High Masculine Tones

Apparently trying to channel some of that Howard Dean politico-blog mojo, now our Canadian Prime-Minister-in-Waiting (for about ten years now) has a blog, too.

PM-to-be Paul Martin offers befuddled newbies a definition of the blog:

No, it’s not a swamp creature. It’s a term used to describe an internet trend that has exploded over the last decade. A blog is a small web page made up of short, regularly updated messages that are arranged in chronological order — like a “what’s new” page, or a journal.

. . . A blog could be Joe Citizen — or a group of Joe Citizens — simply wanting to vent about something. Or it could contain commentary and links about what’s on the web. It could be ongoing news about a person or idea, or it could even be a photo, essay or poetry blog.

OK... thanks. But, if you'll excuse an impertinent question from one Joe Citizen out here in the hinterland, why exactly are you blogging?

Good question. One that I asked my staff when they first made the suggestion to me. After all, its not like I can pretend to be the kind of guy that spends a lot of time surfing the web. To be honest, until a few weeks ago, I didn't even know what the hell a blog was - I joked that I thought it was something that might climb out of a swamp.

"Swamp"! Hey, if it's funny once, it's twice as funny the second time, right? But seriously, Paul...

The media tend to chronicle my travels pretty closely but there's lots that gets missed. For example, a couple of weeks ago, while campaigning in Windsor I had the opportunity to drop by the gravesite of my Mom and Dad and visit their old house. It wasn't newsworthy but it was an immense pleasure for me.

What are you going to do with the weblog, PM-to-be Paul Martin?

...to make a long explanation short (I'm told that Blogs work best when kept brief) I'm going to keep doing this, periodically scratching out my thoughts and observations while this leadership race unfolds. Sometimes I'll write about politics. Sometimes I'll write about what I'm up to. I'll try my best to keep it interesting. But no guarantees.

Fair enough, you can bet I'll be reading and clicking. But where's the RSS feed?

Troop morale is high as our soldiers are committed to an
indefinite length of stay in this now-hostile frozen wasteland!

Sometimes when I feel I want to raise my voice against the American folly in Iraq, my zeal is infected with boredom. I get the urge to say that the war in Iraq is worsening the nuclear proliferation problem (Iran and North Korea are speeding up their nuclear programs in part in order to avoid regime change); that there is no proven alliance between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda; that we are inflaming the peoples of the Middle East against us; that we are driving away even our traditional European allies by our highhanded policies; that we are making ourselves less secure, not more. But then I realize that these things are by now obvious, and to state what is obvious is boring. I want to say them not because they are fresh and interesting but because they are not heeded. But if to state the obvious is boring, then to repeat it is the very definition of boredom.

--Jonathan Schell, Learning the Obvious

"Sometimes I overstate for emphasis."
-- Donald Rumsfeld, September 17, 2003

(Spotted by Jake over at Lying Media Bastards)

About ten years ago I remember reading Neil Strauss's awe-inspiring anthology Radiotext(e) with a palpable sense of longing... somewhere, beyond the reach of my radio antenna in Saskatoon there were unimaginably cool aural epics being transmitted into the ether. It seemed unimaginably remote and exotic to a culturally-deprived prairie boy. Winding my way up and down the dial with increasing frustration, I fantasized about some sort of magical delivery mechanism that could connect me to these broadcasts, which were not only impossible to pick up, but often in the distant past as well.

Of course, the Internet has more or less developed into that mechanism. References to the freeform station WFMU were sprinkled throughout the book, and I hoped I might hear the station myself someday. Now I listen to it at home and at work, and though I have never been to East Orange, New Jersey, I feel somehow part of a listener community that extends far beyond radio range.

One piece in the anthology I recall laughing at was a transcript of WFMU DJ the Vanilla Bean engaged in phone sex while posing as an Elvis Presley freak. I marvelled that such a thing could ever happen on the radio. Today, Matthew Perpetua's Fluxblog posts an MP3 of the original exchange. Talk about hitting close to home. It'd be a lie to say that I laughed as hard listening to the clip as I did reading (and dreaming) about it a decade ago, but it was satisfying nonetheless.

BTW, I don't know where my copy of Radiotext(e) has gotten to. Did I lend it to you?

The WFMU archives are back up, so those of you coming to this site looking for stuff by radio provocateur Bob Lassiter can once again check out this excellent two-part special from Aircheck.

One favorite Lassiter bit of mine, one which I don't believe is included on the retrospective, is this insane exchange with an irate senior citizen (download MP3 7.2 MB)... Lassiter normally maintains his mastery of the situation when he's on the air, and he certainly is having fun here, though he sounds about ready to choke with laughter by the end.

New pics finally up on Harry's page.

And I apologize to regular visitors for my prolonged absence. I'll let you know the reason for the hiatus when I figure it out myself.