1:24 John Doyle:
Allan – I’m disappointed that CBC brass has reacted to comments about the new look and format by claiming that the criticism comes from “competing” news organizations. That’s ridiculous. This, mind you, from the CBC that made a content sharing arrangement with the National Post. CBC belongs to all of us and we are all entitled to a say on it, without being accused of bias.

(via) (more at Mondoville)

Instead I suggested 3 others: Joe Clark, Raymi, and regular Tea Makers contributor Allan. Tell me that team wouldn’t kick some major ass? Especially in the furry hat, Jimi Hendrix, and TTC Signage categories.

The team has been formed. I see Joe was passed over. So was Raymi. But Allan is there. To my surprise, so is Tod Maffin.

Now, regular readers of this blog may or may not know that Allan and Tod don’t always see eye to eye. It happens sometimes. But can these 2 bloggers put aside their differences long enough to outsmart the celebrity lookalikes?

Stay tuned. Taping is in January. Surely someone will blog about this?

And many of you might be wondering, what does Allan look like? And which one of the bloggers from the team photo is he?
Hint: he’s Chinese.

George: Thanks, Jian! So what are you up to right now?

Jian: My main focus is my show. Quite frankly that is something completely different on CBC radio, it’s got a big audience and I’m excited that what we’ve launched here seems to be really working. We do arts, entertainment and culture and it doesn’t do it in a bite-sized red carpet way and in the process I get to explore bands, artists, authors, actors and architecture in Canada and it’s a really great opportunity.

A good deal for you, although I don’t think Knowlton will be seeing any royalties from that sale.

Paul is reading signs in the TBC, midway into a week-long series of a sign-a-day blog postings. Where does he find these things?

Joe is reading children’s books, loving every minute of it, and slowly going insane.

Tod is looking for beef recipes that will clean his liver.

Me, I’m reading the latest issue of Monocle, Tyler Brûlé’s new venture and my new favourite magazine. No, you can’t read it online. Yes, it’s $12.50. Yes, it’s pretentious. Yes, it’s fantastic.

Joe is reading Canadian Television Today by Bart Beaty and Rebecca Sullivan, a book I never heard of, either. But it sounds pretty good. When Joe returns it to the library you can read it, too.

While Canadian TV commentators want a greater number of highbrow or middlebrow TV shows, which somehow suits their own self-images, those shows are really not very popular, and because of changes in CRTC rules, broadcasters have stopped making them. The cultural elite clamours for TV shows that nobody watches and nobody wants to make. (I wager they don’t watch them, either.) Yet, the authors state, there is very little discussion of the American TV shows shot in Canada, almost all of which are lowbrow.

The Canadian TV the elites want nobody else does. The elites never talk about the Canadian-made TV we do have. (I wonder, though: It’s OK for intellectuals to watch Battlestar Galactica, right? But never Stargate Atlantis.)

No comments at Joe’s, so you can comment here. I’d like to know what you’re reading, especially if it’s good.

Despite the heavy title, this is in no way intended to compete with Harry Potter.
Knowlton Nash has always been the best newsman I’ve ever encountered, so smart and decent, but I never thought of him as having a sense of humour.
Yet there it was on page 11 of his book “Trivia Pursuit”:

The premature adjudication of the sex accusations against Clinton made in early 1998 represented the most flagrant desertion of journalistic professionalism in recent memory.

He wrote that in late 1998 not knowing that deserters were soon going to outnumber the enlisted.
And this call for integrity and principles seems rather quaint and a bit clownish nowadays when the world is being handed to us “straight up” by George of The Hour and Peter, Prince of Dull.
I mention the great Mr. Nash because I was reading through his book today and did some premature adjudication myself recently.
I submitted a comment to Tod at insidecbc.ca and found it rejected, again.
And as usual, I have to try and figure out where I went wrong.
Tod has standards, don’t you know, and doesn’t permit anything he deems a personal attack to be seen in print, so when you read the comments you’re hardly getting the full picture.
It’s more like a blog of baloney.
But it was actually clear some time ago that Tod’s work had jumped the shark.
I was especially stunned when he censored himself after the fact by deleting a photograph as soon as Burman sprinkled holy water on the news out of Virginia Tech.
In this case, I not only implied that Tod was stupid, but also anyone who was even thinking of disagreeing with me.
Hence the premature adjudication.
Notice what a jokemiester I’ve become from just hanging out with Knowlton?
But I wrote my comment before reading his book, and here it is, for your eyes only.

It was exactly forty years ago that I worked at Sam The Record Man, after hitchhiking from Vancouver to Toronto.
Just passing through, so Sam asked for a reference and I got one for him from a friend, Jack Humphrey. Jack would later own King of Kensington, and I, later, would babysit his four children, including a little tyke named Paul..
I was a timid teen in those days, and record stores were the biggest cash cow of all time, with Sgt. Peppers and The Doors and Hendrix drawing in thousands of people to buy vinyl L.P.’s.
And it really was true that whatever music played on the speakers in the store, that’s what sold.
I wanted to work the floor, but a guy with long hair and a British accent already had that job, so I was sent to the basement, alone, to re-fill the plastic sleeves that were sent down as each record was sold. Sam’s was only the middle store in those days, narrow, but had three levels.
I remember being paid less than $5 an hour, and after a few weeks of having no money after rent and food, I asked for a raise.
Sam Sniderman was a brusque, hyper guy, the kind you usually see chewing a cigar.
He let me go on the spot.
But there were no hard feelings. He had, after all, given me a job in the first place, and it was his business and he could do whatever the hell he wanted.

I returned to Toronto again in the 80′s, and saw that Sam had expanded into the bank on the corner.
And that next to him was another record store with giant “A” & “A” letters dwarfing Sam’s sign.
They packed up after a few years, leaving Sam to continue raking it in.
When Much Music started, one of the first videos I saw was by Blue Peter, a group that consisted of four guys that included Paul Humphrey as lead vocal, and Jason Sniderman on keyboards. (watch Video Verite – INCREDIBLE!)
Last November, their old record label brought them together again for one night only, and I was able to put my arm around Paul once more. The band was incredibly tight and so good, even if the songs and melodies were a bit dated.
Tears welled up uncontrollably as I heard them play, and I thought, this would have made a great webcast.
Though it was being videotaped, the idiots responsible never posted it.

In the past few years, I worked downtown, and would pass by Sam’s and say to my friends and family, “take a look, it’s already a dinosaur” in this age of internet and downloads.
The store had been “funkified” over time, with lots of memorabilia, and a classy coffee bar counter was put in, but it bombed.
The store had also opened up a ton of smaller stores across the country. I visited the one on Danforth and at St. Clair and the one in Vancouver.
The were all dead in the water, with staff trying to find something to do to keep from going bananas in a job that looked cool from the outside but was sheer boredom and stupidity inside – “I’m looking for a song that goes Da Da DaDa, etc”.
Sam’s also jumped on the bandwagon of the internet and set up a hugely expensive site to sell Cd’s, just like the other chains did.
Big, costly mistake, that soon folded.
They sold software on the balcony level, along with video games. But it was too early for anyone to know what they were doing with that stuff, so it too, tanked.

Even I would start to buy my stuff at HMV, usually because it was a buck cheaper, or even over at Sunrise across the street.
Now I understand that Virgin is going to open up on the corner this year, and they’re big.
You could see Sam’s falling further and further behind.
I would go past and inside sometimes and try to think of what could be done to bring the store up to date and with-it.
Offer to convert music to your iPod? Do a live webcast from the store?
Nothing seemed like it could really generate revenue.

When it was announced that Sam was closing shop (Sam was long ago retired and had handed it over to his sons) I went by and asked if I could be escorted to the basement to see it one last time.
The answer was no.
What a bunch of friggen assholes.

I went back a week later, asked for the manager again, and this time was allowed downstairs, accompanied by a muscular black guy, who promptly gave me the grand tour.
In ten seconds I was in the basement, and couldn’t remember any of it.
A few adults were sitting and toiling at long wooden benches under a low ceiling, doing God knows what since the store was only weeks from closing.
You sensed these were the veterans, who never saw daylight.
I had been asked if I knew anyone in the store, but how could I, it was 40 years ago. But sure enough, one guy was there who had started 39 years ago!
My escort and I made our way underneath the bank part, where we encountered a sour little guy dressed in black with a black toque and looking like a garden gnome.
It was Jason.
I reached out and shook his limp hand and said “I worked for your father here forty years ago.”
He lost interest in me immediately, floated away, while saying “this place wasn’t here forty years ago”, as if I was lying and out of it, and he wasn’t.
“well, no, it was the other side” I was saying, as Jason stepped into a nearby doorway.
The black guy, who was now a friend, made a face and waved his hand across his throat, but I already knew it was time to go.
Out on the street, I’m talking to myself, “that no-talent, little prick. Good riddance.”
And then I realized that this guy has been sucking off the tit of the the profits from this store since the day he was born. That he went on lots of vacations with his rich dad that the other kids in school didn’t. That he never had to get a real job, and probably thought the little money-maker would just go on forever. And now, not knowing how to run a business, any business, it was all going away, and he didn’t have a clue what to do with the rest of his life.
Ain’t it a bitch, being a rich, spoiled kid who suddenly has to think, and never learned how because the old man looked after everything, and gave him everything, including the business.
He never had to work a day in his life.
No wonder the gnome looked so bored and lost and pissed off.
No wonder Sam’s is history.