The Maple Leaf Lounge

Uganda was the example, the post explicitly states that the CBC should be making the Canadian content available for free, and if not why not. My reply was saying why not. $$$$$.

 

Yep. I regularly comment on articles there, and there's a depressing number of right-wing people who rant about defunding the CBC, yet that's what they happily use to make derogatory remarks about the parentage of our Prime Minister (where the hell did anybody get the notion that he's Fidel Castro's son? Justin was several years old by the time Castro and Margaret met, and if they're going by the little kid in the picture, that's Justin's youngest brother, Michel... and besides, all you need to do is look at Justin to see his parents' features in his face).

CBC gave me my regular childhood shows like The Friendly Giant, Mr. Dressup, and Chez Helene (French show for kids; it was my first exposure to spoken French that I could halfway understand). It's so annoying that the twits have nicknamed Justin "Mr. Dressup" - it's a slap in the face to Ernie Coombs, who spent a good chunk of his life in Canada, entertaining generations of kids. I still remember a couple of songs from that show, and I haven't seen those episodes since I was 6. That's 53 years ago.

Music rights is why we'll never again see that crossover episode between The Beachcombers and The Irish Rovers. It's a damn shame. Bruno Gerussi and Robert Clothier (Nick and Relic) performed a duet on the Irish Rovers portion of the show (the whole thing ran for an hour). Clothier was wearing a kerchief on his head and they sang "There's a Hole in the Bucket." I remember one chorus when Clothier sang:

"Well, fix it, dear Bruno, dear Bruno, dear Bruno
Well, fix it, dear Bruno, dear Bruno, ya twit!"


I wonder how well a show like Front Page Challenge would work now, with so many news sources around and you're never quite sure which ones are telling the truth. I remember how utterly amazed I was at how fast Gordon Sinclair always figured out who the guest was and what the story was. The current GG was a guest on that show, several decades ago.

 

That's when I was 9. I would have been outraged that our mom's were forcing us to play together. Now, you're not so bad.

 

I watched a couple of Michelle Rempel's anti-Justin diatribes. She's sitting on the floor in her living room, ranting and raving about him. It wasn't Kellie Leitch-levels of bizarre, but it wasn't dignified by any means.

It's amazing how fast anything to do with Canada can turn political on that site. Some jerk tried to goad me into a fight about CanCon in the middle of the comments on a reaction channel (Badd Medicine, 3 older guys in their 30s/40s who post reactions to movies). They were reacting to the 20th anniversary of the Harry Potter movies and I'd just mentioned not being able to see it because it wasn't available in any affordable way in this region of the country.

I found out that someone uploaded most of the 15th season of The Beachcombers on YouTube. A few years ago I stumbled over a treasure trove of Bonanza - the first 6 seasons, plus part of the 13th season. I'm old enough to remember that show in its first run, and gained a whole new appreciation for Pernell Roberts. This came in handy 3 years ago when I was in the hospital for 2 weeks. I'd asked a friend to bring my computer as they had wi-fi, and I ended up saddled with a cantankerous older man as a roommate who was livid that he'd been moved to the patients' lounge (so had I; the hospital was crammed full) and had no access to TV (there wasn't a working TV in the lounge).

So I asked him what shows he liked, he said Bonanza, and I said I had a computer with me and there were lots of Bonanza episodes on YouTube. I asked if he had a favorite, and he said "Hoss and the Leprechauns"... which took about 10 seconds to find. I told him I'd found it, but since it was 2:30 in the morning, we could watch it the next day if he wanted to bring a chair over. That calmed him down considerably, as he'd been swearing at the nurses earlier and they called security on him.

Well, as luck would have it, the next day he had to go for tests and was out of it. And that evening, I was discharged. So we never got to watch that episode, but at least I was able to calm him down. He was a lot friendlier after that, and gave me a goodbye hug when I left.

As for other stuff on YT... there's a treasure trove of videos analyzing the characters and plot points of Harry Potter, and there are some medieval history channels I really enjoy. These are ones in which people re-create things like the food, weaponry, customs, practices, etc. of daily life for people of all stations from the peasants to the nobility. None of them would qualify as CanCon, though. I think the guy who hosts the Shadiversity channel is Australian, the guy who hosts Modern History TV is British (he re-enacts the life of a medieval knight, complete with horses, weapons and armor and has occasional guests to explain and demonstrate things like medieval cooking), and so is the woman who hosts Reading the Past (her specialty is Plantagenet/Tudor history). Given that I'm novelizing an adventure game that takes place in the 11th century and I've also novelized other medieval-era games, the information I learn from some of these channels is invaluable and saves me a hell of a lot of time doing research - though some of what they present does make me want more detail as they can't possibly cover it thoroughly in less than 20 minutes. It also teaches me that most historical dramas get things wrong in ways we don't expect. Using a crossbow isn't as easy as some of the movies make it out to be!

And of course there's my favorite music videos... Greek dancing in the middle of a Toronto market, twice-weekly livestreams of Andean music by Wauquikuna, and some other favorites. There's a lot to find on that site.

 

BTW, this is what you can find by watching an anti-Harper protest song. This particular song isn't political at all, but it was recorded during the same session that this group of people recorded "Harperman."

The singer is Tony Turner, a federal bird biologist who was suspended from his job in 2015 when his "Harperman" video went viral. The place where this was recorded is not on Parliament Hill, the equipment doesn't belong to the government, it was not on government time, and none of the other people in the video work for the government. But apparently he's not allowed to have an opinion that's critical of Stephen Harper so they suspended him from his job, banned him from Parliament Hill, and forbade him to have contact with anyone who appears in this video. If that's not overstepping, I don't know what is.

Anyway, they also recorded this other song. I like it and it's one I'd never have found if I hadn't watched a particular protest video before...

 

Speaking of music, you'd love the Lemon Bucket Orkestra. They're a Ukrainian-style kleismer punk band based out of Toronto. I've seen them for the second time two weekends ago and put on an incredible high-energy show. They must have had nearly 20 members on the stage at once. At one point near the end of the show, some of the band members got off the stage and climbed up on top of some empty seats in the amphitheatre and continued playing.

 

There was a Klezmer band in Toronto a few years back I used to enjoy. Caught them a few times but my old fart brain can't remember their name right now.. It wasn't the name you mentioned...

Still, always have Klezmer love. Polish here, but Ukes are my bros and bras.

ETA: Thank Google. The Flying Bulgars.

 

I love culture. That weekend, I had spent it at our local music festival, celebrating 50 years and being the longest running music festival in Canada. And this year felt so culturally immersive, beyond even just the bands, like the Lemon Bucket Orkestra I mentioned. Also saw a Senegalese kora player and that was something else! In terms of food, we had syrian cuisine, and food from a local jamaican restauraunt, featuring a cultural fusion of Jamaican Jerk Chicken Poutine.



Oh and I guess I better post a clip from the band, this one from a music festival in Calgary.

 

Sorry, not my cup of tea. I like traditional Ukrainian dancing, though.

Now this is definitely my cup of tea. About 8 minutes in, they introduce Bob O'Donovan as the newest Irish Rover. He was with them when they played in Red Deer in 1976. This is the best fiddle music I have ever heard (likewise I've never heard an accordionist better than Wilcil McDowell).

At about 20:15, Tom Paxton sings an adorable song about Englebert the Elephant receiving an invitation to a royal ball.

Other favorite guests include Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy (who used to have a TV show called Makem & Clancy, which I enjoyed watching), and John Allan Cameron (I also loved his show). One of the beautiful things about these Irish folk songs is that there were so many generations of people who knew all the words and could sing along. I also learned to play quite a few of them on the organ.



I met Will Millar in 1993 when they played a concert near my home. I'd had such a crush on him since childhood, and being able to meet him the year I turned 30... let's just say that after the conversation we had (he asked if I played any musical instruments, so we chatted for a couple of minutes), I basically floated home.

 

The Deadpool movies are set in Canada?? So he crossed the border to visit the Xavier school?

Ouch, that hurt.

 

Why? They're three mature guys, two of them with children, and one has some grey hair (one other has no hair and I have no idea about the one who never takes his hat off).

 

I'm 45. Seeing people in their 30s referred to as older...yowza.

 

Older in terms of the usual age range of people who do reaction/review videos for Harry Potter. Most are in their teens or early 20s. These guys are at least 15-20 years older. Hence, "older."

As for being 45, that makes you a spring chicken. I'll be 60 next year.

 

I always assume the school is in Nova Scotia.

 

Excuse the crappy photos I didn't have a lot of time to frame them properly or do any sorting through after I just grabbed three from my roll

 

They're GREAT photos. I'm as sad as anyone that the Arrow was cancelled, but as long as we learn from that mistake, we need to move on.

And, OK, I'm not convinced the current gov't, or any gov't in the past or foreseeable future is going to learn from that error, but kicking a dead horse 7 decades later is pretty futile. I don't have the answer but the Arrow isn't the solution.

 

Sorry Lax, is this aimed at me? I went to the museum today because I thought it was cool, I wasn't saying anything about geopolitical affairs.

 

It almost comes across like not realising that's a replica built by enthusiasts.

 

I didn't think I had to specify that it was a replica, I assumed everyone would know nobody is making real Arrows

They do have a few artifacts from the real ones though.