I...

... AM SO FRIGGING G.D. SICK AND TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT MICHAEL FREAKING JACKSON. ARGH!

OK, just needed to unload that.

Carry on.

Maggot Farming and Mushy Wheat

Was having breakfast and listening to CBC radio. Since I am also doing laundry, I have to periodically get up and leave my food.

My cereal, a very hearty bowl of Shredded Wheat, was not in good shape by the time I got back from transferring a load from the washer to the dryer. By the time I got back, the biscuits had completely collapsed with sogginess. Oh well, I thought, no sense to waste, so I started eating them anyway. I was listening to a very interesting piece with a woman (who, sadly, I did not get the name of) who has written a book on Victorian urban social history - very interesting stuff about paving policies and food technology, etc.

However, just as I was eating the slushiest part of my cereal, they started talking about maggot farming - a horror that I had never, ever considered before. And then they talked about the smell of maggots in abundance.

My stomach pretty much tried to make a break for it.

Now, does this qualify as morning sickness, finally, or are these conditions that would make anyone lose their breakfast? I'm not sure. But that was terrible.

Oh, CBC. You just couldn't talk about fresh bread and potted plants, could you? No. You had to be interesting, didn't you? Ugh.

Heat and the CBC

Today is projected to be the hottest December day in recorded history in Ontario. Toronto will likely go to 15, and we are at about 12. I must admit it is scary to wear a t-shirt and cardy at 9am down to the corner store on December 17th, and break a sweat. Today seems like a day to get outside a bit, methinks. These legs could use a stretch.

However, while you enjoy the heat, take a moment to remember the polar bears, upon whose graves we are enjoying this weather.

(And when you light up that murdered tree, as well, I could say, but that wouldn't be very festive, would it?)

***

I am listening to the CBC right now, to an interview with historian Jan Gross, author of Neighbours. He is talking of his newest book Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz.

Gross' books are always worth a read, if for no other reason than the fact that they almost always kick up a (expletive deleted) storm. Though people have accused him of anti-Polish bias, his work seeks to bring to light the role of non-Jewish people other than Germans in the Holocaust. While many Poles did help Jews during the War, many also offended, and it helps no one to make idols of evil out of the Germans alone. I suspect that the truth lays somewhere between the common demonizing German exceptionalism and heated belief in full Polish collaboration, but it is always important to open the mind to as many angles as possible. And Jan Gross makes a good and horrible read at the same time, and I can't wait to get my hands on this book.

So, Santa, if you are listening to the lists of Jews this year (which I think you should consider in order to help counter-act all the nasty going on in Iran right now), this book is my wish. In one of my socks or under my ficus plant. Your choice, big guy.

On a bright note: things are going to get a whole lot less lonely very soon.

*

Will They or Won’t They… Or Did They?

The Jack Benny draft is written and sent off, but the legacy of all that Old Time Radio Broadcast learning has left its mark. I have found a long-lasting love of old radio comedies, and even westerns. (That last one surprised me more than you can guess… but I can never resist Jimmy Stewart, whose stutter is even cuter over radio waves, if you can believe it.)

My Saturday and Sunday nights this weekend were spent in utter radio-fan bliss. I was nestled down with my cat, under a breezy open window, tied to a pair of radio headphones. Now, I don’t appreciate much about Hamilton, and I am not normally a fan of that city’s talk radio station, CHML – at least in terms of its reactionary daytime programming. However, over night, when they play old radio shows from the 40s and 50s, I am one of their biggest fans.



Abbott and Costello, Jack Benny, Nero Wolfe (starring the awesome Sydney Greenstreet), Dragnet, The Cisco Kid, Life of Riley, The Six Shooter (which I could listen to for days and days), The Lone Ranger, Fred Allen (and his Alley), The Aldrich Family, numerous playhouse radio dramas and farces (“Arsenic & Old Lace” and “Calling Northside 777” radio-adaptations, “The Girl in the Galaxy” featuring Buddy Rogers, et cetera), Fibber McGee & Molly, Andy Hardy, Gun Smoke… All these and more came to me over my little radio in the low lamp light. I was one with all those kids when these shows were first run, who sat in front of the family radio and held their breath until Cisco and Pancho saved the day, and Friday solved the crime.

I was not one of them, however, by my indecision and discomfort when the station played an episode of Amos and Andy, though, so I guess times have changed, even for old throwbacks like me.

But, by far, the greatest triumph of the weekend was my new obsession, Our Miss Brooks, which was a radio show from 1948 to 1952, when it transferred to TV for another four years. Miss Connie Brooks was a smart and snappy high school English teacher and unwilling spinster, and the show revolved around her dealings with her students, her co-workers, her landlady Mrs. Davis, and, especially, the object of her unrequited affection, Mr. Boynton, the school biology teacher, who is sadly much more interested in his frogs and mice than in the birds and the bees.




Surprisingly, this show never falls into misogynistic stereotypes of female marriage designs. It is true that Miss Brooks wants a loving husband, specifically Mr. Boynton, but the audience never really faults her for this. (Her goals are no more contemptible than all those lonely guys in 80s movies who seek true love and acceptance.) Connie Brooks, as played by the sharp, intense and talented actress Eve Arden, is strong, funny, quick, loveable, and, in short, really quite wonderful.

My only problem these days is the question as to where to find enough of this program, as it is not as available for free downloads as is the Jack Benny Show.


Oh, and my other problem was curiosity. When we are in the middle of a first-run show we are left to wonder if Mulder and Scully ever get around to consummating. But when the show ended fifty years ago, I have been uncomfortably aware of the fact that the answer to “will they, won’t they?” for Mr. Boynton and Connie is only a few small mouse clicks away. I won’t tell you how it ends up, but I got to admit that the age of the show has in no way reduced my anticipation of the next episode I can get my mitts on, and I am currently saving my pennies for the 5 CD set for sale on OTRCAT standing between me and complete Miss. Brooks satisfaction.

Anyway, I was able to find you a little something to whet your appetite. Enjoy!

(Be warned that this contains no ads, but does have the re-run station promos and an introduction attached. It has two episodes of Our Miss Brooks, and runs 59 minutes.)

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Real Radio was Easier…

I am busy wasting away hours of my precious youth waiting for old Jack Benny radio programs and ads to download. I hope you are doing something nicer.

If not, you can always make some animated teddy bears and kittens say cuss words, here. That is always worth a lift.

I am Two-Timing

This is the late night confession of a scarlet woman.

Yes, I admit it. I have been unfaithful…

I am cheating on my regular radio station.

For the past week I have neglected CBC to listen to AM740 out of Toronto.* I couldn’t help it… They play five hours of music from the 1920s through to the ‘70s, without interruptions, every single night.

How I could I resist that?

Sorry, CBC. But I put up with Sad Goat for far too long as it was. Let’s face it, you never gave me what I really needed. Just let me happy with someone new.

Until you can play The Mills Brothers, Tom Jones, Tijuana Brass and Chubby Checker all in one half hour, I don’t think we have anything more to say to one another.


* (Before I get comments, this is not the AM740 Christian talk station out of... wherever that one is based.)

Oh, CBC Radio, Let’s Never Fight Again.

One great off-shoot of tonight’s election results is that I was glued to CBC Radio all day on my portable as I dodged from class to class. "Freestyle" is, I must admit, pretty darned great. And, as always, the election coverage on the CBC is second to none in Canada.

Could this be a new beginning for me and the CBC? I think so.

I’m glad we reconciled before Catherine becomes leader of the Corporation. It would have been awkward, otherwise.

Oh, CBC- Where Did We Go Wrong?

Something has gone out of my life. I support the right to strike, and I feel no bitterness towards the CBC staff who were locked out for over a month. However, I have completely lost the habit of tuning into CBC Radio, a practice that once regulated my life. No more hourly news. No more Sound Advice. I don’t even know the schedule now.

It’s all gone, and I’m not sure we’ll ever get back together. How can you get back into a habit you have lost? Can we say we had our beautiful moment, but now we go our separate ways?

I’m afraid that me and CBC may have broken up for good. It’s sad, but relationships do drift, and CBC and I have clearly just grown apart.

It’s nobody’s fault. These things just happen.

I wish it well for its future relationships, and to show there is no bitterness, it can keep the CDs.

Feel the Wrath of Holly!

My I unload a rant on you all? (No? Too bad. It’s MY blog.)

Why is it that on-air personalities at CBC, a radio station that should be promoting good social ideals (and does most of the time) continually CROW over the (quote-unquote) “GREAT WEATHER”!?!?

“Oh, summer is really here… It’s so invigorating…” Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. Well, CBC, kiss my … Blue box.

Yes, it is hot. Yes, some people like that. OK, if I weren’t over-weight and from the east coast, and if I weren’t allergic to that hideous ball of fire in the sky that is slowly killing us all, I might like it too. However, the point is that people DIE in Toronto every month of summer due to heat and smog. This is not to be celebrated.

The big point is: IT IS NOT SUMMER YET! It is spring. Spring, People! Spring, NOT SUMMER. Get it? That means that a temperature of nearly 40 is NOT normal for Canada in the spring. We have ruined this area of earth so completely that is trying to claw us one last time as it slips into its smog-enshrouded tomb!

Every time the heat climbs (an event so beloved by Ontaronians, it seems, that they can’t stand it) it sends them scurrying back indoors to crank up their A/C, and prevents them from even thinking of walking anywhere. Thus it is from the frigid house to the frigid car, all the way to their frigid office, and back again. The cycle of pollution rolls on. Turn, turn, turn. Yes, a season they seem to love dearly, eh? All this love is killing us.

So, CBC, I love you, but our relationship is on the rocks. Climate change is not something to cheer about.

Just tell me the damn news and stay on your side of the bed until winter.