Now I can be safe

Tim Bousquet, news editor at local weekly The Coast, points out the shortcomings of crosswalk safety public service announcements in his "Reality Bites" column this week:

Global TV is airing a pair of public service ads that purport to educate people on how to increase crosswalk safety. The ads, which are lame even by community PSA standards, tell us that there are two “teams” in the game of crossing the street---motorists and pedestrians. But both ads are aimed at only the pedestrian team, which is told to stay between the white lines and for some inexplicable reason to stick their hands out in front of them while crossing the street.

Our Halifax tax dollars have helped produce lots of other crosswalk safety videos, "produced by HRM Traffic and Right-of-Way Services [who knew?] and Global Television."

You can watch them here.

Unfortunately, the two PSAs Tim refers to are not on the page. And you can't embed the videos either (or I would, believe me). Also, confusingly, some are MPEGs and others are WMVs. All are equally inept and unintentionally funny.

But they did get me thinking about weighty topics. For instance, why is a video on why cyclists should wear their helmets considered a crosswalk safety announcement?

With supporters like me....

Got a letter from GM today. It thanks me for my "unwavering support in these unprecedented times."

And what have I done to to support the troubled company?

• I bought my first-ever American car (a Saturn) two years ago. Used. In a private sale.
• I got an extended warranty (which I did not purchase) transferred to me from the previous owner.
  
• I've never taken the car to the dealer to be serviced.

I am indeed one strong supporter. Thanks for the recognition GM!

More from Paul's Hall

Back in May, CBC Radio's Maritime Magazine aired my radio documentary Tobias Beale -- Taking Music Education Beyond School Walls. (You can listen to it here, or tune in to CBC again for a rebroadcast on August 30.)

One of the people featured in the doc was Emma Paul, a young (then 13, now 14), singer doing Summertime in rehearsal.

Emma's still going strong. Here she is sitting in with the Mitchell-Staples Quartet at Paul's (no relation) Hall.

NDP victory in Nova Scotia

The NDP has finally been elected in Nova Scotia, and with a substantial majority. They take 31 seats, while the Liberals climb to 11 and the Progressive Conservatives drop to 10.

Naturally, comment boards on sites like the Globe and Mail's are full of dire warnings for us foolhardy Nova Scotians. We are in for the kind of socialist hell that Ontario suffered through in the early 1990s.

According to these folks, I guess, every provincial New Democratic Party will be forever tainted by Bob Rae's government. Bob Rae, of course, is now a Liberal.

As I recall, most media had hysterics the moment Rae was elected. In order to demonstrate that he was not a crazed left-wing radical (see above: Bob Rae is now a Liberal), he brought in Rae Days -- unpaid days off for civil servants -- thereby pissing off both right and left and ensuring his defeat.

Are we to believe that every single NDP government from now to eternity will make the same tactical mistake?

The NDP were elected because Nova Scotians are fundamentally decent people, and Darrell Dexter is a fundamentally decent person who ran a fundamentally decent campaign.

I think that's what tipped the balance in a lot of rural ridings (including my own) that many thought would never vote NDP.

The Conservatives rolled out their scary attack ads, which didn't make clear (unless you read the tiny fine print on your TV) who had paid for them. Instead, they directed viewers to their risky NDP site. They ran misleading, nasty radio ads saying the NDP had accepted illegal campaign contributions from unions, and people saw through them. They claimed the NDP would be fiscally irresponsible, when they are the ones who lied about stimulus projects not going ahead if their government fell, and who tried to fudge the fact that they were going to ignore their own balanced budget law.

The Nova Scotia NDP are hardly socialist firebrands. Their promises were modest. Take HST (that's GST plust provincial tax to most of you in the rest of the country) off electricity. Keep seniors in their homes longer. Keep emergency rooms open. Develop a plan to encourage young people to stay here.

It worked. Good luck to them.

Newsroom follies

Here's how I was going to start this post:

"A developer in Charlottetown has jumped into the Nova Scotia election fray. With a new poll out showing that the NDP may be headed for a majority, Richard Homberg has warned Nova Scotians that they businesses may leave the province if they elect an NDP government."

Now Homburg's remarks, as reported on CBC Radio, were ridiculous. He said that he had left Winnipeg on principle after an NDP victory in Manitoba, but then added that his opinion was not political.

Turns out, though, he made the comments last fall. So they were reported, newscast after radio newscast, as the word of a successful (if out-of-province) businessman warning of harm to the economy if the NDP were elected -- just as that began to seem like a possibility for the first time.

What I want to know is, how do you make a mistake like this? Where did the tape of Homburg come from? It's obviously not like a reporter just went out and interviewed him. Somebody had to dig it up from somewhere.

A big-time screw-up.

Speaking of screw-ups, it was pretty amusing last week to listen to newscasts about the guilty plea of a teenage girl on a weapons charge. In newscasts on the hour she was 18; on the half-hour she was 17. Back and forth, back and forth, all day long.

Uncyclopedia

I just discovered Uncyclopedia (while doing research for a comic I'm writing).

Uncyclopedia calls itself "the content-free encyclopedia anyone can edit." I can't wait til it starts turning up in research papers by clueless students.

From the entry on Canada:

The vast majority of Canadians are actually invincible superheroes, invested with a variety of superpowers ranging from looking at TV or computer screens for entire weeks in winter to understanding the rules of hockey using telepathy and superhuman intelligence. For this reason, Canadians don't need any form of government or even a military, since every single guy next door can either stop bullets in mid-air or cut through buildings using energy blast from their eyes, but usually they end up playing video games on their computers most of the time since no nation is crazy enough to attack such an intimidating and powerful country as Canada.

40 is the new 20: The story behind the song

Guest post today from my friend Steven Morris, who co-wrote an original song for a feature film being released this weekend. Take it away Steven:

On May 29, the totally independent English-language Canadian feature 40 is the new 20 opens in Montreal (AMC Forum) and Toronto (AMC Yonge & Dundas 24). It's directed by Montrealer Simon Boisvert, with a cast including Claudia Ferri (Hard Core Logo, Mambo Italiano), Pat Mastroianni (Degrassi), Bruce Dinsmore (The Myth of the Male Orgasm) and newcomer Diana Lewis, who also produces.

Best of all (well, maybe not best), a song I co-wrote runs under the closing credits. Here's the story of how that happened.

My old friend André Potvin was on the crew for 40 is the new 20, and he kept telling me it was one of the best experiences he'd ever had, after years of working on cookie-cutter films made to feed cable TV.

André has an innate sense of taste. If he said it was a cool film it probably was. Then he dropped the bombshell.

“Steven, I told the director that you and I wrote a song for his end credits and that we would send him a demo.” Tip your hat to André because this bit of hubris was a blatant lie. But it did set a bright orange fire under our you-know-whats.

André and I had once played lots of music together. Two guitars (one blonde the other black), two voices and two rock and roll frames of mind. But a few years ago I had been forced to stop playing because of arthritis. The musical path we’d been on split and I spent time licking my wounds, singing with others and trying to learn different instruments.

This song project represented an opportunity for renewed collaboration. But there were a few problems: songs don’t grow on trees, the shit box digidesign/pro tools home studio I had purchased two years ago had to be figured out, and André and I had to re-learn our lost art of relating as musicians, and as human beings.

Potvin had put together a muscular, highly rhythmic chord progression and a good sketch of an arrangement. But when I asked him what his melody was he stared at me with bland expression which screamed out, “Heeelp meee!”

For six weeks it was a slugfest. I read Simon’s taut script twice, Potvin threw melodic line after line I came up with back in my face until he started coming up with some of his own. Finally, we unraveled the needlessly complex software and delivered the song.

And Simon bought it! That was nearly three months ago.

Being the neurotic I am that gave me plenty of time to doubt André's opinion of the shoot. I was convinced our music and names would be identified with something of unbridled absurdity. That I would have to learn to repeat the line, “Oh, that must be some other Steven Morris, I have never heard of André Potvin.”

Or reverse anxiety: The song we wrote was horrible and Simon didn't know any better. More than one person whose opinion I respect had said, “it is a pity to see you wasting your spare time on this song Morris.” My older brother referred to me as “a head case.”

Finally, the date came for the crew screening. After seeing the film, I beamed with pride. And for all involved, not just me and André.

It is not such an embarrassment to have cradled existential doubt. Just making a film is a miracle. Making a good film is an act of God. Some say magic is involved. Regardless, Simon Boisvert made a good film. And that ain’t easy. It takes lots of courage.

If you have ever been on a web site to meet people, or speed dating, or been invited by friends for dinner and – surprise – there is a single person of the opposite sex there. you will relate to this film. There are legions of us.

40 is the New 20 is a contemporary tale. The actors deliver. The story grabbed me.

Some will loathe it, others love it. Some will be indifferent. But this is a call for you to buy a ticket and respond. Morris, you need your head read, that film is a stinker. Morris, you were right, it hurt me too. Maurice, désolé, peux pas te dire si je suis pour ou contre, car je me suis endormi durant la projection.

Go all out, post a comment on the Facebook group I created called, “40 is the New 20-The Feature Film.”

Please go see it. Hit me with your best shot.