4 Reasons we should Re-Invest in The CBC

Canadian media has a long and storied history of preserving tradition and promoting our image as a culturally diverse and pluralistic country. Central to our media outlets is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) or ‘Radio-Canada’, our national public radio and television broadcaster. Within the many branches of CBC there exist authentic Canadian voices with the capacity to embrace the true spirit of what it is to live in such a beautiful and eclectic country.

We can only assume he watches Last Man Standing

Last spring, amongst a slew of federal budget cuts to the public sector, the CBC announced its plans to cut hundreds of jobs, cancel certain programs and ‘make less Canadian content’ to rake in promotional money from big-name international shows as a strategy to fill the endless void in funding. This article is an argument against the de-Canadianisation of Canadian public media, citing four people who reinforce why it is imperative to re-invest in CBC. In the meantime, we’d like to thank the Harper Government for its senseless budget slashing comparable to the killing of Mrs.Voorhees scene in Friday the 13^th.   

1) Stewart McLean/The Vinyl Cafe

Radio has felt the pangs of hyper-technological advancement harder than most other types of medium and many argue it was the last great imagination-inspiring machine. As the age of the radio slowly died, other, more instantly gratifying types of entertainment took its place and shoved many an old table-top wooden dial-turner into the darkness of forever storage. The days of mass gatherings and listening to late night ghost stories on a simple transistor hooked up to a speaker have past, and with it a very specific skill of radio story telling come dangerously close to extinction.

It would be hard to tell this to Stewart McLean, creator and host of the poplar CBC radio show ‘The Vinyl Cafe’. Though McLean is described as a ‘humorist story-teller’, I’d liken him to be more of a humble prophet, if only for his simple yet profound ability to engage with his listeners on many levels. His stories range from fictional shorts to true accounts of quintessentially Canadian experiences, both from his own background travelling the country and from locals who share with him. McLean has also successfully publish 13 books from his Vinyl Cafe material and won numerous awards in teaching, research, humor and writing.  His efforts to revive the art of storytelling within popular media have gained the interest of thousands of Canadians, young and old, and have given a voice to hundreds of others.

*For airtimes and where to go to stream The Vinyl Cafe Live go here.

2) Grant Lawrence/The Wild Side

I have written about Grant Lawrence’s witty and inspiring book Adventures in Solitude: What not to Wear to a Nude Potlock and Other Stories from Desolation Sound here, but couldn’t create a list of CBC’s best without including his most recent work, ‘The Wild Side’. Bouncing off of his best selling sophomore novel, Lawrence went on to host this collection of stories from Canada’s great outdoors that was aired on CBC Radio1 in summer 2012. All ten episodes recount true stories of Canadians who have ventured into the wilderness and received more than they bargained for.

Any person who can’t help but roam off the city grid when the call of Mother Nature beckons will have a story of when things got too close for comfort. Lawrence seems to celebrate our dangerous encounters in the wild by finding those stories of adventure and adrenaline when we’re face-to-face with unpredictable circumstances. Whether it’s the guy who punched a polar bear straight in the face to escape certain death or the tale of the explorers who found themselves lost for five days inside a freak Manitoba snowstorm, Lawrence always delivers with bonafide Canadian adventures guaranteed to keep your attention.

*Listen to all ten episodes of The Wild Side here.

3) Jian Ghomeshi/QTV

Writer, musician, producer, broadcaster – Jian Ghomeshi has done it all and amassed a rapidly growing number of CBC-related works, not to mention a fair amount of media outside of this company as a drummer, journalist and author. Ghomeshi has been widely accredited as being one of the most talented and influential interviewers at CBC and continues to receive record-breaking audiences during each of his broadcasts.

Although Ghomeshi has interviewed some of the most popular mainstream artists and actors from around the world, it is his ability to pull out larger cultural themes during these sessions that has gained him considerable notoriety. His current and most popular show, Q with Jian Ghomeshi , is a virtual magazine that explores popular arts and alternative media with some of the most notable personalities in the biz. Ghomeshi and company have a knack for dealing with the most innovative and culture-bending ideas to keep their listeners active and engaged.

*For audio, video and podcast episodes of QTV go here.

4) Rick Mercer/The Mercer Report

Another CBC giant best known for his political incorrectness is Rick Mercer. Style, class, humor and quirkiness make The Mercer Report a dangerously addictive weekly dose of Canadian. Known for his progressive and no-bullshit skits and rants, Mercer effectively shoves Canadian political and social issues to the forefront – perhaps while throwing in a few laughs, too. Mercer is also a recent author with his newest book ‘a nation worth ranting about’; a collection of classic Mercer rants with a few personal insights from over the years as a co-creator and actor on This Hour has 22 Minutes, Made in Canada and Talking to Americans.

Along with the big-name politicians and actors he interviews on his show, Mercer always promotes small-scale events while touring around to small-town Canada for very unique experiences like trying Salmon Snorkelling in Campbell River, B.C or attending the Trapper’s Festival in The Pas, Manitoba. Because of his diversity and pure outreach capabilities, you can always expect something new and funny on every episode of The Mercer Report.

*The Mercer Report videos can be watched here.

One Year Blog-iversary!

November 2012 marks a first milestone for Lost and Found: the all-important one year anniversary. Yep, as of this point in time, I have been an active ‘blogger’ for longer than Kim Campbell served as Canada’s 19^th Prime Minister. This is a dually noted event as, apparently, more and more people seem to adopt a blog faster than Angelina Jolie adopts African children. Ironically, a vast majority of this group don’t keep their blogs active because image mattered more than investment......kinda like Angelina Jolie when she adopts African children.

Today, with an estimated 31 million + bloggers in the US and Canada alone, the blog has become one of the biggest social media tools on the web. Unfortunately, 65% of all blogs created will become dormant within a year of their creation - the third highest impotent thing ever (behind smokers and males over 30). Add to that list another list of blogs that shouldn’t exist and you get both a sentence that rhymes really well and another pile of worthless crap that clogs the internet.

I have come to learn that the sustainability of a blog has to do with its manager’s ability to commit to the project and become impassioned by it. Alternative media is now on everyone’s doorstep – finding your place within it can be more like trying to find a parking spot at Edmonton Mall. And it’s Saturday afternoon. And you’re driving a semi-truck. And there’s a dying baby in the passenger seat.

In lieu of my success at staying afloat for a whole year I will theme the next few posts on Canadian media and its significance to a 24 year old pathetically trying to loosely grasp hold of something inside the vast ocean of bloggers everywhere. I hope you can sift through my self-deprecation and find something meaningful.

Safe travels,

Aaron Turpin 

Innovation vs. Transformation at YorkU's Change Academy

Behind the mighty closed doors of York University’s faculty and administration exists groups of professional adults attempting to understand what university students actually do. The results are, predictably, hilariously out of touch with the realities of young people everywhere as I’ve come to learn over time and through many interactions with university professionals. My double-edged perspective as both student and staff allows me to mediate and close the dark chasm between a rigid university and its tuition-paying disciples, but sometimes that gap in communication looks more like the Grand Canyon of dead space with mindlessly bewildered staff on one end and hopelessly lost students on the other. 

I came into the Change Academy a skeptical martyr who had been caught floating in a directionless vacuum of student/staff relations before and was expecting the two day conference to morph into another never-ending cheerleading session for York. Instead, I was thrown into a team that not only acknowledged its limitations but shared my frustrations of operating in a system that prevented institutional transformation. Once I realised we were on the same page, I started to open up a little, and in turn learned substantially.

Let’s back track a titch here. Last summer, I was offered a spot to attend an invite-only conference at York University entitled the ‘Change Academy’. While I was not given any depth or context to the event, I willingly obliged thinking that it was, if anything, another opportunity to network amongst skilled professionals (and enjoy two days of free catered meals). The project team that asked me to be a part of this process is designing a ‘Virtual Learning Commons’; a set of online learning modules freely accessible to all students and staff and geared for helping students easily access information on foundational learning skills for success. I was familiar with this group through my work, and, honestly, because they were paying me to go....I went.

That said, my expectations amounted to what happens after Stephen Harper promises to keep Millennium Development Goals. What I found immediately entertaining, though, was my position as the only student in a team of seven project leaders and the opportunity to disrupt the process to add a little student-based criticism. While the idea of a Virtual Learning Commons is highly innovative (or at least innovative enough to be chosen for a summit of ‘York’s most transformative projects’), it is only as effective as its ability to be adopted into the university community. My job at the Change Academy, because I believe in VLC, was to find the best way of doing so and communicate that to the people in charge.

Perhaps less expected was the outright transparency my team had when discussing their struggles and inter-organizational issues. I had, like never before, become witness to the problems and stresses of university staff who are driving change. Their tensions fascinated me and substantially added to my doubled-pronged approach when helping students as both a student leader and staff member. There is always more than one side of change, and if I am to grow in my position for as long as I may be here I have to start paying more attention to what happens behind the surface or Canada’s second largest (and lowest ranking) university. There’s nowhere to go but up.

 Safe Travels,

Aaron Turpin

The Dirty and Untold Realities of Charitable Fundraising

            It is projected that within the next two years over 100,000 non-profit organizations and charities worldwide will fail and cease to exist completely. If that statistic makes you poop yourself a little, it’s because you need to work on controlling your bowels. Otherwise, it’s kind of really terrifying to understand just how many organizations like PARC are going under because of administrational issues. Not surprisingly, the main cause of this trend has to do with the lifeblood of any organization: funding.

            With public-sector financial support rapidly dwindling in Canada and budget cuts galore, the world of sustainability within charities is quickly transforming into a tumultuous sea of tidal challenges and rogue waves ready give your little non-profit and swift and deadly anemia. A tangled bureaucracy full of roadblocks that prevent access to effective fundraising methods can strangle the flow of capital that sustains the work of charitable collectives, preventing the scaling out of these initiatives. Big-name foundations seem to be the only organizations with access to these tools and outsource fundraising, hiring private groups to do the tough stuff on their behalf. I was once a part of this end of the scale, working as a professional fundraiser for a company that shall remain unnamed, and saw the dirty deeds incorporated into the realities of big-name charitable fundraisers. Get this:

1) Fundraising is a stressful, highly competitive and highly pressurizing job.

            So you want to be a professional fundraiser? Interested in raising money for an organization that does ‘good things’? Cool, prepare to rip out every hair in your body.

            Some fundraising organizations proclaim that you will work in a ‘low-pressure’ environment that is ‘not quota-based’ and allows you to ‘be yourself’ while doing your job. I call shenanigans.  Because large charities sign contracts with fundraisers to match a certain monetary goal by an exact deadline, the people who are actually involved with finding the money must meet a daily amount to ensure the company is staying on target. Where I worked, multiple failures to meet that goal put you on probation and/or had you fired. In fact, most new employees didn’t even make it past the first week before either giving up to the pressure or being laid off because they struggled with performance. I found it a minor miracle that I survived three months.

            At the end of the day, big, highly bureaucratized charities aren’t concerned about the well-being of the people who fundraise, which leads to some of the largest turnover in staff and the inability to work on the capacities of those involved.

2) Fundraising is expensive.

            Charities with extra capital to throw around aren’t too common these days. It takes a massive administration with loads of dependable financial support to be able to afford a fundraising organization. Here’s why:

            You are essentially hiring a private, for-profit company to do your fundraising. While you will see the money you invest return with significant inflation in the form of fundraising dollars, it still takes a serious amount to buy into this process. This is why you don’t see street fundraisers in Toronto collecting for organizations like PARC or SKETCH. It just costs too damn much.

            The inaccessibility woven into a system like this is just another reason why the flow of fundraising money is extremely uneven and thrown into massive foundations instead of going to support the community-based little guy.

3) Fundraising is a Business.

            However insurmountable the overhead costs of fundraising with the big guys may be, it’s the complicated system of ‘donorship’ that seals the coffin. Running a charity is a lot like operating a business, and the dismal amount of resources available to a grass-roots organization just don’t add up when competing with a foundation worth millions. Growing your little ‘save the bunny rabbits’ initiative can be hard when it’s being constantly smothered by other powerful animal rights groups who don’t properly reach out when dealing with smaller care providers.

            The misallocation of resources between the big business of dominant charities and smaller, community based factions equates to inadequate support on the lower end. When a small group needs help with raising money, the bureaucracy of their goliath counterparts effectively prevents access to the right tools for the job.

4) Fundraising can be Different.

            Big-name charities aren’t always life-sucking evil mobs as I may have lead readers to believe throughout the course of this post, but somewhere along the way its lost sight of the important parts of the initiative. The success of a community service provider, as I’ve learned, directly relates to its ability to create connections along a wide array of small and big organizations. We shouldn’t be in competition of one another, but instead envisioning a new system that facilitates collaboration and cooperation between all of its members.

Changing the realities of how fundraising is conducted and who is involved will be no short order. The values and morals included in this process must be rearranged and a completely new and radical perspective embraced. But a world where charity is becomes a monopoly just doesn’t seem like a good idea, and this revolution is a necessarily one. So let’s chew on a new stick, because in the end, we’re all in it for the same core reasons....aren’t we?

Canmore: Tourist for a Day

            It’s damn hard to travel and not be labeled as a tourist, but some of us are better at concealing our voyeurism than others. Sometimes, it’s just better to hide your camera pack and pocket the ‘Welcome to Lagos’ guide you picked up in the airport for $34. Sticking out like a dirty welt in the middle of a city that wants to steal your money and use your passport to smuggle 400lbs of cocaine overseas isn’t always a great idea, but luckily there are places that tend to be much less brash when trying to rip you off. All of Canada can be included in this list.

Looking down on Canmore from the Bow Valley

            Bottom line here is that there are times when it’s okay to be a tourist. Take the small city of Canmore, for instance: nestled in the very Southeastern edge of the Canadian Rocky Mountains and only an hour and a half due West of Calgary, Canmore offers a little oasis without digging an endless hole into your bank account. Last spring, while en route to a job in Northern BC, my partner Nikki and I decided to vacation in Canmore instead of emptying our wallets in nearby Banff National Park. Mixed in with a little creative thinking, we found we could have just as much fun being tourists in a place that didn’t want to rape us of our future mortgages and unborn children. Here’s how it went down:

1) The Grizzly Paw Brewery

Main Street Canmore. In between the litter of tacky souvenir shops there exist some pretty great bars offering a diverse range of your favourite fermented beverage. Front and square is the famous Grizzly Paw Brewery, Canada’s oldest brewpub and a common meeting place for locals and visitors alike. Now a microbrewery, the Grizzy Paw bottles and sells three of its own home brews outside of its establishment. Still, your best bet is to experience for yourself the many seasonal and in-house selections, including six different ‘sodas’ perfect for mixing into your favourite brew to add a unique personalized twist.

The Grizzly Paw is a must see while staying in Canmore, if only for its significance to Canada’s rich history in beer crafting. Don’t forget the ‘Paw’ also offers a full menu with a large patio to enjoy great food and drinks during those gorgeous summer nights that don’t happen anywhere else but the Canadian Rockies.

2) Grassi Lakes

          Minus any encounters with the four legged furry type, Grassi Lakes is an easily accessible and unforgettable destination within the Canmore city limits. Hire a cab or drive yourself up the short jaunt just beyond the Canmore Nordic Centre to the trailhead parking lot, then leave your car and your worries behind as the old growth high mountain forests envelop you along the 4km uphill trail to the lakes. Two options for hiking are available, but I suggest the ‘more difficult’ route as it is not very difficult anyways and offers incredible views of the Bow Valley and Ha Ling Peak.

            The payoff is at the summit where two pristine lakes await your arrival. Both lakes are fed by a fossil reef resting high above the site, adding a magnificent emerald and clear colour to the water. Rock climbers can be found traversing the cliffs behind the lakes while the less adventurous explore the trails that weave around each reservoir. Grassi Lakes ended up being the nature highlight of our trip and is pure paradise for the outdoorsy type.

3) Policeman’s Creek

            The great thing about being in the Bow Valley/Banff area is how constantly accessible nature becomes. Forget about taking long drives out of the city for some solitude with the untamed; in Canmore you don’t even have to look beyond Main Street. Policeman’s Creek flows right through downtown and is complete with boardwalks and small beaches for your enjoyment. For those less able bodied, the creek also includes a paved trail and plenty of benches, bridges and look outs to the towering mountains above.

            Policeman’s Creek is an excellent way to see Canmore as many interpretive signs identify popular locations and attractions. Wildlife viewing is also common along the creek, especially when spotting birds and waterfowl. Whether you’re going for an afternoon stroll or looking to link up with the other network of trails in and around Canmore, Policeman’s Creek is the place to go. Mother Nature never looked sexier.

4) Spray/Kananaskis Trail

Peter Lougheed Park

             Speaking of connecting to the ‘great outdoors’, why not rent a car and spend some time in the jaw dropping bounty of Kananaskis Country? A mere 45 minute drive South on the Spray Trail takes you into the heart of the Spay Lakes Reservoir and Spray Valley Provincial Park, part of the Kananaskis Country Park System. Endless low impact activities are available including hiking, camping, canoeing and sightseeing. Use restrictions in the area were imposed to preserve the ecological integrity of the parks, allowing for complete protection of all things non-human and awesome. But the adventures aren’t over yet.

            Drive the Spray Trail to its Southern endpoint and link to Highway 40, or the Kananaskis Trail, for more encounters with wild things via the Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, Elbow-Sheep Wildland and other ridiculously named yet beautiful places. After all, you aren’t visiting CanLESS. 

How Many Words are 10,000 Pictures Worth?

Photographs capture a unique moment in time and provide a still-life of some distant memory, thought, action, event – your brother’s Bar Mitzvah, that time you suggested that Uncle Lou could win in a cage fight – the list goes on. But for some, a photograph is more than just a flash and click; it represents a reflection of one’s character and emotion. As I’ve come to learn over the past month and a half as an intern at the Parkdale Activity and Recreation Centre, a photograph has the capacity to show great wisdom, courage, strength, insurmountable challenges and insufferable pain. For many of the members there, photos are the only evidence they have left of a life once lived and the struggles they are defined by.

The job of a Media Archivist, or so I have come to understand it, would be to find an objective understanding of someone else’s attempt to immortalize something personal. I do not have previous experience at PARC nor have I known any of the members and staff for more than six weeks, but I too feel something stirring deeply as I file through close to 10,000 photographs of people in various stages of physical and mental health. Although it is not clear to me what the significance of the picture is for those involved, I already have a connection with it on a different level because I sense it poignancy to the lives of its subjects.

Book launch for 'Let's face It!'  (Feb 2012)

As it turns out, objectivity here is key as I filter through the more usable photographs for the purpose of incorporating them into art projects led by PARC members. My job moves beyond just sorting and digitizing as I collaborate with Artistic Director Michael Burtt (founder of Making Room Community Arts) to challenge how we will appropriately get these artifacts back in the hands of members who will use them for display in an upcoming open house in December. The goal here is not to merely show and tell a bunch of old photos but make the observer feel what is behind the picture: the individual lives, stories and struggles of Toronto’s most marginalized and stereotyped citizens. Talk about building a ‘living machine’ and showings at art gallery expos have created buzz at PARC, and no one is more nervous about finding the right material than its lone Media Archivist.

Other branching projects that will use PARC photos include a special page on the website ‘The History of Madness in Canada’ and new organizational publishing’s to follow the minor legacies of ‘Kiss Me You Mad Fool’ and ‘Let’s Face It!’.

More details to come as we make ‘progress’ on this project.

Safe Travels,

Aaron Turpin

4 Gross Misconceptions About University

Welcome to university, where the wild winds of intellect collide with the stupidity of first years who think that the Triple Entente is a keg stand marathon. Whether you are aware if it or not, that knapsack strapped on tight during the first days at University is carrying more than just books; it’s also filled with silly thoughts and pictures of things that don’t actually exist within the four walls of degree-obtaining torture. The assumptions we have about post-secondary education are so fat and ill informed we might as well have taken them from the Mayor’s office in Toronto.

Fun fact: his IQ also matches the amount of chins.

Now, I’ve spent a little too long in university to not a) identify these absurd notions of the realities of students and 2) correct them using every sarcastic joke I can find in my arsenal while also probably being a little offensive. Consider that a forewarning.

1) ‘You can’t slack off at University’

Yes you can. In fact, many a student are rewarded for slacking off because often professors are often too damn busy to enforce every single missed deadline or skipped class. Although the end result may not be honours material, the common sloth-like student is still well suited to skim through university while exerting less than half of the effort of everyone else, taking full advantage of the fact that barely meeting requirements is good enough to get you that degree.

The key thing to remember here is that it shouldn’t matter how hard or easy it is to do well in university; what should be important are the reasons you’re here in the first place, and just how in tune you are with those personal motivations. Yes, we’ve all wanted to club the slacker in the eye like the weak seal who just wasn’t fast enough to escape the end of a stick with a rusty hook on the end, but at the end of the day that’s just a side effect that doesn’t really matter. Working hard at something is a learning process and skill in itself that will help you immensely after you graduate. Oh, and that pot head that never left his room next to you and blasted Bob Marley all day? Well…

Now all of his songs end with 'would you like fries with that?'

2) ‘You’re just a number at university’

Universities can be scary things if only for the fact that many of them are absolutely massive institutions that seem to fart out millions of graduates a year after steamrolling through a system designed to slap a number on your chest and force ideologies into your face. The intimidation factor is there and often terrifies students out of actually involving themselves in the community of post-secondary education. Indeed, you are assigned a number and thrown into a system BUT that’s the job of some penny-pushing sorry excuse for an assistant who lives somewhere in the upper rings of administration and wipes the golden butts of higher ups. In the meantime, you’ve gotten yourself into a place that embraces things like sexual experimentation, and there’s more than enough people your age that are ready to explore their Grover fetish.

Grover likes bathtime.

University will be the only time in your life that you will be exposed to an indefinite amount of unique people who form open groups designed to support your personal interests. You have an opportunity to try things you’ve never tried, go places you’ve never gone and completely change who you are. Seriously, when is the next time you can just say to yourself ‘self, today I want to begin a journey as a NERF warrior’, and then immediately find people who want the same thing because there’s a NERF Club that meets twice a week and costs nothing to join? The answer is probably never, and you only have four years to do awesome shit like this, so why the hell aren’t you yet?

3) ‘Bachelor’s Degrees won’t get you anywhere these days’

We’ve been hearing all the fear mongering over how useless university degrees are these days: how hard it is to get a job in your field and the crazy rate of unemployed post-grad students who are stuck living at home under buttloads of debt. While I am not working to delegitimize this phenomenon, I also have a hard time understanding why students who do nothing with their time in university except go to class and play World of Warcraft have the right to complain about joblessness in adulthood.

We no longer live in a world where a piece of paper automatically gets you that dream job. The harsh reality is that, although you may be working your ass off for top grades in all of your classes, you also have to allot some time to apply that into the real world. Luckily for you, university is also a place that gives you umpteen opportunities for this (see above). Volunteer for a political party, join a human rights advocacy organization, do an exchange overseas – whatever your deal, make sure you graduate with a resume that doesn’t just say ‘I went to school and on my spare time I watched German porn’.

4) ‘You can’t party all the time and be successful’

If there’s one absolute summary of what every first year university student is thinking during the days leading up to Frosh Week, it’s this:

Party time.

University and drinking go hand in hand, just like Teletubbies and crack, minus the creepy talking baby sun and swirling multicoloured bellybuttons. So maybe Teletubbies and university have nothing in common, except for the fact that after ten beers you start sounding like one.

It is said that 80% of your learning happens outside of the classroom, but I would say it’s closer to 99.999573%, because statistics taught me how to math. A large part of this learning is going to come out of getting insanely drunk and dancing naked in the university courtyard (and other related activities). Young students have a natural urge to go buck wild, and it’s really only during this point in their youth that it becomes somewhat socially acceptable.

Take it from the man who was once crowned the funneling champion of his first year residence: get that party phase out of your system early on and you’ll avoid becoming that thirty-something year old who can’t handle their whiskey and hits on construction workers.