My interview with Bruce Kirby

Bruce Kirby is a sailing legend. A former Montreal Star editor, he's designed more than 60 sailboats, including the Laser -- probably the world's most popular racing boat.

Kirby was here in St. Margaret's Bay (where I live, near Halifax) for the 2009 Nautel World Laser Championships last week. I interviewed him for a report I did on the event for CBC Radio One's Information Morning.

We talked about why the Laser is so popular, the rock star treatment Kirby (now 80) gets whenever he attends sailing events, and his current sailing activities. He struck me as a modest guy, still genuinely surprised by the success of the Laser.

I only got to use a tiny bit of the interview in my radio piece. You can listen to the rest here (it's an mp3 that runs about 7 minutes).

Back to the Westcliffe Diner

I first wrote about the Westcliffe Diner in the early days of this blog. (I spelled it "Westcliff" at the time, because that's what it says on the sign, but owners Beverly Griswold and Tyler Slaunwhite assure me that it is actually Westcliffe, with an "e".)

I recently wrote about the diner again, this time in the pages of the Canadian edition of Reader's Digest (unfortunately the story is not online, so I can't point you to a link). It was an interesting piece to write. Tyler is not a publicity hound. He started off refusing to speak to me, and I think he got a bit annoyed when I persisted in asking him if he would consider allowing me to interview him.

But eventually, after several research trips (all of which included a burger or fish and chips of course -- I over-researched a bit), I pulled out my notebook and started asking questions. And Tyler and Bev started answering. They showed the same generosity with me as they do when they are cooking and serving up meals.

As one person I interviewed said, so many businesses now seem friendly -- but it's a kind of fake friendly. That's definitely not what the Westcliffe is like.

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?

The day the greyhounds came to Musquodoboit Harbour

My 5-minute radio documentary on greyhound enthusiasts in the Maritimes is now online here.

Every few months, Greyhound Pets of Atlantic Canada arranges for a truckload of ex-racing dogs to come to the Maritimes where they will find new homes. Greyhound lovers call the day Hound Day, and they converge at GPAC founder Jeanette Reynolds' house in Musquodoboit Harbour, near Halifax, to meet the new dogs, and get them settled. And some of them will go home with new pets they have just met.

The documentary features a United Church minister with 9 greyhounds, an explanation of how to hold a greyhound's collar so the dog doesn't take off on you, and an interview with Jeanette, who has 5 greyhounds and 2 jack russells.

It doesn't feature any barking, since greyhounds are such quiet and easy-going dogs.

NovaLUG members speak

A month or so ago, I did a script and clip segment on LEGO enthusiasts for the local CBC Radio morning show, Information Morning. 

It featured three members of NovaLUG, the Nova Scotia LEGO users' group, discussing their LEGO obsession and showing off some of their creations. The clip features Owen Grace, a computer specialist whose passions are sailing and LEGO, and who is heavily into LEGO robotics, and Chris and Katherine Campagna, who talk about how LEGO has taken over their home. My thanks to them for being so generous with their time, and for showing me around the incredible display they built at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. 

Click here to listen.

Angels fizzle

A year or so ago, Halifax was roiled in controversy over the coming of the Guardian Angels.

There had been a couple of high-profile violent crimes downtown and on the Commons, including one in which an elderly lady was beaten with a table leg. (Her assailant, later convicted, was driven away by a squeegee punk who won a citation for bravery, but is nonetheless banned from squeegeeing under "safety" legislation.)

Mayor Peter Kelly went to New York and met with Curtis Sliwa, though he never endorsed the presence of the Angels. A local group was formed, a municipal councillor supported them, a Tae Kwon Do instructor set about training them, and otalk shows covered the story endlessly.

And now? The Angels are down to three or four members (depending on which report you read). But that's OK, according to one of their number whom I heard on CBC radio this morning. Things aren't all looking down, because they have a Facebook group and a website. 

Why am I not linking to the website? Well, if I could find it, I would link to it. The Facebook group links to the main Guardian Angels site. And a search for "Halifax" on that site leads only to what appear to be media stories on the group, archived on the Angels's site and reproduced in pdf format, most likely in violation of copyright.

Maybe some digital vigilantes should get on their case.

Jane and Mark's Kiva adventure

Back in December, I interviewed Jane Sladen and Mark Goodwin. They are a retired Halifax couple who are totally into Kiva. That's the micro-credit website that allows you to lend money (a minimum of $25) to entrepreneurs in the developing world.

Jane and Mark each head a lending team. Jane's is Crazy Canucks and Mark's is Animal Lovers. Both are in the top 20 worldwide. They were an interesting pair. Mark is retired from the Customs and Border Services drug team, and is a self-confessed Internet addict (he spends about eight hours a day online). Jane is more of a pure Kiva addict. She heard about the site on Oprah, and it changed her life.

Click here to listen to my conversation about Jane and Mark, with Don Connolly of CBC Radio's Information morning.

Precious, precious coffee

I was doing some work at CBC Radion last week (I'm working on a couple of short little documentaries for the local morning show), and I wanted a cup of coffee. There's a machine in the building, a Tim Horton's a couple of blocks away, and a place called The Smiling Goat Espresso Bar just down the street.

Now, I like good coffee. I buy fair trade and organic, I will very rarely hit Tim's, and I've patronized local coffee/espresso joints for years. (And I don't think I have ever ordered anything from Starbuck's. A few years ago, in Toronto, I wandered past one Starbucks after another, looking for an independent coffee shop. Finally, I gave up, found a decent pub and had a beer instead.)

So my choice was pretty easy: The Smiling Goat. I was ready for a good cup of coffee, and I was ready to pay more than I should. I was not ready for the most precious coffee experience of my life: the guy behind the counter clearly didn't style himself a coffee slinger or a barista. He was more like a coffee sommelier.

I ordered the Sumatra, frseh-brewed for me, in a single cup, while I heard all about the qualities of the coffee -- how it would improve in flavour as it cooled, the richness of its notes, and on and on and on. I was complimented on not taking milk and sugar, and by then I was ready to head to the Tim's, or to scream "Just give me goddamned cup of the cheapest coffee you've got!"

Please. Let's enjoy good coffee without bringing the worst cliches of snooty French waiterdom into it. If you want to share the experience without heading to the shop itself, there's always their website.

How to get on the judge's good side

Sheriff’s deputies dragged a 40-year-old homeless man out of a Halifax courtroom Friday afternoon after he dropped his pants and invited the judge to perform oral sex on him.

Joel David Arseneau... was being arraigned before provincial court Judge Barbara Beach on two charges of breaching probation on court orders when he let his pants fall to the floor, displaying his underwear.

As a pair of deputies were taking Mr. Arseneau downstairs to the holding cells, they received word that Judge Beach was prepared to proceed with the arraignment as long as the accused was willing to keep his pants up.

Link.

You're welcome

I got a good reminder today of why I gave up trying to write for daily newspapers ages ago. The Montreal Gazette was good for my confidence when I was starting out as a freelance writer, picking up a few of my stories. The pay was not great, and I wound up joining a group suing the paper for re-selling our stories online without permission (court date coming up at the end of February), but it was a good way to get a freelance career underway.

As the writer of the a kids' comic ("Daisy Dreamer" for Chickadee magazine) I was visiting a rural school last week, talking to kids about comics writing. At the end of the day I got to chatting with the principal. Turns out he is a top-level table tennis official. He worked the Barcelona Olympics and was about to leave for China to help train officials for Beijing.

Since the guy was leaving town soon, I figured I'd do a quick pitch to a local Halifax paper. Called the newsroom, where warning bell #1 should have rung: the woman who answers the phone told me the newsroom never pays for freelance submissions. But she gives me the name of another editor who does pay for them. I email him a query.

Monday, I follow up with a phone call.

Tuesday morning, I hear from the editor that he has passed the query on to editor #2. Then I hear from my source that he's been interviewed by the paper.

Nice.

Editor #2 claims he didn't know it was a freelance pitch, so he assigned the story to a staffer. Says there was some miscommunication. I believe him, because, you know, I tend to believe people. Even if he had known it was a freelance pitch, mind you, his section never buys freelance stories anyway.

I used to hear stories like this from other freelance writers, and I'd think "Why are you pitching these jerkwater papers that are going to pay you 50 bucks for your story?"

I should have asked myself the same question.

Santa probably trains his staff better

Empire Theatres in Halifax have a great idea to bring more people into a downtown cinema on Sunday afternoon. It goes by the cloying name of Santa Cinema: a different Christmas-themed movie every Sunday at 3PM.

So we head down to the cinema to see Miracle on 34th Street. We hoped it would be the original, but it turned out to be the remake.

There's a poster at the theatre entrance stating the adult and child prices of tickets to the Christmas movies. It also says admission includes popcorn and a drink.

There's nobody at the box office when we arrive -- promising -- but a kid turns up soon after. We ask for two adult, one youth, and two child tickets. There are no youth tickets anymore he says. I ask what age child covers. He says there are no child tickets any more, just adult tickets (Merry Christmas kiddies!). I point out that the poster at the front of the theatre gives a price for child tickets. He says OK. I ask what age child goes up to (we have a 13-year-old -- will he be a child or an adult?). He says, "three to seven, I guess."

He then sells us our tickets. I ask about the included concessions. He doesn't know anything about that and calls off-screen (I was starting to feel like I was in a bad movie myself" to Ian, the manager. He turns up, says, "Do you know how to sell Santa Cinema tickets?" The kid and I both say "No" at the same time, and the manager proceeds to train him on the spot, as the line behind us gets longer.

"Three to seven I guess." I loved that. If you don't know the answer, make it up, in as unconvincing a way as possible.

After the show was over -- yes, it was the remake, but it was fun -- the kids decide to hit the arcade. The change machine would not accept the paper money it was supposed to. The "In the Groove" dance game was broken. The claw ate the tokens put into it. The air hockey jets were so weak that the puck kept getting stuck mid-table.

All this to the soundtrack of a broken machine, endlessly repeating (in a sing-song): "Prize error, prize error, please call attendant.... Prize error, prize error, please call attendant..."

To the hospital!

Hospital staff in Halifax are complaining about students from nearby Citadel High invading their cafeteria at lunch time.

School cafeteria food has a terrible reputation -- but who knew it was so bad that kids would rather sample the epicurean delights of a hospital instead?

C'est une question de feeling

For some reason, public figures in Halifax are flagellating the media and citizens for the cancellation of the Céline Dion concert originally scheduled for August 23.

I am truly baffled.

Here is the story. The city was negotiating to bring a major act to the Halifax Common. On the eve of a major announcement, the Céline people jumped the gun and posted an August 23 Halifax date online. So they announced the concert prior to its official announcement.

Haligonians were not, ahem, unanimous in rushing to greet Céline. A couple of days later, René Angelil, Céline's husband and manager, said they were pulling out of the Halifax date. He elaborated in a phone call, saying, ""There’s no business decision, it’s a question of feeling." Apparently people said nasty things about his wife on phone-in shows and Web forums (can you imagine?) So he cancelled.

As a result, people in Halifax have been beating themselves up for being bush league.

Are they nuts? We are talking about one of the top-selling female artists of all time (how that happened is beyond me) and she -- or rather, her husband, because he says Céline has not seen any of the criticism, since it is his job to protect her from it -- can't take barbs from radio phone-in shows and Web forums? Oh, and from a columnist from the Halifax Daily News, who spent most of his column welcoming the show, but made the dreadful mistake of being critical in his opening paragraph.

Instead of chastising us for making it difficult to bring future acts to Halifax, the city ought to be talking lawsuit against Angelil.

All of this has had one positive effect. David Rodehniser, the columnist who scared the pants off Angelil, has produced a hilarious column today.

Hooray! Ozzy Osbourne is apparently coming to Halifax next January. This will be the best concert in the city's history - equalled only by all the previous concerts in Halifax's history, which were all equally amazing in their own unique and artistically diverse ways.

Just in case Sharon Osbourne is clipping newspapers from around the globe to see what people are writing about Ozzy, I want the record to show that I fully, 110 per cent, endorse this concert. It should definitely go ahead and local fans will certainly buy out every seat.

The Halifax Metro Centre is the perfect venue for Ozzy to play, although if he changes his mind and wants to rock the Halifax Common, there is no doubt that his fans would stand outside in a raging snowstorm to see him perform. He could call it the Blizzard of Ozz, like his quadruple-platinum 1980 album, which yielded such classics as the blistering Crazy Train and the heartfelt ballad Goodbye to Romance.

Read the rest of it here.

No less lame

Celine Dion has cancelled her Halifax date. If the city had cancelled, I might consider us slightly less lame.

Lame, lame lame

Halifax has been abuzz. A big concert is going to be announced for the Halifax Common next summer. A couple of years ago it was the Rolling Stones, and now various names were being tossed around: U2, the Eagles, AC/DC, Red Hot Chili Peppers.

You can see the trend here: big names, past their prime, but top-of-the-line in terms of of draw (and ticket prices).

So who are we getting? Well, early reports are indicating it will be... Celine Dion. Please. Can this town get any lamer?

Reader's Digest courtesy testing

The November 2007 issue of the Canadian edition of Reader's Digest has a cover story on courtesy in cities across the Canada.

I was one of the researchers who worked on the story, spending a couple of days with one of the magazines editors walking through doors, dropping papers on the ground and buying small items in shops. The point was to see if people would hold the doors, help pick up the papers, and thank us for our purchases. The cities I worked in were St. John's and Halifax.

The first few times I had to look like a goof by scattering a sheaf of papers, I felt pretty self-conscious. But eventually I got used to it -- and even began to have fun.

The magazine has put some behind-the-scenes stuff on their website, as well as this video from Halifax. (I'm the one in the black jacket dropping papers in front of the city's main library.)

One of the interesting things about working on this project was seeing how everyone came up with an excuse for why they hadn't been courteous, often beginning with "I usually am." I actually quite liked the young guy with the backpack who failed to help me. Even though he made excuses, he'd started off by saying, "Oh, I'm an ass!" Then he told us he was from Montreal.

Is poison bad for you too?

There is a story in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald this morning that's not silly -- it's about the pollutants that get spewed into the atmosphere when artillery is fired.

But the headline is a classic:

Beware: Artillery may be harmful

Ouch!

Jen Alexander, a 32-year-old Halifax woman, has just swum the Northumberland strait twice -- from New Brunswick to PEI and back, non-stop. It took almost 20 hours.

What leaves me especially in awe is not just that she could do it in relatively chilly water, or that she has Type 1 diabetes and swam with a waterproof insulin pump, but that she could keep driving forward through all the jellyfish. She estimates she was stung 60 to 80 times.

Makes me feel like a wimp for having stayed out of the water at Basin Head a couple of weeks ago after watching the jellyfish float downstream from the tidal river towards the beach.

Why doesn't he just become a real reflexologist?

A Halifax man has been arrested for pretending to be a reflexologist and massaging women's feet.

Halifax Regional Police arrested Michael James Fells, 24, on Barrington Street on Monday. He is charged with four counts of assault and one count each of sexual assault and unlawfully being in a dwelling house.

Police said a man massaged three women’s feet under false pretences within the past month in the Brunswick Street area.

Full story, by Davene Jeffrey of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, here.

Kiss vs Planet of the Apes

Some very fun artwork here for "the greatest film/book/comic never (yet) made!" The idea comes from Mike Drake of Strange Adventures.

I hope someone is working on a development deal.

Share the Road

It always gets me when public responsibilities become shifted to individuals. Here's an example.

Andy Riga blogged yesterday and today about his experiences riding a bike in downtown Montreal. The situation is maybe marginally better in Halifax, though Montreal has the better bike paths.

I quit riding my bike to work in Montreal after a car door threw me into the middle of Decarie Blvd at rush hour one afternoon. I loved riding, but I didn’t love nearly being killed.

In Halifax we have a bike path down the St. Margaret’s Bay Road, right as you enter the Halifax Peninsula, that is tiny, narrow and poorly marked. It ends suddenly (for no apparent reason), and the road carries on. The bike path’s terminus is marked by a sign showing a cyclist and a car, and bearing the slogan “Share the road.” Yeah, well it would be a whole lot easier to share it if there were a bike path.

Instead of the municipality taking some responsibility for actually building decent paths for cyclists, they do basically nothing. But drivers and cyclists are asked to "share the road." That's right kids. And if we all hold hands and smile, the world will be a much nicer place too.