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Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Canada's Beacon of Culture
City of Angels and Assholes
Here are my friend Heather John and I at the SUPPORT THE CBC rally on Friday. I am doing my Galapagos tortoise imitation. There were 150 or so people there, many of them pensioners who had just come from the SAVE MEDICARE rally.
The CBC has been a stalwart supporter of my music and that of dozens of other songwriter and musician friends for years. They have recorded and interviewed us, played our songs across the country, helped us connect to audiences, sell CDs, and share stories.
They do more than any media outlet or cultural body in making sense of this country.
And forget my personal reasons for supporting them- they are simply the best news/arts/sports reporters in Canada, and in shows like The National and The Fifth Estate, they even engage in a practice long forgotten by mainstream media called 'investigative journalism'.
The CBC is where I first heard a radio documentary about Neil Stonechild's death, and was compelled to write 'One Shoe'.
There are a lot of knee jerk CBC haters in Calgary- A G.I. Joe look alike stopped traffic on Memorial Drive during the rally, and he was livid; "Get a fucking job!" he cried, because I guess he'd seen too many of his loved ones descend into joblessness after watching Hockey Night in Canada.
We are used to flagrantly right wing biased media in Calgary, so any objective news such as the CBC is considered a left wing, tax sucking arm of Big Government.
But let me piss off our enemies even more and say it is especially in times of economic crisis that we need a national voice that feeds our intellects and souls.
Because at that rally Friday, for every hateful doofus who hurled vitriol at the pensioners holding the Council of Canadians banner, there were a hundred cars that honked and hooted in support.
It made me feel…well…hopeful.
