Archive for May, 2006

Dreaming about a Relay for Money Makin in the Northern Land.

{ May 25, 2006 @ 7:03 pm } · { blogs, music industry related stuff, radio sites }
{ } · { Leave a Comment }

Knowing the News: A while back I taught eager readers how to write. Forget all format, rules and write like you speak, I yelled through the pages. Yes, Correct. Keep that in mind. Now let’s continue.

News.

What is News? Why are some News stories bigger on Friday and not on a Monday?

Here ya go.

Take notes.

News is something worthwhile to talk about on the top of each hour to inform the listener of what’s really happening in the world while they’re busy driving the kids to school, picking up groceries, running other errands or heading to work. It’s blabber glue to keep the head together throughout the day. Some stations give an in-depth look at the happenings while others just play with the headlines. These stations are usually music driven, female focused outlets that make you think everything in the world centres around your three year old tot and how much tissue is today at Loblaws.

When writing the news, you have to know your audience. Even if you’re a top rated hard – hitting news radio station, sometimes your listener needs a break from the doom-and-gloom of today’s world.

Rule of thumb. News is usually the hardest on Monday’s. That’s when everything that happened during the weekend is given airtime. How many shootings in the local bad part of town, the local solder shot on Sunday, and tax hikes that are planned to be talked about in this weeks meeting. That’s what I mean by Hard Hitting. Stuff that makes you want to stay in bed for five more days.

Tuesday is the leftover from the weekend news stories and what ever happened during the wild Monday drive. If you notice, Mondays’ always have some kind of car crash somewhere. Monday is the worst day to be on the road. People aren’t always at their best.

Wednesday is hump day. Talks of the upcoming long weekend could be the forth story in.  Words from the Entertainment world like the latest Cowell comment from the previous nights American Idol, or new information on who got married on a private beach would be top fluff stories.

Thursday is the beginning of the fluff stories taking priority. The news desk is gearing up for the weekend and don’t want to bother their listener with sad stories on the latest shooting in the city.

Friday is when weekend events like the food festival, the opening of an amusement park is more important than tax cuts or the latest on the war.

All in all, writing news is hard. You have to “feel the room”, you have to write something in two lines or less but still inform your demographic in a way that they can have a valid understanding of what’s going on. They use you to see their own newscast inside their mind. Listen to news people and see how they do it. EZ Rock’s Evelyn Macko and FAN’s Larry Silver are two of note in this market that do it best.

  

Money Makers: Last month’s Toronto Life magazine gossiped about the major money earners in the Canadian media market. One of my local favourites, George Strombo is pegged in at $150k a year even though on his CFRB radio show, he confirmed that the amount wasn’t right but not outside of the ballpark. Strombo’s former Much Music mate, Steve “Ed the Sock” Kerzner blabbers for a listed $120k and a writer for the latest chapter of the Degrassi drama scribes for a minimal 49k a year. However, the cover boy for all media moneymakers in Canada comes from northern government royalty. The host for Canadian Idol and once touted as the Most Annoying Canuk, is a million dollar baby. Ben Mulroney shows off regularly for 400k. What do his bosses make? The big boys who run the TV stations and radio companies? CHUM exec Jay Switzer does a staggering $2,211,140 a year while CORUS Entertainment hot shot; John Cassidy scores just about Five million a year.

Relay for Life: Last fall I did the Terry Fox run in memory of my late pal, Tom Rivers. The walk killed me. I was home on the couch rubbing my legs for three days after that. It didn’t help that the night before the run, I was at a club celebrating my sisters’ birthday. This year I still want to do something. I decided to volunteer at the Relay for Life. It’s an overnight run, walk or roller blade thing where people go around a track for hours on end to raise money for cancer research. I signed up for entertainment department. Doing what? I have no idea. Just sent in the application yesterday. Hopefully I’ll get the word soon. If you would like to help out send me a note and I’ll pass on the info. Otherwise, you can always check out the website.

And yeah. I’m doing this for Tom. I think of everyday. I miss him.

  

  Dreamin’: Had another weird dream of sorts last night. See, for as long as I can remember, I’ve had this recurring dream where at the end, I would wake up wondering where I was and If I should wake up, get ready and leave to head home. Last night I woke up and sat in my bed for half hour awake wondering what to do. I stared at my television and computer wondering why it looked so familiar. I guess I was still in half dream state, but I totally knew what I was doing. It wasn’t like I was awake and made a conscience attempt to do something. Go downstairs and get a drink of water. Go on the computer. Watch TV. Just something. But I just sat there and wondered. I don’t remember how I fell back asleep but when I woke up this morning, I realized how weird that was. Still don’t know what I was waking up from. Just know that I was up doing nothing

Hittin’ Dreams

{ May 18, 2006 @ 2:34 am } · { radio sites }
{ } · { Leave a Comment }

 Back with the Hits:It’s this time of year when the radio industry brings up whispers of different ideas, thoughts and rumours of what’ll be the next big thing for the ever so important fall ratings period. For the non-educated, late spring and early summer is when stations tweak their format or flop formats to gear up to the most important time in listenership – September to December. This year, the industry ears are all focussed on Jack92.5. Due to lack of ratings for the past few rating periods, the rumour mill says that the Rogers owned station is going to flip formats come summer. To what? Company line Is tight lipped. No one is saying anything. Talk of going back to Contemporary Hit Radio is one possibility while others say they’ll compete with the ever so popular rock format that’s dominating the Toronto radio airwaves with Q107,  and well..Let’s put Edge102.1 and MIX99 in that demo, too.

If you remember way back when, it was the Rogers owned station CFTR that ruled local ears in the 80’s and early part of the 90’s before the station became the first All-news outlet in the market and the country. Could Rogers pull off another legendary CHR following as they did way back when? Should they focus on another side of the demographic? Or should they just go all talk and again, be the first in the country to have an all talk format on the FM band? All we know is that we have a few great talents wanting jobs with Rogers needing big names to boast up ratings for the re-formatted 92.5. Jay ”MadDog” Michaels  is a name being circled around the industry watering holes being the one fronting the new station.

Will the head brass over at Rogers let Mad Dog return to his dog pound to boost up ratings like how they did when they had Erin Davis come back home to CHFI last fall?

Or will Rogers bring in new pipes into the sound system that’ll just surprise all ears with a full out fall ad campagne?

Wasn’t Fred Patterson looking for work?

  

Contemporary Hit Radio hasn’t been done properly in this market since CFTR. If anyone could do that kind of format well, is Rogers. They have the dough. They can bring in the talent and the suites to make it sound good.

Hollar back girl, Jay-Z, Puffy and Beyonce might be hitting your speakers come fall. And finally…

  

Jack will Jack-Off.

  On To the Dream: Ever so often I have dreams that I add to my journal. Someday I would like to go back to them and make this new concept for a movie. I think it would sell large at the film festival if done properly.

Anyway. On to the dream.

Let me preface this by saying that today I took a nap while going full steam ahead on no sleep for the past twenty-four hours just writing and doing odd stuff around my room and actually drawing. Yeah, Drawing. Weird.

On to the Dream.

The dream took place in a classroom setting. I was around a bunch of Goth type teenagers and skater punks. The Teacher was Canadian rocker, Robin Black. What would he be doing in my dream? I haven’t thought of him since the last episode of Much Music’s VJ Search.

Uh..

I had to go up to his table for some reason. It wasn’t too clear in the dream. For argument sake, I was getting my paper marked or something.

Every time he would talk to me, He would scream at me. His face would come out in a phsycadelic kind of way like one of those early Pink Floyd or Grateful Dead videos.

I knew this dream was freaking me out but I also knew I was dreaming. I was able to withstand it. Every time he talked to me, he continued to break into song and have his head move out of his body and make crazy weird shapes like he was a snake.

Crazy.

When I woke up I was just confused. I know the television was on at the time, but he wasn’t on. It was an episode of Newhart. Yeah, I had Newhart on the tele. Go figure that out.

Weird day.

  

A little Diddy about Shane and Lisa

{ May 13, 2006 @ 5:35 am } · { blogs }
{ } · { Leave a Comment }

 

A Love Story: 

I saw this girl I knew the other day.

Yeah, I still do love her – but in a different way. This time when I saw her, it was like seeing a girl I used to play jump rope with at recess or someone who I used to call on the phone to get the answers to the night’s math problems. I used to do all that with Lisa – and even more.

When my parents were splitting, I used to sneak out some nights and run to this playground near my house. Had a smoke, sat under the stars and just did a bunch of thinking. If I was able to leave early enough I went to the close by Country Style and finished the rest of my homework. I couldn’t stand being at home. One night, Lisa called. My sisters kept screaming for me. I didn’t answer as I was at the playground. 

When my sisters realized I jumped ship, they told Lisa and Lisa said not to worry – she knew exactly where I would be.

As I sat under the night’s blanket, listening to the spring leaves unfold and the sand from the nearby baseball diamond, angel wings came down and smacked the back of my head.

Lisa cracked a joke and said that my sisters called the cops on me. I smiled. She asked me to move-over, as she wanted some space to sit. I moved my backpack, smokes, book and lighter. She put a Leafs jacket over me that she had brought from her house. We too often thought alike and she knew I wouldn’t have brought something to keep me warm. She asked for a smoke and remarked that my sisters knew I was with her and we should go get a coffee. I agreed. Even though Lisa and my sisters never met, I liked how they respected each other. They all knew they wanted the best for me.

  

As we walked to Country Style that night, we talked. I thought of the trials going on in my life. It was more than just my parents. It also had to do with her. Lisa. We had just broken up and I kept on thinking I was making a huge mistake on letting her go. She had just started to deal with what would’ve been a life-long ordeal – but back then, we just thought it was a fad. A bug. An illness that’ll just disappear.  I wanted to be there for her. I tried to.

 Not long after that night we started to drift apart. The weekly visits in the playground became monthly. Then three times a year to never again. We would see each other on the road or at the bar or at the coffee shop. She was too involved with her life. Like how I was mine years back and she was there for me. I wanted her to let me in, but it never happened. She never let anyone in, as far as I know. It took a couple of years to get over her. And in a way, I’ll never get over her – like most people can’t get over their first love. If she’s The One, it’ll happen. However, till then I will enjoy what I had with her and hopefully the times to come if she lets me get a jacket for her when I go visit her in the playground by that old street we lived on.

The Takeover

{ May 13, 2006 @ 4:29 am } · { blogs }
{ } · { Leave a Comment }

The Redo Question: We were having a few beers the other night watching Buffalo ruin The Sens. The question came up if we would do it all over. Everything The whole book. Right from the beginning. We all answered “yes”. We thought about it and realized, we’ve all had a pretty good life. Things did happen, but yeah. If those things didn’t happen, we wouldn’t be where we were today. For the better? I don’t know.

“We could’ve been dead if we did do something different”, one quipped. While I replied, “That’s destiny”. 

You just have to trust it. Like Yorke said, hold its hand and protect you from the world.

The last few days I kept thinking about the question more in-depth. Would I REALLY want to change anything? What would’ve happened if I stayed in Michigan? How about if I hung out with other types of people in high school? What If I went to a totally different school all together – like a Public School? Would’ve I been taller if I didn’t have that surgery back in 1992?

Questions. No answers. Just thoughts, false images of could’ve been’s and what-if’s.

The more I thought of it, I realized I would’ve changed the smaller things. I wouldn’t have said that to my parents. I wouldn’t have acted that way towards my sisters. I would’ve called that girl and told her Sorry. I would’ve stayed home that night and I would’ve never lent out the favourite CD of mine. I would’ve called him back so he could tell me he didn’t have much time left. Little altercations in my life I think would’ve made me just a bit less stress free and just a bit happier. Content.

It’s been a tough life. That’s for sure. I’ve realized a long time ago, that regrets are just a pile of experiences that help make you into the person you’re today. Don’t regret regrets. Cherish them, in a way. Welcome them. It’s those that make you the stronger individual.

{ May 12, 2006 @ 10:48 pm } · { Uncategorized }
{ } · { Leave a Comment }

Hot Damn! (It’s a New Day): Welcome to the new site. I’ve been thinking of making the move for some time, now. Didn’t really think of doing anything about it until I came across this server last night. I liked the templates. I liked how it’s so much easier to do things. Create link pages. Create a new post. That kinda stuff. The new page also signifies a bit of a change of format to this page and how Fameone Unleashed will be like. More variety. Less talk. I’ll be hitting Pop culture. I’ll be using more mediums to get my point across. Think of an online version of your favourite `page six’ scriber. Funny, witty, sarcastic, realistic comments followed by fast paced news stories and insights of my life. And sometimes…we’ll even have videos and pictures for a good laugh. Of course, I’ll always be here for feedback or coffee dates. Hope you like it.