The Radio Girl

The Big Cheese

The Big Cheese at my part time radio gig turned 60 this year.

He's actually the GM, but I call him Chief or the Big Cheese on the air.  He's a really good person, very generous with a huge heart.  He has been at the same radio station for 40 years, basically his entire career.  He's also on city council and does a lot for our little Okanagan beach community.

And he has cancer. 

Which makes him appreciate life more than anyone else I've ever met.

So I named a star after him through the International Star Registry.  It's the most official unofficial star naming company out there.  They send you a snazzy parchment paper certificate and a map charting the coordinates of your star, plus a book about the cosmos.

Hope he likes it.

*The blue blurbs are my work.  I blocked out the Chiefs' name to protect his privacy.

My Voice Biz

Been working lots of hours at the part-time radio gig.

Some regular announcers are on holidays so I've been on-air eight days out of the past ten.  But today I'm at home doing some voicework for my own production biz. 

I'm voicing/producing a few sample station id's for a new BC radio station.  Can't give any details cause it's still hush, hush.  And I haven't won the gig yet, so I probably shouldn't be blabbing about it.

My little production studio is actually the closet of my home office.  I have a studio quality microphone and headphones, a voice compressor and production software on my laptop.  To cut out the echo and outside noise, I line the closet walls with huge fluffy blankets.  It works great, although I feel a little goofy, talking to myself in a dark closet.

Since I can't share the audio I've been working on today, I'll give you a sample of an intro I voiced for an American client who delivers internet podcasts about baby making.  True story.  You can hear the intro here.  (This client provides an excellent service for wannabe moms, but I must admit I felt quite strange voicing these lines while sitting all alone in my dark little closet.)

And here's another little audio piece I'm especially proud of. 

Now you can see why I like working from home :) 

My Commute

The daily commute to my part-time radio gig is roughly a 45 minute walk each way.

Here it is in pictures:

The next pic is a beautiful veggie garden beside a house near the golf course.  Not sure if you can see it very well behind the barbed-wire fence.  While walking home from work, I've seen the odd deer snacking on lettuce and peas  :)

I reach this sign about halfway through the golf course.  Clearly I've become very good at ignoring it.

There are tons of little quail families running around beside the train tracks and along the golf course.  I'll try get a pic of the babies next time - they are the size of my pinky finger and totally adorable.

Once I reach the end of the course, I have to walk down the tracks for about ten minutes.  I know most of the train schedules and haven't been squashed yet, knock on wood. It usually takes me 20 minutes to get this far, about halfway to the radio station.

At the end of the tracks, I make a quick left onto this wooden boardwalk that winds through a man-made wetlands area. 

There are tons of different birds living here, including a few wild chickens - one of which chased me down last fall.  I must have gotten too close to her nest of hidden eggs.  Crazy protective chicken.

At the end of the boardwalk I cross this bridge...

... over the creek and end up here at the city park.

It's one of the prettier parks in the Okangan, with a huge playground, tennis courts, a football field, a running track, a skateboard park and a seniors lawn bowling court.

Exiting the park, I hit the downtown area.

I walk past four huge historic murals painted on the concrete city walls...

Turning left at the last mural, I finally cross the street in front of the barber shop - usually jaywalking, but I always look both ways first. 

And there it is - my commute to the part-time radio gig.  

The Morning Show

At the beginning of my radio career I vowed I would never do the morning show.

I never cared about the prestige that came with doing mornings.  The pay wasn't that much better than my afternoon shift, and the hours are brutal.  I actually managed to avoid the morning show for 18 years. 

But in an ironic twist of fate, after quitting my full time afternoon drive show in Calgary and taking a fun part-time gig in the Okanagan, I've been waking up at 4am the past few days to host mornings.

The joke's on me  :(

It's actually not that bad, although my eyeballs are sore and I'm a little grouchy.  And it's only 8pm, but I'm totally pooped.  (When I first wrote the title of this post I missed the letters 's' and 'w' in Show.  You do the math.)  

But it's a great confirmation that I made the right decision, staying away from morning drive.

The alarm is set for one more 4am wake-up call and I'm already in my jammies, but I wanted to pass along this little nugget of info from expat blogger Erika at Without A Net.

We had an interesting email conversation last month about the challenges of moving to a different country.  She bravely uprooted and moved from Alberta to Mexico City a few years ago.  And she had some interesting things to say about jumping into a brand new culture, especially one as different as Mexico:

"Just be prepared for things not to work the same way as they do back home.  It sounds like an obvious thing but it's far more unsettling that I was prepared for.  I've had breadbaskets in restaurants delivered to me with teethmarks in a half-eaten bun.  I've had to consciously override my irritation at archaic filing systems and business people showing up 2 hours late for an important meeting ... and the fact that Mexicans will always give you an answer even if they don't know the correct one. 

Worst of all, the consistent assumption that foreign=wealthy (it's strongest if the foreigner is white, but it goes across the Crayola spectrum) means that you're constantly having to watch what you're being charged for things (the best trick I've found so far when you're asking about price is to say, "El precio normal, no el precio gringo" - they tend to laugh and lop several hundred off."

If you're considering a drastic move, especially to a third world country, read the archives on Erika's website first.  Her site is specific to Mexico City, but she does a great job of capturing the 'shock of change' and the vast differences between Canada and Mexico.  

She's realistic about the pros/cons of relocating - and she's an awesome writer. 

Thanks for your advice, bud - and good luck with your new move :)

Children's Radiothon

Been busy the past couple days.

We're in the middle of a children's Radiothon at my part-time radio gig, raising money for local sick kids.   I'm on air from 2 - 7pm pacific time.  If you wanna tune in just hit this link and then click on "listen" on the right side of the page.

Have a sunny weekend.

Hillbilly Billy Bob

Billy Bob Thorton was a total knob during a recent CBC radio interview.

From The National Post:

"Since we're often critical of the CBC, it's only just that we sympathize with the Corp when it deserves it.  Jian Ghomeshi deserved it this morning when he attempted to interview Billy Bob Thornton about his band, The Boxmasters, on CBC radio.

Unfortunately, Ghomeshi upset Billy Bob when he committed the cardinal sin of mentioning that Billy Bob happens to also be an actor. About 100% of the listening audience already knew this, but it drove Billy Bob into a deep snit."

Here's the video from YouTube.  You have to watch this crap to believe it.  Even Billy Bob's bandmates seem a bit embarrassed by his arrogant, schoolyard bully behaviour.  

The CBC announcer stayed fairly composed throughout this train wreck.  I would've reamed Thornton out on-air, then tossed him out of the studio on his skinny white hillbilly butt. 

Thornton also managed to insult Canadians during the interview so I hope everyone boycotts his concert.  What a noodle.

10 Things You've Never Wanted to Know

The announcers at my radio gig were asked for a quick BIO for our station website. 

I'm surprised they included me since I'm just a part-timer, but here's mine:

                               10 Things You Never Wanted to Know

• Eye color – green.  Hair color – Clairol Morning Sunshine #126. 

• Fave song – Louis Armstrong ‘What A Wonderful World’.

• I’m a financial nerd, up at 6:30 every morning reading the business news and watching the markets.

• Cheese and beer are the most important food groups.  Followed by beans, broccoli and wine in a box.

• Summer in the Okanagan is amazing.  My fella and I play tennis or camp at all the local lakes (Echo, Baird, Dee, Hidden Lake).

• Adventures are good.  The past two winters I have driven south to Mexico, staying in small villages on the Nayarit coast and learning Spanish.

• In 2003, I won the Calgary White Hat Media Award.

• In 2004, Jerome Iginla caught me swiping Double Bubble from the Calgary Flames dressing room.  And he didn’t rat me out.

• In 2006, I compiled a book called I'M NOT WEARING PANTS, True Tales from Canadian Radio Gals.  45 wonderful gals from radio stations across Canada shared embarrassing radio stories, and most of the proceeds went to Breast Cancer.  The books are available on Amazon.com, but more money goes to charity if you buy directly through me :)    

CanCon Friday Two

Cancon is a Canadian media term.

Radio and tv stations in Canada are required to play a certain amount of Canadian content, whether it's Canuck produced tv programming, or Canadian music on the radio.  The idea is to promote local talent like rock band, State of Shock.

 From their website:

State Of Shock’s boisterous straight ahead rock has made them one of Canada’s most popular rock bands. The Vancouver fivesome has made all their own breaks, packing a no–frills rock arsenal that has seen them knock down all doors despite the odds...

In 2004 the band won an influential Canadian Radio contest which garnered them significant live exposure in Western Canada. Two years of non–stop touring followed – the band–in–a–van variety – where the group lived off the fat (or lean) of the Canadian rock landscape while they honed both their live playing and songwriting skills. The undeniable State of Shock chemistry really began to blossom during their lively songwriting process. “We have always enjoyed working as one. Creating something out of nothing... We write about real things that happen to us. We’re family and friends but we are also survivors, so we know what stories to tell.”

Blah, blah, blah - of course they're gonna pump themselves up.  It's their website.  But the band has a lot of good tunes including one of my fave songs right now, Best I Ever Had.

Editors note: The video is kind of lame, cramming an entire love story into four minutes - with an MTV/soap-opera highly dramatic ending.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  Here it didn't.  But the song is still awesome.

Cancon Friday

Cancon is a Canadian media term.

Radio and tv stations in Canada are required to play a certain amount of Canadian content, whether it's Canuck produced tv programming, or Canadian music on the radio.  The idea is to promote local talent, like singer Amanda Marshall. 

From wikipedia:

Amanda Marshall (born August 29, 1972 in Toronto) is a Canadian pop-rock singer.

Marshall studied music extensively during her childhood, including at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. While performing on the Queen Street West bar scene in her teens, she met guitarist Jeff Healey, who was struck by her powerful voice and took her on tour. She was offered a record deal by Columbia Records in 1991, but chose to wait a few years before releasing her debut album.

She grew up in Toronto in a biracial family (caucasian father, black mother). In several of her songs, Marshall has reflected on her racial identity "as a woman who looks white but is also half-black".

Here's Amanada Marshall and 'Sunday Morning After', a top 20 single released in 2002.  Some people don't know the name of the tune and refer to it as the 'snake tattoo' song. 

Maybe you should watch it before you head out this weekend :)

One for the Money, Two for the Show

Today is my first day back on the radio after almost two months off.

I'm excited and a little nervous and there's no doubt I'll make a ton of mistakes.  Even when I'm on the air regularly, I tend to make a fool of myself. 

Hopefully my return will be smoother than this.