For the Canadian National Day of Podcasting, Matt and Valerie review their National Podcast Post Month, with what they did and didn't learn. Concludes with Derek and Clive.
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With pauses edited out, Matt talks on the phone with his pub landlord friend Ben, who fills in the holes of a story in which Matt shoots himself and an old woman, gets thrown in the trunk of car and finds himself on a 100-foot-high cliff.
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(Note: there'll be one more episode tomorrow, to celebrate The Canadian National Day of Podcasting.)
Elsewhere in Valerie's podcast world...audio-described scenes from the cult favourite Dementia 13, part of Episode 148 of Movies For the Blind.
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In Ohio, while watching a Manchester United game on tv, Valerie dad and Matt compare notes on their respective versions of football.
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Matt and Valerie walk through downtown Buffalo, New York and inevitably go into a Tim Horton's.
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With pretty bad sound quality, Valerie finds out more about one of Matt's favourite songs as a spanner (British for nerd, as he means it), "Quark, Strangeness and Charm" by Hawkwind.
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In High Park, Matt and Valerie chat with two women taking care of a well-behaved Sheltie dog with a difficult home life.
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From another proper Description episode not completed, Valerie starts a soundseeing tour of the Art Gallery of Ontario and settles herself in the Henry Moore statue just outside.
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"Down by the Henry Moore" by Murray McLauchlan
Wikipedia explains the Shmoo
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After Matt finds himself onstage with seven other guys doing another podcast, he and Valerie (who gets too loud again - sorry) discuss credibility and the dynamics of male conversation.
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Matt talks about a stay in Blackpool, when a guest house owner had an unorthodox way of finding out who wrecked his stuff.
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Valerie meets up with Matt just after he discovers Canada's largest Christmas parade going on steps away from where they live.
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A voiceover artist with a terrible cold, Valerie finds herself being an announcer for one of the world's most famous series of infomercials.
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Two associated tracks from an album dear to Matt's heart, Clutching at Straws by Marillion.
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Singer/songwriter Fish on writing and recording the album
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Maybe the prototypical episode: Watching the World Series, Valerie explains some baseball and Matt explains some cricket while everyone else in the bar is watching the hockey game.
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Matt talks about visiting a snooker tournament in Wales, complete with hand injuries, smoke-filled chalets, a drunken meeting with a hero and girl-on-girl action.
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At Fynn's of Temple Bar before going to Podcaster LIVE Nite last week, Matt and Valerie discuss the wealth of Toronto stories left untold, and chat with one of the few non-immigrants remaining.
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Scarborough Dude's Dicksnjanes podcast
"Caker" in the Urban Dictionary
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Valerie reads from the newsletter by Bob Lefsetz about his most recent encounter with Lars Ulrich of one of Matt's favourite bands (though more in the past than now): Metallica.
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The post Valerie read: "Lars"
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After discovering the combination of orange juice and beer, Matt discusses the Black Velvet in different cultures and the Purple Nasty in his.
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Okay, you can't really be Canadian and mention Black Velvet without thinking of the Alannah Myles song. Sorry.
In what was supposed to be Matt's official podcast debut in April, the Manchester United supporter and Valerie walk to their first TFC game, with a bypass and a stop at the loo.
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Belated thanks to Toronto Mike
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Matt and Valerie introduce you to the happiest speed metal band ever: DragonForce.
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(Btw, these guys are looking for a new lead singer. Check their site for details.)
Valerie's favourite sequence starts about 3:23.
For Remembrance (Veterans) Day, Valerie and Matt talk about a Bristolian looking for her Canadian soldier birth father, Matt's dad in a field of poppies and the charms of Weston-Super-Mare.
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Description 47 - Remembrance Day
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At Podcaster LIVE Nite, Matt and Valerie (beware of her audio distortions - sorry) are visited by Keith McNally, a Canadian who tried living in New York City and decided there's no place like home....or at least Toronto.
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At Graffiti's Black Metal Brunch in Kensington Market, Matt and Valerie talk drink: types of beer, perceptions of trendiness and getting take-out from the pub.
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Coming back from a memorial Guinness to mark the anniversary of his best friend's death several years ago, Matt tells one of many stories of their exploits, this time involving the dispatch of a co-worker and a pretty girl.
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Valerie goes back one year to continue her soundseeing tour of the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, where a man just learning about his culture has been accidentally left to play substitute guide.
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The Seven Teachings
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As part of a full Description episode which may never be finished about Aboriginal people in Canada, Valerie re-records the beginning of a soundseeing tour of the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto. (We think "ahneen" means "hello".)
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Matt and Valerie somewhat inaccurately remember (remember) the 5th of November as he looks up things he didn't know about Guy Fawkes Night. (Note: he found out later Fawkes broke his neck before getting drawn and quartered.)
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In New Brunswick, Valerie's fellow dual citizen birth mother (celebrating a birthday today) drives her to a very porous border with Maine, with tales of skinny-dipping, the loss of rural towns and getting stuck on an icy hill.
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Matt introduces us to The Wurzels, and Valerie inserts a song from her American childhood that they did with typical West Country lyrics.
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While making breakfast, novice podcaster Matt and not-novice podcaster Valerie discuss talking while being recorded, gauging the knowledge of the audience and live versus cut-and-paste.
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Valerie and Matt happen upon a punk band outside Miss Cora's Kitchen in Kensington Market on Halloween day.
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For National Podcast Post Month 2010, Valerie and Matt ride a bus and sort of explain what this daily podcast might be about...sort of.
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Okay, guys, so I'm back! Woohoo!
Well, I'm at least back for this month, or as much of this month as I can pull off. Since you last heard from me, not only are Matt and I still together (whew), but my actual description work for Canadian television has taken off. I produced described video for the current season of a show called Healthy Gourmet, am now working on another cooking reality show, only with more yelling, Conviction Kitchen; and will be doing the latest season of the pretty popular CBC series Little Mosque on the Prairie - which I did the first season of when working for someone else, so that one's pretty sweet. Add to that some documentaries and various things in the States, and it's kind of nuts.
Another purpose of doing NaPodPoMo not mentioned in the Mission Statement is to use material I recorded for at least two episodes I haven't had time to edit together. It doesn't look like I'll be able to make proper Description episodes of them in the forseeable future, so I'll make improper Description Daily episodes of them. As for the proposed music, I'm following what I did last year and not getting anyone's permission. We'll all survive, I hope.
Of course, the past episodes of Description remain here, and the episodes of last year's NaPodPoMo series, No Mood Swing, are still here (I'm still pretty happy with them, frankly).
If you've been with me throughout Description, I can't thank you enough for that. Maybe this will help. Or maybe it will get you sick of me enough to not care that I've podfaded. Should be a win-win. :-)
I try to explain my absence on my way to see the latest immigrant to Canada to change my life.
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Associated links
Podcamp Toronto 2010
plentyoffish.com (your mileage may vary)
The Shops at Don Mills (inauspicious site of the first date)
Annex Billiards Club @Toronto Plus
When Matt and I got together, one thing I was hoping we could do on a regular basis was go to The Tap, pretty much my local, the home of Moe Berg DJing Saturday nights, a place I've mentioned many times here. Unfortunately, I could only take him there once: on its final night before closing.
I'd heard from Kevin on Facebook that The Tap had run into major tax problems or something and would be closing for good February 18, a few days after the terrible revelation. Moe had been sick, so unable to do one more DJ set before the end (he was able to get there later on the fateful night). So Matt and I went, ordered our beers, snuggled up on the couch which had been broken to the point where our asses were almost on the floor, and watched that night's Olympic hockey game. Then we left the other guys - Kev, Craig, Barry, Moe, et al - to finish cleaning out the beer fridge with whatever dodgy coolers had been left in the back in '97 or something.
While it's still a horrible thing that The Tap has closed, it does make a twisted kind of sense. Everyone is moving on with their lives, getting married, having kids (one of the old bartenders brought in his new baby in a stroller - what were they gonna do: shut 'em down?), getting mortgages...hell, even I'm moving on somehow with that guy in the bottom left of that photo up there. Who knows how much further we'll all go, or when/how we'll regress. But a shift does seem to have occurred, and I'm pretty excited to find out what happens from here.
Last time I walked by The Tap a couple days ago, after getting groceries for our next supper we'd be cooking together, I saw the windows were still sloppily covered from the inside by newspapers, but in the upper left-hand corner, there was still a hand-lettered sign that said "Don't Stop Believin'!"
Whether we ever get The Tap back or not, that's still what we have to do. No matter what. (Oh, wait, that's another song they'd play there...)
