Texans in Canada, Part 6

I'm the one in the big hat.

Every major city provides radio stations as diverse as the citizens who take residence in that slice of Radioland. Often, leaving large cities means leaving large towers, and consequently leaving static or silence on the car stereo. There is no area of Texas, however, where you can't clearly hear Mexican (woh-oh) radio. For some of my time in Texas I found this to be rather annoying, especially since the Mexican musica would often drown out a station that was struggling to satisfy my ethnic ears. After listening to Canadian radio though, I long for the soothing rhythms of the accordion, sweet blasting trumpets, and mysterious lyrics that were often best left untranslated.

There is a lot of Canadian pride and they support anyone who represents them in sports, entertainment, etc. With a population this small it makes sense to get behind anyone that stands out. It's kind of like if a friend of one of your cousins knows Julia Roberts. You would tell everyone about it, probably leaving out the extra degree of the friend, because knowing Julia Roberts (through your cousin) somehow makes you much cooler to know. Where pride was lacking, however, Canada started to enforce it.

In 1971 the CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission) introduced the MAPL system which mandated radio and TV to have a certain percentage of their programs to be Canadian content. This was brought to you by the style of parenting where, if you force your kids to participate in something they dislike for long enough, they will learn to like it and thank you in the end. Many neglected family pianos will silently disagree with these methods.

The largest Canadian recording studio.

Canadian content under the MAPL system means anything where the Music, Artist, Production or Lyrics are entirely Canadian. I think the "E" they left off MAPLE originally stood for Entertainment value to an entirely Canadian audience but there were too few cases to sustain the category. There are VERY few entertaining Canadian bands and deep down even Canadians know this. When the CRTC first demanded 25% of radio play to be dedicated to Canadian content music, stations complied by playing the songs overnight or early Sunday mornings. The "beaver hour" was what they referred to as the off peak block of time dedicated to Canadian music. Despite changes in regulations leading to peak hour play, the music is still a joke and sours any possibility of a great string of songs being played back to back on the radio. My finger hurts from changing the stations so often. I never really cared for Neil Young before but I didn't know how much I loathed him until I moved here. They play bad music that doesn't even qualify for the content regulations. I assumed George Thorogood was Canadian after hearing him get so much air time here, but he's from Delaware! Why would you play George Thorogood so much unless you had to?

The real cherry on all this is they have the annual Juno Awards to honor Canadian musicians. With so few qualified applicants, is there even a voting process? In the classroom of music worldwide, receiving a Juno award is like getting a participation grade. Are you Canadian? Yes. Did you sing something this year? Yes. Okay, here's your Juno.

Television production here is an amateur hour clown show. They create their own commercials for U.S. nationally televised shows, i think as a way to satisfy content requirements. Their idea of advertising a show is putting random clips together and laying a song over the whole thing. At the end of the ad I know the title of the show and that people are in it. Thanks. Switching from the U.S to Canadian feed is anything but seamless. We miss parts of shows because a local commercial runs over time. The first three minutes of Seinfeld is actually the intro to the Simpsons. I saw color bars on screen the other day. I haven't seen a color bar on TV since 1993 when stations stopped signing off for the night.

Bearing Fruit

Vanessa has been updating me for weeks on the assumed size of our unborn baby and, to provide easy visual references, she compares our daughter to various fruits. When we discovered her presence, she was already an avocado but had previously been a peach, a lime, a raspberry and a sweet pea. She is currently the size of an eggplant. While I made myself a fruit cocktail I asked, "when will it be the size of a baby?"

On the surface we seem quite prepared for the birth of little Isabel. We have a crib, a changing table, a high chair, and soon the stroller and car seat. Also, due to friendly donations and gifting, we have already acquired more clothing for the baby than I have owned in my whole life. This is all clothing, of course, that will be obsolete in only a few months time as she grows into a much larger fruit. (I picture one of those giant squashes at country fairs.)

Are we actually prepared? I guess so, but I don't know what more we can do. We have a prenatal class in a few weeks where we should receive more instruction but, despite all the available literature and courses, I don't believe there is any amount of preparation that can give anyone complete readiness for the upcoming events. I'm not scared though, but what if I'm one of those people who just goes into a partial coma during a crisis so I don't have to deal with the situation at hand? If, when Vanessa says "my water broke," I curl into a ball or hide in the bathtub then we may be in trouble.

I take comfort in knowing that millions of other people do this parenting thing every day and most of their kids survive to become productive members of society. If we screw up tough, and she ends up in a bell tower somewhere with a rifle I'll just blame music television and whatever band is popular at the time. That seems to work just fine too.

Image via Wikipedia

That's why having more than one kid is important; you play the percentages. The more kids you have the better your chances are of getting one right. Match up all those fruits just right and you could end up prospering yourself. They might all end up being rich and generous to their wonderful parents who raised them so well, or they might just sell bags of oranges out of a shopping cart.

Goodbye John Hughes

Image by MacQ via Flickr

I knew I had reached a point of no return in my stealthy maturation when I began consistently refusing every new offering from the youth fueled media and clothing industry. I cannot connect with teens of today. Lawful restrictions aside, I fail to establish any intimate understanding of teenagers or their interests, outlooks, styles, and actions. This landscape however was one in which film legend John Hughes could stroll through comfortably and confidently, despite his handicap of being an adult.

Though he had a limited directing career, every movie he crafted was a comedic and dramatic gem. Like early Spielberg, Hughes knew how to get an emotional depth from his actors that made them more than just characters. He embraced his audience and catered to them, feeding my generation bittersweet spoonfuls of our own angst and humor. As a writer I admire Hughes' ability to tell great stories, build memorable characters, and construct dialogue that can be both endearing and hilarious.

I don't know if current teens appreciate or are even aware of John Hughes and his cinematic canon. I don't need to list his accomplishments, as the people who know, know and the people who don't, don't matter. The mostly thirty-something fans who can join me in fond memory of Hughes feel his loss the most. We may not connect with the teens of today, but when viewing any Hughes masterpiece we can connect with the teens we used to be.

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