact that among mammals humans are one of the few that maintain social relationships with their children past adolescence. Look, I don't know if this is going to be a life-long great hobby for Amanda - doing local entertainment photography - or hey, maybe she's Annie Leibovitz v.2. Regardless, and even if every act tomorrow gets busted at the border, this has been my favourite Blues Festival. I'll post a link to the photos when I have one. She's got talent and she learned bloody quick. On another note, it occurs to me that this last update is exactly the proof of my point about modern journalism. Regardless of the bit about not running the picture, some version of the above is an example of the kind of journalism I think a local paper needs. Is that immodest? I guess it has to be. But I have back-up. 90% of the papers in Canada would not run that kind of experiential story. Make that 95%. The percentage would be a whisker higher in the U.S. But in the UK? What? Why are you asking? If It's not personal it's boring. I think The Walleye gets it. I was incredibly impressed by its first issue. It certainly beat the unholy hell out of any other entertainment tabloid in Thunder Bay's history. But I digress. as usual. More tomorrow and thanks for listening. P,S. Blues Traveler played a Charlie Daniels and a Cheap Trick song. But they did them very well! Onwards! Blues Fest Sunday 7-11-10 By: Hubert O’Hearn Because of an incredibly weak wifi signal at Marina Park mixed with intermittent showers, thsi column is being written in a (cough) porta-potty. Adversity as well as necessity are the mothers of invention. But, we have much to cover. Awards specifically - our traditional year-end gongs, trophies and plaques. All of them are imaginary, but that way the recipients can imagine them any way they want. Onwards! Entertainer of the Year - Candye Kane. What a delightful set she performed on Sunday afternoon. I'm specifically citing her as Entertainer of the Year because along with her massive voice and songwriting skills, she delivered an inspirational message that was fun. A survivor of many blows to her life - rough upbringing, divorce, cancer - she told the crowd to draw their strength from within, and have a helluva good time while doing it. Plus she played piano with her boobs. You play piano with your boobs, you get an award. Instrumentalist of the Year - Such a tough call, but I have to put Albert Cummings from Friday night in here somewhere and he absolutely tore up the place. All of a sudden no one cared about Michael Burks' 'travel difficulties.' Best Artist Promo - Nick Moss and the Flip Tops. Besides being an outstanding opening act for Sunday, Moss delivered a great promo introducing his song Tear it Down. He ripped the weird culture of North America in building up Michael Phelps, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus etc. to sky-high hype levels - then destroying them as soon as they slip up (or relax in Phelps' case). The Show Stopper Award - Ana Popovic. You mark my words, the Blues guitar and singing ace is going to be pone the biggest Blues acts in the world any minute now. Her guest number with Blues Traveler alone earns her the Show Stopper trophy. The 'I didn't know that was a Blues song' award - I want you to Want Me by Cheap Trick? Really? REALLY? Oh what the heck, Blues Traveler did a great job with it anyway. Food of the Year - Again,a close call given all the excellently prepared variety, but I'm going with the Simpson Meat and Deli hot sausages. As big as a billy club and perfectly spiced. Chief Wiggum Award - Our thanks go out to all police and security personnel for their rigid upholding of the laws against smoking, both cigarettes and marijuana. Praise be for such a clean venue, free of cancer and uncontrollable giggling. Man of the Year - I've written a lot about Bob Halvorsen of the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium over the years. Sometimes Bob likes what I write, and sometimes not. But the man is to be admired and I always have. He has real guts in his booking decisions and he's never been afraid to seek advice. Frankly, no one has done more for the entertainment industry in this city than Bob and someday I'd like to see Beverly Street renamed Halvorsen Way. What is the Halvorsen way? Guts, risk, professionalism and he always gives credit where it is due. I look forward to the unveiling of the statue (perhaps an Iwo Jima type sculpture - Bob in blue jeans surrounded by the tech crew). City of the Year - Thunder Bay. I was on the bus when out the side door could be seen a couple of older people huffing along, hauling along fold-up chairs. The bus driver stopped, asked if they were going to the Festival and they said yes. he told them to hop on. They were tourists and don't you think they're going to tell all their friends back home about this kind and helpful city? Two thumbs up Thunder Bay! And a final note. I want to thank everyone who made this particular Blues Fest so great because it made an old journalist proud to see our daughter Amanda become a professional photographer. This Festival will always be special to me for that. Aloha!

World Cup Notes

Inside Television 509
Publication date: 7-9-10
By: Hubert O’Hearn


As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my June and July television viewing has been consumed by the World Cup. At the time of writing, Holland had won its semi-final with Spain-Germany still to come. As my original prediction was Spain-Holland with the Spanish to win, I’m calling this a successful World Cup on a personal basis.

On a larger scale, I truly think it has been the best, most intriguing World Cup ever. It has had strange waves to it - the horrific crash-outs of traditional powers Italy, France and, er, England which at least thinks of itself as a power - the disappointment amidst outstanding play by the Africans - the early South American dominance - and finally the South American implosion. It leads to an all-European final which has never happened off European soil.

So the tournament as a whole has had intrigue. And for once, television didn’t ‘over cover’ the story. I think what finally drew me to footie away from hockey and baseball is that baseball has become horribly over-produced. Give me the batting average, home runs, ribbies and on-base-percentage if you desperately feel the need. But don’t tell me Roscoe Jockitch is 3 for 8 with two men on, two out and facing a righthander. For one thing, your survey sample is so small as to be insignificant, and for another you’re making baseball fans feel like they’re in the company of drooling pencilneck geeks. And is that really the company you want to keep?

In contrast, footie lets the images tell the story with even the play-by-play plan Steve Banyard keeping to the background. And the images have been outstanding, particularly in the use of ultra-high definition slow motion replay during lulls or on tackles. Anyone who thinks the game isn’t physical needs to watch. Imagine going for a three mile run (plausible for a midfielder) while people periodically chop at your ankles with their cleats. Things have been cleaned up since the days when Vinnie Jones or Roy Keane would cripple players for the loose reason of revenge, but the risk factor still remains.

There has also been - and there’s no other way of putting this - the ‘good side’ of racism at play. Entire squads have lived up to national stereotyping. England played like a bunch of old C. Aubrey Smith generals still fighting the current war with the tactics of the last. France utterly dissolved in an occasionally foul-mouthed display of a gigantic miff. Mexico showed all the potential of a great team yet somehow managed to fuddle it all up. The Dutch bicker like a locker room full of super-models, yet they play the way super-models look. And so on.

Finally - because one can’t go on forever about this, and with barely having touched the grotesque incompetence of much of the officiating (Frank Lampard’s non-goal and Carlos Tevez’s knack of invisibility to the linesman) and the nonsensical debate after the Uruguay-Ghana game that goals should count even though they don’t cross lines, which disregards the fact that the rules were properly enforced, Ghana had two chances to win anyway, and didn’t.

But - really finally this time - would anyone have ever bet the parlay that perhaps the three best strikers in the world - Lionel Messi, Fernando Torres and Wayne Rooney would score precisely no goals (up to the time of writing in Torres’ case)? And Miroslav Klose might be the greatest striker of all-time. Go figure. Be seeing you.