Description 11 - Riding

The last word (finally!) on the Canadian federal election - could that word be "disapprobation" or "glinty-eyed"? - as the iRiver goes behind the cardboard screen for the voting process. Featuring music by Talladega and a fat guy wearing a blue-and-white wig, and how the new government is related to what's in Scott Feschuk's pants.

This is where you click to subscribe like a forward-thinking NDP'er.
This is where you click to download like a want-it-now Conservative.

Associated links:
Wikipedia on the 2006 Canadian Federal Election
Searching for Scott Feschuk in Macleans (Guess the boy will land on his feet...)
[Update, March 23: He's gone into freelance speechwriting! Hire the guy, will ya? And tell him I sent you, so he'll be reeeeally appreciative...oh never mind. Hire him anyway.]
Talladega @ myspace
Olivia Chow and the NDP

Not surprising that my podcast involving politics has the most wind ever. (rimshot!)

If you aren't from Canada or you don't know anything about parliamentary elections, don't worry about this episode going over your head. It's a painfully basic and partially incorrect primer for anyone.

In the time between the election and posting this podcast, Stephen Harper got his back up with the U.S. about who controls what in the Arctic, which was a pleasant surprise. So who knows?

I wasn't always anti-Conservative, mind you. Back in '84 when I was still in high school in Ohio, I watched the Progressive Conservative Convention on the CBC and was fascinated by Brian Mulroney. It was probably that deep, sweet voice of his at the time, I don't know, but I thought his election held such promise. Crazy teenager I was. Then the U.S. free trade thing happened, and I wised up. Somewhere, I'm sure there are Conservatives/Reformers/Alliancers who do not make me want to tell them to just move down south where they really want to be and see what it's really like. Maybe I lead too sheltered a life to come across them.

While I'm not a card-carrying NDP'er, I have two nice stories about those who lead them.

One isn't really a story: my very first 6 Ross party, there I was walking down Ross Street, not sure what I was getting into, and I approached that old house at about midnight. Rock seeping from the woodwork, a crowd smoking on the porch. When I reached that porch, there was Olivia Chow striding out of the house, smiling. And I thought, "wow, Olivia Chow was here; this could be good."

The other story involves her husband Jack Layton, also quite the personage in this town for a while, and lately the leader of the New Democratic Party. Of course, I'd see him around plenty of times over the years, and it was no surprise to see him front and centre in the first balcony at the Massey Hall CBC Rally featured in Description 6. After the show, everyone packed into the basement bar. The Canadian luminaries were dizzying to me. With the preceding show and whatever dumb anbient stuff I got later, I'd used up all the room on my iRiver. Then I happened to find myself in the same group of chatters as Jack Layton. Being the Torontonian I was, I was cool and didn't really say much of anything, but offered a thing or two. I think I may have mentioned the oddity of that night being the first time I'd ever been inside Massey Hall after years of living in Toronto. Layton asked me if I knew about the long history the venue had had with union events like that night's event (though I was more there to support the people than the union of which they were a part). I hadn't, so he gave me an brief and entertaining lecture about that history, going back to the turn of the last century, not long after Massey Hall had been founded. Our group found ourselves one of the last to leave, and the venue workers said their gracious goodbyes and locked the doors behind us as we left. We kept chatting about the importance of the CBC and the city and whatnot walking out on Gould and approaching Yonge. This is where I can't remember whether he piled in with some co-workers into a minivan, or whether he rode his bicycle home. Either one is pretty good. But I remember going on my way thinking what a nice, smart guy he was, and that I hadn't felt like I had been chatting with the leader of a major political party. No flyer that gets slipped under my door, and no tv mudslinging, will ever do that.