Livin' On the Dial...

Like a lot of people my age, I have an enormous soft spot in my heart for the sitcom WKRP in Cincinatti. It ran from 1978-1982, and like Star Trek, enjoyed greater success in syndication than it did in its original airings. 

Set at a midwestern radio station transitioning from an easy-listening to rock radio format, the show had so many great characters and interactions that it is hard to have a favourite. The writing was sharp, self-aware, and shifted from laughs to pathos without missing a beat, like when black disc jockey Venus Flytrap, coming to face the music as an army deserter, introduces the white station manager who's joined him for moral support as his father.

And the music! Rock that ran the gamut from classic to new wave, and all legitimate tracks by known artists. Debbie Harry's band Blondie actually credited the show playing their single Heart of Glass with helping to break it out, and presented the show with a gold record.

But that same verisimilitude was what ended up costing WKRP syndication immortality, as rebroadcast rights shifted or lapsed, and made it impossible to show the episodes without frankly brutal and nonsensical edits, and nixed home video releases.

With syndication now replaced by streaming, and access being limited wither outright piracy or the DVDs released a decade ago by Shout Factory with most of the original music (ooh, and on sale for $59.00 CAD as I write this! hmm...), I am surprised how WKRP remains relevant and maintains a fandom, but somehow it does.

In fact, one of those fans has done something marvelous as part of their Radio Retrofit project: they have stitched together three hours of ersatz radio content, hosted by the show's morning DJ, Dr. Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman) working a simulated triple-shift. It opens with the choppy dial tuning and static from the show's intro ("-but the senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity-") before launching into the wonderful theme song.

The other music is eclectic and solid, the intros and outros funny ("That's Bo Diddley playing a song called Bo Diddly, and why not? I can't imagine anyone doing it better..."), and best of all, they've included advertisements and news breaks with Les Nessman "...WINNER OF THE BUCKEYE NEWSHAWK AWARD," (Richard Sanders). 

It is a real labour of love that the individual has made available to play or download for free from their blog here. I listened through it today while we had company, and but even that intermittent exposure was enough to convince me to buy the producer a cup of coffee via PayPal. 

Music streaming means I don't listen to the radio a whole lot any more, and when I do it is often news or the listener-supported stations like CKUA with their extremely eclectic mixes. I still tune into the local modern rock/alternative station periodically but their playlist comes off as fairly repetitive even with my limited listens.

Make no mistake, listening to a fake DJ spin real music is nothing if not nostalgic, but maybe that's okay once in a while. The songs played range from 1955 to 1982, and both the time range as well as the variety of styles and tones remind me of a radio ecosystem that simply hasn't existed since. I'm amazed it existed at all, actually, and feel privileged to have experienced it.

In the meantime, I am fully aware of the irony of using a pocket digital computer to digitally play analog radio wirelessly in my vehicle, but that hasn't stopped me from doing it, and looking forward to my next long drive.

The Teardown Shift

It takes three weeks to build the immense site for the Edmonton Folk Music Festival, and another thre weeks to tear it all down and pack it back into sea cans for storage. Folk Fest Volunteers are expected to help with teardown their first year and each alternating year thereafter, but my team (Greetings, aka the Tarp Lottery) has a plum gig where none of our shifts overlap with performances, we pitch in every single year. 

My tendency has to book the Monday off after the festival, sleep in a bit after a couple of egregiously early mornings, and then do the teardown shift on Monday afternoon, thus maximizing my use of days off from work. But it does mean I am usually pretty bedraggled and footsore when my four-hour shift begins, and this year it was beastly hot to boot.

Teardown duties for unskilled hands like myself usually involves taking down  and packing up the multitude of tents, collecting scaffolding and stage parts for later collection, and removing the perimeter snowfence.

Gallagher Park (home of the Edmonton Ski Club) is pretty big, so there is a lot of fence to take down. This involves a crew of 8-10 people first using snips to cut the top level of snow fence off of the metal posts, then rolling up that mesh (about 4' wide and up to 30' long) and zip-tying it for later collection, then repeating this process with the bottom mesh. Next, the zip ties holding the top half and bottom half of the fence posts is snipped by one person while another keeps that top post from swinging loose and clobbering another volunteer. 

The last step is using a post removal tool, a simple but clever lever sort of affair that weighs about 35 pounds to remove the 6' picket post that has been driven 2'-3' deep into the ground. This year the clips went very quickly and I knew rolling the mesh on the ground would devastate my back, so I lugged over the post remover and started uprooting them. 

It is sweaty but strangely satisfying work, especially when a stubborn post has been driven particularly deep, or into a hidden seam of clay. I got about a dozen out by myself, then another volunteer came over to assist so we could take out the other half a bit more quickly.

When I was done, our crew boss, Ross, asked how I felt about doing the opposite - with the perimeter fence down in our area, another fence was needed to keep people from wandering onto the site while disassembly continued.

I said I'd never put the posts in before, but was willing to learn, so Ross got me to grab a hardhat and ear protection, as well as the post driver. This is a capped pipe with handles that feels like it weighs about 25-30 lbs. Ross broke down the process for me - a partner holds the post in place and leans it towards you so you can put the pounder onto the end of it, you then straighten the post out to your E-W perspective  while your partner keeps an eye on the N-S angle. Then you lift the driver up a couple three fet and let it drop - no downward motion required. 

But you will need to lift that hefty bugger up and drop it about a half-dozen times per post, and there were about twenty posts to drive, each about five fet apart.

Ross went over to the crew dismantling a tent to get me a partner and came back with Sage, a girl who was maybe 15-16 years old and maybe 105 lbs counting the hardhat and water bottle. She gamely picked up the first post and leaned it over for me, and we got down to it.

By about the fourth post, my sheen of perspiration had reasserted itself, and by the tenth, I was not lifting the driver as highly nor as swiftly as I had been at the start. Sage, bless her heart, said, "if you're getting tired, we can switch out," which sounded like a grand idea.

I grabbed the next post and leaned it away from me like James Brown with a mic stand, and she boosted the driver up to chest-height, adjusted her grip and placed it onto the post. We straightened it out, and she lifted the driver, dropped it, and then repeated it with a little bit more height. 

About five posts later, the awkward driver was not coming up off her chest with its initial alacrity either, but without a word of complaint. Against my better judgement, I suggested I was probably rested enough to switch back, and so we did. 

By the time we finished, the crew attaching the mesh had caught up to us and were able to secure the new, smaller perimeter with this shorter (4' instead of 8') fence.

After a short hydration break, I was paired up with someone else to remove more posts around main stage, and that accounted for pretty much the other two hours of my shift.

The whole time working out in the 29 degree (humidex) heat, I expressed gratitude that this was not my chosen profession, and apologized to my body for what I felt was sure to be agonizing recovery the next day, or perhaps the day after. 

Surprisingly though, there was only a little bit of stiffness the following day and nearly none the day after.

But gratitude for having a desk job remained unwavering.

More Folk Than Fest

As I write this, literally thousands of people on Gallagher Hill have probably just finished singing Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds" to bring the 2025 Edmonton Folk Music Festival to a close. 

Not only was I not there for it, this year was a low-water mark for my participation, having only stayed for one main stage act (Aysanabee, who was wonderful).

I had a very hard time keeping my energy and mood up this year. This is probably due in part to having had a fractured molar extracted two weeks ago on Thursday, then having the resulting dry socket (ugh) treated twice last week. Don't let anyone poo-poo it, the dry socket experience is generally a miserable one.

To cap things off, I had brought clothing on the first day to sort out being cold or being wet, but was one layer shy of being okay with cold and wet. Once I established that this was my condition (midway through Aysanabee's set), I resolved to go home early to prevent getting miserable or ill early in the festival.

I didn't even bring my tarp on Friday, intending to hit the sack early so I could rise at 5 am for my volunteer shift and see all the main stage acts on Saturday night. But then I forgot to bring my tarp on Saturday, and after returning home for my traditional Folk Fest siesta, I lacked the energy to return. 

And with Glory just starting her orientation shifts (and first casual call-in), I missed having my hill-buddy with me. Hopefully she is able to get back on the team next year.

Wih rain predicted for Sunday (which turned out to be quite the deluge!), I decided this year would be less about music and more about service, and you know what? That worked out just fine.

Heading home early Thursday meant I could see Fenya for the first time in three weeks as she returned from Japan. My early morning shifts on Saturday and Sunday wern't nearly as debilitating as they have been in some prior years, with 3-4 hrs sleep at best.

Friday morning, I saw a coyote traipsing languidly through the parking lot at Re/Max Field where I catch the volunter shuttle.

The food is still amazing, especially considering they feed about 3000 per meal in what is basically an army kitchen.

And most critically, the team I work with (Greetings East) is full of great people who are easy to work with. All hackers, no slackers, and the new crew took to the work very quickly - setting up fencing for a corral for the tarp lottery, managing a crowd of up to 2000 people for a couple hours and then lining them up for three city blocks so they can get marched on to the field and place their tarps before the public gate even opens.

It's very tiring work (more so every year, it seeems!) with early hours on the weekend but that means we are done before the first acts even hit the stage - and next year I will be sure to see more of them!

Mutually Acquaintanced

If friends are a blessing (and this point is not actually up for debate), how much more of a blessing are friends who are friends with your friends?

I have known Island Mike since junior high school, and we have remained friends and confidants throughout the years, despite running in drastically different social circles in high school, and despite not having lived in the same area code since 1993. We were best men at each other's weddings and despite only connecting sporadically, his wife and children feel like family to me. 

And in my local friends group, the usual G&G and Geekquinox suspects, at least three other couples have been out to visit Mike and Kelly on the island over the years.

At the Riverhawks game Friday night

With the two of them in town for a family wedding, I offered up our place for a get-together pot luck and smoked a brisket, thinking that at some point maybe the lads could sneak off for a board game or some such while the ladies chatted - but the gaming never started because the chatting never stopped.

People came and people went (with commitments of their own), literal bread was broken and libations shared, and the patio table remained occupied for about eight hours, from half past two to half past ten. Peak attendance was around 11, with two regrets.

It was glorious.

There was no agenda, and at a couple points, smaller groups wandered off to visit the dog park with Canéla or tour the Crystal Palace, but the table was never abandoned throughout a third of the day. 

We talked about everything and nothing, from family and health challenges to games and television. About our impending retirements (some sooner than others) and how we intended to spend our time, because we all agreed, as appealing as doing nothing might sound, Covid taught us all how unsatisfactory it can be in the long term. But I could have done nothing at that table, with those people,  for a good while longer than I did.

These brief intersections are so precious, and the dynamics at work are so intriguing when the larger group gets together - the geometry quickly becomes ungraphable and you simply have to let it draw you in. I am so grateful that Glory was around to take part in it.

Because sitting here now and typing this at 11 pm with a work day looming and a dirty kitchen upstairs and an extracted molar giving me grief, and yes, maybe a few too many servings of reposado on a school night that I may find regrettable tomorrow morning - I still feel like the luckiest man on Earth.

Thank you, friends!

More Than Just Great - Fantastic Four: First Steps, Reviewed

Despite being the first superheroes created by Marvel Comics (yes, predating Spider-Man, Iron Man and the Hulk!), the Fantastic Four have not had much like being adatped to movies or TV. The Roger Corman version from 1994 (unreleased) is objectively terrible, the 2005 Tim Story films didn't blow anyone's skirts up, and the 2015 Josh Trank version was an utter bomb, regarded by many as being the worst superhero movie ever released, and Marvel disliked the movie so much they not only killed analogues of the actors in another comic, they cancelled the Fantastic Four comic itself. 

Fantastic Four: First Steps finally gives Marvel's First Family the platform they deserve.

Director Matt Shakman (WandaVision) and a host of writers have crafted a tight little adventure film (first Marvel film to clock in under two hours in who knows how long) that has great heart and expresses the core characters pretty much perfectly.

By settting the movie in a completely independent timeline (Earth 828, for artist/creator Jack Kirby's birthday), the filmmakers not only gave themselves a chance to play with a retro-future vision of New York, but removing it from an increasingly convoluted MCU continuity means absolutely no 'homework' is required by exhausted, lapsed or maybe even new viewers.

The casting is pitch perfect, from Pedro Pascal's portrayal of Reed Richards/ Mr. Fantastic as a brilliant, preoccupied but loving husband, to Vanessa Kirby/ Invisible Woman showcasing Susan Storm as being protective, diplomatic but also ruthless when her family is threatened. Joseph Quinn brings the needed sass and swagger to Johnny Storm/ the Human Torch but doesn't look out of place when displaying his own insights and intelligence.

My favourite is Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/ The Thing, for carrying so much humanity and empathy through a CGI-created set of rock-like features - my compliments to the FX team! He also underplays the mopishness and woe-is-me nature so prevalent in the early FF stories. His deep appreciation of his found family does not grate against his desire to punch a threat if the opportunity presents itself.

I wish I could spend more time in retro-pastiche Earth 828, and the next time I watch this film I will pay even more attention to the billboards, ads and magazine covers (although wow it felt like a lot of product placement early on). I love that one of the montage bits early on show the Mole Man abducting the Pan-Am (Airlines) tower, and all the analog touches like tape drives for the H.E.R.B.I.E. robots.

For the first time in a long time, a Marvel picture has balanced action, character, humour and pathos proportionately while still bringing all the vibrancy and wonder of the source material. It is a wonderful thing to experience in the theaters, and a real tour de force in superhero films.

Most critically for me though, is how quickly they establish what differentiates the Fantastic Four from every other team in comics - the fact that they are a family.

Family, loyalty and sacrifice are themes that run throughout the film, and I would love to delve into them except for fear of spoiling even the tiny revelations that enthralled me. Suffice to say, this is one of the better Galactus stories I have ever come across because of the hard choices given the heroes in this story.

The love and optimism displayed in Fantastic Four: First Steps make it a great double-feature pairing with Superman, at  time when the real world could use a lot of both. Highly recommended, not just to comic fans, but to anyone who appreciates wonder on the big screen.

PG ‘25 - The Ancient Forest

Sorry for the delay in posting - it did not take very much camping time to get to the “what day is this again?” stage.

We have been at a campground called MamaYeh, 15 min south of Prince George, the ‘northern capital’ of British Columbia. Tomorrow we pull up stakes and head three hours west and a smidgen North to Burns Lake to visit our niece, but we wanted a couple days to see what was in this area (and to break up the 11 hour drive time from Edmonton). And even without flush toilets, it is a lovely campsite, with a great host.

One of the things to see is an amazing inland rainforest, at B.C.‘s newest provincial park, Chun T’oh Whudujut. It turns out you don’t have to drive out to Clayuquot on Vancouver Island to witness immense, 1000-year-old cedars.

There is an accessible boardwalk with minimal elevation change, but lured upward with the promise of a waterfall, we instead opted for the larger loop with a lot more climbing than I’d anticipated. 

The footing is sure on a sturdy boardwalk and steps, all built and maintained by volunteers.

It is very dense off the boardwalk, and I can only imagine how easy it would be to get lost in terrain like this, and wondering what sort of fauna is lurking just out of sight in the underbrush.

At one point, Canéla stopped pulling ahead on her leash and drew back with a low growl, which I found unnerving. Another dog would have made her bark, as would any small mammals like a squirrel or mouse. I looked intently ahead, and saw nothing, so I coaxed her forward again, but once more she balked, growling more loudly.

“What is it girl? What’s the matter?” I asked, knowing full well a response of any kind was unlikely. Once more I peered into the low brush surrounding the immense cedar trunks, following a dry creekbed heading downhill to our right. Surely not big enough for a bear or cougar, was it?

Audrey drew up behind us and asked, “hey, is she scared of the knot coming out of that stump? The one that looks kind of like a birds head?”

Sure enough, that’s what it was - and I was so relieved I never even thought to take a picture!

No injuries or wildlife encounters, but we were all pretty tired by the time we got back to the Lander. But the waterfall really is worth the effort.

A Hard Story About a Soft Guy - Superman, Reviewed

Let me start off by saying that as much as I enjoyed James Gunn's Superman movie, both as a showcase for the world first real superhero and as the foundation for a rebooted shared universe for DC comics characters, my favourite iteration of Kal-el remains his portrayal on the Justice League aninamted series. (The same goes for Batman and I adored Matt Reeves' noirish take!)

After nearly a century of storytelling I think it has become apparent that, whatever the medium, is it not difficult to write a Superman story. He has an extensive array of interesting powers, many of which lend themselves well to a dynamic medium like film or television. He has an extensive and largely well-known lore and backstory, as well as one of the best rogues gallery in comic books.

So writing a story with one of the most beloved fictional characters is not supremely difficult -  it is estimated that there are over 50,000 indiviudal comics featuring Superman.

The challenge is in writing a good Superman story; one that is compelling and original and surprising. And although I have some problems with the how of it, I think James Gunn has done this with Superman.

In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I will be avoiding detailed discussions of some of what I felt were shortcomings. Some of them are nitpicks and couel of them really aren't,  and I felt that each of them could have been written around. 

The most critical thing they got right is the heart of Clark Kent himself; a midwesterner committed to helping people and doing the right thing. Not just beating up bad guys, but saving people (and more than a couple of animals).

They also got the casting and the supporting cast spot-on, from the journalists of the Daily Planet (especially Rachel Brosnahan in what feels like a very Margot Kidder-influenced Lois Lane) to the other heroes in the 'Justice Gang' (esp. Nathan Fillion's arrogant Green Lanter Guy Gardner). But special mention has to go to Nicholas Hoult for portraying a Lex Luthor with all the smarts and savvy of past interpretations and then infusing him with a roiling core of anger borne out of jealousy and perceived inadequacy. 

This acrimony lefd to some surprisingly mean-hearted moments that, even for a megalomaniacal and selfish tool like Luthor left me a bit surprised, but I respect the boldness of the choice. There are a few bold choices in the film, not all of which I agreed with, but all of which I think I understood.

Some of the best things about Superman is what they didn't do, however.

• They didn't make it an origin story (thank Gawd)
• They didn't have him straight up murder anyone, or let someone die to preserve his secret identity
• They didn't make his dog smarter than they majority of other characters - in fact, notwithstanding the superpowers, Krypto is maybe the most realistic dog in movie history
• They didn't get rid of the red trunks, a bag part of Superman's iconic look
• They didn't make Lois a patsy for Superman, challenging him instead

As a comic-lover, there was a lot for me to like in this film. As a movie lover, Gunn gave all of Superman's weaknesses an opportunity to be exploited, from the well known mineral ones to the less-explored social ones. He gave one of the most powerful characters in fiction multiple (maybe too many) opportunities to be vulnerable and a great assortment of characters to play his strengths and weaknesses against. 

The action sequences are dynamic for sure, Gunn's trademark humour is given many places to shine, but the best thing about Superman is its intrinsic belief about good - not that good will always triumph over evil, but simply what good is. The rest is nitpicking.

This is the Superman I have been waiting for for 45 years. Welcome back, Clark.