April 2016

War Is Hell, Year After Year

Taxidermists, snake charmers, deep sea divers, astronauts, strippers, proctologists, butchers and vegans all have something in common: I can find a way to understand why they do what they do, even though I have no intention of ever joining them. But there’s one group of people I simply can’t wrap my head around and perhaps someone will shed some light on them for me.  …

Throwback Thursday: Scott Shannon, Still Tops

There aren’t too many people to look up to in broadcasting anymore. Thousands who thought Jian Ghomeshi was all that sure got a slap upside the head in the past year or so. And the business is less stable than ever. Even some of the well-liked, long running hosts find themselves at the wrong end of a pink slip. Take Jennifer Valentyne. She was let go from CITY-TV after 17 years simply because they found a cheaper way to do what she does.  …

Podcast Guest

One of the first people I met when I moved back to London was Derek’s friend Kevin Bulmer. Kevin is a former on-air guy in radio, a singer-songwriter, Dad to two great lads and a whole lot of other cool things. He also hired me to work at Delaware Speedway several summers ago. Now we also work in the same building.  …

A Princely Visit

Whenever someone mentions Prince, the following story comes to mind. And yesterday, when news of his death at 57 started burning up social media, it came back in vivid purple colour. It was the time Prince came to London, Ontario. In 1984, I was working at CKSL and so was Derek when his purpleness was spotted in the Forest City. As my friend Dan Brown writes, this was long before he lived in Toronto or had any ties to Canada.  …

Projectile Pathogens

Sometimes you have a choice. You can wipe your hands on an old fashioned, environmentally-unfriendly paper towel which you toss in the trash, or you can use one of those fancy-pants hand dryers. There’s no mess afterward and your hands dry off in record time. But a study shows that you may as well dunk your hands in the toilet.  …

The End of a Dream

For years, when we drove down Colonel Talbot Road toward Lambeth, we’d look at a large, grey-sided house set back in a generous yard and oooh and ahh over it. It came to symbolize a “dream home” for us. It had an attached double-garage and looked very stately and beautiful.  …

Why People Think You’re A Jerk

Last week one of my former 680 News colleagues put a “did you know” post on Facebook concerning “hidden” messages on the iPhone. If you followed the simple instructions, you’d find messages sent to you that you weren’t aware of – I assumed it was bogus but I followed along and BAM! Dozens of messages appeared from people I do and don’t know. I couldn’t believe it!  …

Judging a Book

One thing I’ve never been called, is a best-selling author! I have written four books and they’ve all had varying degrees of minor success. My most popular book, The Naked Truth, continues to sell a few dozen copies each month. Every author dreams of best-seller status, but a book marketer in Texas decided to expose the notion of what that means these days.  …